Independent Banking Commission Report

Chris Ruane Excerpts

Monday 12th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his support for the Banking Commission, and for his kind words. He has many decades of experience—

[Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)]

Centuries!

[Mr Osborne]

Well, I think my right hon. Friend was certainly alive when Messrs Glass and Steagall were, which most Members of the House could not say.

I respect my right hon. Friend’s experience. He has long argued for some form of separation between retail and investment banking and has been consistent in making that argument. Events have borne out his advice to successive Governments.

We asked John Vickers carefully to consider the timetable, and he gave a lot of thought to it. He recommends that all the changes should be completed by 2019, but that other changes should take place at earlier dates—he specifies those dates in his work. The 2019 back-stop is appropriate, because that is the date when the international rules also need to be in place. We should not underestimate the huge amount of work to be done in this House to get the report turned into legislation that works and that people do not find ways around.

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[Mr Osborne]

My hon. Friend—who wrote what I thought was a very good piece for The Times, published on 9 September—has made a point based on his personal experience. I may or may not offend someone when I say that he is probably the most senior former investment banker in the House of Commons.

[Chris Ruane]

There are none on this side.

[Mr Osborne]

That is because they leave the House of Commons and go to work for investment banks.

My hon. Friend's experience was that an investment bank had many incentives to use retail deposits to subsidise its activity. That was not always right, and Glass–Steagall helped to stop it. We are not reintroducing Glass–Steagall, or introducing it in the United Kingdom; we have a different set of proposals which John Vickers has spent time developing, and I think that they meet the challenge that my hon. Friend set out in his article.

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[Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)]

We’re all doomed.

[Mr Osborne]

The hon. Gentleman says we’re all doomed, but the idea of these reforms is to ensure that we are not doomed in the future.