My hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer) has done the House a considerable service by identifying an extremely important issue for us to discuss. I wish to elaborate on several of his points which deserve closer attention.

My hon. Friend referred to the role that had sometimes been claimed by the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher), and her so-called achievements in securing a better deal for Britain within the Community. My hon. Friend did not make as much of that as he might have done. The record does not bear out much of the rhetoric that we heard from the right hon. Lady at the time or subsequently. My hon. Friend quoted some interesting figures of the fluctuating net contributions that this country has made to Community finances.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, South also made a valid point about the need to consider Europe not just in terms of the 12 member countries in the Community, but as a wider entity. He was right to do that.

The Labour party believes that the Community should be widened as soon as possible. Austria has already submitted its application for membership and we believe that it should be accepted readily by the existing members. Sweden is shortly due to submit its application for membership and we hope that Sweden and, indeed, the other remaining European Free Trade Association countries can be brought within the European Community at an early date.

Looking to the medium-term future, we hope that some of the emerging democracies in central and eastern Europe will be able, perhaps initially by means of an association agreement, but eventually by full membership, to play their full part in a wider Europe. On the need to look beyond a little-Englander mentality, my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, South and I are on all fours.

My hon. Friend also drew attention in graphic detail, with a sector-by-sector analysis of the trade deficit, to the deficit between Britain and the European Community. He was right to do so. However, I am not sure that he was right to put the lion's share of the blame for that deficit on the Common Market. The lion's share of the blame for our deficit with the European Community, as for that with much of the rest of the world, lies with the Government's policies and inaction on the needs of British industry in the past 12 years.

The Government not only allowed unbridled credit growth in the period from 1986 to 1988, which ensured that consumption grew massively in our domestic economy and inevitably led to substantial levels of imports being drawn in, but they neglected the needs of the supply side of British industry. In his reply to the previous debate, the Financial Secretary made some glancing references to the relationship between the public and private sectors in the economy. I have to tell him that we in the Labour party believe in a constructive and involved relationship between the public sector, the Government and private industry to ensure that the supply side of the economy works properly—exactly the Intervention that has produced the most successful economies in the world is rejected by our Government almost alone among the industrialised nations of the 1990s. They do not believe that such intervention is the right approach to running an economy.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, South also mentioned environmental issues. Of course, I take his point about the possible draft directives which may be in preparation at present, but we should think about using the instruments of the European Community to our advantage in environmental terms. I want to see a British Government who not only say yes to the provisions of the European Community social charter but put forward a programme for an environmental charter which provides the citizens of Europe with the right to ensure their own environmental protection. If we had a Government who wanted to play an imaginative and constructive role in the European Community, we might be able to achieve that objective. My hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, South has raised a series of important issues.