Eurozone (Contingency Plans)
Debate between Mark Hoban and Mike Gapes(13 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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Mr Hoban
My hon. Friend is absolutely spot on. We can see from the reaction of the Labour party in opposition that it has not learnt at all from its mistakes in government. If we had not taken tough action, we would have seen high market rates of interest, which would have increased costs for families and businesses across the country. We are now seeing the benefits of the tough decisions that we took in last year’s emergency Budget.
Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)
Given that the tough, sado-monetarist programme imposed on the Greeks a year ago has not worked, how many more sado-monetarist programmes will work?
Mr Hoban
When the Greek Government agreed last year’s debt bail-out package, it was assumed that they would be able to re-enter the markets in the spring of next year. That is clearly not the case, given current market pressures, which is why the Greek Government had to seek a second round of refinancing. However, they still need to take action to improve Greece’s competitiveness, reduce the size of the state sector through further privatisation and improve taxation, to get the economy back on track.