Leaving the European Union

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Excerpts

Monday 14th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

As I have said, I am not prejudging the outcome of tomorrow’s vote. I have also said that it has always been our intention to respond quickly and provide certainty if the vote is lost, and that is what we will do about our next steps.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, if my noble friend Lord Hailsham is right and the House of Commons votes down the deal tomorrow, the default position is no deal. Does my noble friend accept that no deal is much more damaging to the EU than it is to us and, in addition, that we would not pay it £39 billion? Does she not expect really quite major concessions from the EU at the last minute—the 11th hour—possibly way into March?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I can only reiterate what I have said to noble Lords on many occasions. We believe that this is a good deal. We want MPs to vote for that deal. That is what we will continue to work towards. If the vote is lost tomorrow, we will return with our next steps.

Brexit Negotiations

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Excerpts

Monday 11th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, the Prime Minister’s Statement twice repeats that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. Does the noble Baroness not think it a good idea that the Government should work up a plan B, for no deal, because in that way we will get a much better deal with plan A? The great advantage of plan B, and leaving with no deal, is that we cease to pay into the European budget.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

We are absolutely focused on getting a good outcome that works for both the UK and the EU. We believe it is in both sides’ interests to do that, but yes, we have a duty to plan for the alternative, as any responsible Government would.

European Council

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Excerpts

Monday 23rd October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

As I have said, we obviously have a strong and close relationship on these issues from being in the EU. We will continue to do so because we are seen as a world leader in this by our EU partners and we all know the benefits of working together. For instance, as the noble Baroness will know, we are already incorporating the new EU general data protection regulation and the data protection directive within the Data Protection Bill, which is in front of your Lordships’ House. We will have an unprecedented level of regulatory alignment in this area so that a new, ambitious partnership can be built on the kind of relationships that we already have.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend has reiterated the Prime Minister’s position that we will pay what we owe the EU, which presumably takes us up to the end of the budget period in 2020. However, if we were to leave in the spring of 2019 with no deal, surely at that point would we not stop paying?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

As the Prime Minister made clear, we have said to our EU partners that we need to reach a fair settlement on our rights and obligations. We also made clear in the Florence speech that they do not need to fear that they will need to pay more or receive less over the remainder of the current budget plan as a result of our decision to leave. Following the process agreed in the last round of talks, we have undertaken a detailed and rigorous examination of the technical detail, aiming to reach a shared view on these issues.

European Council

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Excerpts

Tuesday 14th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

My Lords, as I have said, we anticipate a positive deal between us and the EU. Of course we start negotiations from the unique position of sharing many of the identical rules and regulations, so we are positive and optimistic going into these negotiations.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, did the European Council discuss the deal done with Turkey whereby it would hold on to millions of Syrian refugees in return for accelerated membership of the EU and a payment of €3 billion, not all of which I gather has come through? There certainly does not seem to be any enthusiasm for allowing Turkey into the EU.

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Excerpts

Monday 20th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I addressed this House in a Question on 24 February last year, when I asked for Article 50 to be moved through Parliament at that stage. The Government slapped that down because they thought that they could probably get it through as an order and that it would not have needed to go through as a Bill. The timing was probably a bit early at that stage and I congratulate my right honourable friend the Prime Minister on sticking to her guns in saying that she should wait to the end of March. It has allowed tempers to cool a bit because there was certainly a great shock in the system, which lasted for some time after the referendum.

