Royal Bank of Scotland: LIBOR

Debate between Lord Morris of Aberavon and Lord Sassoon

Wednesday 4th July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sassoon]

My Lords, I was looking at the setting of one of the rates the other day, and there is a panel of 18 banks. I think that is typical of the number of currencies and the different time horizons, so it is of the order of 18 or so banks on each one. Of course, they are typically the complete spread of global banks. It is by no means an activity of UK banks, notwithstanding the name of the rate.

[Lord Morris of Aberavon]

My Lords—

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[Lord Morris of Aberavon]

Will the Minister confirm that the legal provisions for the offences of conspiracy to defraud and false accounting are sufficiently wide to cover most, if not all, of the wrongdoing in this field?

[Lord Sassoon]

The noble and learned Lord clearly points to a couple of very important offences in this area, but in the various inquiries that my right honourable friends have announced we also want to see whether there are any gaps. There is one obvious and glaring gap, which a Front-Bench spokesman from the Opposition conceded a couple of days ago, in that FiSMA is defective in the sense of not allowing direct prosecution for LIBOR fixing under the regime, and that needs to be put right.

FSA Investigation into LIBOR

Debate between Lord Morris of Aberavon and Lord Sassoon

Thursday 28th June 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Morris of Aberavon]

My Lords, when I was a young barrister, I occasionally prosecuted, on behalf of the Board of Trade, persons thought to be unfit to be directors of a public company. Those cases, as I recollect, were not all that difficult. The Minister has mentioned criminal sanctions, where of course the burden of proof is the usual one and it is high. Without prejudice to a particular case, is similar procedure still available to prevent directors holding positions in future on the grounds of unfitness?

[Lord Sassoon]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord. As I said, we have concerns about the question of directors, particularly directors of banks, to make sure that the regime is appropriate and tough enough. The regime for directors of banks, because of the special nature of their role, should be looked at on its own merits. That is why it is timely that the RBS report and consultation, going very much to this point, will be published next week by the Treasury. I hope that we will get a debate going about what is appropriate in terms of the special regime that might be appropriate for directors of failed banks if they are shown to have behaved negligently.

Government: Savings

Debate between Lord Morris of Aberavon and Lord Sassoon

Thursday 24th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sassoon]

I thank the noble Lord for his concern about the costs of bureaucracy in Brussels, about which we, too, are of course very concerned. The Government will be taking steps to make sure that the budget contribution to Europe fully reflects the need for Europe to restrain its costs. So far as concerns Eurocrats, we want to make sure that the best-quality British officials play their part as senior officials in Brussels.

[Lord Morris of Aberavon]

My Lords, what is being done to reduce the number of civil servants of the rank of Permanent Secretary in the Cabinet Office and Downing Street, of whom there are six in number?

[Lord Sassoon]

My Lords, while there are those six Permanent Secretaries in addition to the Permanent Secretaries in each department, we have over 600,000 civil servants in total. The main question is how we reduce the total number of civil servants, which increased by 28,000 under the previous Government.