ICELANDIC DEBT AND ACCOUNTABILITY OF BANKERS

That this House believes that the decision of the Icelandic President to refer his government's proposals to pay the large sums owing to the British and Dutch governments for compensation paid out to their citizens saving with Icesave is sensible, fair, and democratic in the light of the fact that both Icelandic citizens, and British citizens, were not consulted by their bankers about the irresponsible risk their banks were running and the enormous debts that resulted and should have a right to say whether these debts should be foisted on the people; considers that though the Government has paid massive compensation to its own irresponsible bankers, it is hardly reasonable to expect a more intimate and direct democracy to ask its people to shoulder bigger debts without their consent; suggests that rather than threatening Iceland the Government should accept that mistakes were made by British regulatory authorities as well as Icelandic regulators; and therefore considers that the Government should negotiate a revised deal with Iceland and come to sensible arrangements for sharing the burden, rather than imposing the whole of it on a nation whose economic health is in the UK's interests, and which therefore should not be crushed by an unsupportable burden of debt.