Professional Standards in the Banking Industry Debate
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Ed Balls
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Professional Standards in the Banking Industry
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Ed Balls (Morley and Outwood) (Lab/Co-op)
I beg to move,
That, in the opinion of this House, the Government should commission an independent, forensic, judge-led public inquiry under the Inquiries Act 2005 into the culture and professional standards of the banking industry, to be completed within 12 months, to be paid for by the banks, and that any such inquiry should provide an interim report and recommendations, by the end of 2012, covering the lessons learnt from the scandal of manipulation of the LIBOR.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
With this it will be convenient to debate the following motion:
“That, in the opinion of this House, a joint committee of the two Houses ought to be established into professional standards in the banking industry.”
Ed Balls
I rise to open this very important debate, and to support a motion that has been tabled in my name and that of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, and in those of the right hon. Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds), the hon. Member for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie), the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd), and the hon. Members for Foyle (Mark Durkan), for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) and for North Down (Lady Hermon). Five separate parties in the House—the Democratic Unionist party, the Scottish National party, Plaid Cymru, the Social Democratic and Labour party and the Green party—have all supported the case for an independent and judge-led public inquiry.
This is a vital moment for our banking and financial services industries, for our economy, and for the reputation of this Parliament. We must today decide how to respond to the massive public anger that has erupted over the past week throughout our country, families and businesses large and small following the revelations of lying and market manipulation which have been exposed at Barclays and which we expect to spread more widely, and of the mis-selling of interest rate derivatives to thousands of small businesses. Those revelations will have also deeply dismayed and angered ordinary bank employees in London and across the country who work hard every day and do vital jobs, and who now see the reputation of their profession undermined by the shocking irresponsibility of a few. There is anger and incomprehension at the fact that traders and executives should behave in such a self-interested and duplicitous way, seemingly without any reckoning or proper punishment.
Ed Balls
I will give way in a moment.
That sense of outrage comes on top of a deep and wide public discontent at the huge price that our economy and economies around the world have paid as a result of the gross banking irresponsibility in the run-up to the financial crisis. That price can be measured in billions of pounds in loans gone and debts written off, but it is also felt in the everyday lives of citizens in jobs lost, small businesses gone bankrupt, and living standards undermined. With our economy now back in recession and bank lending to small businesses still falling, it is being felt now—last week, this week, and in the months to come. Trust in our banks is in tatters.
Ed Balls
I will give way in a moment, when I have finished my introductory remarks.
The public rightly want answers and actions to prevent this from happening again, but above all they want reassurance that it is not one law for the many, one price paid by the many, and another, softer option for the rich and powerful.
Ed Balls
I will give way in a moment.
We need a change not just in laws and practices, but in ethics, culture and responsibility. We need a lasting consensus for the future. Today, in the House, we have a very serious task ahead of us: we have to decide how best that change can be achieved. The way in which we respond will have long-term consequences for the future of banking, for our economy, and also—I say this to Members on both sides of the House—for public trust in this Parliament. We all have a responsibility to get this right together.
James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)
Will the right hon. Gentleman cast his mind back to the time when he was the City Minister in the last Government? What action did he take to review the regulatory situation, and did he take any action against the manipulation of LIBOR?
Ed Balls
As the hon. Gentleman will know—because I said this yesterday—at no point at any time when I was an adviser or City Minister was it suggested to me by the Financial Services Authority, the Treasury, the Bank of England, or anyone in the House that there was any reason to doubt the integrity of the LIBOR market. The facts came to light only subsequently, and they are now being properly investigated. I hope that that serves as a full answer to the hon. Gentleman.
Nadhim Zahawi (Stratford-on-Avon) (Con)
This is a very important point, which goes to the heart of the issue of trust. Can the right hon. Gentleman confirm that, as far as he knows, no other Minister at either No. 10 or the Treasury spoke to the Bank of England about LIBOR during his time in office?
Ed Balls
Here we go again, Mr Deputy Speaker. The reason we advocate an open public inquiry, judge-led, is precisely in order to get to the bottom of all these things.
Given the direction in which the debate is now going, before I set out the arguments before us today let me just say this to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The cheap, partisan and desperate way in which he and his aides have conducted themselves in recent days does him no good; it demeans the office that he holds; and, most important, it makes it harder for us to achieve the lasting consensus that we need.
I have to say that what we have seen in the last few days makes the case more eloquently than any speech that I could deliver, or any speech that any of us could deliver, for an independent, arm’s length public inquiry to elevate this debate above the deeply partisan tone set by the Chancellor and his colleagues. As for the false personal accusations that the Chancellor has made against me, not on the basis of any evidence but purely in the hope of political advantage, he said yesterday—[Interruption.] Members should listen to this.
The Chancellor said yesterday that I was “clearly involved” in communicating with the Bank of England and Barclays in October 2008 concerning the LIBOR market, a claim that his aides repeat. He made that utterly baseless accusation before any proper investigation, before any witnesses had been called and before any papers had been examined. He did not say it to an inquiry; he said it yesterday to The Spectator. If he has any evidence, he should produce it now, in the House. [Interruption.] If he will not—[Interruption.]
