Bank Resolution (Recapitalisation) Bill [Lords]

Mark Garnier Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 22nd January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mark Garnier (Wyre Forest) (Con)]

I welcome the new Minister to her place. I think this is her first Bill that she has taken through as Economic Secretary and, interestingly, she is absolutely right. This is one of the frequent occasions on which we will agree on pretty much everything. This Bill was obviously written by the previous Government who, I think we all agree, delivered 14 years of strong and stable government.

Broadly speaking, we will not disagree on this Bill. As the Minister set out in her opening speech, this legislation was born out of the learnings of the failure of Silicon Valley Bank. The failure came out of the US parent company, with a contagion that quickly spread to its UK subsidiary. Although the Bank of England had initially planned to use insolvency procedures, HSBC emerged as a buyer thanks to the tireless work over the course of a weekend in March 2023, and much credit must be given to the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, my right hon. Friend the Member for Godalming and Ash (Jeremy Hunt), and the former Economic Secretary to the Treasury, my hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Andrew Griffith). They secured an outcome that has not cost the taxpayer any money at all, and which protected millions of pounds’ worth of customer deposits, primarily in the tech sector. The bank’s customers would face an uncertain financial future were it not for that intervention, so I am sure that the House will join me in commending the action that was taken by the previous Government.

The failure and subsequent transfer of Silicon Valley Bank UK shows how robust our post-2009 banking reforms have become. The Bank of England has used its resolution powers only three times since 2009, and this was the first time since the Southsea Mortgage and Investment Company failed in 2011. It is fair to say that the process worked absolutely as it should have done: the transfer of Silicon Valley Bank UK to HSBC was done in an orderly manner, there was no wider contagion in the banking sector, and withdrawals and panic did not spread to other banks. In short, it demonstrated why the UK is such a financial centre of excellence, and we must continue to champion that point.

However, we can continue to uphold our world-leading reputation only if we review and learn from when the system is stressed in real life. In some ways, we were very fortunate. HSBC was the only credible bidder for Silicon Valley Bank that did not require financial support or guarantees from the Government or the Bank of England. In addition, HSBC’s level of capital and liquidity resources greatly reduced the risk to public funds, delivered stability and boosted market confidence. However, had HSBC not come forward, the only option for the Bank of England was the bank insolvency procedure. This Bill comes out of the subsequent root-and-branch review, and it went for industry consultation under the previous Government. I thank the current Government for supporting it.

The Opposition recognise that some banks may fail due to issues outside their control and should have pathways to continue as a going concern if transferred to another entity, and it is right that the Bank of England has more tools in its arsenal to support the financial system. We are therefore delighted to support the Bill—it is one that we started. As it made progress in the other House, it benefited from considerable scrutiny from noble peers. The successful amendments and new clauses enhanced the Bill and will significantly improve transparency.

This was a point addressed by my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse) during the Delegated Legislation Committee on Monday, which finalised the transfer of Silicon Valley Bank UK to HSBC with no compensation to shareholders. He rightly raised some of the unanswered questions on what changed the Bank of England’s decision between announcing that the Silicon Valley Bank UK was going into insolvency procedures on the Friday and being transferred under resolution by the Monday. These additional transparency arrangements will ensure that colleagues in this House remain confident in the independence of the Bank of England. Will the Minister confirm that the Government intend to support those amendments in this House? I would be amazed if he said no, actually.

I will move on to what could be the crux of any potential disagreement. When this Bill was introduced in the other place, there was no limit to the scope of this regime. We can safely categorise our banks into three different groups. First, there are the large-scale institutional banks that have reached the end-state minimum requirement for own funds and eligible liabilities, or MREL, as it is known. Secondly, there are the challenger banks such as Monzo and Starling that are working towards end-state MREL. Finally, there are the smaller banks that do not meet the threshold for MREL, such as Silicon Valley Bank.

