Oral Answers to Questions
John Redwood Excerpts(11 years ago)
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Mr Swire
Yes, with both pleasure and conviction. Scotland benefits from being part of the UK in this renaissance of trade that the UK is undergoing. I must point to a recent fabulous article in Le Monde, which said we can now predict sustainable future growth—gone are fears of repeated recessions and new injections of liquidity. The jobs market and consumer confidence are both improving—improving for the United Kingdom and improving for Scotland, as well as for England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
What conclusions does the Minister draw from the fact that exports from some countries outside the EU to the EU are increasing more rapidly than our own?
Mr Swire
My right hon. Friend will be aware of my earlier comment that trade with the EU has been adversely affected by the downturn in the EU economy. I think what it shows is the flexibility of the British economy, not least because we did not join the euro and because this Government have a more determined approach to driving exports globally, both with our existing partners and in emerging markets.
Middle East Peace Process/Syria and Iran
John Redwood Excerpts(11 years, 1 month ago)
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Mr Hague
Personally, I am entirely open to such a debate. The Leader of the House is here. I do not know whether he is open to it, given all the pressures on him, but he will have heard the legitimate point that the right hon. Gentleman has made.
The progress that we have made in setting an ambition to convene the Geneva II peace conference has involved working closely with Russia. It is the product of the five permanent members of the Security Council working together during the General Assembly. That is an important and welcome step on Syria, given the history of the past two and a half years.
I discussed the participation of Iran in future talks with the Iranian Foreign Minister. I have asked the Iranians to accept the outcome of Geneva I as the basis for future discussions. After all, that is accepted by almost all other countries in the world. If that were the common baseline, it would make it easier to include the Iranians in future discussions. I look forward to their further consideration of that.
Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
Would the Foreign Secretary like to praise Parliament for recommending diplomacy rather than war as the best means of tackling the difficult matter of chemical weapons in Syria? That policy seems to be working rather well. Does he agree that Parliament’s influence extended to the United States of America, where the President called our debate in aid as the reason for his change of approach towards consulting Congress and going for peace?
Mr Hague
It has always been my habit to praise Parliament, even when I disagree with it, and I will continue to do so. I praise our Parliament and democracy all over the world, and I even hold up such instances as examples of our vibrant democracy. I hope, however, that my right hon. Friend will bear in mind that such progress on chemical weapons—we hope it is progress, provided it is maintained—could not have been made without the credible possibility and threat of military action. We particularly have to thank the United States for that in this connection.
Arms to Syria
John Redwood Excerpts(11 years, 4 months ago)
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Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs told the House in 2011:
“We will also enshrine in law for the future the necessity of consulting Parliament on military action.”—[Official Report, 21 March 2011; Vol. 525, c. 799.]
Today we are making a far smaller request to the Government. We are not asking for a veto on declaring war, or even on the right to be heard before using deadly force. Many would argue that we should, but we are not. We are simply saying: let us vote before our Government sell or give weapons to people who may one day want to turn them on us. Today is not about whether we should arm the rebels; it is about whether the Government will listen to their MPs. As has been said, if we were to give arms, what possible assurances could the Government provide us with that such weapons would not find their way into the hands of terrorists or jihadists? Today we are asking for Parliament to be allowed to share the enormous responsibility for such a decision.
We in this Chamber do not act for ourselves; we act together, collectively, on behalf of a nation. We did not get a vote—nothing was put to Parliament—in 2001 following the deployment of British troops to Afghanistan or when British troops were deployed to Mali. They were far greater commitments, risking the lives of British servicemen and women. Those men and women and their families have no choice but to put their trust in their elected Members of Parliament to protect them from the Executive when the Executive might have been misled. We can all look back through history to see where mistakes have been made. That is relevant, because the consequences of arming the rebels might not lead to the deployment of our troops, but they will still be the target of terrorists and they will need the support of the public.
Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that it is even more important that Parliament should have its say and a vote before any such thing was considered because the British people are uneasy about the interventions made in their name in other places in the last decade?
Bill Wiggin
As always, I have no difficulty in agreeing with my right hon. Friend.
We are behind our forces because they are fantastic. They are fantastic because they perform brilliantly, morally and humanely, and we are proud of them because they protect us. We, as MPs, must protect them from the risk of terrorism, and from fights and wars that we do not need.
We have a precedent for lethal force debates. All we are asking is for a similar opportunity to vote before arming the Syrian rebels. On Libya, Parliament was given a say. In March 2003, the Labour Government held a debate and a vote on the deployment of British troops in Iraq, even though they were not obliged to hold a vote and not obliged to take heed of the result. However, Parliament was given the opportunity to express a view.
We ask today that the coalition Government extend a lesser courtesy to us than the Labour Government did in 2003. After all, Parliament is elected to act on behalf of the people. How can we act on behalf of the people if we are not given the chance to vote on a matter as important as involving ourselves in a foreign conflict?
European Union (Referendum) Bill
John Redwood Excerpts(11 years, 4 months ago)
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Martin Horwood
I am very grateful, Mr Deputy Speaker. The chances of the Conservative party getting as far as 2017 without changing its policy again are pretty slim. Let me reinforce that point. Only 19 months ago, the Prime Minister said:
“That, for me, in a parliamentary democracy, is the right use of a referendum. However, as we are not signing a treaty, I think that the whole issue of a referendum does not arise.”
He continued by saying that
“there is a role for referendums in a parliamentary democracy, but that comes at the moment when a Government or a Parliament proposes to give up power, rather than at other times.”—[Official Report, 12 December 2011; Vol. 537, c. 535-549.]
That is precisely the Liberal Democrat position and has been for some time.
We are not going to oppose this Bill, but we are not content to support it because there is a long list of problems with it. Legislation already in force—the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000—is supposed to lay down the procedure under which we hold referendums and, for example, the role of the Electoral Commission in helping to determine the question. This Bill is pre-empting any decision by the Electoral Commission and it does not even appear to comply or be consistent with the 2000 Act. I do not know whether the draftsmen had forgotten that that Act existed.
Then there is the question of the franchise, which has also been referred to—
Martin Horwood
I do not think I had better. I am really looking forward to seeing the variety of different Conservative positions being expounded in the remainder of the debate, and if I give way to everybody—[Interruption.] Somebody is telling me to keep it short, and I think that the best way to do that is not to give way on every point.
The Bill also needs to deal with a problem relating to the franchise. Some 1.4 million British citizens reside elsewhere than in the UK, but according to the terms of the Bill the referendum will be based on the Westminster franchise. As far as I can tell, that has only about 19,000 registered overseas voters, so more than 1 million Britons, whose lives will be fundamentally affected by this change—they are British passport holders resident in other parts of the EU—will be disfranchised in this referendum. By this formula, the Bill will give votes to Cypriot and Maltese citizens living in this country, because under the Westminster franchise Commonwealth citizens have the vote, but it will not give the vote to French, Italian or German citizens. So there are a lot of inconsistencies, and this issue has not been debated at all so far.
The House of Commons Library briefing also raised the question of whether or not the Bill is even legally binding. Even the hon. Member for Stockton South (James Wharton) has conceded that this parliamentary vote would not bind its successor Parliament and further parliamentary votes, probably on secondary legislation, would be required to give effect to the referendum in any case.
Gordon Henderson
I hope that the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, but I do not want to take any interventions.