There have been voices in your Lordships’ House today saying that we are all individuals, that we should use our judgment and that at the end of the day we can override a referendum which gave a not enormous but quite clear majority in favour of leaving the EU. There are great dangers in that. I do not think this is just an option that people can exercise. If Parliament is not seen to reflect the result of a referendum, it puts itself in a very difficult position. As my noble friend Lord Blencathra said, you give people no option but to take to the streets. People have to move away from Parliament if Parliament no longer reflects their quite clearly expressed views. There are enormous problems in that.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, said that he is definitely going to support the Second Reading of the Bill, but he expressed quite extensive distaste for referenda. He has friends who would agree with him on that all over the EU. They hate referenda too. So what happens? If I happen to be a French, Dutch or German citizen who does not like the EU very much, which is not actually a crime, I am given no option but to vote for the Front National, Wilders or the Alternative für Deutschland, which has become a rather nasty anti-immigrant party. What actually happens is that you shove people who have a quite respectable distaste for the EU and its institutions into extreme parties. What we have done in this country—and it is the object of a certain amount of admiration—is that the established parties have absorbed the wishes of the people as expressed in a referendum. That is surely one of the remarkable things that we have succeeded in doing.

I have to say to the noble Lord, Lord Newby, that I am deeply suspicious of all this second referendum stuff, particularly coming from the Liberal Democrats. They have always claimed to be so keen on referenda, yet when they do not get the result they want, they then seem to be deeply dissatisfied and call for another one. That is very EU, as we know. A number of times when there were referenda in the EU, the so-called wrong result came through and everybody was asked to vote again until they came up with the right result, but I do not think that is very British, and it is totally out of step with public opinion in this country.

The noble Baroness, Lady Royall, and the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, raised the issue of EU citizens in this country. The leave campaign made it a point that we want to see the rights of people resident in this country preserved, and I was quite keen that that should happen. We have been hearing in endless different speeches today that the EU is not going to let us carry on with life just as it was before. It wants to punish us for leaving. So if we take unilateral action and preserve the rights of the 3 million EU citizens living in this country, we are exposed to the EU doing something rather unpleasant to the expat Brits who live in Europe. It is not a question of a bargaining chip, it is just sensible that we should negotiate this on both sides. Once we have moved Article 50, I am sure it will be a very high priority to do that and then we can reach agreement on both sides; I am sure that will happen. It is quite significant that these negotiations have, to some extent, already taken place. Who is blocking any deal on this matter? Chancellor Merkel in Germany, who says that no agreement should be reached on this until Article 50 has been moved. That shows enormous compassion for the quite large number of Germans living in the UK, who she thinks do not really matter as long as the rules are followed. Anyway, let us not focus on that, but that is where we are.

The most remarkable speech we heard today was from the noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport, who raised a very interesting question. He said that the eurozone, as we all know now, is a complete disaster. It is only a matter of time before it collapses, but in the meantime, it is totally impoverishing working people in the south of Europe. He asked why leftish parties are so much in support of an organisation that, for some political experiment, actually impoverishes very large numbers of people on the continent. Why should this get the support of Labour members and the Labour Party in this country?

There is the threat as well, of course, that the EU would like to have a trade war with us and not give us the free trade we already enjoy. Well, they sell one and a half times as much to us as we do to them, so presumably they are going to crank up unemployment even further, for political reasons. If these are not good reasons for leaving the EU, I do not know what is.

Channel 4

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Excerpts

Thursday 10th December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury (LD)]

My Lords—

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords—

[The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Stowell of Beeston) (Con)]

My Lords, on this occasion I think the House would like to hear from the noble Baroness, Lady Bonham-Carter.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

My Lords, we are looking at Channel 4 objectively to see whether it is meeting its remit properly and whether there are changes that need to be made to the remit or its distribution. Of course, as the Prime Minister said, we need to ensure that the great channel goes on being great for many years to come. It is perfectly okay to review things.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

My Lords, is it not possible that if Channel 4 was privatised, it might be run more efficiently and have even more money to spend on quality programmes?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

My noble friend is entirely right that looking at how things can be run efficiently—taking advantage of technological advances, for example—is a key point in the kinds of reviews that we do in the media sector.

Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Excerpts

Monday 14th September 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)]

My Lords, we have had very little notice of this Motion. We should take some time to discuss it because, particularly now, this is a matter of great importance. Until 2010 the House of Lords had only one representative on the Intelligence and Security Committee, and in the four years until 2010 I was that Member. Some of us felt that that one Member was not enough. We lobbied hard to ensure that the number of Members from the Lords should be increased, at least to two, to ensure that there was an opposition Member as well as a government Member on the committee, and that was agreed. That is why we were very surprised in 2010 when the then Leader of the House moved that the representatives should be the noble Marquess, Lord Lothian, and the noble Lord, Lord Butler—with no disrespect to either of them. We accepted that and did not create a fuss on that occasion because we expected that account would be taken of the need to have an opposition representative the next time this matter was considered.

That is why I am very surprised that the noble Baroness the Leader of the House, on behalf of the Government, has come forward again not with an opposition Member but with another Cross-Bencher. With no disrespect to either the noble Marquess, whom I have known for many years, or the noble Lord, Lord Janvrin, who served with distinction as secretary to Her Majesty the Queen for a number of years, neither of them could be said to be the most radical, probing person on this issue. Given recent events, the Intelligence and Security Committee is now under intense public, political and media scrutiny, and that is not going to decrease. That is why I think—with no disrespect, as I say, to either the noble Lord or the noble Marquess—that this matter should be taken away and considered again.

As I understand it, there has been no proper consideration with either of the opposition parties— the Liberal Democrats or ourselves—and now the Government have come forward with two names. With respect to the noble Baroness the Leader of the House, she—and indeed the Government, the Chief Whip, whom I know very well, and the whole Conservative Party—would gain a great deal if they accepted that this was a genuine and sincere matter and had another look at it. I hope she will agree to take it away and look at it again.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

Following the intervention by the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, surely it is very important that these appointments be hurried through as quickly as possible, because if there is any delay the new leader of the Labour Party will have a great input into who stands on that committee.

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

My Lords, it is because we on these Benches take the security of the nation so seriously that these points have been raised by Labour Members today.

EU Council

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Excerpts

Monday 27th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend accept that it is quite acceptable for the EU to want to recalculate the basis for calculating gross national income? However, why does this tax have to become retrospective? Can she explain to us why this has to be a retrospective exercise? Why is it not just being taken forward from here, if we get the agreement of Ministers, with the tax applying in the future, not the past?

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

My noble friend has highlighted one of the issues that we have to explore in greater detail in the process of talks that will start in the emergency discussions between Finance Ministers later next week.

Death of a Member: Baroness Thatcher

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Excerpts

Wednesday 10th April 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

My Lords, I joined my noble friend Lord Jopling’s Whips’ Office in 1982. The highlight of our year was when the Prime Minister came to have dinner with us, which normally ended with a question and answer session when her praetorian guards of Whips were treated rather like backsliding leftists. However, it was always a very invigorating occasion. It was a great honour for us when she then suggested that she might return the favour and that we might come with our wives to have lunch at Chequers. Unfortunately, that never happened because the Brighton bomb came in between, so instead dinner was laid on in Downing Street for both the Lords and the Commons Whips.

That meal ended in the same way, with the Prime Minister saying, “Right, does anybody have any problems or concerns they would like to raise?”. I remember that my noble friend Lady Trumpington asked the first question, about pensions. She got slapped down pretty swiftly, and then John Major, who was the Treasury Whip, piped up and said, “Prime Minister, there is deep concern in the country on the following issues”. She went for him such as I have never seen. A row erupted of such seriousness that it ended on a very sour note. At one stage, we thought that John Major might even walk out of the room, and we were very concerned that he may have completely destroyed his political career. As we walked from the dining room to the drawing room in Downing Street, Denis Thatcher came up to him and said, “Don’t worry, dear boy, she gets like this sometimes”. The next day, she reconciled the position with John Major, and three months later he was a junior Minister in her Government. That story is becoming better known and is very significant, because it indicates the sort of woman that she was. She loved the row but never had any feelings of bitterness. She respected people who stood up to her and never held it against anybody at all.

