Banking Commission Report

Lord Lilley Excerpts

Monday 19th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

Well, we have tried the right hon. Gentleman’s approach and look what happened: the entire banking system collapsed. So with the greatest respect, his advice on what is a dangerous approach to regulation we will take with a pinch of salt.

I turn to the right hon. Gentleman’s other points. On international agreement, obviously it is extremely important that we are able to do this under European law. There has been an argument about this. We have a great deal of support. Countries such as Spain and Sweden have written to the Commission to urge it to allow countries to have their own national regimes that sit on top of the minimum capital requirements, and we are encouraged by the very recent Commission quote which says that “Vickers can be implemented fully in the UK in a way that is compatible with EU law”, but we will continue to make our argument. It is encouraging that both the European Commission and the European Parliament have expressed their keen interest in the Vickers report and are doing their own work on that. It is good to see us leading the international debate on that.

The right hon. Gentleman mentions competition. On Northern Rock, we welcome the National Audit Office investigation. It would be very surprising if the NAO did not do a report into such a financial transaction. It has done reports into all the previous financial transactions by this Government and the previous Government. I think what it will demonstrate is that this was a loss-making bank and the independent advice that we received was that it would go on losing money. The people who should be to blame for losing taxpayers’ money are sitting directly opposite me.

On Lloyds and the Lloyds branches, we have spoken throughout this process to John Vickers. Obviously, he can speak for himself and give his view, but we have kept him closely informed of what we are proposing. I think it is consistent with the intention in the report to create a strong challenger out of the divestment of the Lloyds branches.

Let me turn to the timetable that the right hon. Gentleman mentions. As I say, we will be implementing some of the competition requirements in the Vickers report—for example, the new competition remit for the FCA. That will be part of the financial services Bill that we introduce in January. We considered carefully whether to try and put all the Vickers requirements—the creation of the ring-fenced banks—into the financial services Bill that we are introducing early next year.

We did not think that was sensible. That was also the view of John Vickers, who recommended a separate piece of legislation. That is precisely what we are going to do, but our commitment is clear. We will have all the primary and secondary legislation, which is where quite a lot of the detail will be, through by the end of this Parliament. That is exactly what we want to see.

Finally, the right hon. Gentleman has been going around complaining that we are not doing enough, we are in danger of watering down Vickers, and the like. This is from the people who have opposed structural reform to our banking system. When I was sitting on the Opposition Front Bench as the shadow Chancellor under both the previous Chancellor of the Exchequer, who is in his place, and also under the Chancellor of the Exchequer before, who then became the Prime Minister, they opposed structural reform. They did not want to separate the banks. No doubt they can answer for themselves, but for the former City Minister who was in post when RBS made its bid for ABN AMRO, for the City Minister who was in post when Northern Rock was offering those 125% mortgages, for the City Minister who was in post when HBOS was making all those commercial property loans, for the former City Minister to complain that we are not doing enough is ridiculous. This is the man who advised that Fred Goodwin should get a knighthood and who told his boss to go and open the Lehman Brothers headquarters. That is his record, and his mealy-mouthed apology reminds me of that film “Whoops Apocalypse”—I am sorry, I just brought down the entire British economy; can we all please move on now. That is what he has done. Frankly, he has not made a substantive or interesting contribution to this debate on bank reform. Perhaps in the next few months he will.

[Mr Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his welcome for the Joint Committee report on the financial services Bill. Will he confirm that the legislation implementing recommendations on ring-fencing will be subject to pre-legislative scrutiny, but after that the banks will be required to implement ring-fencing without delay, whereas there is a strong case for allowing time for the requirements for higher capital adequacy to be built up to prevent intensifying the shortage of capital in the short term?

[Mr Osborne]

I will consider the case for pre-legislative scrutiny, and the House will consider it, closer to the time. Obviously there is a trade-off between getting the legislation through and having the pre-legislative scrutiny, but my right hon. Friend’s Committee has done a very good job. Not everyone here will have had a chance to read its report, but I have read its executive summary and I will read the full report tonight. It is an impressive piece of work and an advert for pre-legislative scrutiny. I repeat our commitment that we want all this legislation, primary and secondary, by the end of the Parliament.