Downing Street Says » Finance Package

Asked how the Prime Minister thought the day was going, the PMS replied that the Prime Minister s view was that we were in very challenging and difficult economic times and we would continue to work very hard as a Government to do whatever was necessary to get the British economy through it.

Asked whether the Prime Minister had lobbied for a coordinated rate cut, the PMS said that these were decisions taken by independent central banks. The Government had not and would not put pressure on the Bank of England or other central banks over interest rates.

Asked if there were plans for other Governments to follow the UK s lead and put in place similar packages, the PMS replied that the Prime Minister had said in his press conference this morning that we would like to see the kind of approach that we had adopted in the UK adopted elsewhere in Europe. The Prime Minister was referring to the wholesale lending guarantee in particular. The matter of capitalisation of banks was clearly an issue that different countries would want to look at in different ways depending on their circumstances.

The Prime Minister had been discussing this with other European leaders and the President of the European Commission in recent days and would continue to discuss with our European colleagues and other colleagues in the days ahead, as to how we could find a more coordinated international response. We thought it was a proposal that worked for the UK and we thought it was a mechanism that could work elsewhere. We would be happy to talk to others about how we could find a more coordinated approach to dealing with this.

Asked if there had been any further progress in regards to G7 leaders meeting to discuss the situation, the PMS said he had nothing further to report at this point. The next big international event would be the meeting of G7 Finance Ministers on Friday and then the meetings of the IMF and World Bank at the weekend. There would be a European Council meeting in Brussels next week that the Prime Minister would be attending on Wednesday and Thursday.

Put that the Prime Minister had said that it was going to be a long haul to get through this and did the PMS have an idea as to how long it might take, the PMS replied that it wasn t something that we would want to put a timescale on. The Treasury would update their economic forecasts in the usual way and that was in the PBR. Put that it was reported this morning that the Government expected most of the money to be paid back within three years and was that the case, the PMS said he could not remember anyone saying that.

Asked if there were any planned phone calls or meetings ahead of the European Council meeting, the PMS said that the Prime Minister had spoken to President Sarkozy, Angela Merkel and Prime Minister Berlusconi today. The Prime Minister had also spoken to President Barroso and would be in close contact with European partners during the course of the next week.

Asked whether the Prime Minister had made our European colleagues aware of the detail of the UK package this morning before he announced it, the PMS said that our European colleagues were aware of the general ideas that we had been looking at in advance. Since the announcement, we had been able to take them through it in detail.

Asked if there was anything specific we were looking for from the G7 and IMF meetings, the PMS replied that it would be best to speak to the Treasury about that.

Asked whether the Prime Minister made the case for the UK proposals in his phone calls with other European leaders, the PMS said he did not want to get into the specifics of individual phone calls but the Prime Minister himself had said this morning that in his view, the sort of approach we had adopted in the UK could be adopted more generally elsewhere.

No Comments »

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Post a public comment

Name (required)
E-mail (required)
(You must give an email address, but it will not be displayed to the public.)
Website
(You may give your website, and it will be displayed to the public.)

Comments:

This is not a way of contacting the Prime Minister. If you would like to contact the Prime Minister, go to the 10 Downing Street official site.

Privacy note: Shortly after posting, your name and comment will be displayed on the site. This means that people searching for your name on the Internet will be able to find and read your comment.

Original PMOS briefings are © Crown Copyright. Crown Copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen's Printer for Scotland. Click-use licence number C02W0004089. Material is reproduced from the original 10 Downing Street source, but may not be the most up-to-date version of the briefings, which might be revised at the original source. Users should check with the original source in case of revisions. Comments are © Copyright contributors. Everything else is © Copyright Downing Street Says.

» Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Finance Package

No Comments »

Post a public comment

Search

Supported by

Recent Briefings

Archives

Links

Syndicate (RSS/XML)

Credits

Enquiries