Section 5 of the European Communities (Amendment) Act 1993

David Nuttall Excerpts

Wednesday 30th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Nicky Morgan)]

I beg to move,

That this House approves, for the purposes of Section 5 of the European Communities (Amendment) Act 1993, the Government’s assessment as set out in Budget 2014 and Autumn Statement 2013, combined with the Office for Budget Responsibility’s Economic and Fiscal Outlook (2014) and Fiscal Sustainability Report (2013), which forms the basis of the United Kingdom’s Convergence Programme.

I welcome this opportunity to listen to Members’ views on the information that will be provided to the Commission this year under section 5 of the European Communities (Amendment) Act 1993. As in previous years, the Government will inform the Commission of the UK’s economic and budgetary position in line with our commitments under the European Union’s stability and growth pact. The Government plan to submit their convergence programme today, with the approval of both Houses.

The convergence programme explains the Government’s medium-term fiscal policies, as set out in the 2013 autumn statement.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way so early in her speech. As she will know, today is the last day for the convergence programme to be submitted under the economic governance pact. As she said, it requires the approval of both Houses. The other place is not sitting today. Has its approval already been obtained and why have we waited until the last day?

[Nicky Morgan]

I know that my hon. Friend is an assiduous follower of these matters, and he is right. The other place had a short debate on the convergence programme on 9 April. He will know, and I am learning, about the vagaries of timetabling debates, which have meant that this was the earliest day that we could debate the convergence programme in the House. I am told that in previous years the convergence programme has been sent in draft to the Commission, but we were keen that we should debate and send the final document. The convergence programme document was put before both Houses in a written ministerial statement dated 3 April, and placed in the Libraries on the same date. Members have therefore had an opportunity to consider the draft document since that date, although I appreciate that the recess has intervened.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

It is a pleasure, as always, to follow my near neighbour from Greater Manchester, the hon. Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer). As he and the House are aware, I agree with him on the issue of our membership of the European Union.

I want to bring the debate back to the motion, which states specifically:

“That this House approves, for the purposes of Section 5 of the European Communities (Amendment) Act 1993, the Government’s assessment”—

and so on. I will not read out the whole motion. It is purely for the purposes of complying with section 5 that we are being asked to approve the motion today—purely to comply with our obligations under European Union rules and regulations. I oppose the motion for that reason, as I have in previous years. I oppose it, but not because I oppose the Government’s financial policies—indeed, barely a week goes by without further evidence to prove that the policies are working. We could debate, as we have earlier this afternoon, whether things are going fast enough, and whether they are going as quickly as someone previously predicted, but I think all that is irrelevant. What is relevant is the fact that the economy, by any stretch of the imagination, is growing. Things are going in the right direction.

I welcome the fact that we have the opportunity to say that, but I regret the fact that we are having to do it in the context of submitting documents to the European Union. As has been said, this is the very last day for submission of the documents. I am not sure what would happen if—as I very much doubt would be the case—the House refused to support the Government’s motion. I will be voting against it and I would be interested to know what would happen. In last year’s debate, my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) mentioned that if the EU does not agree that we are carrying out the policies to its satisfaction, it can send a surveillance mission to the country, or even an enhanced surveillance mission. If so, I am sure that we would have great delight in meeting them, because they have a lot to learn from what this country is doing.

I do not agree that we, as a sovereign nation, should have to submit our economic policies to the bureaucrats in Brussels like some naughty schoolboy having to report to the headmaster with school work. There is no reason why we should have to go through this annual charade. It is an annual occasion when we have to approve, purely for the purposes of section 5, these documents. I see no reason why we cannot tag the motion on to the end of the Budget motions, for example, if we want to comply with this ridiculous law.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

For once, I disagree with my hon. Friend. I think it is of immeasurable importance that this debate remain a specific debate on the Floor of the House, because there may come a time when the House wants to refuse to report to Brussels and we need to preserve that right.

[Mr Nuttall]

I entirely agree on that point with my hon. Friend. If I had my way, we would disagree with Europe quite a bit more often than we do. I oppose the motion for that reason and no other, because I do not think we should send these documents to Europe. As I have said in previous years, and will probably repeat later in my speech, if the European officials are so interested in our documents, they are all available online. There is no reason why we need to produce this document.

For all that has been said about the fact that we have not spent any time on this subject, we do have before us a new document entitled “2013-14 Convergence Programme for the United Kingdom.” It is 247 pages long—slightly larger than last year’s document. It has been produced by Her Majesty’s Treasury specifically for this purpose and no other. So somewhere along the line the requirement to produce the document is costing the British taxpayer money.

We must be clear that the sole reason why the UK is making this submission—I quote from the treaty on the functioning of the European Union—is:

“In order to ensure closer coordination of economic policies and sustained convergence of the economic performances of the Member States”.

Why does the treaty require that? Simply because it is all part of their grand plan to forge together a single country called the European Union. That is what they want to see. That is why they want to have these documents sent in to them.

We are fortunate in this country that the UK electorate—the British people—had the good sense at the last general election to elect a Conservative-led Government with a Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer, who was prepared to take the difficult decisions necessary to put our country back on the path of economic recovery, which means living within our means.

It is instructive to compare the progress that we have made, and continue to make, with that of the European Union. As my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset mentioned, the European Union’s own official statistics body—interestingly named EUROSTAT— reported that the United Kingdom economy grew by 1.7% last year, compared with a minuscule 0.1% in the rest of the European Union. Even worse, there was a 0.4% contraction in the economies of the countries within the eurozone. And even that performance figure is flattered by the fact that it includes the figures for Germany and France, whose economies, EUROSTAT reported, grew by 0.4% and 0.1% respectively.

The situation is the same for the respective unemployment rates. EUROSTAT reports that the unemployment rate for the European Union as a whole was 10.8% last year, and the latest figures show that unemployment in the UK for the three months to February was 6.9%. That is reflected in my constituency. The latest figures show that in Bury, Ramsbottom and Tottington there are 451 fewer unemployed people than there were a year ago, which means 451 more families have the security of a regular wage coming in each week. More new businesses are being started, business confidence is growing and all the signs indicate that the plan is working and we are on the road to recovery.

The rest of Europe ought to be looking at what the UK is doing and working out how they can adopt our Government’s policies and increase their growth rates. As the hon. Member for Blackley and Broughton said, we want our European neighbours’ economies to grow, because they are important trading nations, as I never fail to accept. The fact that I want us to leave the European Union does not mean that I do not want us to trade with it; I just do not think that we should have to pay a net contribution of £9 billion to have the privilege of doing so. It is simply unnecessary, because we trade with many other countries around the world without having to pay a membership fee to enable us to do so. Therefore, I do not believe that submitting a 247-page convergence programme document is necessary.

In conclusion, let me put two simple questions to my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan), whom I warmly welcome to her new role as Financial Secretary to the Treasury. First, what response has the Government received from the European Union on last year’s submission? Did we receive any acknowledgement from the bureaucrats in Brussels? Did they tell us that we were doing a good job and that they would use our document as a model for economic success? Did they say that they would encourage our partners to accept some of the policies set out in our convergence programme document?

Secondly, and perhaps more importantly—in view of the Prime Minister’s declared aim of putting an end to the commitment, which we are presently signed up to, to ever-closer union with the rest of Europe—will my hon. Friend confirm that, as part of any renegotiation of the United Kingdom’s obligations to the rest of Europe, the obligation to submit this annual convergence programme document will be removed? Does she agree that not removing that obligation will be seen as clear proof that those renegotiations have failed?