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Autumn Forecast

I thank my hon. Friend for his initial comments. I say this about any future action that we may or may not have to take. On the bilateral loan, I said last week that there were some very specific— I stress the words ““very specific””—circumstances that would lead us to support Ireland because of the interconnectedness of our economies. I also said that the European financial stability mechanism, the EU fund, was something that the previous Government had signed up to, and that the UK could not block its use because it operated under qualified majority voting. I had to deal with that situation, but by finding now what I think is a way forward that means that the mechanism disappears in 2013, we have taken a bad situation and made it a lot better.