Loans to Ireland Bill

Stewart Hosie Excerpts

Wednesday 15th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)]

May I confirm what the Chancellor has just said? The UK contribution to the entire package will be about 5% of the non-Irish contribution—about £3.5 billion—and that stands in comparison with some £12 billion of exports to Ireland, and, as he said, the Irish banks holding some quarter of the deposits in Northern Ireland. Is that the broad summary of where we are?

[Mr Osborne]

It is a reasonable summary. Of course we stand behind the International Monetary Fund as a shareholder of it, as are most countries in the world. I shall come on to the European financial stability mechanism, which I have already talked to the House about on a number of occasions. Like other contributors to the EU budget, we stand behind it. In a sense, the loan that we are proposing today is the direct British taxpayer contribution—or rather, the money that is borrowed on behalf of the British taxpayer. I shall come to the terms of the loan, but of course we expect to be repaid, and repaid with interest. We are doing this because we think it is absolutely in our national interest, for some of the reasons that have been set out.