ROGUE bankers should be jailed for running risks with other people’s cash, Gordon Brown declared yesterday.
The former PM warned banking chiefs were still taking risks and “little has changed” since 2009.
Mr Brown said “it cannot be right” that disgraced former RBS boss Fred Goodwin“walked away with all of his past bonuses untouched” after the collapse of the bank.
He called for dishonest bankers to be given prison sentences, have their bonuses removed and assets confiscated like in countries like Iceland, Spain and Ireland.
In his memoir My Life, Our Times, he told how under Mr Goodwin “millions of pounds were simply wasted” by RBS.
He said bank bosses splurged £200million a year on sponsorship and payments to sports stars to act as “global ambassadors” for the bank.
And he revealed that he never heard the shamed bank boss, who was stripped of his knighthood, apologise or express contrition for his role in the bank’s collapse.
Mr Brown also revealed he had been prepared to quit if the multi-billion pound bank bail-out package failed to prevent a further collapse in the financial markets.
Mr Brown said: “If bankers’ conduct was dishonest by the ordinary standards of what is reasonable and honest, should there not have been prosecutions in the UK as we have seen in Ireland, Iceland, Spain and Portugal?”
Mr Brown suggested the Fraud Act should be used to tackle bankers who abuse their positions, make false representations or fail to disclose information.
He added: “If bankers who act fraudulently in this way are not put in prison with their bonuses returned, assets confiscated and banned from future practice, we will only give a green light to similar risk-laden behaviour in new forms.”
At the height of the crisis in October 2008, the Government and Bank of England announced a bail-out package offering £500billion of support to banks.