G20 Summit

Denis MacShane Excerpts

Monday 15th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend asks an important question. The issue of Ireland was not specifically discussed at the G20. A statement was issued by a number of European Finance Ministers, including my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, about the mechanism that will be put in place in the eurozone, because there was a concern that what had been thought about was having a negative impact on Ireland. Obviously, eurozone and European Prime Ministers and Finance Ministers at these gatherings always meet and discuss the health of the European economy and the eurozone. I do not want to speculate about another country’s finances. I recognise that the Irish are taking very difficult action to try to get their own fiscal situation under control. Like the United Kingdom, they obviously have very large banks that have got themselves into difficulty and that have to be managed out of the process. We very much hope that all that will take place.

[Mr Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab)]

I welcome the Prime Minister’s warm words on the release of Aung San Suu Kyi, but, a little to the north and east, in China, a fellow Nobel peace laureate, Liu Xiaobo, is rotting in a communist prison. Why did not the Prime Minister have the guts to mention his name and call for his release in public?

[The Prime Minister]

What I did, which was the right thing to do, was to have a very frank exchange about human rights with the Chinese in the meetings that we had, and I can tell the right hon. Gentleman that nothing and no one was off the agenda.