Eurozone rescue ‘no cost to UK taxpayer’

Number 10 welcomed the Spanish bailout, which injects support into banks in the EU’s fourth-largest economy which had been left at risk by massive borrowing to fund speculative construction projects during the boom years before the financial crash.

“The terms are still being sorted out, but certainly there is going to be no cost to the UK taxpayer, as the Chancellor has set out,” said a spokeswoman. “The important thing is that the eurozone is helping members of the eurozone, which is an important principle.”

Where decisions affect all 27 members of the EU – such as those dealing with the operation of the single market – David Cameron and Chancellor George Osborne will insist they are taken with the agreement of all 27, said the spokeswoman.

The Chancellor has faced criticism from some Conservative MPs over his claim that UK recovery was being “killed off by the crisis on our doorstep”.

David Ruffley, a member of the Commons Treasury Committee, said “eurozone meltdown” should not be used “as an alibi for no growth in the UK”, while Douglas Carswell wrote on his blog: “It is not the eurozone crisis that we should blame for our awful economic performance, but the almost total absence of domestic economic reform.”

Asked whether Mr Cameron shared the concerns, the spokeswoman said: “He would agree with the Chancellor, which is why it is so important that we see a resolution of the problems in the eurozone.”

Meanwhile, pressure for a referendum on UK membership of the EU mounted, with an opinion poll suggesting that almost half of voters want one immediately, while a further third believe one should take place within the next few years.

Eurosceptic think-tank Open Europe warned that failure quickly to rewrite the terms of British membership of the EU would result in unstoppable public support for a damaging exit.