Sir Bernard Jenkin
MP for Harwich and North Essex · Conservative · United Kingdom
“Despite long and historic disagreements between successive UK Governments and Israel, it has remained a steadfast ally in counter-terrorist efforts to keep our people safe in this country. We are now embarked, it seems, on a full diplomatic dispute with Israel and tit-for-tat expulsions of diplomats.”
“I would very much have liked to have discussed the medical devices questions arising from the Bill. The Minister made an incredibly short speech about that important matter. It is quite clear that these provisions are part of the covert dynamic alignment with the EU and the covert rejoin agenda being pursued by the Government.”
“I am as keen as anybody to get on with discussing the Health Bill, but this topic is too serious an opportunity to miss, given that the hon. Member for Leeds Central and Headingley (Alex Sobel) has raised such important issues. I really commend his speech and his initiative. Everybody should read it.”
“The Minister shakes her head, but she is yet to give a good reason as to why this measure is in the Bill. When we had an Adjournment debate in July with the then Minister for patient safety, the hon.”
“The chief executive of the CQC is wantonly conflicted in terms of looking after the safe space, so he cannot be the one left in charge of that function. The real point here is that we are missing the opportunity to save so much money. Governments keep having public inquiries.”
“I asked the Minister, in a letter I sent her after the debate in July, to give us the information on how much the transfer of all this would cost. Nothing has arrived. I never had a reply to the letter. Of course, the Government have changed the Minister and the new Minister for patient safety, the right hon.”
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“May I reiterate the point—I think it is a strong feeling in the House—that our armed forces are already doing enough, if not too much? It really would be intolerable if British armed forces were called on once again to stretch themselves even further when so few of our European allies contribute significantly to current operations.”
“I remind the Secretary of State of how incredibly impressed the Defence Committee was when we saw the mentoring of the Iraqi armed forces in Basra. Although it is inevitable that we will draw down our sizeable footprint there in the months ahead, will the Secretary of State explain what plans there are to maintain a very strong relationship with the Iraqi armed forces? I am thinking particularly of the higher level, at which we saw strong personal relationships that would be very good for the United Kingdom’s influence in the longer term.”
“The SDR set out a number of key long-term capabilities that the Government were to acquire over a period. The Secretary of State has now said that one of the big projects will be cut. Which is it?”
“Of course we have obligations to the wider world, but we must surely recognise that our first duty as parliamentarians is to secure the safety and well-being of the fortunate people born, or who have come to live, in these free islands. That includes the need for a defence policy that preserves our safety, maintains our influence and honours our obligations to our servicemen and women and their families, and for which we must therefore be prepared to pay.”
“Whatever we have to do in the short term we must do, but in the long term we need a new defence policy reflecting realism about the world and about what we can do, and based on the interests of the UK and the likely threats to the safety and welfare of our people over the next 20 or 30 years. We face a perfect storm of modern threats: non-state terrorism and insurgency, Muslim extremism, weapons proliferation, Iran, the rise of nationalism, Russia, the new threats arising from climate change, population growth and food and energy scarcity. All those are now set against the background of an unprecedented global financial crisis, which will have economic and strategic consequences that are as yet hard to assess. Ditching the chaos of the ethical foreign policy is a pitch not for amorality but for moral realism.”
“The soldiers in Basra live in soft accommodation; the prisoners are in hardened accommodation. The result is the Royal Navy being instructed not to capture pirates off the horn of Africa for fear that they might claim asylum. The Government gave the Department for International Development a remit that set it up as though it were a state within the state, apparently answering to an altogether higher moral authority than the mere interests of the nation that pays its bills. Our armed forces, who have the responsibility for winning hearts and minds in Afghanistan, have to wade through swathes of bureaucracy to access a few million pounds for quick-impact projects, while DFID squanders billions on the corrupt Government in Kabul in pursuit of probably unattainable, and certainly less urgent, political objectives.”
“He proclaimed that his actions were “guided by a subtle blend of mutual self interest and moral purpose”. He added, casually, that “in the end, values and interest merge”. I kid you not. How did anyone take such amateur philosophising seriously? How could any serious foreign policy practitioner distil any principle from such meaningless cant? That attempt to overlay our foreign policy with a spurious moral authority that it cannot possess has had disastrous results. We have tangled our military capabilities with legal complexities that result in terrorists being held prisoner in Basra in better conditions and safer accommodation than we have been able to provide for our own servicemen. [ Interruption.] The Minister says that that is rubbish, but I saw it with my own eyes.”
