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Banking (Responsibility and Reform)

Here we are again in another Opposition-day debate centred on the economy, banks and bonuses. The handwritten notes I prepared earlier this afternoon read, ““And yet again we hear no contrition from the Labour Front Bench.”” However, as this is a debate and we have to respond to it, I will at least acknowledge that there was some contrition from the hon. Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna). I guess it must be easier for him, and indeed for his Front-Bench colleagues, who were all elected in 2010, to wash their hands of the last Labour Government's decisions and offer at least some apology for what their predecessors did in office. However, it would be good to hear a collective apology from the Opposition, including those Members who were here in the previous Parliament, for the ineffective regulation and supervision of the banking industry, which was a major factor in the collapse of the banks and the economic failure and contraction that happened four years ago.