Mr Ian Stewart: My hon. Friend has made an interesting and important intervention. I am sure, however, that he would not expect me now to follow through the implications of his remarks. I have no doubt that his words will not be lost on the Minister when he considers them. It is a pity that the Government, having come so far in their proposals for the National Giro, have stopped short of bringing its...
Mr Ian Stewart: While my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, Central (Mr. Moore) was on his feet, I was thinking about the implications of what the Minister said on amendment No. 5. As I understood it, he said that there might be a difference in attitude between existing deposits and the seeking of new ones. As the amendment is phrased, it appears to prohibit the institution from soliciting deposits, either...
Mr Ian Stewart: It would?
Mr Ian Stewart: I beg to move amendment No. 12, in page 25, line 2, leave out 'five' and insert 'two'. The point of the amendment, which follows a debate in Committee, relates to the length of deposits which should be excluded from the deposit base of a bank or a licensed institution for the purpose of assessing its contributions to the deposit protection fund. In Committee I suggested that it would be...
Mr Ian Stewart: I beg to move amendment No. 13, in page 26, line 37, leave out 'should' and insert may'. This was another point which occurred in Committee. It is not significant and it relates to a technicality. In Committee I suggested that there was an inconsistency in the wording between clause 26(5) and the preceding clause. The wording of clause 26(5) is: Any amount borrowed by virtue of subsection (3)...
Mr Ian Stewart: With your intervention, Mr. Deputy Speaker, with the presence of my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (Mr. Stradling Thomas) in the Whip's seat, and with the Minister's speech, the Celtic fringes of the kingdom are exerting their effect in a less happy way than occurred earlier in our proceedings. My hon. Friend the Member for Honiton (Mr. Emery) said that he thought he might not obtain...
Mr Ian Stewart: I beg to move amendment no. 19, in page 38, line 8, leave out or is carrying on a banking business". I am afraid that we shall have to spend a few moments on amendment No. 19. Clause 36, which is the equivalent of clause 35 in Committee, gave us as much trouble and anxiety as any other part of the Bill. It relates to restrictions on the use of banking names and descriptions by those in the...
Mr Ian Stewart: When I moved the amendment, I said that I was not sure that it was in a condition in which it either should or could be pressed. However, the further debate that we have had on the very sensitive area of definitions of banking, banking business and so on has not been without its value. It would have been very difficult for anyone to draft a suitable amendment to widen the freedom within the...
Mr Ian Stewart: I beg to move amendment No. 20, in page 38, line 32, leave out second 'the' and insert such'. This amendment proposes a small adjustment to the subsection that was inserted by the Government in Committee. It is designed to clarify the position so that only banking services can be described as banking services by licensed institutions that are able to take advantage of subsection (4). This...
Mr Ian Stewart: By leave of the House, Mr. Deputy Speaker, may I say that the Minister has a fair point, but I think that I also had one. Perhaps I should have suggested that the subsection should read "to any banking services provided by it". But I do not want to continue this semantic discussion, and, therefore I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Mr Ian Stewart: I do not expect the Minister to make a further reply but I want to make two points before we leave this debate. The first is a technical one. My hon. Friend for Croydon, Central (Mr. Moore) quoted from the letter of 12 February, which, unfortunately, my hon. Friend the Member for the City of London and Westminster, South (Mr. Brooke) has not seen, in which the Minister says: It is relevant...
Mr Ian Stewart: I was just about to say that technical terms are often invented in which all the parts are not strictly logical in the original sense of the words used, but this term is used widely. I was taught at school that the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, Roman nor imperial, but no one has thought of calling it anything else. If a term such as "investment banking" exists in international...
Mr Ian Stewart: I beg to move amendment no. 27, in page 50, line 24, leave out "immediate". The subsection to which this relates, subsection (4), contains a definition of the word "manager". It says: (4) 'Manager', in relation to an institution means a person (other than the chief executive) employed by the institution who, under the immediate authority of a director or chief executive of the institution—...
Mr Ian Stewart: I wish to thank the Minister for moving the amendment, which is perhaps better than those that we sought to make in Committee. It achieves the same effect. I am glad that this improvement can be incorporated in the Bill.
Mr Ian Stewart: I rise not as the Opposition spokesman on the Bill but as the hon. Member for Letchworth, and I do so to thank the Minister for having tabled amendment No. 30. It widens the definition in schedule 1 to cover the Letchworth garden city corporation most admirably. I hope that by choosing these words the Minister will have established a precedent which will find its way into other legislation....
Mr Ian Stewart: I beg to move amendment no. 33, in page 55, line 33, leave out 'and' and insert 'or'. This amendment takes up a point raised in Committee about the restrictive nature of the criteria set out in paragraph 2(2) of this part of the schedule, which defines the banking services which need to be provided for the purpose of qualification. In Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Honiton (Mr....
Mr Ian Stewart: First, I congratulate the Minister of State on the careful and constructive way in which he has handled the proceedings on this long and rather difficult Bill, both in Committee and on Report. The right hon. Gentleman has brought his considerable abilities to bear on it and it is the better for it. I thank him for the way in which he kept my hon. Friend and me and other members of the...
Mr Ian Stewart: We recognise that some form of categorisation is essential if we are to have a system of banking supervision. In the Bill as it stands, there is a two-tier system. Although doubts were expressed on Second Reading, that is the system with which we have had to deal. I think that it is perfectly acceptable have two tiers for the purposes of supervision, but not for names and terminology. We...
Mr Ian Stewart: Surely the simple point is this. The three projections which have been given are not considered by many people to be likely to span the actual outturn. Is the Chief Secretary saying that he expects that the outturn will be within the span of those three projections? If he is not, why could not a series of projections be given which would be likely to cover the expected result?
Mr Ian Stewart: Despite those strange concluding remarks made by the hon. Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English), there are at least two respects in which I am pleased to follow his remarks—first, because of his distinguished chairmanship of the General Sub-Committee of the Expenditure Committee, of which I am a member, and, secondly, because he has drawn attention, yet again, to the problem which that...
