Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (LD)

My Lords, it falls to me to open proceedings again. This is very much a “what it says on the tin” amendment. If it were phrased as the question “Will the deposit guarantee always be honoured?”, I would expect the answer to be yes. Last week, we discussed that there may be more than one recapitalisation dip. For a moment, let us imagine a worst-case scenario where there is more than one but things are worse than expected due to market circumstances—maybe contagion or other unforeseen circumstances—and the insolvency route has to be taken. Can we be certain that there would be no change to bank depositors’ entitlement—I do not think that is intended in any way, but I would like to hear the Minister say it—and that the system would have the capacity for whatever is thrown at it, if not cash capacity then some form of underwriting in addition to whatever borrowing is available? Does the overall capacity extend beyond the borrowing that is already set up or is it fundamentally underwritten by the Government? As they will get it back, I do not object to that; I am just inquiring as to what the mechanism is, although maybe one does not want to think about that until we get there, if we do. Are the state of the Financial Services Compensation Scheme and the affordability of the levy, if there had already been recent large calls, for example, a factor in the analysis of whether to mount a recapitalisation rather than allowing the insolvency? There could be public interest factors that relate not merely to the bank under consideration per se. Does the public interest consideration also extend to the state of the compensation scheme? I beg to move.