Amendment of the Law

Part of Orders of the Day — Budget Resolutions – in the House of Commons at 6:18 pm on 7 March 2001.

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Photo of Ken Purchase Ken Purchase Labour/Co-operative, Wolverhampton North East 6:18, 7 March 2001

I am being urged to disagree—how extraordinary.

It is interesting to reflect that no country, except perhaps America, is entirely in charge of its own interest rates, for the simple reason that it has to take note of what everyone else is doing and, to an extent, reflect any changes elsewhere in its own arrangements. If we allow rates to get too high, we attract hot money; if we allow them to get too low, out that money goes. We are not independent in the way that the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) would lead some of his Eurosceptic supporters to believe.

On exports, I gave the House the good news first, because I did not want to fall out about the bad news, which is that Britain's exports, as a fraction of total world exports, have been falling for many years. We are not reversing that trend even though we are increasing our exports. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman understands that we can have rising exports and a falling share of the world markets.