Banking (Special Provisions) Bill

It is a question of what the objectives are during an avowedly transitional stage. I do not want to repeat that point. If we are rejecting the option of building up the bank on the previous model, we also need to be clear what is the alternative set of objectives that we are holding out. I think that a period of orderly realisation of assets is required. The thing that gives me real concern in the statements that the Chancellor has been making is the apparent implication that the only form of orderly realisation that he envisages is the sale of a business called Northern Rock. It could very easily be—I hope that Mr. Sandler's business plan will include this as one of the options that he will explore—that the best way of realising the assets of Northern Rock is to do so in parcels: to sell parts of Northern Rock to different purchasers. The idea that success in this set of circumstances is creating a new, profitable enterprise does not seem to be self-evident from the facts. What is important is that there should be, as the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming) says, an orderly realisation of assets to secure the interests of taxpayers, to avoid subsidised competition in an already competitive market going through its own difficulties, as we all know, and to secure permanent, stable employment for the people who undoubtedly face uncertainty as a result of having secured employment in a business that ultimately, sadly, did not work.