European Council

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Tuesday 7th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

I agree with my hon. Friend’s points. One thing that the habit of working together on security and defence matters through the EU does is enable us to bring in those countries that are members of the EU but are not, for historical and constitutional reasons, allies of ours in NATO. The very fact that Secretary-General Rasmussen not only spoke at the summit but warmly welcomed its conclusions as pointing the way towards a more effective European arm of defence that complemented and supported what NATO was doing should give us all confidence.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) for securing the opportunity to discuss this issue in the Chamber today and I share her regret that the Prime Minister broke with precedent by not appearing in person to answer her question.

Let me first touch briefly on the banking union. We welcome the progress that has been made, but what discussions were had during the summit to ensure that the European Central Bank’s risk assessments, which are due to be conducted later this year, will be sufficiently rigorous?

On migration, I welcome the Prime Minister’s statement that there will be further discussions on the

“need to find a better approach to tackle free movement abuse”

at an EU level. As we in the Opposition have said before, we need to reform the way free movement works so it is not seen as a part of a race to the bottom in the world of work. This means looking again at the transitional controls, including extending them over longer periods so that when new countries move into the European Union we learn the lessons from the past. With the recent lifting of transitional controls on Romania and Bulgaria, will the Minister set out what steps the Government are taking to address practical problems around those who exploit migrant workers to undercut local businesses and staff? EU reform will be achieved through building alliances for change among other EU member states rather than escalating rhetoric and alienating allies, so can the Minister set out who will be leading the negotiations on any proposed EU reform agenda on behalf of the Government?

The summit should have been a vital opportunity to build coalitions to secure the changes that must be made in Europe for Britain yet, once again, it seems the Prime Minister viewed it as merely providing the opportunity for securing headlines rather than securing change.

[Mr Lidington]

The hon. Lady is being unusually churlish. If she looks again at the Council’s conclusions, she will see that we not only managed to secure important and positive British interests that take the development of the common security and defence policy in the direction that the UK has long advocated, but—and she omitted to mention this in her question—we secured key safeguards on the operation of the banking union to ensure that the taxpayers of this country are not liable for the consequences of any solvency decision made by our eurozone colleagues. The Opposition might have had the grace to pay tribute to what the Prime Minister achieved; otherwise people might come to think that the Opposition are somehow dismissive of the interests of British taxpayers and of safeguarding them against such liabilities.

The hon. Lady asked directly about the safeguards that the Government were putting in place for people who might be exploited if they came here from other parts of the EU or elsewhere in the world. I can reassure her that the Government are doubling the fine for people who employ illegal workers and quadrupling the fine for paying people below the statutory minimum wage. Under the previous Labour Government, the fine for paying somebody below the minimum wage was £5,000 per employer. Under this Government, the fine will be £20,000 per employee, not per employer. When it comes to the protection of exploited workers, the Opposition’s record does not give them anything of which to be proud.