Financial Services Bill

My Lords, when I first saw this amendment, my inclination was to suggest to the noble Baroness that she had not gone far enough. If you want to be as prescriptive as this and are so concerned about every word that is spoken by this body, why not open it up to the public? Why not allow people to turn up to its meetings? Indeed, I think it is such an interesting body that you will be able to charge for it. By allowing the council to function in a goldfish bowl, the deficit could be reduced—at least by a small amount. My rather more serious point about this and all the other amendments to this clause is that today is likely to be the last day on which we debate this Bill in Committee. There may be another but certainly we will not get through the whole Bill. We know that the Conservative Party opposes this clause, as it does all the clauses in the first set, so we know that, even if any other parts of the Bill go through, the Conservatives will not allow this clause to go through in the wash-up. It is important that we get through other parts of the Bill, such as the schedule on the consumer financial education body, which we may get to, at least in part, tonight, and there are other aspects of the Bill which I think everyone in the House would like to see on the statute book. My point is that we are going into long and detailed discussions on amendments, which will not be moved to a vote or carried, to clauses which will then be struck out by the noble Baroness’s party in a fortnight. Therefore, we should move on to the parts of the Bill which are of real value and which all noble Lords wish to see on the statute book.