The Green candidate for the Norwich North by-election called today for a nationalised, democratically controlled, "people's bank" to make finance accessible and keep borrowing cheap. (1)
Dr Rupert Read, a university lecturer and Norwich city councilor, argues that banks must be "public banks, rather than private casinos." We need "one powerful, substantially nationalized bank forever." (2)
Response to Conservative Party policy revelations
Dr Read's calls for a "Bank of Britain" come in response to the Conservatives saying they would seek to considerably increase the power of the Bank of England so as to effectively replace the FSA. (3)
Dr Read says: "The Tories' plans for the Bank of England are a hopeless bodge," and that what the Conservative party proposes is "an undemocratic behemoth, a mere strengthened artefact of the City that has so fully failed us." Read argues that a strengthened Bank of England only makes sense if the bank is "democratically controlled," not if it is still "hand in glove with the financial system." (4)
Low risk banking has the answer
Read points out that "the credit unions, the mutuals, the ethical banks: in virtually every case, have sailed through the crisis." Read says that we must build on the ethical/mutual sector's success to build a low risk banking system designed to serve the people for the future.
A Green Vision
"A Green vision of a healthy financial sector is of a large and powerful state-owned bank ‘setting the tone' for the ‘financial market', the remutualisation of the former building societies, and a flourishing network of mutual banks, co-ops, ethical banks, and credit unions, across the country," says Read. (5)
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Notes for Editors:
1. The full article can be read at: www.greenparty.org.uk/mediacentre/releases/03-07-2009-bank-of-britain.html
2. Dr Rupert Read is the Green Party's candidate in the Norwich North by-election and the party's national spokesperson on public services. He is currently one of 13 Green Party councillors on Norwich City Council, where the Greens hold more seats than the Conservatives and LibDems combined, and are only 2 seats behind Labour. Rupert Read is also Reader in Moral Philosophy at the University of East Anglia.
3. www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/robertpeston/2009/06/tories_to_give_sweeping_new_po.html
4. More specifically, the Green Party would seek to maintain the Bank of England the institution for the regulation of the national currency and the setting of base interest rates. However, it would not focus on narrow economic indicators such as the rate of inflation, but instead would take a broader view on the impact of its decisions on the economy as a whole. The Bank would be democratically controlled in that the final decisions on the setting of base interest rates would be made by a democratically-accountable committee made up of representatives selected from different regions of the country who would work directly with the government to ensure its objectives.
5. www.norwichgreenparty.org/policy-documents/vision2020.html