Oral Answers to Questions

Gregg McClymont Excerpts

Tuesday 21st December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Danny Alexander]

I am glad to hear about the companies in my hon. Friend’s constituency, which share the confidence of many businesses that we have a Government who have got to grips with the public finances. That gives companies the confidence to invest, which is an important part of ensuring the private sector-led recovery that we need.

[Gregg McClymont (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (Lab)]

17. What plans his Department has to ensure greater transparency in remuneration in the financial services sector.

[The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Mark Hoban)]

The Financial Services Authority has revised its remuneration code for disclosure rules to incorporate provisions in the EU capital requirements directive, CRD3, which comes into force on 1 January 2011. The directive requires firms to make narrative and quantitative disclosures on pay policy and practices. Those requirements are at the forefront of global practice and will help ensure greater transparency in remuneration in the financial services sector.

[Gregg McClymont]

In reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Phil Wilson), the Financial Secretary suggested that the Government were united in their approach to banking reform. Am I to conclude from that that the Business Secretary speaks for the Government when he says that the Conservative party is a roadblock to banking reform?

[Mr Hoban]

I hardly think that a Government who have embarked on a programme of radical regulatory reform of the financial services sector, introduced the bank levy, and set up the independent banking commission to consider the structure of banking in the UK could be viewed by anybody other than the Labour party as a roadblock to reform.