---

European Union (Amendment) Bill

I have some sympathy with the position set out by my hon. Friend the Member for Hemsworth (Jon Trickett), but I do not see that as necessarily contradictory. However, I should be interested to hear the hon. Gentleman's views on this. Through the rules governing the internal market, one can have levelling up, but it is too often assumed that there will instead be a levelling down, which is not what I want. I want levelling up, so that we can have free and open competition, but within a framework, so that we do not have, literally and metaphorically, ““beggar thy neighbour”” downwards competition, but instead move up together. British companies can compete by having good standards here, but also good standards on the continent.