Financial Services Bill

Perhaps we will learn in due course what "material" actually means. It is one of those words that is capable of an infinity of meanings. The heart of our debate is about the new Council for Financial Stability and whether that has any meaning at all. I tabled my amendments to probe whether this new body would have any impact on the real world. Clearly, a body which simply comes together to monitor and to co-ordinate is no different to what happened before—no different to the tripartite authorities. The Minister said, in response to the question of my noble friend Lord Stewartby about how it would behave differently, that there would be transparency and minutes. That has nothing to do with behaving differently at all. If this body does not have any powers, if it is a non-executive body where people come together to talk—a "talking shop", as my noble friend Lord Hodgson said—this Bill will not make any difference. My noble friend Lord Higgins said that, if this is just the tripartite authorities, then it is not worthwhile. That, in effect, is the critique we have of this part of the Bill. There is no significant difference from what existed before, other than fancy new titles and some structure around minutes. There is no improvement being made in the arrangements within Government, the FSA and the Bank of England. I remind noble Lords that the tripartite arrangements did fail, and since there is nothing evident about how they will operate differently in the future, there is no reason to believe that those arrangements will do any better when they deal with issues at a later stage.