This article was written by Vince Cable and appeared in today’s Mail on Sunday

Banks are back in the news. Just when they hoped quietly to get on with business as usual, we have had sharp reminders of why they can’t.

It has emerged that, a year ago, there was a secret £62billion loan to keep leading banks afloat.

The Supreme Court has ruled that banks do not have to refund customers the billions they took in unfair charges. And, now, we have a limp, half-hearted report by a City insider recommending top bankers’ pay be kept secret.

Let me start with Sir David Walker, a pillar of the City establishment, whom the Government entrusted with recommending banking reforms. His report is a ‘whitewash’.

The key issue is pay and how it should be declared. Walker’s recommendation is that the banks should tell us how many employees they have earning over £1million but not who or how much.

That is a small advance. But it says something that Sir David and the banks think you have to be paid over £1million a year to be classified as a high earner.

These bankers earn more in a year than a nurse in a lifetime. They live in a dangerously different world.

There may be several thousand millionaire bankers in London, including many at Morgan Stanley where Sir David is a senior adviser.

I have no quarrel with the idea of hard-working, risk-taking entrepreneurs making pots of money, provided they pay tax. However, I do have a quarrel with people earning vast sums on the back of a taxpayer guarantee.

Some are in banks that pursue highly risky, and very profitable, trading activities in the knowledge that the Government is obliged to step in if they get into trouble.

Shareholders who own the banks and the taxpayers who guarantee them have every right to know who is being paid how much and for what.

Openness is not new. Directors of public companies are already required to declare their earnings. If you want to know how much the bosses of British Telecom or British Airways or your local hospital earn, you can easily find out in their annual reports.

It is a healthy discipline, making them justify themselves.

Parliament now has a similar discipline at last. MPs were dragged kicking and screaming into the light of day to disclose expenses and outside earnings.

There was a major scandal when the truth was revealed, but more transparent arrangements are now being put into place. Those whose livelihoods depend on the taxpayer should be accountable.

The failure of Walker to grasp this is compounded by Alistair Darling’s meek acceptance of his recommendations. There are splits in the Government.

The Minister for the City, Lord Myners, is exasperated by the ‘tin ear’ of the bankers and wanted full disclosure. He has been overruled. I shared a TV studio with him this week and he was rolling his eyes at the Government’s capitulation.

The Chancellor still won’t let us know how much of the cash we pump into the banks pours straight into bonus pots.

Three weeks ago he pretended bankers wouldn’t get cash bonuses for five years – now we know that RBS will let staff take half their bonus in cash next June.

Whenever reform is suggested, the bankers whine: ‘If you do anything to regulate us we shall all go somewhere else.’

I suspect ‘somewhere else’ might be less hospitable than London – certainly the US and the main European capitals are. One bolthole, Dubai, went bust this week. A few financial refugees may make their way to Switzerland. We cannot be held to ransom by them.

The bigger picture is of growing tensions between banks and customers. The banks are concentrating on building up their profits by keeping interest rates for depositors as low as possible and lending rates as high as possible.

Customers are getting a raw deal and it will get worse. Few customers get a worse deal than small and medium-size business. The banks have badly squeezed what they regard as high-risk lending to small business. But small business is the most important source of job-creation.

It is beyond belief that RBS was allowed to bankroll Kraft’s hostile bid for Cadbury when it will not support sound UK businesses.

Having fought an expensive legal battle to defend unfair charges, there will now be a bigger push by banks to squeeze more out of customers and cut costs.

The next move is to abolish cheque books despite more than three million cheques being cleared every day. Millions will be caused considerable inconvenience.

My wife and I are exasperated with the poor service at our banks – NatWest (RBS) and the Bank of Scotland (now Lloyds). Customers should vote with their feet.

We are missing a golden opportunity to create something better out of the wreckage of the banking system.

Instead we’re sliding back to a lazy, complacent, business-as-usual mindset. Keeping top pay in taxpayer-protected banks secret is typical of a craven Government.

Taxpayers sign the bankers’ bonus cheques – so we must see the names and numbers on them.

Liberal Democrat Shadow Chancellor, Vince Cable

The energy watchdog Ofgem is accused of failing to make sure that energy companies follow new licensing rules that were introduced two months ago, requiring them not to charge more than the extra costs involved in paying by meter.

Pre-payment meters are generally used by people on low incomes or customers who have a second home such as a holiday cottage.

