David Norris (Independent)

——leaving senior management in place while providing an open-ended guarantee to two institutions which it should have been clear were on the road to insolvency. We have two banks going bust, and we leave the people responsible for it in the saddle. It is absolutely unbelievable that this should happen and for that reason I am astonished there is such a lack of electricity in the air here tonight because it seems extraordinary that we should tolerate this situation.

There is so much spin. I do not want spin on either side. I do not like political footballs being played but for the Government to pretend it was not its fault or to say it was caught in a tsunami is wrong. No, Minister, it was not a tsunami. It was man-made and the two reports, which the Minister said in his own speech the Government accepts fully, condemn the Government's policies in all but a few tiny and insignificant areas.