Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con): It is clear that the Prime Minister has considerable support within Europe in seeking a more adaptable, flexible and competitive economy. Will he reassure businesses in my constituency and elsewhere that the casting of the veto will have done nothing to prevent his ability to drive forward that agenda in Europe?

The Prime Minister: What last night’s meeting proved is that there is a very strong and growing consensus for action around the European Council table on issues of competitiveness. British Ministers-and, to be fair to Labour, British Ministers for the last 20 years-have been going to Europe arguing for completing the single market, deregulation, lifting the burdens on business and all those issues, and we have always had strong supporters in the northern liberal countries, as it were, but we have come unstuck when it comes to other countries. I think we now see-partly because the centre right is in power in so much of Europe-really strong support for that sort of agenda, and we can certainly drive it forward.

Hansard vol 539,

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