Northern Rock and Banking Reform

The prompt corrective action mechanisms should take care of that. I will not follow my hon. Friend down that lane, other than to say that the Committee recommended that chief executives and chairmen of banks should have professional financial qualifications, which the Northern Rock chairman and chief executive did not have. For the life of me, I cannot understand it, but it caused a bit of a stir in the City. It would be wise for a chief executive or someone who chairs a large company to have appropriate qualifications. The whole Committee made that point. The communications strategy is another matter on which we agree with the Government. We welcome the Government's commitment to that in the tripartite authority. If there had been a half decent communications strategy in place at the time, perhaps matters would not have worked out as badly as they did. When the announcement of lender of last resort was made, the City and the wider public interpreted it as the financial equivalent of the last rites and evidence that the company was on its death bed, instead of viewing it as the tripartite authority supporting a solvent bank with a good loan book, as the FSA and the Governor of the Bank of England said. The communications strategy was disastrous and the Government and the tripartite authority need to get that right.