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Building Societies (Insolvency and Special Administration) Order 2009

My Lords, unashamedly using the order, I want to say a few words at this stage about the Dunfermline Building Society. I declare an interest in that for a number of years I was its Aberdeen manager 30-odd years ago. The Dunfermline Building Society is not, and was not, Scotland’s oldest building society. That privilege endures to the Scottish Building Society. Nevertheless, the society formed in 1869 with a branch network which spread to the Orkney Islands. It was led by successive chief executives of the stature of the late Robert Stoddart and Mr Walter Hutchison. In those days, and until recent management became apparent, the Dunfermline traditionally borrowed short, lent long, and held the capital ratio as it should be, with liquidity clearly established. It was prudent in matters of lending but also careful in matters of offer of investment. It was, therefore, traditionally a building society. It seems to me, now as an outsider looking in, that the recent management was squeezed by the Royal Bank of Scotland and the Bank of Scotland lending vigorously and competing for investment in a very aggressive manner, prompting the idea that you must keep up with the financial Joneses. So it wandered into the field of commercial lending with the result that we now all know. These few remarks were merely an act of self-indulgence by an elderly peer, who has been around here for about four decades, but who felt that the Dunfermline Building Society’s name might at least get into Hansard in a Scottish vein.