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Northern Rock

My Lords, I have not gone into the detail of Ron Sandler's travelling expenses or anything such as that, but I can assure noble Lords that the remuneration that has been cited is intended to be the remuneration for the job that he is being asked to do. On the noble Lord’s more general question, we have to present a position to the European Community; we have also to follow and work within the framework of the competition laws of this country. Both put very effective constraints on what the noble Lord is suggesting: that a bank in temporary public ownership will be able to take advantage of that to have preferred business over its competitors.