Oral Answers to Questions

John Redwood Excerpts

Tuesday 16th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

The intention is to strengthen HMRC’s capability to collect taxes. If that involves making use of private sector expertise to collect additional debt, which is the intention, that is surely a good thing that should be welcomed by all parties.

[Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Given that the Irish Government have said that they neither want nor need a bail-out, will the Chancellor support them at ECOFIN and put off those people in the EU who seem to want to make a crisis out of a problem?

[Mr Osborne]

There is an enormous amount of speculation about Ireland at the moment to which I do not propose to add. The Irish Government have said clearly that they have not sought assistance and that they are taking difficult steps to deal with their fiscal situation. They will make further announcements about their Budget situation in the next few weeks. I make the general observation that what is going on at the moment highlights the fact that concerns about sovereign debt issues have not disappeared and we should be grateful that, thanks to the actions of this Government, we have moved Britain out of the financial danger zone.