The Banking Act 2009 provides a robust framework for dealing with banks that have achieved end-state MREL status, and while there is a sensible argument for saying the new mechanism could provide top-up funding for banks working towards end-state MREL, it is not fair or reasonable to expect the mechanism to be used for the largest banks. The consequences of such a decision could be extremely costly for banks and their customers, and if an institutional bank failed and this mechanism were used to facilitate a transfer, our fear is that there could be a recapitalisation requirement that was many times the annual cap of the financial services compensation scheme. The only decision left to the FSCS would therefore be to borrow from the national loans fund via the Treasury. The ex-post levy set out in this legislation would therefore be charged not only in the year in which the levy was first implemented but potentially for many years thereafter. MREL requirements should ensure the safety of our largest institutions. Bank directors should be ensuring sound compliance of MREL, not taking comfort in the fact that they can fall back on to an ex-post levy of the banking sector in times of trouble.

The Opposition took reassurance from a policy statement that the mechanism would be used for the largest banks only in exceptional circumstances. However, this still left the key question as to why the legislation allowed large-scale banks to trigger the mechanism. In her opening speech, the Minister referred exactly to this. Baroness Vere’s amendment makes it clear that this mechanism cannot be used on the largest banks—those that have achieved end-state MREL. That amendment was opposed by the Government in the other place. I was hoping that the Minister would update the House today on the Government position and she has done that, but we may want to talk about this at greater length. Concerns were also rightly raised by peers that this mechanism, and using resolution to transfer failing banks, should not become the default position of the Bank of England, which is important.

Ultimately, banks are businesses. They have shareholders that bear the responsibility and the burden of risk, and we should not create a system where banks can always expect to fall back on industry-funded life support. The code of practice, alongside this Bill, rightly states that using the insolvency procedure should be the default position. I would welcome the Minister’s comments on whether there could be further need for that to be strengthened in the legislation.

The introduction of this mechanism is another example of a banking industry in strong health. In 2007, it was the taxpayer bailing out the banks. Now we have a system whereby the industry is expected to cover the cost of a failing bank. This raises questions as to whether the Government need to review how we can make the UK banking sector more internationally competitive—we have had an informal chat about this.

Let us take the bank levy as an example. It was introduced for three main reasons. First, it was introduced to help repay the cost of the banking bail-out, and it has raised something in the region of £25 billion since it was first introduced. Second, the bank levy acted as a kind of insurance premium in case the post-financial crisis stability of the banking sector were to falter and fall and there needed to be another bail-out. Finally, it was almost a quasi-punishment to the banking system for the failures that led to the financial crisis. It was there to reassure unhappy shareholders that there were consequences for a sector in which there was bad practice. If we add up the total cost to the UK taxpayer of the financial crisis, it was £137 billion, according to the House of Commons Library, as of 2023. That has been reduced to £33 billion now, so there still is some outstanding cost.

On top of the bank levy, other post-2009 reforms include much more stringent ringfencing and capital requirements. That might not be a subject for this debate, and I am not calling for the bank levy to be abolished, but I would certainly welcome the Minister’s comments on whether there could be scope to review the international competitiveness of the banking sector alongside the Chancellor’s growth agenda. The international competitiveness of the City of London should be an absolute priority for this Government—I believe that it is—yet according to UK Finance’s 2024 banking sector tax report, produced by PwC, UK banks face the highest tax contribution since the study started a decade ago.

In terms of international competitiveness, according to PwC, the total tax burden of a model bank operating in the UK is currently 45.8%. That is significantly higher than our competitors in Frankfurt at 38.6%, in New York at 27.9%, or in Dublin at 28.8%. The City, as I am sure Ministers and the whole House will agree, is an extraordinary asset for this country. For a Government who are seeking a growth agenda, the City is the oil in the engine of that economic growth.

