The Minister for Europe (Mr David Lidington)
I beg to move,
That this House takes note of European Union Document No. 7648/13, a Commission Communication on preparing for the 2014 European elections and enhancing their democratic and efficient conduct, and No. 7650/13, a Commission Recommendation on enhancing the democratic and efficient conduct of the elections to the European Parliament; notes that whilst European political parties are free to support candidates for Commission President, this does not limit the European Council’s selection of a candidate; agrees with the Government that the suggestion for a common voting day across the EU is unhelpful and would achieve the opposite of the stated intention of increasing voter turnout; and further notes that there is currently no indication that these documents are going to be followed up by formal legislative proposals.
I welcome this opportunity to discuss these European Commission recommendations in the House. It is now less than 12 months until the 2014 European parliamentary elections due to be held from Thursday 22 May to Sunday 25 May. This debate is therefore timely. [Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. I am sorry Minister. Members who wish to have private conversations would be well advised to leave the Chamber. There are those who wish to debate the European recommendations, and it is not very courteous to the Minister either.
Mr Lidington
On 12 March, the European Commission published a set of recommendations and a communication concerning the 2014 European parliamentary elections whose contents also touched on other areas of European political life. The proposals do not carry legal weight; they are non-binding suggestions to member states and national and European political parties. The Government always welcome contributions to the ongoing debate about democracy in the EU, but I believe that these specific proposals mistakenly assume that there is a single European political identity—a single European demos—and ignore the fact that the fundamental source of democratic legitimacy within the EU is derived from national Parliaments accountable to their national electorates. I believe that we need to work to strengthen the links between national democracies, their Parliaments and EU institutions.
We consider it unlikely that these recommendations will become formal legislative proposals from the Commission, but if they were to take that form, they would need to be decided by unanimity. The relevant treaty articles are articles 22(2) and 223(1) of the treaty on the functioning of the European Union. As you will recall, Madam Deputy Speaker, under the European Union Act 2011, any measure introduced by the Commission and agreed by the Council and Parliament under article 223(1) would also require an Act of Parliament for the United Kingdom to give it assent. The consequence of that is that the UK would have a veto over any such proposed change.
I want briefly to set out the recommendations in more detail, addressing those that concern the conduct of European elections, before turning to the Commission recommendation that European political parties make known their candidate for the post of Commission President. The first and second recommendations put forward by the Commission are intended to promote connections between European political parties and national political parties. The proposals suggest that national political parties should explain their connection with European political parties and make clear that connection in their electoral documents. Political parties in this country are perfectly free to advertise their European affiliation if they so choose. Ballot papers in the United Kingdom will continue to be produced in accordance with UK law, as will party political literature. If a United Kingdom party wishes prominently to display its European political affiliation, it is free to do so, but there should be no question of compulsion.
Recommendation 4—the suggestion that member states ought to agree a common voting day for elections to the European Parliament—has attracted some attention in the media. At the moment, elections to the European Parliament take place over a four-day period, which in 2014 is set to fall between 22 and 25 May, as I mentioned earlier. I fear that a number of right hon. and hon. Members might have read reports that the EU intends to force the UK to hold elections on a Sunday. It is my happy duty to inform the House that this is not the case. The UK will continue to hold elections on a Thursday, as is our tradition, and I am sure that other member states will rest equally assured that they will be able to continue to hold elections on their day of choice. To mandate that a member state change its election day would achieve the very opposite of the declared aim of the proposals—namely, an increase in voter turnout—and would be detrimental to electoral diversity across the EU.
Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)
I have much sympathy with what the Minister is saying, but he seems to be eliding two things: the choice of election day being a national matter, not a European Union matter, and whether it should be a Thursday or a Sunday, which is the other component. They are two different questions. Whatever day it is, does he agree that we should choose it? That is the important point.
Mr Lidington
I have no quarrel or disagreement with the hon. Gentleman on that count.
Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)
Much as I think it would be quite wrong for anything to be mandated—the decision should be made locally—the so-called tradition of Thursday elections in the UK goes back only about 100 years. Perhaps it would be more sensible to consider a weekend election, for all the convenience factors that would come with that, but also because, in the case of these elections, it might allow us to hold elections on two weekend days some three or four weeks apart, rather than having to change our day for local elections, as we have, from the traditional first Thursday in May to 22 May, which is what is now envisaged for those elections and the European elections next year.
Mr Lidington
My hon. Friend is right that it used to be the case that general elections in this country took place over a number of days. Indeed, it was not completely uncommon for candidates to put themselves forward for election in more than one constituency. If the House were to consider a change of the sort that he and the hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) suggest, it ought to be debated in the context not solely of European parliamentary elections, but of our electoral practice more generally, covering general and local elections, as well as European elections. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister will be interested to hear any proposals that Members wish to make.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
What consideration have the Government and the Minister given to the opinion of faith groups in relation to holding elections on any day other than a Thursday, and certainly not on a Sunday?
Mr Lidington
The hon. Gentleman puts his finger on one of the key problems with shifting away from our practice of voting on a Thursday—namely, that to pick any day over the weekend from Friday to Sunday would inevitably begin to trespass on the religious practices of faith groups in various parts of the United Kingdom. We would need to look at how the timing of a polling day might have an impact on people from such groups, and not just in respect of the voting day because a large number of constituencies and local authorities still count votes the day following polling day, so that has to be taken into consideration, too.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
I am reassured by what the Minister says. I can tell him that, whether it be held on a Sunday, a Thursday or any other day, the people of Brigg and Goole will be equally uninterested in the European parliamentary election. I agree with my right hon. Friend on what he says about maintaining our Thursday elections. Has he assessed how much the ridiculous situation of paying for security and the guarding of ballot boxes from Thursday to Sunday costs us? Plenty of other countries around the world, such as Canada, have results coming in for elections held on the same day, but the results from eastern Canada are known before the people in western Canada have finished voting. Why can we not just go back to counting on a Thursday and save the taxpayer some money?
Mr Lidington
That is an interesting view. I do not know whether the Cabinet Office has the figures for which my hon. Friend asks. I think that the agreement reached some years ago within the EU—that voting should take place over a number of days—was designed to accommodate both the fact that different countries had the habit of voting on different days of the week and the wish not to declare votes early in case the votes in one country affected how votes were cast in another country. I have to say that I rather agree with my hon. Friend, as the prospect of that happening is, in practice, pretty slim. I doubt whether he will be influenced in his campaigning by the outcome of elections in Greece or Malta. The arrangements we now have were incorporated into European law, and it is not likely to change in the foreseeable future.
Mr Lidington
I shall give way briefly, but then I want to make some progress.
Kelvin Hopkins
We are proposing the alternatives of Sunday and Thursday, but there is also the alternative of Saturday, which would be convenient for many industrial workers. Saturday is a day of rest for many, perhaps not all, but this day would avoid the religious complications that the Minister mentions.
Mr Lidington
I hear what the hon. Gentleman says, but the problem with Saturday is, first, that a number of Jewish communities would find it difficult and, further, that we would still be left with the problem of asking people to count votes and declare results on the Sunday, which would present a difficulty for a number of Christian denominations. This is not a straightforward issue, but as I say it goes beyond the scope of the European Commission recommendations and it is probably best addressed in the context of a wider debate about the timing of elections in the UK.
The four technical recommendations from the Commission—recommendations 5 to 8—are directed at improving the conduct of European elections through EU directive 93/109/EC on information exchange. These four recommendations are not new proposals, but rather suggestions to member states on how to enhance their implementation of the existing requirements of the directive.
The Government are committed to fulfilling their obligations under this directive and we currently implement the legal requirements in full. We do, however, remain concerned about the practical demands of this process and about the burden of implementation being much greater than the prevalence of the problem it is designed to address—namely, double voting. The Government have noted the Commission’s recommendations in this area and we will take them into account in our preparations for the 2014 European parliamentary elections.
I should add, to reassure the House, that any move that the Commission might hypothetically make in the future to incorporate those four recommendations in a revised version of the directive would require unanimity under article 22(2) of the treaty on the functioning of the European Union.
