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Northern Rock and Banking Reform

Remarks such as that from the credit card companies can be dangerous. They had come before us to discuss unfair penalty charges that they had imposed. We said, ““The charges you imposed are all rounded up to the nearest pound. How much do you make out of that?”” They replied, ““We don't make anything out of it.”” They did not tell us anything, so we referred the matter to the Competition Commission. It is now with the Office of Fair Trading and in the courts, so they got themselves into trouble because of their truculence and stupidity. Does my hon. Friend agree that if they were a wee bit more open with us, that would help both them and the country?