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Northern Rock

I am sure that Sir Brian Pitman is absolutely admirable. He is a 75-year-old ex-banker with a formidable history and I am sure that he is serious. I have talked to some of those associated with both the people in question, and they are serious people. That is not the problem—the problem is how they are going to raise, in markets that are now almost closed, the staggering amounts of money that they need to realise their bid. That is the issue—it is not about their character or their history in running banks. Because the private sale is becoming increasingly problematic, we effectively have two options. One is to put the bank into administration, which is probably what everybody would regard as the ““nuclear”” option. Under those circumstances, not only are the shareholders in the north-east wiped out, but there are question marks over what happens even to the guarantee deposit. It would take a long time for those guarantees to be fed back to the depositors, and there would be continuing questions about deposits in other banks because of the difficulties. How would the public loan be retrieved? It would be retrieved either by a very slow run-off as the mortgages were redeemed, or through a fire sale in what is currently a very depressed market. Administration thus presents enormous problems, which is why we Liberal Democrats are suggesting that a period of temporary nationalisation is the least worst of the three basic options available: nationalisation, private sale or administration. Of course we recognise that, in practice, civil servants are not the best people to run a commercial bank. Professional management would have to be hired, and they would have to get to the root of what is going on at this bank. It might prove to be a very sound institution deep down, with a lot of very good assets; we do not know. However, if, having dug down, those managers establish that that is so, they can re-launch it in future years and there would be a substantial upside for the taxpayer that would not result from a private sale. On the other hand, they might discover that it is a can of worms—we do not know—and if so there will have to be a gradual run-off in what is a very difficult environment.