---

Building Britain's Future

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his endorsement of Labour’s 1983 manifesto. It is unpopular to put the case for the banks here, but there is a genuine problem if politicians get too deeply involved, even in a nationalised bank, where we would start to be asked to influence individual loan decisions. Banks still need to operate on the basis of a fair assessment of the risk. Although I share the criticism that some of them are too cautious, I do not think that the hon. Gentleman is advocating that now that we own the banks we should make all the decisions on a political basis.