Mr Deputy Speaker
Order. Please can we calm the debate? This is an important debate, and we do not need shouting across the Chamber in that fashion. [Interruption.] Order! Do you understand? Stop it. Let us take the heat out of the debate now, and stop the calling.
Ed Balls
The allegation made about me yesterday in The Spectator is utterly untrue. At no point did I have any communication, directly or indirectly, with Mr Paul Tucker, at any time when I was an adviser, a Minister, or subsequently a Cabinet Minister, and I had no discussion at any time with anyone about the LIBOR market and its operation. [Interruption.] It is not for me to provide the proof; it is for the Chancellor to prove his allegation. If he has any evidence, he should produce it now, in the House. I will take an intervention now. [Interruption.] If the Chancellor will not provide the evidence now, he needs to stand up at the Dispatch Box now, and withdraw this utterly false allegation.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr George Osborne)
In the last 48 hours we have discovered two things: first, there is the report commissioned by UBS that Baroness Vadera now says she saw and commented upon; secondly, we have learned from the personal account of Bob Diamond’s telephone call with Paul Tucker that senior figures in Whitehall contacted Paul Tucker, and Bob Diamond said in his evidence to the Treasury Committee that they were Ministers. In the last 24 hours, we have had the shadow Chancellor say it might have been Treasury Ministers at the time, and we have had the previous Chancellor of the Exchequer say they definitely were not from the Treasury, but maybe from elsewhere in Government. Will the shadow Chancellor explain what Labour’s involvement was? Who were the Ministers? Who had the conversation? Who were the senior figures? Let him answer for his time in office.
Ed Balls
The House and the public will judge the integrity of a Chancellor who cannot defend here what he whispers to The Spectator magazine. He has no evidence, and he knows it, because what he said is not true, and he knew that too.
Let me read out what he said to The Spectator. He said:
“They were clearly involved…That’s Ed Balls, by the way.”
That is the allegation; it is utterly false and untrue.
I say again to the Chancellor that he should either present the evidence or withdraw the allegation about me right now. I have to say that the sight of a Chancellor who says one thing to the press but cannot defend himself in Parliament is embarrassing to that office.
Mr Osborne
The former chief executive of Barclays said this yesterday to the Treasury Committee. He said what Paul Tucker
“was trying to tell me was, ‘Bob, there are Ministers in Whitehall who are hearing that Barclays is always high. That could lead to the impression that you are not funding yourself.’”
Does the shadow Chancellor know who those Ministers were?
Ed Balls
I am very sorry, but we cannot have a Chancellor of the Exchequer who behaves in this way. He made an utterly personal allegation about me. He said:
“They were clearly involved…That’s Ed Balls, by the way.”
I have said unequivocally that that is utterly untrue. The Chancellor should either provide the evidence or withdraw the allegation. We should not have to wait for an inquiry for the Chancellor to withdraw a false allegation made about me, which he has no evidence for, and which he knows is utterly untrue.
I have to say that the Chancellor’s behaviour will appal the public, who, rightly in my view, are unpersuaded that any of us—any of this generation of politicians, regulators and bankers—are currently rising to the challenge and putting right the wrongs for which they are paying a heavy price.
Ed Balls
I will not give way now.
The reality is that we must all admit that regulation should have been tougher, including those who argued for less regulation. I say to the Chancellor that I will await, and press for, his withdrawal and apology day after day until I get it. All of us on both sides of this House need to show a little more humility, including the Chancellor—and the Prime Minister, too.
I am more than willing to attend an inquiry and answer any questions. What the public will ask about this Chancellor and this Prime Minister as they listen to this debate is, why are they not prepared to do the same in the public interest? That is the question they will ask.
Let me turn to the motion. The Government have three declared objections to a judicial public inquiry: scope, speed and form. Let me take each in turn. First, on scope, the Prime Minister and the Chancellor argue that we have already had the Vickers commission on banking, which reported last September, and now the Financial Services Authority will report. They say we do not need to have a more broad-based inquiry that, in their view, will lead to more uncertainty. “Get on with it,” they say, and it is right that there are a number of important questions that need to be asked about the LIBOR scandal, not least why, when this market was investigated by the British Bankers Association in 2008, the then chair, now Lord Stephen Green, gave it a clean bill of health. We need to look at these issues, including, if the Treasury and the BBA urged tougher regulation when they discussed LIBOR on 5 March 2012, when the Financial Secretary was asked the next day in Committee whether we needed a change in law, why did he say no? These are important questions that need to be addressed.
The issues go much wider, however. A member of the Vickers commission said earlier this week that
“banks, as presently constituted and managed, cannot be trusted to perform any publicly important function, against the perceived interests of their staff. Today’s banks represent the incarnation of profit-seeking behaviour taken to its logical limits, in which the only question asked by senior staff is not what is their duty or their responsibility, but what can they get away with.”
