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TOPICAL DEBATES Financial Stability

That is exactly the point that I was making. We may have to consider doing likewise, in addition to the things that we have already done. The Japanese also had to extend a guarantee to all individual deposits. I find it incomprehensible that the Government have not done the same, although implicitly they are offering to do so; they extended a guarantee to all individual deposits in Northern Rock and Bradford & Bingley, which they have now extended to Icesave, or whatever it is called—the iceberg bank. If they can extend such a guarantee to a foreign and rather dubious bank, it is odd that they should not extend it, for a limited period, to all depositors in this country. The final thing that the Japanese had to do was cut interest rates drastically. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr. Tyrie) that the Bank of England needs to recognise that in these circumstances interest rates may need to be cut further and faster than ever before. In Japan they had to be cut to zero. We should not relate interest rates to what was necessary during a period of excess credit creation, given that we are experiencing a period in which there is likely to be excess credit contraction. I hope that the Government will not rule out any further measures that are necessary, and I very much hope that the measures that they have already taken will be effective. They will certainly have the support of the Conservatives, but that does not mean that we will not hold them to account for getting us into these problems over the past 10 years. They must accept responsibility for that.