I do not have a regional breakdown of the responses to the consultation, but this is a UK-wide system and regime. If there is a regional breakdown, I will certainly provide it to the noble Lord.
I will move on to answering the point made by the noble Lord, Lord McNicol, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, about the DPRRC report. I am grateful to the committee for the production of the report; I read it with interest. Of course, I recognise the strength of feeling in this House; it has come across today and been conveyed to me by a number of noble Lords, especially with regard to Clause 47. There is a lot to consider there in terms of striking the right balance on this and the other issues raised in the report, but I can commit to reading it very carefully and considering what policy steps we may take in response.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, also referred to the Treasury’s powers. Measures implemented by central banks in pursuit of monetary policy have always been considered outside the scope of EU state aid regimes and rules—just as well given the massive amount of subsidies that it has imposed in recent years. In the joint declaration on monetary policies and subsidy control, the EU and the UK confirmed their mutual understanding that activities conducted by a central bank in pursuit of monetary policy are outside the scope of the subsidy control requirements in the trade and co-operation agreement. One of the Bank of England’s independent statutory functions is to maintain UK price stability and, subject to that, support the Government’s economic policy. It is both appropriate and necessary that the domestic subsidy control regime exempts monetary policy subsidies and schemes in pursuit of these objectives.
I assure my noble friends Lord Lamont and Lord Trenchard, and the noble Viscount, Lord Chandos, that this Government do not intend to return to the policies of the past, such as the failed 1970s approach of attempting to run the economy by bailing out fundamentally unsustainable companies. I suspect that this will probably not be the subject of a new agreement between the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, but, nevertheless, that is our policy.
The principles in this Bill make it clear that subsidies need to address either identified market failure or an equity rationale as a legitimate objective in order to be awarded. It is important to note that not every example of government spending is a subsidy, of course. The Bill sets out a detailed definition: if a public authority purchases goods or services on market terms, that is public procurement and not a subsidy. Parliamentary oversight of spending and managing public money, as well as the Green Book requirements, will continue to apply and are important protections against bad government spending decisions.