Finance (No. 3) Bill

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Leslie]

Indeed. Were it possible under the rules of order for the Opposition to table an amendment to increase the bank levy rate, we probably would have done so. However, we were unable to do so because of the slightly arcane rules of order. We need to examine the rationale behind the rate chosen by the Minister and understand why the Government moved from a threshold approach to triggering the bank levy, to a tax-free allowance of a certain amount before which banks would pay against the chargeable liabilities of the bank levy.

We also need to understand whether the bank levy is, as my hon. Friend suggests, an adequate step when considered in the context of the wider economy and public finances. Ultimately, we need to understand whether the Treasury is being straight with the public and honest about the taxes that the banks will pay over the years ahead. We have debated the Government’s approach to the banking sector before, and we look forward to the final report of the Vickers commission on the state of competition and regulation of the banks so that never again can these institutions take such extreme risks and gambles that land in the lap of the taxpayer when the going gets tough, as they did before the credit crunch.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

The Government are seeking to take £2.5 billion in revenue from the tax that they have imposed, but has my hon. Friend assessed the corporation tax reductions that the banks will experience, which are thought to be £100 million this year? Has he projected the figure by the end of the Parliament? Can we arrive at a net figure to see the real impact of the Government’s policy?

[Chris Leslie]

My hon. Friend makes an extremely prescient intervention, because the Chancellor, under pressure from the Opposition, had to cave in to a concession on corporation tax in the March Budget. The Government announced the bank levy last June, so we knew that they would be introducing this tax, yet the corporation tax cuts will clearly benefit the banks significantly. The Treasury claims that in the March Budget it offset the benefit that the banks will apparently get as a result of the reduction in corporation tax rates, but we will have to wait to see whether the slight increase in the bank levy—around £100 million—introduced in the Budget will be sufficient to offset the full corporation tax cuts that the banks will enjoy over the lifetime of this Parliament. I recall that the written answer to a question I tabled on the predicted benefits to the banks of the corporation tax reductions suggested that that would be about £100 million in year one, £200 million in year two, £300 million in year three, and so on, but that largely reflects the reductions in corporation tax rates. That is something of a moot point, because we contend that the design of the bank levy is insufficient. Today’s debate should provide an opportunity to seek proper redress for the crisis and ensure that we put the banks on a fair tax basis, but that is not what the Government are seeking with this pathetically small bank levy proposal.

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[Chris Leslie]

My hon. Friend is entirely right, and that is why we have to take a step back and look at the context of today’s debate. The Government are clearly still on the side of the big banks at a time not just when the living standards and wages of ordinary people are being frozen or reduced, but when vital public services are being slashed. Indeed, it is worth reminding ourselves of the consequences of the cuts that the Government are pursuing.

Teaching assistants, youth workers, library staff and lollipop ladies are being made redundant; binmen, street cleaners, environmental health officers and park keepers are disappearing from our neighbourhoods; police detectives, forensic scientists, 999 operatives and police community support officers are no longer affordable in the fight against crime; and hospital cleaners, nurses, paramedics and ward clerks are having their posts eradicated when the NHS needs them more than ever. How dare Ministers say that we are all in this together when they take such a weak and feeble approach to the banks.

[Barry Gardiner]

My hon. Friend seeks to use an argument based on contrast, but there is also an argument based on causality. In his remarks, it has to be made clear that the causal relationship between the misery that some people will suffer over the next few years and the actions of some bankers is very real. There is real disquiet in the House about the Government’s proposal not just because some people are doing well and some are doing less well, but because, given that contrast, there is a causal relationship for those people doing badly.

[Chris Leslie]

Absolutely, and, as we have heard time and again, Government Members clearly do not understand the causes of the deficit, so they are not the right people to solve it. If they understood and acknowledged that the banks played a significant role in causing the deficit, maybe—just maybe—we would take up their suggestions on how we go forward, but they choose to ignore the role that the banks played—[Laughter.] If the hon. Members for Chippenham (Duncan Hames) and for St Austell and Newquay (Stephen Gilbert) think that the banks did not play a role in the deficit, we will all be interested to hear from them, but surely they have to acknowledge that point.

