Banking

Aidan Burley Excerpts

Wednesday 9th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

First, I respect the hon. Gentleman’s consistency on this issue. Secondly, I said explicitly that I did not think that the anger would disappear any time soon; memories will be long of what has gone wrong in recent years. It will help that bank boards will at least be aware of the some of the salaries that are being paid in their organisations, which they simply were not under the previous regime. That is one thing that clearly went wrong at the Royal Bank of Scotland.

[Mr Aidan Burley (Cannock Chase) (Con)]

A man named Tom Bell set up a charity in my constituency to improve the quality of life for tens of thousands of disabled and disadvantaged kids. He was awarded the OBE for his efforts. In assessing the rewards given to bankers, what does the Chancellor make of the five peerages, eight knighthoods, seven CBEs, four OBEs and four MBEs that were given to bankers by the Labour Government?

[Mr Osborne]

The statistics speak for themselves. Of course, the shadow Chancellor used to be the chief economic adviser and, given that almost everything at the Treasury was signed off by him, he presumably signed off the knighthood for Sir Fred Goodwin. Perhaps in one of our future encounters we will hear the truth about that.