HC Deb 14 May 2002 vol 385 cc635-7
6. Rosemary McKenna (Cumbernauld and Kilsyth)

What measures his Department is taking to help United Kingdom businesses prepare for EU enlargement. [54373]

The Minister for Europe (Peter Hain)

We are working hard with Trade Partners UK to help more than 15,000 British companies take advantage of the enormous opportunities in what will be the largest single market in the industrialised world. On 12 June we will brief British business journalists about them.

Rosemary McKenna

My right hon. Friend knows the importance of commercial assistance to UK companies that are trying to set up in the pre—accession countries if we are to be truly competitive and increase employment in the UK. He will know of the serious anxieties that have been expressed through our embassies and consuls about the available resources. What steps has he taken or can he take to improve matters?

Peter Hain

A third of our diplomats abroad are commercial officials, responsible for driving Britain's trade strategy and helping businesses. There are enormous opportunities in the countries that want to join the European Union. Ten are on target to do that and to complete their negotiations by the end of the year. That should be a wake-up call to all British business to go out and take advantage of those opportunities. Britain is perceived as a champion of European enlargement, the best friend of candidate countries. Our businesses would find an open door. They would be welcomed through it to great opportunities of which they could take advantage.

Mr. Nick Hawkins (Surrey Heath)

Before EU enlargement proceeds, some unfinished business needs to be tackled about people in the EU who are currently disfranchised. The Minister realises that I am referring to people in Gibraltar who have repeatedly been promised the opportunity to vote in European elections. Despite the Government's—

Mr. Speaker

Order. The question is not about Gibraltar.

Andrew Mackinlay (Thurrock)

Does the Minister recall that the last time I aggravated Ministers on the question of European Union enlargement. it was to ask why no Labour Secretary of State for Trade and Industry had visited the principal accession countries? Has the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry—as distinct from a junior Minister—visited Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic or any of the other accession countries? If not, why not, and when is she going? What is more, will he kick the backside of Britain's commerce and industry, particularly the financial sector, which have been unbelievably tardy in their approach to central Europe, and still believe that it consists of far away countries of which we know little? The Germans, French, Swedes and others are engaged in this process but we are not. The British Government have been tardy on this, and so have commerce and industry.

Peter Hain

I know that my hon. Friend is really on my side on this matter, and on other matters of Government policy. I acknowledge his interest in central Europe, and his long association with it. I have been to Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovenia and Cyprus—half the candidate countries—and my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary is due to visit many of them in the next few weeks. Every time we go, we assist British business, as do our officials who are in post in those countries all year round. Moreover, I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry will listen carefully to my hon. Friend's strictures.

Miss Anne McIntosh (Vale of York)

In preparing UK businesses for enlargement—which the Minister knows is an objective that the Conservatives prize—will he ensure that British businesses are not discriminated against? That applies particularly to British farmers, as our large farmers might be discriminated against in favour of smaller European farmers.

Peter Hain

One of our driving objectives in reforming Europe is to get a sensible agricultural policy, which we certainly do not have at present. The common agricultural policy needs radical reform, and enlargement will increase the pressure for that to happen. Indeed, I do not think that the CAP as it is structured will bear the weight of enlargement.