17th October 2008
LABOUR CANDIDATE CALLS FOR STRICT CONTROL OF BANKS
A Labour Party Parliamentary Candidate has called for strict Government control of the banks and criticised the Conservatives for playing games.
Donna Hutton, who will be seeking election as MP for Clwyd West constituency (which includes Colwyn Bay, Abergele and Ruthin), says the country now has an opportunity to make sure things do not go wrong again.
“The financial system could not be allowed to go to the wall, as that would have been a disaster for our mortgages and small businesses, many of whom rely upon rolling credit to survive,” said Mrs Hutton, “But banks cannot be allowed to be so reckless in future. The banks needed bailing out by the taxpayer in the early 1980s, the 1990s and now again, with huge amounts of our money.”
Mrs Hutton continued, “Instead of coming up with invented money products, pretending they are financial experts and paying themselves handsomely for taking us all to the brink of disaster, the banks should be heavily regulated.
“Since we are all now major shareholders, I believe it is right that the public, through the Government, should ensure banks do what is expected of all of us: to act responsibly. After all, they make billions of pounds in profit from what we would all recognise as normal banking activities, so it is just greed taking over when they go off looking for new ways of getting even richer.
“Fortunately we have experienced politicians in the Government, able to rescue the situation from the mess the banks have made. The Conservatives clearly have no answers and are either playing games or do not really understand what is going on around them.
“I was amazed to hear senior Tories trying to blame the British people for the crisis, saying we have spent too much. And they have even tried to criticize Labour for letting people decide how they spend their own money and whether or not to release equity from their own homes. Presumably a Conservative government would itself want to decide what people do with their money!”
ENDS.