Banking

Dennis Skinner Excerpts

Wednesday 9th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

I agree with my hon. Friend that the banks should show restraint and an appreciation of the society in which they operate, the challenges that we face with the economy and, indeed, the squeeze on families’ incomes, in part due to the high prices of things such as oil and food. I make this observation: the bonuses this year will be lower than those in the last year of the Labour Government; and, as a result of this agreement, they will also be lower than they would have been, a point that will be confirmed by the independent non-executive director of the individual bank.

[Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)]

Why should anybody believe that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has got the guts to take on the banks, when today it is revealed that he and his friends in the Tory party—those on millionaires’ row—have picked up £44 million from those bankers in the City? Why should we believe all this rubbish?

[Mr Osborne]

I thought that the hon. Gentleman might ask a question like that, so I did a bit of research and discovered that one of the biggest donors to the shadow Chancellor’s party leadership campaign was a Michael Sanzone, who started off at ABN Amro, moved to RBS and ended up at Lehman Brothers before supporting his campaign. They are probably the four most catastrophic decisions of recent years.