Our bonus for British business
Business Secretary Vince Cable writes for Comment is Free following the ‘Merlin’ agreement between the Government and the banks.
Britain will take years to recover from the near-collapse of the banking system and its rescue by the state. This government acted swiftly – setting up the banking commission; imposing a bank levy; cracking down on banks’ tax avoidance; and signing up to tougher international rules on capital, liquidity and remuneration. But some policy issues have yet to be confronted, especially the structural questions being addressed by the banking commission and its chairman, Sir John Vickers: how to deal with banks that are “too big to fail”.
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There will be complaints that the government’s failure to put leading bankers before a firing squad, let alone tolerate bonuses, is an abject surrender. On the other side there will be sniping from the City at the banking commission: complaints that tougher disclosure rules and tax will drive bankers from our shores.
I shall keep fighting for British business and British taxpayers. But now we have a ceasefire, and I have decided to decommission my stockpile of banker jokes and hide them in a hole in the country. We still have plenty of weapons to deploy. And in less than nine months the government has done more to put banking right than 13 years of failed laissez faire under Labour. And our work is not yet done.
