The top team at Northern Rock today admitted for the first time since taking over the nationalised UK lender in February that the company could struggle to meet its own 2010 deadline to repay billions of pounds of taxpayers’ loans because of the downturn in the credit and mortgage markets.

The admission came as Northern Rock’s executive chairman Ron Sandler and chief financial officer Ann Godbehere today met the UK Treasury Select Committee for the first time as part of the parliamentary group’s investigation into financial stability and transparency.