Banking (Special Provisions) Bill

I am saying that I agree with the hon. Gentleman's Chancellor of the Exchequer that the value of those shares is, I am afraid, very small. It will be a decision for the independent valuer, but I am afraid that they would not be worth a great deal without the support that the Government gave in September. I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman had better break the news that this is the approach that the Government have taken. By the way, Bank of England-led reconstruction would mean that at the end of the process, once the taxpayers got their money back, there was at least a possibility that something would be left for the shareholders. I suspect that that will not be the case if we go down the route that he will vote for tonight. Not only do we not know what we are paying for this bank, but we do not know what we are buying into. We know that nationalisation will double the exposure of the taxpayer from £55 billion to £110 billion—£3,500 for every taxpayer—but the Government simply refuse to tell us how risky that exposure is. The Chancellor did not tell us today, either. All he says is that the FSA judges the bank's loan book to be of good quality. He said that last September, and says the same thing now, even though the prospects for the housing market have deteriorated markedly since then. We know, however, that the independent rating agencies disagree with the Chancellor's assessment. Standard and Poor's says of Northern Rock's mortgage securitisation that the losses are rising and repossessions are on the way up. We also know that Northern Rock wrote more mortgages than any other bank in Britain at the top of the housing market. We know that it offered 125 per cent. mortgages when most of its competitors thought that such mortgages were too risky. We are told that, as a result, Northern Rock is repossessing more homes than any other major bank in Britain. The least we should have from the Government before we vote on this Bill is an honest and independent audit of what we are being asked to buy. Will the Chancellor tell us how many bad loans there are? What is the default rate? What is the pension fund deficit? The private sector bidders know those things; they were told. But the public sector and Parliament, which are being asked to buy the bank, know none of those things. Surely that is not an acceptable state of affairs. We are entitled to know what we are buying.