This is an unusual Bill, in that at the same time that it has sought to implement a reform recommended by the Vickers commission two years ago, it has run in parallel with the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards, which periodically has produced reports and asked the Government to use the Bill to implement their findings.
I place on record my thanks to colleagues who served on the commission and all its staff. It was an intense effort and I do not think we could have produced our
reports without the able efforts of the many staff who worked for us, led by Colin Lee, who is a great servant of this House.
I want to draw the Minister’s attention back to yesterday’s official response from the Government to the commission’s report of a few weeks ago. We read in yesterday’s newspapers that the Government were going to accept the vast bulk of the recommendations and the Minister opened the debate by saying something very similar. However, I have looked through the Government document in detail and wonder whether the Minister could confirm that the position is not that simple.
Paragraphs 2.32 and 2.33 reject part of our recommendations on pay. Paragraph 4.5 makes no commitment to legislation on access to basic bank accounts. Paragraph 3.24 passes to the regulator only consideration of the changes that we recommended on the corporate governance responsibilities of executives and bank chairmen. Paragraphs 3.34 and 3.35 in effect reject our recommendation for gender reports on operations on the trading floor. Paragraph 5.11 rejects our recommendation to consider splitting RBS into regional banks as part of the Government’s study on RBS. Paragraph 5.28 rejects our recommendations on the governance of the Bank of England. Paragraph 5.31 rejects our recommendations on the chairmanship of the Prudential Regulation Authority.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie) said, the Government have also rejected recommendations on leveraging and ring-fencing, in particular ring-fencing in respect of the sector as a whole. When it comes to the implementation of recommendations, the chairman of the parliamentary commission yesterday described the attempt to ring-fence one particular group as “virtually useless”.
I stress to the Minister that it is not accurate to say that the Government have accepted the vast majority of the parliamentary commission’s recommendations. The document that was published yesterday is full of excuses and sleights of hand that pass on to the regulator for consideration firm recommendations that we made. I stress to those in another place, who may have a greater opportunity to amend the Bill, that they should read the document that was published yesterday with a careful eye to see what has been accepted and what has not.