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Banking Bill

My Lords, the noble Lord is quite right that he went on to say that. What I objected to was the fact that he said that British bond yields were at a 50-year low, which they were a few weeks ago, but not quite now. Anyway, the key thing for Ireland is the ratio and the very serious warning message that the markets are sending that Ireland and Greece are yielding far more bonds than any other Eurobond. This is important because, similarly, the credit default swap rates for the Bank of Ireland—the rates to insure it, if you like—suggest that there is a chance of between 30 per cent and 40 per cent that it will default over the next few years. That is almost exactly the figure for Kaupthing and Landsbanki of Iceland a few months before they went down. At the time, I was warning and the Treasury was giving me very complacent answers. I am afraid that we have been here before. I ask the noble Lord to take this on board and to take it up with the noble Lord, Lord Mandelson, regarding his plans. The British state-owned Post Office should stand for total trust for savers, like National Savings. In these extraordinary times in the banking world, as the noble Lord, Lord Myners, has pointed out several times tonight, can we really afford to run the risk of the Post Office’s deposits being placed with a shaky foreign bank by a shaky foreign Government’s guarantee? The Post Office must now find a strong long-term British banking partner—the noble Lord suggested one name, although there are several perfectly reputable strong names in this country—to replace the Bank of Ireland before thousands of savers are either left in the lurch or the British taxpayer is put in the position of having to ride to the rescue of a foreign Government, as in the case of Iceland.