Brown and Darling news conference

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain bailed out three major banks with 37 billion pounds to boost their capital, the Treasury said on Monday.

Following are comments by Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Chancellor Alistair Darling at a news conference after the bailout was announced:

DARLING ON ICELAND

"As soon as it became apparent that Iceland had decided to leave out British depositors from what they were proposing that we took action to secure assets of the bank. And I said we want to resolve that, but the Icelandic government needs to take a decision to resolve its own problems and they are reflecting on that. There will be announcement in relation to Landsbanki very shortly."

BROWN ON RBS

"As I understand it, (RBS Chief Executive) Sir Fred (Goodwin) is announcing that he is not taking any severance payment."

DARLING ON PREFERENCE SHARES

"We are investing in banks where, as conditions improve, we will get our money bank and of course we also get dividends and the guarantees of lending come at a cost."

"You have to get the right balance here. The preference shares have the advantage that they are first call. The banks do have to pay us a premium for having these shares. But if you have too many preference shares that puts a burden on the banks that actually might be counterproductive so the bulk of the shares in relation to RBS and the Lloyds TSB HBOS group are ordinary shares."