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Banking (Special Provisions) Bill

Again, the right hon. Gentleman does not understand what the Chief Secretary said. Of course there is a top-up principle in the securitisation, because the securitisation is backed by a bond, the bond is bought by the investor, and the bond has an interest—a coupon; of course, it has to be topped up. What the Chief Secretary clearly said is that there are other prime assets within Northern Rock that are not required to be used as that top-up. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West for his comments, because I shall now move on from the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to the question of competition. The Conservatives are not helped by the fact that they have an anti-European attitude and yet they have to fall back on the EU to defend the competition policies that will be enacted in respect of Northern Rock. The point has been made many times—