Oral Answers to Questions

Tom Brake Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

Part of our reform strategy is to look for a greater role for national Parliaments working together to block unwanted legislation so that we, the people of Europe, cannot have imposed on us by the Commission something that the majority of us do not want. But my hon. Friend knows that it is completely unrealistic to seek an individual national veto in all areas. A European Union of 28 member states with individual national vetoes simply would not work.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

Will the Foreign Secretary comment on the solid progress being made on one of the five principles for the Prime Minister’s vision for a new European Union—that is, the competitiveness agenda and specifically, for instance, delivery charges for items posted within the EU, or trade deals with the US?

[Mr Hammond]

I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman is privy to some information that I am not, but last time I checked with the Prime Minister he had four categories in which he was pursuing the negotiation. On competitiveness, it is true that the mood in the European Union has changed. Since the financial and economic crisis, more and more member states are focused on the need for Europe to be able to compete in the global economy, and the Juncker Commission is focused on an agenda. We think it could go further; we would like it to be more ambitious, but it is pointing in the right direction. Our challenge is to institutionalise that change and make sure that the European Union is firmly pointed in that direction as a matter of institutional structure, not of individual Commission choice.