Financial Services Bill

When the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) introduced new clause 8, I was intrigued by his arguments for its rationale. As he developed his argument from Maxwell and Sir John Cuckney to the role exercised by trustees in determining investment strategy and the use to which investments should be put, he made a strong case for improving the Government's arrangements for pension funds. However, if the purpose of his new clause was to prevent shares owned by pension funds from being used as a cover for short selling, he should perhaps have tabled a new clause in favour of naked short selling rather than one that restricted covered short selling to certain areas.