Chris Leslie MP, Labour’s Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, responding to comments by Conservative MP David Davis about the Treasury and the Co-op Bank, said:

“David Davis is right to say that there are serious questions for George Osborne, the Treasury and regulators to answer about how the Co-operative Bank has got into trouble over the last three years.

"What due diligence was done by the Chancellor and the Treasury into the state of the Co-op Bank and its leadership when Ministers were encouraging the bank’s failed bid for 632 Lloyds branches?

"George Osborne and Ministers in David Cameron’s Government must finally come clean and answer questions about what went wrong at the Co-op Bank on their watch and whether they knew of the balance sheet risks. Any inquiry must get to the bottom of these issues.”