---

Banking (Responsibility and Reform)

The national loan guarantee scheme will be open to all banks, including RBS, Lloyds, Barclays and HSBC, and we are currently taking that work forward. Under the last Government, we witnessed the growth of the bonus culture, where bonuses could be paid in cash, in one year, and were never clawed back in the event of failure. We are changing that culture. Bonuses under the Financial Services Authority code are paid out over at least three years, in shares, not just cash, and failure can be punished by clawing back bonuses, and at both RBS and Lloyds cash bonuses will again be limited to £2,000.