Never has so much been paid to bankers for doing so little declares Claire Perry

Former banker Claire Perry, who is Marlborough’s Tory MP, has joined the debate over the British major banking scandal and criticised the massive bonuses paid to top bank bosses.

As the Commons Treasury Select Committee hears evidence on the illegal manipulation of the Libor borrowing rate, 48-year-old Mrs Perry recalled her experience in banking, mainly in America.

“I worked in banking in the 1990s and was proud of what I did,” she revealed in her local newspaper column. “But as a middle manager it was easy to see that those at the top were being paid huge amounts of money,

“I am always a fan of big rewards or big effort but in some cases never has so much been earned by so many for doing so little. There are solutions to these problems.”

She added: “The government has accepted a series of recommendations from Sir John Vickers that will separate commercial banking and riskier activities, the Bank of England will become the main and much more powerful regulator and the proposed independent Parliamentary Inquiry will flush out the changes needed to working practices, compensation and treatment of law breakers.

“This is a hugely important industry for Britain and we need to get on quickly with cleaning it up.”

Mother of three Mrs Perry has been further criticised for her comment during a Radio Five Live debate on the rate-fixing banking scandal when she described the culture of bankers as “big swinging dicks”.

One of her Marlborough constituents has written: “As one of Claire Perry’s constituents, her election was good news I thought, a breath of fresh air.

“But I am so disappointed that as a woman and an MP she seems to be letting down herself and the representation of her constituents. The air does not seem so fresh now.”

But Mrs Perry seemed to have a change of heart while taking part in yesterday’s House of Commons rowdy clashes over the kind of inquiry needed to reveal the illegal activities of Barclays and other major banks.

In an intervention, she said: “The whole House will be aware that the banking industry employs one million people and contributes £60 billion in income in direct corporation tax, with employees contributing a further £25 billion in income tax.

“Banking is Britain’s biggest export industry and it has suffered enough as a result of the appalling regulatory regime and the failure of moral compass.

“Does the Chancellor agree that it is imperative that we sort this out and get on with the inquiry?

Chancellor George Osborne replied: “My hon. Friend is right. It is worth listening to what Richard Lambert—who used to employ the shadow Chancellor and whom the shadow Chancellor advised the then Chancellor to put on the Monetary Policy Committee—said: ‘The last thing that is needed in this period of systemic fragility is the long period of regulatory uncertainty that a Leveson-style inquiry would make inevitable’.

“That is something we have to bear in mind about an industry that employs millions of people across this country.”