The bonus pools and pots continue to be significant, however, and some bankers receive obscene, life-changing sums of money, so we do not really need to worry too much about poor banking executives; we should worry about those who depend on vital services but will now go without as a result of Ministers’ choices.

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[Chris Leslie]

May I make a little progress? Time is short.

As a result of European Union reforms championed by Labour Members of the European Parliament who tried their best to restrain some of the excess, some bank bonuses must now be deferred and given in the form of shares. Bankers cannot take them in cash immediately. However, the Minister needs to explain why he is counteracting those bonus deferral arrangements by introducing a loophole in new section 554H, in schedule 2, allowing a concession to bankers whose bonuses are paid largely in the form of shares rather than cash. Rather than having to pay the tax at the point at which the bonus is awarded, they will need only to pay it on a date down the line when the shares are sold, possibly avoiding the current 50p rate of tax. The Sunday Times wrote about that last weekend. There is speculation that the Chancellor will cut the 50p rate at some point, and that, as a result of the Minister’s reforms, bankers will be allowed to wait and to avoid it. Can the Minister explain why he has made that valuable concession?

[Barry Gardiner]

Will my hon. Friend clarify the chronology? Subsection (1)(d) of new section 554H states that the section applies if

“the vesting date is not more than five years after the award date”.

Does he believe that the Government are certain to reduce the 50p rate within the lifetime of this Parliament?

[Chris Leslie]

I do not know whether we have to hope that the Liberal Democrats will take strong action before that moment comes—I do not know whether that is an oxymoron—but the Government have dangled the prospect of a tax cut for only the very richest people. It is interesting that they are designing the Bill’s provisions to allow the potential avoidance of the 50p rate following what I considered to be a fairly positive change at European level to defer bonuses in an attempt to discourage short-term high-risk activities.

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[Mr Redwood]

The Front-Bench team and I were at one on this issue: we were saying that what was needed were better regulation and less regulation. The Government were regulating too many things badly. As I have just explained, they were regulating mortgage banks in a way that allowed all, or at least several, of them to be crippled and caused a great many problems. The hon. Gentleman is quite wrong about Baroness Thatcher: much stricter controls over cash and capital were imposed throughout her period in office, and, of course, no major bank went down during that period. The same cannot be said of 2007-10, when the requirements were much laxer, as I highlighted in the report, and when we ended up with banks going down.

We are not here to debate past regulation, however; we are here to debate taxation. My purpose in sketching the history of this tragic situation is to express solidarity with all those who agree with the public mood, which is that we want to get a bigger return out of the banks, whatever we may think are the reasons why they are in their present position, but it is also to remind the House of a very important and salient fact, which is that two of the biggest banks are wholly or partially in state ownership or control. We are therefore talking about taxing ourselves in no small measure.

The issue before Ministers is a little more complicated than the Labour spokesman has suggested, because there are two ways in which we can get cash out of the banks: one is to tax them now on their stream of revenue, or their assets and liabilities in the case of the bank levy tax; the other is to move more quickly to sell off those assets back into private sector ownership and, I hope, proper private sector risk taking. If we are to get the maximum receipt, we do not want to be taking too much money out of the banks in the short term by way of taxation, because for every £1 of tax we take out of them, we lose £5, £10 or £15, depending on the multiple we sell them on when we come to sell them.

[Barry Gardiner]

The right hon. Gentleman is making a very coherent presentation, but does he not agree that if we do not want to be taking money out of the banks by taxing them, equally we do not want to see that money going out of the banks by way of bonuses paid to their high-end staff?

