OFF-BALANCE SHEET ACCOUNTING BY BANKS

That this House deplores the widespread practice by UK banks of creating special-purpose financial vehicles, like orphan companies or bogus charitable ones, based in off-shore tax havens in order to undertake high risk speculative investment and evade tax, whilst keeping information about such activities off their published balance sheets; considers it incredible that this activity was neither monitored by UK financial authorities nor illegal, and insists that it must be made so; calls for a full accounting by all UK banks of their activity in this regard over the last five years at least; and further calls for public inquiries by the Charity Commission and the Financial Services Authority in their respective areas of responsibility.