It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr McCrea. I support this group of new clauses; in fact, I had  prepared a long speech on the subject—I exaggerate—but in light of what the Minister has said, I will keep my comments brief. I welcome his comments and the intention that has been stated.

With regard to new clause 2, I want to emphasise the issue of vouchers; it is great that there is so much consensus on that issue, but it is important to emphasise that the consumers affected are ordinary people for whom £100, £200 or £300 is a lot of money. It would be great to see those people being protected, so I urge the Minister to make sure that, in whichever way possible, they become preferred creditors and are compensated; they should be at the front of the queue, not the back, when it comes to compensation.

On small and medium-sized enterprises, I would emphasise that, as everybody on the Committee knows, small businesses are the backbone of our economy. They employ about 14 million people, and it would be great if the European directive that is being renegotiated was changed so that many more firms could be protected. At the end of the day, although that would cost some extra money, it would save very many jobs and keep the economy going, and it would therefore be a good measure to have in place.

On new clause 21, it is important to remember that a lot of ordinary people do not realise the differences between brands. They may amass £10,000 in their current account and £15,000 in their individual savings account and so on, but at the end of the day, they will find that they will be compensated only for sums up to £85,000. We are talking about hard-earned money they have saved over many years. A lot of people do not quite appreciate the differences between brands and would find that they were not properly compensated. It is important that the provisions try to deal with the needs of ordinary consumers and small businesses with limited incomes. I urge that strong negotiations are carried out as soon as possible, so that the £85,000 is per brand, as opposed to the total amount that people can be compensated for.