Sir, I was bemused by Bill Cash’s article on parliamentary scrutiny of EU legislation (Comment, August 25). He began by saying that my call on MPs to speak out more strongly on EU laws was a “red herring”, but finished by calling for reforms to address the problem I was highlighting.
Bizarrely, he calls me “relentlessly Europhile” when the CBI is well known as the UK’s loudest and most effective critic of EU legislation that damages UK enterprise.
I urge Mr Cash to take a deep breath, set aside prejudice and study what I actually said.
I have not criticised Parliament’s current European Scrutiny Committee, on which he sits. This committee has done first-class work, but it operates in a parliamentary atmosphere where EU laws do not appear on the radar early enough.
EU scrutiny is now too important to be left to a small group of MPs. Business wants all UK elected representatives fighting for competitiveness.
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The mood in Brussels has never been more reform-minded, for which the UK should take some credit, and there are examples of good parliamentary practice in the Nordic countries.
So I make no apology for saying our MPs are currently asleep on the job. The same MPs — and their constituents — tend to get a rude awakening when a local employer announces that India and China are better places to do business.
It is time to stop sniping and — on a cross-party basis — start working out how to be more effective.
Yours faithfully,
DIGBY JONES,
Director-General,
The Confederation of British Industry,
Centre Point,
103 New Oxford Street, WC1A 1DU.
August 25.