Last updated 09:02, Saturday, 08 November 2008

Some people may have believed that £37 billion of taxpayers’ money might entitle the British public to receive something back from the banking industry.

Something like the lower interest rates announced by the Bank of England being passed on by mortgage lenders to customers.

In many cases not a penny of the hefty 1.5 per cent drop has yet found its way into cheaper mortgages.

Some lenders have passed on the full amount, others a proportion of it and others have yet to reduce their rates at all; nor are they under any compulsion to do so.

There are commercial considerations, of course.

But these should not be used as a smokescreen by those banks who only last month were happy to abandon the market when it suited them to go cap in hand to the Government for a taxpayer-funded bailout.

These banks should be forced to pass on Thursday’s interest rate cut. The rest are being strongly encouraged to do so by a Government which recognises the urgent and severe problems faced by the public and business.

The days when banks issued dictats and the rest of the world cowered are becoming more difficult to sustain, thanks to the discredited practices of so many financial institutions and the public stake which helped to rescue them.