I came to get to know her much better in 1987, when I was made her PPS. If I am brutally frank, I was not terribly good at the job. I did very badly when Alan Clark came to see her as Minister of Trade, and I totally failed to tell the Prime Minister something. I do not think she was aware that Alan Clark always rather prided himself on having two attributes of Adolf Hitler, namely that he was a vegetarian and hated foxhunting. His pitch to the Prime Minister was that he considered it a very good idea if labels were to be put on furs saying, “The fur being sold here has been caught in an extremely inhumane trap”. It would have been rather like having a health warning on cigarettes. The Prime Minister was absolutely appalled by this and said, “Alan, what on earth makes you so concerned to do this?”. He said, “Prime Minister, didn’t you know that I’m a vegetarian?”. She looked at him and said, “But Alan, you are wearing leather shoes”. He drawled, “I do not think you expect your Ministers to wear plastic shoes, Prime Minister”. Needless to say, the pleas got nowhere because the calculation that Alan Clark had not made was that because the Prime Minister was MP for Finchley, many of her Jewish constituents were furriers and the last thing she was going to do was ruin their business.

She was very interesting. She never read the daily papers. I remember taking that up with her at one stage and asking why she did not. Every morning in Downing Street, we used to get the most wonderful summary of absolutely everything that was in the daily papers from Bernard Ingham’s press department. I would give my eye teeth to get hold of that today; it was a brilliant piece of work. However, she used to say, “I never read the daily papers because they write such harmful and personal abuse about me and my family that I could never get the job done that I have to do”. Later, when John Major was Prime Minister and having his problems with the media, I raised this with him. I said that she had never actually read the daily papers, and he looked at me as if I had gone slightly weak in the head. Certainly, part of her thing in life was that you have to do the job you are faced with and that it really was not good enough to be reading the papers every day, or you just could not get on with what needed to be done.

I always remember a meeting, held at Downing Street at five o’clock in the evening, to discuss a policy paper. I thought that it would all go quite calmly; I knew that the Cabinet Minister who was presenting the paper was a friend and somebody she supported. He had no opportunity to present his paper as such. She launched into him and said, “It strikes me that the problems with this are the following”, and so forth, and another furious argument took place, leaving us all looking at our feet and wondering, “Goodness, where is all this going to go?”. She always kept to the timescale, which was half an hour for the meeting. We were coming to the end, and she summed up by saying, “Of course, I agree with absolutely everything you are trying to do here. I just thought I’d play devil’s advocate and make sure that you’d thought out all the arguments”. That is just one of the reasons why she was a very great Prime Minister.

As the leader of the Conservatives she was always terribly bored that the socialists had something called “Socialist International”. She thought that this gave a lot of respectability to left-wing parties, and she could not quite understand why the Conservatives should not have the same thing. She was, therefore, very much party to setting up something called the European Democrat Union, which later moved on to be the International Democrat Union. Although she never took me, as her PPS, on foreign trips, this was a party political occasion, because the IDU meeting was being chaired by Chancellor Kohl. We sat in the most enormous room in the Reichstag building—this was, of course, before the wall came down—and Chancellor Kohl gave a speech to welcome everybody that I strongly suspect was written by somebody else. She just made a few short notes, and when it came to her opportunity to speak she pointed through the window and said, “People tell me that the building that we can see over the Berlin Wall, out through this window, is the headquarters of the East German intelligence service. People also say to me that they are probably listening to every word we are saying here today, in which case I would like them to know—”, and she then went into a great tirade about how freedom was what we were all fighting for, and that freedom would conquer in the end. How right she was; the wall came down not very much later.

