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Northern Rock

I am rounding off. Finally, there is a strong additional reason for wanting to park the problem of Northern Rock in the solution that I have described. It may well be the case that there is much worse to come. We may well have had the first of a tsunami wave with others behind it. We know what they are; we can see them. One of the problems that arises is that other banks—even very sound banks—are running into serious difficulties in raising capital from the markets. We know that there may well be a very nasty shock in the domestic property market. It is absolutely essential that the Treasury and the Bank of England are totally focused on how to deal with these emerging problems. At the moment, they are totally preoccupied with the problem of the Northern Rock bank, getting the wider problem of the emerging financial crisis completely out of perspective. The Government have failed so far, so they should pick themselves up from the floor, act quickly, take the bank into temporary public ownership and, we hope, limit some of the damage that has already been caused.