That is what a Vickers commission member says.
Gordon Banks (Ochil and South Perthshire) (Lab)
Given all the banking scandals to which my right hon. Friend has alluded, how will the banks be able to play a fundamental and trustworthy role in the economic growth and future of this country without our having an independent judge-led inquiry?
Ed Balls
That is a very important point. Banks play a very important role in our economy. Hundreds of thousands of jobs depend on our retail and global wholesale banking industry. It would be very dangerous to take risks with that industry and those jobs. It makes no sense to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I say to the Chancellor, and those who use the importance of our financial services industry as an argument against a broad-based inquiry, that they badly under-estimate both public anger and what needs to be done, because banking is a profession which above all needs trust, and that trust is currently badly undermined.
The Chancellor said earlier this week:
“We know what went wrong”.—[Official Report, 2 July 2012; Vol. 547, c. 613.]
When the public hear that, I do not think they believe him. That is the problem. In the light of recent events, when they find out that the Government have decided, against the recommendation of Sir John Vickers, to allow complex derivatives inside the retail bank ring fence, they think, “Well, could this allow the appalling mis-selling to happen again?”
Let me quote to the House the comments of Mr Martin Wolf, a member of the Vickers commission, who was asked last week whether he agreed that any sort of derivative should not be sold to a retail bank. He was asked whether they should be kept separate, and he replied:
“We wanted to separate them completely and the Government has gone back on that and we think that is really quite dangerous. It leads to the very serious risk of mis-selling which we have seen has been a constant theme of the relationship between retail banks and relatively inexperienced, uninformed clients.”
That is right, and that is why a LIBOR inquiry is not enough. We need to look at these Vickers issues as well.
Penny Mordaunt (Portsmouth North) (Con)
The shadow Chancellor may know that a constituent of mine is a former Labour Treasury Minister whom I unseated at the last election. For her sake, if not for mine, will he tell us who were the Ministers Bob Diamond was referring to?
Ed Balls
We return to the smears of the Chancellor and his aides. We have had answers to that question from the City Minister at the time, the Chancellor and Shriti Vadera. I have asked the Chancellor to provide the evidence or withdraw and apologise, and he cannot. That says quite a lot about the Treasury team that he leads.
It is our view that a comprehensive review of the whole culture of banking must start with the conduct of bankers and traders, look at the institutions in which they operate, and cascade outwards into the rules, corporate governance, industry approaches and regulatory and legal frameworks in which banks have done business in past decades. There are many important, searching questions that we need to answer, and the only way to answer them—I have them here, but for reasons of time I will not go through them all—is through the broad-based inquiry that we need, not a narrow, LIBOR-based inquiry.
Elizabeth Truss (South West Norfolk) (Con)
Does the right hon. Gentleman think it was a mistake to set up the tripartite regulatory structure, in which everyone and no one seems to have been responsible? He does not seem to know which part of his Government was doing what.
Ed Balls
When the Conservatives gave reasons in Parliament at the time for opposing the establishment of the new regulator, did they talk about the tripartite system? The shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, who was the lead on this issue at the time, said in 1999:
“Our concerns about the Bill may be said to fall into two general areas. The first is the very wide power still vested in the FSA and the danger that any concentrated executive power can lead to abuse.”
We know all about that from this Chancellor and his reforms.
“The second is the danger of over-regulation, with consequential damage to the United Kingdom’s position.” —[Official Report, 28 June 1999; Vol.334, c. 44.]
Perhaps the hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) needs to go back and read the Hansard of the time.
The Government’s second objection to a full judicial inquiry is one of speed. As the Prime Minister said on Monday—
Ed Balls
I need to make some progress. This is a very important issue and others want to speak. I have taken a number of interventions. I have to say, I am still waiting for the intervention that I want—the apology from the Chancellor. [Interruption.]
The Government’s second objection to a full judicial inquiry is one of speed. On Monday, the Prime Minister said that we need to just get on with it. We agree. We need to move ahead as quickly as possible. That is why the Leader of the Opposition has proposed a two-stage process for a judge-led review. Stage one: an immediate review into LIBOR and derivatives. Start now, conclude by Christmas, establish it immediately, meet through the summer—five days a week, if necessary—and without any need to stop for the summer recess. Then, there is a second stage, to be finished within 12 months from now, looking into the wider issues of banking practice that we have identified. That is a timetable that past inquiries have shown can be delivered.
Ed Balls
I am not going to take an intervention from that hon. Gentleman.
While we need speed, we also need the inquiry to be thorough and genuinely cathartic, and to succeed in rebuilding public trust and confidence, or else we risk being back here again.
The third argument the Government employ is one of form: that, compared to a full judicial inquiry, a parliamentary inquiry can do the job just as well in less time, and with less cost. We do not believe that that argument holds water, but more important, it does not take on board the scale of the task ahead.
