Independent Banking Commission Report

Robert Buckland Excerpts

Monday 12th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

Of course, one of the groups of people who are the innocent victims of what went wrong are the many people who worked in the branches of banks such as RBS and HBOS throughout the country and who lost their jobs even though they were not investment bankers working in the City of London or trading mortgage derivatives and so forth. I hope that we can now build a successful and competitive banking system that, in Scotland and elsewhere, hires people, opens branches and reverses the trend of recent years. Such groups of people have definitely been the innocent victims of what went wrong and we must do right by them.

[Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)]

What impact does my right hon. Friend think these generally welcome proposals will have on the timing of the return of our nationalised banks to the private sector?

[Mr Osborne]

Of course, we all want to see the return of the banks to the private sector. If truth be told, the big fall in recent months in the share prices of these banks and others—American and European—around the world have pushed that timetable back a little further. I do not think that that is a surprise to anyone. Our objective is to get these banks back into private hands, and Northern Rock—the good part of Northern Rock, I should stress—is currently up for sale.