The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford alluded to the fact that she was brought up as a Methodist, but she was always very much an adopted member of the Church of England. When I was sitting with her in the House of Commons, waiting to vote late in the evening, she was going on about the worrying question of women priests. She said that she did not think that there should be women priests in the Church of England because she thought it would split the Church of England. I took issue with her and said, “I don’t think, Prime Minister, that as a woman Prime Minister you can really take objection to women becoming priests. Anyway, I don’t know what you’re so worried about; I think women are capable of greater spirituality than men, and they are also less prone to sexual temptation”. “Oh, I don’t know about that!” she said. As always with Margaret Thatcher, she never agreed that you had won the argument, but some weeks later Bernard Ingham would put out a very small press release, saying, “Thatcher backs women priests”, and so forth. So she came round in the end.

The noble Lord, Lord Armstrong, referred to the fact that she could survive on three or four hours’ sleep. I had to spend quite a bit of my time travelling in an armour-plated Daimler, whose roof was of course lowered to make it more bomb-proof. It had a very inadequate air-conditioning system, and we usually had very large policemen and drivers sitting in front. The heat used to accumulate massively, and I have to say that both she and I used to nod off quite regularly. It became rather embarrassing when my wife went around saying, “Archie spends much of his time sleeping with the Prime Minister in the back of her car”.

Margaret Thatcher first came to stay with me in the country shortly after she stood down, in January 1991. It was interesting. We were sitting there in the evening and the telephone rang. It was John Major ringing her up to say that the hostilities were about to begin in the Gulf. Needless to say, she stayed up the whole night listening to the wireless to hear what was going on. I was Minister for the Armed Forces but went to bed and listened to the news the next morning. That might be one of the reasons why she was Prime Minister and I never was. It was an indication of her extraordinary determination to be involved, and, of course, it was a war that she had been very much involved with in the beginning.

The Thatchers came to stay with us quite regularly from that moment. We even had them to stay twice for Christmas. Shortly after Denis died, she came to stay with us down in Devon. At that stage, she still thought that Denis was alive. There was a period of her life, which was quite short, I think, when she was not really reconciled to the fact that he had died. It is regrettable that so much of that film, “The Iron Lady”, should have been on the period in her life when she thought that her husband was still with us. She was never really the same again after he died. It knocked her very hard. He was a great companion to her and life was extremely difficult for her from that moment on.

She was a very great lady. She was an evangelist. She was not like most modern politicians. She had a mission. But everything that she stood for will survive her. From my point of view, it has been a very great privilege to have served with her and to have served in her Government.

Financial Services Bill

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Excerpts

Monday 18th June 2012 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

As an amendment to the above Motion, to leave out from “that” to the end and insert “the Bill be committed to a Committee of the Whole House”.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

My Lords, I have been on a pretty steep learning curve about the procedures of the House since last Monday. When the Motion to put the whole Committee stage of the Financial Services Bill into Grand Committee was withdrawn I imagined that the will of the House would be respected, that that would be the last we heard of it and that there would be no question of our now having to talk about some compromise on all this—namely that the Bill should be split, with some of it debated in Grand Committee and some on the Floor of the House.

Therefore, I talked to the Clerk of the Parliaments about it, realising that perhaps I did not totally understand. He explained that when the Government withdrew the Motion, it did not mean that they could not bring back another. I said, “What should I have done about the Motion that was put down originally?”. The Clerk said that that Motion should have been amended; it could have been amended at the last minute by a manuscript amendment, but he said that that was not much approved of in this House. However, I am afraid that that is what I have been forced to do today for the simple reason that the Motion was tabled on Friday, when the House was not even sitting. There has been no opportunity to table a proper amendment to it; it has to be a manuscript amendment. I apologise to the House for that but I did not see that I had an alternative.

I reiterate: we are talking about the Financial Services Bill. It is a major piece of legislation which has been drafted to reorganise our financial institutions completely and regulate them properly. I do not think that the people of this country would understand it if we were to put any part of this Bill in Grand Committee. This extremely important legislation needs very serious consideration by your Lordships. As well as that, this Bill brings out the best of your Lordships’ House. There is a tremendous amount of expertise here which needs to be brought to the fore. That can be done much better if the whole of Committee stage is debated on the Floor of the House.

