Clause 2
Financial Mutuals Arrangements Bill
9:45 am
John Butterfill (Bournemouth West, Conservative)
I very much support the proposal, but it is important to put it in context. No building society has failed for at least 40 years—it is therefore an extremely unlikely event—but the new clause addresses a moral issue: is it right on an insolvency that small retail depositors who are unsophisticated in financial matters should be subordinated to the wholesale capital markets who are extremely sophisticated players? Redressing that is quite long overdue.