Financial Services Bill

My Lords, Clause 2(2) is very strange in several respects. It suggests: ""Where the FSA or the Bank of England publishes a report setting out its opinion of the risks to the stability of the UK financial system, the Council must consider the report at the … next quarterly meeting"." Is it not for the council to decide whether there are risks to the stability of the UK financial system, rather than the Bank or the FSA? If the idea is to have a tripartite arrangement, surely the three of them and the council, as such, should express a view on the fact that there are risks to the stability. Secondly, should these bodies publish a report on "a risk" to the stability rather than "the risks"? Will they publish a report every quarter, every six months or whatever, and say, "There are risks to the economy; these are they"; or will they specifically say, "We foresee a particular risk", which I would have thought would be the more appropriate way of doing it? At all events, in relation to my noble friend’s amendment, surely it is not enough to go through the procedure here and then, the report having been considered by the council, for the council not to say what it proposes to do about the risks that have been mentioned. Presumably it will not simply sit there and say, "We have received this report. There are risks to the UK economy", and that is it. My noble friend’s amendment is entirely appropriate.