The House of Commons approved yesterday a motion on Section 5 of the European Communities (Amendment) Act 1993. Bill Cash and 227 MPs voted against it. During the debate Bill Cash made the following interventions:

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Mark Hoban): I beg to move,

That this House approves, for the purposes of section 5 of the European Communities (Amendment) Act 1993, the Government’s assessment as set out in the Budget Report, combined with the Office for Budget Responsibility’s Economic and Fiscal Outlook, which forms the basis of the UK’s Convergence Programme.

I welcome this opportunity to debate the information that will be provided to the European Commission this year under section 5 of the European Communities (Amendment) Act 1993. As in previous years, the Government will send to the Commission data on the UK’s economic and budgetary position, in line with our commitments under the EU stability and growth pact.

The Government will submit their convergence programme by 30 April, after debates in both Houses. It explains our medium-term fiscal policies, as set out in the autumn statement, the Budget and the Office for Budget Responsibility’s forecasts, and it is drawn entirely from previously published documents that have been presented to Parliament. It makes it clear that this year’s Budget reinforces the Government’s determination to return the UK to prosperity, and it reiterates our No. 1 priority of tackling the huge deficit that we inherited from the previous Government.

It is because of the decisive action this Government have taken to tackle that deficit since the June 2010 Budget that we have secured and maintained the stability of the UK economy. Last month’s Budget builds on those strong foundations, safeguarding our economic stability; creating a fairer, more efficient and simpler tax system; and driving through reforms to unleash the private sector enterprise and ambition that are critical to our recovery.

As the Chancellor said in his Budget speech, Britain will earn its way in the world, but we can succeed in that goal only if we continue to safeguard our economic stability, tackling the record deficit and debt we inherited from the previous Government. That is why this year’s Budget has a neutral impact on the public finances, implementing fiscal consolidation as planned, and keeping us on course to achieve a balanced structural current budget by 2016-17 and debt falling as a percentage of national income by the end of this Parliament in 2015-16.

Fiscal sustainability is the vital precondition for economic success, but we are doing much more to catalyse growth. First and foremost, we are undertaking far-reaching reform to ensure that our tax system is simple, predictable and fair, and that it supports work.

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Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con): I apologise for coming in late, but I have just got off the plane from Denmark where I was meeting the chairmen of the scrutiny committees of all the other national Parliaments of the European Union. We have recently witnessed the resignation of the Dutch Government and the consequences of the French elections. Would the House be interested to know that there is deep disquiet behind the scenes throughout the whole of Europe, as I discovered through speaking to those chairmen in the last couple of days?

Chris Leslie: I am afraid that I am not surprised to hear that that is the case. The hon. Gentleman spends a great deal of time and effort monitoring how these issues progress. Personally, I feel we need to find ways of supporting and stabilising the situation in the eurozone, but I do not think that the Government’s strategy is the right way to do that. However, I digress.

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Kelvin Hopkins: That is a problem for Ministers and local authorities, but it has been estimated that we need another 4.5 million homes over the next few years if we are going to house our people. However, I will not go into that now, because I want to talk about the European Union.

I do not agree with the Budget—I think we ought to have a different one—but even if it were a good Budget, I nevertheless do not think that we should necessarily be required formally to send it to the European Union. I say that because the motion before us refers to the European Communities (Amendment) Act 1993—the Maastricht Act—which, I am pleased to say, my party voted against. Indeed, some Government Members voted against it as well. It is the Act that requires us to send the report to the European Union. Personally, I do not feel bound by that, because my party voted against it, and I do not think it is sensible anyway.

However, let us return to the stability and growth pact, which, as I have suggested, is like building castles in the air. What stability? What growth? We have grotesque instability at the moment—terrifying instability, in fact—and absolutely no growth. Indeed, even the powerhouse economy of Germany has serious problems. There is talk of convergence, but who do we want to converge with? Greece? Portugal? Some of the countries that are actually contracting, with mass unemployment? In Spain there is even talk of unemployment rising to 6 million, which, as a proportion of the population, is the equivalent of 9 million in Britain. This is absolutely insane. I do not want to be “disable-ist” about this, but anybody running that economy must want their head examined, quite frankly.

Mr Cash: Given the hon. Gentleman’s important comment about the convergence criteria, does he accept that it is absolutely clear that what was thought would happen in 1993, when the Maastricht treaty went through, has gone completely off the wall, as we predicted at the time and as everybody now knows? The Prime Minister said recently that he thought there ought to have been a referendum on that treaty. Does the hon. Gentleman not agree, therefore, that there is a powerful case for having a referendum on the current situation with the euro and the eurozone?

