WHEN you hear stories about bankers being awarded big pay bonuses, you worry whether the harsh lessons from the credit crunch have been learned.

You get the same impression when you hear the Chancellor of the Exchequer advocate minor changes to the financial regulatory system.

Worse still, I was recently making enquiries of my mortgage lender. I was surprised to learn they are still prepared to lend some people more than four times their combined income. They even offered me an interest-only loan at a tracker rate of 2.99% above the Bank of England’s benchmark interest rate.

While the base rate is just 0.5%, a mortgage rate of 3.49% looks attractive. But it is likely that the base rate will be back up around 5 or 6% in two years’ time. At that point, a tracker mortgagee would pay 8.99%. Ouch. If I was tempted by an interest-only tracker mortgage worth four times combined income, I would be severely challenged when rates peak again.

And this was a major lender I was speaking to. Are we already laying the foundations of the next credit crunch?

The banking system is too important to all of us to allow it to be too laissez-faire. The Governor of the Bank of England is right to call for fundamental reform of the system at home and abroad. The Chancellor, on the other hand, seems to be ducking out of regulatory reform of the financial system, just as he ducked out of tackling the poor state of the nation’s finances at the last Budget.

The MPs’ expenses scandal and the election of a new Speaker have distracted us from the state of the economy. It’s time now for politicians to refocus their minds and efforts on sorting out the economic mess we are in.

We are probably still just a couple of years away from seeing a return to trend economic growth in the UK.

THERE will be 400 guests in St George’s Hall tonight for the Liverpool Daily Post’s annual Regional Business Awards competition.

I think that’s a terrific turn-out, particularly given how tight money is at the moment.

I called it a competition, which it certainly is, but it is also a celebration. The paper stages this event in order to give public recognition to businesses that create the wealth that we all depend on.

Without successful businesses and entrepreneurs, our country would have nobody to tax to pay for schools, hospitals, police, refuse collection, etc. All successful businesses, big and small, contribute to the tax base that allows us to nurture a civil society.

All the firms on our shortlist tonight, not to mention a good many that didn’t get onto the list, do exactly that. And that is why we celebrate their endeavours.

The RBA is in its 17th year. That’s not bad. The fact they will be so well attended in the middle of a downturn, together with the fact that so many of our sponsors have stuck with us, is a demonstration of how valued the event is by the region’s business community.

It is certainly a great occasion, with people dressed in evening wear milling around the magnificent, candle-lit setting of St George’s Hall. Even the weather will be good. What more do we want? If you didn’t take the chance to get involved this year, then make a point of not missing out next year’s event . . .