Eurozone

Stuart Bell Excerpts

Monday 10th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

I am very clear that the resources we provide to the European Union should be well spent. Indeed, there is a whole separate agenda that we have not touched on today of getting the European Union better focused on trying to encourage growth and competitiveness across the entire continent. Like, I suspect, my hon. Friend, I also share the frustration about the application of European law that means that we have to end up paying benefits to people who are not in this country. That is one of the frustrations that Governments in the past have had to deal with, and we are looking at whether there are potential avenues around it.

[Sir Stuart Bell (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

It was no doubt an oversight that the Chancellor did not mention the conference at the weekend between President Sarkozy and Angela Merkel where they called for a rapid and global response that had to be in place by the time of the G20 meeting in November. The Prime Minister responded by saying that he did not want to put a single euro into saving the euro after 2013. He said that he did not want the involvement of the investment bank and that all he wanted was participation through the IMF—which, incidentally, I did not vote against earlier in the year. Is this what we call being at the heart of Europe and punching above our weight, or are we moving towards a two-speed Europe?