Europe

Neil Carmichael Excerpts

Wednesday 30th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate. The one question I would pose to the Labour Opposition is simply this: what is their opinion on the referendum? Do they want one now, do they want one later or do they not want one at all? We need to hear an answer to that.

I shall focus on the European Union in the context of the amount of trade we do with it, which is substantial. We have four times as much trade with the European Union as with the whole of the Commonwealth, so let us get that into perspective. It is a market some 500 million strong—a significant market, which happens to be the biggest single market in the world, accounting for up to a fifth of the world’s gross domestic product. That is the scale of what we are talking about today, and it is why I hope that if and when we have a referendum we will say yes, but on the back of having reformed the EU.

I like local government, but that does not mean to say that it should not be reformed, and I apply the same logic to the European Union. It is really important that we reform it, and the Prime Minister has signalled that.

[Michael Connarty]

The hon. Gentleman has twice mentioned reform. Can he, unlike the Government Front-Bench team or anyone else who has spoken, give us the specifics about what needs reform? We do not want to hear about just a vague reform; let us hear the hon. Gentleman’s vision of reform, as it may tie up with the vision of other Members, although it may not.

[Neil Carmichael]

That is an excellent question. I shall talk about three areas where reform needs to take place and will take place under this coalition Government and the next Conservative Government.

Ironically, the first area is the common agricultural policy. It needs to be radically changed so that farmers face less bureaucracy and are able to farm more easily; for that, the strictures of the CAP need to be altered. The chamber for such a change is, I think, the Council of Ministers.

[Oliver Colvile]

Does my hon. Friend agree that we should also make sure that we bring UK fishing waters back under UK control, so we need a big reform of the common fisheries policy?

[Neil Carmichael]

We would also need to look at—I think—the Marine Act 1986 if we wanted to make that a consistent strategy. I agree with my hon. Friend’s important point, but we should not overlook the other legislation that governs our access to our waters.

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that, like the Welsh Agriculture Minister Alun Davies, we should be in there at the heart of the negotiations? If we are to get a proper deal on the CAP, we should be seen not as the country that is trying to leap out of the Union, but as a country at the heart of the negotiations.

[Neil Carmichael]

That is exactly right, and I think the Prime Minister has spelt out exactly how we are going to be at the heart of those negotiations. We are really talking turkey this time; we are saying that things have to change, and we are bringing the full force of this coalition Government behind that direction of change. The hon. Lady is right: we have to be in on the act; we have to be constructive; and we have to make sure that Europe nevertheless understands that we pack a punch. We pack a punch by eventually having a referendum.

[Emma Reynolds (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Neil Carmichael]

No, as I am running out of time.

The first area in need of reform, then, is the common agricultural policy. The second—and we heard the Prime Minister signal this—is energy, in connection with the single market. We should be thinking about extending the single market to other areas, and energy is ripe for it.

I know that many people currently envisage what would effectively be the nationalisation of energy policy by European countries which are worried about their security of supply and how they can deal with such matters as reductions in carbon dioxide emissions. We therefore need to think carefully about how we can apply energy to the single market. There are two key words that we should be using, and one is competition. We need more competition: we need a competitive Europe generally, but we need a competitive market in energy specifically, because we need to be able to sell energy to other countries more easily than we do at present and because the development of a different tapestry of energy production systems will require a more open, flexible market.

There is a specific need for energy to be in the single market, but there is a desire for it as well, not just in Britain but in other countries, notably Germany. I have talked to representatives of the BDI—the German equivalent of the CBI—who are interested in the possibility that energy could become part of a more competitive, effective single market. I believe that the processes in which we are already engaging will eventually produce a single market that is more robust, more competitive and more flexible.

[Alex Cunningham]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Neil Carmichael]

I will give way briefly.

[Alex Cunningham]

The CBI is interested in employment law. I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman would hazard a reply to the question posed earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey). Do he and his party hope to reduce workers’ rights by repatriating powers in that area?

[Neil Carmichael]

Absolutely not. We do not want to “reduce workers’ rights”, as the hon. Gentleman puts it, but we do want to ensure that more people can be employed. That is being made possible by the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill, which is probably an Act by now. It copies legislation introduced by the German Chancellor who, at the time, was none other than Chancellor Schröder of the SPD—the Social Democratic party of Germany—to make it easier for small firms to employ people. Those are the sort of measures that we should be introducing here, and we are starting to do exactly that.

[Jack Dromey]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Neil Carmichael]

No, because I am running out of time. I was asked specifically which policy areas we should be changing. I have dealt with the second, and I now want to talk about the third, which, although more long-term, is critical.

What are we going to do about the Council of Ministers? It needs to be more transparent, and it needs to have more capacity. I think that we can provide the answer to the democratic deficit in two ways. First, this Parliament and the Parliaments of the other member states must become more interactive, engaging in the kind of discussions that take place in the Council. We need to hear more about the agenda, we need to hear more about what is actually said and done, and we need to hear more about how we as parliamentarians can influence all that through our own national Parliaments. The second way in which that can be beneficial is in challenging the effective supremacy of the Commission in ensuring that treaties work as they should, which drives a hole into the argument about the European Parliament’s position that I have heard mentioned several times in the debate today.

There are a great many areas of policy that we can change, but let me canter through the ones that I have mentioned. First, we need to act immediately to deal with the common agricultural policy. We are already too late for 2012, as we are now in 2013, but there are changes on which we should now be insisting. Secondly, we need to extend the single market to energy—although not just to energy: I could have mentioned the digital economy and financial services. Thirdly, there is the constitutional aspect, which I think is central to what the Prime Minister said in his speech.

If we can deliver on some or all of those areas— policy, the single market and the construction of the European Union itself—we shall have something really interesting to say to the electorate at the time of the in/out referendum. Meanwhile, we shall be protecting and, indeed, strengthening our interests. Above all, we shall be producing a better Europe, because it will be more flexible, more competitive, more transparent and more democratic.

Finally, I want to talk about President Obama. It is true that he said we should remain in the EU, but he is not the only American President to have said that: every single one has since Dwight Eisenhower in the 1950s. It is a consistent message, therefore, and we should listen to it, but the clear message we are getting from our electorate is this: “Make a difference in Europe. Reform it where necessary. Make it more flexible. Make it more competitive. Make it more useful to us, and make it less intrusive.” I can take that case to my constituents in Stroud, valleys and vale, and to businesses and everyone else who has a clear interest in protecting Britain’s interests through having a reformed and effective Europe.