Oral Answers to Questions

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Thursday 8th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Willetts]

The catalyst fund that I referred to in my previous answer is aimed specifically at getting financial support to new start-ups, and will help finance them through the so-called “valley of death” before they can get commercial funding. At the Competitiveness Council in Brussels on Tuesday, I argued that European research funding should be more easily accessible for small and medium-sized enterprises. The best way to achieve that is by cutting bureaucracy and the complexity in the current arrangements for accessing European funding. That is what I urged on the Commission.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

6. What recent steps he has taken to ensure that the liquidation of Bank of Credit and Commerce International is complete.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Mr Edward Davey)]

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State wrote to the BCCI liquidators about the progress of the BCCI liquidation earlier this year, following his meeting with the right hon. Gentleman. I understand that a closure plan has been published on the liquidators’ website at www.bcci.info. This website is updated as and when there are any developments in the liquidation.

[Keith Vaz]

It is now 20 years since the bank went into liquidation, in which time the liquidators, Deloitte Touche, its solicitors, Lovells, and other professionals have received £1.2 billion in fees. Will the Minister thank the Secretary of State for writing that letter and ask him whether he would be prepared to secure his place in history, or at least to act as Santa Claus to the victims of BCCI, so that finally this bank can be closed and the liquidators will cease to bleed it of the last remnants of its money?

[Mr Davey]

I think that my right hon. Friend already has his place in history. The right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) knows that the BCCI creditors have been repaid more than 85% of what they were owed at the outset of liquidation, and a final dividend—estimated to be about 3%—is expected to be paid in April or May 2012. He will also know that control of the BCCI liquidation is a matter for the liquidation committee, and ultimately the courts, not for the Secretary of State, and that the liquidators are trying to bring this long period to an end.