---

Building Societies (Funding) and Mutual Societies (Transfers) Bill

My hon. Friend is being untypically—or atypically—naive. The situation is no different from that for banks. Santander, which bought Abbey, operates as a pan-European banking conglomerate. Its activities in the UK, however, are regulated by the FSA and the Treasury. There would be no difference between what happened in relation to a commercial bank and what happened in relation to a European-wide financial mutual: what it did in the UK would be regulated by the UK. I would have thought that obvious, and I do not quite understand my hon. Friend's concerns.