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Amendment of the law

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right about the arguments that were made about personal debt, but what was not predicted was the drying up of the wholesale market, the impact on and collapse of Lehman Brothers and then the extent to which the UK retail banks were exposed to the risks involved in Lehman Brothers. I did not hear anybody calling that set of circumstances, despite my having listened and listened. The angst about the level of personal debt is real and a very important discussion took place on whether that should be limited, but one cannot extrapolate from that predictions of what has actually unfolded.