Rachel Reeves
Main Page: Rachel Reeves (Labour - Leeds West and Pudsey)Department Debates - View all Rachel Reeves's debates with the HM Treasury
(13 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberI am not proposing to take Britain out of the Maastricht treaty, despite my hon. Friend’s request. I know that will come as a bit of a disappointment. I would like the balance of payments mechanism to remain—it has existed for many years—but of course the situation in the eurozone is not a balance of payments issue. That mechanism is for countries, particularly accession countries, to draw upon. I would like the mechanism set up under article 122 to be used for what it was designed to be used for, which was natural disasters and the like, and I would like the permanent bail-out mechanism for the eurozone not to include the United Kingdom.
Although it is imperative that we support Ireland through the crisis, does the Chancellor accept that events in Ireland demonstrate that the global economic recovery is extremely fragile, and that to premise our own recovery on £80 billion of cuts and export-led growth looks increasingly optimistic at best and dangerously naive at worst?