Independent Commission on Banking

Lord Newby Excerpts

Monday 12th September 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, on these Benches we welcome the report and the Government’s response to it. We also welcome the degree of urgency with which the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, wishes the report to be implemented, not least because some of us had to put up with withering scorn from the Labour Benches during the previous Parliament when we suggested exactly the proposals that are now in this report.

The report says that while the full implementation of the proposals might take a number of years, there is much to be gained by moving quickly to set the framework in place so that the banks know what they are up against. The Minister has already mentioned that the Government will look at the extent to which the financial services Bill might be a vehicle for doing that. As we now have a Joint Select Committee on the Bill, of which I have the privilege to be a member under the chairmanship of Peter Lilley MP, would he accept that this offers Parliament a golden opportunity to take evidence quickly on the principal issues that the Vickers report raises and to move with some determination? I am sure that the vast bulk of rule-making that will be required to implement this series of proposals will not need primary legislation but will need FSA regulation or secondary regulation, and that the legislative framework in primary legislation should be relatively short and straightforward.

[Lord Sassoon]

I am very grateful to my noble friend. We will work as hard and as fast as we can now to take forward consideration of the detail. As I have stressed, we have accepted the recommendations of the report in principle, but there is a lot of potential devil in the detail and we need to do a full cost-benefit assessment. Indeed, we need to work through what would be appropriate to introduce into the financial services Bill and what would need a stand-alone Bill. I have no idea how the committee may want to proceed, but it now has the Vickers report in front of it and we will get on with sorting out all these issues as quickly as possible. However, we should not underestimate the amount of work for officials and the amount of consultation needed to get the detail right.