Andrew Jones
Main Page: Andrew Jones (Conservative - Harrogate and Knaresborough)Department Debates - View all Andrew Jones's debates with the Department for Education
(12 years ago)
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Vince Cable
The inquiry that the Department is now carrying out will be into the conduct of the directors, and various consequences will flow from that. We cannot investigate the wider social consequences, but the hon. Gentleman is quite right that severe loss has been suffered, not just by the workers but by the Government, who are having to make up the redundancy pool.
Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)
Companies in my constituency have contacted me about how interest rate swap product mis-selling is threatening their very futures. May I urge my right hon. Friend to work with colleagues across the Government to try to resolve this issue as quickly as possible?
Vince Cable
I have already been working closely with the Bully-Banks group and the Federation of Small Businesses, which is deeply concerned about the problem. The scale of the scandal is becoming larger by the day, as more cases are uncovered. It is clear that the banks—or some of them—behaved extremely badly in the sale of such products. I am not fully satisfied that they are yet conforming with the spirit of the FSA’s advice on the matter; indeed, yesterday I met the chairman of the new regulatory authority to discuss with him how we can support small business more actively.