Tuesday 29 September 2009

Darling says no to high pay commission

"I'm worried about the bonus culture ..but it is worth reminding banks and ourselves it isn't a case of having a go at banks," said Chancellor Alistair Darling at a Fabian Economics Question Time.

He added: "It is in their interest as much as it is in all of our interests that the system is cleaned up."

It was about getting a "properly regulated, properly supervised" system so that a global credit crisis was not set off ever again, said Darling.

Finance select committee chair John McFall said: "We need good corporate governance. .....the lack of corporate governance means that people have got away with murder."

CBI director-general Richard Lambert argued that the financial sector need to be thinking more deeply about the ethics of their actions. "Ethics is something we need to be thinking about, if business is not going to exercise the judgement that needs to be taken, then they will be regulated. You need a conversation about ethics."

But Darling said explictly that the government was not thinking about a high pay commission.

"It would be extraordinarily difficult for a government to operate something like that."

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