European Union Economic Governance

Stephen Williams Excerpts

Wednesday 10th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

I shall speak briefly, but it is important for the House to know that there are also Members on the Opposition Benches who will be voting against the Government motion, and on similar grounds to do with the implicit transfer of sovereignty in the Commission’s initiative. I congratulate the Chair of the European Scrutiny Committee, the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash), on ensuring that the House is fully aware of the concern about such matters and on the fact that we are having this debate, as it is largely down to him.

There is serious confusion about the wording of the documents. The terms “all member states”, “eurozone states” and “non-eurozone states except the UK” are used at different points throughout. It would be simpler if only the term “eurozone states” was used throughout, so that we could be absolutely clear that the provisions apply only to the eurozone states. In the first draft regulation—on the preventive arm of the stability and growth pact, as it is called—reference is made to all member states. In the second draft regulation—on what is known as the excessive deficit procedure—reference is made to all member states, but a little later it refers in two places to the eurozone. The third draft regulation talks about eurozone states. The two further regulations, on macro-economic imbalances, refer to member states—not “all member states”—or, alternatively, to eurozone member states, but right at the end there is a reference to non-eurozone member states except the UK. I want to be clear that the provisions apply to the eurozone, not to the United Kingdom, so that we can know precisely where we stand on sovereignty over our own economy.

[Stephen Williams (Bristol West) (LD)]

I, too, had to read the documents several times before I began to understand what was being proposed, but is not the simple distinction that the information-sharing provisions apply to all EU member states, whereas the sanctions under the stability and growth pact apply only to eurozone members?

[Kelvin Hopkins]

The Minister himself said that any information about the economy that was needed could be found by Googling it, and there is also the Library note on economic indicators, which I use regularly. All the information is there—for example, in the Budget statements and so on—and we do not need to provide much more than that. There is masses of public information. We do not need to have it in regulations. It can be provided as a matter of course. We must put down a marker for the European Union saying that we will not go this far, and that we do not want changes that show political creep or gradual encroachment of the European Union into British sovereignty over our own economy, going beyond the treaties.

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell) about the nonsense of the eurozone and the economic arrangements that it entails. There is a reference to “surveillance of macroeconomic imbalances”, but the trade imbalance that I focused on earlier in the debate is serious. We have a massive trade deficit with the rest of the European Union, particularly Germany, which sustains a massive trade surplus. Will the European Union focus on that imbalance?

In 1944, Keynes said that countries running massive trade surpluses should be required to appreciate their currencies to bring them into line. Will that be suggested to Germany? That cannot happen because Germany is in the eurozone, and all those other countries that cannot compete and cannot inflate at a greater rate are having severe difficulties, which are becoming worse year by year. Will that imbalance be addressed? When it is, I will start to take the European Union a little more seriously on economic matters.

I have probably said enough. I intend to vote against the motion, and I hope that the Government will challenge the European Union to make the wording of its documentation right and acceptable to the United Kingdom.