| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Mrs. Currie: It is not criteria, but criterion.
Mr. Cook: I said criteria rather than criterion.
Mrs. Currie: No, it should be criterion.
Mr. Cook: In the spirit of unity, I will compromise: the second of our criteria is whether the White Paper equips the European Union to face the challenges of the 21st century. According to that measure, the White Paper is a glorious missed opportunity. It gives us a comprehensive tour of the footnotes of diplomacy, and even finds a place for a paragraph on the future development of comitology.
Mr. Cash: Does the hon. Gentleman agree with the hon. Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown), the Opposition spokesman on the economy, who says that the Labour party is committed to managed exchange rates and monetary union? Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, by saying that, his hon. Friend guarantees that the Labour party, if ever if were to achieve government, would be incapable of delivering its promises on all those matters relating to public expenditure that fall within the convergence criteria, including health, education and the attainment of jobs?
Mr. Cook: Of course I agree with my economic colleague. We share a place in the shadow Cabinet, and it is a condition of being there that we agree. Of course we agree fully and absolutely on every point relating to Europe. [Interruption.] If I may say so to the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Cash), the parent text of our policy on monetary union was debated at our party conference three years ago. It has remained consistent since then and has stood the test of time much better than anything put forward by the Government. Both my Treasury colleagues and I are united in our commitment that a single currency must first require convergence of Britain's real economic performance with that of the continent.
Mr. Marlow: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Cook: I will give way to the hon. Gentleman if he will strike a bargain kindly not to interrupt me from a sedentary position once I have allowed him to intervene.
Mr. Marlow: I will keep that side of the bargain. The hon. Gentleman has referred to the single currency.
My right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has said that he thinks that the probability that the single currency will go ahead is 60:40. What is the hon. Gentleman's prediction? Is it more likely to happen if the Labour party forms the next Government or the Conservative party forms the next Government? Perhaps he can give a straight answer to a straight question.
Mr. Cook: The answer to the hon. Gentleman's first point is that--let me take the second point first. [Interruption.] It seems sensible to work backwards. On the hon. Gentleman's second point, I am absolutely confident that the advent of a Labour Government will make it vastly more likely that Britain will achieve convergence according to real economic performance with the continent. In that happy event, we will increase the prospects for Britain joining a single currency. I must say to the hon. Gentleman--
Mr. Cook: I will give way in a moment to my right hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore). Although I hope that the hon. Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow) will remain sedentary and silent during the rest of my speech, I think that the House must address the serious issues about the single currency which have been dodged by the White Paper.
Mr. Shore: I was rather alarmed by what my hon. Friend said a moment ago. I certainly expect and hope that a Labour Government will have success in the real economy, but is he implying that if, for whatever period, we did converge with other and, on the whole, more successful economies than our own, we would still find ourselves bound by the existing convergence criteria? That would involve restrictions on the borrowing requirement of a Labour Government and the transfer of the Bank of England into a subsidiary or a branch of the European central bank, and would require us to rejoin the exchange rate mechanism. Surely my hon. Friend is not even contemplating such nonsense.
Mr. Cook: I must tell my right hon. Friend that we have repeatedly criticised the very convergence criteria that he listed. One of the reasons we have pressed the Government to support the Swedish proposal to put a commitment to employment into the Maastricht treaty is all the other convergence criteria that have already been accepted. The Foreign Secretary said in his speech--
Mr. Duncan Smith: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Cook: No. I have already given way to the hon. Gentleman.
The Foreign Secretary said that putting a commitment to employment into a treaty did not guarantee that one would achieve the increase in employment. I have a lot of sympathy with the Foreign Secretary's obvious logic on that point, but the Government agreed at Maastricht to
put into the treaty targets on inflation, interest rates and Government deficits. The case for the Swedish commitment to employment as a target for the European Union is precisely that, if it is missing from that treaty, one has an unbalanced set of objectives for economic management within the European Union.
Mr. Barry Legg (Milton Keynes, South-West):
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Cook:
It is good of the hon. Gentleman to seek to help me, but I intend to return to my speech.
As I said earlier, the White Paper fails to tackle the real challenges facing the European Union in the 21st century. The Foreign Secretary said in his speech that enlargement was a central issue facing the European Union. In his White Paper, however, enlargement is relegated to a single paragraph in the introduction. I believe that enlargement is a much more urgent and central mission facing the European Union than suggested by the attention that it receives in the White Paper.
It is important that the European Union opens its doors to the new democracies of central and eastern Europe to provide stability in that region and to share with those countries our experience that bringing down barriers to trade provides a much better guarantee of security than putting up borders between us. I agree with the Government's objectives in their introduction, but I would have been more impressed with their commitment to enlargement if any consideration of it had surfaced anywhere else in the substance of the document that follows.
Mr. Christopher Gill (Ludlow):
Obviously, we are interested in the Labour party's views on enlargement. However, the hon. Gentleman did not quite answer the last question from his right hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore). Is the hon. Gentleman committing his party to renegotiating the treaty? If he is, this would be an appropriate time to spell it out so that hon. Members are in no doubt.
Mr. Cook:
The hon. Gentleman need be in no doubt. The Labour party has repeatedly stressed its position for three years: we will not enter a single currency unless and until we have achieved convergence of real economic performance. There can be no doubt in the mind of the hon. Member--or in the mind of any other listener--as to the Labour party's position, because it has been repeatedly stated from the Dispatch Box by every member of the shadow Cabinet who has spoken on the subject.
I return to the issue of enlargement.
Mr. Tony Benn (Chesterfield):
Will my hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Cook:
Of course I shall give way to my right hon. Friend. However, I was about to say that the intervention of the hon. Member for Ludlow (Mr. Gill) showed the true lack of commitment to enlargement on the Conservative Benches. No Government Members wished to intervene in relation to enlargement; they intervened in relation to a single currency.
Mr. Benn:
Given what my hon. Friend said about better convergence criteria--including employment and a more successful economy under a Labour Government--when it is achieved, what role will the British people have in the decision? My colleagues on the Front Bench are in favour of a referendum on Scottish devolution, in favour of a referendum north and south in Ireland and in favour of a referendum on proportional representation. This decision is fundamental. Will my hon. Friend give us a clear assurance that such a decision could be taken only after the consent of the British people at a referendum?
Mr. Cook:
Yes, I give my right hon. Friend that commitment--it has been repeatedly stated by our leader. We believe that Britain could enter a single currency only with the consent of the British people. [Hon. Members: "Ah!"] That is what my right hon. Friend asked, with the greatest of respect. If there is a general election in which there is a fair choice--choice would have to be available to the British public--that might be one way of establishing the consent of the British public for a single currency.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |