MP David Gauke has seen less and less of his Chorleywood home in recent months. He’s been busier than ever, battling the credit crunch and working to shore up the British banking system. He talks to NEIL SKINNER about the long hours

As house prices tumble, banks teeter on the brink of collapse and recession looms, home owners, it seems, are not the only ones struggling to understand the cause of the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression.

Indeed, even those charged with sorting out the mess have been faced with, as Mr Gauke puts it, a “very steep learning curve” in recent months.

A trained lawyer who once specialised in financial services regulation, Mr Gauke, MP for South West Hertfordshire, was seen as an assured choice when he was promoted in March last year to the Conservative front bench – a body of its most senior Parliamentarians.

As Shadow Exchequer Secretary he has been worked harder than ever over the past few months; holding regular meetings with the Bank of England, economic experts, bank bosses and treasury officials to assist in the drawing-up of the Banking Bill – a document set to change forever the much maligned “greed is good” culture of city traders and prevent a financial meltdown.

“We’ve all had a lot of homework to do,” he says on a rare away day from the Westminster Village.

“We’ve all been on a very steep learning curve to find out exactly what’s been going on and how we can unpick it.

“I’ve been doing a lot of background reading on the tube to make sense of it all.”

A man who can reasonably expect a Cabinet role in any future Conservative administration, the 15 hour days of recent weeks have, he says, been necessary to help quell the very real possibility of a complete collapse of the banking system.

“I’m currently working with a cross party team on the committee stage of the Banking Bill – going through it line by line. Basically it will allow the Bank of England to step into a failing bank and take whatever steps it deems necessary to protect depositors.

“We are in an extremely serious situation here so we’re not playing party politics with it. We want to get the country through this crisis the best way we can. If that means working with the Government then that is what we will do.”

He is under no illusions, however, where the blame lays.

“The problem is that we are entering this with public finances in a much worse state than they should be. The figures are very bleak. Gordon Brown is responsible for that.

“When he kept saying that there was no more boom and bust he was misleading the British people into thinking that they didn’t have to save for the future. But this also meant he borrowed more when he should have been repaying debt. That’s the political charge that we have to make stick.”

So what alternative action should there be?

“We need to ensure that public finances are in a better position in the future. Instead of trying to pretend there is no more boom and bust we should remind them that there is always a business cycle. Governments cannot prevent the difficult part of this cycle – they can only prepare better for it.”

Government plans to increase public borrowing and effectively spend their way out of trouble, Mr Gauke added, are ill-advised.

“Fundamentally I don’t back that way of thinking. Borrowing has inflationary consequences that we cannot afford.”

His view of the future, however, is far more positive.

“We’ve got a lot going for us in this country, a great entrepreneurial spirit; we’re outward looking, great connections; the English language and a historic ability to recover.

Things will get on the straight and narrow, I believe, in the next five years.”