The new rules were introduced after energy firms were discovered to be charging customers who did not pay their bills by direct debit significantly more than those who did.

The National Housing Federation (NHF) has now informed Ofgem that five of the big six energy companies are still overcharging their prepayment customers by an average of £12 more than is allowed.

Between them British Gas, SSE, npower, E.On and Scottish power have a total of six million prepayment meter customers, and under rules set by Ofgem, they are allowed to charge these customers up to £88 more than their direct debit customers, to cover the extra expense of installing a meter, but the NHF have said that in September, Scottish Power charged those with meters an average of £108 more than customers on direct debit, British Gas £106 more, Npower £105, SSE £102 and E.ON £99 more.

These charges were the same as those made in August, meaning that the companies had not complied with the new rules.

David Orr, chief executive of the NHF, said he had written to Ofgem demanding that it investigates whether the energy companies were breaking the conditions of their licenses.

He added:

“The fact that five of the big six energy companies have already ignored the new licensing conditions shows that Ofgem simply isn’t taken seriously by the energy industry.

“Ofgem will now have lost the confidence of millions of prepay customers across the country.”

 Earlier this week the Liberal Democrat Shadow Charities Spokesperson, Jenny Willott criticised the Conservative party’s ’small state, big society’ vision as being a means to get the charitable sector to underwrite the costs of delivering public services.

The attack on Tory headline party policy came in a keynote speech at the NCVO Infrastructure National Partnership Conference 2009.

Commenting, Jenny Willott said:

“The Tories’ small state big society vision is a thinly-veiled part of a traditional Tory tax-cutting agenda.

“David Cameron wants to handover responsibility for delivering public services to charities.

“The Conservatives want the UK to develop a low tax US-style philanthropic culture overnight. This is fanciful and decidedly dangerous.

“As well as potentially leaving huge gaps in provision, charities will be left underwriting the costs of public services. This can only damage the sector and the very people that charities are best placed to help.

“The Tories want government to hand pick social entrepreneurs and parachute them in to lead community programmes. But this could disenfranchise local volunteers and undermine the independence of community voluntary organisations.

“The sector can and should play a much greater role in the provision of public services. But this should be driven by local and community innovators working in the sector, not by Tory Ministers based in Whitehall.

“This type of innovation must be allowed to develop gradually. This means safeguarding grant funding and creating a level playing field so that charities can properly compete for, and win, contracts against their private sector counterparts.”

Last night it was reported that a Conservative council leader has cast doubt over the ability of the Shadow Cabinet, suggesting they are not experienced enough to run a country.

Stephen Greenhalgh, leader of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham and head of the Conservative councils’ innovation unit, made the remarks at a round table debate on November 26, run by Public Finance in association with Zurich Municipal.

During a discussion on the subject of increasing efficiency through reforming local government, he said that increasing the power of councils would improve the quality of politicians.

He said:

“My mates are all in the shadow Cabinet, waiting to get those (ministerial) boxes, being terribly excited. I went to university with them, they haven’t run a piss-up in a brewery,”

“They’re going to get a department of state, in one case running the finances of the nation.”

Mr Greenhalgh does not give an opinion on shadow Home Secretary,who will be responsible or the country’s police forces, but at the recent Annual Police Authorities Conference in Nottingham, Chris Grayling was was jeered, and at the end of his speech the applause was “luke warm”, at the most, which suggests that members of police authorities have a poor opinion of his ability.

My colleague on N E Lincs Council, who is one of our representatives on Humberside Police Authority, and who was present at the conference said that Mr Grayling was jeered, and at the end of his speech the applause was “luke warm”, at the most, and that the talk around the room after his speech was that the Conservatives do not have an understanding of the crime agenda or how Police Authorities work.

A recent report by the healthcare watchdog revealed that patients at an NHS foundation hospital were made to suffer excessive waits in accident and emergency, important equipment was mouldy, and some curtains were spattered with blood.

The filthy conditions at the Essex hospital are said to have contributed to 400 deaths in just one year.

The commission’s inspectors found that patients were made to wait up to ten hours to receive accident and emergency treatment, compared to a national target of four hours.

The report also revealed that patients were not fed or given medication properly, and there was a high rate of bedsores among elderly patients.

