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HM Treasury

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for pointing that out. It is further suggested that those levels should be maintained for three years. The Government are trying to retreat from that statement as quickly as they can, and the stress is being put on availability and marketing activity. However, greater clarification would be helpful. We welcome the unfreezing of the credit market as that would be helpful, but a return to 2007 levels would be grossly irresponsible. Earlier today, the Leader of the House referred to trying to re-establish reasonable rates for lending to small businesses and households, but that is not how the policy was presented earlier this week. There is clearly some confusion, which brings into question whether the Government appreciate some of the lessons that they should have learned from 2007 and before. On the treatment of home owners, the Treasury statement of 13 October said:"““As part of its investment, the Government has agreed with the banks supported by the recapitalisation scheme a range of commitments covering…support for schemes to help people struggling with mortgage payments to stay in their homes””." We recognise and appreciate that point, but we must bear in mind the case of Northern Rock, which has been nationalised for some time. From December 2007 to June 2008, the percentage of its properties in possession increased from 0.29 to 0.56 per cent. That is a substantial increase, and it is particularly striking compared with the 0.16 per cent. figure for properties in possession for mortgaged homes as a whole. Again, clarification would be helpful. Will the partly nationalised banks, and in particular their mortgage arms, take an aggressive approach to repossessions? Is it the intention that they will take a more generous approach than the market as a whole, or will they, like Northern Rock, take a more aggressive approach? Again, it would help the House if we had further details. Earlier, I touched on the implications for the public finances of those items of expenditure, and I ask again how the Government anticipate that that expenditure will be treated. Will it be treated as borrowing, and will it be treated as part of the public sector net debt? We know that the Office for National Statistics will make a determination on that point, and it looks likely that the expenditure with regard to the high street banks will be treated in such a way. If that is the case, public sector net debt will be at around 50 per cent. of GDP, a percentage which it has not reached since 1976. Where will that leave the sustainable investment rule? We debated that matter last week in the House of Commons, and it appears that the sustainable investment rule has been blown out of the water. The Government were likely to breach the rule notwithstanding Northern Rock—if one includes Northern Rock, they are already in breach—and these particular measures. The sustainable investment rule appears to have been broken. Have the Government abandoned it? It is about time that this House knew the answer. Have the Government made any assumptions on when the preference shares will be paid off? Have they made any assumptions on when they will be in a position to dispose of the ordinary shares? I appreciate that no precise answer can be given, but are they working on any assumptions at all? Given that we are discussing very substantial items of expenditure, how will that expenditure be accountable to this House? Will we have an opportunity to review, debate and, if necessary, vote on any progress in reducing the level of preference shares and ordinary shares? What opportunities will there be to debate particular policies pursued by banks in the light of their partial nationalisation, over and above the usual methods such as Treasury questions? On the Icelandic banks, the supplementary estimate refers to £600 million, which relates to the payment to ING under the Transfer of Rights and Liabilities to ING Order 2008. That relates to the transfer of retail deposits of Kaupthing, Singer and Friedlander and of Heritable, as the Financial Secretary has mentioned. As far as I know—I am willing to be corrected on this point—this is the first time that this House has had sight of that figure. The Financial Secretary will correct me if I am wrong, but the figure of £600 million has certainly not been referred to very frequently. We have frequently heard about the £100 million loan—indeed, the Leader of the House referred to it earlier today—but the £600 million figure is new. If it is possible to obtain more details about what that involves and how the Government hope to get their money back—if, indeed, they hope to get their money back—we will be grateful. Equally, on the figure relating to Bradford & Bingley, more details about when and how the Government intend to get their money back would be appreciated. We all agree that the financial crisis is extraordinary. Some Labour Members, not many of whom are present in the Chamber today, view the measure as a triumph for the Prime Minister. We do not view it as such, although we have been prepared to work with the Prime Minister and the Government to address particular concerns. Finally the bills for the Brown boom have had to be paid. For years, the Prime Minister declared at every opportunity that there would be no more boom and bust. In an interview in the Daily Mail at the weekend, he said:"““I actually said, 'No more Tory boom and bust'””." There are a number of ways one can take that comment. I do not know whether it meant that there would be no more Tory boom and bust because instead we would have Labour boom and bust, or whether he really thinks that he said that. I cannot explain that comment. The facts that the UK was so badly prepared for the financial crisis, that the regulatory system was unable to cope with this bust and that the public finances are woefully unprepared for this downturn suggest that maybe the Prime Minister believed throughout the 10 years when he was Chancellor that there would be no return to bust, whether it was Tory bust or any other kind of bust. That is deeply disturbing, because it means that he believed he could defeat the business cycle, which has existed for ever. The consequence of that was enormous complacency. No attempt was made to use the good years to prepare for bad years; no attempt was made to fix the roof when the sun was shining. We have been left in a terribly vulnerable position in which we are more exposed than almost any other economy in the world to a global economic downturn with inflation at three times the level of '97, with unemployment rising at a faster rate than at any time in the past 17 years and with the public finances in one of the worst positions of any particular economy in the world. No more boom and bust—if only it were so. Today, we are paying the bills.