[Mr Redwood]

I hasten to correct the hon. Gentleman: of course I think we have to tax banks. We have to tax ourselves, and we need to tax the other banks in the system, as well as the state-owned ones, but we must also consider the balance of effects and the impact on shareholder value. I entirely agree with those who say that if a bank is state subsidised or largely state owned and is therefore in receipt of state money, it is surprising that it should be paying very large bonuses. It is even more surprising if the bank is loss-making, because although an individual employee in that bank may be able to say, “I personally made a profit to offset some of the losses,” the senior people in the bank are corporately responsible for the overall results. It is at the very least surprising if a loss-making bank is making rather big pay-outs, because that is taxpayers’ money and taxpayers’ wealth being paid out to those individuals, which, as the hon. Gentleman rightly says, is not then available to sell as a stream of profits when the shares are returned to the private sector.

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[Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)]

The general public are outraged at the levels of bankers’ bonuses, which remain very high indeed. The Government were forced, as we are all aware, into multi-billion pound bank bail-outs during the financial crisis. Quite simply, people cannot understand why bankers and people employed in the financial institutions have been given billions and billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money at a time of great austerity.

To pay massive bonuses in the midst of a financial crisis is a national disgrace, as it is to pay massive bonuses at a time when public sector services are being destroyed and young people face an unprecedented attack via tuition fees, the abolition of the education maintenance allowance and changes in Sure Start. Last year, Barclays boss Bob Diamond and his two replacements at the head of the investment bank were paid an obscene amount of money: £28 million. The trio also received shares worth £40 million for past performance. That must have been some performance!

I have just done some calculations. The people who are now receiving redundancy notices in the public services—many council workers, nurses, doctors, police officers and the rest—would be lucky to have a bonus of £50 a week. That is £2,500 a year, £25,000 over 10 years and £125,000 over 100 years. So to make £1 million, they would have to live until they were 400. To make the £28 million that the Barclays heads were given, they would have to live to 11,200. That is highly unlikely—I am merely accentuating the point—but those figures are an absolute disgrace.

[Barry Gardiner]

I do not wish to disturb my hon. Friend’s flow, but is he aware that I was informed by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority the other day that I could not raise any of my staff’s salaries, even though they have been the same for a year, because they are public servants? If I wanted to give them any reward for exceptional service, the maximum I was allowed to give was a £15 token each year for a meal. Where can anyone get a meal for £15 around here? It is absolutely disgraceful, when such sums are being given out to the bankers.

[Ian Lavery]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question, which is a great way of introducing IPSA into the debate on the Finance Bill. I think we would have agreement on that point across the House.

Let me get back to the discussion. Barclays bosses were compared to Somali pirates by one of their own shareholders, amid anger over their obscene bonuses. Shareholders lined up to vent their fury at the annual meeting, complaining that their dividends had plummeted while senior executives continued to enjoy huge pay packets. Another shareholder accused the executives of rank historical folly, saying:

“In these times of austerity the seemingly excessive payments to senior bank staff seems to show the lack of wisdom reminiscent of Marie Antoinette saying let them eat cake.”

HSBC has tried to seize the high ground by announcing a reduction in maximum bonuses for top bosses, but chief executives could still receive a package of more than £12.5 million this year. This mammoth pay deal comprises a salary of £1.25 million plus up to £7.5 million in long-term bonus shares and a possible £3.75 million annual bonus. Some reduction. That is why the bankers must pay their share, and why the Labour party are seeking this amendment to ensure that that happens.

This recession was not made in Britain; it is a global recession. Let me set the scene for a minute or so. In the decade before the financial crisis, Labour cut Britain’s national debt and Britain’s deficit. Both were lower than the amounts we inherited from the Tories. Before the financial crash we had a lower national debt than America, France, Germany or Japan. The crisis was caused by the financial institutions—by these banks. Governments and central banks were also, of course, at fault, including in Britain, where we did not see it coming and should have been tougher in regulating the banks.

