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European Council

I think my hon. Friend is entirely right. The Governor of the Bank of England spoke powerfully about this and has set out what the liabilities of British banks are in terms of Greece. We need the stress tests to be transparent, and we then need them to be acted on by making sure that those banks that need to build up their reserves do so. One of the things I wanted to secure at the European Council was to ensure that the conclusions were very tough on this, because at the same time as they are operating these stress tests and arguing for more capital to go into the banks, some European powers are trying to water down the Basel requirements. It seems to me to be completely illogical to try, on the one hand, to strengthen a banking system to withstand pressure in the eurozone, and then to start weakening it on the other. I am thankful that the conclusions are pretty clear on that point.