European Council (Hansard, 1 February 1994)

§ Q2. Sir Teddy Taylor
To ask the Prime Minister if he will raise at the next meeting of the European Council the level of public borrowing by member states and institutions of the European Union.

§ The Prime Minister
The member states of the European Union have already recognised the need to avoid excessive budget deficits. That objective was included in the broad guidelines on economic policy adopted by the Economic and Finance Council last December.

§ Sir Teddy Taylor
As the Prime Minister showed great courage in facing up to the unpopular task of resolving our national finances, will he, in the light of the recently published figures, seek to persuade his continental partners and the EC institutions to follow Britain's splendid example of controlling borrowing instead of following the spendthrift policies promoted by Mr. Jacques Delors and the British Labour party?

§ The Prime Minister
I shall certainly seek to do as my hon. Friend suggests. We have taken tough decisions domestically about public expenditure. I believe that those are the right decisions for the British economy. At Edinburgh, we took a step towards controlling Community expenditure. I welcome that step, which means tighter restraint and control. In answer to one part of my hon. Friend's question, I am not sure whether I shall be able to persuade the Labour party. Last year, it called for a European recovery fund costing £77 billion, a public expenditure commitment which seems to have escaped the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow Chancellor.

§ Mr. Spearing
Does the Prime Minister recall that on 29 November the House, by a rather arcane procedure, approved the establishment of a European investment fund, and that while that was under the auspices of the European 738 investment bank, the people responsible for providing guarantees of £2,000 million for private and public purposes had positions of great patronage? In what way are those people responsible to the Government and to the House?

§ The Prime Minister
Part of the funding to which the hon. Gentleman refers was funding that has for a long time been in the European Community budget. Those people are answerable through the Commission to the European Council and hence to this and other Governments.