European Single Market

Lord Reid of Cardowan Excerpts

Thursday 9th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Reid of Cardowan]

My Lords, will the Minister, in all these discussions, concentrate on practical measures to develop trade and the market itself, and resist all measures to superimpose superstructural concepts on variously divergent economies that do not derive directly from the growth of those economies themselves? Does not the present plight of the euro show the folly of forcing upon divergent economies a similar form of currency that is at odds with the natural strength of the individual economies?

[Baroness Wilcox]

I think I will not comment on the euro today. The noble Lord is absolutely right; we must encourage wherever we can to make the market work as well as possible. To go back to the original Question, which, if I may remind your Lordships, was about our response to the British Chambers of Commerce eight-point plan for the European single market, there are things there that we would be very keen to support. We need to talk about creating effective digital single markets and all the other things like that that can make the market work better. We have enough problems at the moment, and anything positive that we can say is a good idea.