Jonathan Reynolds, the shadow City minister, has leapt to the defence of Britain’s bankers following Jeremy Corbyn’s promise to make financiers “the servants of industry” if he becomes prime minister.

The Labour leader launched a fresh attack on the City last month when he said the finance sector’s “destructive” dominance over the real economy and “undemocratic” control over politics had to be tackled. But Mr Reynolds has hit back, arguing that the sector is deeply misunderstood. “The difference, maybe, between me and Jeremy is I think good financial services is a public good,” he told The Daily Telegraph.

“There’s a much bigger job that needs to be done with industry and politicians to explain to people what’s going on around here. This sector is so important to the UK and has always correctly had very good access to people at the very top – the prime minister, chancellor, government, whoever is in power – that less attention has been given to maybe explaining to the public how some of this works.”

Calling for an improvement in financial education so that people better ­understand how financial services might work for them, Mr Reynolds said Mr Corbyn’s comments last month simply “reflect the position of a lot of people in the country – they’ve had some bad experiences or they’ve read about bad experiences [involving bankers]”.