Former Treasury spokesman calls for sweeping bank reforms and says a no to the alternative vote could mean decades of Tory rule
Lord Oakeshott, the Liberal Democrat former Treasury spokesman who resigned after criticising the government's handling of banking bonuses, has called for companies to be forced to disclose how much UK corporation tax they pay.
In a move that will further inflame his already tense relationship with the banks, the peer said it was vital to know whether the banks are paying "their fair whack". He also wants a sweeping restructuring of the banking sector.
Oakeshott's proposal that companies should be forced to reveal how much corporation tax they pay each year is targeted not just at banks, but at a wide range of companies including Boots and Vodafone. Last week it emerged that Barclays had paid �113m of corporation tax in 2009 despite reporting profits of �11.6bn.
In his first wide-ranging interview since his resignation earlier this month, Oakeshott said: "Companies cut down half the forests to produce enormous corporate governance and social responsibility reports ? most of which is expensive guff ? but they don't seem to regard paying their fair whack of British tax as equally important. That one number would be worth a lot of warm words."
Oakeshott wants the Sir John Vickers commission on banking to consider radical proposals for reform of the sector, such as breaking up the biggest banks.
"Clearly there is not enough competition at the moment," Oakeshott said. "The evidence is of governance failure and structural failure. Banks are too large and too powerful."
He is dismissive of the Project Merlin accord, agreed with the big banks this month, that requires the pay of five highest paid executives outside the boardroom to be revealed while allowing the banks to avoid detailing the pay of their highest-earning top traders and dealmakers.
"Non-executive directors and shareholders should see who the top earners are," he said. "They can't do their job properly. They can't control remuneration."
Oakeshott warned that the country risks decades of Conservative government without a yes vote in the May referendum on voting reform. Describing the coalition as "a five-year flatshare", he vowed that the Lib Dems would not "help the Tories take a lease on No 10 for most of the 21st century".
He described the 5 May referendum on the alternative vote as "crucial for how we do politics in this country" and added: "It would be very damaging for us to lose.
"AV is critical. It destroys the safe seat culture and means everybody has to reach out to supporters of other parties."
In 38 of the 57 seats the Lib Dems won in 2010, the Conservatives were runners-up, and Oakeshott believes the Labour vote could bounce back. "In many of these the Labour vote has been squeezed right down. Without AV it is bound to come back up and hand back many of those seats to the Conservatives."
He said the Oldham East by-election result had provided "false reassurance" for the Lib Dems because the Tory vote collapsed.
The referendum was the price paid by the Conservatives to form a government with the Lib Dems in May.
Oakeshott hopes for cross-party support of the kind that was achieved in the 1975 European referendum when he was adviser to Roy Jenkins, who led the yes campaign. "That really did change the whole direction of British politics in 1975. Before that time the left was pretty rampant and pretty dangerous," he said.
"People underestimate the significance of AV. It destroys the wasted-vote argument."
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/feb/25/oakeshott-banking-reform
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