European Union Bill

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, which is why the transfer of power, if not of competence, is such a crucial issue and why we need to engage in a public debate at this very moment about how far this should go. I hasten to stress to the House—particularly to my critics, who like to misconstrue what I say—that I wish our partners every success and prosperity with their single currency. I know that if that is the way they choose to run their economies, it is in our interests for it to work. We want them to be happier and more prosperous, and we like to benefit from trading with them, just as they like selling us a lot of their products. My worry is that in the process of our enthusiasm for that, we will draw in Britain—with her rather stretched budgets, even after the changes that the Government have rightly and wisely made—at a time when we do not have the financial strength to go to the aid of all these other euroland countries that are in some difficulty under the euro scheme. I am a critic of the Irish loan. Of course I do not want to see the Irish economy go down, but I do not happen to think that lending the country lots of money at that juncture, as a result of a crisis deliberately created by the European Central Bank, was a terribly good way to behave. I do not believe that if Britain had declined to make some money available, the Irish loan would not have been negotiated. It would have been negotiated quite successfully by the architects of it—the powers behind the European Central Bank, who literally decided to withdraw funds from the Irish banks at a difficult time and made that decision public, thereby precipitating the crisis. We were engaged in a refinancing package for the European Central Bank. I think we should be told the truth; we should be told why it was a good idea for a country that rightly stayed out of the euro because it did not want the financial risk and hassle, to be drawn into helping finance the consequences of an ill-judged currency without a political union. A successful currency needs a sovereign to love it and support it. That is why the sovereign's face traditionally appears on the coinage and why there has to be a symbol to show that the whole weight of legal and economic authority stands behind a currency. If Europe is to have a successful euro, she needs a sovereign. I do not want my country to be part of the euro, and I think that around 80% of the British people agree with me. I think that even Opposition Members temporarily agree with me on this issue; they are not rushing to say that now is a good time to join the euro. We should be open and honest with the British people and say, ““We wish the euro well””. We are doing it a great favour by not trying to join it—we would have been an over-mighty subject in it, which might even had led to it toppling earlier—and we are not currently in a financial position to make all the transfer payments available that are necessary for full members of a single currency area. The House needs to understand that while we are debating some abstruse language and pledging this and future Governments to hold a referendum on treaties unknown about competences unspecified, a potentially massive transfer of power is under way yet again from the member states to the centre. There has to be; the thing cannot work without more central power behind the banks and the economic institutions. The British Government say that they will accept a treaty extending the centralising powers in the economic sphere because the penalties on these will not apply to the UK Government. Well, I am delighted that the penalties will not apply, but I see no reason why the requirements should apply either, because we are not part of the euro. We should offer our support for a strengthening of economic governance for the euro area alone and make it clear that all the regulations and the directives apply only to that area. I think that my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary got it wrong when he said that none of these apply to Britain; several of them do, although without the ultimate penalties. There could be other penalties, incidentally, which might apply to Britain. When we surrender our veto and allow this treaty to go through on that condition—that it applies only to euroland—we should say that we want something back. We should seek to establish that we believe the European Union already has too much power and that we want something back. Do we want our fisheries back; do we want control over our borders back; do we want control over elements of taxation that have already gone to Europe through common taxation and a series of court judgments? Power is seeping away as we meet. A massive debate is under way. Will the Government please take this Parliament and the British people into their confidence? Will they take us seriously? Will they give us an adult debate on the reality rather than this show Bill?