Financial Assistance (Ireland)

George Mudie Excerpts

Monday 22nd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. As I say, a bilateral loan will be debated in this House and require the Government to take primary powers, so it is within the control of all Members, and we are accountable to the taxpayers of Britain for that. I have explained the situation, so I will not go over it again, but we are part of the European mechanism, which involves a qualified majority vote, and even if we had exercised a no vote we would have been completely outvoted. That is why I want to see that the UK is not part of the permanent bail-out mechanism, which will be discussed at the December Council.

[Mr George Mudie (Leeds East) (Lab)]

We are contributing to the IMF deal and to the stability mechanism deal. Is the £7 billion additional to that, or is it broken up between those two with a topping-up sum?

[Mr Osborne]

I am not going to give a specific figure today, because it simply has not been agreed as part of the overall package with the Irish. In these situations, it is perfectly normal for the sovereign Government, in this case the Irish, to invite the IMF and the EU in and to ask for their help, and for that to be negotiated over the following week or two. Of course, we will be part of that, but as I say, I expect the UK’s support to be in the billions, not the tens of billions.