The cry from those on the Conservative Benches, and from the City, for lighter regulation of the banks should have been totally ignored—and, yes, Labour should have been tougher on the banks. When the City and the Tories called for lighter regulation, we should have ignored them and been tougher still. Our priority, however, was to prevent recession turning into depression and to keep people in jobs. We always said that once the economy was growing strongly, tough decisions would be needed to get the deficit down again. The plan, as we all know, was to halve the deficit in four years, including through a continuation of Labour’s bank bonus tax.

The crisis was not the result of our spending on essential front-line services such as the NHS, schools, police, local authorities or any other public service.

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[Stella Creasy]

My hon. Friend hits the nail on the head, because proposed paragraph (b) of amendment 9 talks about wider reform of our banking system. Many Opposition Members have called for action on access to affordable credit, but this is not just about credit unions; it is about the schemes that housing associations have put forward. In that context, I register my disgust at the fact that a housing association was recently taken to the Advertising Standards Authority by The Money Shop for daring to point out to their tenants the cost of borrowing from such companies—and was, indeed, censured.

The question of how we deal with banking reform, so that everybody can access affordable credit and there is not a new dividing line in our communities between those who can get on in life and families who are scarred with debt for generations, is a key concern for me, and many Opposition Members are concerned about what the Bill and the amendments can do to promote such measures.

[Barry Gardiner]

I welcome all the energy and work that my hon. Friend has put into that subject. Does she share my disgust at the fact that, here we are, debating an issue that affects literally hundreds of thousands of our constituents and, in terms of bankers' bonuses, dealing with one of the biggest issues before the public, yet there are precisely two people sitting on the Conservative Benches?

[Stella Creasy]

My hon. Friend makes a good point about the importance of this Bill putting first the needs of this country and, therefore, about the importance that others attach to it. I hope that we have support from members in all parts of the House for the need to act on the high-cost credit market. There has certainly been support among Government Back Benchers; noticeably, however, Government Front Benchers have so far reacted with negativity to that support. I hope that they will change their minds, given the possibilities that we have through the Bill, the amendment and, indeed, the regulatory measures being considered to make progress on an issue that concerns many Members. Our concerns are about a number of products—I want to put on record what we are talking about—and the lack of action on such products in contrast to dealing with the bank levy and whether it is applied appropriately.

First, there are payday loans. Many people will be familiar with the concept of a short-term loan, and given that almost half of households cannot make their pay cheques last to the end of the month, it is no surprise that almost one third of households are now considering such products. Interest rates on such loans include one from a company called Oakam, of about 443%; and many people will be familiar with Wonga, whose rates are more at the 4,000% level. We are also talking about the home credit industry and companies such as Provident. Many people will be familiar with Provident going from door to door in their communities lending money to people at interest rates of, say, 272%. That means that if someone borrows just £300 from the company—perhaps to buy a new sofa or TV, or to fix a washing machine or a boiler that has gone wrong over the winter—that will cost them £546.

Were we to use this amendment and the opportunity of the bank levy to deal with some of these problems and with the actions of some of these companies, we would be encouraging the Government to look at the concept of adequacy and consider some of the issues in that market. First, there is the lack of competition in providing credit to those who are denied mainstream credit. That is embodied in the fact that there is no innovation in these products; they are very similar. There is therefore a great contrast with people who are able to borrow from mainstream creditors. Many people will be familiar with mainstream banks offering preferential rates and loyalty schemes to customers who they want to hold on to because they know that they have alternative sources of credit. We could apply the bank levy to the question of adequacy and ask whether these companies are acting in a way that is detrimental to consumers and whether the lack of competition is detrimental to consumers and to our economy. Many people have expressed concern that our banking industry is already overloaded, which requires more competition. I would argue that there needs to be more competition in lending to people who cannot access mainstream credit, and this is one way in which we could achieve that.

