Euro could cost us billions

If Britain joined the single currency, it could cost industry and business billions of pounds to gear up for the changeover.

That is the conclusion of a select committee of MPs, which is highly critical of the Government for under-estimating the scale or the work and the expense.

The Government, it says "is unwilling even to discuss the costs, let alone estimate them...there may," it adds forebodingly, "be good political reasons for this, but we fear this policy is deterring companies from preparing for the changeover and may eventually increase the costs."

Cowardice

The Trade and Industry Select Committee does not have a view on whether joining the euro would be a good thing or a bad thing, but its report has inevitably been seized upon by eurosceptics, and the Tories say it demonstrates the cowardice of Labour in not facing up to the issue.

The Labour MP Martin O'Neill is one of those who agrees that in some areas there has been insufficient preparation. Mr O'Neill told the World at One that preparation was complex matter, and he was not convinced that the potential problems were being dealt with urgently enough.

Noone was available from the Treasury this lunch time to comment on Martin O'Neills report, but the conclusions of the DTI report will only add grist to the Tory anti-Euro mill.

Conservatives have long maintained that the potential costs to business of joining the euro are high, and Shadow Chancellor, Michael Portillo told me their findings did not come as a surprise.

Re-opening the wound

The government Mr Portillo said had lacked candour about its position on the euro, and they were keen that the public shouldn't know the cost of transferring to the new currency.

Meanwhile Peter Mandelson has further put the cat among the Euro pigeons with his remarks, at a private dinner, but reported in today's Financial Times, that joining the Euro would have political and constitutional implications and could not just be judged in terms of the Chancellor's famous five economic tests.

Mr Portillo said he welcomed Mr Mandleson's remarks. he said they had re-opened the trench warfare within the Cabinet on european tactics.

So has Mr Mandelson given the game away, or has this master of the black arts of political spin deliberately seized the agenda - not least to annoy his old enemy Gordon Brown?

Dinner party tittle-tattle

The Labour MP Dennis MacShane frequently speaks for the Government on European issues, he told the World at One that hunting for Cabinet schisms over Europe and the euro was just "Notting Hill and Islington dinner party" fare.

In his constituency of Rotherham, he said, these were not the issues that people were concerned with.