EU Council, Security and Middle East

Debate between Stewart Hosie and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Monday 1st September 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her question. The first response should be to gather evidence, prosecute and convict. However, we have learned in this age of the appalling threat of Islamist extremist violence, which is different from some of the threats that we have faced in the past, not least because the people who carry it out not only do not care whether they survive, but seek what they see as martyrdom, that we have to up our response. We have lots of very effective laws and rules. We do not need to overhaul them, but we do, in some circumstances, need to enhance them.

[Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)]

I welcome what the Prime Minister said, particularly about blocking foreign fighters entering the UK. However, as he pointed out, there have been 700 from France, 400 from Germany and hundreds more from other European and western countries, many of them travelling on EU passports. Is he confident that the data and intelligence sharing arrangements that are in place are comprehensive and robust, so that such people can be identified as they travel to the UK or to anywhere else?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman makes an extremely sensible point. The data sharing is good, but it could be a lot better. At the European Council, we looked specifically at the issue of passenger name records. The directive on that issue has so far been held up by a number of countries, including Germany. We need to make progress on that because the sharing of passenger names and records is vital in keeping us safe.

G20 Summit

Debate between Stewart Hosie and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Monday 25th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point, but the point that I would make in response is that it is not for us to tell those countries what to do. If countries want to join a currency union, understand that to make that currency union work they have to give up all sorts of sovereignty and freely enter into that bargain, that is a matter for them and not a matter for us. It is for us to decide whether we want to do that, which we do not, and—and, frankly, it is all right to do this—to give advice about what would make a eurozone work better than it is working today.

[Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)]

The communiqué reads:

“We are committed to adopting all necessary policy measures to strengthen demand, support global growth and restore confidence”

and

“enhance job creation”.

I welcome monetary activism as one of the tools to help achieve that, but can the Prime Minister explain to the House how his Government’s austerity programme will do anything other than weaken demand, weaken growth and suppress demand for labour?

[The Prime Minister]

I make this simple point to the hon. Gentleman: if we did not have a credible plan for dealing with our debts and our deficit, our interest rates would not be below 2%. It is worth remembering that when this Government took office, Spanish and British interest rates were at the same level. Our rates are now below 2%, which is helpful for growth, for business and for home owners, and the Spanish have interest rates close to 7%. That is the point. The idea that if a country spent more, borrowed more and added to its debts, it would stimulate its economy is probably wrong.

European Council

Debate between Stewart Hosie and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Monday 5th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

We believe in dealing with tax fraud and tax evasion. That is vital. On the jobs effect of completing the energy and digital services single markets, I have given the GDP figures for how much it would add to the EU, but if the right hon. Gentleman would like, I could perhaps look at how many jobs that could convert into. It is worth noting, however, that the Commission’s forecast for growth this year is that Britain will grow faster than France, the EU and the euro area. Furthermore, according to International Monetary Fund figures, we will grow faster than France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the EU and the euro area this year and next year.

[Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)]

The conclusions from the summit were clear:

“Innovation and research are at the heart of the Europe 2020 strategy.”

They are also vital for growth at home. The conclusions also referred to intellectual property, research and development, and patent protection. Can the Prime Minister give us an assurance that concrete progress was made towards a unitary patent protection scheme, as agreed by the Competitiveness Ministers last June, and also update us on the parallel process for the unified patent court?

[The Prime Minister]

There has been quite a breakthrough on the unified patent process, because the EU has been discussing this for, I think, around three decades. There is now an agreement among those countries that want to go ahead and have a unified patent process, so that is a success. There is not yet agreement about where the court should be. We strongly believe it ought to be in London, because London is the centre of international litigation and finance, but the French believe it should be in Paris and the Germans believe it should be in Munich, and there is what is known as a negotiation under way.

Informal European Council

Debate between Stewart Hosie and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Tuesday 31st January 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

What last night’s meeting proved is that there is a very strong and growing consensus for action around the European Council table on issues of competitiveness. British Ministers—and, to be fair to Labour, British Ministers for the last 20 years—have been going to Europe arguing for completing the single market, deregulation, lifting the burdens on business and all those issues, and we have always had strong supporters in the northern liberal countries, as it were, but we have come unstuck when it comes to other countries. I think we now see—partly because the centre right is in power in so much of Europe—really strong support for that sort of agenda, and we can certainly drive it forward.

[Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)]

The Joint Ministerial Committee memorandum of understanding on EU policy says that Ministers and officials from all the devolved Administrations should be involved in discussion with the UK Government on the formulation of UK policy. What discussions did the Prime Minister or his officials have with Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast before the European Council meeting?

[The Prime Minister]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, there are arrangements for these things. Actually, the Government have been very generous in ensuring that the Scottish Administration have been fully involved in, for instance, fishing quota negotiations. However, I thought that the hon. Gentleman wanted to leave the UK altogether. If that is the case, he will have to seek access to the European Union, and seek access to joining the euro as well. I think that he ought to read the treaty and work out whether he wants to sign it. Perhaps when he has made up his mind he will be able to tell the Labour leader what to do.

EU Council

Debate between Stewart Hosie and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Monday 12th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s question, but I am not as pessimistic as he is that there is no prospect of rebalancing powers within the European Union. There are possibilities and opportunities. We did that in terms of the bail-out fund and I think there will be opportunities in future.

[Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)]

The concordat on the co-ordination of European Union policy is very clear—it requires the UK Government to engage with the devolved Governments in the formulation of UK policy, but that clearly did not happen on this occasion. How will the Prime Minister now explain to Cardiff, Belfast and Edinburgh that adopting an isolationist policy and abdicating all leadership is anything other than damaging and dangerous?

[The Prime Minister]

I do not accept that. In the final analysis, our relations with the European Union are a reserved issue for the UK Parliament and the UK Government. To be fair to this Government, we have gone further than any previous Government on the issues that really matter to people in Scotland—about the single market, fisheries and decisions taken within the European Union—to work very constructively with the other Administrations.

G20

Debate between Stewart Hosie and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Monday 7th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. I am not entirely sure what would have happened if we had turned up at the G20 having voted down the deal from the London G20 on increasing the IMF resources. First of all, we would have declined to implement one of the key findings of the last G20, and then we would have turned up and said that we were not prepared to see any increase in IMF funding for anything else. Britain would have been completely isolated and left out. The reason why the Opposition are talking about this is that it is all about the politics and nothing to do with the economics, and they know it.

[Stewart Hosie]

(Dundee East) (SNP): The Prime Minister said that the UK would not fund the EFSF, but it remains one of the eurozone’s most powerful tools, and there are two new powers proposed for it—to insure newly issued sovereign debt, and to spin out investment trusts to buy that debt. Do the Prime Minister and his Government believe that those powers will be enough to leverage the EFSF up to the €1 trillion or so required to give it the firepower that it needs?

[The Prime Minister]

There are still real difficulties with that. The EFSF and the idea of a special purpose vehicle were set out at the eurozone meeting 10 days ago, but the problem is that since then we have not seen enough detail on how exactly those funds would work and how they would be levered up. You need—I have used “bazooka” before—a bazooka big enough to convince people that you will not have to use it, and that is what the eurozone needs to do, but it has not yet completed that work.

Counter-terrorism

Debate between Stewart Hosie and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Tuesday 3rd May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)]

I thank the Prime Minister for his statement and for early sight of it. The conclusion was that what Libya demonstrated, as Egypt and Tunisia did before it, is that people are completely rejecting everything that bin Laden stood for. My hon. Friends and I fervently hope that that is true. Will the Prime Minister update the House on the concrete steps being taken to foster democracy and respect for human rights in north Africa and throughout the middle east?

[The Prime Minister]

I think there are bilateral actions that Britain, as an old and successful democracy, should take and links that we should make, such as updating the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, as we have discussed in this House before. However, the biggest step would be for the European Union radically to overhaul its programme of help and assistance to north African and middle eastern neighbours and countries. Frankly, its programme up to now has been quite expensive—there is no shortage of money being spent—but it has not been successful in putting in place those building blocks of democracy. That is what we should be working on.

Strategic Defence and Security Review

Debate between Stewart Hosie and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Tuesday 19th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend the Defence Secretary will be happy to meet the hon. Gentleman. Clearly, RAF Kinloss will not be required by the RAF following the decisions that we have taken, but we are not announcing base closures today because more armed service personnel will come home from Germany than will lose their positions following my announcements. There is therefore an opportunity to use RAF bases for other military purposes. I hate to make too much of a political point, but one wonders how many bases and how much capability there would be if there were an independent Scotland.

[Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)]

That is outrageous!