European Council

William Cash Excerpts

Monday 17th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Well, the jokes were better. The right hon. Gentleman has obviously spent a bit of time running through his old Police albums. Given his policy on Europe, I would recommend, “So Lonely”, and given his general approach to policy, he is going to have to get used to “I can’t stand losing”. [Interruption.] That was the best I could do given the notice. He should give me more warning next time—[Interruption.] Don’t stand so close to me—very good. The bed’s too big without you—[Laughter.] Let’s take this down.

On Syria, it is right to look at amending the arms embargo. We will be keeping the arms embargo on the regime. There are arguments on both sides, but we should have the debate and European Foreign Ministers will do so. My concern is that if the UK with others is not helping the opposition, and helping to shape and work with it, it is much more difficult to get the transition we all want to a peaceful, democratic Syria that respects the rights of minorities—including, as I have said, Christians—and human rights.

On banking union, the right hon. Gentleman rightly makes the point that the protections are set out when more than four members are outside the banking union. The new double majority voting is a big breakthrough. The idea that non-eurozone members should have a separate vote on proposals that could be damaging to us is a major breakthrough, and a lot of people said it would not be possible. If the number of countries outside the banking union falls below four, the issue returns to the European Council, where, of course, we decide things by consensus and would be able to put a stop to further progress.

The right hon. Gentleman makes his points on growth, but ignores completely that almost every country around the table has immense fiscal challenges and huge budget deficits. That is why we focus so much on the things that could help growth in Europe, such as the single market, free trade deals with other parts of the world, deregulation and getting costs down, and a good budget deal.

The right hon. Gentleman asked a series of questions on European positions. I do not think it is right to hold an immediate in/out referendum because neither of the two options is right. That is exactly what the Foreign Secretary has said.

On British business, the Conservative party and the Government are working to deliver all the things business has asked for. I note that, when the Opposition business spokesman was asked to name one single business that supported Labour, the best he could come up with was Waheed Alli, whom Labour ennobled about a decade ago.

On European policy, I will not take lectures from a party that signed up to the bail-out, gave away our veto and gave up the social chapter—on each occasion, it got absolutely nothing in return. That is the truth of the Labour policy, whereas the Conservative party and the Government have delivered. Three months ago, before the three European Councils, we were told, “You’ll have no allies on the European budget, you have no chance of amendments to the banking union, and you’ll be completely isolated on treaty change.” All three warnings given by the Leader of the Opposition and others have turned out not to be true.

[Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend says that the EU changes must be done in the right way. At Prime Minister’s questions last Wednesday, he stated in reply to me that

“it is the national parliaments that provide the real democratic legitimacy within the European Union.”—[Official Report, 12 December 2012; Vol. 555, c. 291.]

However, how is it that, in the European conclusions he signed on Friday, and despite a unanimous European Scrutiny Committee report calling on him to stand firm, the national Parliaments and the European Parliament are stated as being commensurate in respect of EU competences?

[The Prime Minister]

I should again make the point I made to my hon. Friend on Wednesday. Change in Europe cannot go ahead unless it has the support of national Parliaments. Clearly, the European Parliament has a role set out in the treaties—whatever one thinks about that, one cannot ignore it. When it comes to changes in the eurozone, Angela Merkel going back to her Parliament matters; when it comes to the European budget, my coming back to this Parliament matters. That was my point. In Europe, the Parliaments that matter are the national ones—this is the Parliament that matters to me.