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European Union Economic Governance

The Minister himself said that any information about the economy that was needed could be found by googling it, and there is also the Library note on economic indicators, which I use regularly. All the information is there—for example, in the Budget statements and so on—and we do not need to provide much more than that. There is masses of public information. We do not need to have it in regulations. It can be provided as a matter of course. We must put down a marker for the European Union saying that we will not go this far, and that we do not want changes that show political creep or gradual encroachment of the European Union into British sovereignty over our own economy, going beyond the treaties. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell) about the nonsense of the eurozone and the economic arrangements that it entails. There is a reference to ““surveillance of macroeconomic imbalances””, but the trade imbalance that I focused on earlier in the debate is serious. We have a massive trade deficit with the rest of the European Union, particularly Germany, which sustains a massive trade surplus. Will the European Union focus on that imbalance? In 1944, Keynes said that countries running massive trade surpluses should be required to appreciate their currencies to bring them into line. Will that be suggested to Germany? That cannot happen because Germany is in the eurozone, and all those other countries that cannot compete and cannot inflate at a greater rate are having severe difficulties, which are becoming worse year by year. Will that imbalance be addressed? When it is, I will start to take the European Union a little more seriously on economic matters. I have probably said enough. I intend to vote against the motion, and I hope that the Government will challenge the European Union to make the wording of its documentation right and acceptable to the United Kingdom.