My Lords, I cannot let the Bill pass without saying a few words. I described the Bill as “shambolic” and was told by an old friend—a normally good friend who happens to be a former Conservative Cabinet Minister—that he was surprised that I was so political in using that unusual expression. I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Sassoon, and the House. I could not think of a better word to describe what was in the Bill and what had happened.
My main concern with the Bill is the very principle of giving such huge powers to the Bank of England—and they remain. It is the principle that worries me. We have given huge powers to the Bank of England. We have added to the Bank of England Act, as I mentioned earlier today. We have given the Bank powers over the OFT, FCA, FSA and PRA, and over changes in FiSMA—so many different initials that one forgets precisely what we did do. We amended a lot because there was a lot to amend, because unfortunately these days, under both Governments, the House of Commons guillotines so much that very little gets done properly. Legislation comes to this House for amendment and we amend it well, I am happy to say, as we did on this occasion.
My worry is that we started off with an unusually large Bill: two volumes of clauses and schedules. It was so big and it has become even bigger because we put in provisions dealing with the LIBOR scandal. This should have been a Bill on its own. We on this side of the House rightly agreed with the changes resulting from the Government’s acceptance of the Wheatley report. These provisions dealt with it properly and the Opposition accepted them, but they did not just come forward in a Bill; they came forward scattered in amendments throughout the Bill. I hope that it deals with the LIBOR scandal but it is difficult to tell if it really did, because on top of all this we are now told that there will be secondary legislation as well. I regret to say that we do not understand what we have passed here, because we still do not know what is going to happen.
I hope that we have done the right thing and that everything is going to work out, but the plain fact is that, with the LIBOR scandal, there were some in the Bank of England, the FSA and many other bodies whose main concern was primarily with interest rates. They knew nothing whatever about what the noble Lord, Lord Sassoon—I nearly said “my noble friend Lord Sassoon”; I feel he is that—was talking about. He described this LIBOR scandal as a global one, affecting some $300 trillion. It affected all that, but nobody in the Bank of England or the FSA or anybody else knew the slightest thing that was going on in the LIBOR scandal. Therefore, I would like to finish by asking the noble Lord, Lord Sassoon, a question.