“We are stretched across the middle east and central Asia with long-term commitments, like a colonial power, but with little public understanding of why we are there and paying so much in money and sacrifice. Are Iraq and Afghanistan to be the last gasp of the so-called ethical foreign policy? We need a defence review to resolve the painful dilemma that is being lived out by our armed servicemen and women, but before that the Government must forge a new foreign and security strategy to reflect a coherent view of the UK’s role in the world—the world as it is, not as some would wish it to be. It is Labour’s combination of over-ambition, naivety and lack of funding that has led us to this pass. We remember the extraordinary Chicago speech that the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, gave in the heat of the Kosovo crisis.”
“Could the Government possibly cut more surface ships, or Future Lynx, the new workhorse helicopter for all three services? Even if they cut 70 of the Future Lynx—no number is yet confirmed—the number of helicopters in the UK armed forces will be fewer than half the current figure by 2020. The difficulty is that coherent defence policy does not stand alone but must be part of the UK’s overall foreign and security strategy. The current self-deceits, inconsistencies and financial constraints make it impossible to frame a rational long-term policy. We need a Prime Minister to decide what sort of country we realistically want to be, and what role we can realistically afford to play in the world.”
“The national security strategy and the Secretary of State’s hint to The Sunday Times that a big programme would have to be cut both demonstrate that there is now a deliberate act to compromise our nation’s long-term security as defined by the SDR, which set out all the essential things we need, simply for lack for funds. The terrible dilemma facing MOD officials and service chiefs is what to do. What should they cut to keep the show on the road in Afghanistan? Should it be the carriers and joint strike fighters, with their global power projection? If we are to have them, are they not simply crowding out other vital programmes? The Minister shakes his head, but he knows that that is the question that faces policy makers in his Department. What about cutting the Astute submarines, which are vital for the protection of an ocean-going navy?”
“The steady flow of those leaving early is testimony to the strain on them, yet it has become an insidious part of the Government’s defence policy consciously and cynically to exploit the extraordinary good will and resilience of these men and women. It cannot go on for much longer. I appreciate that the Government have begun to address questions around the military covenant, but we should keep reminding ourselves that this aspect of their exploitation of the good will of our servicemen and women is completely morally indefensible. There is a third consequence, which is yet more serious and profound.”
“Why should men and women fight and risk their lives? They do so because they believe in what they are asked to fight for, and they believe that their country will look after them and those they love. I have looked into the faces of exhausted helicopter pilots, listened to soldiers back home who are haunted by their experiences, heard sailors who have cancelled their leave or their training and left their families to be with their ship on operations, and shared the grief with bereaved families. We must not take it for granted that the men and women of the armed forces will always be there when we need them.”
“This sustained period of overstretch is having dire consequences, which we in Parliament, who are elected to be guardians of the long-term national interest and the welfare of those who would give their lives for us, should regard as completely unacceptable. The first consequence is military. I have been advised that the long-term attrition on people and equipment means that the MOD now privately estimates that even if it were to withdraw from all current operations immediately, the armed forces could not fully recuperate before at least 2017. That means that we are close to breaking the Army—a notion introduced to the debate on defence not by an Opposition MP, but by the Chief of the General Staff. The same applies in different ways to the other two services. The second consequence is the human reality of this military exhaustion.”
“Overstretch has been a deliberate Government policy; they have consciously run a foreign policy dependent upon the force of arms whose ambitions have outstripped the sustainable capability of the armed forces. Moreover, that looks set to continue. Whatever capacity is withdrawn from Iraq over the coming months looks likely to be almost immediately redeployed in Afghanistan as part of a US-led military surge. I do not necessarily oppose that policy, and I have no doubt that the armed forces can continue to deliver, but only in the short term, as the Chief of the Defence Staff himself has said.”
“Such sustained overstretch means that, for example, half the new British Army officers deployed on operations have never done their live fire and manoeuvre exercise at the BATUS—British Army training unit Suffield—training area in Canada, which used to be a prerequisite. It also means that the term “pinch point trades”, which used to apply to a few specialist jobs in the services where there was a shortage of trained people, is now applied to the infantry as a whole. In order to meet the Government’s own targets for concurrency—that is, maintaining harmony guidelines—the number of infantry battalions would have to be increased by 10, from 39 to 49.”
