LIBOR (FSA Investigation)

Clive Efford Excerpts

Thursday 28th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

Where I would agree with the hon. Gentleman is that regulation cannot do everything and we need the right culture of management in the banks, but there is also a job for the regulators here. One of the purposes of the Financial Services Bill is to put the Bank of England in charge and allow the regulator to exercise more judgment. As I have said before in the House, the Royal Bank of Scotland ticked every single box when it came to its takeover of ABN AMRO, yet many people were asking at the end of 2007, “Is that a sensible transaction?” We need the regulators to be empowered to make judgment calls, not just to check whether every line of the regulation has been complied with.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

I agree with everything that the Chancellor said in his statement, but following that, all he has done is try to heap responsibility on the Opposition Front-Bench team, rather than dealing with the bankers who are at the heart of the problem. We all know that lighter-touch regulation would have come in had he been Chancellor at the same time. That is not the point. The point is that people out there are angry. Those people are thieves and criminals, and they have made beggars of many of our constituents, who want to know what this Government are going to do about it. Can the Chancellor say whether the financial regulatory Bill before the House deals with all the issues that have been raised as a result of the report from the FSA yesterday? If not, what is he going to do about it?

[Mr Osborne]

I will tell the hon. Gentleman what this Government are doing. First, we are getting rid of the tripartite system that failed. Secondly, we are changing—[Interruption.] I will tell hon. Members what failed—the regulation of financial services. The hon. Gentleman’s constituents and mine and everyone else are paying a very heavy price for that, so we are changing the regulator, changing the structure of banks in order to have ring-fenced retail banks—

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[Clive Efford]

No. The right hon. Gentleman is doing nothing. It is business as usual.

[Mr Osborne]

The hon. Gentleman voted for 13 years for a Government who failed this country. We are changing the regulation, changing the structure of banking—[Interruption.] and we are dealing with this latest abuse— [Interruption.]

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. We have heard the question. The hon. Gentleman should have the courtesy to listen to the answer, even if he does not like it. There is no need to get so excited—

[Clive Efford]

Plenty of people out there are excited.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. Is the hon. Gentleman questioning me?

[Clive Efford]

I apologise, Mr Deputy Speaker.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

The prices of many important international commodities are set in London, such as cocoa and robusta coffee, and tens of millions of smallholder farmers and poor people around the world depend on these. Is my right hon. Friend confident that the kind of problems that we have seen with LIBOR are not spreading to such markets, which are so important for people around the world?