It is worth noting that when we talk about the independence of the Bank of England we are talking about operational decisions of the Monetary Policy Committee. They have to be made, of course, without political interference. We can come on to the questions of quantitative easing and the Chancellor’s recent decisions on that, but we will put them to one side for now. The questions of governance of the Bank of England are a matter for Parliament to take very seriously indeed.
As the debate progresses, we will discuss the vast powers that the Bank will be taking, which are known rather opaquely as macro-prudential powers of regulation. Essentially, the Bank of England can intervene in any number of financial services, products and transactions and affect the financial well-being of businesses, consumers and households in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern). We are talking about mortgages, lines of credit and supply and so on. That is why we need to get the arrangements right, and it is a shame that the Government did not do that.
I want to skip on, if I may, to Lords amendment 16, to which we have suggested another small amendment.