---

Finance Bill

She says that of course she has seen it, but in that case she should have improved it. The answer that I have just received is as bland as this:""The Financial Risk Outlook discusses liquidity and funding support provided to eligible institutions. Responsibility for repayment of such support lies with the eligible institution itself."" That is not what the financial risk outlook says. It is appalling that I should get an answer at this late hour, just before the debate on the Finance Bill. It was only by chance that I happened to be passing the letter board as I went out of this debate and I received an answer on the subject of the monumental amount of taxpayer burden. It arises out of the monumental and wanton increase in debt that itself does not even touch on the amount of net debt, which gets up to as much as £3.1 trillion if the Office for National Statistics is to be believed—I repeat that "if". I have much more faith in the ONS than I used to have, and I hope that it and the new UK Statistics Authority will develop into something akin to the Public Accounts Committee and the National Audit Office and establish a reputation, as has been suggested by Sir Michael Scholar's strictures on the Government in the past few days, which I must say I applaud, However, I discovered something from the ONS the other day that deeply concerns me and I refer, just this once, to a subject with which some people might associate me: the ONS statistical base is agreed by EUROSTAT and that is a warning to us all. It was EUROSTAT's statistical assumptions that led to the ability of certain accountants, lawyers and bankers to advise the Greeks to enter into arrangements that have led to the crisis there. In other words, the EUROSTAT arrangements look as though they did not enable true figures to be provided, which enabled the Greeks to get away with it. That is where this Government are heading.