Lord Skidelsky
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(13 years ago)
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Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his unqualified support for what the Prime Minister has done and I strongly agree with much of what he says. As I said to the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, we wish the euro well, and we wish it to succeed, because unless we resolve the crisis that is facing the eurozone it will have an extremely negative effect on the British economy. I also agree entirely with my noble friend on his last point about financial services. There is a view that even if we could veto the financial transaction tax, it would affect only the UK. It would be too easy for many companies and organisations simply to relocate to the rest of the world, so it would be a loss to Europe as a whole, not just London. That was why the Prime Minister was trying to defend the financial services industry right across Europe, not just in the United Kingdom.
Lord Skidelsky
My Lords, there are three questions which the Prime Minister ducked, and I hope that the Leader of the House will do better. First, in which paragraphs were proposals tabled which required the British to use their veto of the treaty? Will he enumerate the paragraphs to which we took objection? Secondly, what safeguards of our interests were we trying to secure? Thirdly, why could we not have reserved our position, since this was a very early stage in the whole process? As I said, the Prime Minister ducked those questions. I hope that the Leader of the House will be able to do better.
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, I spelt out in some detail what safeguards we asked for in reply to the noble Baroness the Leader of the Opposition, so I will not repeat them. However, the noble Lord has asked a good question to which people will want to know the answer: why did we exercise the veto at the start of the process? It is my understanding that the French made it absolutely plain that under no circumstances would they accept the safeguards that the Prime Minister was asking for. At that stage, the Prime Minister had absolutely no choice if he was going to continue in good faith. That is why he took the decision that he did.