Eurozone (Contingency Plans)

Graham Stringer Excerpts

Monday 20th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hoban]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that we have seen during this crisis the strains within the eurozone mechanism. The actions that needed to be taken to resolve the consequences of those strains include the bail-outs of the Greek, Irish and Portuguese economies. It is absolutely right that we secured that opt-out to the Maastricht treaty, to ensure that this country did not have to be a member of the euro, a position that the previous Government seemed not to support.

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

The Minister, the Government and the House want stability, but quite frankly, Greece is bankrupt, and cannot restore its economy while it remains in the euro. Is not the answer to introducing stability an orderly return to the drachma? Should not that be the burden of the Government’s policy?

[Mr Hoban]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that we need stability in the eurozone, but I do not think that speculation here will help to deliver that stability to the Greek economy or the wider eurozone.

Eurozone Financial Assistance

Graham Stringer Excerpts

Tuesday 24th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Williams (Bristol West) (LD)]

The background to this debate is the extreme financial turbulence that took place all around the European Union—and, indeed, around the world—in 2008. Since then, the vast majority of EU member states have become stable. They are growing and have deficit reduction plans in place. It is also important to recognise—I am quite surprised that no one from the Government Benches has said this yet—that the UK has not needed assistance from the IMF nor from the European financial stability mechanism, which we theoretically could have called on from our fellow EU member states, or indeed any bilateral assistance, precisely because the coalition Government have put in place a realistic deficit reduction plan to put our finances on to an even keel. However, other EU member states are still struggling and have needed that international assistance—I refer, of course, to Greece, Portugal and Ireland. Today’s debate is concerned with European Union assistance, but we should remember that many fellow member states have also needed IMF support and bilateral loans, from us and other member states.

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

Is not the reason why Greece, Portugal and Ireland have needed money that they cannot alter their exchange rates or control their interest rates because they are in the euro? Some of those countries are cutting even faster than this Government, and it is not helping. The answer to those countries’ problems is to get out of the euro and return to their old currencies.

[Stephen Williams]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I suspect that I may be alone in the Chamber—at least on this side of the Chamber—in being for the euro. I believe that Britain could have benefited from joining back in 1999, but I none the less recognise that the coalition agreement contains a strong statement on how that is simply not up for discussion during the course of this Parliament. I would therefore agree to differ with the hon. Gentleman. Surely one of the reasons why the three states that he mentioned are unable to deliver deficit reduction is not just their membership of the euro, but the fact that their Governments have not been as willing as this Government to take the necessary painful medicine to put themselves back on an even keel.

We have, of course, made bilateral loans as well, recognising that, as the hon. Member for Orpington (Joseph Johnson) said earlier, it is in our own selfish national interest to support our fellow EU member states. Many of those points were made last year in the debates on the Loans to Ireland Act 2010. One statistic, which I thought was implausible when I first heard it—I have now heard it so many times that it must be true—is that Ireland is more significant to our trade than China, India and Brazil, so it is indeed in our national interest to continue to support Ireland.

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[Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab)]

I want to contribute to the debate because it is often implied in the media and elsewhere that very few Labour Members are against what is happening in Europe. It is important to point out that millions of Labour voters would support the motion, and would like to see my party take an even stronger view on this issue.

I do not know the details of who signed up to what and when, but I am clear that if it was our Chancellor who did so, we should not have signed up to these arrangements. The new Government coming in should certainly have made it clear that they were a new Government and that they would look at the matter again. I appreciate that they are a coalition, but this should have had a high priority in the coalition agreement.

[Graham Stringer]

I am following what my hon. Friend says, and I agree with her. The previous Government were out of tune with the electorate on Europe, as are this Government. Would it not be good to have a national debate on these issues, and a referendum on whether we should be in or out of the European Union?

[Kate Hoey]

Yes. I am a supporter of the People’s Pledge campaign, and any other campaign that I see on a referendum. I would like those campaigns to work together more.

Even in the House today, we are going to end up being unable to have a clear vote on this issue because of the way in which the procedure works and because of the way in which the Government—like previous Governments—are in a nice, cosy little group with all the pro-Europeans to ensure that we never have a real vote on these matters. I am not sure whether all those Members who have signed up to the Government’s amendment knew what they were signing up to. I cannot believe that they do not support the motion tabled by the hon. Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless). Looking at the amendment, we see that they accept the motion up to and including the point that the EFSM is “legally unsound”. If something is legally unsound, the Government should automatically oppose it. I am sure that the European Union will be quivering when it hears that the Government’s amendment proposes that the Government

“raise the issue of the EFSM at the next meeting of the Council of Ministers or the European Council; and supports any measures which would lead to an agreement for a Eurozone-only arrangement.”

