'Years' before Rock debts repaid

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And its liabilities will stay on the public balance sheet for years to come, Ron Sandler, the new Treasury-appointed chief of the failed institution conceded as he took up his post.

Their admissions came after the announcement that the bank is due to be brought under "temporary public ownership" after the Government ruled on Sunday that proposals for the bank would not deliver "sufficient value for money" for the taxpayer.

Tory leader David Cameron called on Mr Brown to sack Chancellor Alistair Darling within weeks and shadow chancellor George Osborne described him as "politically a dead man walking". Mr Cameron said the bank's nationalisation was "a disaster for the taxpayer, a disaster for this Government and a disaster for our country".

Mr Darling faced MPs as he prepared to pilot through emergency legislation to take the bank into public ownership, a process which begins on Tuesday and is expected to be completed by the end of the week.

In his Commons statement, the Chancellor insisted: "We could have let the bank go under. But the risks to the wider financial system, for savers and the general public were not acceptable."

Mr Brown, asked directly at a No 10 news conference whether the bank would return to private ownership before the next election - not due until May 2010 - replied: "We can't have a timetable when we are talking about the return of better market conditions as a first step to resolving the issue."

Mr Sandler told a news conference in Newcastle he believed it would be "some years" before billions in Government loans and guarantees were repaid in full.

He said he wanted to give the bank "a period of stability" and not "run it down to extinction".

But both he and the Chancellor acknowledged that restructuring the bank now has to be done under tight competition rules and EU guidelines designed to ensure state aid does not distort financial markets. And Mr Sandler refused to speculate about possible job losses among the 6,500 staff.