| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Madam Speaker: Order. I would be obliged if hon. Members who are conducting running commentaries would desist.
The Prime Minister: It would be better if their running commentaries made any sense.
The way to provide social protection today is not more and more regulation or high business costs and taxes; it is through making our work force highly adaptable, more employable and better skilled, encouraging the development of technology, promoting small businesses and making our welfare systems help people off benefit and into work, with specific measures to combat social exclusion. We need a new social model for a new European reality.
I want a Britain strong, economically disciplined, with boom and bust eradicated, flexible, competitive and dynamic. I want us in a Europe that at best is moving
firmly in the same direction, rather than trying to hold us back. That is a vision that lets us adapt the European social model to the new realities of global commerce; a vision that binds the EU and America closer together and lets us learn from one another.
We have stated today as a matter of Government policy that in principle Britain should join a successful single currency. That principle is real. The practical preparations that we have set out are real. The conditions--necessary so that we proceed with caution, with common sense and in our own interests--are real. We have set out a vision of Europe's future.
We have a vision, but it is a vision that is practical. We should have confidence in Britain, both in our vision and our pragmatism. I commend the statement to the House.
Mr. William Hague (Richmond, Yorks):
Many of us have listened to many statements, but never have we heard such a long list of cliches and verbiage accompanied by so little information.
It was all so simple for the Prime Minister before the last election. Perhaps he recalls his article in The Sun in April 1997, which appeared under the headline,
The Prime Minister must know that, if Britain joins the single currency, we risk being unable to run the British economy in the interests of British business. We also risk fundamental political powers--such as the power to tax and spend--being transferred away from democratically accountable British Governments. He must know that there is no sign of the British economy becoming permanently convergent with continental economies. The evidence that he just claimed to give could be equally given for the dollar, as for the euro. That is one of the preconditions that he himself has set for joining the euro.
The Treasury's own study of the economic tests states that the UK economy has become increasingly out of step with Germany and more synchronised with the United States. The document says that, if the UK were to enter monetary union,
Why are there no answers today from the Prime Minister to those fundamental questions? Is it not foolish to embark on a changeover plan without the faintest clue
about how the necessary convergence of the economies is to be achieved in the first place? Is it not foolish to do so without knowing why we should want to converge with economies in which one in eight people is out of work in any case?
The Prime Minister has given a long statement without being specific in any way about the costs involved. He referred vaguely in the middle of his statement to tens of millions of pounds of public money. Why will he not say how much money will be spent in the public sector that could have been spent on the education, health and public services that he said he would provide?
Why do the accompanying documents--which I have just seen on coming to the House--give no clue as to what is involved for the private sector? There are two pages about what it means for a corner shop under the heading, "Case Study : A Corner Shop". It begins:
What use will the document be to businesses? Are not tens of millions of pounds a huge amount for taxpayers and businesses to pay before such fundamental questions are answered? Does not the Prime Minister recognise that most businesses in the country are small and that the thousands of small businesses represented by the Federation of Small Businesses are against joining the euro and will not be persuaded unless they can see greater economic advantage?
Unless the public have decided to join, they should not be forced to spend their hard-earned money on a changeover plan. Is not the money really being spent so that the Prime Minister can show that he is doing his best to sign us up to the euro, parading in front of EU Councils as the man who would join tomorrow if only the stubborn electorate would allow him? Are not the tens of millions of pounds involved a high price to pay for his vanity?
Does not the Maastricht treaty require countries preparing to join the euro to shadow it for at least two years--not to join the exchange rate mechanism, but to shadow the euro? The Prime Minister spent 20 minutes talking about preparing to join without saying a word about the most important thing that one has to do if one wants to join.
Does the Prime Minister have any plans to shadow the euro before the next general election, with all that that means for running our economy according to conditions in other countries rather than in our own? If so, he should come clean now; and, if not, why do we need a changeover plan in the meantime? Why has he produced a changeover plan that talks about computer software and cash registers but is unable to say if or when the Government will do the most important thing?
This morning, the Prime Minister's press secretary claimed that the statement was about giving the country a choice. As he was briefing on the statement several hours in advance, it is a wonder that the Home Secretary has
not slapped an injunction on him by now. Is it not the case that, instead of giving people a choice, the national changeover plan is part of a national handover plan, handing over our economic and political freedoms before we have even seen whether the single currency works for anyone, let alone for this country?
The Prime Minister wants to bounce the British people into joining the euro by spending tens of millions of pounds of their money on convincing them that it is inevitable. He says that it is not inevitable, but this whole process is designed to make it so. He wants to change the cash registers, computers and banking systems so that he can turn round and tell the British people that they have no choice but to change their currency.
Does this not all add up to a strategy of pretending to give people a choice while steadily denying and diminishing that choice? Is it not an attempt to lull people into thinking that a nation that has decided its own destiny for 1,000 years is no longer fit to do so? The Prime Minister has built his recent career on being all things to all people and reassuringly facing in one direction while heading off in another. That is the trick that he has perfected, and he has now surpassed himself: while he trumpets his love for the pound, his love for the euro is the love that dare not speak its name.
Would not a Prime Minister who really wanted to give the country a choice set out a viable alternative and show the people that there is another option and that we can choose to make a success of our own currency, as part of the European Union, trading in the euro as we trade in the dollar, in Europe but not run by Europe? Should not he make it clear that for the sixth largest economy in the world to have its own currency is a perfectly viable proposition and set out a strategy for how Britain can take the fullest advantage and make the most of the freedoms and opportunities of keeping the pound?
The Prime Minister does not want to develop such a strategy. He wants people to believe that the decision is made, that entry is inevitable and that the decision of the British people is a formality. I believe that he will find that he is very much mistaken.
The Prime Minister:
At least the right hon. Gentleman has made it clear that he is opposed to a single currency for good, for ever.
"My love for £. Exclusive by Tony Blair.
He admitted:
Tony Blair last night declared for the first time he loves the pound."
"'I know exactly what the British people feel when they see the Queen's head on a £10 note. I feel it too.'"
[Interruption.] He did not think it was a joke at the time. There were, he said,
"emotional issues involved in the single currency",
and he spoke about his passion for the pound. Has it not been a remarkably short journey from this love of the pound to the plan that he is announcing today to adopt the euro and abolish the pound? Has not the Prime Minister today committed the country to a course of action that is unnecessary, expensive and time consuming, and for which the British voters have never given their consent?
"the loss of domestic monetary policy and the lack of exchange rate freedom could make the UK cycle more volatile."
That means more boom and bust--the right hon. Gentleman ought to be aware of that, if anybody is.
"A small corner shop sells a variety of groceries and household supplies."
It will be mightily pleased to hear that. The document continues:
"on a given date the shop could simply switch over from giving change in sterling to giving change in euros."
It does not say how much that will cost. The only figure mentioned in the whole two pages on a corner shop is £1.99, on the basis that, if we convert from pounds into euros, the shop might not charge things at £1.99 any more.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |