House_Guide_to_BIS_Hight_Res

these companies who are slow off the mark
but when they do realise that actually it
was the right thing to have done they then
start to take it really seriously and you
get a real commitment. It’s the zeal of the
converted. So I’m hoping Mr Glasenberg
will become a champion in due course.”
Women on boards was “a very big thing in
terms of ethical capitalism”, but Cable says the
other area “which I think we’ve got something
to show for is the remuneration stuff”.
“We’ve had several examples now of
shareholder revolts empowered by the new
legislation,” he says. More will come in
the new bill on transparency and curbs on
rogue directors. Other achievements are
flexible working and shared parental leave,
where “we’ve carried business with us”.
Visas are ticking away in
the background as an irritant,
and I will continue to make a
noise in Government
Was seeing off the Beecroft plan another
achievement “I think so. It’s a negative, but I
think sometimes seeing off bad policy is right
and on that we drew a very firm line.” Would
‘fire at will’ have gone ahead but for him being
in post in BIS “Yes, I think it would have
happened,” he replies. “There was very strong
support amongst my Tory colleagues to push
that through. We did draw a line absolutely
at hiring and firing, it was a big step.”
Cable’s hangdog expressions and his
downbeat assessments have led the Prime
Minister to famously joke that he’s the
‘Jeremiah’ of the Coalition. Yet, as the
Business Secretary pointed out at last year’s
Lib Dem conference, ‘Jeremiah was right’.
On Help to Buy, he first warned about
the dangers more than a year ago. Speaking
on the day the Cabinet discussed the issue
in the wake of the IMF’s verdict of the risks
posed by a housing bubble, he sounds like
a man vindicated by others catching up.
“We talked about it in these terms.
I’m gratified that there is now much
greater awareness of the risk. I don’t
think therefore that we are going to repeat
mistakes of the past, certainly not under
our government,” he says. “The warnings
of the IMF were very real but they weren’t
hysterical, they were fairly balanced.”
“I think the point which the Chancellor
makes, and I agree, is that the Bank of
England has got much more powers –
macroprudential powers – to nip this in
the bud. And you’ve seen a bit of this with
the tightening up of lending criteria.
“It’s mainly London, though not just
London. There’s quite an encouraging increase
in supply; all the reforms around planning,
supporting builders with loans. I think those
two things taken together mean we are not
going to repeat the mistakes of the past.”
Still, a small interest rate rise would hit
many people hard. How difficult would that
be politically, given that many expect a rise
and it seems to be just a question of when
“It is going to happen, and that’s why it’s
terribly important that the banks do not lend
large multiples of people’s income. If you
do lend at these extreme limits then people
are exposed to income shocks if there’s a
downturn in the economy, or interest rates,
and that’s why I’m greatly reassured that
there is now an understanding of the issue.”
But as with the Home Secretary, Cable is
keen to be collegiate in supporting George
Osborne. “Clearly the Chancellor understands
the risks, the Bank of England does, the
IMF. We are all in the same place.”
November 2014 | THE HOUSE MAGAZINE | 31