Electoral Administration Bill

moved, as an amendment to Amendment No. 1, Amendment No. 2:"Line 64, at end insert—" ““(13) An agreement or arrangement is not a regulated transaction where the money, credit facility or security arrangement is provided by the bank or other organisation— (a)   whose ordinary business includes the business of providing money or credit facilities, and (b)   where the agreement or arrangement is entered into by that bank or organisation in the course of business. (14) It is irrelevant for the purposes of this section whether the bank or other organisation carries on business in the United Kingdom or not. (15) Subsections (13) and (14) shall not apply where the money, credit facility or security arrangement provided by the bank or organisation is so provided in conjunction or connection with one or more third party transactions which would be registrable under this section if made directly with a registered party.”” The noble Lord said: I should like to thank the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor for his comprehensive introduction and to say at the outset that the Opposition share entirely the objectives of his amendment. The fundamental objective is to achieve transparency and, in our assessment, that is its effect. It follows, therefore, that our amendments are intended only to seek clarification on certain matters. Amendment No. 2 seeks to tease out why the Government believe it necessary to include normal commercial banking transactions by banks located in the United Kingdom and subject to the full FSA regime. The noble and learned Lord well knows that the regime is stringent and that it is extremely hard for a commercial bank under its umbrella to behave in any manner other than with the utmost probity. The question that I want to put to the noble and learned Lord is this: does he not think that that is a sufficient guarantee of transparency? I give one illustration of why I think the suggestion may be helpful. It is plain that political parties want to have access to the commercial banking system. One of the provisions in the government amendment, which inserts new Clause 71K, refers to a transfer to an unauthorised participant being invalid. That part of the amendment reads as follows:"““If an authorised participant purports to transfer his interest in a regulated transaction to a person who is not an authorised participant the purported transfer is of no effect””." Suppose that a reputable commercial bank decided to transfer, by a process of securitisation, an asset—a loan that it has made to a registered party—to an unauthorised party such as a foreign bank. While that foreign bank may itself be completely respectable, the transaction would not be effective under this regime. That in turn might make a perfectly respectable commercial bank located in London more reluctant than it otherwise would have been to transact with a registered party because the asset that it had acquired—the value of the loan—would not be transferable to an unauthorised party. I give that as an illustration of a concern. This matter would have an equal impact on all political parties; I want to underline the fact that in no way am I making a party-political point. The noble and learned Lord has already referred to the second amendment in this group, Amendment No. 4. It deals with the way an ““authorised participant”” is defined. If a bank wishes to be an authorised participant, it must do business in the United Kingdom. The concern I want to raise is simply whether that is or is not consistent with the services provisions in the Treaty of Rome, now contained, I think, in Article 49. I accept entirely that my amendment is cast rather more widely than it ought to have been and I have no desire to contend that companies in general which are not located in the United Kingdom ought to be included in its scope. The only institutions that I wished to include in it were banks; but, as such, my question remains as I have put it. I beg to move.