The Commission’s third recommendation states that European and national political parties should make known their nominations for the post of President of the European Commission. Some European political parties are very likely to nominate particular individuals as their candidates for the post. They are free to do so if they wish, and I am sure that that will result in a lively debate among political parties. Indeed, I look forward to hearing from the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) whether she and her party intend to campaign ardently in favour of Mr Martin Schulz, the President of the European Parliament, who is currently the only declared candidate on behalf of the Party of European Socialists as the proposed successor to President Barroso.
Mr Tom Clarke (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Would it be relevant to our business if my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East accepted the Minister’s invitation to discuss who might or might not be a candidate? Where does that feature on the Order Paper?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
I think that the Minister is stretching a point, as he has done several times already. I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for making that point. Perhaps we could return to the specifics of the debate, and any political jousting could take place outside the Chamber afterwards.
Mr Lidington
I am sure that, if the right hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Mr Clarke) wishes to put himself forward as a rival to Mr Schulz, he will find some support on the Opposition Benches.
It is being suggested in some quarters, and was hinted at in the Commission’s communication, that only one of the candidates named by European political parties can become President of the European Commission. I have read—as, I am sure, have other Members—a fair bit of confused reporting on the process for selecting the next President, and it may help the House if I briefly explain the system as it is described in the treaties.
As is stated in article 17(7) of the treaty on European union, the European Council, acting by qualified majority,
“Taking into account the elections to the European Parliament and after having held the appropriate consultations… shall propose to the European Parliament a candidate for President of the Commission.”
The candidate shall then be elected by a majority of the European Parliament’s Members. If the candidate cannot attain a majority, the European Council will propose a new candidate.
The House will note that there is no mention in the treaty of European political party candidates for the post of Commission President. In our opinion, such candidates were not envisaged by the requirement for the European Council to take account of the European Parliament elections. While there is nothing in the treaty to prevent European political parties from running candidates, there is also nothing to mandate the European Council to limit its selection of a Commission President to those in that particular pool, and any proposal to impose such a mandate would require amendment of the treaty.
Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)
This is mind-bogglingly irrelevant to the problems of my constituents. Would it not be better for the Minister to focus on abolishing six of the seven Presidents of the European Union?
Mr Lidington
I am speaking about this because it is very relevant to the communication which the European Scrutiny Committee has referred to the Floor of the House—indeed, it relates to one of the integral parts of that communication. While I am the first to argue that the European Union ought to slim down its bureaucracy, and I would probably agree with the hon. Gentleman that there are some European institutions whose absence we would not mourn because they do not contribute much to the well-being of European citizens, I believe that the arrangements for the election of a successor to President Barroso are quite important, because the holder of that office will be in a position to exercise a significant influence on policies that affect this country. It is therefore important that we are clear about the rules under which his successor will be selected. It is also important that the UK Government make it clear that we will resist any attempt to interpret the treaties as limiting the choice available to the European Council in a way that is not justified by the text of the treaties, but which some in other parts of Europe are keen to see.
Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
On that point, how does my right hon. Friend interpret the start of article 17(7) of the treaty on European union:
“Taking into account the elections to the European Parliament and after having held the appropriate consultations”?
Surely the only way to take into account the elections to the European Parliament is to consider the results by political party. If the Commission brought forward specific proposals in this regard, what legal response would the Government have, or how might the European Court of Justice interpret it?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. Minister, you are stretching the debate very widely, as the document is not legally binding and therefore that is not to do with why this matter has been referred to the Floor of the House. This is not a blue-sky thinking exercise. Of course refer to the article to which the hon. Gentleman refers, which lays out the process, but please stick to what is on the Order Paper and what is before us now, not in future.
Madam Deputy Speaker
With respect, Mr Horwood, if you had listened to what I said, you would have heard me say article 17(7) is relevant. I was just suggesting to the Minister that, given that the whole document is not legally binding, while it is important that he explains the current arrangements, I hope he will not continue to stretch the debate rather wider than the document in question provides for. So you can of course discuss article 17(7).
