Financial Services Bill

My Lords, before the Minister sits down, with regard to the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Newby, I draw the Minister’s attention to Part 2 of the new Schedule 1A, which is headed "Funding". New paragraph 11(1), headed, "Meaning of ‘the relevant costs’", says: ""In this Part of this Schedule ‘the relevant costs’ means … the expenses incurred by the Authority in establishing the consumer financial education body"," while new paragraph 11(2) says: ""For the purposes of sub-paragraph (1)(a) it does not matter when the expenses were incurred"." It is normal practice for this Government to write into Bills something that means that if they become Acts, all the expenditure that has been made before the Bill was passed will be whitewashed. I suspect that that is exactly what is happening on this occasion.