I ask the House to consider seriously whether any of this Bill should be committed to a Grand Committee. As a noble friend said to me earlier, if we do not discuss the Committee stage of the Bill on the Floor of the House, which other Bills will we consider on the Floor of the House? It seems that the Government have a desire to put everything into Grand Committee. It is for us to stand up against that and say, “No, we want the whole of this very important Bill to be considered on the Floor of the House”. I hope that the House will support my amendment.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, we have before us a very important matter. As the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, has said, how we regulate our financial services and the financial services sector is vital to economic and financial stability. What our banks do and how they do it is important for the prospects for growth and employment in this country.

We on these Benches had not seen the terms of these Motions before today and we certainly had not agreed to them in the usual channels. I had a private meeting with the Leader of the House on Wednesday morning at which we discussed this matter and I told him in all honesty that I could not agree to the terms of the Motion, that I needed to have further consultations and discussions with my colleagues and that I would come back to him and the usual channels in due course. That I did first thing on Thursday morning, since when we have heard nothing about the Motion before us today. As for the Opposition’s role on this Bill within the usual channels, I wrote to the Leader of the House this morning, once we had seen the terms of the Motion before us. I would be happy to provide noble Lords with a copy of that letter.

My concern, much more than accusations from the Leader and the ins-and-outs of the usual channels, is what Members of this House want. When the Government tried to put the whole of the Bill in Grand Committee a week ago today I thought that the statements made by Members from across the whole of this House made clear what the majority of them wanted. At a very late hour, during that debate on the Floor of this Chamber, Members made it abundantly clear that they wanted the whole of the Bill to be considered by a Committee of the whole House. What Members of the House were telling the Government was clear.

Last Tuesday I had discussions with the Government about splitting the Bill and taking some parts on the Floor of the House and some in Grand Committee. I could see some merit in that approach, which is why we were prepared to consider it constructively in discussions within the usual channels. Yes we discussed it, but no we did not agree on it—precisely because I had to have discussions with my colleagues on the Benches behind me, which is the right and proper thing to do. In any case, we would not have agreed to the split that the Government now propose. Neither would we have agreed to only three days in a Committee of the whole House. We do not think that that split works. We also think that it was wrong not to include Part 4, on the mechanisms to deal with current issues, for consideration by a Committee of the whole House.

This House is self-regulating and on matters such as this it is for this House, and this House alone, to decide what it wishes to do. From our soundings, most Members on the Benches behind me want the Bill to be considered by a Committee of the whole House, which is what I believe many Members from all across the House want to see. That is precisely what the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton of Epsom, proposes.

I therefore look forward to this House, not the Government, deciding what it wants to do. From these Benches, we do not believe that the Government’s proposal is the right approach. We believe that the House should reject it and accept the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton. I hope that the Government will listen to the House when it makes its decision today.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Strathclyde]

I urge the noble Baroness to read the record of the debates that we had at the time. If she can find the evidence for that, of course I will withdraw everything that I have said about Grand Committees. I assure her that when I was Leader of the Opposition, we understood perfectly well that Grand Committees were for all or any Bills, and that only constitutional Bills would sit on the Floor of the House.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

My Lords, I share the concern of many Members of this House about all these massive Bills that will come through in the future to be debated on the Floor of the House. I am not at all sure what they are, but I know that one of them will not be the Civil Aviation Bill because that will be going into Grand Committee when this business has been dealt with.

I very much take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, that this is a thin parliamentary Session and that for a Bill of this importance to be shoved into the Grand Committee Room would be absolutely wrong. It will not be understood by the people of this country. It is a major Bill of great significance. I do not accept the view of the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, that somehow these issues are better debated in the Grand Committee Room. I think that the place to debate them is on the Floor of the House. I suspect that the debate would go on much longer on the Floor of the House, but that would improve the Bill at the end of the day and would be for the good all round. It is critical that the Financial Services Bill is got right by your Lordships’ House, and I therefore wish to test the opinion of the House on my amendment.