Eurozone

Debate between George Osborne and David Tredinnick

Monday 10th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

Is not the fundamental problem with the Greeks that even if a package is agreed, there is no way the Government can implement it, because the tax authorities have themselves said that they are not going to do so? A depreciated or, indeed, a new currency for Greece would give my Hinckley constituents and others some chance of buying cheaper Greek holidays and stimulating the economy.

[Mr Osborne]

As I have said, I was always one of those who said that Britain should not join the euro. I worked alongside my right hon. Friend for Richmond (Yorks) (Mr Hague) when he was Leader of the Opposition, and helped him to write many of the speeches that set out that case. Although the shadow Chancellor keeps talking about the important role that the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) played in all that, I do not recall lots of passionate speeches about why Britain should not join the euro; but no doubt he was doing his work in private.

Let me say this about the Greek situation. If Greece were to leave the euro, there would be a balance of payments crisis. Greece does not have a primary balance, so there would automatically be a need for a huge international programme. The idea that leaving the euro would get it out of needing international assistance, or out of the clutches of the International Monetary Fund, is just fanciful, because it would need such a programme. There would be a balance of payments crisis and there would probably be runaway inflation as well, which would wipe out any competitiveness gains.

I think that we are depicting a nirvana of Greek exit from the euro which does not exist. Greece is in a very difficult position, and it needs to work through its problems.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between George Osborne and David Tredinnick

Tuesday 8th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

10. What progress he has made in reforming the tripartite system of financial regulation.

[The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr George Osborne)]

The tripartite system of financial regulation put in place by the new Chancellor and his advisers in 1997 failed spectacularly and cost the British people billions of pounds. That is why we are replacing the tripartite system with a much tougher and more coherent regime led by the Bank of England. We aim to have that system in place by the end of 2012. I repeat what I just said: we have today increased the rate of the Government’s permanent bank levy for this year in order to raise £2.5 billion net. This will mean that the banks pay more in tax in each and every year of this Government than they did in the last year of the previous Government. Through this new bank tax being made permanent and with the revenue announcement today, the banks will be making a fairer contribution to our economic recovery.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Osborne]

My hon. Friend is right. It was an interesting admission from the Leader of the Opposition that things started to go badly wrong when he was an adviser at the Treasury. Maybe the man he did the photocopying for will make a similar admission. The creation of a consumer protection and markets agency will provide a stronger consumer voice and a consumer champion. It will be a world-class regulator. We are assembling the right team to run that agency, including many talented people who were at the Financial Services Authority. I am delighted that Martin Wheatley has been appointed as the chief executive designate. He has an outstanding record as a regulator around the world and his arrival bodes well for the future of the new agency.

[David Tredinnick]

Was the three-way split in financial regulation the worst financial decision taken by the previous Government, or has something else caught my right hon. Friend’s eye?

[Mr George Osborne]

There is the selling off of the gold at a record low and the pensions tax that destroyed our pensions system, but I have to say that, in terms of sheer cost to the British taxpayer, the system of regulation designed by the shadow Chancellor was pretty catastrophic.

Economic Affairs and Work and Pensions

Debate between George Osborne and David Tredinnick

Tuesday 8th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr George Osborne)]

I enjoyed what sounded very much to me like a valedictory speech by the shadow Chancellor, going through all the decisions he took and explaining to the House why they were all right. Of course, I paid tribute to him in Treasury questions for the work he did during that period, which was clearly a very stressful one, but it was pretty extraordinary that he did not once accept that he had made a single mistake during those three years—that for all his good manners, he did not once apologise for the fact that he has bequeathed to the incoming Government the worst inheritance that any British Government have faced since the second world war.

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Osborne]

If my hon. Friend will allow me, I would like to make some progress first.

I guess that the shadow Chancellor is entitled not to apologise. I would only say this to the people who are standing for the leadership of the Labour party. As far as I can tell from their contest at the moment, they seem to think that they just did not speak enough about immigration and Europe in the campaign. Let me tell him: I have done that campaign and I did not get the medal. Perhaps the leadership contenders will at some point turn their attention to the very serious economic problems that this country faces, and tell us what they would do—what they would cut. The amendment that we are being asked to vote for tonight—tabled by the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow Chancellor—states that we need

“a clear plan to bring down the deficit”.

I agree with that; I would happily vote with the shadow Chancellor if he could perhaps tell me exactly what his clear plan to bring down the deficit is because, as far as I could tell, he opposed every single decision that we have taken to try to reduce the deficit.

[Mr Osborne]

It was the shadow Chancellor who said—and we were reminded of this—that the cuts would be deeper than anything that Margaret Thatcher had undertaken, and that was the proposal from the Labour party when it was in government. It is unfortunately an economic fact that the budget deficit that this country faces is higher than at any point in our peacetime history, and whoever forms the Government of this country has to deal with that budget deficit and cannot ignore it. Indeed, there is a rather striking fact about the Labour Government’s proposals, which they left in their Budget book—the shadow Chancellor has a copy in front of him. There are £50 billion of cuts built into the Labour Budget produced in March, and not one single pound of those cuts has yet been identified by the Labour party.

[David Tredinnick]

Many congratulations to my right hon. Friend on taking up his position. Was not one of the greatest weaknesses of the last Government, which the former Chancellor avoided mentioning, the fact that the number of people in non-taxpaying employment rocketed up and the number of those working in productive jobs that produce taxes drifted down?

[Mr Osborne]

My hon. Friend is right. There was a profound imbalance in the economy. We heard the shadow Chancellor saying, “What are the Government going to do about the unbalanced economy?” He seems to forget that he has been running the economy for the last three years. His Government have actually been in charge for the last 13 years. If there is an unbalanced economy, the people responsible are sitting on the Opposition Benches.