Banking

Emily Thornberry Excerpts

Wednesday 15th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Chris Leslie]

The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point. This morning the Chancellor gave his rationale for disagreeing with the European banker bonus cap. It is a shame that he did not take a lead in trying to construct something of his own to rein in this culture. After all, we would have had a repeat of the banker bonus tax. The Chancellor’s argument is, “Oh well, this is just going to move it all on to pay and on to ordinary salaries.” Surely one of the lessons of the banking crisis is that the excessive, short-termist risk and reward bonus culture was driving dysfunctional behaviour that got us into the mess in the first place. Frankly, I am sure those bankers will try to find all sorts of little dodges and weaves to get around the rules, but we have to make the system more transparent and we need to move towards a remuneration arrangement that is much more about sustainability, stability, professionalism and serving the customers. It would be foolish for the Government to try to sue Brussels on this point and hold out against public opinion, which has had enough of this excessive behaviour.

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

I wonder whether my hon. Friend can help the House. Have the Government ever given any indication on what they believe the upper limit should be on bankers’ pay?

[Chris Leslie]

I do not think they have, although I think before the general election the Prime Minister indicated that he did not want any taxpayer-owned banks to pay out bonuses of more than £2,000. We know what happened to that proposal.

The issue goes beyond anger about bank bonus season. Serious reforms to the banking culture and the role of banking in the economy are still required. Ministers still have not grasped the role that banks ought to be playing to repair our economy. They are still out of touch on the causes of three years of economic stagnation and the reforms to the banking sector that are still needed. How much more evidence do they need? Despite the billions of pounds needed to ensure that the cash machines kept working; despite the mis-selling and ripping off consumers; despite the money laundering and sanctions busting; despite banks peddling interest rate swaps to struggling small firms; despite multi-billion losses in the disastrous London Whale scandal—London Whale was the name given to a trader—and fines of more than £1 billion for Deutsche bank in the United States for mis-selling mortgage-backed securities; and despite the rigging of LIBOR and other benchmark indices, including investigations into attempts by up to 15 banks to manipulate a £5 trillion dollar a day foreign exchange market; despite all that the Government still do not have the stomach to do what it takes to clamp down on misconduct and to finish the job.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sajid Javid]

I will come on to it. The hon. Gentleman raised the two issues of banking competition and remuneration and I want to cover them.

I was very pleased that the hon. Gentleman talked passionately about the importance of competition. It is a shame that the previous Government did absolutely nothing to encourage it for 13 years. It is worth reminding the Chamber that when the last Government took office there were at least 10 major UK banks, but over their 13 years of incompetence they continued to permit and manage banking takeovers which shrank the number of market players and left the big banks to dominate.

Greater competition in banking is good for people and businesses and the economy. That is why we are implementing the recommendations of the Independent Commission on Banking for improving competition; indeed, we are going further. We are addressing the issue of too big to fail through ring-fencing, meaning that big banks will no longer get a competitive advantage from this implicit guarantee. We have put competition at the heart of financial services regulation by giving the Financial Conduct Authority a formal competition objective as well as making provision for a secondary competition objective for the Prudential Regulation Authority. We are also making sure that the FCA has the right tools to get the job done on competition by giving it concurrent competition powers.

While competition dropped under Labour’s stewardship, it is increasing under ours. As we have heard, since the crisis Metro Bank, Virgin Money and the new TSB brand have entered the market. Indeed, RBS also announced recently that it has teamed up with investors, including the Church Commissioners, to launch a 300-branch challenger bank, Williams & Glyn’s, focused on small businesses.

In fact our financial regulators are currently in talks with 22 potential new bank applicants because of the steps we have taken to promote banking competition. On top of that we are creating a new payment systems regulator so that smaller banks and others can access the payment systems fairly and more transparently, and we have secured a seven-day current account switching service to make sure that people have the confidence to change accounts. There are further innovations coming on cheque imaging and mobile payments. This is a Government who are bringing competition back to banking.

On bankers’ pay, we understand the depth of public anger but we will not take any lectures from the Labour party. While bonuses continued to increase year after year on its watch, even after 2007, they are now down 85% from their peak in 2008. Since 2010 we have been leading the way on tackling unacceptable pay practices. First, we have introduced rules that require significant parts of bonuses to be deferred and paid in shares, which means there is now a much better alignment of pay with risk and performance. While we make sure that only good performance can be rewarded, we are also making sure that poor performance can be punished by introducing measures that mean firms have clawback policies to reduce or revoke pay retrospectively.

Those steps are having an impact. The 2012 bonus pools at almost all major banks have declined massively since this Government came to office. The truth is that while Labour talks about clamping down, this Government get on with the job.

[Emily Thornberry]

If the public are watching this debate, they may well want to ask the question I shall ask now, and I hope we get an answer. Do the Government have a view on the maximum amount a banker should be given by way of either a salary or a bonus, and does the Minister agree with the bonuses currently being given out by Chase Manhattan bank?

[Sajid Javid]

First, I am not sure even whether the Opposition have a view on what the right level of bonuses is. Also, I am not sure about Chase Manhattan bank because it does not exist any more as far as I know.