The Prime Minister of the day did step in and take appropriate action. The important thing is that the lessons of the financial crisis and the banking crisis are learned. I believe that the Opposition have learned those lessons, but those on the Government Benches have not.
Do the Chancellor and the Government still not understand the widespread anger out there? Do they not recognise the public’s deep distaste for the ever-expanding horror story of bailed-out bankers not being brought to book? The Panama papers shone a light on the squalid practice of the super-rich squirreling away money offshore that Britain needs for our schools and hospitals, and to bring down the UK debt that has rocketed on the Chancellor’s watch. As I said on Second Reading, all that is taking place while there are cuts to pay, pensions, welfare, councils and services.
The public are right to remember that because of the behaviour of some top bankers, people whom this House is meant to represent lost their homes and their jobs. We should never forget that it was the bankers’ crisis that caused the deficit that this Government have relied on as their justification for their political choice to cut our public services, cut funding to our local authorities, cut the incomes of working people and cut support for the most vulnerable people in our communities. The global financial crash caused the huge increase in the deficit and stalled the economy. It also gave the Government the opportunity to carry out their long-harboured and decades-old ideological desire to cut public services and wither away the state.
We need a healthy and effective banking sector, but one that is appropriately regulated, serves the interests of the whole economy, does not hurt ordinary people or small and medium-sized businesses and delivers the vital investment our country needs for long-term growth. The Conservative Government’s climbdown on the
presumption of responsibility, which they previously supported, will hinder, not help, the fulfilment of those ambitions.
Personal responsibility is vital for the operation of our regulatory systems. The Chancellor’s policy U-turn reduces precisely the personal responsibility that the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards recommended in its 500-page report. Scrapping a key measures before it has even had a chance to be tested makes no sense—unless, of course, the Chancellor is just following bankers’ orders. The startling and precipitous scrapping of a widely welcomed measure shows that there is a very real risk of failing to learn the lessons of the bankers’ crisis, and that is why we will oppose the Bill today. I urge all hon. Members to do the same.
6.21 pm