Banking (Special Provisions) Bill

No, I am afraid I shall have to disappoint the hon. Lady. Her explanation is not good enough. The legislation was billed as emergency legislation to deal with a specific and pressing problem—pressing enough that the Chancellor had to make an announcement about it on a Sunday afternoon. It is a huge relief to hon. Members that the Minister does not have any particular building society in mind. I expect that it is a huge relief to the Clerks as well, as we may have had to decide that this was a hybrid Bill after all if she had a particular building society in mind. The point that the hon. Lady has failed to address is this: the House is being asked to set aside its normal procedures for scrutiny of legislation. The Opposition parties and outside experts and interests are being asked to forgo the usual opportunity to make their representations and present their case during a proper Committee stage of a Bill. It is not good enough for the Government to sweep up all sorts of powers that they think they might possibly need one day, although they do not have in mind a specific example of that need, and put them into a Bill which they then ask the House to pass in a single day without the opportunity for proper scrutiny. We would be very happy to look at the case for introducing the kind of powers that the Minister describes in relation to building societies in general, but what the House, the media and the great British public expected when they heard the announcement on Sunday of emergency legislation to nationalise Northern Rock was a narrowly focused Bill for the announced purpose of nationalising Northern Rock. Patently, such a Bill does not need a provision that deals with building societies.