Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what impact assessment he conducted of (a) the reprivatisation of RBS and (b) any other policy options for the future of RBS before the commissioning of the Rothschild Review into the UK Investment in Royal Bank of Scotland.

The Government has been consistent and clear that its objective in respect of RBS ownership is to return the bank to the private sector in full.

This policy is supported by recent advice from the Governor of the Bank of England that “it is in the public interest for the Government to begin now to return RBS to the private sector”, and that “there could be considerable net costs to taxpayers of further delaying the start of a sale”. The findings of the recently published Rothschild report into the Government’s shareholding in RBS concur with this assessment.