If we’re going to own RBS for a “protracted period” why not properly nationalise it?

Posted on November 16 2012

Taxpayers may never see the return of the £66bn spent on shares in Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group four years ago, an influential group of MPs warns on Friday.

The Public Accounts Committee, the spending watchdog for parliament, says it is not convinced that the government will be able to sell its stakes in the banks for the price it paid “any time soon”.

The MPs argue that the “temporary public ownership” is likely to last for a protracted period so long as the government retains the objective of getting value for its investment.

The obvious question is why not nationalise RBS, at least in that case?

The cost is clearly going to be small.

The benefit will be big. We have our national investment bank, green bank and small business bank all in a go.

We might even have a bank that stops participating in market rigging, offshore abuse and other nefarious acts whilst in public ownership.

I see a lot of gain from that.

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2 Responses

Anthony Waterhouse says:

November 16 2012 at 9:40 am

Yes!
Ian Stevenson says:

November 16 2012 at 2:57 pm

Agreed! case of the ‘bleeding obvious’ in my view.