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Welsh Affairs

Indeed. My hon. Friend makes his point very well. We can be incredibly proud of what we have achieved in the past 12 years or so. We have seen real improvements in the quality of the services that are provided to our constituents, including in health and education, and we have been able to encourage employment. That we have maintained relatively low interest rates has been a huge assistance to small businesses. Back in the 1990s, interest rates were 15 per cent., and mortgage rates were even higher, which had a huge impact on our constituents' quality of life and the viability of businesses. There has been a big change, and we ought to be honest with ourselves about that. The deficit that we face is clearly a major issue. As a member of the Treasury Committee, I have heard of the effects and causes of the global recession in individual economies in the United States—which the Committee visited a couple of weeks ago—Frankfurt, Austria and Hungary. There was a common theme. Countries throughout the world recognise, thank goodness, that at the time of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, there was co-ordinated action, which was led, I must say, by our own Prime Minister. The major part he played in forming a consensus and driving through the necessary action is acknowledged around the world. The good news is that the world responded in a co-ordinated way, and that we did not enter a serious depression, which we easily could have done. As the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire said, banks could have closed, and people might not have been able to withdraw their deposits, or get cash from cash machines. That was the reality we faced in autumn 2008, but co-ordinated global action prevented those things from happening. There are two reasons for that, the first of which I have raised before in the House. Because of the crisis that followed the collapse of Lehman Brothers, it is not recognised to the extent it should be that from late 2007 to mid-2008—less than a year—we had the biggest spike in energy prices the world has ever seen. Oil went from around $70 a barrel to nearly $150 a barrel, which was unprecedented. That had a serious impact, as did the rises in commodity prices for food, other forms of energy and materials such as metals. Following that serious global problem, and building on it, came the credit crunch and the global banking crisis. We must tackle that issue. We must try to prevent the commodity exchanges getting out of control as they did. There is something wrong when the Governor of the Bank of England writes to the Chancellor to inform him that the consumer prices index has risen to 3.5 per cent. and one of the three reasons he gives is that oil prices went up by 70 per cent. in 2009—during the deepest recession that we have seen. Energy prices should have been falling as demand was falling. Oil prices should have been falling or at least not reached their current level. We need to tackle this problem globally and have complete transparency on the commodity exchanges so that we do not have the speculative activity that has caused that particular problem. The good news is that the US and other countries consider this to be a major issue and the IMF is also looking at it. It will take co-ordinated global action. The hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan) mentioned the RBS bonuses, and said that only those earning less than £39,000 would receive a bonus—