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Simon Hughes MPRepresenting Southwark and Bermondsey since 1983 |
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Get on with banking reform - Simon Hughes MP
July 3, 2012 2:00 PM
Speaking today about banking reform, Simon Hughes, Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats said:
"The Leveson Inquiry came after a failed police investigation, a corporate cover-up, allegations of police corruption and corruption of the political system. It needed a judge to cut through the mire, and I called for it a year before it was instituted. But a judge-led inquiry into banking should now not be the priority.
"The failures of the banking system and specifically the attempt to fix interest rates comes after a successful investigation by the regulator.
"For years people like my friend Vince Cable warned about the consequences of the gambling by spivs in the city.
"There is already banking legislation in parliament. This will make the regulation of the financial sector much tougher and is the result of Liberal Democrat campaigning from Vince Cable and Steven Williams in the last parliament. A parliamentary committee could do a lot to make the legislation even tougher and better.
"People are rightly enraged by this latest scandal to emerge from the banks and they want action now. We need urgent changes to the law in the months ahead not years from now.
"Labour's record was one of doing so little for such a long time. It is predictable but disappointing for Labour now to try and undermine government determination to reform banking in Britain as quickly as possible. The only people who can profit from further delays to reform are the very banks who have been guilty of such failings for far too long."