G20

Geraint Davies Excerpts

Monday 7th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes an important point, but that is quite a difficult ask, because there is of course important ongoing work on contingency plans, but the more we discuss and speculate on the nature of another country’s currency and economy, the more we could damage their interests. So, I will think carefully about what he says, but it might be difficult to air some of those issues in public.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Prime Minister knows that the IMF currently gives 32.4 billion special drawing rights—about £32 billion—to the eurozone to prop it up, so how can he justify giving more British taxpayers’ money to the eurozone via the IMF when there are people starving in Africa and people cannot pay their heating bills in Britain?

[The Prime Minister]

No country has ever lost money lending it to the IMF. The IMF is, in a globalised world, a vital institution for supporting countries that get into deep economic distress, and, if we were to walk away from it and just to allow trading partners—in the eurozone or outside—to collapse with no one to help them, that would mean British jobs lost and British businesses going bust. It might give you a five-second soundbite on the news in order to try to give you some political advantage, but it would be completely irresponsible.