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The Economy

The Office for National Statistics is going to demand quite a big recognition of these banking risks. That recognition may not be for the full amount that I have suggested, but it will take our total indebtedness as a country, as defined by the ONS, to well over 150 per cent. of national income. That is well above many comparable countries around the world that have not blundered into so much bank ownership as this country has through the actions of the Government. What should the Government do to start to cut the risk? First of all, they must recognise that the risk is colossal and that, if they get it wrong, taxpayers could be left hopelessly stranded and have to pay enormous losses. They must recognise that house prices are still falling, that the mortgage experience is deteriorating and that there could be more bad loans than we know about. They must recognise that the corporate sector is in deep trouble—I fear that there could be many more bankruptcies in the months to come—and that corporate loan books are still deteriorating at a terrifying rate. For some unknown reason, the Government have made the taxpayer stand behind all those problems. Although a central bank must make sure that a main bank does not go under, it should do so through short-term lending. It should act as an intelligent bank manager and tell the bank involved to cut its costs and risks and to close down its casino banks. It must tell that bank to stop paying people £200,000, £300,000 or even £400,000 a year when they are making colossal losses that the taxpayer has to stand behind. It is grotesque that we, the taxpayers, are now expected to stand behind people who want to earn £200,000, £300,000, £400,000 or £500,000 a year, with pensions to match, even though their banks are loss making and need state capital and subsidy to survive. I am a well known exponent of free enterprise capitalism. I am all in favour of people in the private sector getting great bonuses and lots of money if that is what they deserve and if they do it in the normal way, but I also think that they have to live with the downside. High rollers who get it wrong should get no benefit from doing so, and it is deeply offensive to many people in this country—and I am sure, in their honest moments, to many Labour MPs as well—that this Government are far too generous with the subsidy and capital that they give to the broken banks. The result of the Government’s actions is only that there is a delay in adjusting those banks and getting them sorted out so that they are in a position to behave normally again. The banks involved cannot be subsidised into lending more: they have to be sorted out to lend more, and that means getting rid of the rubbish. They must sell some of their foreign banks and some of the assets that are good so that they can get cash to do something with. There has to be a patient and difficult case-by-case analysis of every loan on their books, and there also has to be some intelligent banking to see how many people can be got through the crisis and how many unfortunately cannot. For the latter category, it may be better to close the loan down quickly before there are more broken dreams and more lost money. The Government will find out—as I think that they are beginning to do—that owning something means being responsible for it. By all means let us have intelligent and able people who are not politicians or civil servants running the banks that the Government own on behalf of the taxpayer, but they have to do so according to a sensible and understandable remit from the Government. They are not being given that remit, even though it should be very simple: cut the risk and the losses, get us out of dangerous things like investment banking activities, sell some of the good overseas banks because we need the money and should not be standing behind them. The Government have placed the country at grave financial risk, financially. They were warned, but they ignored the warnings. They blundered because they regulated, and over-regulated, but they did not regulate the thing that matters. Will they now please concentrate on the thing that matters? That is that we now have, on the taxpayer’s account, two broken banks that are bigger than the national income. Do the Government understand how risky that is? Will they issue immediate instructions to cut the risk? Will they understand that the British people will not put up with, or be grateful for, paying enormous salaries to people for doing the wrong things in broken banks that then lose us a packet?