“This follows the 10 years since the SDR, during which the armed forces have been increasingly underfunded, leaving an ever-widening gap which can be bridged only by continuing the run-down of manpower and extending the delays in orders for new equipment—with all the extra costs involved in that—and by the cancellation of training not directly relevant to the present counter-insurgency campaigns. The armed forces have just to keep making do, and they do so brilliantly, with the prowess, skill at arms, bravery and dignity that is their hallmark. However, they have been operating beyond the Ministry of Defence’s defence planning assumptions for a period longer than the second world war.”
“It stated the Government’s determination to “shift the overall balance of defence procurement towards support of current operations”. That was an implicit admission that, after the 2008 three-year spending review, the MOD could no longer pretend to make ends meet. The Government can no longer maintain all the current commitments alongside the maintenance of the capabilities set out in the strategic defence review to keep the UK at the top table of military nations in the future. The Government’s defence policy is collapsing.”
“We respect the Scottish National party’s respect for our armed service men and women. We have rather less respect for its defence policy. I seem to recall that it wanted the economic policy of Iceland until fairly recently; perhaps they want a similar defence policy for Scotland. I do not think that the Scottish people, on reflection, would choose that. I dedicate my remarks to 2 Para, who are holding their service of remembrance for fallen comrades today in Colchester. The first issue we have to face is that the Government no longer have a defence policy. The writing was on the wall for years. The mismatch between commitments and resources has become progressively worse. The publication of the national security strategy in March marked a tipping point.”
“I have the highest respect for the Minister, but will he be honest and tell the House exactly what the financial situation is in the Ministry of Defence? It is an open secret that he has not got the money to fulfil the equipment programme that he says he is committed to, and we are now reading in the papers that a big programme is going to be cut. The Secretary of State might not have used those actual words, but that is clearly the impression that he left with The Sunday Times . When are the Government going to be honest about the real situation?”
“The right hon. Gentleman makes some eminently sensible points, but it seems likely that, with either new President, we will be asked to take part in some kind of military surge in Afghanistan. This debate has shown that all parties are very concerned and that there needs to be considerably more debate, understanding and confidence that the Government will support a policy of engagement with the tribal leaders to promote local governance in the provinces to ensure that this campaign is effective. Will he undertake to have a debate on the Floor of the House, before those decisions are made?”
“May I remind the Prime Minister that the IMF was warning about rising debt levels in the UK as long ago as 2003? Will he now return to the reasonable point made by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition? What is the point of calling for an early-warning system in the international markets if the Prime Minister, as Chancellor, has a track record of ignoring those very warnings?”
“May I assure the Chancellor of the Exchequer that I was briefed by Irwin Stelzer on the need to recapitalise the banks—and I leaked that information? Will the Chancellor enlarge on the potential liability to the taxpayer? The £50 billion for the recapitalisation fund will have to be raised by the Government. How will that money be raised? Will the Government issue bonds, simply print the money or sell more of our gold reserves? What will the interest charge be? How will that be paid for, particularly if the preference shares that the Government buy from the banks cannot pay dividends because the banks themselves lack distributable reserves?”
“The Defence Committee visited Afghanistan this year as well as last year, and it was clear to us that everything in Afghanistan is worse this year than it was last year. When will the Government be realistic, as I believe Brigadier Carleton-Smith is being realistic? In view of what the Minister has just said, will he not endorse the invitation issued by the President of Afghanistan to Mullah Omar for talks? Unless the Taliban can be separated from al-Qaeda, they will fight alongside al-Qaeda. They are not the same as al-Qaeda, and there is no need for them to be part of al-Qaeda’s effort.”
“The right hon. Lady said that the Government would take action at the appropriate time, but a growing number of people are beginning to ask, “When is the appropriate time?” Are we just waiting for events to take hold of the agenda, while asset prices carry on falling, because the banks remain incapable of resuming normal business? Is not the urgent priority to recapitalise the banks? That will not happen on its own. It will require some form of Government intervention. When is the appropriate time? When will the Government be in a position to make an announcement?”
