Oral Answers to Questions

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Tuesday 6th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

I think that we can take important steps towards greater co-ordination of fiscal policy by implementing, as I say, the agreements that the eurozone came up with before the summer. That is the task at hand now. Speculating now about major treaty change is unrealistic. It is not going to happen in the next few years. It would take several years to bring about such a major treaty change and get it ratified by all the national Parliaments, even if those Parliaments agreed to it. The challenge this autumn is to bring greater stability to the euro’s governance arrangement, which is what our colleagues in the EU want to do.

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

The Chancellor recently boasted that Britain is a safe haven from the problems in the eurozone, so will he tell us which EU countries have grown more slowly than the UK in the past 12 months, not in the last quarter?

[Mr Osborne]

As I said, this year, unfortunately, the German economy, the French economy and other major eurozone economies—[Hon. Members: “Ah!”] If Opposition Members do not want to look at the most recent numbers, it is no wonder they have not got a credible economic policy. Until they get one, and take a view on the eurozone and what is happening in Germany, France and the United States, they are not going to be taken seriously, as the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, the right hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling), has reminded them.

[Ms Eagle]

I do not think that the Chancellor knew the answer to that question, but today’s euro figures have revealed that only two countries—Romania and Portugal—have done worse on growth than the UK in the past year. Only yesterday, the Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government, the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), said from the Dispatch Box that there is a crisis of growth in this country. Was not the Chancellor’s friend, the new head of the IMF, Christine Lagarde, right at the weekend when she said that

“growth is necessary for fiscal credibility… We know that slamming on the brakes too quickly will hurt the”

economy “and worsen job prospects”?

We know that he will not listen to us, but why does the Chancellor not listen to sound advice from his friends, including, we hear, on this weekend’s draft G7 statement, which aims to slow the pace of deficit reduction—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am extremely grateful to the hon. Lady. I think that we have got the gist of it.