Eurozone

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Monday 10th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. When we first said, “Look at Greece”, Opposition Members all said, “Well, that couldn’t happen here.” It then extended to Portugal, then Ireland, then Spain, then Italy, and now questions are being raised about the French banks, which France is seeking address, and a Belgian bank has fallen over this weekend. In the end, we can look at what the credit rating agency who gave us the triple A rating said last week. It said that the rating would come under downward pressure if

“the coalition Government’s commitment to fiscal consolidation falters”.

There would be an automatic downgrade if we were to follow the Opposition’s approach. That would lead to higher interest rates, hitting families and leading to more repossessions and more job losses. That is the path to ruin, and we know what it is like because we have been down it before under the shadow Chancellor.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

The Chancellor of the Exchequer has laid great emphasis this afternoon on credit easing, but he has said he cannot tell us how that will operate until the autumn statement, although it will be an alternative to bank finance. When will small and medium-sized enterprises actually get something from this process?

[Mr Osborne]

As I said, we have already extended the loan guarantees that we inherited. We have concluded a deal with all the high street banks—not just the two that were nationalised under our predecessors—to get an increase in SME lending. We want to go further, however, and we will set out the full details in the autumn statement, when the hon. Lady will, no doubt, be present to ask me a question.