Alison McGovern
Main Page: Alison McGovern (Labour - Birkenhead)Department Debates - View all Alison McGovern's debates with the HM Treasury
(13 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Osborne
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. In January last year the largest bond investor in the world said that UK gilts
“are resting on a bed of nitroglycerine.”
Today I could read out a whole string of comments from market participants saying that the UK has been a safe haven in this sovereign debt crisis because of the decisions that we took.
Standard & Poor’s, the rating agency that has just downgraded the United States, took the United Kingdom off “negative outlook” and reaffirmed our triple A credit rating. The practical consequence of that is much lower interest rates. If we pursued the policy proposed by the Opposition of more spending and more debt, the immediate response would be higher interest rates which would kill off any recovery. That is why such a policy is economic madness.
Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)
Given poor and worsening United Kingdom growth, at what point will the Chancellor advocate further quantitative easing? If he will not answer that question, will he tell us whether he believes that there is no chance that rapidly rising sterling will hurt our exports?
Mr Osborne
Both those matters are properly for the Bank of England. It is for the Governor to comment on the value of sterling, if he chooses to do so. As for quantitative easing, the arrangements agreed by the last Government, which I have retained, remain in place. If the Monetary Policy Committee makes a serious request, of course we will consider it seriously, but we have received no such request.