UK Parliament / Open data

Treaty of Lisbon (No. 4)

Proceeding contribution from Lord Deben (Conservative) in the House of Commons on Wednesday, 6 February 2008. It occurred during Debates on treaty on Treaty of Lisbon (No. 4).
The one advantage that I have over my hon. Friend is that I am in business, have been in business and continue to be in business. He says that the GDPs of member states are plummeting; I say to him that outside the EU they would reduce significantly more. Any business man will tell him that. My hon. Friend's theory would destroy Britain's ability to trade within our largest trading unit and, more importantly, its ability to arrange the terms of trade in a way that was beneficial not only to the whole of Europe, but to Britain in particular. I would simply say to my hon. Friend that, if he wants to relegate us to the edge of the world trading system—where we would constantly have to place our future in the hands of other people and play no part in deciding how our future was regulated—then let us do what he wants. Let us make a so-called free arrangement, with none of the systems that enable us to make such decisions. I direct him to The Wall Street Journal, a newspaper that I read every morning. It said recently that it was the European Union that was laying down the terms under which trade took place, and making the decisions on the environment that were laying down the environmental terms under which people were increasingly manufacturing. I say to my hon. Friends that we can interpret the term ““social market”” in two different ways. I hope that they do not really believe that competition is the only issue. No one could be a stronger supporter of competition than I, but I do not want competition that means that the Bangladeshis do not get proper payment for their work. I do not want unsafe factories to undermine British businesses. Competition must exist within a sensibly regulated market. That is what we have always believed. That is what ““one nation”” means. It means that we believe that competition drives the market—
Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
471 c1012-3 
Session
2007-08
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
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