European Council

William Cash Excerpts

Monday 23rd March 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I had not been counting, but I think that reporting back to the House 29 times is quite an impressive record—too many. The right hon. Gentleman does have one thing in common with Tom Cruise: every policy he touches self-destructs in five seconds—tuition fees, spending, the deficit, taxes; it is all the same.

Let me deal with the right hon. Gentleman’s questions. On the very important matter of the Israeli elections, I am sure that we will all want to congratulate Prime Minister Netanyahu on his election victory. I agree with the Leader of the Opposition that we must put pressure on both sides to ensure that talks on a two-state solution get going. I will be talking with Prime Minister Netanyahu this evening, and I will make it very clear that I support a two-state solution. I think that is in the long-term interests of not only the Palestinians, but the Israelis, and Britain’s policy on that will not change.

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for what he said in support of the Government’s position on Iran and on Libya. He asked why we have seen the difficulties after the fall of Gaddafi. One of the things that we have to be clear about is that the Libyan people and the Libyan Government did not want some occupying force; they did not want to be remotely controlled by others. They were given opportunities to opt for a more unified future, but so far they have not taken them, so we have to do everything we can to keep putting those options on the table, not least through a national unity Government.

The right hon. Gentleman asked about Greece and the prospects for a long-term agreement. I still think that the prospects are quite worrying, because on one hand we have the creditor nations that want to see Greece fulfil its programme, and on the other hand we have a Greek Government who do not seem at the moment to be coming up with reforms that give their creditors confidence. One of the lessons that needs to be learned—the right hon. Gentleman needs to learn this—is that government involves difficult decisions, and the Greeks still have to make difficult decisions. [Interruption.] Yes, he was in government. I remember, because he completely crashed the economy, as a member of the Government who left this country in hopeless amounts of debt.

The right hon. Gentleman asked a very specific question on the Minsk agreement: will there be more sanctions if there is more destabilisation? The answer is yes. We should be prepared to consider more sanctions if the situation deteriorates. The key point about the Minsk agreement is that the difficult decisions for Russia will come at the end of the process, which is why it is so important to keep the sanctions right to the end.

The right hon. Gentleman wants to know why we want to renegotiate in Europe, and I will tell him why: we want to get out of ever-closer union; we do not want that to apply to Britain; we want control of our welfare system; we want safeguards for the single market; we want powers to flow back to Britain. Let me ask him this: if those are the things that we want, what is it that he wants? The answer, when it comes to Europe, is absolutely nothing. He told us that he does not think that Brussels has too much power. He refuses to rule out joining the euro because, as he said, “It depends how long I’m Prime Minister for”, so that is a hopeful message. He has made it clear that he will never give the British people a say in a referendum.

Frankly, I will compare my record on Europe with his party’s every day of the week. They gave away £7 billion of the rebate; we have protected the rebate. They gave away our ability to veto what is not in our national interest; we vetoed a treaty that was not in our national interest. They signed Britain up to being in the euro bail-out fund; we got Britain out of the euro bail-out fund. The truth is that we on the Government side of the House stand up for Britain in Europe and the Labour party just sells us out.

[Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

I commend my right hon. Friend for what he has just said, and for stating unequivocally in his Bloomberg speech that it is our national Parliament that is the root of our democracy, for which people fought and died, but in what specific respects will he repatriate the powers of the British people to govern themselves and return the powers of sovereignty to this Parliament so that we can govern this country as we wish?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. We have already returned a power to Britain by getting out of the bail-out fund. We have returned 100 specific powers as a result of the opt-out on justice and home affairs. I have been very specific that when it comes to the free movement of people, and particularly its interaction with our welfare system, we need powers to be returned to this country. Specifically, I have said that people coming from European Union countries to Britain should not be allowed to claim unemployment benefit, that they should have to leave after six months if they do not have a job, that they should have to pay in for four years before getting anything out of the tax credits system and that they should not be able to send child benefit or other child tax payments to families back home. Those things require serious change in Europe, including treaty change, and that is what we will secure, and what a contrast with the Labour party, which will do absolutely zip.