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Banking Bill

Wearing his consumer hat, and given his obvious interest in the subject, has the noble Lord looked at this from the other point of view? That is where government intervention in this field disadvantages the consumer. The examples that he cited of RBS and Lloyds/HBOS are good ones, where the Government setting a 12 per cent rate on preference shares has meant that consumers have to pay more for their loans or, indeed, their loans may not be available because the banks clearly want to pay back the preference shares. That is an example where government intervention is acting against consumers’ immediate interest. Has the noble Lord thought about that?