Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Beith Excerpts

Wednesday 7th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

We are not.

[Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)]

Q9. When my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister comes to consider next week’s Vickers report on the banks, which have been rescued with fantastic amounts of taxpayers’ money, will he have no truck with the banks’ argument that they cannot be reformed to prevent another crisis because they are having such a struggle coping with the crisis they have already created? Surely never again should British taxpayers have to bail out banks that are too big to fail.

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend is entirely right that the Government must take action to reform the banks, and that is what we are doing. We have already set out how we are getting rid of the tripartite structure that failed so badly under the previous Government, how we are putting the Bank of England back in charge, and how we are making sure that, as he put it, we cannot have in the future these catastrophic bank failures that cost the taxpayer so dear. We are looking forward to receiving Professor Vickers’ report. It seems to me there are two vital things we have to secure—a safe and secure banking system for the future, but also proper bank lending, including to small businesses, right now in our economy. That is what Government policy will be aiming for.