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Banking (Asset Protection Scheme)

First, once again, it is clear that, although the hon. Gentleman could not quite bring himself to say it, he agrees with what we are doing. Although he now tries to criticise what we did last October, at the time he expressed full agreement with it, because he recognised that our banks, along with those in other parts of the world, faced collapse, and that we had to step in to recapitalise them. We had to do it quickly—in a very short time. We did not have the luxury of months to go through the books and make decisions about what might happen further down the track; we had to take action quickly. At that time, the Opposition supported our actions, although they subsequently found it convenient to change their mind and walk away from that support. On the agreement that we reached in October, we said that the banks in which we took major shareholdings—RBS and Lloyds TSB—would undertake to maintain the same level of lending as in the previous year. They have been able to do that, but against a background of a marked reduction of lending in this country, especially from foreign banks, which have either withdrawn to their own countries, or in the case of the Icelandic banks, for example, have got into such great difficulties that they cannot lend. In the last quarter of last year, there has also been a sharply deteriorating position in the economy. We want—it is important—to get lending going again because, as I said earlier, if we do not fix the banking system, it will be difficult to fix the wider economy. It is a problem that we face, the Americans face, the Germans face, the Japanese face—right across the world. That is why I said in January that we would have to do something about the problem of assets on bank balance sheets that people either could not value or had deteriorated in value because of what is happening in the economy. As a result of what we have been able to do, RBS will increase its lending by £25 billion this year and next year, on top of the £300 billion that it currently lends in this country. I believe that the insurance rates are appropriate. It is also right to put in the additional capital to help the bank get through the recession. Nobody wants to be in that position—no Government wants to be in that position—but, throughout the world, we must all face up to the fact that banks need additional capital and that we need to ensure that they have a proper insurance scheme to enable them to continue lending. The hon. Gentleman asked about audit. I said in my statement that there needs to be a thorough audit of banks that come into the scheme. I am aware of what the Governor of the Bank of England said this morning—I have heard him say it on previous occasions. I agree that, especially when insurance is involved, there needs to be a rigorous audit, not only so that banks understand the position, but so that we do, too. The hon. Gentleman mentioned the remuneration of Fred Goodwin. It is beyond doubt that most people find it hard to understand, given what has happened to RBS, that such an enormous pension can be paid from the age of 50. Let me explain the position. First, the agreement was not negotiated by the Government; nor was it approved by the Government. Nor would it have been—[Interruption.] ...The agreement on remuneration—the pension arrangements—of employees of a bank is a matter between the employee and the board of directors. Last autumn, we were told that there was a contractual agreement between the bank’s board and Sir Fred. We previously understood that his pension arrangements were an unavoidable commitment, but we did not know—we became aware of it only very recently—that the decision of the previous board of RBS to allow Sir Fred to take early retirement had the effect of increasing his pension entitlement, and that that might have been a discretionary choice. We did not know that and, on finding out—[Hon. Members: ““When?””] Last week, actually. It became clear that the matter may have been a discretionary choice. When we found out, I asked United Kingdom Financial Investments, which holds the shares, to discuss with the new board of the bank whether there was any scope for clawing back some or all the pension entitlement, and whether the board made the decision in full knowledge of the facts. That investigation is going on at the moment. As I said, and I agree with the hon. Gentleman, the matter could be concluded swiftly, because Sir Fred Goodwin could decide not to take the pension—that has been put to him—but the ball remains in his court. I believe that the measures that we have taken on RBS and the asset protection scheme are necessary and unavoidable. It is an essential part of what we must do and what other countries must do if we are not only to fix the banking system but, more important, to ensure that we can rebuild our economy and help people and businesses in this country.