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Northern Rock

That would be helpful not only to those of us who are trying to understand what has gone wrong, but to the bidders to get some idea of the details of the security package. As my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Mr. Hoban) said, the Chancellor has confirmed that taxpayers' money is safe and will be repaid. That puts the Chancellor's position and credibility firmly on the line in the context of the Northern Rock situation and its resolution. I very much hope that the taxpayer will receive all their money back—that is the outcome we all want—but it is hard for me as a former banker to see how that can possibly occur. While the chairman of the Financial Services Authority confirmed yesterday to the Treasury Committee that he regards Northern Rock as solvent, that is due only to the Government facility, since it has not been able to meet its debts as they fall due since mid-September, which is the reason why it went to the Bank in the first place. We now know from the Economic Secretary that the security package includes Northern Rock's residual share of the mortgage held in Granite, ranking behind £48 billion-worth of security, at the last count, in Granite. It is composed of unsecured lending and home-equity release mortgages, which are the UK equivalent of sub-prime mortgages. It also rests on a portfolio of traded securities—some £15 billion according to the last balance sheet we saw—issued by others. Given what is happening in the credit environment and to the valuation of traded securities around the world, whether that is of par value is somewhat doubtful and an open question. Let me conclude on nationalisation and pick up on Members' observations on that. Nationalisation is not a solution that protects the taxpayer. It could do so only in the event of benign market circumstances and over a prolonged period, with the bank being run as a business in competition with every other financial institution that is in the mortgage business around the country by a Treasury that, frankly, is not equipped to do so. It is highly unlikely that those circumstances will prevail. The other circumstance in which it might possibly work is as a facilitation of a back-to-back deal with a private sector purchaser. As I pointed out in an intervention, nationalisation places the Government in the position of being a 100 per cent. equity owner responsible for meeting all £110 billion of liabilities that might fall due. Is that a responsibility that the Liberal Democrats really want the Government to undertake?