Concerns about the death rates which were reported by the health care watchdog, the Care Quality Commission (CQC), were reported to be a third higher than they should have been, were first made a year ago.

Senior managers at the hospital trust, which had a budget of £250 million, ignored the concerns of the CQC, and an internal investigation did not report anything amiss at the Essex hospital.

The CQC report, which was given to Monitor, the organisation in charge of foundation hospital trusts, revealed “systematic failings” in the trust’s senior management team.

Shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley, said:

“I am extremely disturbed by this news and the effect that these shocking conditions may have had on patients. It is unforgivable if any lives have been needlessly lost.

“When the appalling standards of care at Stafford Hospital were revealed, we were assured by Labour ministers that it was ‘an isolated case’. That sort of complacency is simply not good enough.”

The Liberal Democrat Shadow Health Secretary Norman Lamb also attacked the government:

“People have a right to know how on earth a hospital can be rated ‘good’ a few weeks before such serious failings come to light.

“Ministers must explain to people how they can have any faith in a system that could rate this hospital as ‘good’ when within weeks they were investigating them for poor hygiene, neglect and a high number of deaths.

“If the regulator has lost confidence in management, then people must be fully held to account at both clinical and management level,” Mr Lamb said.

None of the senior managers at the hospital have been threatened with dismissal and they all remain in their jobs.

Earlier this year, the CQC report also found similar problems at Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust, revealing up to 1,200 avoidable deaths.

The Conservatives suffered a major setback in yesterday’s local authority elections when they lost three seats to the Liberal Democrats.

In spite of the losses by the Conservatives, the Press Association has calculated that based on the November council by-elections, the Conservatives hold a lead of 9.4% over the Liberal Democrats, with 36.4% to 27.5%, with Labour in third place with a 26.1% share of the vote.

The Lib Dem gains from the Tories were at Blackbrook in the High Peak district of Derbyshire, St Austell Bay in Cornwall , and Alveston in the Stratford-on-Avon district of Warwickshire.

Earlier today I received the following media release from Humberside Fire and Rescue Service:

Drivers to take caution on icy roads

Drivers are being urged to take extra care whilst driving as winter begins to arrive on roads across the Humberside area.

The warning comes after Humberside Fire and Rescue Service crews were called to attend a number of road traffic collisions this morning.  

Watch Manager Phil Leake, Humberside Fire and Rescue Service: “Crews which attended this mornings road traffic collisions reported that the roads were extremely icy. We are working extremely hard to reduce the number of people killed and seriously injured in road traffic collisions. this mornings collisions are a reminder that it is crucial drivers take extra care as we enter the winter months.

“This week we have been supporting National Road Safety Week working closely with partner agencies to stress the importance of road safety to the public. This not only includes being prepared for adverse weather conditions but also not drinking or taking drugs before or whilst your driving. Icy conditions are clearly already starting to appear across the area, drivers need to be alert and take care when they’re on the road.”

There are a number of precautions drivers can take now that the ice is starting to appear on our roads:

- Stopping distances are ten times longer in ice so stay far enough back from the vehicle in front
- Carry an ice-scraper and de-icer in the car and allow enough time in the morning to fully clear your windscreen and rear window of ice and mist.
- Gentle manoeuvres are the key to safe driving in ice. Use all the car’s controls – accelerator, brakes, clutch and steering – as gently and progressively as possible. Select second gear when pulling away, easing your foot off the clutch gently to avoid wheel-spin. Watch the road ahead so as to give yourself enough time to brake gently.

NOTES TO EDITORS

On Saturday 28th November Humberside Fire and Rescue Service will be at the Freshney Place big giveaway where members of the public can receive one of 1000 school bags full of reflective items, road safety comics and workbooks which will be given to all under 12s whilst stocks last.

e-factor aims to inspire enterprise across North East Lincolnshire and provides support and encouragement to individuals who believe that self-employment and enterprise offer them real opportunities to achieve personal dreams and aspirations.

e-factor are running the “It Could Be You” competition to find local people who think they could run their own business.
Do you think you have got what it takes?

About the competition

Everyone who enters will receive the usual e-factor support to look at developing their ideas.

In March 2010, 25 semi-finalists will be chosen to pitch their ideas to a panel of judges and 6 finalists will win a special package of support and opportunities (from marketing support and workshops to free publicity and other freebies). Later in the year a winner will be chosen.

