Banking

Simon Danczuk Excerpts

Wednesday 9th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. For me, in these discussions the absolute key has been the additional commitment to lend to small and medium-sized businesses. Over the past couple of years, all Members have had people in our constituencies come to us with very difficult stories about the failure of banks to lend to such businesses, and we now have a commitment to increase the lending available by 15%, which is a substantial increase. Alongside that—I did not have time to go into all the detail, but it is being published this afternoon—there will be a new code of practice for the banks to treat their customers much more fairly: for example, they should engage with small businesses a full year before an overdraft comes up for renewal. For me, dealing with that crucial area of the economy—getting credit to small and medium-sized businesses—has been one of the most important parts of the new settlement.

[Simon Danczuk (Rochdale) (Lab)]

We now have the big society shrinking before our eyes, and voluntary organisations seeing their budgets cut left, right and centre. At the same time, we still have bankers’ bonuses well beyond most people’s dreams, and on top of that we learn today that the City and organisations in it, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr Skinner) pointed out, have been stuffing money into the Tory party’s coffers. Is this a series of coincidences, or should the public be more suspicious?

[Mr Osborne]

I just pointed out that a Lehman Brothers executive was one of the biggest donors to the shadow Chancellor’s campaign, and I think the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr Skinner) shouted at that point, “Well, I didn’t vote for him.” [Interruption.] He repeats it; in fact, he probably did not vote for the Labour party leader, because as far as I can tell virtually no Labour MP did. That brings me to this point: the key thing about the Labour party and its fundraising is that it gets money from the trade unions and changes policy as a result.