Ed Miliband speech to Fabian Society Summer Conference

Ed Miliband speech to Fabian Society Summer Conference; **CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY** Ed Miliband MP (Labour Leader) speech SOT - The Justice Secretary said this morning that our prosecution of white collar crime is inadequate. / Then we should do something about it: change the law. / We need full implementation of the Vickers recommendations. / Only two weeks ago, against the express wishes of John Vickers, the government watered them down. / The whole idea of Vickers is to separate retail and investment banking to ensure that retail banking is a simple, straightforward and low-risk industry. / This week we have seen the scandal of small businesses being mis-sold high risk insurance schemes by banks. / John Vickers said this must be classified as part of investment banking. / The banks lobbied against Vickers’ recommendation. / And the government caved in. / Of course they should reverse this decision. / What greater evidence could there be that this government has neither the inclination nor thecapacity to bring the change that Britain needs? / We also need proper competition in our banks. / Part of the reason the banks were able to behave as they did was because they were too big and too powerful. / The government has moved far too slowly on competition. / We need new challenger banks in the market. / Challenging the stranglehold of the big four banks. / And once and for all, we need to sort out the scandal of pay in the industry. / Reward for reckless risk, not long-term commitment. / There should be an ordinary branch employee on the Board of every remuneration committee. / There should be annual binding and transparent votes on remuneration policy. / And to put an end to the cosy cartels, institutional shareholders should be on the boards that appoint Directors. / The government is refusing to do all of these things. / So the bonus-as-usual culture will carry on. / This inquiry must, most of all, get to the bottom of what has happened and change the practi...