LIBOR (FSA Investigation)

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Thursday 28th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for sharing his CV with the House. [Interruption.] At least he did not work for the shadow Chancellor. The answer to his question is that we are publishing the consultation next week.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

The Chancellor has very sensibly said that he will look at how fines are used, but his answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) about calculating how much people have lost is somewhat disappointing. Can he not look into whether the fine money can be used to compensate people? Surely he is not expecting every individual to make their own case against a large institution such as Barclays bank?

[Mr Osborne]

I am happy to take away, because it has been raised by several Members, the issue of the total impact on the economy and on individuals. I would point out to the hon. Lady that that might be extremely difficult to work out, because the LIBOR rate was manipulated up as well as down. Sometimes the rate was too low for the true market price, and sometimes it was too high. It was manipulated by its derivative trading floor to suit the particular position that the bank had taken on that day, and that is why it is a difficult calculation to make. The FSA has made it clear, however, that that contributed to a risk to the country’s financial stability, and the cost of that is enormous.