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National Referendum on the European Union

I am going to proceed for a while, given the time constraints. I will give way again a little later. We have, therefore, already saved the British taxpayer potentially billions of pounds. None of those three major advances for British interests would have happened under the previous Government, because they actually did the opposite: refusing to hold a referendum; giving up £7 billion of rebate in budget negotiations for nothing in return; and signing us into a eurozone bail-out. We propose to approach further treaty changes in the same firm and clear manner. We have agreed in the coalition that our first priority in responding to treaty changes aimed at stabilising the eurozone will be to protect the rights of those countries in the EU but outside the eurozone over decisions affecting them, and to prevent damage to the financial services industry that is so important to this country's economy.