Financial Services Bill

My Lords, I have always believed that affairs in this Chamber should be debates and not conversations. Therefore, I did not come back on my point to which, with great respect, the Minister did not reply. However, I am not clear why the reports under Clause 2(2) assessing the risk to the stability of the UK financial situation are to be made only by the Bank of England, on the one hand, and the FSA on the other. One might think that in a tripartite system there could be some issues which neither the FSA nor the Bank are immediately responsible for but which might be reported as a risk as far as the Treasury is concerned. I do not think that I have had an answer on that omission. My only other point is rather more fundamental. On the whole, the failure of the existing tripartite system, and the past one, resulted largely from a lack of co-ordination between the three component parts. The Bill seeks to ensure that the three parts do co-ordinate their efforts in future, and that is very much to be welcomed. However, there are some dangers. If all these reports and so on are to be published under Clause 2 and it can soon be seen whether there has been an adequate response to them, it might have a destabilising effect rather than a stabilising one.