Bonus

Since before the 1997 Election, I have been trying to plug the idea of a permanently higher rate of corporation tax on the banks, with strict regulation to protect workers, consumers, communities and the environment from bearing the costs. The money would be used to reimburse the employers' National Insurance contributions for workers aged under 25, aged 55 or over, or previously long-term unemployed.

Today, is my Right Honourable Kinsman (although it is rather distant, and we have never met) heading in that direction? Now that the banks are in public ownership, instead of paying out gargantuan bonuses, the profits to which public ownership has restored them should be used for a scheme like this. Rather than taxing the bonuses as a one-off, don't pay them in the first place, and use the money on this instead. Why not?