Loans to Ireland Bill

Debate between William Cash and Lord Tyrie

Wednesday 15th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Andrew Tyrie (Chichester) (Con)]

Until the shadow Chancellor’s last few words, I was looking forward to saying that I agree with just about everything that has been said from both Front Benches. None the less, there is a good deal of cross-party consensus about what is being discussed.

The Chancellor is faced with a difficult situation: a regional currency crisis that is largely not of his making, a close neighbour with strong historical ties in the eye of the storm and an inherited financial commitment to assistance at the European level.

The Treasury Committee took advantage of the Chancellor’s appearance before us last week to cross-examine him on these matters in some detail. That appearance, his speech today and particularly the terms sheet, which we have just received, have given us a good deal of information, and I am grateful to him. I am relieved, according to that information, that any increase in the loan, which is permitted by the legislation, will be debated on the Floor of the House.

We now know the price of the loan for the first time, broadly speaking. It looks sensible, although I notice that it can be varied under the enabling legislation. As my hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless) has pointed out, we have discovered from the terms sheet that the loan is junior in the debt hierarchy to support through the EU mechanism. It would be useful if the Minister, in the winding-up speech, told us whether the Irish can repay the loan early without penalty. I do not think that that is what is stated in paragraph 5(c) of “Other Terms” in the loan agreement—I have obviously had very little time to read it—but there is also a reference to “exceptions” in the bracketed part of the sentence.

A number of hon. Members and I would like to know whether the Government have considered purchasing assets held by the National Asset Management Agency, as an alternative to part or all of the loan.

As far as I know, this bilateral loan has no direct precedent. The UK has gone further than was needed to fulfil its legal obligations. The Chancellor made a strong and persuasive case, which was supported by the Opposition. However, I think that that decision needs close scrutiny, as does the decision, which straddled the previous Government’s tenure, that left the UK with extra contingent liabilities as a result of the mechanism. We may have been put in the unsatisfactory position of making EU budget payments to bail out the eurozone, even though we are not a member of it.

It is important to bear in mind that demand for a bail-out originated not with a request from Ireland, but from the fear among eurozone members of contagion spreading from Ireland to Portugal and Spain. Most hon. Members agree that bailing out the eurozone is primarily its business and not ours. It is true that the collapse of the zone would generate shockwaves throughout the region, and possibly the world. However, the eurozone does have the capacity to bail out weaker members and, to the extent that the stability of the whole financial system is at stake, our contribution should usually be made via the International Monetary Fund. It is for those reasons that I was relieved when the Chancellor confirmed before the Select Committee that the legislation will be unique to Ireland and does not contain enabling powers for further bilateral eurozone bail-outs.

[Mr Cash]

My hon. Friend says that he was reassured by the Chancellor, but does he appreciate that until 2013, we will be trapped into that mechanism, unlawful as some of us believe it to be?

[Mr Tyrie]

I appreciate that. The Chancellor has referred to 2013 on a number of occasions, and my hon. Friend has referred to the possible unlawfulness of the mechanism on a number of occasions, including in private discussions.

This is a crisis of the eurozone, for which UK taxpayers are footing part of the bill. The UK will have to engage with members of the eurozone to limit the damage now and to construct something better for the future. I will touch on a few of those points in the moments that remain. I recognise that the problems to which I refer may be intractable. First, as the Chancellor has said, the senior creditors have been exempted from a haircut. The Chancellor told us that this was because of the risk of contagion. He is probably right, but the resulting moral hazard is large and will have to be addressed.

The second issue that I wish to raise, which naturally none of the authorities wants to talk about, is the fact that even the measures for Ireland and for Greece may not prevent default. The crisis may be one of solvency, not liquidity. That has a bearing on the lender of last resort provisions for the eurozone. It is possible that a sovereign default could trigger a banking crisis and even failure in parts of the eurozone, because banks hold a large amount of sovereign debt on their balance sheets. Such a bank failure could be highly toxic.

It is worth bearing in mind that the great depression of the 1930s was triggered as much by bank failures after 1931 as it was by the stock market collapse of 1929. I do not want to play the role of Cassandra, but I plead that contingency planning at European level be done now for the risk of such a bank failure. On the basis of the eurozone’s responses to the crisis so far, I am not optimistic that that planning is being done. The eurozone is fearful of leaks, and those doing the work would be terrified of that possibility. I have no doubt that that would inhibit their work. In addition, pessimism on such issues in European circles does not exactly make such work a career-enhancing prospect for the eurocrats who would have to do it. Let us just hope that they are doing that work.

The third problem that I wish to refer to—I shall leave it at that given the time available—is the long-term future of the eurozone itself in a world in which the bond markets have discovered that the no bail-out clause is toothless. I should say at this point that I have never opposed the eurozone on ideological grounds or on grounds of principle, but I have been wary on practical grounds, particularly the ground that the no bail-out clause may turn out to have no clothes. That is exactly what has happened.