UK Parliament / Open data

Bank of England and Financial Services Bill [Lords]

I have a brief question on amendment 6. Although I accept that transparency and openness are the spirit of the age and we cannot necessarily move entirely against that—[Laughter.] We do our level best some of the time. I am sure that the Treasury will be at the vanguard of this. Does the hon. Gentleman accept that, at times of great difficulty, when there are issues about the stability or functioning of the UK’s financial banking system, it would be appropriate not just for the Treasury Committee but for the Treasury itself to have some say in suggesting when openness should not be fully fledged? The safeguards that he has put in place in the amendment refer only to the Treasury Committee; does he not see that there might be instances when Ministers might rightly have concerns about issues of stability that should be protected from open transparency at least for a time, although there could then be a move to make the minutes and other things more open at some future point, once the particular threat had passed?

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Reference

608 c816 

Session

2015-16

Chamber / Committee

House of Commons chamber
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