Sir Julian Lewis: It is tempting to say that there is a particularly bad smell about this company, but that would be a statement of the obvious. Although I am not normally a friend of nationalisation, I have a feeling that this company is on a one-way journey to bankruptcy. Am I right in presuming that if that point ever arose, there would be no question of compensating shareholders for a bankrupt company that eventually had to be taken over by the state?

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Emma Reynolds): The company remains solvent, but if it were to become insolvent it would be for the directors to apply to the court for an insolvency special administration regime, and then those questions would be on the table.]