---

Banking Bill (Money)

I quite agree. I do not know whether the figure of £37 billion is retrospective, or whether the Economic Secretary thinks it was voted for under some other provision. We know, however, that £37 billion of equity capital was put into banks just a few months ago. The money changed hands only comparatively recently because it took quite a long time to get the approvals and do the final detailed negotiation. In the case of RBS, we believe that £20 billion went in one week, and the following week it announced it had lost the lot and a bit more besides. Again, call me old-fashioned, but I do not feel I got a lot of value out of that £20 billion, and I wonder why the Government put it in in the way they did, why they did not ask a few questions about the future results before they chose a price to put in new share capital, or why they put in new share capital at all, instead of using guarantees and short-term cash loans, which would have been quite sufficient.