Andrea Leadsom MP, Chris Heaton-Harris MP and George Eustice MP: Regional policy, employment law, energy policy...We want a fundamental renegotiation of the UK's relationship with the EU

Andrea Leadsom is MP for South Northamptonshire. Follow Andrea on Twitter. Chris Heaton-Harris is Member of Parliament for Daventry.  Follow Chris on Twitter.  George Eustice is MP Member of Parliament for Camborne, Redruth and Hayle.

Events in Europe guarantee that the way the EU works is going to change significantly over the coming years. This is a golden opportunity for the UK finally to stand up for its own interests. We set up the Fresh Start Project to enable the Government to get the best possible deal for the British people.

Whatever happens to the Eurozone, the UK's relationship with the EU will change in years ahead. The UK must be clear about the future that it wants, and stand up for its national interest. The Fresh Start Project’s aim has been to research and propose a new relationship for the UK with the EU that will better meet the interests and aspirations of the British people.

At this time of existential crisis for the Eurozone countries, EU leaders need to understand that the UK has its own national interest. It is the sole responsibility of the UK government to promote and fight for this interest and we must do so with our European partners. Eurozone members must give serious consideration to the likelihood that non-euro members will need a different relationship with the EU.

Chris Heaton-Harris MP: The choice is between economic growth and onshore wind. We should choose the former.

Chris Heaton-Harris is Member of Parliament for Daventry.  Follow Chris on Twitter.

The time was always going to come when the amazingly active "green" movement came up against hard economic fact - and that time has arrived. As much as it is spun, energy produced by onshore wind turbines is much more expensive than existing energy sources. It puts up electricity bills for business and families, thus slowing down economic growth and increasing the number of people who are falling onto fuel poverty.

Energy powers growth, it drives your broadband, manufacturing equipment relies upon it, it heats your home and it keeps food fresh. Make energy more expensive and you make life more expensive – and that is what both domestic and international policies have been doing for years now.

Spain is just one of the countries that has realised these simple economic facts and the green industry, that has happily gorged on taxpayers subsidies and higher prices to the consumers is not happy, as this article in Business Week shows.

Chris Heaton-Harris MP: We should get rid of European financial and employment regulations that hinder job creation and economic growth

Seven Conservative MPs have teamed up with the Centre for Policy Studies and ConHome to propose ideas to turbo charge the UK economy. Yesterday, Harriett Baldwin outlined controversial reforms to welfare. 

Chris Heaton-Harris is the Member of Parliament for Daventry.

Just as the Coalition is taking tough action to tackle the UK’s massive deficit, Europe needs quick and drastic action to solve its debt crisis. We must spend less to reduce borrowing and pay down debt, whilst implementing policies to kick-start growth in the economy.

A growing number of politicians across the EU now realise that many of the regulations they have put in place hinder the growth they seek.

Here in the UK, the Coalition Government scrapped over £3billion of unnecessary regulation in 2011 and has imposed a moratorium on new regulations on small businesses, but there is only so much we can do domestically; as the Chancellor of the Exchequer said recently: "We need to get them (our EU partners) to stop and realise that if they carry on regulating, then they will eventually price the entire continent out of the world economy."

Solving the problem

The Lisbon Strategy was meant to deliver "the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion" by 2010. However, the British Chambers of Commerce estimated (2010 government figures) that EU-driven regulation introduced in the period 1998-2009 cost British business £60 billion.

Chris Heaton-Harris MEP: A Beginner's Guide to the “Discharge of the European Budget”

Chris Heaton-Harris is currently an MEP for the East Midlands, and will be standing down at June's European election to concentrate on his role as prospective parliamentary candidate for Daventry, where Tim Boswell is standing down. He is a member of the European Parliament's Budgetary Control Committee.  Last year he wrote a rough guide to the contents of the EU budget.

There is one thing that everybody seems to know about Europe. And it is quite shocking that considering everyone's knowledge of the problem, that no one seems to care about a solution; or indeed care at all.

I am talking about the perennial story of the European Commission's accounts not being signed off – this time for the 14th consecutive year.

