Royal Bank of Scotland

Debate between Drew Hendry and Clive Lewis

Thursday 5th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Clive Lewis]

I entirely agree. When we listen to the debate, we begin to feel that the Government are acting not in the interests of consumers, but in their vested banking interests. That seems to be their priority. We seem to be back to the pre-2008 mentality that the banks should be given whatever they want and we can have economic growth built on a house-price bubble fuelled by an oversized banking system without worrying too much about rebalancing our economy towards manufacturing or what we will do when the whole house of cards inevitably collapses.

We should consider, however, the effects on ordinary people like Andi Gibbs in my constituency who owned a business pre-crash. He was in effect mis-sold products by RBS and ended up with the now infamous global restructuring group. He not only lost his business; he lost his home, his wife, his family and his mental health. This is the price people pay when we do not get the banking system right. We now have a fantastic opportunity to get it right, and we must not squander it.

[Drew Hendry]

I made a point earlier about provisions for consequences for the people who take action that means that others with houses and businesses suffer through the malpractice the hon. Gentleman is describing. Does he agree that now is the time to look at having regulations that would put in place such consequences for people who take such action?

[Clive Lewis]

The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point, and I agree we should be looking closely at the retribution that should be dished out to those who in effect ruin people’s lives; that is right and proper.

Successive attempts to persuade banks to lend more to small business have fallen flat, with some, like the enterprise finance guarantee scheme, actually being abused by RBS to exploit its small business customers. There could hardly be a clearer illustration of the fact that we have failed to get to the root causes of the problems in our banking system. The Chancellor and the banks may want us to move on and forget about the crash, but the British people have not forgotten. Whether it is mis-selling of PPI, mistreatment of small businesses or rigging the LIBOR and foreign exchange markets, they do not see that banks have really changed.

The warning signs of another crash are building. We may not have long to make sure our economy is better prepared than it was the last time. The Bank for International Settlements recently warned that we are living in

“a world in which debt levels are too high, productivity growth too weak and financial risks too threatening.”

In the UK, household debt is rising again, with the Office for Budget Responsibility predicting that, by the end of this Parliament, it will be higher than it was in 2008. Just last week, UBS warned that the London housing market is the most overvalued in the world and is in “bubble-risk territory”. In other words, the so-called recovery is not a sustainable one based on higher wages, higher productivity and creating new green jobs. Instead it is being driven by consumer spending propped up by ever-growing household debt, and fuelled by a banking system that still finds it more profitable to inflate house prices than to lend to productive businesses.

Having successfully rebranded a crisis caused by too much private debt as a crisis caused by too much public debt, the Government are now presiding over a new debt bubble that threatens to do exactly the same as what happened in 2008. Maybe instead of continuing to rely on the same institutions that got us into a mess in 2008, we should be promoting new types of bank, with ownership structures and business models that clearly distinguish them from the status quo: banks that are not beholden to the need to maximise profits, but which have a social mission and can genuinely put customers and the economy first. Our stake in RBS gives us a unique opportunity to do this.

When the history of this period is written, will the current Government be remembered as one who learned the right lessons from the crash, or as one who turned a blind eye and squandered the opportunity to build a better banking system?