Full-scale nationalization of ailing U.K. banks is neither "necessary or desirable" at this stage, U.K. business secretary Peter Mandelson said Sunday in an interview with BBC television.

"At the moment what the government is able to do is exercise a great deal of influence over the restructuring change and reform of the banks and their direction, without taking the final step of removing shareholders from the banks," he said.

Mandelson also said the U.K. government is "very focused" on the financial problems of Vauxhall, the U.K. arm of General Motors Corp. (GM), and is in talks with the German government over taking collaborative action to maintain operations.

"Vauxhall is in terrible trouble - I've spoken three times in the last week to the president of General Motors in Europe, I've also spoken to the German economics minister because their plants are similarly affected and we will aproach what we need to do together on this," he said.

General Motors has pressed the U.K. government to take a GBP500 million stake in Vauxhall as part of a pan-European rescue of the ailing carmaker's European operations.

-By Joe Parkinson, Dow Jones Newswires; +44 207842 9291; joe.parkinson@dowjones.com