Finance (No. 3) Bill

Indeed. We need time to see whether the system is working, and whether it is a way of increasing the money that we get from the banks. At the end of the day, the taxpayer has put huge amounts of public money—rightly, in my opinion—into supporting the banking system. I do not agree with the suggestion made by the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) that we should have let the banks fail three years ago. If that had happened we would certainly have had a real problem, not only with Northern Rock but with a large number of other banks. That would have ruined the UK banking system, and there would have been international implications as well.