City fat cats should give more money to charities, claim MPs

Select committee slams big banks following Q&A session with representatives from across the finance sector
royal bank of scotland
It was noted that 10% of RBS staff donate to charity through the payroll. Photograph: Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP

Britain has yet to embrace a culture of philanthropy, despite the millions of pounds made in the City, MPs heard today.

MPs on the public administration committee quizzed a panel of representatives from banking, hedge funds and a charity thinktank. All agreed the financial services sector should give more, but law firms, accountants and footballers should do their bit too.

Sir Sandy Crombie, senior independent director at Royal Bank of Scotland, said: "I would agree that more could be contributed generally. I wouldn't say that only one sector could give more, but companies generally could contribute more. But they have always got to justify what they are doing internally, because ultimately the companies are owned by shareholders or are responsible to their members."

Bankers seemed to give "rather little" as a proportion of their income, said committee chairman Bernard Jenkin, citing the Archbishop of Canterbury's suggestion that financiers should be required to volunteer.

The panel could not come up with an easy answer as to why giving through the payroll has not taken off in the UK, although one said it is because bosses do not lead by example. But Crombie, who noted that 10% of RBS's staff donate to charity through the payroll, rejected the idea. "I don't like that type of leadership: 'If you don't do this, I will think less of you.' We should be looking much more at the generality of the good that can be done. What I would expect the charities to want more of is regular giving."

Martin Brookes, chief executive of thinktank New Philanthropy Capital, and Robert Mirsky, the head of Hedge Funds UK at KPMG, contrasted the large donations made by several UK hedge fund financiers with the lack of philanthropy at big investment banks. Mirsky pointed to hedge fund manager Chris Hohn, who donated almost half a billion pounds to the children's charity run by his wife in 2008.