Mr Lidington
In answer to my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg), let me explain our view on article 17(7). The European Council retains complete freedom to nominate whom it wishes. It is required to take into account the elections to the European Parliament, but there is nothing in article 17(7) or elsewhere in the treaty on European union that suggests the European Council is in any way mandated to limit its election to a particular pool of candidates. Indeed, it may be that no one political family commands a majority in the European Parliament, or it may be that different combinations of European political parties within the European Parliament prefer one candidate rather than another, and it may not be possible, simply by looking at which of the larger European groupings ends up in the lead after the elections next year, to determine what the preference even of the Parliament itself might be as to the preferred candidate.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
On page 14 of the package before us of the Commission’s communications, it specifically quotes article 17(7) in support of its point about political parties and the European presidency. I therefore wonder if it is reading more into article 17(7) than the Minister believes is there.
Mr Lidington
I believe it is, and I think it is fair to say that there are plenty of people in and around the European Commission, and indeed the European Parliament, who believe—perfectly honourably—that the way forward is to move towards a system in which it is the European Parliament, rather than the Heads of Government assembled in the European Council, that has the key role in nominating the President of the Commission and thereafter holding the Commission to account. These are people who believe that it is right and possible to create a European demos, and see that step as a way so to do. What I am saying to my hon. Friend is that I see, and the Government see, nothing in the treaty that requires the European Council to limit its freedom of action in the way that some are suggesting.
Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con)
This point is not on article 17(7) per se. The motion uses the words
“notes that whilst European political parties are free to support candidates”.
The Minister will know that European political parties have huge amounts of money, which they are not allowed to spend on political campaigning in the course of elections. Surely this document has the potential to ride a coach and horses through that law, internal though it may be to the Parliament, because there are political parties across Europe, including some in the United Kingdom, that do use European political party funding to fund their whole party hierarchy.
Mr Lidington
It is important to distinguish a couple of points. First, nothing in these Commission documents is a legally binding proposal. I repeat: these have the status of recommendations, nothing more. The recommendation we are now debating is addressed to European political parties and national political parties, and it deals with how the Commission thinks they might better arrange their affairs. It is entirely up to both the European and the national political parties to decide whether they pay any attention to the Commission’s recommendations or not.
Secondly, there are provisions in the treaty on the functioning of the European Union to govern the conduct of European parliamentary elections. Those are embodied in a statute based on the relevant articles of the TFEU. For that statute to be amended, or for other changes to be brought forward, unanimity would be required under article 223, as I said earlier. The question of party political spending, including by candidates within the United Kingdom, is governed by the relevant United Kingdom statutes, including, most obviously, the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. At the moment, there is a clear legal distinction between certain measures that are set at European level and require the unanimous agreement of every member state, and the rules on party fundraising, party financing and election expenditure, which remain a matter for member states and are not touched in any way, even by these Commission recommendations.
I wish to conclude on the following point. I said at the start of my remarks that the Government believed there is a genuine problem of lack of democratic legitimacy within the European Union, but that these proposals suggested by the Commission do not provide the answer to that crisis. The Government’s preference would be to see a greater role for national Parliaments in holding European decisions to account. Although I will not expatiate on the detail, the ideas that my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary and I have proposed in recent weeks on the greater use of the yellow card mechanism or creating a red card mechanism, giving national Parliaments the right to block legislation that need not be agreed at European level, are intended as a contribution to a vigorous debate, which we have now launched, within Europe, not just within the UK. The absence of democratic legitimacy and adequate democratic accountability within the EU is a major political question that needs serious debate and consideration right across the European Union, but it is not answered by the proposals before us this evening.
Mr Lidington
I am grateful to all hon. Members who have taken part in the debate. I do not want to detain the House long, so I will try to reply briefly to the various questions raised. My hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris) asked how funding from European political parties and other EU sources might influence domestic election campaigns in the United Kingdom. I want to place on the record that participation in elections in this country, including European elections, is regulated by UK electoral law, and that includes the use of funding in campaigns. United Kingdom law prohibits the use of funding from sources outside the UK, including European political party funding. A prohibition on the use of EU funding by national political parties is included in the draft new European political party proposals—those are other EU documents that the House considered in Committee a few days ago.
The hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) asked whether the Commission is aware of the Government’s concerns about its communication, and the answer is a definite yes. Our—I was going to say reservation, but I think it is rather stronger than that— belief that the initiatives are simply misplaced and will not contribute to resolving the acknowledged democratic deficit of the European Union is well known, and United Kingdom officials and Ministers will continue to express their views on that in any future debates.
The hon. Lady asked about the position of the European Parliament, and as my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) said, the AFCO committee of the European Parliament has produced a report that covers much the same area of policy as that addressed by the Commission’s communication and recommendations. Like the Commission documents, that report points towards a greater role for European political parties and the European Parliament in determining the successor to President Barroso in the Commission. The plenary Session of the European Parliament is due to debate and vote on the report next month, and I cannot predict how it will vote on that occasion.
The hon. Lady’s final question concerned what future Commission initiatives we expect to follow up the proposals. At the moment, there is no sign that the Commission plans to go further than its published recommendations, and the Government’s view is that the longer that remains the case, the better. We do not think that the recommendations add anything to the democratic problems that Europe faces.
I can give some reassurance to my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) about articles 10(4) and 17(7) of the treaty on the European union. The full text of those articles contains a number of statements about how the European Union should organise its business, but there is no provision for the Commission to bring forward legislation and put it to the Council or Parliament. I would contrast that with the provisions in article 223(1) of the treaty on the functioning of the European Union, to which I referred earlier. That provides for changes to the law to be initiated by the Commission, and to be subject to the unanimous agreement of all member states. The enabling power for new legislation is not included in the text of articles 10 and 17, and that is why I said that the only way it would be possible to impose a mandate on the European Council to limit its nominations for President of the European Commission to lead candidates nominated by European political parties, or even to the lead candidate of the leading party after a European election, would be through the mechanism of treaty change. As my hon. Friend probably knows as well as anyone else in the House, that would require a process and certainly the unanimous agreement of every member state, and have national ratifications.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
My question might be too hypothetical, but if the Council puts forward somebody who has never been associated with a political party, would that be challengeable in the European Court of Justice?
Mr Lidington
In theory, anything is challengeable, in the same way that almost any Executive decision in this country is challengeable under judicial review. Our view is that the duty on the European Council is no more and no less than that provided in article 17(7), which is to have regard to the outcome of the European Parliament elections and engage in the appropriate consultations. If the intention of the authors of the TEU had been a mandate, it would be spelled out in the wording of the treaty. My hon. Friend is right that there is an ambition on the part of a number of people in the Commission and the European Parliament not to seek treaty change—not at the moment, at least—but to bring about a working assumption that national Governments assembled in the European Council should limit themselves in the way they wish. As I have said, we strongly resist that assumption.
I conclude on this point. We have a set of recommendations that are not legally binding, and there is currently no suggestion of legislative proposals from the Commission to give effect to its recommendations. Any such legislative proposals would need the unanimous agreement of every member state, under whichever treaty article they are brought forward. I believe—this was the view on both sides of the House—that the recommendations are fundamentally misplaced. There is a serious problem across the EU, with public disaffection with the EU and how its decisions are taken rising to record levels. We have seen that reflected in part in the rise of populist parties—some democratic, some undemocratic and neo-fascist—in many different EU countries. For that real problem to be addressed, the EU needs to show in its priorities that it is focused on those things that really matter to the prosperity and security of the peoples of Europe. The arrangements by which the EU takes decisions needs to be reformed in a way that gives greater influence and authority to national Parliaments, to which Heads of Government and Ministers in the Council are ultimately accountable.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House takes note of European Union Document No. 7648/13, a Commission Communication on preparing for the 2014 European elections and enhancing their democratic and efficient conduct, and No. 7650/13, a Commission Recommendation on enhancing the democratic and efficient conduct of the elections to the European Parliament; notes that whilst European political parties are free to support candidates for Commission President, this does not limit the European Council’s selection of a candidate; agrees with the Government that the suggestion for a common voting day across the EU is unhelpful and would achieve the opposite of the stated intention of increasing voter turnout; and further notes that there is currently no indication that these documents are going to be followed up by formal legislative proposals.