Recently I have been looking at a number of Thatcher quotes, given that the Prime Minister mentioned TINA—there is no alternative—which hon. Members will remember. Another famous quote from Lady Thatcher was, “Always leave yourself a way out”, and I wonder whether the emollient approach taken by the Financial Secretary is because he realises that when there is inadequate scrutiny in this House, the questions go to the other place and it is likely that the Government will have to back down on some of these matters. Perhaps he is listening to the advice of Baroness Thatcher on some of these issues.
It is not adequate to expect, as the Minister suggested, that we will be able to scrutinise the Bill sufficiently on the Floor of the House on Report. As he knows, with the knives that come into effect during various considerations on Report, one often finds that amendments are put without a full debate. It is a different process from the Commons Committee stage. The programme motion should reflect the right of the Commons to scrutinise the full version of the Bill, and that is not the version we have before the House today. If the Government were serious about this issue, the Chancellor would be here. Clearly, our downgraded Chancellor has downgraded the banking reform Bill.