Loans to Ireland Bill

Chris Leslie Excerpts

Wednesday 15th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)]

Let me say on behalf of Her Majesty’s Opposition that we welcome the debate, in which plenty of views have been expressed from different parts of the Chamber on what is an incredibly important matter. Many Members in all parts of the House—including my right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling), the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the hon. Member for Chichester (Mr Tyrie), the Chairman of the Treasury Committee—have voiced, perfectly reasonably, their anxieties about the loan to Ireland.

Clearly these are troubled times for the world economy and for the eurozone, and we must sincerely hope that we will not find ourselves here again. The Opposition recognise that there are interdependencies between Britain and the Irish nation in respect of economic trade, direct relationships between our banks and financial investments across Ireland. Moreover, it is our only land-bordered nation state. We therefore have a duty to support the principle and spirit of the legislation, because a failing Irish economy would create harm here in the United Kingdom.

[Mr Cash]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Chris Leslie]

Very briefly.

[Mr Cash]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that were there to be such a European dimension as effectively to subjugate the Bill to the jurisdiction of the European Court, he would wish that he had voted against it?

[Chris Leslie]

I think we shall have to take the issues as they come before us. I understand the hon. Gentleman’s anxieties, but, on balance, given the choices that we face, we consider it incumbent on us, as a responsible Opposition, to support the Government on Second Reading.

Let me make a couple of points—briefly, because I am conscious of the time and the need for us to debate the amendments, not least those that I have tabled in respect of clause 2.

The events in Ireland remind us starkly of the principal facts that Ministers have, I am afraid, preferred to hide hitherto. First, the credit crunch was a worldwide, international crisis, not simply something in the United Kingdom. Secondly, the failures of banks that gambled excessively not just with our money but with the money of the Irish people and others are at the root of our present predicament.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer has done well in spinning the line that it was all the fault of my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), the former Prime Minister—that he was somehow personally responsible for single-handedly causing the credit crunch in the UK before jetting off to Washington and starting the banking collapse there, then flying to Ireland via Spain, Portugal, Greece and the rest of the developed world, spreading banking catastrophe from continent to continent. However, the Bill—perhaps uncomfortably for the Chancellor—reminds us of the ridiculousness of the coalition’s revisionism, and reminds us that the rewriting of history can occur only if we believe in the gullibility of the public, as I suspect the Chancellor does. Although the Government think that may be able to fool all of the people all of the time, the truth is now overwhelmingly obvious, and proves beyond doubt that the greed of profiteering bankers has required the poor, beleaguered taxpayer, here as well as across Ireland and Europe, to bail them out of the mess that they created.

I am afraid that we heard no apology in the Chancellor’s hour-long, technical speech, and no expression of regret in respect of his free-market deregulatory exaltations of the “shining example” shown by the Irish economy. Perhaps that was an error, but sadly he did not acknowledge it. We are not convinced, either, that the Chancellor stands chastened or reflective in regard to his ill-judged comments about the Irish economic miracle”. Perhaps even we could have expected him to have some conception of the risks posed by the simple “austerity at all costs” principle underpinning his economic policies, but that was not there either.

Fundamentally, the problem is this: if the Chancellor of the Exchequer does not understand the causes of the deficit, he is certainly not the right person to fix it. My constituents, like those of the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), find it difficult to understand how, given that we were supposedly on the brink of bankruptcy, we can find £3.2 billion for the Irish loan, but nothing for Sheffield Forgemasters.

Sadly, however, we must recognise that the measures before us today are a result of the fragility of the worldwide economy. We hope that, eventually, the Chancellor and the Prime Minister will step up and show a little more leadership, especially in Europe, rather than using bail-outs and loans as sticking plaster. We hope that they will pay more attention to the root causes of what is happening to the economy, and will recognise that we cannot just cross our fingers and pretend that collective austerity will do the trick in all cases. My right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West is absolutely spot on when he talks about the inadequacy of that proposition. How will the European Union regain the market’s confidence in a longer-term trajectory back to stronger revenues and economies? Where are the growth strategies to build longer-term prosperity?

We have to accept, however, that the case for the loan to Ireland outweighs the case against it. There are risks that need dealing with, including the risk of contagion throughout the eurozone bond market. The ongoing crisis risks shrinking our export market potential in the long run, and as a consequence that risks creating losses for banks in the UK—banks of course that we own. So on balance and for those reasons, we do not oppose the Bill at this time, but in the time remaining we hope to scrutinise the detail in Committee.