A quarter of the customers who use high-cost-credit companies cannot borrow from other lenders. As a consequence, they do not build up the evidence of being good borrowers that would allow them to use mainstream sources of credit. These companies do not share information on their customers, making it incredibly difficult for customers to prove that they could use more mainstream sources of credit. The question of adequacy could also be applied to companies’ use of rollovers and stepping up of loans, which means that borrowers are stuck with using them. In particular, because they often lend only small amounts of money to begin with—

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[Stella Creasy]

The hon. Gentleman appears to be arguing that the money that would be raised by the bank levy should be given to the high-cost credit industry. Far be it from me to suggest that he wants to support those kinds of businesses. I know that some Liberal Democrat Members have been very supportive of these companies—mistakenly, because if they were to talk to the local communities affected by them, they would realise how damaging they are.

Let me be very clear: I am arguing for the ability of the Government to review the bank levy and for a review to consider whether it could be applied in such a way as to discourage lending that is detrimental to consumers. I have firmly in my sights the high-cost credit industry and the detriment that it causes to our local communities. I hope that Ministers will accept the amendment and explore whether the bank levy could be used to act as a positive behavioural challenge on these companies, because that would benefit many people in our country. I do not want to see investment in the high-cost credit industry, and I am sure that the hon. Member for Bradford East (Mr Ward) did not mean to suggest that, but I do want to see action on it, and I know that I am not alone in this House in hoping for that.

If the Government will not accept the amendment, I will table more amendments and keep pressing this issue, and I hope that other Members will join me in support. The Minister is shaking his head. I hope that he has spoken to the many Members on his own Benches who do not shake their heads and walk on by as people are preyed on by these companies. I spent yesterday with 900 members of London Citizens Black Clergy Caucus, who will be seeking urgent meetings with the Ministers responsible. Ministers may think they can ignore me or ignore Labour Members, but I hope that they will not ignore the millions of people who are struggling to pay their bills and make ends meet, and for whom these companies are increasingly the only option. Regulation has worked effectively in other countries, and it could be achieved through this Bill. I hope that the Minister will look at the case seriously and not dismiss it out of hand as he appears to be doing.

[Barry Gardiner]

It seems to me that when it comes to bonuses, the clue is in the word. If one looks at the etymology, the word “bonus” comes from the Latin: it means “good”. In fact, it should be “bonum”, as with “maximum”, “minimum” and “premium”, so that we had “bonum” and “bona”, but let us leave that aside. The bonus culture in the banks is supposed to be for something good—for good performance—and yet, certainly within the banks that are largely owned by the public, these bonuses are being given almost uniformly for bad performances: they are “malum”, not “bonum”. It is really quite ridiculous that these bonuses should be paid and that the Government should be proposing to levy such a low rate against them.

The right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) gave us a bit of the history of how the recession had come about and the context in which these bonuses were being paid. Interestingly, however, his history stopped in 2006 or 2007, when he published a paper about the regulatory regime and the need for tighter regulation. To find out the true history of this, one has to go back to a time before 2006 and 2007, and beyond this country, to look at the sub-prime market in the United States in 2000. At that time, the proportion of mortgages in the United States that were lent to sub-prime borrowers was just 5%. Between 2000 and 2005, that increased to 47%. That meant that by 2005, 45% of mortgages in the US were in arrears by two months, or more than 60 days. That is the origin of the problem.

Much has been said by Government Members to try to set the recession in context. For months, they have said that it was because of the Labour Government’s disastrous economic management. Of course, the context for it is in the United States, where what happened with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two major mortgage-lending institutions, was the beginning of the collapse of what had been a virtuous circle, and what became a vicious one. Those institutions could not lend because they were not getting revenues in, which was because people with mortgages were more than two months in arrears. That meant that there was a drying up of credit in the system in the United States.

One of my hon. Friends—I cannot remember who—mentioned the role played by the rating agencies. The way in which the situation impacted more widely on the economy, first in the United States and subsequently elsewhere, was through the securitisation of mortgages into bundles to create revenue streams for companies and, indeed, for financial institutions.