Banks do a very important job, and it is a job of significant social and economic importance. Banks take money from where it has accumulated and distribute it to where it is needed for investment. This is crucial to fairness across our economy and delivering growth. They transfer overnight deposits into 25-year mortgages that provide hope and opportunity for people to bring up their families in safety. So we should not demonise banks, and we must remember that shareholder returns on bank investments are as important as shareholder liability in the event of a failure. We must ensure that there is a good return, given the fact that bank shareholders bear the ultimate risk of losing everything.

This Bill is a shining example of the fact that the banks and regulators are now in a position to keep their industry in order. As I said at the start of this speech, I believe that there is cross-party support for the Bill, and I look forward to working with the Government as these reforms progress through the House. They are magnificent, because of course they came from the previous Government, but I thank the Ministers for continuing with them in the spirit with which they were intended.

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[Mark Garnier]

It gives me great pleasure to wind up this debate, with the leave of the House, on behalf of the Opposition.

First, I thank the handful of Members present, who have made very helpful contributions. The hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Adam Jogee) rightly asked questions on behalf of his constituents. He asked whether they will be under the cosh if a bank goes bust again—they should not be, under this legislation—and what banks will do to generate economic growth in his area. The Liberal Democrat spokesman, the hon. Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper), rightly raised a point about the legislation being extended to and used for the larger banks, which is not its intention. As ever, my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse) has brought an intelligent scepticism to the question of what could happen with this legislation, and has demonstrated why Parliament is such a brilliant place, with intelligent people like him scrutinising what goes on.

I also welcome the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury. He has had a glittering career, and has done extraordinarily well in his meteoric rise to Minister in not one but two Government Departments in his first Parliament. He is double-hatting already; he is a clever chap. We have come across each other in the past.

I will not take too much of the House’s time, as I was on my feet just a few minutes ago, but I would like to come back to three points that I hope the Minister will address. The first is the amendment to the Bill; the Economic Secretary to the Treasury made the point that the Government do not want to support that amendment. This may come up later, and we may have more conversations about it. Secondly, does the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury feel that the Bank of England’s code of practice provides enough reassurance that the bank insolvency procedure remains the default option for failing smaller banks? Finally, how does he weigh up continued use of the bank levy and regulation of our banking system against the Chancellor’s growth agenda? I appreciate, however, that that is beyond the scope of the Bill.

As I said in my opening remarks, the Bill retains surprisingly strong cross-party support. It is a good thing for the Bank of England to have more tools at its disposal during periods of heightened stress, and the version of the Bill before us today—the version amended in the other place—is more robust than it started out. We look forward to getting clarity from the newly appointed shadow Minister. [Hon. Members: “The Minister.”] My apologies—it will be a few years before that. I congratulate the newly appointed Minister on his appointment.

Bank Resolution (Recapitalisation) Bill [Lords]

Mark Garnier Excerpts

Report stage
Thursday 24th April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mark Garnier (Wyre Forest) (Con)]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment 1, in clause 1, page 1, line 20, at end insert—

“(2A) The Bank of England must not require the scheme manager to make a recapitalisation payment if it has directed the financial institution to maintain an end-state Minimum Requirement for Own Funds and Eligible Liabilities (MREL) exceeding minimum capital requirements.”

This amendment seeks to prohibit the use of FSCS funds to recapitalise large financial institutions, defined as those which have reached end-state MREL.

Amendment 3, page 1, line 22, at end insert—

“(3A) No application to the scheme manager for recapitalisation payments may be considered by the Bank of England for a financial institution which has been directed to maintain an end-state Minimum Requirement for Own Funds and Eligible Liabilities (MREL) exceeding minimum capital requirements, unless permission has been given, through regulations, by the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

(3B) Regulations made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, subject to subsection (4), shall be made through Statutory Instrument under the negative procedure.”

This amendment would ensure financial institutions that maintain an end-state Minimum Requirement for Own Funds and Eligible Liabilities exceeding minimum capital requirements are excluded from the provisions of the Bill, unless permission has been given through regulations.

