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Banking Bill (Money)

We welcome the fact that amendment 20 was accepted in the House of Lords and we are happy that it forms part of the amended Bill. However, will the Minister help me out on one issue? When the amendment was debated in the other place, the point was made that there were provisions under clause 74 that would allow the Treasury to make regulations about the fiscal consequences of the exercise of the stabilisation power. When a normal transaction takes place, there are fairly well established precedents about how tax should be dealt with; corporation tax, for example, is apportioned between the former owner of a company and its new owner, based on when the completion date was. There are mechanisms for calculating what the tax bill would be. Will the Minister explain a little more about what he thinks the fiscal consequences of the exercise of the stabilisation power will be and where the Government are on making regulations on that? That would be helpful. On Lords amendments 51 to 53 and 95, one of the themes running through our consideration of the Bill is that there should be proper parliamentary scrutiny of the secondary legislation, so we welcome the Government's moves to accept more situations in which regulations should be dealt with through the affirmative procedure rather than the negative procedure.