Banking

Debate between Sajid Javid and Michael Connarty

Wednesday 15th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Michael Connarty]

rose—

[Sajid Javid]

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman; I might be about to hear an apology, so I will listen carefully.

[Michael Connarty]

I think anyone who reads the transcript deserves an apology from the Minister, who forgot to mention that the relaxation of banking controls started with Mrs Thatcher and the Conservative Government. He forgot to tell people on the record that when people like me on the Opposition Benches were urging constraint—I am an economist—the Minister’s right hon. and hon. Friends were calling for fewer controls and a lighter touch with the banks, as was the SNP in Scotland.

[Sajid Javid]

I think the hon. Gentleman has a challenged memory of events. I am sad to see that he had an opportunity to apologise, but did not take it.

Let us look at the facts. At the time of the changes Labour was making to the financial sector, my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley) warned the then Government in November 1997:

“The process of setting up the FSA may cause regulators to take their eye off the ball, while spivs and crooks have a field day.”—[Official Report, 11 November 1997; Vol. 300, c. 732.]

Let me share another quote, in this case from the current shadow Chancellor from a speech he made as City Minister in 2006:

“Nothing should be done to put at risk a light-touch, risk-based regulatory regime.”

What we are hearing from Labour is the same old headline-chasing nonsense that we have come to expect and no answers at all to the problems they created.

I agree with the hon. Member for Nottingham East on one thing: public confidence in the banking system and in bankers is still low, just as—let us be honest—public confidence in the political system and the people in this Chamber is still low. That is precisely because, five years ago, partly as a result of the irresponsible decision of some bankers, but largely as a result of the policies of the then Labour Government, our country found itself in a huge mess. When trust is lost on that scale, it is not won back overnight.