Paul Tucker to face TSC Libor questioning

Paul Tucker, the deputy governor of the Bank of England will appear before the Treasury Select Committee (TSC) later today to face questions from MPs over the Libor scandal and a conversation he had with Bob Diamond, the departed chief executive of Barclays.

In a press release by Barclays ahead of Mr Diamond’s testimony last week, Barclays released a file note written by Mr Diamond detailing a conversation between Mr Diamond and Mr Tucker.

The memo said: "Further to our last call, Mr Tucker reiterated that he had received calls from a number of senior figures within Whitehall to question why Barclays was always toward the top end of the Libor pricing. His response was “you have to pay what you have to pay.”

“I asked if he could relay the reality, that not all banks were providing quotes at the levels that represented real transactions, his response “oh, that would be worse.

"Mr Tucker stated the levels of calls he was receiving from Whitehall were senior and that, while he was certain that we did not need advice, that it did not always need to be the case that we appeared as high as we have recently."

Barclays says that it did not take the conversation as an instruction to continue rigging the Libor rate but that its then chief operating officer, Jerry del Missier, who has also resigned over the Libor scandal, had mistakenly concluded that the Bank of England had instructed Barclays not to keep the rate so high.

Barclays Libor submissions did subsequently fall following this conversation. However, at Mr Diamond’s appearance at the TSC, he reiterated that he did not see the conversation as an instruction, but as a “heads up” from Mr Tucker.

Questioning Mr Diamond, the chairman of the TSC, Andrew Tyrie MP, said to Mr Diamond that on reading the version of the telephone call that it appeared Mr Diamond was being tacitly instructed to continue posting rigged Libor submissions with “a nod and a wink”.

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