Clause 2
Banking Bill
11:45 am
John Pugh (Shadow Minister, Treasury; Southport, Liberal Democrat)
I do not need to reiterate the remarks that I made before, but there is a strong feeling that we might need different regimes for different types of bank. If there is no capacity to differentiate types of bank in legislation, it is obviously another tool that is not in the toolbox. The legislation is clearly being introduced in response to an immediate crisis, but there must be far-thinking spirits in the Treasury who are considering what they can do to give long-term stability to the banking sector as a whole.
In America and the UK, there is some thought that some of the liberalisation that blurred distinctions between different types of bank was a mistake and part of the problem. Is the feeling in the Treasury that a bank, however it is defined, should simply have that sort of global meaning, or is there capacity to distinguish between types of bank in regulation and legislation?