Bank Resolution (Recapitalisation) Bill [Lords]

Debate between Nusrat Ghani and Mark Garnier

Report stage
Thursday 24th April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Mark Garnier]

May I first say a hearty congratulations to the Minister on bringing through her first Bill in the new Government? She was parachuted into the job rather recently, but she has done a magnificent job, and it has been a pleasure to engage with her. We share the aim of working in the interests of the wider economy, and we have worked together on the Bill. We may differ on a few tiny details, but we agree on its overall objective.

As I mentioned on Report, I spent some time on the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards looking at how we can stop another banking crisis, and on the Treasury Committee doing pre-legislative work on the Financial Services Act 2012. This is an iterative and organic process. We will never be able to stop financial crises happening, but working together, we can ensure that there are no more instances of contagion flooding through the system. This Bill is extraordinarily good in following that iterative process, in order to make the banking system unsinkable, I hope—and I do not use that term lightly, as someone might have done in the film “Titanic”; this is genuinely very important.

I pay credit to the former Chancellor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Godalming and Ash (Sir Jeremy Hunt), and the former Economic Secretary to the Treasury, my hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Andrew Griffith), and their officials, who worked tirelessly to ensure that Silicon Valley Bank UK was transferred to HSBC over that weekend, which undoubtedly avoided wider disruption to the financial system. We are delighted that the Bill was introduced in the previous Parliament, and we welcome the Government’s decision to carry it over into this Parliament. I was about to say that our swords will cross in the coming months and years, but I do not think they will; I think we will almost certainly agree on things. We will engage with the Minister and her officials to ensure that we have a world-class financial system that is the envy of the world.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.