Written evidence to be reported to the House
Banking Bill
4:40 pm
Angela Knight: Our view is that if you have a netting contract that is legal—that would stand a legal test—that needs to be recognised and excluded so that, in effect, that remains unchanged and creditor rights are preserved. I am very glad to hear that we will be able to see the secondary legislation and the code fairly soon, because it is essential that one sees both secondary and primary legislation together. This is a holistic issue that needs to be looked at. Certainly, all the lawyers whom we have consulted, who have no doubt been in touch with various members of this Committee, have raised both the holistic point and the essential need to ensure that we do not inadvertently interfere with creditors’ rights and end up with a situation in which there is no clean legal opinion, because the consequences thereof would be pretty big. Regarding clause 65, we need to get netting and netting arrangements properly recognised in the clause as being disapplied from the Henry VIII provisions that it contains.