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Banking (Special Provisions) Bill

It has a cash flow from mortgage repayments and interest payments. Serious consideration should have been given as to whether the bank should just sit back, make no new loans, collect the interest and repayments on debts as they flow in, and, if and when the market recovers, perhaps securitise and sell off some of the other mortgages. That would be the fastest and probably the most secure way for the taxpayer to get their money back. If the Government had taken the administration route they would not have needed to deal with compensation. The shares were worth nothing without the Government's guarantee. I hope that they are going to hang tough and not pay compensation, despite feeling sorry for the small shareholders. Having said that, most of the shareholders seem to be people who were given their shares on demutualisation or big City operators who bought the shares in the distressed circumstances thinking that they might be able to railroad the Government into some kind of rescue. They are not little old ladies in tennis shoes with their life savings in the bank.