George Osborne has told Sky News that Britain and other leading economies are not ready to fund another eurozone bailout as finance ministers meet in Mexico for the G20 summit.
Speaking to Sky's Dermot Murnaghan, the Chancellor said: "We are prepared to consider IMF (Berlin: MXG1.BE - news) resources but only once we see the colour of the eurozone money and we have not seen the colour of the eurozone money.
"Whilst this G20 conference, I think, has a lot of important things to discuss... I don't think you're going to see any additional IMF resources committed here because, quite frankly, the eurozone have not committed additional resources themselves, and I think that quid pro quo will be clearly established here in Mexico City."
:: Read more at Sky's dedicated eurozone page
Mr Osborne also refused to be drawn on whether he has bowed to pressure from Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg to increase the personal tax allowance to £10,000 at next month's Budget.
He said: "Any tax cut would have to be paid for... what we are not going to do in the Budget is borrow any more money to either increase spending or cut taxes.
"We can't have any deficit finance measure in that sense because getting the Budget deficit down, which is now happening, is an incredibly important part of keeping economic stability in Britain."
Mr Osborne also refused to say whether he would cut fuel duty in his forthcoming Budget, a move that risks a confrontation with drivers and hauliers.
On average, diesel prices are now around £1.43 in the UK while petrol costs £1.36.
Mr Osborne said: "We've taken action in last two fiscal statements either to avoid a fuel duty increase that was coming or to cut fuel duty.
"Fuel duty is 6p lower than it would have otherwise would have been. I have absolutely shown willingness to respond to international fuel increases and have taken action this year to tackle fuel duty rises, which were planned by the last Labour government.
"That's involved committing several billions of pounds in resources and a tax on oil companies, instead of families and motorists."
Mr Osborne went on to say it was "understandable" that people were angry about the bailout of banks, but insisted the anger "must not spill into anti-business culture".
"Some of issues that feature in the British debate about perceptions of business feature elsewhere in world," he said.
"We mustn't let the anger over RBS (LSE: RBS.L - news) four or five years ago colour what we need to do today, and we mustn't allow those in British politics who have never trusted businesses to gain the upper hand.
"The British economy needs business to invest, create jobs - and the money needs to come from the private sector."
The Chancellor also defended bank bonuses, saying they have dropped "dramatically".
"They're much less than they were three of four years ago, and the people who are currently running RBS aren't the people who were running it when the bank blew up."
He added: "The priority is getting RBS back on its feet and lending, and Stephen Hester (RBS chief executive) has done a pretty good job so far."


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