Finance (No. 3) Bill

Graham Stringer Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Leslie]

As I said, we would repeat the bank bonus tax that we instituted last year, and we think that the bank levy needs to be more substantial.

The Government’s original design suggested that it would yield £3.9 billion—that was reported in The Observer, I think, back in November. Of course, that was why they panicked and decided that they would have to go back down to the £2.5 billion or £2.6 billion level. They stepped away from that original yield level.

Of course, we are not the Government; we are the Opposition, and we are not even allowed under the rules of order to table our suggested variants of the rate of the levy or the design of the clause. All that we can do for now is advocate a fairly urgent review of the general levels of bank taxation in this country.

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

Is not the irony, when comparing pay cuts in the public sector with bankers’ bonuses, that in effect some bankers are public sector workers because the taxpayer has had to bail them out? Does my hon. Friend agree that if we mainly own a bank, such bonuses should not be paid while the bank is still in deficit?

[Chris Leslie]

It is absolutely mystifying. There is a sense that the shareholder—the taxpayer—somehow has to allow all sorts of activity to take place as though it was nothing to do with them, even though those banks would not exist had we not intervened to save them. That shows the incredibly laissez-faire, hands-off attitude of Ministers, who are the shareholders of the banks making large awards.

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[Mr Redwood]

How many times will I have to deal with this idiotic canard that Labour dreamt up? The report was very clear: it said the then Government were not regulating cash and capital strongly enough, and it was a cash and capital problem that the banks had that led to the crisis. If the then Government had taken our advice, the banks would have been made to have more cash and capital at a much earlier stage of the cycle, so we would not have gone into the period of banking weakness during the credit crunch.

We also said that the mortgage regulation introduced by the then Labour Government was not fit for purpose, was useless and might as well be scrapped. Our case was proved extremely well, because it was the mortgage banks that crashed—the very banks that were the object of the extra regulation. The extra regulation was clearly regulating the wrong things. We were not against regulation: we said mortgage banks and other banks should be regulated, but it was vital to understand what the problem was. It was very clear in ’06 and ’07 that the problem was an excess of lending of poor quality. It was also very clear that the answer was more cash and capital, and that was what we recommended. It is a great pity that the then Government did not follow our advice.

[Graham Stringer]

I agree that it is clear that there was something wrong with the previous regulation, although I would not go along with the right hon. Gentleman’s argument entirely, but does he agree that there is a villain in the piece who hardly ever gets mentioned: the credit rating agencies that allowed the banks to sell snake oil to each other? Does he agree that we in this House should do something about that?

[Mr Redwood]

I hold no brief for the credit rating agencies, but nor have I prepared a case against them. I am sure the hon. Gentleman can make his own case and come up with his own remedies. In my view, there have been many villains in this historic piece, including the regulators, the Bank of England for its misconduct in the money markets, and the commercial banks that took advantage of ridiculously lax conditions and got themselves into a great pickle, which we had to sort out.

Oral Answers to Questions

Graham Stringer Excerpts

Tuesday 13th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Danny Alexander]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point, and there is an awful lot of waste in the regional development agency system more generally. Of course, it will be for the local economic partnerships to look at such issues and work out whether they wish to come together to promote their region in a wider way, but his point serves to reinforce the argument for the structural change that we are making.

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

There is no doubt in my mind that the Northwest Regional Development Agency has been a bureaucratic burden on the economy of the north-west since it was started. It has also followed capricious policies that have not directed investment where it would create most jobs. How will the right hon. Gentleman ensure that money is invested in those places where it will create most jobs?

[Danny Alexander]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his comments in support, I think, of the policy that we are pursuing. The local enterprise partnerships will be able to choose for themselves and direct where they think investment is needed in their localities. One major tool that they will have at their disposal is the ability, as a public-private partnership, to apply to the regional growth fund for investment in their areas. Obviously, that will be allocated in ways to be announced, but I hope that it will provide a tool for those new bodies to do precisely the sorts of things that the hon. Gentleman set out.