EU Council

Chris Heaton-Harris Excerpts

Monday 28th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. Taking a tough approach on issues such as deregulation, the bail-out and the EU budget can be done at the same time as winning friends and allies in these important negotiations. What was interesting about this European Council was that, on the traditionally British issue of deregulation, we had the support of the French, the Finns, the Swedes and the Italians. We thus had people on the centre, the centre-right and—in the case of the Italian Prime Minister—the centre-left of politics, agreeing with us.

[Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con)]

I welcome the statement, and, indeed, a report on cutting red tape published by the business taskforce, which estimated that if we opened EU markets in the digital economy alone, we could add 4% to Europe’s GDP. Did the other European leaders around the Council table agree with the Prime Minister about the level of excess regulation, are the effects of such regulation being felt throughout Europe, and does the Prime Minister agree that the Commission should spend less time consolidating EU legislation and more time repealing it?

[The Prime Minister]

I do agree with my hon. Friend about that. However, to be fair to the Commission, I must tell the House that it has changed its stance in recent years, and is leading some of the efforts to cut the number and costs of regulations in Europe. That is extremely important, but we need to keep up the pressure at national level as well.