Total number of UK soldiers killed in Afghanistan = 397
It not just the £million bonus. The bailed-out RBS bank has spent over £2.5m of British taxpayers' money to influence politicians reforming US financial law. They handed over this fortune to American lobbyists.
Both in-house and commercial lobbyists have been paid to influence American senators and congressmen reforming US finance law since the bank's collapse and government bail-out in October 2008.
The money has been handed over despite calls from ministers for RBS and other banks that have received taxpayers' handouts to refrain from hiring public affairs firms.
According to the documents, the bank spent $4.13m from October 2008 to December 2011 on lobbyists as it tried to influence three different areas of legislation.
The Guardian report that :
'RBS sought influence over consumer protection, with proposed legislation such as the Consumer Overdraft Protection Fair Practices Act and the US Credit Card Act.
These proposed laws wanted to make it harder for young people to be given credit cards, have their credit limits extended and over the imposition of limits on interest rates. They also suggested a possible limit on hidden overdraft charges and penalty fees.
In 2009 and 2010, the RBS subsidiaries also lobbied on a range of banking reforms including the Dodds-Frank Wall Street Act, the largest of the US banking reform acts.
This act covers the amount capital banks must hold as well as demands that banks publish the ratio of the highest paid bankers to average wages."
Parliament is about to probe lobbying. Unlike American lobbying regulations, Cameron's reforms will not list in-house lobbyists, nor will they show amounts spent or subjects involved.
RBS has spent most of their effort this year lobbying on attempts to reform "swipe" card fees. US politicians want to help small businesses by limiting the amount banks can charge for card transactions made with swipe machines.
Lobbying records state that "Royal Bank of Scotland, a parent company to the registrant, is interested in the issues listed".
In Britain, RBS paid six lobbying firms last year. It also employs its own team of internal corporate lobbyists to influence ministers.
The communities secretary, Eric Pickles, told the Guardian in 2010: "Taxpayer-funded campaigns conducted by private lobbying firms mean … public policy is weakened and public discourse becomes a soundbite battle."
Why have all these lobbyists not protected the 'good name' of RBS? The Select Committee inquiry into lobbying have been thrown a chunk of raw meat by RBS. Should be a satisfying meal.
Recently I was told about an organisation called CARE which sounds cuddly but has some extreme views on gay rights and abortion etc. They have an 'intern' programme at Westminster providing free office support to MPs of all parties. They were investigated by the Charities Commission in 2008 but found not to have broken the rules. It is worrying that MPs are able to allow organisations such as this to provide them with support. To me, it's lobbying by another name. Can you do anything about this?
Posted by: Phillip Dawson | January 28, 2012 at 08:45 AM
Absolutely agree. Atlantic Bridge provided interns for Tory MPs- all barking far-right neo-cons. I will keep an eye for CARE.
Paul Flynn
Posted by: Paul Flynn | January 28, 2012 at 01:00 PM