IMF

Dennis Skinner Excerpts

Monday 23rd April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

I completely agree with the former Foreign Secretary. The agreement at the weekend is about ensuring that the IMF is fully resourced to deal with whatever is thrown at it. Of course, if problems were to emerge and future programmes were to be required, there would be an enormous amount of scrutiny of what those programmes would consist of, what the conditions would be, and the like, but what we would not want at such a time, when the markets would no doubt be incredibly febrile and when confidence in Britain and other countries would be evaporating, is a question mark hanging over whether the IMF has got the money to solve the problem. That is why countries from around the world have decided to make this contribution.

[Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)]

Does not the Chancellor realise that he would have a much stronger case on loans to the IMF if he was not practising austerity here in Britain and calling on all families to pay for the bankers? Does not he recall that when the IMF was set up we had a Labour Government who introduced a national health service, built a welfare state, built education for all and left us with fewer than 500,000 people unemployed? That Government went for growth, and that is the kind of policy he should be going for here, instead of calling for austerity for everybody else.

[Mr Osborne]

What I say is that the hon. Gentleman is betraying the spirit of Ernest Bevin, Hugh Dalton, Clement Attlee and the members of that Government, who came together after the second world war to build new international institutions to make sure that, in future, the world would come together to sort out its economic problems, instead of walking away from other countries, which is what we would be doing if we followed the hon. Gentleman’s advice.