BRITAIN should be in the vanguard of the move to monetary union, rather than a reluctant follower, Mr Peter Sutherland, the former head of GATT and the World Trade Organisation will tell top British executives today.

Mr Sutherland will debate the issue of British participation in EMU with Mr John Redwood MP, a leading Eurosceptic, at the Confederation of British Industry conference in Harrogate.

The keynote debate is sure to be closely followed by many of Britain's most powerful business figures. A poll, published this week by the CBI, showed that a growing number of British chief executives want Britain to join.

According to the survey, 56 per cent of companies said they supported in principle the notion of Britain playing a part in EMU 30 per cent were against. Some 28 per cent said they wanted Britain to switch to the Euro in 1999, up from 19 per cent one year ago. Some 21 per cent of chief executives said Britain should join the EMU at some stage.

Mr Sutherland is expected to launch a frontal attack on the Eurosceptic position, arguing that Britain has already signed away many of the sovereign rights that anti EMU claim to be defending.

An early draft of his speech argues that "the supremacy of community law over national law has long been established".

"In fact, Lady Thatcher, in negotiating the Single European Act, significantly expanded the supranational authority of the European communities ... So let us have no more about this step - the step of EMU - being qualitatively different in constitutional terms from those that preceded it," the former EC Commissioner, now chairman and managing director of Goldman Sachs International, will contend.

A renegotiation of the essential constitutional framework of the European Union is not on offer, he says.

Mr Sutherland is also set to assail the idea that by remaining outside, Britain could control its currency: "In today's world of global capital and markets, it is increasingly illusory to talk about the UK retaining sovereignty over its currency. Even outside EMU, the pound would inevitably be linked to either the dollar or to the Euro."

He will likely cite the fact that 10 year British interest rates are the same as those of Italy, and that British firms and borrowers are therefore paying - and in the event of Britain staying out would continue to pay - a heavy price for the maintenance of sterling.