Royal Bank of Scotland

Debate between Harriett Baldwin and Dennis Skinner

Thursday 11th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Harriett Baldwin]

I welcome my hon. Friend to the House and congratulate her on an excellent question. The tripartite arrangements for bank regulation put in place by the former Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath let the country down. The work of the last Parliament was to reframe our financial services regulation, so that the Bank of England could take responsibility, and so that we have a single point of regulation for the financial sector overall, supplemented by the important work of the Financial Conduct Authority on behaviour, and by the Prudential Regulation Authority. It is incredibly important that we have moved on from the tripartite arrangement. We do not want another situation in which the British taxpayer has to bail out a bank.

[Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)]

Is it not just conceivable that this mad rush is being perpetrated because the Government know that, with more than 50 rebels on the Back Benches, they are likely to lose their majority sooner rather than later, and lose credibility in the process? This is coming from a Chancellor who has added more in five years to the national debt than all the Labour Chancellors put together. He has been blaming Labour for bailing out the banks, but he supported it. He is now bailing out his friends in the City.

[Harriett Baldwin]

What can I say? It is extraordinary. I do not suppose we heard that kind of rant when the former Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath was intervening in the banking sector. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman has not noticed that, in the single vote on legislation on Second Reading we have had in this Parliament, the Government won by a majority of 491. [Interruption.]