Section 5 of the European Communities (Amendment) Act 1993
Debate between Greg Clark and Mark Reckless(11 years ago)
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Greg Clark
It is possible for our influence to go beyond our voting weight, just as there are Members of this House—I might include my hon. Friend in this—whose influence goes beyond their proportional representation in this place. I hope he agrees with that.
It is important to maintain momentum on bilateral EU free trade agreements. Ninety per cent of global growth will come from outside Europe after 2015, so the EU needs an outward-looking trade agenda. A free trade agreement with the United States of America is, and must be, a major opportunity that should be pursued with all vigour. It is estimated that EU free trade agreements that are currently under way or in the pipeline could add £200 billion to EU GDP and create 2 million jobs across the EU. We welcome the European Commission’s stated commitment to bringing forward concrete proposals to reduce regulatory barriers for small and medium-sized enterprises. That is long overdue and we look forward to seeing those proposals in June.
It is estimated that removing all barriers in the single market would increase UK GDP by about 7%, while prices could fall by 5% due to increased competition. The single market already adds €600 billion a year to the EU’s economy. Further progress is possible. Ambitious implementation of the services directive by all member states could result in increased national incomes. Service liberalisation would be particularly beneficial to the UK, as services are an area of enormous comparative advantage, as we know, and the UK has had a trade surplus with the EU in services since 2005.
Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)
The Financial Secretary cites a number of reports that credit apparently enormously large gains to the single market and, potentially, other trade arrangements. May I ask him to look at the original reports with a certain scepticism? When I used to work with him, I think he would have been disappointed if I had done my analyses in the same slapdash way.
Greg Clark
One of the reasons why I was pleased to employ my hon. Friend was his forensic and questioning eye. He is absolutely right that when we look closely at the measures and their estimated impact, we should make our own assessment. However, I think that all of us, including my hon. Friend, would agree that a genuine single market in, for example, energy—an area in which he and I have an interest—could help to increase competition in the EU. As we know, competition is one way we can drive efficiency, which is very much in the interests of all citizens in this country and across the EU.
In addition to structural reforms involving each EU member state and the co-ordination of free trade policies at the EU level, we need reforms in the way the EU works. In his speech of 23 January, the Prime Minister proposed certain principles for reform. He said that the EU had to improve its competitiveness, to become a more flexible organisation, to ensure that its rules were fair for all members and to allow power to flow from the EU to its members and not just the other way around. He also said that the EU had to improve its democratic accountability and to re-engage with voters across Europe. It is national Parliaments that provide the true source of real democratic legitimacy and accountability in the EU. The fact that this debate tonight is being held at the behest of the Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee serves only to underline that important fact.
Those objectives are complicated by the presence in the EU of the eurozone. Britain has an immediate interest in the stability of the single currency, and we need to be aware of the changes that a more tightly integrated euro area will bring to the EU’s present structure. It is important that we ensure that the EU continues to work for all its members, and that the interests of those outside the single currency should be acknowledged and, more specifically, protected. In particular, it should be understood that whatever binding surveillance eurozone members might agree on, Britain will not be bound by it.
As I said earlier, the convergence programme is, by its very nature, something that harks back to the days when it was simply assumed that Britain was on a one-way route to monetary union across the EU. As the hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) has suggested, hindsight is a wonderful thing, but let us not forget that, at that time, he and many Conservative Members had the foresight to see any such convergence as the wishful thinking that it was—and, to a certain extent, still is. Those Members included my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond (Yorks) (Mr Hague), now the Foreign Secretary. As the newly elected leader of the Conservative party in 1997, he had this to say about the idea of dragging Britain into the single currency:
“What are the chances that we will converge in the near future? What are the chances we will converge for ever, without ever diverging again? And would it be wise to run our economy so as to make it converge rather than prosper in its own right?”
Those were wise words, and I look forward to hearing many more in this debate.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Greg Clark and Mark Reckless(11 years, 1 month ago)
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Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)
House building approvals are up by two thirds. Does that reflect the success of the Government’s funding for lending schemes, the Financial Secretary’s successful planning reforms, or the sustained period of record low interest rates?
National Planning Policy Framework
Debate between Greg Clark and Mark Reckless
Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)
The Minister has conducted this process with great courtesy and consideration. Does he share my concern that councillors have too often felt intimidated into making decisions that they would prefer not to make by the threat of legal costs, and does this new framework offer them support in that area?
Greg Clark
Yes, it does, because the threat of legal costs arises at the moment from the very real prospect that a local decision can be overturned by, for example, the regional strategy imposing different policies. One of the reasons we want to rid ourselves of these unwanted strategies is so that decisions that are taken locally stay local, and people can have confidence in them.