Lord Burns appointed Abbey National chairman

Abbey National has appointed Lord Burns of Pitshanger, a relative outsider to the Square Mile, to replace Lord Tugendhat of Widdington when he vacates his job as chairman of the mortgage bank at the end of January to join the US investment bank Lehman Brothers. Lord Burns, 57, is chairman of Glas Cymru, the former Welsh Water, and has non-executive roles at Pearson, the media group, and British Land, the property company. He has spent most of his career in Government and academia.

A former Professor of Economics at the London Business School, he served as Permanent Secretary to the Treasury in the Nineties and later chaired the National Lottery Commission. An Abbey spokesman said the bank had wanted to acquire skills from outside the City."Lord Burns is not going to be an executive in charge of the company on a day-to-day basis. We want a board with a range of skills," he said.