Trading Relationships with Europe

Graham Stuart Excerpts

Tuesday 10th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Hancock]

I will tell the hon. Gentleman what we do with red lines. Shortly after his election in 2010, the current Prime Minister threatened to veto a proposal that would have damaged Britain, and our European partners were so used to those threats being made and then abandoned by previous Prime Ministers that they did not believe he was serious. But he was serious and he vetoed the proposal. Now when Britain speaks about the need for reform, we are listened to. That is leadership in Europe: no longer on the hook for eurozone bailouts; no longer increasing the regulatory burden but reducing it; and the European budget no longer rising but being cut. That is our policy.

Let me be clear about our policy in the next Parliament: it is not the narrow vision that sees Europe as the centre of the universe at a time when we export more to the rest of the world than to the EU for the first time in my lifetime, but a patriotic, outward-looking vision of reform and a referendum.

[Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend will note that this country has turned its back on the policies left behind by the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), just as he has now turned his back on a Minister answering a debate that he himself brought to the House, which is no way to behave—and it was no way to leave the country when he left office.

[Matthew Hancock]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. It makes clear, does it not, the choice for the British people for the first time in a generation. We on the Government side reject the pessimism that says we can have influence in Europe only by subordinating our goals. Instead, we have influence through the steadfast pursuit of our national interest. We must drive those reforms that are in Britain’s national interest, and in the interests of every member state; a long-term plan for Europe, with free enterprise at its heart, so that the whole continent can rise, compete and thrive in the 21st century. We will stand up for businesses on red tape, for exporters on free trade and for industry on the free movement of capital, and we will restore fairness to the free movement of people, for work rather than benefits. Before the end of 2017 we will put that reformed Europe to the British people in a referendum so that they may decide our future. That is the policy our country needs: reform, vigorous debate and then a vote to settle the matter, putting our trust in the decision of the British people.

As the right hon. Gentleman bows out from this House, and with the best wishes of the House to him and his family, it is that better future that we must surely follow the path to, so that Britain once again can be among the most prosperous nations upon earth.

Question put and agreed to.