CITATION (Hansard, 28 April 1995)

§ Mr. French
I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.
We are coming, I hope, to the conclusion of the proceedings. The Bill will come into force on Royal Assent. It will apply to any transfer where the vesting date comes later. This is an important provision that is designed specifically to deal with the circumstances of the Lloyd's bank takeover of the Cheltenham and Gloucester building society.
The terms of the transfer include, as we heard earlier, a provision of up to £25 million to pay eligible widows and other survivors of deceased first-named holders, provided the Bill is enacted before the proposed vesting date of 1 August.
Clause 2(2) removes any doubt about the application of the Bill. For example, it might otherwise have been argued that the Bill could apply only to cases where the transfer agreement had been signed between the bank and the building society, or where the transfer resolutions had been passed by the members after the enactment. Both those events are already past in the Cheltenham and Gloucester building society case.
By passing the Bill today, the House will make it possible for the provisions in the transfer agreement of the Cheltenham and Gloucester building society to be enacted, even though the vote has already taken place and 1129 the vesting dates and distribution of bonuses are not destined to take place until 1 August. I hope that the House will therefore accept how essential clause 2 is.
As the House knows, this has been a ten-minute Bill. Such Bills are rare and delicate flowers that must go down a perilous and treacherous path. It seems that few make it. I hope and believe that the House's mood today is that the Bill will make it. I look forward to that happening.

§ Mr. Duncan
I add my voice in support of the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester. It is essential that the clause be included in the Bill. It would be appalling if we passed a Bill that was designed to clear up an anomaly and a problem, only to prompt a judicial review or a horrible law case because the triggering of the Bill is not clear. The Lords amendment clears the matter up to ensure that the legislation is not retrospective or, as it might be more properly be described, retroactive. The amendment must be incorporated in the Bill and I hope that the House will pass it today.

§ Mr. Nelson
The amendment may appear to be a technical consequent amendment, but it arose as a result of, I believe, consultation with interested parties by my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester. A good deal of debate took place about the provision in another place. At that time, the points made by my hon. Friend for Rutland and Melton were deliberated.
Both the Government and, I believe, my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester received a number of representations on the matter. Undoubtedly, some 1130 unforeseen grievances and injustices would have arisen if we had not attended to it, and so the provisions on vesting dates were brought forward.
As my hon. Friend said, clause 2 states the Bill's short title. The Government amended the clause in another place by adding a provision to the effect that the Bill will apply in any case where vesting day falls after the Bill has been passed. It will therefore come into force on Royal Assent.
I hope that the House will agree to the further amendment. Although hon. Members may be supporting amendments that appear somewhat complex to the Bill, I hope that the explanation I have given in response to amendments Nos. 1 and 2, the latter of which refers to the important matter of vesting, will provide some clarity on those complex issues. By introducing the amendment, as well as amendment No. 1, we have provided for a reasonably wide range of possible situations that could arise in the course of a building society conversion or takeover.
As I have already explained, the amendments do not attempt to deal with every possible anomaly. We have had to take care to have regard to the scope of the Bill and not to overload it with rafts of changes, which might have endangered its passage.
The Bill, as amended in another place, will, I believe, now cure by far the majority of real inequities that have been identified in connection with takeovers and conversions. I hope that the House will now allow it to complete its final stages without further delay.