Clause 214
Banking Bill
9:00 am
Angela Eagle (Parliamentary Secretary, HM Treasury; Wallasey, Labour)
It would be an individual policy decision in a certain circumstance. Each situation might be different. The proposal is a much simpler thing. It gives cover for lending the money and puts it on a proper footing. In other words, because of the 1932 PAC concordat, where it looks as though money might need to be provided on more than one occasion, specific legislative approval is needed for that kind of process, rather than just using contingency funds. That is all the clause does. It does not talk about what the cost of capital would be. It would be wrong to think about putting any cost of capital in primary legislation, for obvious reasons.
The clause simply regularises, in accordance with the 1932 PAC concordat, as Parliament expects that if such expenditure could occur in the future, there should be specific legislative mention of it. This kind of clause appears in all sorts of bits of legislation. It is not unusual. It merely enables the potential use of money in that way to be regularised by statute. It does not go into any kind of detail about circumstances or what the cost of capital would be if such an issue were to occur.