Mr. Stephen Bell:

What we would do in that situation is defer the part of the principal that was not affordable for resolution at some later date. We tend to revisit the situation with the customer periodically in case anything has changed. There certainly has been no instigation on our part to go down a legal route where the customer clearly has positive equity and is able to sustain a portion of the mortgage, with the remainder to be resolved later.

To reaffirm what we said on the last occasion we appeared before the committee, we do not charge interest on the deferred element of any split mortgage. In other words, it is not a case of deferring the problem for the customer.