Northern Rock and Banking Reform

As always, the articulate hon. Gentleman is spot on. He is a valuable member of the Treasury Committee. If I wanted to be controversial, I would say that one point of consensus in which I do not share is the heaping of blame on the FSA. Yes, it was lax in its regulation, as is spelled out in the report, but I do not like the way in which the other culprit, the Bank of England, has stolen off the stage without anything being said. It has a lot to answer for. In an intervention, I asked my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich, West (Mr. Bailey) about the market solution that we all wanted. Why was it not pursued? We have had no answer. Why is there no evidence that anybody from the Bank of England met the prospective buyers, one of which is now known to have been Lloyds TSB? We have had no answer. Why did the Governor dismiss that point in this fashion: ““Oh, I vaguely remember a telephone call that came through to my officials from the FSA””? At such a time, I would have thought that Eddie George would have had that bank in on the Sunday and closed the doors, and they would have gone out at the end of the day with a deal done on a market solution. But that is a judgment call, is it not? I do not think that Eddie George should have dismissed the situation by not taking a telephone call, by not speaking to those involved and by not bringing in people from the city; he should have been straining every sinew to get a market solution. Clearly, however, the Bank of England did not do that.