European Union (Amendment) Bill

The hon. Gentleman is entirely wrong. I know a little about Mercosur because I was once a junior Minister in the Foreign Office and responsible for Latin America. I recall visiting Brazil, which is of course part of Mercosur and saying that one piece of advice that I wanted to give was not to set up anything remotely resembling the European Commission. The Brazilians said that they had learned that lesson. They said, ““We know the damage caused by unaccountable bureaucrats sitting in private and dreaming up new schemes for everyone else. We do not want those proto-regulators with awesome powers, accountable to no one. We are not going down that route.”” The hon. Gentleman will not find in the North American Free Trade Agreement or in Mercosur anything remotely resembling the European Union. The customs union that we have in Europe is also practically unique and it has a damaging effect on the developing world. If a country is a member of NAFTA, it can do side agreements and bilateral deals with poorer countries to take their goods tariff-free. As we are in a customs union, we cannot do that. We are the fifth biggest economy in the world, but we have handed over our powers on trade to the European Commission. We are prevented by treaty law from making trade-expanding agreements with the poorest countries in the world. That is shameful, but it is the result of having a customs union and not being a member of a free trade area.