Charles Walker condemns Lloyds TSB's actions in helping Iranian banks beat US sanctions.

Mr. Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con): I congratulate the hon. Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay) on securing this debate and bringing this important matter to the attention of the House. I intend to make only a brief contribution.

We live in a morally ambivalent age, and nothing will change that. But what on earth was a British bank doing, doing business with Iran? It was a shameful performance by Lloyds TSB. As the hon. Gentleman rightly points out, the $300 million fine is not coming from a magical printing press. It is shareholders’ money and, as the taxpayer, we are the shareholders, so it is our money. We need to know exactly what was going on.

All this happened a few years ago. Since then, we have had a bail-out of the banking sector, in which Lloyds TSB received the full endorsement of Government to take over HBOS, with this appalling act in the US hanging over its head. We can ask Lloyds TSB and its senior board members—they are still in place—how much money is enough. How much money do they need to make? Why did they do business with Iran? After all, we know full well that in Iran homosexual men are routinely murdered and hanged from cranes. Lloyds TSB makes great play of its corporate social responsibility. It claims to value its people. Well, in this matter, its corporate social responsibility does not amount to a hill of beans.

As the hon. Gentleman so rightly pointed out, we do not know whether the transactions conducted via Lloyds TSB have resulted in the loss of life of young American men and women who are meant to be our allies and whom we are meant to support. Lloyds TSB still has a huge amount of explaining to do on this issue and I hope that the Minister can address those issues when he winds up.

I do not expect the banking sector to be a paragon of virtue. Indeed, we have seen over the past year that it is very far from that. But it is one thing to make bets on derivatives and overseas mortgage markets. It is another to do business with the regime in Iran. Lloyds TSB not only did business with that regime, but actively falsified the evidence and covered it up. It cannot claim that an innocent mistake was made, or a rogue manager was responsible and the bank had no idea what was happening. It was sanctioned at the very highest levels of one of the UK’s leading plcs. And at that time it was one of our leading plcs—it was probably one of the top large companies quoted on the stock exchange. Again, I agree with the hon. Member for Thurrock that that is of critical importance.

The hon. Gentleman also highlighted the very important fact that Lloyds did business with Sudan as well as with Iran. Month in and month out, hon. Members and Ministers come to this place to express concern and disgust about what is going on in terms of the persecution of minorities in Sudan, yet one of this country’s leading banks was doing business there. I imagine that Lloyds bank thought that it was a sweetener to secure further business. I do not know for sure, but I have strong suspicion that if the people involved had not been caught they would have continued to grow their business in Iran.

I accept that there are issues to do with dual jurisdiction, and that we live in a global marketplace where there will always be conflicts and problems such as have been set out today. However, I shall conclude my brief comments by repeating my question of a few moments ago—that is, how much money is enough?

I always thought that the people who run our major industries, and most politicians, were fundamentally decent people tasked with making hugely important decisions. A lot of people do not like the decisions that our leading business men and politicians take, but they put themselves in such leadership positions, and that means that they have to take difficult decisions and stand by them. The British people are fair minded: we may not like the decisions that are taken, but we recognise the right of the people involved to make those decisions and the reasons why they take them.

However, I doubt that anyone in this country can fathom how probably decent people thought that it was legitimate to do business in Iran. On the scale of things, and compared to Lloyds’ global portfolio, the amounts of money involved are quite small. It did business in Iran because it wanted to earn a little extra. Again, how much money is enough? How much profit did it need to make? Frankly, it is not surprising that our banking sector is in its current mess if such morally ambivalent people are in leadership positions.

3.27 pm

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