Kelvin Hopkins: Indeed, and I think many of the peoples of the European countries that are now suffering would like a referendum as well. What I find difficult to understand is why so many people in the countries facing difficulties still support the euro. I do not know why, because supporting membership of the euro is almost like having a death wish. If only there were some courageous politicians who could say, “The way out of our problems is to recreate our own currency, depreciate it against the countries we’re competing with and reflate behind that barrier,” those countries would start to solve their problems. However, they cannot do it because they are tied into the euro. (…)

Mr Cash: As someone who took a very active part in the Maastricht debates, I can say that this current debate is a case of déjà vu. As my hon. Friend said, we are being required to submit this report under the provisions of section 5, even though everything has changed and it is utterly impossible for us to set out to achieve the stated objective, because it is impossible for us, in the national interest, to attempt to apply the convergence criteria. The whole thing is a complete mess, which is why we need to have a referendum on the whole issue, including our relationship with the European Union.

Mr Nuttall: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend on both those points: first, this is a complete waste of time, and secondly, we certainly ought to have a referendum. That is not, of course, the matter before us tonight, however. Instead, this is the question under discussion tonight: what is the point of sending this document to Brussels?

The Minister admits that we pay no attention to what Brussels says to us, and that we govern our own affairs, so what is the point of producing this document? We should be honest with the people in Brussels and say, “Look, we’re not going to listen to you anyway. We’re independent in these matters, and we’re going to stop sending you this document every year.” It is a complete waste of time to send it this year—and I would be very interested to know what happened to last year’s document.

Mr Redwood: Does my hon. Friend also agree that it is a cruel paradox that the EU lectures member states to get their deficit down and then demands more money from them by way of public spending?

Mr Nuttall: My right hon. Friend makes a very good point, and it prompts the following: if the bureaucrats in Brussels are keeping an eye on the eurozone, something has gone pretty badly wrong because right across the eurozone nobody is sticking to the rules and regulations. The growth and stability pact went west years ago. If the bureaucrats had stuck to it a bit more closely, all the bail-outs, mechanisms and IMF funds would not have been necessary. If they had spent a little less time reading convergence documents and a little more time concentrating on the problems in the eurozone, our country might be better off because our European neighbours might be better off too and would therefore want to buy our goods and services.

There is no useful purpose to our constituents in this document being sent to Brussels, and I urge the House to vote against the motion.

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Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con): I just wish to contribute a few words at the end of this debate, which I have listened to with interest. I am extremely concerned, but not because we are having to justify our Budget. I think that our Government are doing absolutely the right thing in cutting back on the deficit left to us by the previous Government, putting our house in order and putting the public first. That is where I would like to be: putting the public first. I do not wish there to be any consideration of whether Europe agrees that we are putting our public first or that we are putting European issues first. The European issues must be sorted out in Europe, among the people there. I do not feel that, as a sovereign Parliament, we should have to submit our Budget, regardless of whether the Opposition oppose or agree with it. It is up to us to decide the best for the British people and deliver the best for the British people—whether or not that causes “convergence” is neither here nor there.

The convergence that was perhaps envisaged in 1993 is not a route we would even want to go down now. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) said, we are not sure what we are trying to converge with. I do not know why we are submitting documents that have the word “convergence” on the front of them, unless people are giving us marks out of 10 for converging with something.

Mr Cash: Has my hon. Friend noticed that the motion ends with the words “which forms the basis of the UK’s Convergence Programme”?

The Government are therefore assuming that there will be a convergence. The questions are: with whom, about what, and for what purpose?

Mrs Main: As usual, my hon. Friend is absolutely right. Why do we want to converge? I do not believe that the British public even know that we are converging, given that this is so lost in the mists of time.

Mr Redwood: I fear that the convergence programme began so that countries could converge with the Maastricht criteria to join the euro. As it is clear that we do not want to join the euro, we should in no way be talking about convergence.

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Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con): I simply wish to say that I thought that my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) really put his finger on it. He told us exactly what the position is with regard to which paper we were considering and he identified the questions that needed to be asked, as did my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Mrs Main). This is about whether that treaty that we entered into all those years ago, after all that contention, has or has not done its work. It has failed, and it has failed not only this country but Europe as a whole. That is why we need to vote against the motion; this motion makes an assumption that this treaty is still alive. It is as dead as a parrot.

(…)

Question put.

The House divided:

Ayes 281, Noes 228.

Resolved,

That this House approves, for the purposes of section 5 of the European Communities (Amendment) Act 1993, the Government’s assessment as set out in the Budget Report, combined with the Office for Budget Responsibility’s Economic and Fiscal Outlook, which forms the basis of the UK’s Convergence Programme.