Ed Balls
The hon. Lady should listen before she concludes whether to support our motion later on.
First, all the recent experience of the phone hacking scandal suggests that only a judge-led inquiry, under the Inquiries Act 2005—[Interruption.] Every time that Members interrupt me mid-sentence, I just conclude that I am not going to take their interventions. Why do you not listen and have some respect for this House and our debates? Have some respect for the arguments being made.
The Attorney-General (Mr Dominic Grieve)
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Ed Balls
I will make the point and then take the intervention.
First, all the recent experience of the phone hacking scandal—[Interruption.] The Chancellor should listen—unless he is composing his apology. We should consider the recent experience of the phone hacking scandal and all the deliberations we see in, for example, the very important report on the details and reality of Select Committees and coercive powers, entitled “Select Committees and Coercive Powers—Clarity or Confusion?”, from the Constitution Society. All the experience shows that only a judge-led inquiry can have the necessary power to compel witnesses to attend and ensure the production—
Ed Balls
I will take the right hon. and learned Gentleman’s intervention, but I will make the point on powers first. I will do this in a proper way, Mr Deputy Speaker.
All the recent experience is that only a judge-led inquiry can have the necessary power to compel witnesses to attend and to ensure the production of documents, with powers of enforcement that make it a criminal offence to fail to comply—under section 35 of the relevant legislation, the penalty is 51 weeks or a £1,000 fine—or High Court powers of enforcement for contempt of court, under section 36. The problem is that Select Committees, in the modern legal world, just do not have the same powers in law to force witnesses to attend or to give evidence on oath, and nor do they have the necessary sanctions. The last time Parliament—
Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Ed Balls
No. I will take the intervention from the Attorney-General next, thank you.
The last time Parliament imposed a fine for contempt of court was before the great fire of London in 1666. The last time a member of the public was imprisoned for contempt was before the Boer war. Select Committees do not have these powers.
The Attorney-General
I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. I intervene on one key point. It is clear from what he says that he desires that the preliminary part of his judicially led inquiry should produce recommendations on the lessons to be learned from the scandal of the manipulation of LIBOR as quickly as possible and by the end of the year. The question whether there is to be a criminal investigation is not in my hands or, indeed, those of anybody in this House. The idea that such an inquiry can be run in tandem with a criminal investigation is, I am afraid, impossible.
Ed Balls
We know that this proposal was cobbled together over the course of Monday. I wonder whether the Prime Minister and the Chancellor had the opportunity to consult the Attorney-General before they made this proposal. If we cannot have a judge-led inquiry until the criminal prosecution has been done, how can we possibly have a parliamentary inquiry? Exactly the same argument was made—
Ed Balls
In a second. I am still waiting for the Chancellor to make his intervention.
The second point is that exactly the same argument was made in the case of phone hacking—that we could not have the inquiry until the criminal prosecutions had been done. But that is not what has happened with the Leveson report.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
Is not the whole point about having a judge-led inquiry that judges are perfectly used to circumventing—making sure they go round the corners, so that they do not prejudice any criminal investigation? For that matter, all the serious evidence that has appeared in the public domain from phone hacking has come from the civil courts, through the Norwich pharmacal process, or from the judge requiring a statement of truth from all those providing evidence.
Ed Balls
My hon. Friend is right, and I fear that the Attorney-General has just completely destroyed the basis of his own Government’s parliamentary inquiry. We know from experience that when the subject of a public inquiry overlaps with the prospect of criminal charges and trials, only a judge has the legal skills and credibility to conduct that inquiry without crossing the line of what is acceptable. That is what Lord Leveson showed and that is what parliamentary inquiries have been unable to do on phone hacking.
The Attorney-General
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. So far as the Leveson inquiry is concerned, that question was recognised at the time that it was set up. It is for that reason that it was split in two. Lord Justice Leveson has been at great pains to avoid interfering with the process, but the process contemplated in the motion tabled by the right hon. Gentleman and others envisages, as I read it, that the part of the inquiry dealing with the scandal of manipulation should take place at once. I have made the point as to why I think that that is extremely difficult.
The right hon. Gentleman then raised a second point, which was that that argument could also apply to referring the matter to a Joint Committee of both Houses. If I may say so, he is correct in that. It could present such a difficulty, but I note that there is no prescriptive timetable laid down for the working of the Joint Committee and I have no doubt—[Interruption.] I am sure that despite parliamentary privilege the Joint Committee will have to adapt to any criminal investigation or inquiry that takes place. However, that makes no difference to the fact that, as drafted, the right hon. Gentleman’s motion appears to me to have a fundamental problem associated with it.
Ed Balls
I hear the right hon. and learned Gentleman’s points and I only wish the Prime Minister would talk to his own legal adviser. As far as I can see, the Attorney-General has entirely torpedoed the inquiry, which we were told yesterday would conclude by Christmas. If he is saying that the inquiry can take longer in order to deal with the issue of criminal charges, what does that make of the Prime Minister’s argument that the only reason for doing it this way was to do it faster? It is utterly incoherent. I am not saying in any way that the Attorney-General is being incoherent—it is just the Chancellor and the Prime Minister who have completely lost their grip on this whole process.
Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the legal advice that we seem to have heard on the hoof just now casts a whole new light on the debate? The Government’s argument all week for a Joint Committee of both Houses has been that it could proceed with its work quickly, whereas we have just heard an argument suggesting that precisely the same objections as the Attorney-General made to our proposals could be made to the Government’s proposals.
Ed Balls
It is no surprise that the Chancellor has gone completely white as he sits on the Front Bench. Let us be honest: he did not consult the Culture Secretary on a tax on churches; he did not consult the Transport Secretary on a U-turn on fuel; and he did not consult the Law Officers on the inquiry—
Ed Balls
I have to say that there would be no point taking an intervention from the part-time Chancellor on this point, as he clearly does not have a clue what is going on. The confusion is that the timetable that we have set down for our first-stage judicial inquiry is exactly the same as that which the Government announced for their parliamentary inquiry. If it is too short for one, how can it be the right length for the other? More than that, my argument was that when we are discussing complex issues that require fine legal judgment, the idea that judges would make that fine legal judgment in a worse way than a parliamentary Committee is nonsensical. The right hon. and learned Gentleman has done a very great service to this House. I had four objections to the form of the inquiry, but it has been torpedoed while I am only halfway through.
I have a feeling that the Attorney-General’s interventions might have completely killed off the parliamentary inquiry, but there are two more reasons why it is a bad idea.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. I point out that this is a time-limited debate and a substantial number of Members wish to contribute. All the noise and the number of interventions will mean that several Members will be disappointed. May we please hear Ed Balls in silence?
Mr Cash
I am extremely grateful to the shadow Chancellor for giving way. On the question of the alternatives of a Select Committee and a judicial inquiry, it is perfectly clear that we can make any necessary adjustments through our Standing Orders on such issues as taking evidence on oath, for example. I will seek to explain that in more detail if I get the opportunity to make a speech.
Ed Balls
The hon. Gentleman has proposed that a QC could advise the Committee; perhaps he will make that proposal later. Those important points take us down the road towards the judicial inquiry. The problem is—and this is my third objection—that experience shows that only a judge-led inquiry can ensure the necessary forensic cross-examination of witnesses, prevent witnesses from avoiding answering key questions that are important for establishing the truth and, in particular, avoid blanket refusals to answer questions on grounds of legal advice. I would be happy to take an intervention from the Attorney-General on this point, because we have seen it happen in parliamentary hearings.
The argument is that a witness before a parliamentary inquiry can say on legal advice that they will not answer a question, but in a judge-led inquiry the judge has the ability to explain to the witness why answering the question in the particular form set by him according to his legal judgment will not cross the line. Unless a judge is properly testing the boundary between self-incrimination and the answers that must be given for a proper inquiry, we cannot make progress. That would be doubly the case with the prospect of criminal investigations, which might take some years down the track. On the question of witnesses not incriminating themselves, it seems to me that the evidence shows—perhaps the Attorney-General will correct me—that it is impossible for a parliamentary inquiry to call any witness who might be implicated in the LIBOR scandal without the witness saying, “On legal advice, I will say nothing.” The inquiry cannot work like that. Only a judge can sort this out.
Damian Collins
Does the shadow Chancellor accept that a Select Committee can ask a witness to release information covered by client-attorney privilege, as the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport did in the phone hacking inquiry? That information cannot be requested by a public inquiry because it is covered by the same remit as a civil court. A parliamentary inquiry can request and receive information that a public inquiry cannot and, in the case of the phone hacking inquiry, that led to the production of the most significant information of the entire inquiry.
Ed Balls
All my experience—and there are many Members on both sides of the House who have more detailed experience than I have—is that Select Committees find it much harder than a judge-led inquiry to secure the release of necessary and essential documents and, more importantly, to find out which documents they should ask for in the first place.
Finally, and above all in our view—and I note that the Attorney-General did not correct me on the calling of witnesses, but perhaps he will advise the Chancellor for his speech—only a judge-led inquiry can truly persuade the public that the inquiry is properly independent and objective and, given the Chancellor’s behaviour, non-partisan.
Mr Dave Watts (St Helens North) (Lab)
Is it not clear that the Government, stacked with bankers and payrolled by the bankers, are frightened of a judge-led inquiry because they want to cover up the scandal?
Ed Balls
My hon. Friend makes his point in his own particular way. I was saying that the inquiry needed to be independent, objective and non-partisan, so I understand his concerns. I would probably also understand his bafflement about why the Chancellor and Prime Minister seem to be unwilling to appear before a public inquiry looking at wider issues of culture.
