Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government why paragraphs 7 and 8 of the European Council’s Conclusions of its meeting of 23 and 24 October were excluded from their Statements about that meeting to both Houses of Parliament on 27 October.

Paragraph 7 of the October European Council Conclusions refers to the first of five priority areas (stronger economies with more jobs) of the Strategic Agenda for the Union in Times of Change, the EU’s priorities for the next five years, as agreed by EU Leaders in the June 2014 European Council.
Paragraph 8 focuses on European Council support for concrete policy actions to boost investment, especially the Commission’s proposed €300 billion investment initiative, encouraging full use of all existing and allocated EU resources. The UK successfully pushed for private investment to be a key part of this language. The investment package is currently a policy initiative to be discussed by EU Heads of State at the December European Council. The economic growth and jobs that the package aims to stimulate in the economies of EU Member States is of significant importance to the UK economy.