Philip R. Hampton
Management
Right. Well, let's start. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to our full year results. I think the results overall show good progress, with our Core businesses making around GBP 6 billion profits. But of course, we're still dealing with the big challenges from the financial excesses of a few years ago that come up in our Non-Core division. And this year, we've got some very big charges for Greece PPI and others, which are largely, though not universally, legacy-type problems. Step by step, I think it's clear that this bank, this business is being fixed. I'll say one more thing, and then I'll hand over to Steven to explain how it's being fixed. The other thing I'd like to say, or really, rather, reemphasize, is that, of course, we are a very odd business in ownership terms, at once listed on the stock market but majority-owned by the U.K. government. And of course, there are representatives of UKFI with their commercial arm's-length relationship. The question is sometimes raised as to how long those arms are, and the answer is that we do engage in discussions with all of our shareholders on performance, strategy, governance, remuneration and so on. And these discussions are inevitably fuller and more frequent with an 82% shareholder whose opinions have a proper place in the judgments made by the Board and the management. But at the end of the day, all decisions in the company have to be taken by the Board and the management. And by law, those decisions have to take into account the interest of all of our shareholders. It's not, of course, just a company law issue. The clarity of decision-making and accountability is fundamental to the prudential management of all businesses and, of course, particularly financial institutions. So whilst we do engage with shareholders, especially UKFI, we have to take our decisions on behalf of all shareholders, and we have to be wholly accountable for the decisions that we take, solely and wholly accountable. So it will be obvious, I'm sure, to everybody here that this is a very challenging set of circumstances for all parties. It's certainly very unusual. But I think so far, we have been able to deal with those challenges and find acceptable solutions. I hope and I expect that we will be able to continue to do so. The Board firmly believes that running the business commercially is the only realistic way to secure the eventual exit of our majority shareholder, because clearly, investors would have a very limited appetite to invest in an un-commercial bank. So let me now hand over to Steven, who will describe the progress we're making.