Unfortunately the Speaker has informed me that due to the number of people who have asked to speak this evening I will not be called. However here is what I would have said had I been. Thank you Mr Speaker I am afraid Mr Speaker, that I cannot support this motion. I am sure it will disappoint some of my honourable and right honourable friends when I say that the reason for this has nothing to do with application of the whip. There is no doubt, that Europe needs reform, that our relationship with it needs to change, and yes, that the people of the United Kingdom should have their say. But a referendum now, either in/out, or the hybrid proposed in this motion is not the way to do it. The British public is rightly eurosceptic, successive governments have allowed Europe’s influence over our everyday lives to increase, whilst failing to either decrease the downside, or explain the upside. This has led to a change in Euroscepticism, to the rise of the so called “real eurosceptic”. The true believer in the cause of Euroscepticism, for whom the only solution to our issues with Europe is to leave Europe, to retreat to being an island alone in a sea of global trade. Indeed just this week I was told that my billing as a eurosceptic voice was further evidence for “real eurosceptics” that the Party doesn’t understand the European issue. But for me it is quite the opposite, Mr Speaker. After all Euroscepticism isn’t a binary choice, yet for many it has become just that, with a laser like focus on the method and process, rather than on the outcome we want to achieve. Yet that outcome is what is really important, it is what matters and it is one we can all agree on. A relationship with Europe that works for us, in the national interest. A simple idea, yet one that has eluded us for a very long time. So how can we achieve that simple idea, and why is this proposed referendum not the solution? As everyone in this chamber knows the EU represents more than 40% of all UK exports. Whilst trade with non EU countries is on the increase, and indeed needs to increase, it is still our single largest market and with a GDP of $16trn will remain so for some time to come. Being within the EU not only gives our own businesses easy access to this market, but also helps attract overseas business and Foreign Direct Investment. For example that one of the reasons Nissan chose to site their new model manufacturing in the UK was our EU membership giving them the ability to easily export to the single market. If we were no longer a member would we see JLR, Nissan, Toyota, or the next generation of electric vehicle manufacturers basing themselves here, creating jobs and growing our economy in the West Midlands? Just 2 weeks ago I was at the Coventry and Warwickshire LEP conference. 400 businesses were there, focussing on barriers to growth. Whilst many voiced their frustrations at ever increasing regulations and bureaucracy, much of which we all agree originates in Europe, none of them showed any interest in leaving the EU. As far as they were concerned the benefits of access to that single market significantly outweighed the costs of belonging and the risks of leaving. I am sure that some of my honourable friends are jumping to intervene on me at this point. They no doubt want to point out that per capita both Switzerland and Norway export more to the single market than the UK. However they are simply not comparable, with significantly different demographics and key export industries. Unlike Switzerland we are not known for our exports of clocks, and neither does oil contribute a significant percentage to our exports, as it does in Norway. Additionally the idea that Norway and Sweden’s trade only relationship is some kind of panacea to the European issue is simply ignoring the real facts. Norway, after all, is a member of the European Free Trade Area, EFTA, and Switzerland has bilateral treaties, both of which require them to implement elements of EU law and contribute to the EU’s budget. At the same time they have no say in how the EU functions. The Swiss President was not around the table in Brussels yesterday, and I don’t see Nicholas Sarkozy accusing Jens Stoltenberg, the Prime Minister of Norway, of interfering in Eurozone affairs in the interests of his nation. EFTA has already implemented 1,803 EU directives, all of which were formulated and passed without the formal input of member nations. In 2006 the EFTA consultative committee on a new strategy for the internal market wrote “It is necessary to adopt as soon as possible the revised working time directive, the temporary agency workers directive and the service directive, which will also help maintain the social dimension of the Internal Market” I somehow doubt that my honourable friends who have signed up to this motion agree with them, is EFTA’s one way relationship with the EU really the one that we want? So in my mind leaving the EU is not in our national interest, it was not in our manifesto, it would not deliver what we all want, a relationship that works for us, not against us, in the national interest, not against it. To deliver this we must renegotiate to repatriate powers over social, employment and justice issues. This would then allow us to de-regulate our economy without interference. Those colleagues who say we have been here before, that this is a false dawn, who tell us that this is an undeliverable promise by a government that isn’t committed, are plain wrong. The eurozone is fighting for it’s life, never have we seen such a crisis which presents such an opportunity in the history of the European Union. everyone agrees that the current crisis within the Eurozone will have to end in a paradigm shift in European structures, indeed just yesterday Herman Van Rompuy said that altering the EU treaty was already under discussion. When there’s a new treaty on the table I believe this gives us an opportunity to open negotiations on repatriation, and when we have a new settlement agreed, we can put that to the nation in a referendum. A referendum that I would support, at a time that was right. Mr Speaker, now is not the right time to be introducing uncertainty into the future of the UK/ European relationship. In business I have always found that the best strategies can still fail if executed at the wrong time, and I fear in politics this is just as true. Last week the Right Honourable member for Morley and Outwood [Ed Balls] mocked me for saying that we need to smooth the choppy waters of this recovery, but a referendum on this issue, before we are through the storm would do us no good. With markets already jumpy over the eurozone and global growth slowing, the uncertainty introduced by a UK withdrawal from the EU, or even the mere possibility of a withdrawal, would be of no help in delivering the growth and deficit reduction we all know we need. So Mr Speaker, we must clearly reform Europe, we must get its budget under control, and we must repatriate powers. Of this I am sure there is universal agreement on these benches. However this motion is not the solution, it will not deliver what we all want, a relationship with Europe that works for us, in the national interest.