Balance of Competences

Margot James Excerpts

Thursday 12th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

The review will, inevitably, look at costs in most of the areas that I have described, but that is a different exercise from trying to arrive at a single figure for cost and benefit. There are many aspects of our relationship with the EU to which it is difficult to attach a financial benefit or cost. In the work that I do in respect of a common policy towards sanctions on Iran or Syria, for example, it is beneficial to the UK that we act with our partners, but it is hard to attribute a financial benefit to that. So I do not think one can arrive at a single number, which my hon. Friend may be looking for, but it is, of course, possible within this analysis across many different policy areas to look at costs and benefits, and it is absolutely possible in the work the Home Office will do to look at migration responsibilities and issues, and I know that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is very keen to do so.

[Margot James (Stourbridge) (Con)]

I very much welcome the positioning of this review as an outward-facing exercise. My right hon. Friend states that the relationship between the EU and the member state is a subject of intense debate in many member states, so will he take every opportunity to bring like-minded member states with us in our bid to recast the balance of power, so that the competitiveness of Europe as a whole improves in relation to the growth markets in the world?

[Mr Hague]

We are, of course, already engaged in trying to persuade like-minded member states that we must do the essential things in respect of permitting growth to take place in the European economy. That includes doing everything we can to limit the further application of the working time directive, and it means that directives currently being debated—the pregnant workers directive and the posted workers directive—that are further unnecessary burdens on businesses must be resisted. So we are already engaged in that work, quite separately from this review and analysis.