Europe

Debate between John Redwood and Emma Reynolds

Wednesday 30th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Emma Reynolds]

We have been clear and consistent about our position. I was in the Division Lobby with each of the right hon. Gentlemen who are sitting on the Treasury Bench, voting against a referendum on our membership in October 2011. We are not the ones who have changed our position; they are the ones who have changed theirs.

The Government’s commitment to a referendum also weakens the UK’s negotiating position with the rest of the EU. Opposition Members would like meaningful reform of the European Union, but we do not do that by blackmailing our European partners. Although my right hon. Friend the shadow Foreign Secretary has been specific about what kind of EU reform he would like, the same cannot be said of the Prime Minister’s speech last week, which gave very little detail about which powers he wanted to repatriate. Indeed, he did not even mention the word “repatriation”—much to the disgust, I am sure, of his Back Benchers—and he was also unclear about how he would campaign if he was not successful in that negotiation. When the Minister winds up, it would be useful for the rest of the House and the country if he put an end to that obscurity and told us which powers the Conservatives are attempting to bring back. What is their strategy, if they have one, and why are they so sure that the timing, in 2017, chimes with any sort of timing in the European Union? Chancellor Merkel has gone very lukewarm on the possibility of treaty change. It is not clear that we will have any treaty change between now and 2017.

[Mr Redwood]

Why did the Labour party in office give away a lot of our rebate, which a Conservative Prime Minister had negotiated, and then get no agricultural reform, which it had promised?

[Emma Reynolds]

I correct the right hon. Gentleman: he may have longer experience than I do, but I can tell him that there was significant reform of the common agricultural policy, and we put our contribution, for the first time in our history, on a par with the French contribution.

Labour’s agenda for the EU is reform, not exit. We believe it is in our vital national interest that the UK remains a full member of the EU, arguing and pushing for reform from the inside. In a global economy dominated by economic giants—the US, China, India and Brazil—it would be economic madness to shrink our domestic market from 500 million people to 60 million people. The EU is the biggest collective negotiating tool when negotiating trade deals with those emerging economies. At a time when the economy is flatlining, the Prime Minister’s attempt to unite his party might prove incredibly damaging. [Interruption.] I hope that it is not, but those are the warnings that we are getting on jobs, trade and inward investment in the years to come. That is indeed regrettable.

Commission Work Programme 2013

Debate between John Redwood and Emma Reynolds

Monday 7th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Redwood]

The Leader of the Opposition recently made a very interesting speech, in which he said that Labour had probably been a little too lax on migrants coming into this country during its period in office and that there was going to be a new policy. What would the hon. Lady like to see in the Commission’s work programme to ensure that we can have proper controls on our borders?

[Emma Reynolds]

That would be an innovative use of the Commission’s work programme, given that that is not an element of it. The Leader of the Opposition did say in a recent speech that we got it wrong in government and that we should not have had an open-door policy in 2004. I think that we should have been more in line with our European partners. We were one of the small handful of countries that had an open-door policy right from the start. Germany and other countries had transition periods, and we are certainly committed to them in the future.

Developing modern and efficient infrastructure, both digital and physical, is central to ensuring that the single market adapts to a rapidly changing world. It would be impossible for member states of the EU to meet the challenges of tomorrow using the tools of yesterday. We therefore welcome many of the proposals in the “Connect to Compete” section of the programme, particularly those to tackle obstacles to electronic payments across borders.

In the “Growth for jobs” section of the work programme, the Commission is right to express the concern that

“high unemployment, increased poverty and social exclusion risk becoming structural”

in Europe if no action is taken. It is an absolute tragedy that one in every two young people in Greece and Spain is out of work. Here in the UK, youth unemployment is too high and long-term unemployment is a real problem. Last year, including over Christmas, more people than ever before had to use food banks for their families’ basic needs. The Government seem to have few answers or solutions to those problems. The Opposition believe it is incredibly important that effective policies are formulated and implemented both here in the UK and across the EU to reduce unemployment drastically and to reduce poverty.

European Council

Debate between John Redwood and Emma Reynolds

Thursday 26th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Emma Reynolds]

My right hon. Friend makes a valid point. If the Prime Minister had not pulled his MEPs from the mainstream centre right in the European Parliament when he was Leader of the Opposition, he would have found that he had much more influence before the summit, because he would have been in Marseille for the European People’s party meeting in preparation for the European Council summit.

It is of real concern to the Opposition that by isolating the UK the Government have lost influence with our European partners and could lose influence over the single market. Deeper fiscal integration by the eurozone countries does not necessarily lead to the development of separate trade policies or separate decisions on the single market, but that could come about if the UK continues to lose influence.

I understand that the Polish Government are now seeking to secure a seat at the frequent eurozone summits—a logical negotiating position. If they are successful, they would then have a voice, even if they did not have vote, at eurozone summits. As it stands, our Government will be barred from such meetings, leaving the UK without a vote and without a voice, unable to guard against eurozone Heads of State and Government straying into areas of decision making that are relevant to the EU of 27.

[Mr Redwood]

Will the hon. Lady bring us up to date with Labour’s thinking on any vote that we might face in this House on money for the IMF to lend on to euroland countries in trouble?

[Emma Reynolds]

As the right hon. Gentleman knows, the Opposition voted against the IMF contribution last time. I think that he might have been in the Lobby with us. We think that the European central bank should be the lender of last resort and that IMF money should concentrate on countries with severe economic problems outside the eurozone.

The Prime Minister’s walk-out also resulted in risks to foreign direct investment. Businesses investing from the US and Asia have chosen the UK for their operations because it gives them access to European markets. But if the UK’s position in the single market were in doubt, foreign direct investment would also be under threat. Moreover, as the Deputy Prime Minister rightly said on the Sunday after the December Council, if the UK stands tall in Brussels, we stand tall in Washington. It is also true that if we stand tall in Brussels, we also stand tall in Beijing and the other major emerging economies. With economic power moving south and east, to countries the size of continents, it is nostalgic longing for the empire to think that the UK can go it alone. It was the Minister for Europe, in a recent Opposition day debate, who said that

“without the size of the EU behind us, the United Kingdom on its own is unlikely to be able to secure the same deep and ambitious free trade deals with other regions or trading countries around the world.”—[Official Report, 13 December 2011; Vol. 537, c. 724.]