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CHURCH COMMISSIONERS
The hon. Member for Middlesbrough, representing the Church Commissioners, was asked--
Church Revenues
30. Mr. Paul Flynn (Newport, West): What is his estimate of the proportion of Church revenues that will be donated by congregations in 2020. [114846]
Mr. Stuart Bell (Second Church Estates Commissioner, representing the Church Commissioners): In 1997, congregations provided approximately 62 per cent. of the Church of England's income. It is the hope and aspiration of the Church that giving by individuals will increase and that they might, on average, give 5 per cent. of their net income by 2020.
Mr. Flynn: Did my hon. Friend read a rather bleak forecast in a recent edition of the Church Times, which said that if current trends in the decline of congregations continued, they would reach nil by 2020? While I congratulate my hon. Friend on the great improvement in the finances of the Church under his stewardship, does he accept that a problem was created by the clergy of the Church of England opting out of the state earnings-related pension scheme, and thus not benefiting from the marvellous far-sighted initiative of a previous Labour Government that is enjoyed by retired clergy of the Church in Wales?
Mr. Bell: My hon. Friend will be interested to know that more people attend church on a Sunday than go to football matches on a Saturday. The Church has been around for 2,000 years; I therefore surmise that it will survive the next 20.
European Council (Lisbon)
3.30 pm
The Prime Minister (Mr. Tony Blair): With your permission, Madam Speaker, I should like to make a statement.
With my right hon. Friends the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, I attended a special meeting of the European Council in Lisbon on 23 and 24 March.
Ever since the Government took office, we have consistently advocated the need for comprehensive economic reform in the European Union. From the first European Council that I attended at Noordwijck, to the launch of the British presidency and since, we have made clear that the central European economic issue for Britain in this Parliament is reform: how we modernise the European social model and how Europe embraces the enterprise agenda and seeks to match the dynamism of the United States, while preserving our commitment to social justice.
The idea of holding a special summit at Lisbon on economic reform was originally put forward as a joint British-Spanish initiative. The Portuguese presidency has been rightly praised for the energetic and thorough way in which it took the issue forward.
The challenge that faces Europe today is fundamental. In many aspects of the new knowledge economy, the United States has established a clear lead. Seventy per cent. of all electronic commerce business in the world is conducted in the US; less than 20 per cent. in Europe. Despite the gathering strength of Europe's economic recovery and the advances that we have made in some key areas--for example, mobile telephones--15 million European men and women are without jobs.
The Council marks a sea change in European economic thinking. It points Europe in a new direction--away from heavy-handed intervention and regulation, towards a new approach based on enterprise, innovation and competition. As part of that fundamental reorientation of economic policy, the Council agreed a series of concrete measures with clear deadlines, including: rapid agreement this year on an effective legal framework for e-commerce in the EU; a fully liberalised and competitive telecoms market by the end of the next year; access to the internet for all schools by 2001; electronic access to the main basic public services by 2003; the introduction of a European diploma for basic information technology skills; a Community-wide patent by the end of 2001, making European patent protection as simple, inexpensive and comprehensive as it is anywhere in the world; and Government and Community procurement to be done fully online by 2003.
The need for reform is not confined to the so-called new economy. We agreed at Lisbon on the need for urgent measures to make the European economy as a whole more competitive, flexible and dynamic.
To support that objective, the Council reached the following conclusions: there must be faster liberalisation of previously protected sectors like gas, electricity and transport; there should be further support for European research and development, with the European investment bank making an additional 1 billion euro available for venture capital to support small businesses over the next
three years; there should be a general reduction in the level of state aids throughout the Union; the financial services action plan should be implemented in full by 2005, with earlier progress in priority areas--for example, the introduction of a single prospectus for companies raising capital across the EU and the elimination of barriers to investment in pension funds. The Council also agreed that a European charter for small firms should be developed to clear the obstacles to the growth of small businesses.On those and other matters, we agreed to benchmark each member state's performance and progress not only against other countries in Europe but, when appropriate, against the best in the world.
We also agreed that EU social policy must be modernised to respond to changing employment patterns, increasing life expectancy and deepening social exclusion.
Again, the European Council agreed on a number of specific measures to take the new agenda forward. We agreed action to combat social exclusion, with member states setting targets on specific matters such as unemployment, youth unemployment, overall employment and child poverty. We agreed to halve by 2010 the number of 18-to-24-year-olds excluded from the labour market because of low educational qualifications. We finally opened up the issue of the long-term sustainability of member states' pension systems and the need to reform them across the European Union. We agreed to establish a new Europewide database on jobs and learning opportunities. We agreed to put lifelong learning at the centre of job creation and to monitor each member state's progress against a series of agreed aims. We also agreed to improve equal opportunities, to increase the provision of child care and to promote greater flexibility in the management of working time.
Each year, the European Council will now meet to examine progress and agree further action specifically on economic reform.
The Lisbon European Council represents a turning point in Europe's approach to economic and social policy. With a sound macro-economic framework in place and the euro safely introduced, the concrete actions agreed at the Council should help to deliver an increase in the European Union employment rate over the next 10 years, from an average of some 61 per cent. today to something close to 70 per cent. I have no doubt that that is achievable. In the last three years, we have created more than 800,000 jobs in Britain. In Spain, there have been more than 1 million new jobs. In France, too, employment has risen by over 800,000 in the last three years, which, in part, reflects new measures to cut the cost of labour.
Above all, the European Council agreed that, once again in Europe, we can seriously contemplate a return to full employment. That post-war goal, achieved 30 or 40 years ago but then abandoned, is back on the agenda, and quite right too--each citizen unemployed is a resource wasted. We have had the courage to recognise that the aspiration cannot be met unless we are prepared to make the fundamental reforms that are necessary to equip our countries for the modern age--for a 21st century economy. The true significance of Lisbon lies in the combining of traditional aims and values with modern means and reforms.
We also had a full discussion of the situation in the Balkans, including the continuing problems in Kosovo and Montenegro. We agreed that the countries of the
region needed to be brought more into the European mainstream, and committed ourselves to enhancing economic assistance through, among other things, early trade liberalisation. The Lisbon Council recognised the immense progress made since the Kosovo conflict began a year ago, but agreed that a more coherent approach on the part of the international community was needed. We asked the Council's Secretary-General, Javier Solana, and the European Commission to present early recommendations on how to strengthen the impact of the European contribution, and enhance co-ordination of the overall international effort. We believe that that will enable Mr. Solana and Chris Patten to promote a more coherent international strategy for Kosovo and the region.Finally, we discussed relations with Russia on the eve of the presidential elections, agreeing on the need for a full partnership between the European Union and Russia and emphasising again our concerns about the situation in Chechnya. I spoke to President Putin this morning to congratulate him on his emphatic election victory. He was very conscious of the weight of responsibility on his shoulders, both to restore order and democracy in Chechnya and to rebuild the Russian economy.
The Lisbon summit was highly successful. By getting our way in Europe, we are indeed standing up for Britain's economic interests. Making Europe more dynamic benefits Britain. More competition in Europe means new markets for British business; more enterprise in Europe means more jobs in Britain; more electronic commerce means more opportunities for British companies; more jobs, cheaper goods and better access to the internet are good for Britain.
Once again, constructive engagement has been shown to be the right policy for Britain and for Europe.
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