Darling rejects bankers' pay caps demands

Chancellor tells Treasury Select Committee it is essential that banks are
able to retain key staff, despite row over bonuses.

The Chancellor today resisted calls to cap the pay of executives in the
banks bailed out by the Government and said that Britain had already gone
further than the United States in curbing bonuses in the banks.

Alistair Darling told the Treasury Select Committee it was essential that
the banks were able to retain key staff if the Government was going to be
able eventually to sell them back to the commercial sector.

"We have also got to make sure that we don't end up with a situation where
other banks start attracting people who are key to making, say, RBS and the
Lloyds Group work in the future," he said.

Mr Darling admitted that it would be "tough" to return nationalised and
part-nationalised banks to the private sector. "I think we are going to have
these banks for a while yet," he told the MPs. "It will take time to work
through. There is no quick fix on this."

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