Europe
Debate between Henry Smith and Douglas Alexander(11 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Douglas Alexander
I shall make a little progress before giving way.
The Prime Minister’s speech last week disregarded the greatest concern—I would argue—of the British people, namely the need for stability, growth and jobs. In truth, it was a speech that the Prime Minister did not want to give, on a subject he prefers not to talk about, at a time when no decision was required. Its primary aim was to try to deliver unity through the device of obscurity. That is why the Foreign Secretary’s speech was so illuminating.
Alas, I calculate that the Prime Minister’s speech managed to unite the Conservative party for less than 96 hours, at which point the papers were once again full of new plans and plots against him from within the Conservative ranks. Who can blame them?
Mr Alexander
I will make a little more progress.
Far from resolving the issue of Europe, the Prime Minister’s speech ended up prompting more questions than it answered. Those questions, alas, were singularly avoided by the Foreign Secretary in his speech today. Instead of setting out red lines for the negotiations or detailing the powers he wants to repatriate, the Prime Minister instead described five principles, about which we have heard more today, with which few hon. Members could disagree. I am happy to confirm for the Foreign Secretary—this might discombobulate Conservative Back Benchers—that the Opposition are happy to endorse the five principles. Foreign Secretaries have been advocating them for many years.
Mr Alexander
Modesty aside, may I suggest that the right hon. Gentleman has a look at the speech I gave at Chatham House? Frankly, it set out far more details of specific changes that we would like to see in the European Union than the Prime Minister was able to manage in his speech. We do not suggest that the status quo is what we will or should advocate. We want to see change in Europe. We also recognise that change is coming to Europe. However, there is a fundamental disagreement between this side of the House and that side of the House on how best to achieve the objective of change within the European Union.
Mr Alexander
I am keen to make a little more progress.
Of course there are differences between our parties’ approaches on what those changes should include. My judgment is that the reason the Prime Minister was unable last week to set out the changes he wanted to see, beyond the change in working hours for junior doctors, was that the brittle façade of unity to which he is aspiring will crack—indeed, will disintegrate—as soon as he starts to get into the specifics, whether on employment law, social policy, fisheries policy, or a wide range of other issues. I commend the speech I gave, because it details changes in policy. We want to see Europe moving towards growth, and specific policies within the Commission to advance growth, rather than the approach taken in recent years. We see some institutional changes that are required. Of course there are other areas that we will look at, and they are set out in the speech. It is a matter of regret, however, that the Prime Minister felt unable even to match the shadow Foreign Secretary in the level of detail he could provide in his much-trailed speech last week.
One other point on which there was only obscurity last week was that of timing. The Prime Minister seemed unable to be clear on the most basic issue, because it remains uncertain whether treaty change will even happen on the time scale he suggested. At present, no intergovernmental conference is planned for 2015 and most EU Governments now claim there is no need for a big treaty revision for years to come. The only certainty, therefore, is more uncertainty delivered by the Prime Minister.
After both the Prime Minister’s speech and the Foreign Secretary’s speech today, we have been left with a commitment to an in/out referendum on a repatriation agenda that is unknown, within a time frame that is uncertain and towards an end goal that remains wholly undefined. In the debate in the House in 2011—when, incidentally, the Foreign Secretary voted alongside me in the Division Lobby—we argued that to announce an in/out referendum in these circumstances would not serve Britain’s national interest. Our position remains: reform of Europe, not exit from Europe.
Labour recognises, as I have sought to suggest, that the need for EU reform did not begin with the eurozone crisis, which is why our agenda for change must address the need for institutional, as well as policy, reform. That means tackling issues such as how to give national Parliaments more of a say over the making of EU legislation and delivering credible proposals for reform of the free movement directive and family-related entitlements at EU level.
The most immediate focus, however, must be on changes that promote and create jobs and growth. That is why we have consistently called not just for restraint, but for reform of the EU budget. The budget might be only 1% of GDP, but it could be better used, with a greater focus on securing growth and continued reform of the CAP. Alongside reform of the budget, we have argued for a new position of EU growth commissioner and a new mechanism better to assess the impact of every new piece of EU legislation to promote growth across the EU.
Protections for the single market and revival of the prospects for growth should be Europe’s priority for change, but to support and defend the single market—this was the point I was alluding to earlier—we must first understand how the market works. The internal market involves more than simply the absence of tariffs and trade quotas at the border. Common regulatory standards covering issues such as consumer rights, environmental standards and health and safety rules are not simply additions to the workings of the single market, but the basis on which it is built.
That means that a credible growth strategy for the UK as part of the EU cannot, and should not, be pursued on the basis of cheap labour, poor labour standards, poor safety standards and environmentally shoddy goods. If European partners, such as the Germans and the Dutch, can compete in global markets with high European standards, why do some Government Members claim that Britain cannot do so? The Opposition understand that the real agenda on certain Government Benches is not only to bring powers back, but to take rights away.
The Government’s approach threatens the directives on parental leave and agency workers and could mean that they no longer apply in the UK. On the working time directive, it is right that we have the opt-out negotiated by the last Labour Government, but what is the Government’s position? They cannot tell us whether they oppose every aspect of the working time directive. Perhaps the Foreign Secretary will nod or shake his head. Does he support the maintenance of four weeks’ paid holiday entitlement?