Amendment 4, page 2, line 3, at end insert—

“(5A) As a further objective to the special resolution objectives in section 4 of the Banking Act 2009, when discharging its functions in respect of the exercise of recapitalisation payments under this section, the Bank of England must observe the competitiveness and growth objective.

(5B) The competitiveness and growth objective is facilitating, subject to aligning with relevant international standards—

(a) the international competitiveness of the economy of the United Kingdom, and

(b) its growth in the medium to long term.”

This amendment would place a further objective on the Bank of England to consider the competitiveness and growth of the market before directing the recapitalisation of failing small banks through a levy on the banking sector.

Amendment 2, in clause 5, page 4, line 14, at end insert—

“(2B) The code must include guidance to the Bank of England on the exercise of its functions in relation to building societies to ensure that, in circumstances where the use of a recapitalisation power may result in demutualisation, due consideration is given to the impact of such demutualisation on members and on the mutuals sector.

(2C) In preparing the guidance required under subsection (2B), the Treasury shall consider the feasibility of selecting a purchaser from the mutuals sector as a means of avoiding demutualisation, provided such a purchaser meets the resolution objectives.”

This amendment seeks to ensure that, where possible, the selection of a purchaser from the mutuals sector is considered to avoid demutualisation, provided this aligns with the Bank's resolution objectives.

[Mark Garnier]

Before speaking to new clause 3 specifically, let me reiterate that the Opposition welcome the Government’s decision to carry over the legislation from the previous Parliament, and that the principles underpinning the Bill continue to enjoy strong cross-party support. We all want and need confidence in our banking sector, yet the failure of Silicon Valley Bank UK exposed a gap in our resolution framework for smaller banks. Unlike larger institutions, they do not hold the bail and bond mechanism known as MREL—the minimum requirement for own funds and eligible liabilities—reserves to facilitate recapitalisation in the event of a crisis. By providing the Bank of England with new tools to manage small bank failures, the Bill remains both prudent and necessary to protect financial stability and public funds.

Moving on to the amendments we have tabled on Report, I want to make it clear that our approach is constructive and focused on strengthening the Bill, not obstructing its progress. As the Bill has made progress through both Houses, our intention has been to address a series of smaller but none the less significant issues that we believe require further attention. I appreciate that this might be a conversation we can continue in today’s debate, or beyond it, and I would certainly welcome conversations with the Minister, who has been incredibly open to direct conversations in her usual pragmatic style, to further discuss these matters.

We have three measures selected for discussion today. I will speak first to new clause 3, which addresses a critical gap in the Bill’s scope: the protection of credit unions. These community-focused institutions have seen significant growth in recent years, driven in part by the eradication of predatory payday lenders, and they continue to provide a vital role in delivering affordable finance to those underserved by traditional banks.

Membership of credit unions rose from 1.89 million in 2019 to 2.14 million in 2024—an increase of more than 260,000. However, while their importance has grown, their inclusion in our resolution framework has not kept pace. The Financial Services Compensation Scheme has paid £10.1 million in compensation to credit union depositors over the past three financial years, primarily due to small-scale failures, underscoring their potential vulnerability and the need for a tailored approach as the sector expands.

The growth of credit unions is a success story, but it demands proportional safeguards. The Bill, however, excludes credit unions from its recapitalisation mechanism. While their smaller size and unique nature may differentiate them from banks, questions remain. How does the current resolution regime account for credit union failures as the sector scales up? Is there scope to develop a mechanism that protects members without imposing undue burdens on these community institutions? New clause 3 seeks clarity on this matter, requiring the Minister to produce a report outlining how the resolution framework can be adapted to protect credit unions, ensuring that their growth does not outstrip their regulatory safeguards. The vast amount of legislation for credit unions was written back in the 1970s. The previous Government made significant reforms for credit unions through amendments to the Financial Services and Markets Act, and I welcome the common bond reform consultation, which closed last month.

