MP 'amazed' Barclays chief Diamond unaware of activities

A Conservative member of the Commons Treasury Select Committee, which will be questioning the Barclays chief executive Bob Diamond later this week has said she would be "amazed" if Mr Diamond had not known what was going on within the bank.

Andrea Leadsom told The World At One's Martha Kearney that "Bob Diamond's going to have a lot of questions to answer.

"He comes from a fixed interest background. He knows the atmosphere in a dealing room. He would know the potential for traders to gain something. I mean, you know, again I was absolutely astonished that there wasn't far closer monitoring of the Libor reporting; it just seems amazing to me that there weren't internal controls in the bank to prevent something like that from happening."

The government has confirmed that it is setting up a wider inquiry into banking, which will report by the end of the year. It will not be a full public inquiry, but will be separate to a review, announced at the weekend, into the manipulation of interest rates by Barclays staff.