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European Council

My Lords, I will come to the charge sheet in a moment. Our declining influence has flowed from 12 years of policies that have been commended to the House by this Government. We signed the Social Chapter for no gain in return. We gave up our budget rebate for nothing in return. We broke our promise of a referendum on the EU treaty, yet again for nothing in return. The Prime Minister skulked on the fringes of this summit. Perhaps, before being so censorious about the policy of this party, his party might reflect on some of the defects of its own. The Financial Times reported that the Prime Minister left a meeting of his fellow socialists "in a foul mood". The Swedish presidency made some welcome progress in promoting action on climate change, something to which the Lisbon treaty is totally irrelevant. We welcome the commitments on carbon reductions that were repeated yet again at the summit, but where, on the 80 per cent to 95 per cent emission reduction target by 2050, did the UK Government commit us? Discussing a €100 billion annual payment to developing countries by 2020, Mr Barroso said that EU payments should be between €22 billion and €50 billion a year by that year. How much of that will be paid by the UK? What firm figure did our Prime Minister put on the table? The Prime Minister told a press conference that he had agreed a target of 10 million new jobs in Europe by 2014. However, is the problem in Britain not that unemployment is now far higher than it was in 1997, with 5 million people on out-of-work benefits, the highest youth unemployment in Europe and the highest proportion of children growing up in homes where no one works? Is it not therefore high time that we had a Government in this country who addressed the plight of the poor that this Government’s policies have left behind? With the presidency country Sweden, France, Germany and others out of recession while the UK economy still contracts, how can a Prime Minister who boasts that Britain is leading the world out of recession hope to be taken seriously? The Council conclusions promote a so-called "complete package" on the microsupervision of financial institutions. It is no comment on the EU but a blunt fact of international finance that nothing would give more pleasure to financial circles in Paris and Frankfurt than seeing the world’s greatest financial centre outside the US bound in red tape. Will the Minister assure the House in the most unequivocal terms that the Government reject EU microsupervision and that they will not buy credit in Brussels by selling the independence and competitiveness of the City of London? It would be a dereliction of duty if they let that happen. Finally, will the noble Baroness tell us whether the UK Government are 100 per cent behind Tony Blair as president of Europe? Who in Britain will have a say on Tony Blair or indeed, anyone else as president—perhaps two, three or maybe even a dozen? It is unacceptable to have an unpopular, unelected president imposed on the British people under a treaty on which, thanks to shameful betrayal of their election promises by both the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats, no one was allowed to vote? Whether or not the Lisbon Treaty is completed by the year end, never again will a Conservative Government allow such major transfers of power to be approved without a referendum. There are plenty of good UK candidates whom we could all advance and support; there are even some that the British people might willingly accept; but Tony Blair is not one of them. Perhaps we can content ourselves with this: ever since the Prime Minister backed Mr Blair with such fired-up enthusiasm, his campaign has hit the rocks. On this one issue, on this one occasion, we may take comfort in the hopeless lack of influence this Prime Minister now wields.