I know that the Government are giving the sector serious consideration, and I am sure the Minister will agree that this is not about applying bank-style rules to mutuals, but about recognising their unique role and risks. Credit unions are more than financial institutions; they are engines of financial inclusion. They often serve small, working-class communities, whom I know the Government want to support specifically. As the sector evolves, so too must our approach. We must ensure that our regulatory framework grows. I hope the Government will support this amendment, which simply seeks to look more clearly at the options available when a crisis happens.

Amendment 2 seeks to address a concern that has been raised with me by the mutual and building society sector. These institutions are not relics of the past, but vital components of our financial ecosystem. Although the first known building society was set up in 1775 by ordinary working people helping themselves to build their financial resilience and get a home of their own, they remain current today. Building societies today hold more than £360 billion in assets and provide mortgages for more than 3 million people in the UK. They represent a significant proportion of the housing market and are a trusted source of savings for millions more. They provide a clear and important diversification in our financial markets, offering a clear alternative to shareholder banks.

The Labour party stood on a clear manifesto commitment to double the size of the co-operative and mutual sector, which the Opposition agree is a very good policy. Today presents a good opportunity for Labour Members to demonstrate that commitment to the sector by enshrining in the Bill a requirement that the Bank of England consider the risk of demutualisation when using the mechanisms enshrined therein. There is a genuine fear in the building society sector that, without proper safeguards, the recapitalisation mechanism offered by the Bill could inadvertently become a back door for demutualisation. When a mutual institution faces resolution, the selection of a purchaser from the plc sector risks permanently dismantling its mutual status, undermining the very ethos that makes these institutions unique.

Our amendment would provide a proportionate solution, requiring the Bank of England to consider the impact of demutualisation on members and the sector as a whole, while also exploring the feasibility of selecting a mutual sector purchaser, if one exists and meets the resolution objectives. This is not about privileging mutuals at the expense of financial stability; it is about ensuring that the Bank’s resolution tools do not inadvertently homogenise our financial landscape. Silicon Valley Bank demonstrated the need for agile resolution frameworks, but it also highlighted the importance of preserving institutional diversity.

Mutuals and building societies often serve communities and demographics that larger banks frequently overlook. Their potential loss would leave gaps in financial inclusion and weaken the resilience of the sector. Importantly, without the millions of mortgages provided by the building society sector, particularly for first-time homeowners, Labour’s house building plans would be simply impossible.

I hope the Minister appreciates that our amendment strikes a careful balance between safeguarding financial stability and honouring our commitment to a pluralistic banking system—one where mutuals continue to thrive as a cornerstone of community-focused finance. I remind Labour Members that it will be much harder to double the size of the mutual sector if, in the event of a failure, recapitalisation defaults towards the banking sector. I hope the Government will therefore demonstrate their manifesto commitment to the mutual and co-operative sector by voting today for new clause 3 and amendment 2.

There remains genuine concern—shared across this House and reflected in the debates in the other place—over the risk of the recapitalisation mechanism being applied too broadly and potentially capturing larger banks that already hold substantial loss-absorbing resources, such as MREL. We continue to believe that the mechanism should be limited in scope and targeted at smaller banks that do not have the same capacity to manage their own failure. Amendment 1 would limit the use of the mechanism to what it was always intended to be: a mechanism for smaller banks outside the MREL regime.

I appreciate that new clauses 1 and 2 have already been ruled out of scope, but it may be worth noting a couple of points on these measures. I wish to place on the record today that the Opposition believe the time has come for a review of how we set the threshold for MREL, as well as the protection ceilings for depositors under the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. The current static nature of MREL thresholds disproportionately affects smaller and mid-sized banks, particularly challenger banks. By indexing MREL thresholds to inflation, we can ensure that the regulatory framework remains robust over time without stifling competition. These institutions often operate on tighter margins and face significant barriers in meeting rigid capital requirements, hindering their ability to scale and compete effectively with larger incumbents. While we appreciate that the Bank of England’s consultation on MREL closed earlier this year, we hope that the Government will consider these points. Threshold limits should not stay static with time.

