Royal Bank of Scotland

Baroness Kramer Excerpts

Wednesday 1st July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords—

[The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Stowell of Beeston) (Con)]

My Lords, both opposition parties have already asked a question, but the Labour Party fielded its Front Bench first, so, arguably, it should be the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

That is not the prospect. Since the policy was announced, the shares have actually gone up. The independent advice we received from Rothschild said that giving a strong signal that it was ready for sale would help the share price. By letting some shares go now, the free float would increase and the benefit to the taxpayer would be increased. The Governor of the Bank of England concurred.

[Baroness Kramer]

My Lords, the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards specifically recommended exactly the study that my noble friend Lord Sharkey described because of the lack of diversity in the UK’s banking system. Given that report after report has identified lack of diversity and lack of local banks as the biggest barriers to securing both economic growth and financial stability, why did the Government specifically ignore diversity in the review that they carried out?

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

My Lords, we have not ignored diversity. We are committed to increasing competition in banking to improve outcomes for consumers. The Government have an ambitious programme of reforms to increase competition in banking. This includes, for example, divesting both Williams & Glyn and TSB from RBS and Lloyds, creating a seven-day current account switch service, and delivering more data to enable customers to compare which bank is best for them—I could go on.