Royal Bank of Scotland

Debate between Harriett Baldwin and Clive Efford

Thursday 11th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Harriett Baldwin]

I welcome my hon. Friend to his place, and he is right that I am not prepared to take any lectures on bank regulation, fiscal responsibility or economic management from the Labour party.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

I welcome the hon. Lady to her position, but only the Conservative party could come here and say that this is a benefit to the taxpayer when it is selling this bank at a cost to the taxpayer. This may represent another cash injection, but on this occasion there is nothing left to get taxpayers’ money back further down the road. Can she recall any time when her party criticised the price paid for those shares at the time we bailed out HSBC?

[Harriett Baldwin]

I simply do not accept the hon. Gentleman’s line of argument. If he is such a Mystic Meg, perhaps he will tell me the date on which the price of this bank, which has been completely restructured over the last few years, will change. Rothschild has provided an estimate of the current state of the overall portfolio of bank interventions. I remind the hon. Gentleman that while in 2009 everyone—including Her Majesty’s Treasury—expected that these interventions would cost the taxpayer between £20 billion and £50 billion, evidence today suggests that it will be of overall benefit to the taxpayer.