Mr. Stephen Bell:

About half of those have been engaging, so there are probably around 2,500 customers with whom we are still struggling to get meaningful engagement. Just to reiterate our flexibility, if a customer makes a payment - even without engaging with us - we will adjourn the court hearing. That is because we do not want to be perceived to be chasing a repossession if the customer is making some effort to make a payment or speak to us.

One figure does need to be borne in mind. We did some work on our own portfolio and the average amount that mortgage arrears customers are paying in repayments on unsecured credit is typically twice the amount of the shortfall that exists between what they should be paying on their mortgage and what they are paying on their mortgage.

Our contention always has been that if the unsecured debt bubble was dealt with more appropriately we would see a much less significant mortgage arrears crisis in front of us.