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Pre-Budget Report and Comprehensive Spending Review

I welcome the continued stability and growth outlined in the pre-Budget report. I want to ask my right hon. Friend about Northern Rock and the financial assistance scheme. When Northern Rock was in difficulty, the Chancellor rightly stepped in and made the state the insurer of last resort. The Government have consistently said that they will not do that in relation to the 125,000 pensioners who will benefit from the financial assistance scheme—set up, uniquely, by this Government—but not at a rate of 100 per cent. I did not notice anything in the statement today to suggest that the Government had changed their position on this and made themselves the insurer of last resort for those pensioners—in whose case there was an adverse ombudsman's finding—as they did in the case of Northern Rock, in which there was no such finding.