Professional Standards in the Banking Industry

George Mudie Excerpts

Thursday 5th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Clive Efford]

My hon. Friend anticipates another part of my speech. The processes in this House to set up Committees of this nature—with Government Whips selecting Committee members—will undermine the independence of any investigation. Unless this Committee is independent and the Government take their grubby little hands off it, its investigations will not satisfy the public at all.

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

Does my hon. Friend agree that a Government majority on such a Committee prevents any chance of equality or objectivity? Does he also agree that before the wind-up speeches, the Chancellor should be asked whether he will agree with the Whips that, as a minimum, there will be equality of representation on the Committee, in order to secure public support?

[Clive Efford]

My hon. Friend has made the point, and in the interests of brevity I will leave it there for the Government to comment on.

The Attorney-General is wrong to say that we cannot set up an inquiry such as the one the Opposition are calling for today while a criminal investigation is taking place. At least two criminal investigations are going on while the Leveson inquiry is taking place.

We have been here before. On 4 September 2010, the News of the World issued the following statement:

“We reject absolutely any suggestion there was a widespread culture of wrongdoing at the News of the World.”

We all know what that meant. The then editor of the News of the World, Colin Myler, told the Press Complaints Commission in August 2009 that

“Our internal inquiries have found no evidence of involvement by News of the World staff other than Clive Goodman in phone-message interception”.

Let us compare that with Mr Diamond’s comment in his letter accepting the invitation to appear before the Treasury Committee:

“This inappropriate conduct was limited to a small number of people relative to the size of Barclays trading operations, and the authorities found no evidence that anyone more senior than the immediate desk supervisors was aware of the requests by traders, at the time that they were made.”

We heard exactly the same sort of defences being made against the Leveson inquiry being set up, suggesting that this was a small matter that needed to be investigated. This is too deep an issue to investigate through a Joint Committee of this House or a Select Committee.

I am instinctively supportive of the idea that we should set up such Committees, but fundamental reform of this House of Commons would be required for us to carry out such an inquiry. Back Benchers would need to be able to conduct business independently of the Executive. We do not have the structures to deal with an issue such as this. We would also have to change the culture of this place. Back Benchers would have to have a duty to the public, rather than to our respective Front Benchers.