British Bankers’ Association responses to Lord Turner’s comments published in Prospect Magazine on 27 August 2009.
“The UKs financial services industry is a major provider of jobs and source of tax revenues. We are the top centre in the world for global banking and thats why more than half the 336 banks operating in the UK have been attracted here from other countries. Thats an achievement that we shouldnt take lightly. If we introduce the wrong kind of regulation or the wrong kind of taxes we could so easily lose that position by driving business abroad.
That would mean the UK would receive less revenue through taxes and there would be job losses, not just in the banking industry, but also in all those other businesses, large and small, that provide services to banks. On so many occasions in the past the country has lost chunks of industry through making the wrong decisions. Let’s not do that again.”
L.D.