Baroness Noakes (Con)

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part. The predictions made by my noble friend Lady Vere on the content of the noble Lord’s response were pretty accurate in places. The noble Lord has not really engaged with the weak accountability that exists. The noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, is absolutely right about the use of the Bank of England as the resolution authority and giving it all those powers with almost no constraints whatever, other than consultation. Whoever chose to do that back in 2009—whichever Government were in power then—did not set up the right accountability environment for the use of those powers to exist. Once you put something inside the Bank of England, it is very difficult to engage in those issues, because it guards its independence on practically everything. This is one of the big issues that will need to be addressed at some stage. There may not have been an instance yet that has caused people generally to realise how dangerous it is to have large, unaccountable bodies in the public sector with huge powers but relatively weak accountability. That is because we are still muddling through, and it is frustrating to some people who are dealing with these regulators, including Ministers, that they cannot fully engage. We have not had one of those big instances where everybody says that we have the wrong model. In a sense, I know that my pleas for a greater level of accountability to be included in statute are not really being heard, but that will not stop me raising them at every single opportunity I can. Indeed, I have some more amendments through which to talk about accountability further. This has been a useful exchange. I will think about it further, having read the Minister’s response in Hansard. I will think further about whether I take this forward again on Report. For now, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.