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European Council

First, let me share with the right hon. Gentleman our sympathies, as I mentioned earlier, for those families whose loved ones have died in Afghanistan, and our sympathies for the Russian people as they face a terrorist incident of very substantial proportions today. Let me also agree with the right hon. Gentleman that climate change is an important issue that Europe and the rest of the world must continue to address, that we must move forward on the Copenhagen summit, and that we must get a worldwide framework for a climate change agreement. He asks that renewables should be at a higher level in this country, and I agree with him that we should have higher investment in renewables. That is why we are making plans for public investment in renewables at the same time as the Conservatives oppose them. If I may say so, that is why we are asking councils to approve wind farms, while just about every Conservative council is trying to hold back that policy. The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the issue of a levy on financial transactions, which is something that we have been proposing for some time. Originally, the Conservatives opposed it; then they said they would support if it was at a multilateral level; then they said they would support it even if it was not done multilaterally; and then they retreated into saying that they would support it if it was multilateral. That is about a policy a day, but it is the same policy that is being reinterpreted every day. That is the reason that people have very little trust in Conservative economic policy. I come now to the European Council discussions on the economy. I just have to say this: why does the Conservative party want to attack the European Union all the time? Three million jobs depend on our European membership, more than 50 per cent. of our trade depends on Europe, and 750,000 companies depend on Europe, so why does the right hon. Gentleman want to go to the European Council—if ever he were elected—to say that he wants to renegotiate our treaties in respect of membership of the European Union? Why does he want to repatriate the social chapter and employment legislation to Britain? Why does he threaten that he is going to have a sovereignty Act for this Parliament to suggest that the law affecting the European Union could somehow be modified and amended by doing so? Why does he resist the European advice that we should work together so that we do not put the recovery at risk? The announcement by the Conservative party today was first to withdraw £7.5 billion from the economy this year—[Interruption.] The right hon. Gentleman says that it is good to hear that, but he also wants to withdraw the support that is necessary for the economy to have a sustained recovery. The first thing that the Conservatives have done today is make it more difficult for us to retain the jobs, businesses and industrial infrastructure that are necessary, despite the fact that every bit of advice that we are getting—and that he is getting—is that we must maintain the investment necessary for recovery. The Conservatives must explain why, at a time when people are worried about the recovery, they wish to withdraw support for the recovery. The second thing that they have got to explain is their panic measure today on national insurance—[Interruption.]...The policy of the Government is to make sure that we have a sustained economic recovery; the Conservative party policy, I am afraid, would put that recovery at risk. Then the Conservatives are going to spend nearly £30 billion on tax cuts in the next five years, which puts front-line public services at risk. People will understand that these panic measures by the Conservatives will not help a recovery, that they will mean public spending cuts and that they will put sustained investment in our economy at risk. We are the party that believes in Europe: they are the party opposed to Europe. We can see that if the Conservative party had ever been willing to change, it would have changed on Europe. It has not changed on Europe, and it has not changed on anything else.