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7.45 pm

There is little sign from the plan that the Government understand the demands of business. It talks blithely of how small businesses may have to take on extra staff to help the elderly to meet the challenge of the changeover, but small businesses cannot afford to take on more staff--certainly not with the cost and complexity of employing people increasing so rapidly under this Government. That is one reason why businesses are small.

The document's open advocacy of EMU is unfeigned. Talking, supposedly dispassionately, about the engineering sector, it says that

"50 per cent. of all engineering exports are to the EU. Historically, the sector has been vulnerable to fluctuations in the value of sterling."

What does that have to do with the changeover? The answer is nothing; it is just a party political broadcast on a supposed benefit of EMU. It is quite clear that, if the national changeover plan--which pretends to have foresight of which Nostradamus would have been proud--cannot avoid being political, we have every right to question the latest Government proposal to help to drag the United Kingdom into the single currency.

Mr. Leslie: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Maude: No, I shall make some progress now.

It is time that the Government started to tell the truth about the real costs of joining the single currency. According to one survey, the real costs for businesses of changing are turning out to be 10 times higher than the European Commission predicted. That is surprising. We believe that it is absolutely right that the Government should account for their own spending and should come clean about what those costs will amount to and what the money will be spent on. It is also time that the Government came clean about some of the constitutional issues involved in the decision.

Mr. Geraint Davies: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Maude: I shall give the hon. Gentleman another chance.

Mr. Davies: As I understand it, the right hon. Gentleman's position is to keep his options open and,

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at some point in the future, he could conceivably put to the British people the question whether to join the single currency. Would it be wise to make some preparations for the contingency of joining or should we put the question to the British people with no hope of business and the public sector being prepared for the tremendous changes that we might see? Would he let the British public down in such a way or would he prepare?

Mr. Maude: The hon. Gentleman is clearly the sort of chap who starts building a house before he has even applied for planning permission. It is mad to start spending money on an eventuality that the Prime Minister himself admits people do not want to happen and which cannot happen unless most people agree in a referendum that it should. Even the Government admit that, so it is crazy to start wasting money, which is scarce. The public services and businesses need it to create new products, services, jobs and wealth, but the Government think that it is fine to spend in such a way.

If the hon. Member for Croydon, Central looks at the time lines set out in the document, he will see that there is a considerable period between a decision being made in a referendum and the United Kingdom joining.

Mr. Davies: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Maude: No, because plenty of other hon. Members want to speak in the debate. I have given way a great many times and I want to make progress. The fact is--[Interruption.]

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I cannot allow the hon. Member for Croydon, Central (Mr. Davies) to shout across the Chamber.

Mr. Maude: If the Government do not want to call a referendum to test public opinion, they should not be asking the House of Commons to agree to spend taxpayers' money, either on departmental preparations or on the changeover plan. Our proposal offers a simple precaution: the Commissioners of the Revenue and of the Customs should account for every penny that they spend to get ready for EMU every six months, as long as the position remains as it is. On such a controversial political issue, is it not right that taxpayers should have the right to know in detail how much of their money is being spent on the project--in arrears, at any rate? If the Government are not honest enough to set that out in advance--when they are asking for the money to be spent--we should know how much is being spent on this project, which most people do not want. Surely that is part and parcel of proper scrutiny in a parliamentary democracy.

In an age in which it is claimed that government have learned some lessons from business, it is surely right that the Government should set themselves some budgetary limits.

There is a good reason why the Government want to spend so much public money so far in advance of a referendum. They want to prepare to scrap the pound and drag Britain into the euro by stealth. They want to sap opposition to their plans through a vast state-sponsored spendathon, and to spend so much taxpayers' money that a headlong rush into EMU becomes the only plausible option. That is arbitrary government, not parliamentary

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government. That is why we have opposed, and will continue to oppose, the national changeover plan as a ploy dressed up in the language of prudence.

We shall continue to press the Government to sign up to the Neill report, which is of direct relevance to these provisions. They have shown a remarkable reluctance to sign up to the recommendations of Lord Neill and his committee. We should remind the House of one of his principal conclusions. The committee said:

"The Government of the day in future referendums should, as a Government, remain neutral, and should not distribute at public expense"--

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The matters that the right hon. Gentleman is raising are wide of his amendment. He should get back to the amendment.

Mr. Maude: I shall move on to my final remarks.

There is a direct parallel with the Neill committee's recommendation. The Government are spending money without parliamentary authority to make the drive towards scrapping the pound inevitable. It is wrong for the Government to be involved in the campaign using taxpayers' money, as they have done. It is wrong from them, in this clause, to spend taxpayers' money, which will be utterly unproductive if the British people decide that they do not want to go into EMU.

The Government want the so-called national changeover plan to be a national handover plan. We oppose the sleight of hand that goads business into spending money on something on which the Government will not risk their popularity. Their leadership on the single currency is leadership from behind. Proper accountability is the responsibility of any democratic Parliament, especially the House of Commons.

The amendment guarantees proper scrutiny, and is in line with the conclusions of the Neill committee, on which the Government have promised they will act. I commend it to the House.

Dr. Cable: I am a little mystified about the purpose of the debate. We have been given a half-baked analysis of EMU--a few throwaway lines about the problems that it presents--and an equally half-baked analysis of the scrutiny process and the constitutional issues. We are not focusing on either subject properly. There is a genuine issue of constitutionality in relation to the preparations, and it should be dealt with openly and transparently.

When we debated this matter in Committee, the shadow Chief Secretary raised some technical points about the constitutional nature of expenditure commitments. As I am not a constitutional lawyer, I do not know whether he was right or wrong. The shadow Chancellor did not persist with those points. I do not know whether it was because they have been answered, but we need to focus on that aspect. We need a proper analysis of the constitutional position, and that is why I surprisingly supported the request of the hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash), among others, for a constitutional White Paper dealing with EMU in general and preparations in particular.

It is quite wrong for the Shadow Chancellor, to say that there is no mechanism for scrutinising this expenditure. As has already been said, the National Audit Office, the

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Select Committee on the Treasury, European Standing Committees and the Chancellor of the Exchequer's committee on EMU preparation, on which I sit and which has been convened precisely for that matter, exist for that purpose. I hate to remind members of the Conservative Front Bench that they were invited to sit on that committee. They procrastinated for three months: they put forward a name and then withdrew it. That committee is now meeting, and it has been fruitful.

Mr. Maude: Our position has been misrepresented before. When that Committee was being set up, we ascertained that it would not be involved in preparations for Britain to scrap the pound and to join the euro, and would be concerned solely with preparations for Britain to deal with the euro from outside while retaining its own currency. We thought that function wholly appropriate, so we nominated someone for the committee. However, we do not want to be involved in a process that we think quite improper until the British people have decided that they want to join the single currency. That is the time at which preparations should be made. One does not wheel the wagon half way across the river before asking the passengers whether they want to get to the other side.

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