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European Council

Let me first thank the right hon. Gentleman for what he said about my constituency chairman, Christopher Shale. Some people say that in politics there are no real friendships, but I think that that is completely untrue. Many of us in the House become extremely close to people who work very hard in our constituencies to help us. Christopher was one of those people, and he will be missed by my family and me and by many, many people in west Oxfordshire. As the right hon. Gentleman said, this might be a moment for us to reflect on the fact that, while we all consider what we are doing in this place to be public service, the work done by people who toil very hard in political parties up and down the country is also a form of public service, which I think should be recognised and praised as well. I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his support in regard to Libya. He asked about post-conflict planning. We are doing a huge amount of work there, not least by the stabilisation team that we sent to Benghazi. The right hon. Gentleman asked how we would be working with the United Nations. We are working closely with the UN, but I believe that when our constituents think about post-conflict stabilisation, as well as the longer-term stabilisation work that they expect the UN to be doing, they also want to know what will happen the day after: what will happen immediately after the departure of Gaddafi. We need to work very hard on that as well. There are clearly timing issues when the UN becomes involved, if I can put it that way. As for the strategic defence and security review, I tried to explain that the National Security Council regularly reviews the implementation of the SDSR, and asks profound questions about it. If the right hon. Gentleman has complaints to make, he should be a bit more specific. I have found, looking at the SDSR—[Hon. Members: ““More detail?””] Yes, the right hon. Gentleman should be a bit more specific. What we are seeing in Libya is that we need to move faster to an area where we have the flexibility, the ISTAR—intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance—and the new assets that the SDSR is all about. I entirely share the right hon. Gentleman's frustration over Syria. Britain and France are leading the way at the UN, wanting a strong resolution, but we are meeting objections from many. We should push ahead as far as we can, because what is happening in Syria is completely unacceptable. I think that the UN has done well in establishing asset freezes, travel bans and the like, but we need to go further. The right hon. Gentleman asked about working with the Turks. We were side by side with them on this issue, and my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary is in permanent contact with their Foreign Minister, Mr Davutoglu. When it came to Greece, I thought that the right hon. Gentleman gave brass neck a whole new definition. If he wants a brief description of the history of article 122, he should remember that it was subject to unanimity until the Nice treaty. It was in this House that my former right hon. and learned Friend Michael Howard objected to article 122 going to qualified majority voting, and warned of the dangers of bail-outs. He was told at the time, ““Don't worry, it will all be fine.”” This is a hopeless line of argument for Labour Members, given that it was their party that got us into this mechanism, and this party and this Prime Minister who got us out of it. The right hon. Gentleman asked for a full analysis of the Council. Of course the Bank of England and our banks are working hard to calculate our potential liabilities. I thought that the dog that did not bark in the right hon. Gentleman's response was his failure to mention his proposed £51 billion cut in VAT. That, of course, is what the Labour party suggests that everyone should be doing in Europe. As one of those who sat around a table in the European Council representing countries with budget deficits—including our own at 8%—I think that in suggesting that VAT cut the right hon. Gentleman has achieved what I thought was impossible, and ensured that he will be taken even less seriously in Europe than he is in Britain.