Topical question asked in the House of Commons, by Julie Kirkbride (Conservative). It was answered on Thursday, 12 February 2009 on behalf of the Treasury.

Topical Questions

Question: Among the poor judgments made by the Chancellor was that of asking Sir James Crosby to produce a report that recently concluded that the taxpayer should buy up the bad debts of the banks. Now that we know the level of complicity that Sir James had in producing those bad debts at his old bank, does the Chancellor still intend to press ahead with the conclusions of that report without question?

Answer: The hon. Lady is mistaken about what James Crosby actually proposed. He was not dealing with the question of the bad assets in the banks—that was being dealt with separately. He was asked to consider how to get mortgage lending going again—again, at the time, that was something that the Conservative party was in favour of. He suggested that the Government should underwrite some of that new lending. That has a great deal of merit, and it is something that I set out in the pre-Budget report. I am afraid that the hon. Lady was just plain wrong in what she said.

Secondary information