Oral Answers to Questions

Steve Rotheram Excerpts

Tuesday 25th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Alistair Burt]

There are two issues involved there. The concerns about press freedom have been raised with the Government of Sri Lanka. The disappearance of a number of journalists has not been fully investigated, for example, and the Sri Lankan Government have been tasked with dealing with that matter. We welcome the lifting of the emergency regulations, although we have yet to see how clear the replacement legislation will be. As far as the Commonwealth is concerned, Sri Lanka will not be the sole focus of the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting. We expect any Commonwealth country hosting the meeting to meet the Commonwealth standards of good governance and respect for human rights, and that will be the same in 2013 as it is in 2011.

[Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

5. What recent discussions he has had with his EU counterparts on the future of the European single market.

[The Minister for Europe (Mr David Lidington)]

My right hon. Friends and I take every opportunity with our EU colleagues, formally and informally, to argue that we need to deepen and widen the single market to secure economic growth and create jobs.

[Steve Rotheram]

Will the Minister tell me how much of the Foreign Secretary’s valuable time was spent on the diversion of trying to appease rebellious Tory Back Benchers instead of trying to achieve reforms to the European single market, which might benefit Britain’s interests? An estimate will suffice.

[Mr Lidington]

If the hon. Gentleman had been studying the conclusions of last Sunday’s European summit rather than the brief from his Whips Office, he would realise that the summit agreed to give priority to EU action to benefit jobs and growth. He would also know that it called for full implementation of the services directive, completion of a digital single market by 2015 and a reduction in the administrative burden of European regulation on business by a quarter by next year. That is a European agenda that could have been written in London, and it was achieved because of the intensive diplomacy of my right hon. Friends the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary.