THROUGHOUT the UK and USA there is an active debate — should banks who recklessly lent money be allowed to go to the wall? Over the weekend, members of The Liberal Party debated this at our annual assembly in Wolverhampton.

Much in line with the views of Vincent Cable MP, we believe the cost of not intervening and allowing tens of thousands of ordinary savers to be put in jeopardy would have a devastating impact on financial stability and the economy at large.

Therefore we believe that if tax-payers’ money is used to rescue banks and former building societies, then we as taxpayers must insist that our investment purchases share in those companies.

In time tax payers should have the right to sell their stake in these rescued companies and recoup our investment.

Over and above that, it is my view that we need some mechanism to prosecute corporate directors for negligence who put their companies at risk. At the moment they are rewarded with redundancy and pension payouts. If directors in banking bring their companies to bankruptcy, they should not be allowed to profit.

A public body challenging this negligence and the consequential payouts may just bring about some discipline in the boardrooms to prevent further reckless adventurism.

Cllr Steve Radford, President of The Liberal Party