My Lords, I have enormous sympathy with the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull, who said in his introduction that he has never seen such a shambles presented to any House. As Chief Secretary to the Treasury, I had the misfortune for five years, as the noble Lord will know, to take two Finance Bills a year through, mainly because the first Bill had to be amended because it had not been properly scrutinised; it had been guillotined by all successive Governments. Yet I have never seen anything remotely like this Bill and I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Deighton, and his staff, who have done a tremendous job in trying to present to us what exactly is going on here. It is very difficult when one is working without a group of secretaries, let alone one, to understand what the devil is going on.
It seems to me that every speaker we have heard so far, apart from the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, is stumbling towards the only real solution. We will have to debate fairly soon to settle whether the House agrees to separation—call it Glass-Steagall, call it what you like. However, while we are stumbling in this direction—I am not sure from what my noble friend on the Front Bench was saying and whether our Front Bench is stumbling towards it as well—it seems inevitable to me that we have to decide this one, major issue. However many times this is reviewed, ring-fencing can never be the solution to the different cultures that the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, referred to. It is quite impossible.
I do not want to take too much of the Committee’s time on this occasion, but we have to settle, once and for all, whether we agree with this ring-fencing idea. It is so complex that it makes the situation even worse, as we have heard in a number of debates. Until we settle this matter, we will go from amendment to amendment for years on end, and have reviews for years on end, getting nowhere at the end of it. I hope that we can have the major debate as soon as possible so that the House can decide.
4.30 pm