The chancellor George Osborne has spent over £43,000 of taxpayers' money defending bankers' bonuses, according to new figures.
The bonus cap restricts bankers’ bonuses to 100 per cent of their pay, or 200 per cent with shareholder approval
The chancellor George Osborne has spent over £43,000 of taxpayers’ money defending bankers’ bonuses, according to new figures.
A response from the Treasury to a Freedom of Information request by Labour shadow financial secretary to the Treasury Cathy Jamieson has revealed that the total cost of external legal fees relating to the legal challenge to the bankers’ bonus cap and connected advice is £43,064.
But the true cost to the taxpayer is likely to be even higher as the figures are only for the external legal costs of the challenge and do not include the cost of civil servants who worked on the case.
The bonus cap restricts bankers’ bonuses to 100 per cent of their pay, or 200 per cent with shareholder approval.
George Osborne lodged a legal challenge with the European Court of Justice on the bonus cap in September 2013 but the move was abandoned in November 2014 when Osborne said it was “unlikely to succeed”.
Commenting on the news, Cathy Jamieson MP said:
“While working families face a cost-of-living crisis, it is astounding that George Osborne chose to waste taxpayers’ money fighting a bank bonus cap.
“His decision revealed his true priorities and showed just how out of touch he is.
“It shouldn’t have taken the EU to act to rein in excessive bonuses, but George Osborne has totally failed to act here in Britain.
“Labour will reform the banks and levy a tax on bank bonuses to fund a paid starter job for young people out of work for over a year.”
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19 Responses to “George Osborne spends £43,000 of taxpayers’ money defending bankers’ bonuses”
littleoddsandpieces
So Labour will use up most of the tax on banker’s bonuses on the admin of a tax on the richest people who can afford to pay for an accountant to globalise their personal finances and avoid the tax.
It is sad to me that The Greens have not the moral courage to put into their
2015 manifesto a couple of policies that will save countless lives
of the poorest people, in or out of work,
from suicide and starvation
from the first day it begins, and
save billions from benefits admin.
A recent blog showed that the DWP’s last 6 monthly report showed that it spent
£7.7 billion on admin costs in 2013/14, actually spent only £4.3 billion on Jobseekers allowance to help people with food and fuel money with no other income.
Most of the admin spent being on 1 million benefit sanctions leaving people to starve.
This includes DWP salaries and contracts to private providers.
What The Greens offer would mean no reason for much of the billions wasted on DWP admin, none of the private contractors and no need of the 750 Jobcentres employing 78,000 staff, leaving people equally to starve from nil benefit, even just before Christmas, someone 60 and disabled or a heavily pregnant young woman or mother with new baby.
Further over £1 billion is spent on private contractors fees for employment programmes, whilst the unemployed are bullied into working for no salary at all for 6 months on workfare. The only slavery in history where the slave must pay from pitiful low money of benefit for transport, clothes, food, and all household bills.
The Greens will not put out on billboards after voting them into their 2015 general election manifesto that would win them at least 13 million voters of the poor of all ages
(according to Oxfam) in or out of work:
– universal and automatic Citizen Income, in or out of work makes no difference, to replace all the cruel benefits regime, to the level of the basic tax allowance
– Full State Pension to all citizens, irregardless of their National Insurance contribution / credit history, to the same or higher of the Citizen Income.
Both of the above would have a supplement for those living alone and for those who are disabled.
The new pensioners lives are saved by these policies that The Greens have failed to put in their 2015 manifesto yet, especially,
of women born from 1953 and men born from 1951
who fall victim
to the flat rate pension
that actually give huge numbers NIL STATE PENSION FOR LIFE and
for bulk of rest LESS NOT MORE state pension
https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/state-pension-at-60-now
Leon Wolfeson
The imbalance and long-term damage must continue, right.
Leon Wolfeson
As much money as the city needs, quite.
Guest
Then the greens would make the poor spend all the cash they were given on basic utility access. Whoops!
Keep the copy/paste ranting going though.
Leon Wolfeson
So Labour will institute a system where it’s in business interest to keep unemployment high, and drop wages by having lots more minimum wage jobs for young people.
Sigh.