Bank of England and Financial Services Bill [HL]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, is always modest, but on this occasion he is excessively so. I agree with my noble friend because the implication of putting the words “reasonable” and “reasonably” in these clauses is that somehow the National Audit Office would act unreasonably, and I do not believe that that is the case. Perhaps the Minister will tell us where else in the legislation governing the National Audit Office such clauses are applied. These are quite unnecessary words. It may well be that, given the more formal auditing functions of the National Audit Office, as against the value-for-money provisions, there might be some occasion when it is necessary to get hold of documents at an unreasonable time. I hope the Minister will respond to this and agree to delete the words which appear in the amendments.