Vince Cable sets out the Liberal Democrat plan for the banking sector

Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrats' Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, confirmed that the Liberal Democrats are not anti bank or anti banker. He states that his day one, hour one objective as Chancellor would be to devise a fresh and consistent mandate for the nationalised and semi nationalised banks. He argues that RBS and Lloyds are key to supporting the British economy and are currently falling well short of their lending agreements. He challenges Alistair Darling to give a full public account of these agreements on their respective anniversaries.

The Liberal Democrats are, however, committed to splitting up the banks, unilaterally if necessary. Vince Cable argues that so long as Northern Rock was re-mutualised in such a way to guarantee that it would continue to repay the Government, there is no reason – at least in principle – why it could not do so as a Building Society.

IMF study backs Liberal Democrat position – Cable

Responding to the IMF study and its assertion that the weakness of growth in the British economy means that tax increases and spending cuts should be delayed until next year but that action to reduce the deficit is inevitable, Liberal Democrat Shadow Chancellor, Vince Cable said:

“This is a clear endorsement of the Liberal Democrat approach to the deficit and the re-privatisation of the state owned banks.

“Decisions of when to cut Government spending must be based on economic principles not political games.

“Both the public and the markets have a right to know how the parties plan to tackle the deficit, but gung-ho spending cuts while the economy is barely recovering is simply reckless.

“While Labour buries its head in the sand and the Tories change position according to the prevailing wind, only the Liberal Democrats have produced a credible and coherent plan for dealing with the deficit.

“The Tories must also realise that the taxpayer will have to have a stake in the state owned banks for a considerable period of time if we are to get good value for money when they are re-privatised.”