European Communities (Finance) Bill

The hon. Gentleman is now raising spurious points. I think I owe it to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, to make some progress. Overall, the single European market has created an additional 2.75 million jobs across the EU in the 15 years since it was established, and increased gross domestic product by 2.2 per cent. or €225 billion. Enlargement is strengthening and widening that single market: it is now half a billion consumers strong, and the largest market in the world. That helps our partners to grow, and helps make Europe more prosperous. It is not to our cost, but to our benefit. Let us look at the facts of earlier enlargements. After the 1986 enlargement, United Kingdom exports to Spain increased by a quarter. After 1995, exports to Sweden rose by a similar amount. The benefits that EU membership can have are demonstrated by the fact that since our closest neighbour, the Republic of Ireland, joined the EU it has received almost €53.5 billion from the EU budget. Between 1993 and 2003, the EU supported more than 120 major infrastructure projects. That has helped Ireland's exports rise from €1.1 billion in 1973 to €88.4 billion by 2005. In 2003, gross national product per capita was more than three times its 1973 level in real terms. Ireland also demonstrates that the economic development of our partners is good for Britain, a point entirely lost on Conservative Members. It increases trade, and creates new opportunities and new jobs. Between 1998 and 2006 alone, UK exports to Ireland have doubled. Such development has particularly benefited Merseyside, which is one of this country's poorest regions and receives objective 1 funding. The Conservative party's claim that the Bill secures us nothing in return is self-centred and narrow-minded, but also wrong. As I have said, the Bill will disapply structural and cohesion funding, and in time that spending will benefit Britain. Just as development funding in Ireland helped Britain to increase trade from a buoyant Irish economy, we will gain the long-term benefits of a prosperous eastern Europe. Already British firms are making the most of the opportunities that the recent accessions have brought. In 2006, UK exports to the A8 countries amounted to £8.8 billion, a 36 per cent. increase in the first full year after accession. Tesco, Unilever, Vodafone, BP and International Power are already investing in our new single-market partners, and UK foreign direct investment in the A8, which averaged just over £860 million in the three years before accession, was more than twice that amount—nearly £2 billion—in 2005, the year after accession. Enlargement is good for those economies, and provides economic opportunities for our largest companies.