Scottish and Northern Ireland Banknote Regulations 2009

Before I was so rudely interrupted by a Division, I was about to interrupt the Minister before he sat down and escaped dealing with these regulations. I want to take him back to my point about appeals, which he did not really deal with. Let me track back. During the passage of the Banking Act earlier this Session, we created different regimes for Part 5, which dealt with inter-bank payment systems and Part 6, which is about banknotes and which we are currently debating. Part 5 had a very clear appeals mechanism linked to the provisions of the Financial Services and Markets Act. No such provisions were made in the Bill for banknotes. The issue of appeals comes up again in the consultation, and the Government replied that it would be done in a statement of policy. I am trying to tease out whether the Government have properly allowed for an appeals mechanism in the way in which they have approached both the legislation, including the regulations and subsequent rules, and the statement of policy. There is no requirement in the regulations for an appeals process. The Minister’s position is that the possibility of issuing a statement of policy on penalties allows but does not require the bank to make provision for an appeals process. The point that I put to the Minister was that paragraph 5 of Schedule 3 to the regulations says: ""The Bank of England must publish a statement of policy, with which it must comply, in respect of … the process it will follow when it imposes a penalty under these Regulations"." I put the point in my earlier remarks, possibly not sufficiently clearly, that what the Government have provided for in paragraph 5 does not seem to encompass anything that could be regarded as an appeals process, because an appeals process involves organisations or appeals tribunals—it involves something other than the Bank of England. The Government have drafted paragraph 5 only in terms of things that the Bank of England must do in its policy and they have not even drafted it sufficiently comprehensively to encompass what one would need to see in terms of an appeals mechanism. This may sound rather pernickety, and on reflection I am not clear why we did not insist on having an appeals mechanism in the Bill. It was probably because of lack of time rather late in the day in the proceedings at the end of the Bill, when we were operating an expedited process. To some extent, one takes the blame for that; but it is important now. Consultation has revealed the need for an appeals process, which I can fully see given the scale of the penalties that are potentially capable of being imposed by the Bank of England. I put to the Minister that the regulations do not adequately allow for that appeals process to be created within the legal framework of the Act and the regulations.