Oral Answers to Questions

Preet Kaur Gill Excerpts
Tuesday 13th December 2022

(1 year, 11 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Lindsay Hoyle Portrait Mr Speaker
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I call the shadow Minister.

Preet Kaur Gill Portrait Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)
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The IMF says that three out of five of the world’s poorest countries are now in debt distress. The last Labour Government cancelled billions of pounds of multilateral debt. Any solution now depends on China, which receives 66% of all bilateral payments, and private creditors such as BlackRock. The future of millions of the world’s poorest depends on halting debt defaults, so what steps will the Government now take to engage seriously with China and bring forward the incentives, regulation and education needed to force private creditors to the table?

Andrew Mitchell Portrait Mr Mitchell
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The shadow Minister makes a good point. I think she is referring specifically to vulture funds, which we will certainly address. I want to make it clear to the House that we are working very closely with the international financial community. We understand absolutely the risks of instability that the situation creates, and the hon. Lady will have seen the work on stabilisation that has been done by both the Africa Development Bank and the World Bank.