Alun Cairns
Main Page: Alun Cairns (Conservative - Vale of Glamorgan)Department Debates - View all Alun Cairns's debates with the HM Treasury
(1 year, 9 months ago)
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Andrew Griffith
Interest rates are not only falling but are still below the level at which they peaked under the last Labour Government, despite the fact that we have had a covid pandemic and war in Ukraine. I welcome the news last week from the Office for Budget Responsibility that the country is on track to avoid a recession, and we must never forget the words of the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne): there is no money left.
Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)
A competitive and viable banking sector is essential to offer competitive mortgages to constituents right across the country. What assessment has my hon. Friend made of the treatment of additional tier 1 bonds in relation to the Credit Suisse takeover, which could well undermine the sector elsewhere, and what assessment has he made of the value of those bonds here in the UK?
Andrew Griffith
I thank my right hon. Friend for his comments. The Government join the Bank of England in welcoming the comprehensive set of actions taken yesterday by the Swiss authorities to ensure financial stability. It would not be for me to talk from the Dispatch Box about the treatment of creditors, but the UK’s bank resolution framework has a clear statutory order in which shareholders and creditors would bear losses in a resolution or insolvency scenario.