Since 1975, Britain’s relationship with Europe has changed beyond all recognition, and in a way that no one in this country could have envisaged. Had I known then that Britain was embarking on a 38-year journey of political integration, I would sooner have cut off my right arm than vote yes. I am sure that many other people of my generation feel the same way. It is inconceivable that only 30 years after the end of the second world war, the British people would have willingly embarked on a programme to hand over swathes of their hard-won sovereignty to another state, and let us be clear: that is what the European Union aspires to be.
Gordon Henderson
I am sorry, but I am not going to give way at all.
We have not had a referendum on our relationship with the EU since 1975, which is why, sadly, many people feel betrayed. In turn, that is why anger at, resentment towards and distrust of politicians is growing. People in my constituency feel ignored by, and disengaged from, those they consider to be the political elite in this country. People in Sittingbourne and Sheppey are frustrated that even though all three major parties have promised referendums at one time or another, they have been denied another referendum for over 30 years. They have heard enough promises; what they want is action. They want an in/out referendum, and they want it as soon as possible. If this House delivers that referendum, we will have gone some way towards winning back the public’s trust and engagement.
I support a referendum not because I believe that it is a hobby-horse of those of us on the centre-right in this House, but because I believe that it is in tune with the views of the majority of the British people. It is certainly the view of the majority in Sittingbourne and Sheppey. Support for a referendum is based not on right-wing ideology, but on common ideology. It is the ideology of the great British public. It is the ideology of the majority of my constituents and those of many other right hon. and hon. Members. Let me be truthful: in an ideal world, I would like a referendum as soon as possible, preferably at the time of the next general election, but I am realistic enough to know that is unlikely to happen, so a guaranteed referendum in 2017 is the next best thing, which is why I will be supporting the Bill.
Ms Stuart
In this case it is the opposite. On this occasion, I think that the pure messenger should be allowed to go in peace on his battle and to take his message forward. I will not vote against the Bill. In a sense, I wish him well. As for the House, I wish to make one observation.
Mr Redwood
I am grateful to the hon. Lady, who has great credentials. Does she agree that any future Government will have to negotiate a new relationship because of the power of the euro and its impulsion towards federalism?
Ms Stuart
Yes, they will.
That takes me on to the one thought that I want people to take away with them, which seems to have been forgotten. We have slipped into basing this on whether we are going to vote for or against, but we will have plenty of time to make our decision on that. In debating the arguments for and against a referendum, what if we were to substitute the words “general election”? Who in this place would stand here and say, “We can’t possibly have a general election—it would be really bad for the economy, it would be really costly, it would affect business.” Every so often in the democratic process we have general elections, and we must apply the same principle to something as significant as this. We have reached the point when people will have to be asked, and we cannot duck it.
Court of Justice of the European Union
John Redwood Excerpts(11 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Lidington
We have one member on the panel. There are members from different member states represented around the table. The panel has to be drawn from people who have the right kind of experience and expertise to make these assessments.
On the specific appointees for the additional advocates-general, we do not yet know who the candidates will be. Indeed, two of them will not be appointed until October 2015. It would not be right for me to comment on their calibre or to speculate about those individuals at this stage. That is the purpose of the expert panel.
Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
But does the Minister not agree that what we want is fewer judges because we want fewer cases? The judges we want are the ones who will uphold the sovereignty of national Parliaments on far more issues than is currently the case—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. I have allowed the right hon. Gentleman to intervene on the Minister even though he only arrived in the Chamber three minutes ago. However, the debate is about advocates-general, not about judges.
Syria
John Redwood Excerpts(11 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Hague
There are no options here without risks. There are risks with every possible course of action, and of course there is evidence of large flows of weapons into Syria from Russia and Iran taking place now. That is part of what is radicalising some communities in Syria. I do not want to pretend to the House that there is any option without risks. We must do everything to ensure that these negotiations succeed, but we will have to weigh fully the risk of people indefinitely having every weapon devised by man used against them without the means to defend themselves. We will have to weigh the risk of what that might do for the creation of extremist groups and the permanent destabilisation of the entire region. It is a choice between risks.
Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
What is the current balance of strength between moderate, democratic forces and undemocratic, violent, extreme forces within the opposition? We do not want to help the latter.
Mr Hague
I cannot give my right hon. Friend a precise percentage—obviously such a thing does not exist—but from everything that can be gathered and ascertained, the great majority of opposition fighters and supporters support the National Coalition or groups affiliated to it. That coalition is committed to a democratic, non-sectarian future for Syria, but the extremist groups are undoubtedly growing in strength. I would argue that one reason for that is that somebody who wants to join an extremist group can get a rifle and training immediately, whereas those who go to support a moderate group cannot. We have to bear that in mind in the debate we have started to have in the House.
G8 Foreign Ministers
John Redwood Excerpts(11 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Hague
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his questions and for his strong endorsement of the initiative that I have been pursuing on preventing sexual violence in conflict. This is a cross-party issue that is of concern to people in all parties in the UK, and we can all enthusiastically get behind it. We are, as he said, building on the efforts of people in civil society, many NGOs and people who have already worked at the United Nations for some years, but it is time for the most powerful, active Governments of the world to get behind the initiative, make major international diplomatic progress, and show that we can change the situation on the ground. I will keep the House updated throughout the year on our efforts.
On Syria, the right hon. Gentleman asked about discussions on the transfer of weapons. We had a long discussion about Syria at the G8 and with the Russian Foreign and Defence Ministers when they made a bilateral visit here on 13 March. So in the past month we have had two substantial rounds of discussions with Russian Ministers—indeed, three rounds in just over a month. Of course we discussed the continued flow of weapons to the regime in Syria. Part of the problem is that the regime can continue to receive weapons, but many moderate figures in opposition groups say that they cannot obtain them.
What the Prime Minister said last month about the possibility that we might have to do more is very much what I am saying here and what I said in my last statement—that our policy cannot be static. He said, and I repeated in the statement, that we have not taken any decision about arming the opposition ourselves. There are legitimate arguments against that. They have sometimes been put in the House, and the right hon. Gentleman has raised some of them. If we were to take that step, we would have to assure ourselves to the maximum degree possible not only of the international legal position, but that the weapons could not be misused by others for whom they were not intended. Those are major considerations.
It must also be a major consideration that we currently face a humanitarian catastrophe, with tens of thousands of people being killed and millions in desperate need. A regime that is not bringing the conflict to an end can get weapons and extremists can get weapons, but people who are in favour of a free, democratic and moderate Syria find it very difficult to do so. We all have to ask ourselves how long we can go on with that situation if the conflict continues and if it continues to get worse. Of course, what we need most of all is a diplomatic and political settlement. Giving additional assistance to the National Coalition is part of putting pressure on the regime to come to a political settlement.
To expand on our discussions with Russia about that, we have discussed with our Russian colleagues several times in the past month how to try to come together to bring about the Geneva communiqué—a transitional Government drawn from regime and opposition, with full executive authority—but no one in other western or Arab nations, nor the UK, has yet succeeded in agreeing with Russia the mechanism to bring that about. A United Nations Security Council resolution would, in our view, be the appropriate mechanism, but Russia and China have vetoed that in the past and would do so again under current circumstances. It could come about through each of the countries involved—through us, the United States, the Russians and others—putting pressure on all the parties involved to negotiate that. We are ready to do so. We are always doing that with the national coalition, but sufficient pressure has not been put on the regime to do that, so we will always work hard on a diplomatic and negotiated way forward. In the absence of that, we have to do what we can to save lives and to try to make a resolution of the conflict more likely.
