Peter Tapsell
Main Page: Peter Tapsell (Conservative - Louth and Horncastle)Department Debates - View all Peter Tapsell's debates with the Cabinet Office
(13 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Prime Minister
The previous Labour leader thought that he had saved the world; after that answer, I think that this Labour leader is Walter Mitty. The Labour party has to accept some responsibility for the mess it made of the economy. It is the party that borrowed too much, spent too much, left us with unregulated banks and left us with the mess that we have to clear up. When one sees those two sitting on the Front Bench who worked for so long in the Treasury, one has to ask, one would not bring back Fred Goodwin to sort out the banks, so why would one bring them back to sort out the economy?
Sir Peter Tapsell (Louth and Horncastle) (Con)
Has my right hon. Friend noticed that since I put the point to him last month, the head of our Serious Fraud Office, Mr Richard Alderman, has publicly deplored the fact that no senior British bankers have been prosecuted for their irresponsibility, and has urged that legislation be introduced as soon as possible to empower his office to prosecute such offenders?
The Prime Minister
It is important that inquiries are conducted into what went wrong at RBS and HBOS, because we are left clearing up a mess made by the irresponsibility of others. If there is room for criminal prosecutions, of course those should happen. Our responsibility is to ensure that we regulate the banks and the financial industry properly in future. That is why we have put the Bank of England back at the heart of the job.