Finance (No. 3) Bill

The hon. Gentleman is right that there are those two sides to the argument, but this is probably not the time or place to argue that through. We may have an opportunity to argue through how the bank shares are sold and the balance in the sale process when we get nearer to that point. The issue before us now is a taxation one. We are discussing the taxation of bonuses and the bank levy—the subject of the clause—and I agree with those who say that if we take too much out in bonuses in a state-owned bank, that detracts from the value that is available to sell. Of course, the bank levy is not the means by which we can have any impact on bonuses. Interestingly, it was the previous Government who nationalised or bought shares in banks and signed off on all the original agreements for the top directors and executives. I believe that they included generous bonus terms at the time because, they said, they had to in order to have the talent needed. The criticism being made of the coalition Government now is that they took over those inherited contracts and lived with them, rather than broke them and disrupted the management of the banks, which I regard as a lesser charge than the one against the former Government of setting up all those contracts in the first place. This should not be a party political issue. I regret some of the contracts that were incorporated at the time of the purchase of shares, but I regretted the whole purchase of shares because I thought it neither a particularly good deal for the taxpayer, nor a necessary deal to sort out the banking problem. I would rather have sorted that out more rapidly at the time, with managed administration or something else, than adopt this expensive way of putting all that money in. We are now trying to maximise the returns because we are where we are.