I agree with the thrust of the right hon. Gentleman’s questions about China and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. China’s position of agreeing to UN Security Council resolution 2094, which put additional sanctions on North Korea, is welcome. I will discuss that with the new Chinese leadership over the next couple of days to see how we can work together on it. The message should be clear, as it is from the whole House and from the whole UN Security Council: North Korea has a choice, and with the choice it is making at the moment it will end up with a country that is even more broken and even more isolated, even from China. It is not too late to make an alternative choice; the path of multilateral negotiations and greater engagement with the international community is still open.
Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
I share the Foreign Secretary’s loathing of the violence of the Syrian regime, but will he comment briefly on the opposition forces? To what extent do they believe in democracy, freedom and human rights, and how well armed are they already?
Mr Hague
The answer, of course, is a mixture. I believe that the National Coalition, which we met last week—we met the Prime Minister designate, two of the Vice-Presidents and, indeed, the President, Mr al-Khatib, whom I talked with on the phone—is sincere in its commitment to democracy and human rights and to the inclusion of Syria’s very varied communities in the country’s future. I have met them and discussed that a sufficient number of times to be sure of that answer. There are extremist groups, however, and the longer this goes on the greater the risk that they will gain more support. Estimates of the number of fighters in the al-Nusra Front, which the shadow Foreign Secretary referred to, are in the low thousands, but that is still thousands. The number of fighters supporting various opposition groups is likely to be in six figures—more than 100,000. Although that is proportionately small, we must nevertheless take that seriously, which is why we argue that we have to give more practical support to the moderate democratic opposition so that the focus of opposition in Syria does not become the more extreme groups.
European Council
John Redwood Excerpts(11 years, 8 months ago)
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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 Swire
Will the hon. Gentleman allow me to finish? Russia is a major player in the world. We continue to have extraordinarily important discussions with it about Syria and about the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and other issues, and we continue to review—and raise when appropriate—the situation there regarding human rights.
Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
Given the importance of low-energy prices to industrial recovery and jobs, did the Prime Minister take advantage of the summit to ask the Germans how they were managing to run their coal stations for much longer, under EU rules, and to have cheaper energy, and did he give notice that Britain needed to do the same?
European Union (Approvals) Bill
John Redwood Excerpts(11 years, 9 months ago)
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Philip Davies
Absolutely, and again I am grateful to my hon. Friend. The situation makes the Government’s position on these matters unjustifiable and completely ridiculous. If the Government do not support all this, why on earth are we in this situation? If we are in this situation because the Minister is utterly powerless to do anything about it because he has no influence whatsoever, I hope he will admit that. When our referendum comes, in 2017 or thereabouts, it will be another argument for why we should leave the European Union.
Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the whole idea of an EU quango to lecture member states on how we should behave on human rights is nonsense? This is a group of democratic states, so surely it is the job of the Parliaments of the individual member states to decide on and uphold the human rights in their countries, rather than to be instructed by EU quangos.
Philip Davies
My right hon. Friend, as ever, is absolutely right. We certainly need no lectures from other countries in the EU about how to protect people’s freedoms; this country has a far better track record than member states of the EU will ever have. I suspect that the Minister will be trying to defend the indefensible, but it is a sad state of affairs when it appears that we in this House are powerless to do anything about these sorts of bureaucracies. We all know what happens with these types of bureaucracies: they grow and grow, and they empire build. They will grow their influence and they will try to do things that they are not supposed to do—things they were not set up to do. They will grow the number of staff and grow their budget, and it appears from what I have heard so far that we are utterly powerless to do anything about it. If the Minister can give me some comfort that we can and will do something about it, fair enough, but it seems to me that either the Government approve of all this nonsense, which would be a terrible state of affairs, or we are powerless to do anything about it, which in my view is equally unacceptable. I look forward to the Minister explaining which it is, but whichever it is, my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch is right to draw the matter to the attention of the Committee and to pursue his amendment, which I support with gusto.
Michael Connarty
No, I do not want to continue with the Council of Europe. I have spoken at length in the House in debates on the functions of the Parliamentary Assembly, which I think is an excellent organisation that brings people back to why we come to Parliament. It is about the application of human rights. We often get tied up in playing our parties off against each other, but if we look through the lens of human rights we can very quickly see where the breaches are. There were huge outcries under the previous Government when we were locking up people for long periods without trial, which I objected to. Many of these things come back to the fundamentals.
The EU is adding its weight. It has more power than the Council of Europe to deliver judgments and make those judgments stick, because penalties apply to things that the EU gets involved in. If we decided to break away from a European directive, we could, as a country, be fined. When, for example, Bulgaria refused to come up to scratch with its legal system, it had all its EU finances frozen until it brought itself up to a standard that was acceptable.
The EU might attract many criticisms, and at times I find it greatly irritating, but I am pleased that it is adding its weight to the need to look at things on a human rights basis and to report on that. That is what the proposal is about.
Mr Redwood
Does the hon. Gentleman not accept, in retrospect, that when so many powers were given away by the House under the Labour Government, it would have been much better if they had asked the British people’s permission? The British people feel cheated now.
Mr Nuttall
My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point. The question arises what would happen in a situation which has partly happened now and will certainly happen in the next multi-annual framework, where the agency straddles two financial periods. How can an agency properly budget when its framework straddles two budgetary periods? It does not make sense. That is just another example of muddled thinking in Europe, and of an organisation that has no intention of being transparent or open to the people whom it seeks to serve.
Mr Redwood
I am sure my hon. Friend has noticed that in the supporting documentation it is asserted that there will be no impact on public sector manpower or cost. Having to deal with yet another one of these fiddly agencies means huge legal bills, on top of the ones that we have for the European Court of Human Rights and on top of our domestic ones. Is that not an awful lot of extra money?
Mr Nuttall
Yes. My right hon. Friend again makes an excellent point. We will find that someone who is concerned about a particular right in this country is faced with a plethora of bodies, and those involved in this field in this country have an extra body to liaise with on the European front. Whereas in the past they would just have looked to the contents of the European convention on human rights and the findings of the European Court of Human Rights, they now have to think, “I wonder what the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights will think about all this. I wonder what it has said about it.”
I will not go down that road, as we have other amendments to consider and there is a further debate afterwards. I doubt whether we need that body at all. That is why I will support my hon. Friend’s amendments tonight. The body is unnecessary and it adds confusion to what is already a very crowded playing field in the area of human rights. I simply ask the Minister how the agency will benefit my constituents in Bury, North. How would they notice if it were simply abolished? That is what I think should happen.
The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Damian Green)
My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) provoked a very wide-ranging debate covering a large number of issues, some of which are to do with the Bill and a few of which are even to do with the amendments. They include the question of whether the Fundamental Rights Agency represents value for money and concern about the potential for duplication with the work of the Council of Europe, about which my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Mr Walter) spoke so eloquently.
The Bill is limited to seeking parliamentary approval for an EU decision to agree the agency’s new five-year work programme. The programme simply identifies the thematic areas under which the agency will undertake its tasks. The amendments—my main contribution to the debate, Mr Evans, will be to talk about the amendments—have as their common purpose a desire to remove clause 1(2)(b) from the Bill, the effect of which would be to withhold parliamentary approval of the draft decision that seeks to establish the next five-year work programme for the agency. Without that parliamentary approval, the UK cannot vote in favour of this measure at EU level. I do not believe that withholding such approval is the right course of action. I urge my hon. Friend to withdraw the amendment, or the Committee to vote against it, for the following reasons.
