Eurozone

Anne Main Excerpts

Monday 10th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

Let me deal first with the right hon. Gentleman’s question about quantitative easing. I think there is general recognition that what worked was the increase in asset prices and also pushing investors up the risk chain. I defer to the right hon. Gentleman’s view on this, but what did not work so well was an increase in bank lending; that did not happen as a result of QE, although the Government at the time hoped that it would. As he knows better than anyone, the Government also created the asset purchase facility with the idea that the Bank of England might purchase some corporate paper; it ended up purchasing only around £1 billion-worth.

I thought that it was sensible, therefore, that alongside the Bank’s action on QE we separately, as a Government accountable to the House, looked at credit easing options, which directly try to address the bank lending issue and enable the Government—again, directly accountable to elected people—to look at a range of assets that one can buy, such as small business loans.

On the question of Greece, I have to be a little careful; I alluded to that in my statement when I said that the advice that we are giving on Greece is private. But our public intent is very clear: the Greek situation has to be resolved. It is very debilitating for the world that at the moment each week goes past and there is another event risk around Greece—the troika turns up, there is a parliamentary vote in Greece. Of course, a lot of the frustration of eurozone members is not so much at the impact of austerity, but at the feeling that they have that the Greeks have not done what they promised to do. But as I say, if the right hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I will continue to give my specific advice on Greece to my eurozone neighbours in private.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

I am pleased that my right hon. Friend is taking a robust approach towards our economy, but does he share my concern that the eurozone’s attempt to open up our benefits and pensions pots this September will derail his efforts to make sure that we get money back to the British taxpayer?

[Mr Osborne]

I am very clear that the resources we provide to the European Union should be well spent. Indeed, there is a whole separate agenda that we have not touched on today of getting the European Union better focused on trying to encourage growth and competitiveness across the entire continent. Like, I suspect, my hon. Friend, I also share the frustration about the application of European law that means that we have to end up paying benefits to people who are not in this country. That is one of the frustrations that Governments in the past have had to deal with, and we are looking at whether there are potential avenues around it.