Britain's banks have been given the go-ahead to pay unlimited bonuses, drawing to a close a two-year political battle to rein in the City.
After months in which a series of government ministers of all parties have threatened a toughening in the stance over City bonuses, Downing Street said the government did not intend to intervene in the pay of the UK's top bankers.
Ministers are instead hoping for a face-saving deal in which the banks agree to lending targets and improve the way they disclose their pay deals. One of the options being discussed is releasing information on the five highest paid individuals at each bank.
"We've made a broad statement which is about the need to see some restraint and some responsibility from the banks, but we are not going to set bonus pools for individual banks," the prime minister's spokesman said.
Labour accused the government of capitulation and letting the bankers off the hook, urging the government to extend the bonus tax, which raised £3.5bn after it was introduced by Alistair Darling as a one-off measure in December 2009.
The coalition government replaced that bonus tax with an annual levy on balance sheets which is estimated to yield about £2.5bn a year. Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, said this was, in effect, a tax cut for bankers.
Ministers rejected Labour's proposal, preferring to work a compromise deal that would placate Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrat business secretary who has been pressing for tougher measures.
The government said an extension of the bonus tax would be self-defeating because bankers would become more skilled at avoiding the tax.
The levy, the Conservatives said, would raise more money in the medium term.
City sources were reassured by the government's milder stance ahead of the appearance of Bob Diamond, Barclays' new chief executive, before a potentially hostile Treasury select committee today.
The government's stance will be seen as a retreat from some of the aggressive rhetoric from the Liberal Democrats, but the government believes a hard-headed approach requires the government to focus on disclosure and measures that will improve lending, seen as the single most effective way of helping the British economy recover for recession.
Government sources said even if the government managed to get the size of bonus pools reduced by half from the expected total £7bn projected this year, there would be political flak, and it is better to focus government leverage on increasing net lending to business.
Government officials also pointed out the Financial Services Authority has already adopted European Union rules curbing bonuses. Measures include the mandatory deferral of parts of a bonus, retention of portions paid in shares and strict conditions on guaranteed bonuses. The overall aim, the government said, was to curb risky banking practices in the pursuit of higher bonuses.
Nevertheless, Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, again urged the bankers to be sensitive. "I totally accept that the kind of sky-high numbers that are bandied about in the City of London seem to come from a parallel universe to many people who are struggling to deal with increased costs and so on.
"But I think the key issue of principle is this: those people who are running the state-owned banks, who have benefited from immense generosity from British taxpayers, they have to be sensitive to what British taxpayers want."
The chancellor, George Osborne, will continue to seek an EU-wide deal on disclosure of pay bands above £1m, along the lines proposed by the City grandee Sir David Walker. He had initially proposed a UK-only deal before arguing international competition in banking required an EU-wide deal. It is possible Cable will get a more limited UK deal in the next fortnight, but there are concerns in parts of government that full-pay disclosure requirements will lead to inflationary pay pressures in banking as bankers realise how much their colleagues are being paid.
The banks may be forced to agree to publish deals of their highest five paid staff without identifying them – only HSBC does this at the moment, under the Hong Kong listing rules. Even so, this does not go as far as the proposals outlined by Walker, which Labour was planning to implement.
Arguing his bonus tax would raise more than the bank levy Miliband said today: "It cannot be right that, when workers face below-inflation pay increases, if they get any rise at all, and families see prices on the high street rising, senior bankers keep raking in bonuses that are more in one year than most people can earn in a lifetime."
He urged ministers to "take action", adding: "They should not get the scale of bonuses that is being talked about."
Miliband also came under pressure to say the Labour government had allowed public spending to get out of control, contributing to the country's record peace-time deficit. The Labour leader is expected to argue in coming weeks that the Labour government had been wrong not to state earlier in public that the banking crash required spending cuts to adjust to sudden and permanent loss in tax receipts. A Comres poll today showed Labour had opened up an an eight point lead over the Conservatives with Labour on 42 and the Conservatives on 34.
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