Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between George Osborne and Robert Flello(10 years ago)
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Mr Osborne
What the hon. Lady did not say is that by 2018 the saving ratio will still be double what it was under the Labour Government. That is a rather important piece of information that she failed to tell the House. We are 15 minutes into Treasury questions. When will a Labour MP welcome the GDP numbers?
Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)
4. What recent assessment he has made of the level of bank lending to businesses since May 2010.
Economic Policy
Debate between George Osborne and Robert Flello(11 years, 2 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
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Mr Speaker
I call Mr Flello. Is Mr Flello still with us to give us his views?
Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)
I am most grateful, Mr. Speaker. This is definitely worth waiting for. I have handwritten notes.
If one of the Chancellor’s pals in one of the banks had lost that bank’s triple A credit rating, he would have gone. Will the part-time Chancellor now either become full-time and change his plan, or go?
Mr Osborne
I am not sure that that was worth waiting for. Let me say to the hon. Gentleman that he either thinks it is important for us to confront our debt problem—in which case he should support me as we make the difficult decisions that will enable us to do that—or he thinks that that is not important, and that we can take a difficult situation and make it very much worse. No amount of handwritten notes will help him in those circumstances. The main handwritten note from the Labour party that I remember is the one that said there was no money left.
IMF
Debate between George Osborne and Robert Flello(12 years ago)
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Mr Osborne
I welcome my hon. Friend’s support for this decision. IMF programmes should be very rigorous and there should be plenty of conditionality. As I have said, it is possible to undertake very difficult internal devaluations, as opposed to external devaluations—that is a consequence of remaining in a currency zone—and the IMF will help those countries through that.
Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)
If in the weeks ahead the IMF announces, to everyone’s utter astonishment, that it wants to use some of that general fund for the eurozone bail-out pot, will the Chancellor bring the matter back to the House and allow us to vote on it?
Mr Osborne
I can be very clear that the British Government would not allow the loan we are talking about—the loan from Britain—to be used for the eurozone bail-out fund. It is for specific countries, not currencies, as set out in the communiqué.