G20

Sheila Gilmore Excerpts

Monday 7th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I believe my hon. Friend is right that there is nothing in the treaties that allows a eurozone member to leave the eurozone yet stay in the European Union. My sense is that were that to happen, some allowance would be made. He is right to say that that would involve a treaty change at some stage to ensure that it was legal.

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister has suggested that he is in favour of a global financial transaction tax. That will happen on a global basis only if people take the lead. What my constituents wanted to know when they contacted me was what steps the Prime Minister took at the Cannes summit to promote that tax.

[The Prime Minister]

I spoke on the financial transaction tax at the session where it was discussed and said that we supported it at a global level. I made a few of the points that I have made in the House today because sitting around the table were the representatives of European countries and institutions, including the European Commission, that have spent this money several times over. When we talk about the European budget, such a tax is given as the great way to raise money for that; when we talk about development, it is given as the way that we will pay for development; when we talk about climate change, it suddenly becomes the magic way to meet all our climate change commitments. Frankly, I do not think that we should allow other European countries to get away with that.