The work programme is agreed by the Council. Agreeing the work programme provides member states—including, of course, us—with the opportunity to define the focus for the agency’s work for the next five years, encouraging it to concentrate its resources on a limited number of areas and to undertake targeted, in-depth research within the boundaries defined by the framework. The UK has participated actively in the negotiations that have led to the new draft programme being drawn up and is satisfied with the results. It is important for the Committee to be clear that the agreement of a new work programme does not alter the core tasks of the agency, nor does it change the agency’s role. The work programme does not set out or define these elements. They are set out in a completely different instrument—the agency’s establishing regulation, which is not under review in the Bill or in the amendments. I hear the views of many of my hon. Friends about the merits of the agency’s work, but neither this Bill nor the draft decision that it approves can do anything to bring about changes in those areas.
Mr Redwood
I think that we have all been entirely in order and that the Minister should reconsider. We are saying that we want this thing to do a lot less and to do it much more cheaply. That is entirely in order, and it is our one opportunity to say it. We in this Government are meant to be looking for cuts. This would be an exceedingly popular one, so will the Minister cut the thing?
Damian Green
I was not suggesting for a moment that my right hon. Friend, my hon. Friends or anyone else who has contributed to this debate were out of order; I was merely making the point that I want to address the amendments. My right hon. Friend has expressed his views with characteristic force, but I have to disappoint him by saying that the amendments would not achieve what he hopes they would.
Let me be clear about the consequences of the UK not approving the draft decision. Failure to agree the work programme would deprive the Council of the opportunity to set the direction of the agency by defining the themes. However, the absence of a work programme would not mean that the agency would go away or down tools. My right hon. and hon. Friends should bear that important point in mind when considering whether or not to support the amendment. If there was no draft framework, the agency would still be able to carry out its role. However, its focus would shift to answering requests for work from other EU institutions. Not supporting the framework therefore means that member states, including the UK, would have less influence on the work that the agency does. I do not think that that would be a good result for the UK and I suspect that my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch would agree with that.
The themes set out in the work programme continue those in the current one, and I welcome the European Scrutiny Committee’s analysis that the proposed work programme can indeed be considered to be equivalent to the former one. Although there are some adjustments between the two work programmes with regard to terminology, the changes will not alter the work that the agency has been doing.
During negotiations the UK Government were successful in ensuring that the themes set out in the work programme should continue to be limited to Community law. Other member states proposed the inclusion of themes on police co-operation and judicial co-operation in criminal matters. That would have been an extension of the agency’s work and it was successfully resisted by the UK Government. The draft decision records that we were successful. Agreeing to the draft decision will ensure that that is a binding decision of the EU institutions. That is why we are asking Parliament to approve it.
Moving on to some of the specific points that have been raised, the issue of duplication of the work of the Council of Europe has been a feature of this debate. The agency’s role is to provide the EU institutions and member states with independent evidence on how fundamental rights are respected. It does so through undertaking research and producing comparative data of the situation of rights across those member states, and through producing indicators that can be applied across the EU. Some of my hon. Friends were treating it as though it were an alternative to either the European Court of Justice or the European Court of Human Rights. It is, in essence, a data collection and dissemination agency that does not do any of the work of the ECJ or the ECHR. I agree that that would be unnecessary duplication. The same point applies to those in this country who, quite reasonably, would not want to lectured by the Fundamental Rights Agency about our performance on human rights. It does not do that sort of thing—that is not the work that it does.
There has been much discussion and concern expressed about money. This, of course, has to be set in the context of the statement made by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister earlier today. As he made clear—I think this was widely welcomed by all parties—the Government will continue to push for a good deal for UK taxpayers through agreement on the next multi-annual financial framework. The agency’s budget for the period covered by the next MAFF will form part of our negotiations following the agreement of that framework.
Mr Chope
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Minister for responding so frankly. What he has said illustrates the farce we are in. As a result of the commendable passing of the European Union Act 2011, we are being asked to approve, among other things, the work programme of the Fundamental Rights Agency for the next five years. If we do not approve the programme, we have been told, “Don’t worry—they’re going to go ahead with it anyway and choose their own programme.” Similarly, as the Prime Minister told us earlier with regard to the multi-annual financial framework—the next seven-year budget for the European Union—if a real-terms reduction had not been agreed, it would have carried on spending more than had been agreed anyway. That shows the extent to which we have been tied up in knots by the European Union and its institutions. The evidence coming out of this debate will be prayed in aid by people such as me when we get into the hard issues of debating whether or not it would be better to stay in or leave the European Union. I see this as part of that debate.
This debate has raised a number of interesting points beyond the Minister’s insight into what our powers amount to in this case. My hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Mr Walter) undertakes with extreme diligence his job as leader of the UK parliamentary group in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. He raised a number of serious issues. Such issues are being raised not just by him as leader of the UK delegation, but by a lot of other delegations. One such issue is that, at a time when the European Court of Human Rights and the Council of Europe are being starved of resources, we can see with our own eyes that the 27 member countries of the European Union feel that they can throw money at the gravy train that is the Fundamental Rights Agency. Sadly, I did not hear an assurance from my right hon. Friend the Minister about what the Government are doing to stop that. They may be powerless to do anything about it, for the reasons given in his speech.
I do not think that that is good enough. We now have a situation in which we know that a lot of that money is being wasted. My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley referred in his excellent speech to undocumented migrants in Europe having access to health care. That was the very subject on the agenda at the Warsaw conference that I attended and on which I expounded on Second Reading. What a waste of money that was.
The hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty) was concerned about the five-year delays in getting judgments. The European Court of Human Rights needs more money if it is to increase the speed with which it deals with its casework. It is not getting extra money because the 27 members of the European Union would prefer to spend their money on the Fundamental Rights Agency.
Mr Redwood
Does my hon. Friend not mean to say that the work load of the European Court of Human Rights should be severely reduced to leave more matters in the power of democratic member states? Surely he does not want more money to be spent at that level.
Mr Chope
As a lawyer—[Laughter.] As a non-practising lawyer, I believe that if somebody starts a case before the courts under the rule of law, it should reach a conclusion within a reasonable space of time. It is incumbent upon any organisation that operates a legal system to ensure that sufficient resources are available for the judges to reach decisions reasonably quickly.
Mr Redwood
Does my hon. Friend not agree with the Government’s very wise argument that we do not want so many appeals to the European Court of Human Rights and that individual litigants should be able to appeal only to our Supreme Court?
Mr Chope
I certainly agree with that in relation to our particular case. I look forward to debating that issue when we discuss the draft Voting Eligibility (Prisoners) Bill. Two months have gone by since the draft Bill was published and the Committee still has not been set up to consider it. However, that is another story.
Europe
John Redwood Excerpts(11 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Alexander
Of course change is coming to the EU and we want to see it. The tragedy is that Conservative Back Benchers prevent the Prime Minister from addressing those changes in a sensible, serious way and from advancing Britain’s national interest.
Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
I heard very clearly the Opposition rule out an in/out referendum at any time, but I have also heard the right hon. Gentleman’s reluctance to say never. Will he explain in what circumstances he will go to his party leader and say, “Things have changed. We need an in/out referendum”?
Mr Alexander
The right hon. Gentleman missed the “Today” programme on Saturday morning, of which the Foreign Secretary spoke. The position I set out last week in the studios reflected the fact that we could not sensibly and should not make a judgment now. As I have said, Europe is changing. The timing, character and impact on Britain and our national interests of those changes is as yet unclear. That is not a party political position but simply the reality. I do not start from a prejudiced view towards the EU. The right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) published a book called “The Death of Britain?” in 1999. As far as I am aware, Britain still exists. In that sense, I am not sure that his concerns—[Interruption.] He seems uncertain because he is adopting the shadow Chancellor’s hand gestures. I hope he soon adopts the shadow Chancellor’s economics as well.