Likewise, we welcome the Government’s recognition of the need to review the Financial Services Compensation Scheme deposit limit. The recent announcement of the increase of the deposit protection scheme from £85,000 to £110,000, although very welcome, is certainly overdue. It is worth noting that if the limit had kept pace with inflation, it would be nearly two thirds higher, at around £140,000, according to the Federation of Small Businesses. It is worth noting that only 4.6% of Silicon Valley Bank’s UK deposits were insured by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

Order. May I just remind the hon. Gentleman that we are discussing what is in scope, rather than what is not in scope and has not been selected?

[Mark Garnier]

My apologies, Madam Deputy Speaker. These are points that we feel are worth noting, but I take your comments.

I will turn to amendment 3, tabled by the Liberal Democrats. Although we share the intent behind the amendment, which mirrors the Conservatives’ amendment on MREL limits for banks, there is a critical difference in its approach that gives us pause. Like us, the Liberal Democrats recognise that end-state MREL banks should not be the primary target of this legislation. However, their amendment introduces a requirement for a statutory instrument under the negative procedure that we believe would create more problems than it solves.

Our concern lies in the potential impracticality of this approach. Banking crises can unfold rapidly, as we saw with Silicon Valley Bank UK, where decisions were made in a matter of hours, not days. A statutory instrument subject to the negative procedure becomes law the moment the Minister signs it, which is a good thing, and it remains in law unless either House rejects it within 40 sitting days. That creates a window of uncertainty. If Members were to pray against the statutory instrument, particularly in a hung Parliament, it could trigger market instability, which is precisely what this Bill seeks to avoid, so although we agree with the principle of limiting the Bill’s scope, we worry that the mechanism could tie the hands of a future Chancellor, hindering their ability to respond swiftly and decisively in a crisis. For those reasons, we cannot support the Liberal Democrat amendment.

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[Emma Reynolds]

We have not come to that yet; my hon. Friend can intervene on Third Reading. [Laughter.]

Taking what I was saying into account, although the Government appreciate the point raised by the sector and by the shadow Minister, we do not believe it is necessary to hardwire in legislation a requirement to update the code of practice on this matter. I understand, however, that the mutual sector feels strongly about this issue, and my officials and I will continue to engage with the sector on it. I commend to the House our position on the new clauses and amendments, which is to resist them.

[Mark Garnier]

With the leave of the House, I wish to address one or two of the points made in the debate. The hon. Member for Hendon (David Pinto-Duschinsky) is an incredibly valuable contributor to the debate because of his experience back in the days of the 2008 financial crisis. If I remember correctly, that was largely a result of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000, which almost compounded the problem by having a tripartite regime that looked after the banking sector at the time. If I remember rightly, the Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time found it so scary that his eyebrows nearly turned white. One of the surprising things about that crisis was that just 10 years earlier we had seen the Asian banking crisis, which basically laid the groundwork for what subsequently happened in the west. Perhaps we in the west were too arrogant to believe that it could happen to us, yet it sure did.

In my role as a member of the Treasury Committee from 2010 to 2016, and on the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards, I looked at all these issues very extensively. It is incredibly important that we resolve the issue. As it has turned out, the Financial Services Act 2012 and the Financial Services (Banking Reform) Act 2013 have worked well in respect of some of this resolution.

On the point about LDIs and the financial crisis as a result of the Budget, we dealt with the problem pretty swiftly and pretty brutally. When one of our leaders gets it wrong, we get rid of them fairly quickly. I suggest to the Labour party that if Government Front Benchers get things wrong, it is worth cauterising the problem and moving on.

On credit unions and mutuals, we absolutely recognise the point about the mutual sector. We are not asking for demutualisation to be ruled out; we are asking for the prospect of avoiding demutualisation to be part of that very swift process. That is why we will press amendment 2 to a Division. I met the credit unions yesterday, and they are keen that the principle of new clause 3 is voted on, so we will press that as well.

Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.

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[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.