Simon Hughes
My constituents—like, I think, the right hon. Gentleman’s—want this mess in the banking industry to be cleared up as quickly as possible. They want laws to be changed—and there are two chances this year—they want people to be taken to court and, if necessary, sent to prison; and they want it now, not some time in future. Why can we not get on with it, rather than delay the action that has been delayed for too long?
The Attorney-General
The right hon. Gentleman has not answered the question I put to him earlier. He says he wishes to have a judge-led inquiry, and he gives some perfectly good reasons—[Interruption.] These are matters of debate. He has been quite unable to explain how, in the light of the fact that at the same time there is a desire for a criminal investigation, those two can be reconciled. He has come to the Dispatch Box to criticise the Government for their approach, so that is a question he ought to be capable of answering, or receiving legal advice on how to answer it. It is a real problem, not an artificial or concocted one, and he has not provided that answer at all.
Ed Balls
It is a pity not only that the right hon. and learned Gentleman was not consulted before the inquiry was announced but that he is not leading for the Government today instead of the part-time Chancellor, as that would probably be a more enlightening debate. Let me repeat exactly what I said in my speech. When the subject—[Interruption.] I am going to answer the question, but it does not help if the Treasury Whip shouts from a sedentary position. If he wants to join the Chancellor and withdraw his allegations he can do so.
Let me repeat my answer to the question. When the subject of the public inquiry overlaps with the prospect of criminal charges and trials, it is our judgment that only a judge, as we have seen in the Leveson inquiry, has the legal skills and credibility to conduct that wider inquiry without crossing the acceptable line. A parliamentary Committee will never be able to do so. The reality is that there will be stalemate—witnesses not answering questions, documents not revealed—and we will not make progress. We adopted the Government’s timetable for the first stage of the inquiry, because we thought they had thought it through, but it turns out that they had not done so.
Ed Balls
I will give way to the hon. Lady in a moment—[Interruption.] There is no need for any favours like that to get me to—[Laughter.]
Let me summarise the case for a public inquiry as simply as I can by quoting from a higher authority. Let me quote from a call for an independent public inquiry on banking:
“Is not the truth that in Britain people are losing their homes, small businesses are closing, unemployment is rising and manufacturing output is falling again and that, by refusing to hold a public inquiry, the Prime Minister is yet again demonstrating that he cannot provide the change people want?”—[Official Report, 5 November 2008; Vol. 482, c. 247.]
I could not have put it better myself. But those are not my words. They are directly from the right hon. Member for Witney—Cameron direct. I checked this morning and the quote is still on the Conservative party website, under the headline, “Why won’t the Prime Minister hold a public enquiry?” It even has a photo of the current Prime Minister there for us all to see. He said we need an independent inquiry. That was on 5 November 2008. How things have changed, for all of us. I know that the Prime Minister makes such a virtue of consistency, so I hope he will join us in the Lobby tonight for another Treasury U-turn—they just keep coming for this Chancellor.
Let me turn to the votes. I have set out three concerns—scope, speed and form—which we are told are the reasons the Government object to our proposal for an independent judge-led inquiry. I have explained why we do not believe that any of these arguments stack up—to be honest, the Attorney-General has been very helpful in this regard. We urge hon. Members to think hard. I said I would take an intervention from the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), so I will take that first.
Anna Soubry
I am grateful to the shadow Chancellor, a fine Nottingham boy, and I am enjoying his contribution. We all agree that this is an outrageous scandal and we need to get to the bottom of it, but does he not also agree that out there in the real world people want to hear a little acceptance of responsibility and a little contrition from him, because he was a member of the Government when this scandal happened and it was on his watch?
Ed Balls
Despite trying to intervene, the hon. Lady has been listening to my speech and so will have heard me say that mistakes were made and humility is needed from Members on both sides of the House. As a former barrister, she will also know, as will many Members on both sides of the House who have worked in the law, accounting or financial services, that the highest standards of integrity not only are necessary, but need to be seen if they are to command public confidence. That is the argument for our inquiry. I ask her and hon. Members on both sides of the House to think hard and support our motion today to put the banking industry on a sound footing.
We hope to win the argument this afternoon. We aim to persuade hon. Members to vote with us and support our motion. We recognise that the Government have a majority and intend to whip the vote tonight. If our motion is unsuccessful and the Government railroad through a parliamentary inquiry—they may be reconsidering now—we will continue to make the case for a full judicial inquiry. If further banking scandals emerge, as I fear they will, people will look back at this moment and conclude that the Government failed to grasp the opportunity.
Gordon Banks
Does my right hon. Friend agree that, perhaps, the activity and findings of the Leveson commission are the grounds for the Government’s reluctance to join the Opposition in the Lobby this afternoon to vote for a full, judge-led, public inquiry?
Ed Balls
I do not know the answer to my hon. Friend’s question; I do know that the open process of the Leveson inquiry has been challenging to Members on both sides of the House—but rightly so. If questions are raised, in an open judicial inquiry, about past regulatory decisions, that is right and proper; if they are raised about decisions made in the mid-1980s, that is right and proper; and if questions are raised about the financing of political parties and where donations comes from, that is right and proper as well.
