It will also include "a ‘special resolution regime’ to allow the authorities (HM Treasury, Bank of England and FSA) to intervene when a bank gets into severe difficulties. This includes the introduction of an insolvency regime for banks" - the details of this will be very interesting to see. The original consultation document is here. The bill's scheduled to come before Parliament later this year or in 2009.

And a paper (via Felix Salmon) on the rice market that tells a startling story...

...Because of its WTO commitments under the Uruguay Round Agreement, Japan imports a
substantial amount of medium-grain rice from the U.S. and long-grain rice from Thailand and
Vietnam. Tokyo, however, seeks to keep most of this rice away from Japanese consumers
(perhaps fearing a realization that the taste of foreign indica rice is not so bad and a bargain
compared to the $3,900-per-ton locally-produced short-grain varieties of japonica rice). But
under WTO rules, the government cannot re-export the rice, except in relatively limited quantities as grant aid. So the Japanese government simply stores its imported rice until the
quality deteriorates to the point that it is suitable only as livestock feed and sells it to domestic
livestock operators. Last year about 400,000 tons of rice were disposed of in this manner at a
huge budget loss...
Japan currently has over 1.5 million tons of this rice in storage, roughly 900,000 tons of U.S.
medium-grain rice and 600,000 tons of long-grain rice from Thailand and Vietnam. Most of this
rice is in good condition, and is incurring large storage charges...

Selling the rice would help the tight market (and incidentally make the Japanese government a lot of money, so they're all for it) but it needs US consent, according to this paper, and the US is worried about offending its own rice farmers. (Who are presumably also making money hand over fist, given the state of the world market.) More to the point, giving it away (say, to the victims of the recent cyclone) would also be a financial bonus for Japan, as it wouldn't have to pay storage charges.

So it's common human decency and the profit motive on one side, and inertia, protectionism and laziness on the other... no, I'm not holding my breath either.