Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee

Meeting date: Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Official Report 307KB pdf

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Independent Commission on Banking

Item 3 follows on from the paper on the work programme. The Independent Commission on Banking is due to report on Monday next week. We discussed the issue at our business planning day last week, and a paper has been produced about how we might approach it.

Our response has to be fairly swift and produced in the short term. The paper sets out what a short inquiry might cover, whom we might take oral evidence from and whom we might seek written evidence from, and it lays out a timescale for submitting our views to the Treasury by the end of September. We are invited to discuss the paper to see whether there are any additions to it or different views on how we might tackle the inquiry.

The paper is an accurate reflection of what we discussed last week, but paragraph 6, which proposes who we should invite to provide evidence, misses out credit unions. It is important to get information from them, bearing in mind that they have had also to pay, due to what happened in the past.

That is a perfectly fair point. They made some specific points in our banking inquiry, and we can add some to the list of people to whom we will write to ask for evidence. If members have any specific credit unions in mind from their own constituency or region, I ask them to inform the clerks.

I am not sure whether we touched a raw nerve last week, but I received a communication from Michael Crow at RBS to explain the rationale behind some of the answers that we were given. I do not know whether everyone else received it; if not, I will copy it round the committee.

I have had something. I think that each MSP may have been sent something, but—

It was specifically in response to the questions that we raised with Stephen Moir. I will copy it round anyway.

Yes. Copy it round, and if it is duplication we can just delete the e-mail. Thank you.

Are there any other comments or things that we need to add into the work on the Independent Commission on Banking? Are there any glaring errors other than the one that Stuart mentioned?

Members: No.

Okay. Are members content with the timetable and course of action?

Members indicated agreement.