Autumn Forecast

Mark Reckless Excerpts

Monday 29th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. This is one of those issues that is perhaps less commented on, but very relevant. We are reducing the debt interest payments that we inherited from Labour, and the debt interest bill—the money that we have to pay out to private bondholders and foreign Governments to borrow—is coming down from the number that we inherited. That is £19 billion that would otherwise, if we followed the Labour party’s plans, be being paid to foreign Governments and private bondholders. That is how Labour Members want taxpayers’ money spent; we have other plans for it.

[Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

Instead of lending to Ireland to repay the European Central Bank and bolster bank capital relative to large impaired assets, might it not make more sense to help Ireland to de-leverage by buying some of those written-down assets directly, particularly where they are in the UK and are not well managed by the National Asset Management Agency?

[Mr Osborne]

The support for Ireland had to be a co-ordinated international effort with the IMF and other European member states, and we have taken our part in that. I do not think that coming up with our own unilateral package would have been particularly easy when, as I said, the IMF was organising this international effort. I have already said in reply to an earlier question that of course we will want to look at the impact of the banking reorganisation in Ireland on some of the assets that are managed in the UK, and I will keep the House informed about that.