On economics, senior British figures, including Sir Richard Branson and Sir Martin Sorrell, warned that the Prime Minister’s approach risked creating damaging uncertainty for British business. The Foreign Secretary did his very best to use the expertly drawn-up brief from the Foreign Office to suggest that British business was rushing to endorse the Prime Minister’s approach last week, but he was careful to give a series of quotes that endorsed a process of reform—not a single quote welcomed the prospect of a referendum, which is the basis on which economic stability has been put at risk. The Foreign Secretary does not need to take my word for that. On 24 October 2011, he himself claimed that an in/out referendum
“would create additional economic uncertainty in this country at a difficult economic time.”
For the record, since the Foreign Secretary made those remarks, it has been confirmed that the UK economy has shrunk by 0.3%, so perhaps he will take this opportunity to enlighten the House on how calling for an immediate in/out referendum creates, as he suggests, “additional economic uncertainty”, but committing to an in/out referendum years from now does not. The sound of silence speaks volumes. For all his best efforts today, we know that the origins, timing and content of the Prime Minister’s speech on the EU lay in the politics of the Conservative party much more than they lay in the foreign policy of the country.
Mr Redwood
Are there any powers or changes that the EU is currently seeking or likely to seek in the future that the right hon. Gentleman’s party would regard as unacceptable?
Mr Redwood
Is not the problem that we thought we were joining a football club and now there is mandatory synchronised swimming?
Richard Ottaway
Yes, but my point is that it is an exaggeration to say that we are trying to play a different sport. We are trying to take a fresh approach. It is the multi-tiered approach that I think is most likely to win the day.
Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab)
Thank you for allowing me to speak in this important debate, Mr Deputy Speaker.
I want to focus on the important impact that the European Union has on growth, investment and jobs in the north-east of England and my constituency of Sunderland Central. I was extremely concerned last week to hear the Prime Minister stating his support for an in/out referendum on our membership of the European Union. His announcement weakens our negotiating position and creates uncertainty in the markets and in industry, which will impede investment and thus jobs and growth. The timing of his announcement could not be worse. Last month in my constituency there were just under 4,000 people unemployed, 34% of whom had been unemployed for over 12 months. As the threat of a triple-dip recession looms large over our country, the Government’s priority should be ensuring stability, investment and growth.
This is a crucial time for areas such as Sunderland, yet with his speech the Prime Minister is creating volatility and undermining investment in the region. His announcement will mean years of economic uncertainty, deterring potential investors and destabilising the vital economic recovery that is critical for areas such as mine. The Prime Minister’s focus should, and must, be on our economy, rather than on pandering to his Back Benchers.
Nissan is a great success story for Sunderland. The plant there employs almost 7,000 people, and for every person directly employed by the company, another four are employed throughout the UK. The Sunderland plant is the company’s most productive factory in Europe. Nissan has invested a huge amount in Sunderland: some £3.6 billion since 1984. Only in December, it committed to building another car at the Sunderland plant, involving £250 million of extra investment and creating 280 new jobs. I worry about whether a multinational company such as Nissan would have made the same decision if the future of the UK’s trade relationship with the EU looked set to change.
Mr Redwood
Does the hon. Lady remember all the forecasts that her constituency would lose all that investment if we did not join the euro? We did not join the euro, and Nissan has put more in.
Julie Elliott
That is not the same point. We are not discussing the euro. We are discussing something far more fundamental to our country: the continuation of our membership of the EU.
The business stability needed to invest in car manufacturing is about long-term business planning. How can a company such as Nissan make long-term assessments of where to base its operation when access to its major market is put at risk by the threat of withdrawal from that market? Pulling out of the EU could result in a 10% tariff on car imports into the EU market, which would severely damage the UK car manufacturing industry and might prompt it to relocate. Across the north-east, 140,000 jobs depend on EU trade, of which more than 60,000 in Tyne and Wear and more than 8,000 in the city of Sunderland are EU-dependent. It would be misleading to suggest that all those jobs would disappear overnight if Britain withdrew from the European Union, but many of them would be lost over time, because the area would be at a competitive disadvantage.
In addition to jobs supported directly by the single market, there has been a substantial amount of investment in the north-east from structural funds to support employment and job creation. Between 2007 and 2013, £196 million was invested in the north-east through the European social fund to promote skills and employment, as well as €375 million through the European regional development fund to support regional competitiveness. Our involvement in the EU has delivered proven jobs and growth. That is something that we should be proud of and that we should protect.
Let us not forget the benefits that our EU membership has brought to British workers. Our membership has introduced employment rights, through the working time directive and other measures. The directive has delivered the right to at least one day off a week, the right to four weeks’ paid holiday a year, the right not to work more than 48 hours a week if a person does not wish to do so, and the right to a 20-minute break if they work more than six hours. Before I came to the House, I worked for almost 20 years negotiating with employers on behalf of the members I represented. I learned that we get the best deals when we negotiate from a position of strength. That is a simple principle, but it is an important one.
The Prime Minister’s announcement has seriously weakened the UK’s bargaining position. I agree that the European Union requires some reforms, but the Prime Minister cannot demand reforms while he is hovering in the doorway and threatening departure. Our EU neighbours will not be blackmailed, and as their allies and friends, we should not attempt to do that to them. When Labour was in government, we were able to negotiate flexibilities in the Lisbon treaty by working with our fellow member states and assuring them that our future lay in the Union.
The Prime Minister has said that he wants to remain in the EU, but with this announcement he is leading us even closer to the exit. This uncertainty for businesses, for markets and for investment opportunities will be extremely damaging for our country and for regions such as mine that rely, to an extent, on the EU for jobs and growth. His policy of wait and see is just not good enough; it is a wait that we simply cannot afford.
Mr Cash
I will make one further point before I give way.
I have just come back from Dublin, where, in my capacity as Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee, I met the other 27 national chairmen. There was no doubt whatever in the statement made by the chairman of the Bundestag’s European affairs committee that, as far as he and Germany were concerned, delay was unacceptable. We also know, from listening to him and to the German ambassador, that there will be no cherry-picking and no negotiations of the kind that are being contemplated. The French take a similar view; I have had meetings with them, too. The reality is, therefore, that there is a serious requirement to make the decisions earlier rather than later.
Mr Redwood
I quite agree with my hon. Friend’s central point. Does he agree that the reason that we have this tragedy in Britain over our relationship with Europe is that more than 100 vetoes in important policy areas were given away at Nice, Amsterdam and Lisbon, against the wishes of the loyal Opposition in this House and probably against the wishes of the overwhelming majority of the British people, who were never consulted about the way in which their democracy was taken away and trashed?
Mr Cash
I absolutely agree with my right hon. Friend, and I will add another point. The recent analysis by VoteWatch Europe, which has been through every decision taken by the Council of Ministers in the past three years, demonstrates that in 91.7% of votes taken in that forum, the UK Government—under the aegis of UKRep and through the Council of Ministers itself—have voted in favour of the proposals in question. That is effectively a forced consensus, because we have only 8% of the votes in the Council of Ministers. When I hear Ministers and others talking about the degree of influence that we exercise in relation to qualified majority voting, I say yes, we have to have alliances, but we know that if others are not going to be in alliance with us, we will not get the kind of result that the British people deserve.
