Royal Bank of Scotland (FSA Report)

Frank Dobson Excerpts

Monday 12th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hoban]

I think that we should give careful consideration to the idea of debarring people who have been incompetent and mismanaged their leadership of institutions. That applies to the directors of those institutions, but it may also apply to the politicians who designed the system in the first place.

[Frank Dobson (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)]

Let me begin by declaring an interest: my wife and I have both current and deposit accounts with the Royal Bank of Scotland. As one who was always in favour of tougher regulation of banks, I must also confess that I do not recall encountering an organisation before the collapse which could be described as “Tories for tougher banking regulation”.

Will the Minister confirm that the failures extend beyond the area that he has covered? Will he confirm that the auditor, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu—which received substantial fees—did not seem to notice that there was anything wrong, and that the benighted rating agencies, which keep telling us what should be happening now, gave triple A ratings to both RBS and ABN AMRO right up to the day on which the balloon burst?

[Mr Hoban]

The right hon. Gentleman makes some important points, and clearly a number of institutions involved with RBS and the regulatory system more widely should bear responsibility for what happened, but let us be absolutely clear that the principal responsibility for the failure of RBS lies with its management.