We should have no fear of answering those questions, but, from what we have heard from Government Front Benchers, we know that the Government have no intention of holding such a full, open, public inquiry; they want an inquiry on the shortest timetable and in the narrowest way. The Attorney-General has told us why one cannot be held on a timetable for completion by Christmas, but let me remind him what the Prime Minister said on Monday:
“The Vickers Bill—the banking Bill—will be introduced in the House of Commons in January, and I want an inquiry to be completed by then so that we can take the best of that inquiry and put it in the Bill.”—[Official Report, 2 July 2012; Vol. 547, c. 590.]
But if that inquiry cannot do the job, how will we end up with the best? We will end up with the worst of all worlds.
The Attorney-General
It would help if the right hon. Gentleman listened, rather than getting carried away with his own rhetoric. There is nothing to prevent this House, if it wishes, from setting up a joint inquiry of both Houses into—[Interruption.] The “banking industry” is the way it was described, and that is what is in the motion—[Interruption.] Yes, to incorporate LIBOR—I make that quite clear.
Obviously, and this point applies as much to the right hon. Gentleman’s motion as to any other step, if there are criminal investigations or inquiries, any inquiry by this House will have to be managed in the light of that process—[Interruption.] Yes, it will have to be managed, because it must not interfere with that process. But, for the Government to support a motion for a judicial inquiry that cannot even get off the ground if criminal inquiries and investigations are taking place would be a rather odd thing for the Government to do, because such an inquiry could not happen.
The right hon. Gentleman has made a mistake in relation to the motion—
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order, Mr Balls.
Order means order for Front Benchers on the Government side as well. I understand that the Attorney-General is trying to be helpful to the House, but he has made several interventions, they have all been too long and I hope that we can move on now with the debate.
Chris Bryant
The Attorney-General is not right on that issue. It is far more dangerous to have a parliamentary inquiry, because article 9 of the Bill of Rights says that no court can impeach a proceeding in Parliament. Some witnesses who might want to evade justice might, therefore, choose to come to a parliamentary Committee to say things, so that they do not then get sued in court.
Ed Balls
I understand the points made by Members on both sides of the House.
Before I summarise, let me say to the Attorney-General that I have tried to listen very carefully to his contributions. There have been many of them, all have been helpful and constructive and they have helped us to understand the challenges that we face rather better than we had done on the basis of the Chancellor’s contributions in recent days.
Let me say also that, if at any point I misrepresent the right hon. and learned Gentleman, I will always in an honourable way correct the record in this House—not, as we now know, a standard of behaviour that we can expect from the Chancellor in this House.
To summarise, the argument goes as follows. Point one is that the Attorney-General does not believe that it is possible to have a proper, thorough investigation into all the details of the LIBOR market by the end of the year. I understand that; I hear his argument. Our argument is that a judge-led inquiry gives us a better chance of having an investigation into something legally sensitive than a parliamentary inquiry. If one is true and two is true, that means that the Government’s proposal for a parliamentary inquiry by the end of this year is defunct—dead, torpedoed, gone.
That is why, rather than intervening again, the Attorney-General should speak to the Chancellor, call the Prime Minister—wherever he is—and say that they should withdraw these motions, get to the drawing board and come back with a plan that is baked rather than half baked. [Hon. Members: “Plan B!”] Plan B.
Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
A few moments ago, the right hon. Gentleman said that even if the House votes for establishing a Joint Committee, Her Majesty’s official Opposition will continue to press for a judicial inquiry. Will he clarify that? Does that mean that he will be discouraging Members from the Labour party, be they in either House, from co-operating with and taking part in a Joint Committee? Is he going to wreck it?
Ed Balls
I was going to come to the votes at this point. I have said that we will vote for our motion. I have said that if that fails, we will continue to press for a full public inquiry because we think that that is the only way to do this properly. The Attorney-General probably agrees with us on that matter now.
Tonight, the Leader of the Opposition and I will vote against the Government’s proposal for a limited parliamentary inquiry, for the reasons I have set out, as currently proposed. On the basis of the contributions we have now heard from the Government Front Bench, the inquiry is not even remotely up to the task ahead.
In answer to the question, put by the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin), about what we would do if we lost the second motion, on the basis of the debate so far and the Attorney-General’s comments, I say to all Members of the House, including the Liberal Democrats, that they should think hard, do the right thing, ignore the Whips and vote for the inquiry that will work.
Ed Balls
I am not going to give way because I have answered the hon. Gentleman’s question. [Hon. Members: “No!”] I have.
We want to win this vote for the British people. Set against the depths of malpractice that have now been revealed and the scale of the challenge that we face, our strong belief is that the Government’s decision to reject our call for an independent and judge-led public inquiry is a grave mistake. Only an independent and open public inquiry—not politicians investigating bankers—can rebuild trust. That is our view, and the view of many Opposition Members. The doubters have been persuaded by the Attorney-General. Members on the Government Benches should change their mind—withdraw the motion, do the right thing and let us sort this out once and for all.