Ultimately, this is about one fundamental question. It is not just about the word “democracy”; it is about democracy in action and its impact on the daily lives of the people of this country. The reality is that someone goes into the ballot station, votes in secret and casts his or her vote based on a manifesto in which they are told what the party in question is offering them in a general election; that is what democracy is all about. When they cast their vote, they expect the legislation to follow what they have been promised. The reality is that, under this system, the whole of Europe is becoming increasingly dysfunctional, with riots, unemployment and the rise of the far right. Let us face it: we have to get real. The fact is that it is not working. That is why our debate is so important.
Mark Hendrick
In the unlikely event of the Conservatives winning the next general election, it is not clear that they would succeed in getting any of their shopping list of demands. They will want change in much of the social legislation. The working time directive has been mentioned, as have holiday pay and health and safety at work, and they might also wish to focus on measures such as the European arrest warrant and some justice and home affairs issues. There will be a long shopping list to placate Tory Back Benchers, therefore, but if, by some chance, the Tories win the next election, there will be huge disappointment. The situation will be the same as the Labour party faced under Harold Wilson in the 1970s: there will be a huge split in the Conservative party, leading to its being out of office for a long time—after all, it took Labour 18 years to be re-elected to office following that split in our party.
Mr Redwood
Does the hon. Gentleman think it was more damaging to run out of money and go to the International Monetary Fund or to offer people a referendum, as that Labour 1970s Government did?
Mark Hendrick
The right hon. Gentleman knows that none of the money offered by the IMF was used by that Labour Government. It was there as a back-up.
The Conservatives do not want a social Europe, with working time protection, holiday rights and health and safety regulation. The single market is about the free movement of goods, capital, services and labour. The right of workers to move around freely in the European Union is as important as the rights of capital, goods and services to do so. I have always supported the free movement of people whose countries are members of the EU. With the imminent accession of Romania and Bulgaria, we should seek to extend full rights to workers and not object to their having equal freedoms to other Europeans. Some 50% of the Polish people who originally moved to the UK following their country’s accession have now returned, because of the economic condition of our country under the current Government. The rest are making a valuable contribution to the British economy.
We know that every country’s economic fortunes are cyclical. Our economy is bad at present, in part because of the irresponsible policies of the current Government, but it will get better at some time in the future. Therefore, it is important that we continue to take workers from other countries; after all, 2 million Britons work elsewhere in the EU.
Mr Turner
Of course it would be better if these things were done more quickly, but we must persuade Europe to change. If it does, okay; we must offer it that chance.
I am never very biddable when it comes to voting for further controls or regulations from Europe; neither are some of my esteemed colleagues on the Government Benches—nor, indeed, are some on the Opposition Benches. We do not vote against the Prime Minister to be awkward, but because we sincerely believe that our relationship with Europe must change and because we know that many of those whom we represent agree with us. If that change does not happen, the people must be asked whether we should be in or out.
Mr Redwood
Does my hon. Friend agree that the fundamentally undemocratic point is that if we legislate through Europe, we cannot reverse it on our own, whereas if we legislate in this House and get it wrong, or if the Government were to change, it could be repealed the next day?
Mr Turner
My right hon. Friend has made the exact point that I was about to reach. I sincerely hope that the Prime Minister can renegotiate our membership and come to an agreement where we do not have to contribute so much and get so little. We need only one fundamental change in our relationship with Europe: full sovereignty must lie with the United Kingdom. That would mean those of us elected to this House would be truly answerable to our constituents. I know that the Prime Minister will keep his promise on a referendum. If renegotiation does not mean that sovereignty will be returned to Britain’s shores—I am sorry, to the United Kingdom’s shores—a referendum is the only option left. The issue is sovereignty.
Mr Denham
None of us is against competitive success, but the Prime Minister gave no clue about how he thought that should be achieved or about which failures to achieve it in the EU would lead him to a no vote. It was all motherhood and apple pie, as my right hon. Friend the leader of the Labour party said last Wednesday. We can always sign up to those five principles, but the speech took us no further forward.
Mr Denham
I shall do so a little later.
On the one hand, we have those who believe Britain can never again be a nation of power and influence; on the other, we have those of us who have few doubts about the capacity of our country and our people to succeed, our ability to have an influence that exceeds our economic power and our capacity to create a stronger economy in the future.
Some of the pessimists are the traditional Eurosceptics —that is, the UK Independence party and its allies in the Tory party. They still wear the flapping white coats that caused so much harm to the previous Conservative Prime Minister. Those defeatists have been joined today by a new group who are perhaps a bit sensitive to the taint of the past. Those new Eurosceptics—perhaps we should call them neurosceptics—enjoy a much more nuanced and subtle lunacy. Let us stay in the EU, they say, but only if we can act as though we were not part of it, by pulling out of agreement after agreement until there is no meaningful relationship left. Of course, the end game is the same: years of uncertainty and declining influence, which make it more likely to end in a British exit.
Mr Denham
A year ago, I voted with the Prime Minister of the hon. Gentleman’s party to say that an in/out referendum at that point would be damaging to Britain. Nothing I heard last week made the case that an uncertain referendum in five years’ time is not equally damaging. We never say never, but on the two issues that we are considering today, I think that the Prime Minister was right a year ago and wrong on Wednesday.
Mr Denham
I will not give way, as I have done so twice already.
The Eurosceptics and the neurosceptics have made the Conservative party ungovernable. The Prime Minister, who lacks the will, ability or interest to lead his party, was forced into last week’s speech. That pessimism is in their language. Historians will surely puzzle over how the party of Winston Churchill—indeed, that of Margaret Thatcher—became the party that sees Britain’s future in Norway and Switzerland and how a country with all our history, all the capabilities of our people and, notwithstanding our current difficulties, all our strengths should consider countries a 10th our size and with little of our influence as role models.
The pessimism is there in the Eurosceptics’ policy and in the call to withdraw from most of the provisions of the social chapter. They will say that it is about sovereignty, but it reflects a deeper belief that the creation of wealth is incompatible with ensuring that wealth is fairly shared among all the people who help to create it. They want us to turn our back on a broadly shared European value that we helped to create, which is that economic growth and social justice can go hand in hand. That is what leads neurosceptics like the Mayor of London to speak against serious banking reform, despite the damage done to the global economy and our own by the excesses and distortions of the past.
The debate is often clouded by concerns, sometimes quite legitimate, about this regulation or that regulatory threat, but those concerns are the cover for a much bigger and more pessimistic view of Britain’s future. Those who express them believe that we must give up on a fair sharing of wealth, on decent protection at work from exploitation and danger and on the shared obligation to protect our environment, which the Prime Minister attacked last week. That is the pessimist vision: a Britain that can compete only by offering ourselves to the worst regulated, most unstable and least committed global economic forces. That is, indeed, a possible vision of Britain’s future, but true patriots will say that it is not the best.
The real future that is possible—the best vision for Britain—will have sustained, committed private investment that builds on the research, the innovation and the skills that we have to offer, that understands that real success is based not on the quickest profit but on the creation of lasting value and that sees the potential to build strong companies, whether British or foreign, rooted in this country whose business success depends on our country’s success. That is the way to compete and pay our way in the world.
Although their economic prescriptions are founded on pessimism, much of the rest of the Eurosceptics’ and neurosceptics’ agenda is either fanciful or dangerous. On what basis should we believe that an isolated Britain will be able to negotiate more preferential trade terms than a large trading bloc; that an isolated Britain would have more diplomatic influence with the USA or with China and the rest of the BRICs than as an influential part of the EU; or that our constituents would be safer if we tried to tear up co-operation on justice, as though the drugs smugglers, the weapons dealers, the terrorists and the paedophiles will think, “Oh, Britain’s leaving the EU. We won’t go there any more.”? Evil people do not target the strong and the confident; they target the weak and the pessimistic. That leaves our constituents—the people of Britain—more vulnerable, not less.