[Andrew Gwynne]

My hon. Friend is making a perfectly good point about the historical context of the global downturn. Is it not the case that the bubble burst because financial institutions across the globe were not certain about the packages that they had bought, because of the unpicking of those packages, and because of the percentages of those packages that were made up of bad debt?

[Barry Gardiner]

My hon. Friend is right, but perhaps he has missed a further element of that toxic mix. That is not the role of the rating agencies, although they played their part in bundling up sub-prime mortgages. In order to securitise them into revenue streams for companies, they had looked at the historical rate of default in the sub-prime sector in 2000, when only 5% of the market was being sold to sub-prime borrowers, not in 2005, when the figure was 47%. The effect was that many companies had security streams that were not very secure. The piece of the toxic mix that we need to introduce is the way in which hedge funds brought to bear their financial might.

[The Temporary Chair (Mr James Gray)]

rose—

[Barry Gardiner]

I give way to Mr Gray.

[The Temporary Chair]

Order. The hon. Gentleman is not giving way to the Chair, but resuming his seat. He is giving an interesting explanation of the causes of the banking crisis. He must relate his point to amendment 9, which we are discussing, rather than dilating more generally on the subject.

[Barry Gardiner]

Of course I wish to abide by your ruling, Mr Gray. I am referring to earlier comments in the debate, which I am sure you heard, from the right hon. Member for Wokingham, who was not ruled out of order. He gave an interesting explanation of the history of what we are discussing.

[The Temporary Chair]

Order. I was not in the Chair at that time. It seems to me important that we relate the debate to what we are supposed to be debating, namely amendment 9. I am not aware of what happened previously, but I suggest that the hon. Gentleman relates his comments directly to the amendment.

[Barry Gardiner]

I am very happy to do so, Mr Gray. We are talking about a bank levy, and amendment 9 refers to

“the Government’s analysis behind the rate and threshold chosen for the bank levy”.

It seems to me that if one is to perform an analysis of the rate and threshold chosen, one has to understand how these things came about and the historical context. More importantly, one has to understand the regulatory context and what went wrong in the regulatory system. Much of the debate has been about that regulatory structure. I am seeking to address subsection (2)(a) proposed in the amendment. That is exactly the import of my remarks.

As the hedge funds brought their pressure to bear, they identified the problem of the companies’ overvaluation in the market. They saw that the structure of the bundled streams of security was not providing the security to the companies that the market believed it was providing. The hedge funds then short sold on those companies. That was an important regulatory failure. There was no uptake rule and no clear limit on the arbitrage window that was allowed for trading on such shares, so the short selling allowed the hedge funds to beat down the value of those financial institutions in such a way that there was a precipitation of the collapse of the credit that could flow through the financial institutions, which infected all the other companies in the stock exchange. That is how the situation became a global crisis.

In addressing the analysis that the amendment asks the Government to engage in, I urge them to take seriously the regulatory failings at that time. [Interruption.] The Financial Secretary says from a sedentary position that those were the mistakes of the previous Government. What I am pointing out to him is that they were not simply mistakes made by the previous Government, but mistakes that were made on a global scale. The financial crisis started in the sub-prime market in the US, and that infected the global markets. The reason that it took hold in the UK, to the detriment of this country, was that we had placed an over-reliance on the financial markets and the financial sector as opposed to manufacturing and industry.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

Does my hon. Friend agree that if we had listened to those on the Conservative Front Bench, including the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who did not want to intervene in Northern Rock and wanted to let banks go bust, the banking crisis in this country would have—[Interruption.] The Economic Secretary chunters from a sedentary position, but what I am saying was said by the—[Interruption.] She can keep chuntering, but the truth hurts. The fact of the matter is that if we had listened to the Chancellor—

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[Barry Gardiner]

I am of course always happy to abide by your ruling, Mr Gray, so I will move on to focus on the adequacy of the bank levy in the context of other reforms to the wider banking system. It is clear that those other reforms are necessary. We can debate the history at length, and we may take different lessons from that history about the type of regulatory reform that we wish to see, but I want to focus on the adequacy of the levy.