“That is the role that we pursue in our national interest. Can we have an open and public debate over the next few months about the defence planning assumptions, so that we can begin to recalibrate our defence policy to reflect the world as it is—”
“May I echo the welcome that other hon. Members have given this Command Paper? However, will the Secretary of State reflect on the fact that people leaving the armed forces prematurely say that the single most important reason for their decision is the excessive separation from their families? That is a product of the fact that the armed forces have been operating well beyond the defence planning assumptions for most of the years since those assumptions were set in the 1998 strategic defence review. Is it not time now to have a debate about what the defence planning assumptions should be? Even if we were to succeed in withdrawing substantially from Iraq in short order—and I doubt that that is in our national interest—it would not be long before another theatre of operations demanded our attention.”
“May I apologise to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and the Minister for arriving two or three minutes after he started? I seem to remember that the SDR originally envisaged 12 Type 45s. That was because at any one time there will be a number of ships in refit and a number on their way to, or returning from and recovering from, operations. Having only six Type 45s means a maximum of perhaps three deployable ships at any one time. That is a very limited capability, compared with what was originally envisaged.”
“The danger of transferring resources from the major equipment programme to short-term operations currently being undertaken is that we are playing poker with the future of this country. We have no idea what threats we might face in five, 10 or 15 years’ time. Those were the arguments that Ministers deployed in favour of renewing the Trident missile system and the Trident submarine. Those same arguments apply to every other aspect of our defence policy, and it is short-sighted to pursue the policy that the Government are beginning to pursue. The problem with the strategic defence review is not its content or its shopping list—everyone agreed that it was a pretty good blueprint for defence policy and the armed forces; the problem is the lack of money.”
“The idea of tailoring the armed forces to short-term requirements is too short-sighted. We accept that the opposite strategy of trying to provide for every eventuality at any time is too expensive. We need to strike the balance for which the right hon. Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George) argued, between readiness for immediate operations and readiness for the longer term. In the face of that and in the current low-threat environment, we need what Admiral Sir Sandy Woodward has called a “core force strategy”. That means that we need to spend the money on the big platforms—the expensive bits of kit—even at times of low threat, so that we are in a position to build up our armed forces at a later date should the threats change and that be necessary.”
“That is difficult to tell at the best of times, but we know that weapons proliferation will increase and that a huge shift is taking place in the distribution of power among the world’s superpowers. Conflicts and crises will become increasingly complex and unpredictable. At present, the Government’s interventionist foreign policy simply does not match their defence policy of limited resources. Last week, General Dannatt said that “the Army of tomorrow must retain the capability to fight Major Combat Operations (MCO)s and Stability Ops, both simultaneously and sequentially.” He is obviously correct in his assessment of the type of operations the British armed forces need to be able to conduct, and it is the duty of politicians to provide the armed forces with the capabilities they need and to provide best value for the taxpayer.”
“The Government’s failure properly to fund the main equipment programme over the past 10 years has a direct consequence on operations, a very painful one, as the exchanges on Snatch land rovers demonstrated. What capabilities do we really need? The Minister of State said on Monday, and repeated today, that the MOD now aims to “shift the balance of defence procurement to support operations.” —[ Official Report , 16 June 2008; Vol. 477, c. 663.] That is a highly dangerous concept to pursue and it is very unsound to premise future operations on present operations. Churchill always said that the War Office is always preparing for the last war, and it seems that nothing changes. What sort of wars will we be fighting in the next 30 years, which is the realistic time horizon on which we should be planning the major equipment programme?”
“It is interesting that Ministers are keen to take military advice when it suits them but when they were presented with that advice back in 1998, they refused to take it. We have been living with the consequences ever since. The Prime Minister likes to laud the £6 billion of urgent operational requirements that have been delivered to our front-line forces over recent years, but unfortunately UORs do not address the shortage of baseline funding. Even PR08 foresaw a mere 1.5 per cent. real-terms increase to 2011, a minute increase compared with the increases given to other Departments over the years. Defence cost inflation, and the ring-fenced spending for Trident, for housing, for pensions and for the council tax rebate pretty quickly whittle that increase down to something minimal, if it is an increase at all.”
“I shall endeavour to be extremely brief and I join the tributes paid by colleagues to our armed forces. The background to this procurement debate is of course what General Sir Kevin O’Donoghue, Chief of the Defence Materiel, told the Select Committee about the difficulty he is facing in this planning round, PR08. He said that it was different from anything that had gone before and was worse than the planning round of 2007. He had to think back to the 1970s for anything comparable. The essential problem is that the Government spending increases on defence have simply not kept up with either the costs of procurement or of operations. As Lord Guthrie, the Chief of the Defence Staff, said at the time, the SDR was never fully funded.”
