Banking

George Mudie Excerpts

Wednesday 9th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

It is surprising. I noticed that in the shadow Chancellor’s rather extraordinary response there was no mention of lending. Indeed, I am not even sure what the Labour party’s plan is to get the banks to lend more and whether Labour Members welcome this move or not. I know for a fact that the previous Labour Government tried to negotiate a cross-bank agreement on gross lending, and failed. One would have thought, therefore, that they would welcome this, but they have not done so. My hon. Friend makes the good point that the key is to get lending to small businesses going, which is where the market failure has been over the past couple of years. That is absolutely crucial to our economic recovery.

[Mr George Mudie (Leeds East) (Lab)]

Now that the Chancellor is into transparency on salaries, can he, as the largest shareholder in RBS, the bailed-out bank, tell the House whether it is true, as the Financial Times has suggested, that 100 bankers are earning more than £1 million? If not, how many are?

[Mr Osborne]

The transparency arrangements are the ones that I have set out, and the arrangements for managing RBS are the ones put in place by the Government of whom he was a Whip.