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Northern Rock

The council did that on an all-party basis and was right to do so, given the bank's past contribution. I have never run down the employees of the bank, with the exception of the chief executive, whose role in all this I will come to shortly. What amazes me is that had we not initiated this Opposition day debate, there would have been no discussion of this massive problem before Christmas. The Conservatives have had three Opposition days and have chosen not to take the subject on any of those occasions. They seemed to think it was more important to discuss a £950 gift to a third division Scottish politician called Wendy than to have a debate on what has happened to £30 billion of taxpayers' money. I have been trying to establish what the leader of the Conservative party thinks about the matter. He followed me on the ““Today”” programme yesterday and denounced nationalisation as a matter of principle, but as far as I could establish, and no doubt we will hear more in a few minutes, his only solution seemed to be to follow the Government and keep an open cheque book.