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The following text is the transcript of the opening speech on Day 2 of the King's Speech debate, on the focus of the EU Partnership Bill, as given by Conservative peer, Baroness Finn.
Like many noble Lords, I listened to the Prime Minister’s speech on Monday, hoping that the Government might have learned from the public’s verdict in the local elections and changed course. I was disappointed. What we heard was not a reset but a retreat into the familiar instincts of the left: more state direction, more nationalisation, more guarantees announced from the centre, and closer alignment with the European Union. There is a place for government action but the Government cannot substitute themselves for enterprise. They cannot nationalise their way to productivity. They cannot guarantee their way to opportunity if the private sector is being taxed, regulated and second-guessed at every turn. They cannot align their way to competitiveness by binding Britain more closely to a European model whose own leaders now acknowledge is failing to deliver the growth Europe needs.
This is not an argument for hostility to Europe. Britain should trade with Europe, co-operate and stand with it on security and work constructively with our neighbours, wherever our interests coincide. But co-operation is not submission. Friendship is not rule-taking and a reset does not become re-entry by stealth. The British people voted in 2016 to leave the European Union. At the last election, the Prime Minister promised not to rejoin the single market, the customs union or free movement. Yet with every speech, summit and reset, the Government appear to edge closer to the EU’s regulatory orbit—closer to payments, mobility schemes and alignment for its own sake.
The irony is that Europe itself is now warning against the very model to which this Prime Minister seems so drawn. At Davos this year, the German Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said that “Germany and Europe have wasted incredible potential for growth”. He said Europe had become “the world champion of overregulation”. A few weeks later, at the European Industry Summit, he went further, saying “Overregulation … hampers our economic growth”. He called for a “regulatory clean slate” and said that Europe must “deregulate every sector”.
Those are not the words of a British Eurosceptic caricaturing Brussels. They are the words of the Chancellor of Germany, speaking from the heart of the European project, warning that regulation has damaged growth, investment and innovation. The Draghi report made the same diagnosis. It said that Europe “largely missed out on the digital revolution”. It observed that only four of the world’s top 50 technology companies are European. It warned that innovative companies are held back by “inconsistent and restrictive regulations”.
If the leaders of the European Union now know that their penchant for overregulation is a central cause of their economic weakness, why is Britain being drawn closer to that system? Why would we import the very burdens that Europe itself is trying to cut? Why would we trade the freedom to be faster, lighter and more agile for the comfort of alignment with a model that has underperformed? The Prime Minister owes the country a clear answer, not a slogan or another platitude about being at the heart of Europe. Will the Minister confirm that there will be no dynamic alignment with EU rules without explicit parliamentary approval? By explicit approval we do not mean a broadly drafted Henry VIII power. Will he confirm that Britain will not become an EU rule-taker? Will he confirm that there will be no new annual payments to EU programmes without a vote in Parliament? Will he confirm that any youth experience scheme will be capped, time-limited and not recreate free movement by another name? Brexit was a vote to govern ourselves. The Government should use that freedom to make Britain more competitive, not bargain it away in pursuit of applause in Brussels.
