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FSA Investigation into LIBOR

Does the Minister agree that the apparently noble gesture of the directors of Barclays in waiving their bonuses this year is not good enough? I will be pretentious and say that we, the people, demand that they pay back every bit of the bonuses for the years in question.

While we are talking about this, I cannot remember—because I have been in this place for so long—whether the process of deregulation was begun by the Minister’s Government. It was the noble Baroness herself who elevated greed to a virtue. Then the whole international financial consensus pleaded with us all for soft-touch regulation. That is what they got. We were wrong, but they were wrong for exploiting it. They, and not the two Governments who have been involved, are culpable.