Financial Services (Banking Reform) Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 2:15 pm on 26 March 2013.
Greg Clark
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury
This is a technical Clause, which sets out the parliamentary procedure that will apply to regulations made under new sections 142K and 410A of FSMA on funding for international organisations. It sets out that the affirmative resolution procedure will be used for all regulations, except those that only specify the name of an international organisation that comes within the scope of new section 410A, which will be subject to the negative resolution procedure.
The list of international organisations will be technical in nature. The reason why the negative resolution procedure is preferred is that some international organisations—in fact, the Financial Stability Board is the only one—have been known to change their names from time to time. The FSB was renamed from the Financial Stability Forum. Very occasionally, it will be necessary to tweak a name on the list, and that is the reason for the negative procedure. I hope that satisfies the Committee.
Chris Leslie
Shadow Minister (Treasury)
I do not object to the technical nature of the Clause. I am just perplexed that we need the provision for negative statutory instruments just because of a potential name change, which I would have thought would apply to a number of different aspects of the Bill. It would be useful, if we will not have an opportunity through the affirmative procedure to study and scrutinise the payment of the fees for international institutions—a negative resolution is a bit insubstantial—for the Minister to commit to a written ministerial statement if and when those sums become apparent, so that at least we can flag them up to the House. It is a shame that we will not have them all under the affirmative procedure. Otherwise, the Minister is almost in a good place on the matter.
Greg Clark
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury
I have no objection to that at all. It seems a very sensible way of keeping the House informed, and I am happy to commit to it.
A parliamentary bill is divided into sections called clauses.
Printed in the margin next to each clause is a brief explanatory `side-note' giving details of what the effect of the clause will be.
During the committee stage of a bill, MPs examine these clauses in detail and may introduce new clauses of their own or table amendments to the existing clauses.
When a bill becomes an Act of Parliament, clauses become known as sections.
A parliamentary bill is divided into sections called clauses.
Printed in the margin next to each clause is a brief explanatory `side-note' giving details of what the effect of the clause will be.
During the committee stage of a bill, MPs examine these clauses in detail and may introduce new clauses of their own or table amendments to the existing clauses.
When a bill becomes an Act of Parliament, clauses become known as sections.
Ministers make up the Government and almost all are members of the House of Lords or the House of Commons. There are three main types of Minister. Departmental Ministers are in charge of Government Departments. The Government is divided into different Departments which have responsibilities for different areas. For example the Treasury is in charge of Government spending. Departmental Ministers in the Cabinet are generally called 'Secretary of State' but some have special titles such as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Ministers of State and Junior Ministers assist the ministers in charge of the department. They normally have responsibility for a particular area within the department and are sometimes given a title that reflects this - for example Minister of Transport.
