UK’s Relationship with the EU Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston
Main Page: Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston (Crossbench - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
UK’s Relationship with the EU
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts(8 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Mr Lidington
The documents do point to areas where very clear exemptions would be made. Clearly, the Court is there to ensure that the treaties are observed by all member states and by the institutions, but if the drafts we have received today are agreed by everybody, and if they take the form of international law decisions and European Council declarations, they will have not just political but legal significance, which the Court will take into account when it frames its response to any particular case brought to it.
Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)
When we first negotiated the concept of a red card back in 2003—it is hardly a new concept—one of the stumbling blocks was the mechanism by which national Parliaments would come together to form a collective opinion in order for it to be effective. Is the Minister now saying that he will advocate the creation of a new European institution to allow that to happen? If not, how does he think national Parliaments will co-ordinate without the presence of Members of the European Parliament?
Mr Lidington
I do not think that needs the creation of a new European institution. I think that national Parliaments—perhaps this would also involve the strengthening of the COSAC secretariat—need to get more adept at the habit of working closely together so that, as a matter of routine, they co-ordinate in a similar way to how Foreign Ministers across Europe co-ordinate, week by week, on foreign policy issues.