“The Foreign Secretary keeps repeating this line that the Irish no vote cannot be allowed to determine the position of the other member states. Of course the Irish vote does determine the fate of the treaty. Why is it in the interests of the European Union for other member states and the United Kingdom to continue with the process of ratification unless it is a political manoeuvre to put pressure on the Irish people to change their minds? That can be the only reason. It is a political ploy to validate the parts of the Lisbon treaty that are already being implemented, such as the European Defence Agency, against the wishes of probably the vast majority of the people of Europe.”
“Is it not altogether inconsistent for the former Minister for Europe to support the treaty, which gives more power to the institutions of the European Union and takes power away from the member states, given that he told the European Reform Forum back in 2005 that the European Union “is not a country, so it cannot be a democracy”? Every time we take power away from member states and give it to the European Union, we are taking power away from democracy and giving it to something that is not a democracy.”
“The hon. Gentleman has made something very clear, which, understandably, none of us really understood before. He walked out of this Chamber in disgust at being unable to have a debate on a topic on which he was going to abstain. Is that correct?”
“I am listening very carefully to my right hon. and learned Friend’s presentation, but the European Commission’s own Sapir report, for example, recommended the common agricultural policy as an area that might be re-delegated or even returned to the sovereignty of member states. I do not think that there are any complete—untouchable—shibboleths that should prevent two-way traffic. On the existing treaty, the question is how we prevent the institutions—particularly the European Court of Justice—from constantly extending the meaning and import of what we have already signed. The precise problem already exists, because what we thought was an effective opt-out from the social chapter turned out not to be so with regard to the working time directive.”
“Not only does the imposition of the economic partnership agreements on some of the poorest countries in the world guarantee to make them poorer and less advantaged than they are under the existing trading arrangements, but we also lose influence by pooling our trade negotiations with the EU. Norway and Iceland have more influence directly over the world trade negotiations than we do, because we have to agree our position in advance with France, Germany and all the other member states. Is that not an example of how an international institution can add up to less than the sum of its parts, so that Europe as a whole has less influence and less of a voice than if we were negotiating severally, and perhaps in co-operation, rather than through one institution?”
“and learned Friend the Member for Kensington and Chelsea that there is a possibility that the referendum in Ireland could be rerun.”
“He made a very interesting contribution that represented a development in his outlook, but many of us have developed our views as the EU has developed and—dare I say it?—lurched from crisis to crisis. We have been here before—in 1992, when the Danes voted no to the Maastricht treaty, and later when the Irish voted no to the Nice treaty. This time, however, things are different, and my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith and Fulham (Mr. Hands) was correct when he quoted a member of the Irish Government as saying that there is simply no question of going to the Irish people for a second time. That technique of wearing down the patience of the peoples of Europe has run its course, and I do not share the view expressed by my right hon.”
“Although many important subjects have been raised in the debate, especially by the Foreign Secretary, I wish to concentrate on the consequences of the Irish no vote. I also want to set out the nature of the crisis facing the EU as a consequence, the deeper economic crisis that lies behind that, and the opportunity that the Irish no vote represents for the UK. I listened with great interest to my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr. Cash). I have listened to a great many of his speeches in my short time in the House, and I share many of his views on these matters, but I listened too to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Sir Malcolm Rifkind).”
“Failure to change direction would not only damage our national interest but fail to address the interests of Europe as a whole. By failing to seize this latest chance to exercise leverage, the Government are failing to settle the issue of the European relationship, which has dogged Governments of both parties and exasperated our continental partners. The Government have failed to restore voters’ faith that something can be done about an issue about which they complain so much.”
“In France, the figure is 3.3 per cent; in Spain, it is 3.6 per cent.; in the Netherlands it is 7.4 per cent.; in Belgium it is 8.4 per cent.; and in Ireland it is 11.6 per cent. Imports from the EU 27 to the UK have grown by an average of 13 per cent. over the past two years. Given the strength and extent of trading relations between the UK and the EU, it is clearly ridiculous to suggest that we will somehow be drawn into a trade war with our European partners simply because we want to negotiate in our own interests in the European Union, instead of carrying on along the present trajectory. It simply would not be in any nation’s interests to start a trade war between the United Kingdom and the rest of the European Union just because we insist on rolling back some of the acquis and seek opt-outs from some of its more damaging aspects.”
