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Section 5 of the European Communities (Amendment) Act 1993

I remind the hon. Gentleman that as a consequence of the actions taken in the Budget one of the rating agencies, Standard & Poor's, reaffirmed the UK's triple A rating—[Interruption.] If the hon. Member for Nottingham East paid attention and read the newspapers—he accused me of not doing so—he would have seen that post-Budget one of the big rating agencies reaffirmed our credit rating with a stable outlook. Actions have been taken to stabilise the UK economy, and that is important. This is not a debate about the future of the eurozone and whether individual members should be in or out, because that is a matter for the national Governments of those member states, not for us. What we cannot ignore is that the stability of the European economy is a vital factor in determining the level of economic growth in the UK. As I said, 40% of our trade is with Europe. We still export significant amounts to places such as Ireland and, historically, we have exported more to Ireland than we have to Brazil, Russia, India or China combined. It is important to recognise that jobs in all our constituencies are dependent on trade with the European Union and the strength of European economies.