Banking (Special Provisions) Bill

Of course the noble Lord is right that it is the responsibility of the Executive to respond, but we now have the Committee stage in which the Executive will seek to respond in detail to the issues that are raised. I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, because it will be a little time before I get to the main thrust of his amendment, as I have a series of detailed questions to address. One question was about Dolerite. Dolerite does not exist. It is of no concern to Northern Rock at this stage. It was an SIV that was used, but it is not used now and it is therefore not relevant to this Bill. On Granite, I attempted to express this point yesterday. Granite has no shares in Northern Rock. Granite is an SIV and there has been no transfer from Northern Rock to Granite since September 2007. The relationship is in suspension in those terms. The reason why Granite is not in the Bill is that we do not need to nationalise Granite, as it is not directly relevant to the position of Northern Rock.