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[Mr Love]

Is it not also the case that the taxpayer has given the banking system an unlimited guarantee, and that according to the Bank of England, we are subsidising the banks to the tune of about £100 billion a year? Yet even with all that support, they still demand that they should be able to pay massive bonuses.

[Barry Gardiner]

Indeed. The support that the country has given the banks is perfectly right, in my view. I disagree with the right hon. Member for Wokingham on the matter. He said that he would not have bailed out the banks at all. His position was very clear—he takes a very hard monetarist line and says that if the banks fail, they fail. Labour Members believe that the consequences of that failure cannot simply be ignored.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

Is that not exactly the line that the Chancellor took when he was shadow Chancellor? He argued that intervention was not important in the case of Northern Rock, for example. If we had followed what he suggested and had less regulation of the banking system, we would have been in a worse situation than we are now.

[Barry Gardiner]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. To give the right hon. Member for Wokingham his due, he did distinguish his own position on the issue from that of his party’s Front Benchers. Both would have failed to support Northern Rock, the consequences of which would have been disastrous for savers, but the right hon. Gentleman would have gone further. He would have stopped any support for the wider banking system, including for Halifax, the Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds. There we see the consequences of policies that had their origin in “There’s no such thing as society.” Only if someone does not pay regard to society can they adopt such a hard-line position, because it ignores the consequences of failure and the effect on ordinary human beings—not just savers but, as he said, investors. The structural consequences of the failure would have been economically disastrous for this country.

[Andrew Gwynne]

Is it not also the case that the banking system is getting the best of both worlds? Over the past few years it has received very substantial support for the taxpayer, but at the same time as paying itself ever-increasing bonuses it is refusing to invest in local companies and valid business propositions in all our constituencies, thus hampering economic growth across the country. Is it not right that the bank levy is introduced for a second year and beyond through the reviews suggested in the amendment, so that we can get that growth back into the economy?

[Barry Gardiner]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point in contrasting the lending policies of the banks with the bonuses that they seek to pay, particularly to their higher-end staff. The Government have to be much clearer in the regulatory demands that they impose on the banks, because they are speaking with forked tongue. On one hand, they are insisting that there is tighter regulation and that there is a regime to ensure that there are adequate reserves and far more stringency in the banks’ investment policies. On the other hand, they are on the side of business, urging the banks to lend more money. It is not possible for them to have it both ways, and we must not fall into that trap either. Either the Government have to say, “We want tighter regulation, and to hell with small business”, or they have to say, “No, we want small businesses to thrive, because we want growth in the economy”, in which case the regulatory regime for banks has to allow for that.

That does not affect my hon. Friend’s point, because he is absolutely right to contrast the bonus structure with the banks’ lending policy. The bankers expect the situation to be all good for them, but it is not so good when they are dishing out the money at the other end.

[Andrew Gwynne]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. Is not the real problem that we are actually getting neither of the things that he mentions? We are getting neither effective regulation of the banks nor money flowing into small and medium-sized enterprises.

[Barry Gardiner]

That is the sad fact of our situation. I am sure that all of us, as constituency MPs, have business people coming to us saying that they cannot get credit. Indeed, many successful businesses that have had no change in their circumstances are suddenly being told by their banks that their credit facilities are no longer there. The banks are unilaterally changing the terms of those facilities, and the Government must do something about that. They cannot on one hand let the banks off with a £20 billion tax allowance for bonuses and, on the other hand, say that they do not have to ensure that they are lending to small businesses.

The difference between Opposition and Government Members goes right to the heart of whether we believe that the most important thing to do is to get growth back into the economy, get money flowing into small businesses and pay people a decent wage rather than make them redundant—that means that their spending on goods and services does not contract, and they spend money on brown goods and white goods and generate wealth and jobs in the economy, so that we grow our way through the problems—or whether we believe that we have simply to cut, cut, cut the public sector and pay, pay, pay the bankers’ bonuses.

