Section 5 of the European Communities (Amendment) Act 1993

Debate between Mark Hendrick and Mark Hoban

Tuesday 24th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hoban]

My hon. Friend should recognise the strong political consensus in the eurozone for the continuation of the euro. The actions of member states have sought to stabilise the situation in the eurozone, and that is why they have set up the European stability mechanism and boosted it with funds to strengthen the firewall. They are also looking at recapitalisation of banks and trying to stabilise the situation. The actions of eurozone countries are attempts to reinforce the stability of the eurozone, and they have also embarked on reforms to try to bring about closer fiscal integration, and the fiscal compact is part of that.

[Mark Hendrick (Preston) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the Minister accept that even though we are not members of the eurozone, this country is still teetering on the brink of another recession? Does he also accept that the euro will continue for many decades to come—probably ad infinitum—albeit without some current members?

[Mr Hoban]

I remind the hon. Gentleman that as a consequence of the actions taken in the Budget one of the rating agencies, Standard & Poor’s, reaffirmed the UK’s triple A rating—[Interruption.] If the hon. Member for Nottingham East paid attention and read the newspapers—he accused me of not doing so—he would have seen that post-Budget one of the big rating agencies reaffirmed our credit rating with a stable outlook. Actions have been taken to stabilise the UK economy, and that is important.

This is not a debate about the future of the eurozone and whether individual members should be in or out, because that is a matter for the national Governments of those member states, not for us. What we cannot ignore is that the stability of the European economy is a vital factor in determining the level of economic growth in the UK. As I said, 40% of our trade is with Europe. We still export significant amounts to places such as Ireland and, historically, we have exported more to Ireland than we have to Brazil, Russia, India or China combined. It is important to recognise that jobs in all our constituencies are dependent on trade with the European Union and the strength of European economies.

European Union Economic Governance

Debate between Mark Hendrick and Mark Hoban

Wednesday 10th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Redwood]

rose—

[Mr Hoban]

I should like to make a bit more progress on this point.

It is right that we should co-operate with this process, but our co-operation should be consistent with the fiscal sovereignty of the UK. The information that we provide to assist with the surveillance will always be information that has been made available to this House before it is passed to the Commission. Everything that the Commission gets will have been in the public domain, to the extent that a member of the public will have been able to unearth the same data using Google, albeit with less efficiency.

[Mark Hendrick]

The information might be available elsewhere, but the Minister will know that, as a result of the proposed new regulation Com. (2010)526, there will be an obligation for the UK to provide far more information than it has done in the past. There may not be penalties involved, and we may well run up budget deficits or levels of debt that were unacceptable to the Commission—I am sure we can do that—but the point is that this country will be obliged to provide far more information formally to the Commission than it has in the past. In my view, that constitutes a degree of transfer of power to the Commission.

[Mr Hoban]

Let me repeat that this involves information that is already out there in the public domain. It is information that will already have been made available through, for example, the House of Commons Library, the Budget documents, the Red Book or the Green Book. It is information that is already out there, so I do not believe that supplying it will be a problem.

[Mark Hendrick]

The point is not that the information will have been made available elsewhere; it is that there will be an obligation on the Government themselves to make it available. If the Commission wanted to go out and find it elsewhere, I am sure that it would do so, but there will now be a new obligation on the Government, as a result of a new treaty, to give it information that they were not previously required to give.

[Mr Hoban]

I simply do not take the view that giving the Commission more information is going to be a problem. This goes back to the intervention by my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin), who asked whether there is to be an increase in EU jurisdiction as a result of this measure. No, there is not. All that the EU will do is make recommendations, but they will not bind us or be imposed on us. We can simply ignore them. There will be no increase in EU jurisdiction as a consequence of this measure.