George Osborne ‘a sinner’ over banking reform

George Osborne has been accused of a “con” amid fears he will weaken a clampdown on reckless bankers.

The Chancellor has moved to speed up the timetable for banking reforms designed to avoid a repeat of the 2008 financial crisis.

But Labour’s John McFall, dubbed scourge of the bankers for his grilling of the likes of Fred Goodwin, has warned there will not now be enough time to assess if the coalition is sticking to its promise of cleaning up banking.

The former chairman of the Treasury Select Committee fears the Lords will not have enough time to scrutinise the detail of proposals in a raft of Government amendments to the Financial Services Bill currently going through Parliament.

David Cameron set up the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards (PCBS) in 2012 to clean up the banks after revelations about bad behaviour in the City.

Lord McFall, who sat on the PCBS, said: “The Government said they’d take the commission seriously but that was a con.

“There’s been inadequate scrutiny of the bill but George Osborne is pushing like mad to get it through.

“He painted himself a saint at the start of all this but it turns out he’s as big a sinner as the rest of them.”

The PCBS recommendations, which included creating new offences that would see reckless bankers jailed, were tacked on to the Financial Services Bill already going through parliament.

The members of the PCBS claim they need until Christmas to consider the new amendments.

However the Government has House of Lords time on their hands after they had to pause the botched lobbying bill.

Business managers decided to fill the gap with the next stage of the Financial Services Bill, provoking fury from Commission members.

Chancellor Osborne welcomed the report of the Banking Commission published earlier this year.

In July he said: “I called for a thorough investigation into how to improve standards and the PCBS delivered.

“The Government will implement its main recommendations.”