All you have to do is tell e factor what’s so special about you or your idea in no more than 500 words!

The judges will be looking for special people who have good reasons to make a success of things, with a business idea. They would welcome entries from people who may not necessarily know much about business, maybe with a loose idea of the business they want to start up, but who are committed and ready to make a change.

To qualify for judging for semi-finals, entrants will be invited to attend a meeting with an Enterprise Coach if they haven’t already met one.

Semi-finalists and finalists must be happy to take part in various workshops and publicity opportunities as part of the support.

The closing date is noon on 12th February 2010.

Who can enter?

• Over 18s who live within the boundaries of North East Lincolnshire
• People who haven’t started up in business (or trading) by the closing date of 12th February 2010 (If you have run a business in the past, this wouldn’t exclude you from entering).

How to enter

You can enter the competition;

• at e-factor events and roadshows
• submit your entry online to
• by ringing 0800 9520181 to request an entry form which you can post to the address below
• to download an entry form from >>>>>>HERE<<<<<< and return it to our e-factor centre on Crosland Road, Willows Estate, Grimsby DN37 9DS (for your entry form or to hand entries in).

Judges will choose semi-finalists and finalists on merit, taking into account a number of factors and judges’ decisions will be final. The organisers reserve the right to decline an entry without stating a reason. Prizes are not negotiable and no cash alternative will be offered. This information on this publicity constitutes the rules and conditions of entry.

New television, radio, press and online adverts which tell the public what rights they have under the national Policing Pledge was launched on November 21, by Home Secretary Alan Johnson.

The Policing Pledge is just one part of the Policing Green Paper, published last summer, which signalled a fundamental shift in police accountability and reporting. All 43 police forces have signed up to the Pledge which sets out a range of promises about what the public can expect from the police.

The Pledge entitles you to:

• A clear set of commitments from the police about their service
• A local Pledge about how your neighbourhood will be policed
• Contact details for your neighbourhood policing team
• Monthly public meetings with your local police team to agree what matters most
• Access to information on local crimes including crime maps and feedback on what action has been taken in your area.

In 60 Neighbourhood Crime and Justice Pioneer Areas of which North East Lincolnshire is included, a leaflet will be delivered to every household. The leaflet outlines the public’s rights on crime and justice and provides local contacts for police, anti-social behaviour coordinators, victim and witness services and how to nominate Community Payback projects as well as what their role might be, and how to complain.

The adverts focus on two of the promises within the Pledge – that your Neighbourhood Policing Team spend 80 percent of their time visibly working in your neighbourhood and that you can make an appointment to see your local police at a time that suits you within 48 hours about non-emergency problems.

The adverts were launched as new polling published today shows that:

• over 50% of the public think they would have to wait more than 48 hours for an appointment with a police officer to discuss a non emergency matter
• only 3% of people think that their local police spend more than 75 percent of their time on the beat in their area
• 81% of people said they would find it useful to receive information which provided the contact details for the local police and other crime and antisocial behaviour services in their area.
• 77 % of those interested said that the most useful way to receive such information would be as a leaflet through the door.

The adverts will be coupled with a leaflet drop to just over 6 million households in 60 areas across the country to provide them with information about anti-social behaviour services, who to contact and how to complain if services aren’t providing what they should, as well as informing them about the Pledge.

Home Secretary Alan Johnson said:

“The Policing Pledge sets out the standards the public can expect from their local force. We need to tell the public about these commitments – that neighbourhood police are pledging to spend 80 percent of their time on the beat, that people can make an appointment to meet their local police team at a time that’s convenient to the citizen.  By letting people know about these standards of service that all police forces have signed up to, we hope that people will have greater confidence to come forward to report crime and give evidence against criminals in court; because they’ll know that the police are a visible presence locally, available to be on their side.

“It is vital that we make the system less painful when someone has lost a loved one,” said the Liberal Democrat Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, Stave Webb <

Commenting on Wednesday’s report by the Low Incomes Tax Reform Group which sets out policies to improve bereaved people’s experience of the tax system, Steve Webb said:

“It is vital that we make the system less painful when someone has lost a loved one.

“All too often, people who have recently been bereaved have to wrestle with dozens of different Government departments and endless form-filling, just at a time when they are least able to cope.

“A single point of contact is essential if we are to ensure that people who have been bereaved do not face unnecessary hassle at a most difficult time in their life.