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European Global Navigation Satellite System

There are many things that the EU could do very well. It could do free trade well. Unfortunately, it does not. It could do lighter regulation. It could do co-operation much better. There are many things that we hope and pray the EU can be reformed to do very much better, but with the best will in the world, it will find it very difficult to provide a global satellite positioning system for free, which is what the Americans provide for us. There is a saying about gift horses and looking them in the mouth. We have a gift horse and we are looking it in the mouth. We do not need to pay for our own gift horse when we have been given this gift by the United States for the world to enjoy. It is not anti-European. I am waiting for the proponents of the system to demonstrate that there is some commercial logic behind it, which is what I was promised in European Standing Committee B. To pay credit to the Government, they did say that they would not go ahead with this unless there was a commercial logic to it. I put it to them that there is no commercial logic to this system. I want to get back to the crucial opening point that I made, which is that this is a microcosm of what is wrong with the Government’s European policy. We all know that the Minister is sitting on the Treasury Bench is because the Foreign Office has decided that the Department of Transport must not veto the project.