What most people probably don't know - and what never gets reported - is that after the Court of Auditors gives it's opinion (normally there are a few headlines - see here and here for some recent examples) a long process starts, which lasts 9 months and gives MEPs the power to look into every Eurocent that the Commission has spent in the previous year.

The plain fact is this: the Court of Auditors has no power over the EU Budget. I'll say that again: the headlines you have read every year about accounts "not being signed off" refer to an institution with no real power. The European Parliament, by contrast, has genuine power here. If the Parliament refuses to grant discharge ("discharge" means a positive approval of the accounts) then whilst the Commission is not compelled to resign, a considerable amount of pressure would be imposed on it to sort out the problems within its accounts and accounting systems once and for all.…

This article's purpose is to take you through the jargon and the boredom of the “Budget Discharge” process. I want to explain which questions I ask, and why, and explain why I think this process deserves a lot more attention from the press and MEPs than it currently gets.

I am ardently hoping that one of the MEPs who will replace me at the forthcoming European elections might look at this and be better prepared than I was when started researching this subject nearly ten years ago.

So, let us start at the very beginning...

Chris Heaton-Harris MEP: A Rough Guide to the EU Budget

Chris Heaton-Harris writes A Rough Guide to the EU's Draft Budget for 2009.

For the past nine years or so I have been a Member of the Audit Committee of the European Parliament (known as "Budgetary Control") and have been trying to make some sense of the Budgets of both the European Commission and European Parliament.

We all know that every year the European Court of Auditors fails to sign off (or as they say “give a positive statement of assurance on”) the accounts of the European Commission and one question every candidate for the European elections next year will be asked is “what are you going to do to stop all the fraud, waste and maladministration, so that the accounts get signed off?”

Well, this time of year is budget time! Cannily, the process was designed so that just about everyone in the European Parliament who might care about the Budget is away on holiday around the time amendments for the budget should be submitted. This year most Committees of the Parliament (which only returned from recess on 25th August) have deadlines for the tabling of amendments around the 27th August. As you will see later on, almost every item of expenditure has its own “budget line” and this is what MEPs will try to amend. This is where MEPs, if they wanted to, could try to tame the beast.

Every year, helped by my poor members of staff, I go through the budget over the summer months and table dozens (occasionally hundreds) of amendments to try and prune out some of the rubbish that I have found contained within it. Every year I lose most of these amendments in the Committee and Plenary votes, thanks to EPP, Socialist and Liberal MEPs defending the status quo. And every year I still get asked by hundreds of different people why am I not doing anything about it!

This year is my last attempt, as I am standing down from the European Parliament next June and moving onto pastures new. However, I don’t want to leave this subject alone; I want to try and translate the Budget into plain English to explain how much money is spent by the European Institutions, where it goes, and why it is mightily difficult to make any amendments to the Budget at all. Whilst I have made the occasional political comment, the whole point of this exercise is not to say that all this is a complete waste of money and we shouldn’t give Europe a penny (although, given the accounts are never signed off, I do subscribe to that argument) – the idea here is to try and describe how big the beast is and how the scrutiny process works.

Chris Heaton-Harris MEP: How to Select Tory MEP Candidates for the June 2009 election

Chris is a Conservative MEP for the East Midlands. The opinions of other MEPs are featured on ToryDiary today.

There are obviously dozens of ways the Party could choose to select its lists of MEP candidates for the June 2009 election. Below I mention just two – the one I prefer as a Party Member and the one I would prefer if I was in the Party’s leadership team.

As someone who was “given a chance” by a single meeting of Party members, all of whom were given a chance to come and vote for their favourite candidate on a one member one vote basis, way back in April 1998, I have to say that is the system I hold closest to my heart.

Although there is always room for improvement; in fact, I think we should enhance this system and have proper US style Primaries to rank MEP candidates.

I was Chief Whip of the Conservative MEPs back when the rankings/selection meetings for MEP candidates were taking place back in late 2002 and early 2003. Thus, I do understand how the appalling system of proportional representation that gives us the list system can cause problems where you have more than one MEP in a region – but nothing that can’t be overcome by sensible Primary rules, a strict check on spending and equal access for candidates to an up to date membership list (preferably held by the Party centrally) and a postal ballot at the end.