Banking (Responsibility and Reform)

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Tuesday 7th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Umunna]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. We need shorter interventions.

[Mr Umunna]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

I thank my hon. Friend for his contribution. The Walker review proposals are the start, not the end, of the reform needed, but my hon. Friend makes a strong point about the culture in the financial services sector. On the proposal to have an employee on the remuneration committee, would not the RBS board be in a stronger position if it could say, on matters of pay, that an employee representative had been involved in the decision making?

--- Later in debate ---

[The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Mark Hoban)]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. Before I call the Minister, let me say that we are going to introduce a time limit of eight minutes for Back Benchers.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jake Berry]

My hon. Friend makes an important and powerful argument. On the specific point of the Opposition’s proposals for the banker bonus tax, is he aware that it is a tax that keeps on giving, because—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. The intervention is far too long. The hon. Gentleman has just come in; I am not sure whether the hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones) was aware of that when he gave way. We are short on time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

I am reducing the time limit to six minutes, to try to get everybody in.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Williamson]

I am not repenting, but the hon. Gentleman might like to repent for the fact that the real origins of the problems that we are facing can be traced back 30 years to Margaret Thatcher’s Government. [Interruption.] I can hear hon. Members cheering, but it was Margaret Thatcher’s Government who undermined the manufacturing industry, used financial services as an alternative engine of economic growth, ran down the mining, steel, shipbuilding and car-making industries and totally destroyed manufacturing in this—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. Shorter interventions, as I have already expressed, are the order of the evening.

[Richard Fuller]

I thank the hon. Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson) for what will appear in print as a helpful intervention.

I turn to the mishmash of observations that the Opposition have called a motion. It might, to them, make a motion, but it certainly does not make a policy.

On the key issues, the coalition Government have already taken sensible steps towards reform: they have found an answer to the mess of regulation by centralising it under the Bank of England; they will implement the recommendations of the Vickers report; and they are introducing changes to the compensation culture so that it can get back to supporting enterprise and rewarding merit, which is what we all want.

The shadow Business Secretary did a good job of holding back the hostile anti-business rhetoric. I just hope that the shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury can restrain herself in her usual anti-business rhetoric when she winds up for the Opposition.