“In reality, the UK is in an unassailable negotiating position to achieve change in Europe. The present constitutional direction of the EU has clearly run its course, as was demonstrated by the latest referendum in Ireland, and our EU partners enjoy a £38 billion trade surplus in goods with us. Germany alone has a trade surplus with us of £15 billion. The Prime Minister is fond of declaring, as he did yesterday, that 3 million jobs in Britain depend on our membership of the EU, as though it were we who were economically vulnerable. In fact, 6.4 million jobs in continental Europe depend on trade with the United Kingdom. Germany exports more goods and services to the UK than we do to it. Some 3.2 per cent. of German gross domestic product is exported to the United Kingdom.”
“As for the current position, our Government are missing out on the opportunity to start a new debate about the sort of Europe that we want. The Prime Minister is cowering behind the institutionalised consensus in order to curry favour with Governments. That is influence without power. Labour is failing to take the lead in Europe. That kind of policy does not put the UK at the heart of Europe. We are just followers going with the flow, without influence over events. Instead of using our leverage in Europe to change the direction of the EU, the Government seek simply to polarise a spurious debate in our country. They say that it is not possible to renegotiate without leaving. I have heard a Minister say that it is not possible to go into McDonald’s and order a lobster thermidor—a clever quip, but the EU is not McDonald’s.”
“The fact that a dedicated, dyed-in-the-wool European federalist such as Giscard d’Estaing is perhaps saying the same thing as my Friend the Member for Stone shows that different views can be accommodated in the European Union, and would allow us to move to a different kind of Europe. The obstacle to achieving some kind of special status might be that we would not be the only country seeking such status, as demonstrated by the referendums in the Netherlands, Ireland and even France. Many countries might want special status within the European Union. Perhaps that is the kind of à la carte Europe that my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington and Chelsea talked about, but it would mean having to address the existing treaties.”
“We want a genuinely respectful, co-operative relationship, in which our mutual needs are understood. I reflect on what Valéry Giscard d’Estaing said last summer when contemplating the revival of the Lisbon treaty, although I point out that I do not agree with all of it. He said that “integration is vital for our Continent. And if the UK doesn’t continue with us in this process of integration, conclusions must be drawn…we must find a ‘special status’ for Great Britain. If the British want to be apart, well, then we must be able to offer them that, and they must be able to accept.” I have no idea whether such special status could be negotiated with our European counterparts. I think that it could be, if we had the will.”
“Listening to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington and Chelsea, I reflected on the question: what is the single market? I do not believe that the single market has to be represented by the huge body of regulation that is imposed upon us today, but I put it to my right hon. and learned Friend that, if we are to change that, we must necessarily commit ourselves to some form of renegotiation. The logic of his position is that he is now in favour of renegotiation, although there might be different means by which that could be achieved. I entirely agree with him that we need to escape from the unbearably adversarial tone that has dominated the relations between British Governments and the European Union over the past 20 or 30 years.”
“Indeed, the EU Trade Commissioner, Peter Mandelson, told an audience in June last year: “Remember that it is the basic rules of the single market which have allowed European integration to progress…In short, no single market, no European project and no Europe puissance”. What a powerful statement he was making about the very nature of the EU. The main attraction of the single market is not the extent of regulation, but the fact that it is a tariff-free trade area with rules on competition and state subsidies. Even the Prime Minister admits that the EU now accounts for 50 per cent. of all regulation in the UK, yet there is nothing intrinsic to a customs union that requires it to carry such a large body of regulation on matters ranging from the noise emitted by lawn mowers to the rules governing the employment of part-time workers.”
“Colleagues have already referred to the fact that my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) has stated: “I do not believe it is appropriate for social and employment legislation to be dealt with at the European level”— and a Conservative Government will— “restore social and employment legislation to national control.” It is not only the Conservatives who are saying that. Labour’s own Trade Minister, Lord Jones of Birmingham, has said: “If we allow Britain’s economy to become hidebound in this way”— by introducing excessive new regulation— “emerging economies like China and India will walk all over us.” But the EU Commission is still wedded to regulation as an abiding principle of the EU’s very existence.”