Financial Markets

May take this opportunity—the first time that I have spoken from the Back Benches in many years—to congratulate my right hon. Friend the Chancellor on the calm, assured way in which he not only delivered his statement today but, together with my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, has worked on the financial crisis over the past few weeks? I very much welcome his commitment in the statement to make sure that his intention was to stabilise the banking system and, in the long run, return to a well functioning, properly capitalised private banking system. Will he assure me and the House not only that he has been working on a strategy to inject capital into the banking system, but that he will turn his mind to a strategy to withdraw taxpayers' support over the longer term from the banking system?