Financial Transaction Tax and Economic and Monetary Union

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Tuesday 18th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Leslie]

Why on earth then does the Minister not engage in the process, change people’s minds, get a better design, deal with this residence principle properly and let us have a financial transaction tax that is in all of our best interests, particularly across those global centres?

The Minister talked about not having objections to an FTT on equities, but he did not say anything about bonds or derivatives in that context. So I challenge him again on the principle: is he absolutely against any sort of FTT on bonds or derivatives? It sounded as though he was, but I say to him that he has to start waking up and engaging with other jurisdictions on these particular points rather than trying to stop it.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

May I apologise to the Minister for coming in a little late? The same argument was used about the minimum wage. I recall that when this Government were in opposition, they were telling us that the minimum wage would cost a couple of million jobs.

[Chris Leslie]

The public are sick and tired of hearing more of the same from the Government—no solutions, just reasons for not doing anything differently. It should not need to be restated—although it clearly does for Government Members—that the global financial crisis and the collapse of many organisations in the financial services sector required an enormous bail-out from the public purse. That collapse in revenues led to an extra £300 billion on the national debt. As the Government have failed to turn things around, we can see that many of the consequences are still being felt today by our constituents and that we need to do something different.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Leslie]

The hon. Lady knows very well that millions and possibly billions of financial transactions take place every day of the week—almost every hour—and it is a question of whether there is a social benefit that we should look at as a recompense to society at large, which should not see those financial transactions as totally disconnected from our economy and our society. We know that excessive risk taking and many of the problems that arose from the attachment to the derivatives trade and others got us into the problems of the global financial crisis. Rather than turning its back on it and not engaging, as the Government are doing, the financial services industry should engage in that and think about the design. Let us get it right and do it on our terms, rather than waiting to play catch-up.

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

Is not the answer to the Minister that Government Members want to protect the bankers? They do not want to make the bankers pay for what they did to the British economy and the world economy.