EU Council

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Monday 12th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for his support. What we do not know is what the Opposition’s approach is to this issue. Despite all the fury we have heard from those on the Opposition Benches, they cannot tell us whether they support the treaty proposal or not.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

Britain will continue to be subject to EU single market financial services regulation. Do we not now have a major problem in that we will be absent when many of those rules are drawn up?

[The Prime Minister]

That is absolutely not the case because this new organisation cannot draw up or pass proposals that cut across EU treaties or EU legislation. The right hon. Gentleman knows this well. It is the case that Britain has suffered from some of the regulation that has come out of Brussels on financial services, and that we need greater safeguards. If we cannot get those safeguards within a treaty, it is better that those countries are in a separate treaty. That is a better safeguard than the alternative, and that is the point that he needs to understand.