IMF

David Nuttall Excerpts

Monday 23rd April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

I talked about loyal Labour Back Benchers and would never apply such an outrageous slur to the hon. Gentleman, whereas it is certainly applicable to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe). The distinction is not sophistry, because an IMF contribution, were there ever to be one, to a eurozone bail-out fund, would basically put that money into a eurozone pot and then the eurozone would decide how it was spent. If there is a country programme for a specific country in the eurozone, the IMF team would turn up, wherever it happens to be, impose its own conditions and do its own analysis, and that is fundamentally different. The logic of the hon. Gentleman’s question is that the IMF would never help a eurozone country, which would lead to the eurozone countries leaving the IMF, and we would then be fundamentally undermining one of the most important institutions the world has seen in the past 60 years.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

Is it not the case that every time the IMF provides any assistance to a eurozone country, it simply demonstrates the complete failure of the European Central Bank to do its job properly?

[Mr Osborne]

The European Central Bank is of course a very important part of the equation, but one of the problems facing Ireland, Portugal and, indeed, Greece was that they were also shut out of international debt markets, and when countries are shut out of international debt markets they usually—almost always—turn to the IMF for assistance, so it would be very odd if the IMF were not there to help them.