Time for your bonus question
10 Feb 09
The row over banking bonuses was completely predictable. So why is Gordon Brown on the back foot?
Whether you call it a show trial or a calling to account, the grilling of the “RBS/HBOS Four” by the Treasury select committee made compelling viewing. The MPs had lined up four one-time high heid yins of the banking world: former RBS chief executive Sir Fred Goodwin; his chairman Sir Tom McKillop; Andy Hornby former chief executive and chairman of HBOS and former HBOS chairman Lord Stevenson of Coddenham.
It’s true that we’ve heard them all say “sorry” already, at what was to prove their final shareholders’ meetings, but it’s one thing to read out a prepared statement and quite another to face the scathing sarcasm and probing questions of the committee chairman John McFall and his colleagues.
I’m not sure that we know any more than we did before, but there’s something cathartic about being able to confront, albeit vicariously, some of the people responsible for our current economic predicament.
The select committee has more bankers to grill today. The committee’s timing could hardly be better, since the issue of bankers and their bonuses has resurfaced with a vengeance this week. To be honest, I’m not quite sure where I stand on this. Excessive bonuses in the banking world are an affront in the current climate, and even more so when in many cases it’s taxpayer’s money that has kept those institutions afloat.
Even more importantly, the size and structure of the bonuses previously enjoyed by senior bankers and their star traders arguably contributed to the reckless actions of the banks and their inevitable consequences.
On the other hand, do we say that there should be no bonuses for performance for any bank employees, from cashiers on up, and regardless of their contractual rights? They didn’t all contribute to the disaster, while many people outside the banks did, and that includes customers who borrowed as recklessly as the banks lent.
So, it’s a difficult question. Despite Gordon Brown’s “anger” expressed this week, it doesn’t seem to be something the government has considered up to now. That’s why they’re proposing kicking it into touch, with a committee of inquiry.
To me that seems nonsensical. The bonus issue has been a ticking time bomb ever since Gordon Brown stepped in with a £38 billion rescue package last autumn. The government has effectively owned a majority stake in a number of leading banks since that time, and if it still has no idea what to do about bonuses, I see that as a failure of governance.