That is not to say that everything is perfect. It is not. Change is coming and change is needed, so had the Prime Minister come to the House last week and said, “Let’s bring regional aid policy back to member states,” he would not only have united the House but won many friends in Europe. Had he come to the House and said, “Let’s change the state aid rules so that countries that want to develop an active industrial policy can do so within the single market,” he would, I think, have united the House and won many friends in Europe. Had he said, “Let’s change the rules on the movement of people so that benefits are only for those who have contributed through work and taxation, even if they aren’t members of a formal contributory scheme,” I believe that he would have united the House and won more friends in Europe than he thinks.
We have no idea what the Prime Minister wants to achieve, though. The Europe Minister tells us that we will have to wait for the Tory manifesto in 2015 to find out, and tells us nothing about what our Prime Minister wants to achieve in the next two years. That is the truth: it is not about British interests; it is about Tories and the next election. Our hapless Prime Minister dare not say whether he is with the optimists or the pessimists, and the price that our country pays is five years of paralysis, indecision and uncertainty. Britain deserves better than that.
David Rutley
There is an opportunity for Europe to respond, but it is not responding—in fact, it has been caught completely flat-footed by the economic crisis and is not responding properly. We want that to change.
Mr Redwood
Is not the true pessimism the Labour pessimism that says that Britain is not big enough and strong enough to have a strong presence in the world and that we have to kowtow to Germany and France to achieve that?
David Rutley
As so often, I agree with my right hon. Friend. I hope to build on that thought.
The reality of the world economy is shifting patterns of trade and emerging markets. They have been tapping us on the shoulder for some time and are now tapping even harder. Some hon. Members in the Chamber today may remember John Major pointing out to Peter Mandelson that if we do not notice when reality taps us on the shoulder, one day reality will grab us by the throat. Yet it is sadly clear that the EU has become divorced from reality—from real people and from real lives. When the British people voted to stay in the European Economic Community in 1975, it was for real world reasons—for jobs, for growth and for the common market—and at that time the EEC gave every impression that that was its purpose. The EU needs to give us and our constituents similar cause for optimism today. There is an urgent need for reform and a fundamental resettlement in the UK’s relationship with Europe.
This is not about being little Englanders. It is about being big Britons who want to seize the opportunities available in the global marketplace; so do big Germans, big Swedes and big Danes—not to be confused with Great Danes—and we need to work with them, our reformist friends, against those who should be called little Europeans, who would turn our continent’s shoulder to the world. Just as we led Europe to the single market, we can lead in its completion and help our local businesses and our constituents to compete better on the global stage. The channel is little more than 20 miles across, but the gulf is huge between the global economic horizons of the big Britons we represent and the continental introversion represented by the little Europeans on the Opposition Benches.
The EU has been caught flat-footed in the economic crisis, and the euro—a political creation—has been caught in an economic straitjacket, yet there remains clear political will among many people in the eurozone for it to succeed. That has already led to calls for deeper, thicker integration and less flexibility at national level, and that is not the Europe that was voted for. We are told that we should not demand a Europe à la carte, yet the eurozone members chose to set up a new club within the club of Europe and—perhaps unsurprisingly, given the problems that the euro has caused—they are now demanding a European fixed price set menu. The Prime Minister is resisting this, quite rightly.
The bottom line for our constituents is this: are we better off in or better off out? Are we more likely to create jobs and economic growth, or are we to be suffocated by excessive regulation and told that our national Parliament cannot do anything about it? Those are important questions that we want answered. We do not want to fudge them. The Government have already taken important action, which the Foreign Secretary told us about. We wanted to ensure that, if transfers of power to the EU were proposed, they would have to be put to the British people first, and we have achieved that by creating the referendum lock. Rightly, no further powers can be transferred to the EU without the British people having their say.
The Government have already taken action to kick-start the debate on the resettlement with Europe. The review of the balance of the EU competencies will provide a national audit of what the EU currently does and what it means for our country, and it will provide us with the information that is needed to take future decisions about our relationship with the EU and in the referendum that now, thank goodness, lies ahead.
The House will not be surprised that I regard myself as a Eurosceptic. As I said at the beginning, in scepticism there is hope, contrary to what the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr Denham) said. On the Government Benches and across the country, Euro- scepticism is on the rise. The Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary are surely right to press for renegotiation before an in/out referendum and to work with our partners for a more competitive EU and one that is worth considering voting for.
Some people have asked, “What are you considering repatriating?” or “What do you want to renegotiate?” I commend the fantastic work that is being led by my hon. Friends the Members for South Northamptonshire and for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris) on the Fresh Start project. A wealth of options is being put forward there—worked through, thought through and analysed carefully. Take a look. I think that Opposition Members will find something to learn there.
This negotiation must be aimed, laser-like, at improving our economic position, cutting through red tape, safeguarding our financial services, delivering government at the lowest possible level and trusting the people to have the final say. That is the Conservative way. But in their heads the Opposition, with a few notable exceptions, do not want the British people to have their say. The reality of the Labour Government was the Lisbon treaty, with no promised referendum at the end.
Alison McGovern
No—the end of this process is the Prime Minister telling us and the British people how he would vote. That is the confusion.
Alison McGovern
I am tempted to give way but I will make some progress before I do.
Let us not forget the real issues. As I said, what matters to my constituents at the moment is the fact that our local authority has been cut to the bone and we are losing hundreds and hundreds of jobs. We are worried about employment and having a well-functioning economy on Merseyside where people have the money in their pockets to afford the prices in the shops. That is what people are really concerned about.
Because my time is limited and I have only four minutes left, I want to focus on a particular problem in Europe that I would have hoped we could all try to work together to deal with. This is timely, I hope, because yesterday a report by the Work Foundation demonstrated not only that youth unemployment is a significant problem on the continent of Europe but that the UK’s unemployment is higher than the European average, third only to Greece and Spain, and that we have youth unemployment that is higher than the OECD average. In yesterday’s Treasury questions, I asked how the Government planned to tackle the fact that their own predictions from the Department for Work and Pensions demonstrate that they have increased by 31,000 the number of young people to whom we will be paying jobseeker’s allowance by the end of this Parliament. We have the wrong economic plans. This problem cuts across the whole continent of Europe, and we ought to work together with our European partners to try to solve it. Considering this question helps to enlighten the debate about what we should do in Europe.
We need to focus on two things in the light of this problem. First, we need to rebalance the economy of Europe.
Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)
The Prime Minister’s speech last week was much delayed, much anticipated and over-hyped. It is already clear that the blip in the opinion polls is much less than he had hoped for. I therefore look forward to the internal debate in the Conservative party over the coming two years, and to the Prime Minister continuing to try to appease and assuage the egos of many Conservative Back Benchers.
I want to consider the so-called five principles and aspects of the Prime Minister’s speech. He said that
“we…need to address the sclerotic, ineffective decision making that is holding us back.”
Much of that sclerotic decision making in the EU happens because of unanimity rules. Can we therefore take it that the Prime Minister has called for more qualified majority voting? Conservative Back Benchers are shaking their heads, but Ministers cannot tell us the answer, because they do not know what the negotiating position will be.
Similarly, the Prime Minister questioned whether we can justify an ever-larger Commission, but the Commission gets larger because of EU enlargement and the accession of more member states. If the Prime Minister does not wish the Commission to become larger, the long-standing policy of successive Governments for further European enlargement has presumably been ditched. Alternatively, is the Prime Minister arguing that there should be a limit on the number of commissioners and saying that there might be future circumstances in which there is no British commissioner? We do not know the answer to that question because, again, the Government are unable to tell us.
