European Union (Amendment) Bill

A number of the amendments in this grouping relate specifically to the single market and the customs union. Those, at least in the shape of the Common Market, have been part of the European Union since its foundation. Before we nod these changes in the treaty through, however, we need to consider whether they take those two institutions in the right direction and whether we are close to the point where they may no longer be acting in our best interests. One has to compare anything that is bound up in these treaty structures with the alternatives of simply adopting a system of free trade and free capital movement. We may be moving in the wrong direction because the treaty—as we have heard from its objectives, which introduce the objective of a social market economy—is moving the regulations and apparatus of the single market further away from free trade and free competition and closer to the objectives of a protectionist, high-cost, uncompetitive market structure that may not be in our best interests. We no longer have dedication to liberal markets in the European Union. The movement towards a social market, as opposed to a liberal market, is an explicit adoption of a political philosophy that ends up producing harmonisation by legislation and regulation that is not always intended to achieve the most competitive outcome for our businesses and our competitive standing in the world. The alternative is to have harmonisation driven by market forces, by businesses adopting those standards and regulations that they believe it is in their interests to adopt to be able to sell in those markets that they want to sell in. Increasingly, those markets are not in the European Union but, by selling into those markets, our businesses are now burdened by the costs and regulations imposed by this protectionist market in Europe. We are reaching the point where the balance of costs from the single market, as it has evolved, is too high. A number of noble Lords have mentioned aspects of that. The City of London is an important example of the single market being used in ways not necessarily in our interests. We are reaching the point where we need to take stock of whether further moves in the direction that this treaty takes us in, towards a social-market view of the single market, are in our interests. Similarly, the customs union has increasingly become a protectionist vehicle, where deals which we might have done and supported to open up free trade to benefit third-world countries as well as our own economy have been blocked because of the CAP hostage that the European Union has put as a blockage to any further trade liberalisation. Again, this is not necessarily in our interests. While I understand the point that will be made—that the customs union and the single market are, in essence, part of the foundation of the European Union and are not introduced by this treaty—we need to consider that the changes this treaty is bringing about, and the objectives that it puts into the European Union in the operation of those aspects of the Union, are taking us in the wrong direction. It is, at best, a missed opportunity for the Government not to use this treaty to try to get those reforms. At worst, it takes us in a direction that may be very damaging for the UK.