Office for Budget Responsibility

Andrew Love Excerpts

Monday 14th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

My hon. Friend is right—[Interruption.] I see one of the leadership contenders barracking from the Opposition Benches. I do not know whether the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) wrote the speech for the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) in which he told the Labour party conference in 1996:

“Losing control of public spending doesn’t help the poor”.

That is one area in which I agree with the former Prime Minister.

[Mr Andrew Love (Edmonton) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that a major contributor to the reduction in the growth forecasts for next year is the increasingly gloomy situation developing in Europe? Is he at all concerned about the competitive austerity that is breaking out across Europe? Is he also concerned that, if he goes ahead with the programme that he is outlining, we might face a double-dip recession as a consequence?

[Mr Osborne]

I suspect that everyone in the House is concerned about the situation in the eurozone, but let us be clear what has brought that about. It is a result of market concern about the sustainability of public finances in eurozone countries such as Greece. Those countries are having to take action to reassure markets and therefore keep their interest rates lower. I think that interest rates in Greece rose to more than 10% higher than those of other eurozone countries at one point. That is what happens to countries that do not get a grip on their public finances, and I want to ensure that no question mark is ever put against the name of the United Kingdom.