Mr Osborne
Can I just say this before I give way to anyone? Let us bring the argument to an end today. Let us decide. To enable that decision to happen—and this is why, in Government time, the shadow Chancellor opened this debate—we have adopted a procedure without precedent, which is to allow two motions, one from the Opposition and one from the Government, to be debated today. I hope that although the argument has been a fierce one, and I have no doubt that the partisan attacks will continue—
Mr Osborne
I will give way to the shadow Chancellor if he answers this question for me: if the House votes for a joint parliamentary inquiry, will the Labour party take part in it? If not, he will be blocking any inquiry into this banking scandal.
Ed Balls
My advice to the Chancellor, on the basis of the Attorney-General’s comments, is to stop the speech, withdraw the motion, and come back next week when he has done the homework. But my intervention is on the partisan tone. Let me ask him this: will he provide the evidence to substantiate the allegations—false allegations—that he made about me yesterday, or will he now withdraw and apologise for those false and untrue allegations? Has he the integrity to do so?
Mr Osborne
The right hon. Gentleman was the City Minister during the LIBOR scandal. We know, as I said in my interventions on him earlier, that, first, Baroness Vadera admits that she saw the report that was commissioned on the LIBOR rate; and secondly, that Bob Diamond said that Ministers in Whitehall were putting the bank under pressure through the Bank of England. If he is able to tell me—[Interruption.] I am answering his question. I have said that he has questions to answer. [Interruption.] That is precisely what I have said. I want to know the answer to this question: which Labour Ministers were involved?
Mr Osborne
Let me say exactly what I said, and then the right hon. Gentleman can answer my question. I said, “They were clearly involved”, and we now have that from two sources—[Interruption.]
Mr Osborne
I have never seen Labour Members and the shadow Chancellor so rattled about their time in office. We had one hour of an attempt by the former City Minister to defend his conduct when he was in office and these scandals happened, and we have still not had from him a simple apology for what he did—his failure of regulation. He should get up and say not, “We were all involved in this; there were Governments all over the world doing it”, but “I was the City Minister and I am sorry.”
Ed Balls
The Chancellor knows what I have said in the past. I have said that people from all parts of the House regret what happened. I have apologised to this House before. I have apologised to the House for the failures of regulation. I am asking the Chancellor to apologise now. He has impugned my integrity. He made the allegation in The Spectator and all over the newspapers that:
“They were clearly involved”
in the 2008 LIBOR scandal. He said:
“That’s Ed Balls, by the way.”
I was named. He has made an allegation, but he has no evidence because there is not any, because it is untrue. He knew that there was no evidence because he knew that it was untrue, and he said it anyway because that is the character of the man. I am saying to him that if he has any integrity, on this narrow point of his allegation, he should stand up now, withdraw the allegation and apologise. And he won’t.
Mr Osborne
The idea that I am going to take lessons in integrity from a man who smeared his way through 13 years of Labour government and who half the people who served with him think was a disgrace in his post is another thing entirely. Let him redeem himself today by not blocking an inquiry into what happened under the last Government. Take part in the inquiry. You are not prepared to do that.
Ed Balls
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. The Government have won their vote. The Chair of the Treasury Committee will now chair a narrow inquiry based on the remit that he set out in the House this afternoon. The Opposition respect the hon. Gentleman and will work with him, but we have some real concerns about the membership and secretariat of the Joint Committee, which we hope he will address.
This afternoon’s debate, and particularly the devastating interventions of the Attorney-General, exposed serious questions about the scope of the inquiry—[Interruption.]
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. The House must listen to this point of order in silence.
Ed Balls
It is clear that there is a wider set of questions, on matters from mis-selling to small businesses to the wider culture and practices of the banking industry, that are outside the scope of the inquiry set out by the Chair of the Treasury Committee and, in our view, cannot be properly addressed by any parliamentary Committee. In our view, the case for a full, open, judge-led public inquiry is stronger at the end of this afternoon, and we will continue to press that case.
It is our view that the Chancellor and the Prime Minister have made a grave error of judgment, and any time future scandals emerge, people will ask why we in this country are not having the full, independent public inquiry that our country needs.
Mr George Osborne
Further to that point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I welcome the Opposition’s agreement in principle, as I take it, to take part in a joint parliamentary inquiry into what has happened. I suggest that the usual channels now work on the membership of that inquiry and that the Front-Bench teams and my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr Tyrie) discuss any concerns that Opposition Front Benchers have about resourcing, the secretariat and so on. What everyone now wants to do is get a resolution that all parties can agree on, which we can bring to the House before it rises, so that we can get the Joint Committee up and running, get to the bottom of what went wrong in our banking industry and with the LIBOR scandal, and make the changes needed to legislation to ensure that it never happens again. I would welcome the Opposition’s support in doing that.