Darling accused over Northern Rock

The Conservatives have accused the chancellor of "deliberately withholding" details of a Treasury loan to the troubled Northern Rock bank.

Shadow chancellor George Osborne told MPs that Alistair Darling's job was at risk because he had authorised "secret" Treasury loans to the lender, on top of those from the Bank of England.

His comments come after Darling confirmed that Bank of England intervention had given Northern Rock time to assess its "strategic options".

The chancellor said the government agreed to the loan because it had "a wider public interest in maintaining financial stability".

"The government also has an interest in protecting the interest of the taxpayer," he added.

Pledging to protect depositors interests as well, Darling said proposals relating to the bank would have to be approved by the government and could be vetoed by ministers.

But he said it would be "wrong" to dismiss any option now.

Darling told the Commons that the money lent to the bank had been secured against it's "high quality".

"The government has a clear duty to protect the public interest and we will do that," he said.

However, Osborne said the "fallout from the first bank run in 140 years gets worse each week and today has been another day of weakness and confusion from the Chancellor of the Exchequer".

The shadow chancellor called on Darling to confirm that he he had told the whole truth and be "honest with taxpayers about the risks that they face".

And noting that the measures announced had already been in the public domain, he added: "Throughout this crisis we've learnt more from media leaks than we have from the government itself."

"This is not about the commercial interest that the prime minister spoke of last week, this is about the public interest," Osborne said.

"It is about the £900 that has been pledged on behalf of every taxpayer in Britain."

He accused the chancellor of failing to address things "which he appears so far to have kept secret from Parliament and secret from the taxpayer".

If the Treasury had lent money to Northern Rock, Osborne warned "it is an extraordinary long-term risk that the taxpayer has been exposed to".

"If it is true then he is surely withholding information both from Parliament and the public," he said.

Osborne added: "This is a tale of incompetence and weak leadership from a government that now reels from one disaster to another.

"We have a chancellor who appears to have made secret loans from the Treasury, we have a chancellor who has made guarantees to the taxpayer he cannot be sure of honouring and we have a chancellor whose weakness is contributing to the instability of the financial system.

"And that is why we have a chancellor whose job is now on the line."