Northern Rock

Roberta Blackman-Woods Excerpts

Monday 21st November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hoban]

My hon. Friend is right. From 1 January we will see a strong challenger on the high street from a business that has a reputation for taking on incumbents and offering a better deal for consumers. That is one of the great attractions of Virgin Money in this transaction. We want to take more action to improve competition on the high street. We are working closely with challenger banks to find ways of removing barriers of entry to the market so that they can grow their market share. One of the Government’s key commitments is to improve competition on the high street for both business and retail customers.

[Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)]

I note that the Minister said that this agreement would lead to additional job creation in the north-east. Will he say how many jobs he expects to be created, of what type and by when?

[Mr Hoban]

What this deal does is preserve jobs in the north-east. Virgin is committed to not going beyond the existing management’s plans for compulsory redundancies. The growth of Northern Rock will come off the back of how well Virgin Money does in exploiting new markets and new opportunities. I think this is a good deal for the employees of Northern Rock. That is why staff cheered when the deal was announced on Thursday at Northern Rock’s offices in Gosforth. They wanted an end to the uncertainty that has hung over the business for the past four years. We have delivered that for them.