Galen Milne campaigns to bring the Bank of Scotland home again

Banff and Buchan's Liberal Democrat candidate Galen Milne is supporting his party's demands to bring the Bank of Scotland home again. He has welcomed his Scottish leader Tavish Scott's call in the wake of Chancellor Alistair Darling's recent announcement that the government intends to create three new High Street banking chains by 2015 by selling off parts of Lloyds, RBS and Northern Rock.

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Tavish Scott MSP said:

"Billions of pounds of taxpayers' money have been pumped into these banks. Alistair Darling has a responsibility to the public purse to get the best deal when these centralised super banks are broken up, so there must be no desperate deal making by Labour.

"But I want to see Bank of Scotland home, lending responsibly to the small businesses that are the lifeblood of Scotland's economy and have been choked by Labour's recession and the lack of competition on the high street.

"When I campaigned last year against Lloyds' takeover of HBOS and the catastrophic impact on competition on the High Street I was a lone voice. So I welcome recent support for more competition on the High Street and urge other parties to follow suit."

Galen Milne added - "It's crucial this decision also considers the impact on existing branches. Splitting up RBS must not be allowed to create further uncertainty amongst staff in the same way that is already confronting employees following the LloydsTSB/HBOS merger a year ago. Turriff and Fraserburgh both have Bank of Scotland and TSB branches. It's a fact that many of our high streets throughout Scotland are served by all 3 banks at present so we must carefully examine what exactly the chancellor is now proposing in this latest policy announcement. Liberal Democrats will be requesting more specific detail of Mr Darling's plans in this regard."