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Mr. Hain: I am not sure that I will be able to find time for a specific debate. My hon. Friend will have the opportunity to raise the issue in other ways, but I assure him that I will draw his important points to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary.
Rev. Martin Smyth (Belfast, South): The Leader of the House will be aware that there have been discussions about a shadow monitoring commission for Northern Ireland. Can he guide as to whether the Government are planning to introduce legislation in the coming week or in September?
Mr. Hain: There are no plans for the coming week but, as the hon. Gentleman will be aware, we are obviously seized of the importance of Northern Ireland legislation on a number of matters. I will draw the Secretary of State's attention to his question.
Mr. Speaker: I call Mr. Robertson—I am sorry, Mr. Ian Carmichael.
Mr. Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland): Very close, Mr. Speaker. It is Alistair actually. I am delighted to have the opportunity to ask my question.
Can we have a statement before the recess from the Minister responsible for shipping to give the Government's response to reports that we are to import a so-called ghost fleet of 94 former naval ships from the United States for decommissioning on Teesside? Apparently, they will be towed through the Pentland Firth, to the south of my constituency. My constituents wish to know why on earth we are importing these ships from the other side of the world and what steps the Government will take to ensure that these highly
contaminated and dangerous wrecks do not cause the damage that they have the potential to cause to our very precious coastline.
Mr. Hain: Obviously, safety factors are uppermost in the minds of the Government and the authorities when such undertakings are considered. I imagine that the enterprise means that jobs are at stake, and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will consider that as well. I shall draw his specific points to the attention of the Secretary of State, and the Scottish Parliament might want to take an interest as well.
Mr. John Bercow (Buckingham): Further to the Leader of the House's erroneous claim, in response to the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous), that this country has kept control of its national borders, may we have an urgent statement to clarify the situation, because the Minister for Europe's written answer at column 735W on 8 July to a question tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) said that it was essential to scrap the veto and move to qualified majority voting on immigration and asylum policy? The Leader of the House seems to be woefully ignorant of that fact.
Mr. Hain: I always admire the hon. Gentleman's ability to recite facts one after another without consulting his notes.
Mr. Stephen O'Brien (Eddisbury): Answer the question.
Mr. Hain: I am about to. The hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) is confusing border control with having a common asylum policy throughout Europe. Such a policy would enable us to ensure that backmarkers on human trafficking—countries in which the problem arises but that pass the buck to us—take their responsibilities seriously and have procedures for admitting such people. That would mean that we could ensure that if such people cross on to our shores, we could put them back in the European countries where they first landed. Our border controls will remain exactly the same and the hon. Gentleman should not confuse the two issues in such a way.
Economic and Monetary Union
[Relevant document: The Sixth Report from the Treasury Committee, Session 2002–03, HC 187-I and -II, on the UK and the euro.]
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Vernon Coaker.]
1.32 pm
The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Gordon Brown): I want to share with the House the evidence and conclusions contained in the euro assessment. I shall give more detail on measures that are good for Britain and that advance convergence and flexibility: measures on housing, the sale of surplus public sector land; planning, driving up performance; and flexibility, progress on skills, labour market reforms and pay flexibility in the public sector. I want to show not only that sustained convergence and living with euro area interest rates while advancing stability, full employment and the funding of public services is in the national economic interest, but, more generally, that it is in the British national economic interest to be fully engaged and enthusiastic members of the European Union—not to be semi-detached—and to play a full part in equipping a new enlarged Europe to meet global challenges.
I acknowledge that no cause has been more controversial, no issue has been more difficult, and no subject has been more complex for the British people for so long than Britain's relationship with Europe. No issue has attracted more of the House's attention or engaged it in so much scrutiny and debate. However, if the first three phases in our post-war relationship with Europe were our pre-1972 decision not to join, which was wrong, our decision to join yet to be continually unhappy with the terms for the next two decades and, in the wake of the fall of the Berlin wall and the Maastricht treaty, the decision in the early 1990s to stand further apart from Europe, we have now entered a new fourth phase of our relationship. Europe is moving from its often inward-looking and exclusive era as a trade bloc towards a recognition that it must compete globally. That is the context of the decisions that we must take about not only the intergovernmental conference but the euro.
When we joined the then Common Market in 1972, 2 million jobs depended on our trade with Europe, but now 3 million jobs depend on it. We now import £154 billion of goods and services each year from Europe—53 per cent. of our total imports of goods and services—compared with £5 billion in 1972. Compared with £4 billion in 1972, we now export £140 billion of goods and services to Europe each year, which is 52 per cent. of our total exports of goods and services. It is estimated that 750,000 British companies have trading relationships with the rest of Europe. As Europe has advanced from a common market to a single market, 73 per cent. of our investment overseas now goes to European Union countries, compared with less than 14 per cent. before we joined the Common Market. Therefore, adopting a policy that would leave Britain semi-detached from Europe would be a disastrous stance for jobs, business and trade.
Until now, the context in which we have viewed decisions about Europe has been European rather than global. The European Union was the world's first
trading bloc. It was the precursor of the North American Free Trade Agreement, Mercosur, the Association of South East Asian Nations and the other trade blocs. Its role was to organise its rules, to formulate its preferential agreements and to fashion its social dimension and external relations. However, discussion of the euro takes place today in a new global context. We have an enlarged Europe that is moving from the Europe of the trade-bloc era in which it was more protected, sheltered and inward-looking, to a Europe of the global age that cannot avoid intense global competition.
Mr. John Redwood (Wokingham): Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Brown: I shall give way after I have set up the argument.
In 1972, 21 per cent. of the UK's output was traded, and the figure is now 27 per cent. France traded 22 per cent. of its output in 1972 and now trades 26 per cent. Germany's figure was 29 per cent. and is now 33 per cent. Twenty-one per cent. of Europe's output was traded worldwide in 1972. The figure was 30 per cent. in 1990 and is 34 per cent. today.
In this new stage of Europe's history as a union—the global rather than trade-bloc phase—three changes affect our decision on the euro. First, the enlarged Europe has to look outwards. Indeed, during the past 10 years, there has been a tenfold increase in European investment in the USA, and European investment in the USA has been twice American investment in Europe. That means that Europe must recognise that it benefits from partnership rather than rivalry with the USA, and that it must seek job-enhancing trade agreements with the rest of the world, including the USA.
Secondly, the euro decision must be taken, as the intense competition that globalisation brings forces every country to become more competitive. Economic reform is, and must be, the driving force behind Europe's economic agenda. Thirdly, the euro decision is being made as the global competitive challenge demands a greater flexibility in labour markets, thus forcing Europe to redefine its social dimension.
Europe has to form new outward-looking relationships and is being forced to reform economically and socially. That leads me to conclude that those who rule out euro membership, either because they demand a choice between Europe and America or because they believe that Europe does not have the capacity to reform, are misreading the direction of change and the influence that Britain is having, and can have, on the debate about a global Europe, because, after all, Britain was the pioneer of free trade and the first proponent of economic liberalisation—I pay tribute to Conservative Members for their role in that—and the single market. That is the new global context in which we must make our decisions about the euro.
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