Bill Esterson
Main Page: Bill Esterson (Labour - Sefton Central)Department Debates - View all Bill Esterson's debates with the Cabinet Office
(13 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend makes a very important point. Of course, if we are asking banks to rebuild their balance sheets and their reserves, there is a tension with that compared with asking them to lend. One of the solutions, as he says, is to make sure that there are new entrants into the banking sector, and that is something we are keen to secure.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
The Prime Minister said that the IMF would not have made the loan to Greece if it did not think it could be repaid. The Governor of the Bank of England seems to disagree about the likelihood of that loan being repaid. I think that what the people of this country want to know is how much British taxpayers will be liable for if Greece defaults.
The Prime Minister
The point I made is that Britain’s share of the IMF is a little over 4%. It is a broad requirement of the IMF to consider whether the money can be paid back before it makes the loan. That is not something that it has decided to do on this occasion; it is something that it has to do.