[John McDonnell]

I would welcome the amendment because I think it is time to stand back and review the future role of levies. The amendment seeks to prise out the Government’s analysis regarding the rate and the threshold of the levy, but it also gives us the opportunity to debate the overall adequacy of a levy and its role in the economic situation that we face.

I echo the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) in saying that the world has moved on and the role of bank levies is different now. The first early-day motion on this matter, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) and I eight years ago, in advance of the crisis, related specifically to the profligacy of the banks in their distribution of bonuses. We gained the support of 40 Members of the House. At that stage, the role of the proposed levy was fairly clear cut and straightforward: it was to act as a disincentive to the payment of such obscene bonuses, as others have described them.

Then, economic crisis hit us. The first sign was Northern Rock. I remember being in the Chamber when we exposed the role of Granite in Northern Rock and the tax fiddles, avoidance and evasion—whatever we want to call it—that were taking place. We called for the Government to use public ownership to nationalise and stabilise the banking system, but we added to that a call for the maintenance of a levy system, because we wanted to prevent a recurrence of the bankers’ bonuses during a period of recession caused by their profligacy.

As the right hon. Member for Wokingham said, the world has moved on, and we now have a bizarre situation. Yes, a levy on privately owned banks that are making profits and paying large bonuses is relevant, but introducing a levy on publicly owned banks is bizarre—it is a circular form of taxation—which is why the review proposed in the amendment is important. Surely if we own banks, we should end such bonuses by diktat and enforce reasonable lending using our management control. I hope that the review will examine the adequacy of future bank levy arrangements.

I compliment a number of my hon. Friends who have spoken in this debate, none more passionately than my hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery), who reflected the climate of anger in which this debate takes place. There is anger about how individuals have been treated by the banks, but also anger about the impact of the banks on the overall economy. The impact has also been felt by families in the loss of jobs and cuts in services. If we are to have a review of the bank levy, I would welcome a commitment to absolute openness and transparency about the nature of the banks’ current operations. Many people are bewildered by the banks’ lack of adherence to the exhortations of successive Governments on the role that they should play, particularly in lending and long-term investment.

I welcome the proposed production of a report, but I would prefer it to be published earlier. The amendment proposes a deadline of “before 31 December 2011”, but I would want the report no later than the autumn, because I believe we need a tighter analysis and review regime for the banks.

I am no longer sure that the Government know what the levy is meant to achieve; they are certainly not clear on the appropriate rate, or even to whom and what the levy should apply. The previous Chancellor’s levy was clearly a bonus tax: it was an attempt to influence the behaviour of the banks and to end the remuneration system that encouraged reckless behaviour and the taking of excessive risk. The objective was also to raise income, although that was not the stated primary aim. Bizarrely—this is why I admitted an error earlier—the levy failed to influence behaviour, because the bonuses continued, but at the same time it was extremely successful at raising income. In fact, it was seven times more successful than was originally predicted. As I said, the original prediction was that it would to reap £500 million, but £3.5 billion was gained.

--- Later in debate ---

[Barry Gardiner]

If I interpreted the note correctly, it was a projection of what might happen as a result of the fiscal measures. It did not answer the question posed by my hon. Friend, which concerned an analysis of the results of the differing policies on carbon reduction hitherto. Does he agree that it is vital that we use green taxation only as a means of changing behaviour, and never solely as a revenue-raising measure? That is the question that he posed about past policy, and the Economic Secretary did not answer it.

[Hugh Bayley]

One would assume that a Government estimate has been made on the basis of some evidence. My hon. Friend shrugs his shoulders, but he was in government for a time and I certainly give a Government the benefit of the doubt. I believe that their civil servants would make the best estimate they could based on the evidence they had. Past responses to fiscal changes in the taxation of fuel would of course be a good indicator. Either the Minister can tell me that that is the basis on which the estimate has been made or she is not certain. If she is not certain she should be honest and say so, because we will then need the further analysis proposed in the amendment.