Eurozone Financial Assistance

Anne Main Excerpts

Tuesday 24th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

rose—

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

rose—

[Kate Hoey]

I will not give way again.

Does anyone in the House really think that our Government would be listened to if they went along to the Council of Ministers and said that they were very concerned about this issue? They have not even managed to get Parliament to give a clear signal about what it thinks. They have fudged the vote today so that it will be pretty meaningless. This fudging on Europe goes on all the time among the cosy establishment, and it makes people angry and frustrated, not only in the House but out in the country.

I recently asked the Foreign Secretary

“if he will have discussions at EU level on reducing the funding spent by the EU on publicity campaigns.”

This matter arose because the European Union has decided to put by even more of our money to ensure that ordinary people throughout the EU are told how wonderful the EU is. We are spending money directly on European Union propaganda. The answer came back from the Minister for Europe, and the first bit sounds great:

“While it is important for institutions such as the EU to communicate effectively…spend on this should be efficient, affordable and proportional. Funding levels for the EU to communicate its work publicly, as for all other EU activities, will be decided within the negotiations on the EU 2012 Budget. With those negotiations, this Government are seeking substantial reductions in spend and greater efficiency across all areas of the Budget.”—[Official Report, 23 May 2011; Vol. 528, c. 448W.]

Once again, fine words. The previous Government said exactly the same thing, but nothing ever changed. Nothing relating to the European Union ever changes. The sums of money involved never go down. We never pay less; we pay more and more.

With regard to what my hon. Friend the Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer) said, I believe that it is time for us to have this debate out there in the country. Let us stop being afraid of our constituents’ views, and listen to what many people out there want to say. This Government need to accept what the previous Government would never accept—namely, that we are here to stand up for our constituents and our country on this issue. It is about time that we started to say no to Europe, and to mean it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I shall come to that point directly.

Members on both sides of the House know that the Government would not have accepted the motion tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless), and that if we were to vote on the original text it would be probably be defeated, and the House would be left without a view on this matter. My amendment, which I should like to think has a good chance of being passed, would enable the House to adopt the words of the European Scrutiny Committee.

I believe that the legality of the EFSM, and indeed that of the European financial stability facility—the EFSF—has been questioned in relation to the EU treaty’s “no bail-out” clause, which states that the EU and member states

“shall not be liable for or assume the commitments of”

other member states.

[Mrs Main]

I appreciate that my hon. Friend was trying to be helpful, but his amendment seems deeply unhelpful to those who wanted the strength of the original motion to be negated, and to have been able to vote on it.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I will say more about the politics later in my speech. In any event, I believe that if either my amendment or the original motion is passed, the House of Commons will be the first member state Parliament to question formally the legality of the stability mechanism.

The remaining part of my amendment involves a fairly academic argument. Does any Member in the House truly believe that, with the Greek economy running out of cash, market fears that the eurozone contagion will spread and reveal itself at the heart of the Spanish and Italian economies, and the continuing problems in Ireland and Portugal, this matter was not going to be up-front and central at the next meeting of the Council of Ministers or the European Council? I should like to think that those problems are not only the first item on the agenda for such meetings, but being discussed every day throughout the Governments of Europe.

Bail-outs have become what they were always going to be: politically toxic, not only for those who provide the cash—the local election results in Bremen at the weekend underlined that—but, much more, for the Governments of the countries receiving the money, who have to introduce economic measures that are politically unpalatable to the people, as so many Spanish socialists found last weekend. Whatever senior advisers of Governments across Europe may think, the markets have already decided—and I consider it to be a matter of fact—that the Greek bail-out has not worked and will be renegotiated.

What I believe my hon. Friend for the Member Rochester and Strood is after is a vote that will prevent us from providing any more money for these bail-outs through the EFSM. Alas, although the UK could vote against any proposal presented—and I should like to think that it would—the simple fact is that because of the disastrous advice given to the former Chancellor of the Exchequer and the consequent actions that he took at meetings on 9 and 10 May last year as the previous Government were leaving office, the UK entered the mechanism. Moreover, the Council decides on these matters now, and will do so in the future, by means of qualified majority voting.