Professional Standards in the Banking Industry

Debate between George Osborne and Steve Rotheram

Thursday 5th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

May I at least make this point to those on the Opposition Benches about the proposal in their motion to have a judge-led inquiry?

[Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

Will the Chancellor give way?

[Mr Osborne]

No, I am not going to give way; I am going to make this point.

If we go ahead with a judge-led inquiry, it will almost certainly take longer than the shortest inquiry that has ever taken place under the Inquiries Act 2005. Why? Because we are talking about an inquiry into the professional standards of the entire banking industry, which is a pretty big subject for an inquiry. Even if we assume that we could find a judge very quickly, that the inquiry was up and running at some point in the autumn, that took a year and a half—which is how long the inquiry in Glasgow took—and that the Government were allowed six to nine months to respond to the inquiry’s conclusions, have a White Paper and do the consultation required under Labour’s laws, that would make it impossible in this Parliament to make the changes to the law that might be required. This Parliament would be saying, “We are simply not able to change the law to deal with the scandal,” which would have happened almost a decade ago.