Statement of director’s responsibilities
The directors are responsible for preparing the Annual report and the Group and parent company financial statements, in accordance with applicable law and regulations.

Company law requires the directors to prepare Group and parent company financial statements for each financial year. Under that law the directors are required to prepare the Group financial statements in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards as adopted by the EU (IFRS) and have elected to prepare the parent company financial statements in accordance with UK Accounting Standards.

The Group financial statements are required by law and IFRS to present fairly the financial position and performance of the Group; the Companies Act 1985 (the ‘Act’) provides in relation to such financial statements that references in the relevant part of the Act to financial statements giving a true and fair view are references to their achieving a fair presentation.

The parent company financial statements are required by law to give a true and fair view of the state of affairs of the parent company.

In preparing each of the Group and parent company financial statements, the directors are required to:

• select suitable accounting policies and then apply them consistently;
• make judgements and estimates that are reasonable and prudent;
• for the Group financial statements, state whether they have been prepared in Accordance with IFRS;
• for the parent company financial statements, state whether applicable UK Accounting Standards have been followed, subject to any material departures disclosed and explained in the parent company financial statements; and
• prepare the financial statements on the going concern basis unless it is inappropriate to presume that the Group and the parent company will continue in business.

The directors are responsible for keeping proper accounting records that disclose with reasonable accuracy at any time the financial position of the parent company and enable them to ensure that its financial statements comply with the Act. They have general responsibility for taking such steps as are reasonably open to them to safeguard the assets of the Group and to prevent and detect fraud and other irregularities.

Under applicable law and regulations, the directors are also responsible for preparing a Directors' report, Directors' remuneration report and Corporate governance statement that comply with that law and those regulations. The directors are responsible for the maintenance and integrity of the corporate and financial information included on the Group’s website. Legislation in the UK governing the preparation and dissemination of financial statements may differ from legislation in other jurisdictions.

Going concern
After making enquiries, the directors have a reasonable expectation that the Company has adequate resources to continue in operational existence for the foreseeable future. For this reason they continue to adopt the going concern basis in preparing the financial statements. The financial risk management objectives and policies of the Company and the exposure of the Company to price risk, credit risk, liquidity risk and cash flow risk is discussed on Finance Director’s review page.

Disclosure of information to auditors
Each of the persons who is a director at the date of approval of this report confirms that:

• so far as the director is aware, there is no relevant information of which the Company’s auditors are unaware;
• the director has taken all steps that he or she ought to have taken as a director in order to make himself or herself aware of any relevant audit information and to establish that the Company’s auditors are aware of that information this confirmation is given and should be interpreted in accordance with the provisions of Section 234ZA of the Act.

Responsibility statement
Each of the persons who is a director at the date of approval of this report confirms that to the best of his or her knowledge:

• each of the Group and parent company financial statements, prepared in accordance with IFRS and UK Accounting Standards respectively, gives a true and fair view of the assets, liabilities, financial position and profit or loss of the issuer and the undertakings included in the consolidation taken as a whole; and
• the Director’s report on these pages includes a fair review of the development and performance of the business and the position of the Company and the undertakings included in the consolidation taken as a whole, together with a description of the principal risks and uncertainties that they face.

By order of the Board

Tim Rayner
General Counsel and Company Secretary
February 11, 2009