Banking (Special Provisions) Bill

We want on paper, in black and white, a clear division of responsibility, not just warm words spoken in the Chamber. I would have thought that, given that the Government have apparently been working on nationalisation for some time, they would have had the memorandum of understanding in place, with a scheme of management. It should not have to be cobbled together in the hours after the Government made the announcement. I expected far better of the Government. They should have had those arrangements in place and been prepared to publish them. That is important in order to give confidence to the House and the business community, which is concerned about how Northern Rock will operate in future. The agreements should be public, not take the form of cosy side deals or warm words between the Chancellor and Ron Sandler. We need clarity, instead of leaving it to the interpretation of words in a statement to the House. The hon. Lady and I perhaps agree that we need some clarity on this issue and to go further than the Chancellor went in his statement yesterday, to demonstrate to the wider world that there is a clear division of labour between the Treasury's role of setting the strategic objectives for Northern Rock and the day-to-day responsibilities of management, so that taxpayers and the wider community know that decisions will be taken in the interests of recovering the money that has been lent to Northern Rock and not for other purposes, such as shielding the bank from the pressures that may be placed on it by politicians, trade unionists and others. This is a simple amendment, but it would provide much more certainty and clarity. It would reassure us that decisions will be made for the right reasons, not for political reasons. The longer it takes the Government to produce such a framework, the more people will question whether decisions are being made in the long-term interests of the taxpayer or in a narrow, short-term, political interest. It is an important amendment because it would set out clearly the respective responsibilities of the Treasury and management. It is also important that if other circumstances arise to which the Bill applies—and its powers continue for a year—such arrangements could be put in place sooner rather than later. If the Government decide to act under the powers in part 2, the agreement could be put on the table so that people could see exactly the terms under which the Government would work with the authorised deposit-taker.