Financial Services Bill

That is precisely the point of having a report that would look into all these issues. I do not know why we have to answer them all here now. It did not matter how big or small the Dunfermline Building Society was. It had a very amount number of depositors’ money. Therefore, those people had to be bailed out by the taxpayer. There is, anyway, an undertaking from the taxpayer that he will actually bail out deposits—it used to be £35,000; I think we are up to £50,000. Automatically, they are going to move in on an organisation such as that. I totally accept the point made by my noble friend Lord Trenchard that there should be no question of us moving unilaterally on this. It would indeed be very dangerous and concerning if we were to do that. That is certainly not something that I advocate. I advocate that this issue be debated in a way that there is absolutely no chance that it will be debated under this new structure if it ever comes into being. All we have is a number of people sitting around making risk assessments. Will anybody grasp the nettle and say that what we should be talking about is organisations that are small enough to fail? I am grateful to everybody who has contributed to this debate. I should like to test the opinion of the Committee on this amendment. Division on Amendment 2 Contents 123; Not-Contents 113. Amendment 2 agreed. Moved by