Mr Redwood
Does the hon. Gentleman recollect that the Labour Government sold the pass on the number of commissioners by saying that not every state should have one? Perhaps that was one of the few sensible things they did to drive home the point that the Commission is a European government, not a representative government.
Jack Dromey
I am coming to that point in a moment.
On the argument that I have just deployed, I remember the chairman of the company then known as British Aerospace saying that we needed a single market, but that as a company and as a continent we could not succeed in the world on the basis of a race to the bottom. That brings me to my first concern, which is the hidden agenda that lies behind the Prime Minister’s argument. There was a tantalising glimpse of that last week when, extraordinarily, he seemed to suggest that we should return to the days when a junior doctor could work 100 hours a week. Repatriation is the cry, but the reality behind that is rolling back a generation of progress on workers’ rights and taking us back to the 1980s, an era I remember well.
Let me give the House an example, which relates to the acquired rights directive. The directive was legislated on at European Union level in 1978, and introduced here, reluctantly, by a Conservative Government in 1982. However, that Government did not extend it to cover 6 million public servants. What we saw was the most appalling Dutch auction, involving cut-throat competition as workers were transferred and suffered cuts to their pay, their holiday entitlement, their sickness entitlement and, often, their pension arrangements as well. I remember a particular example that I dealt with early on involving the Moreton-in-Marsh fire service training college, where 130 women caterers and housekeepers had seen dramatic cuts to their terms and conditions of employment. The only humorous side to that otherwise sad story was the fact that the managing director of the company concerned—Grand Metropolitan catering—was none other than a Mr Dick Turpin.
Two things happened at that time. First, in 1991, I took the case of the Eastbourne dustmen to the European Court of Justice, and we won. It was ruled that the British Government had acted unlawfully in denying protection on transfer from the public to the private sector. Secondly, employers themselves began to speak out. I remember Martin O’Halloran of ISS, the then chair of the CBI, saying that it was madness—that employers did not want a market based on a race to the bottom, and that they wanted a market in which we competed on quality and productivity, characterised by fair treatment and fair competition.
Mr Redwood
I, too, found that my attitude towards the single market changed in the 1980s, when I became the chairman of a big industrial company. I discovered that I had much better access, as an investor and as an exporter, to leading non-EU countries than I had to France and Germany.
Jack Dromey
I say this to the right hon. Gentleman and anyone else on the Government Benches: let us have some honesty in this debate. If they want to go back to the days of the 1980s, they should say so. If they want a Beecroft Britain, they should say so. If they believe that Britain can succeed only by driving down workers’ pay and conditions of employment, and by reducing their health and safety protection at work, they should say so. We will certainly be seeking to draw out what is undoubtedly their hidden agenda.
Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
Who governs? That is the fundamental question before us in this mighty debate today. At what point does a self-governing country have to say it is no longer self-governing because the body of European law and the wide-ranging body of European decisions are so fundamental that Ministers and this Parliament can no longer effectively govern the country?
Too many of us have watched as Governments have given away mighty powers of self-government from these islands and from this once great Parliament to the European institutions, and we have worried greatly. This has been done in the name of the British people, but it has not been done with the consent of the British people. There has always been an excuse not to trouble the British people, and so often outside this House political parties have misled the British people.
The British people were told that they were joining a common market. It was very clear from the treaty of Rome onwards that they were joining a political, economic and monetary union in the making. They were told that they just belonged to a single market, needed to guarantee jobs in certain export industries. There were two misleading things there. First, we do not need to belong to the EU to export to the EU. Many other countries outside it export much more successfully than we have done from inside it. Secondly, it was always a far bigger and more noble venture in the eyes of its architects, its fathers and mothers, than a mere single market or internal market.
I ask Members of this Parliament to look around and see what has been done in their names—to see how difficult it is now for Ministers of the coalition, future Ministers and Conservative or Labour Administrations to do many of the things they would like to do or their electors wish them to do, because so many powers have been given away. The bigger the corpus of European law becomes, the more constrained are not just our Ministers, but this once-great Parliament.
Mark Hendrick
Does not the right hon. Gentleman accept that the cars exported from the UK to mainland Europe today are a result of foreign direct investment to the UK because the UK is within the European Union, not outside the European Union?
Mr Redwood
No. That is a trivial point compared with the issues that I am raising, and it is entirely wrong, because there are many countries outside the EU that attract as much as or more inward investment than we do. I want, as does the hon. Gentleman, to keep those jobs, and we will continue to attract and support that inward investment as long as we have a satisfactory enterprise economy here and a decent market. We have a very large market of our own. That is why those investments come here.
The hon. Gentleman needs to look around and see how many powers have been taken away. We can no longer have an agricultural policy of any kind unless it is the approved one from Brussels. Our fishing grounds are completely controlled and regulated from Brussels. Our energy policy is greatly circumscribed by a large amount of European legislation, regulation and price control, and many more decisions coming along on climate change and energy, which means that it is very difficult to have an enterprise-oriented energy policy in this country.
We find that we do not control our own borders. We have no say over who comes here from the continent of Europe, and they have come in very large numbers in recent years. Many of them are welcome, but a sovereign country has the right to decide who comes and on what terms. We were always assured by Governments that we kept control of our welfare policy—that that was a matter for domestic consideration. We now find that the EU presumes to instruct us to whom we give benefits and what benefits we give them.
Michael Connarty
This is a grand opportunity to ask the right hon. Gentleman, as I asked the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash), to outline what position he would take and on what issues he would vote to leave the EU—on a matter of emotion, or can he give me some specific issues that he says should persuade his party and his Government to vote no when it comes to a referendum?
Mr Redwood
I wish to help restore democracy in our islands and to do that we need to regain the veto. We should not have sacrificed 100 vetoes at Nice, Amsterdam and Lisbon. This Parliament needs to be able to decide whether a new law goes forward or not; otherwise we will find that in ever more areas—I am just beginning to illustrate some of them—we are a fax or an e-mail democracy. We receive the e-mails or the faxes from Brussels and this Parliament has to put through the measure, whether we like it or not. That creates a tension within our democracy. Successive Governments bring measures to this House and recommend them to this House. They are very fundamental measures, but they often sneak them through this House, or sneak them through upstairs, because they fear they are unpalatable to us. However, they know that there is nothing that the House of Commons can do once the agreement has been made in Brussels—and very often it is made without the wholehearted consent of the British Minister. In the case of this Government, it may often be made against the wishes of the British Minister, but this House is still expected to put through these measures come what may.
That is why we need a Government who resolutely negotiate a new relationship for us with our partners in Europe. Of course, I give no ground to anybody in wanting to maximise jobs and investment in this country, and my recommendations would increase that rather than reduce them, as we find with non-EU members already. However, I also wish to see the Prime Minister’s great speech used as a platform for setting out how we recreate a democracy and secure the right in this House to say no to European laws if we do not like them. We have waited a long time for a Prime Minister who would say honestly that this country does not share the aim of the treaties and of many of the member states of the European Union because we do not wish ever-closer union.
I have heard very few Labour Members say that they want ever-closer union, because they know that that means political, monetary, fiscal, economic and every kind of union known; it means the creation of a united states of Europe. Those who wish to join that, I wish well, but it was never Britain’s view that we wanted to be part of a united states of Europe. The British people, if asked, would say no to that idea. It is up to us now, at this late hour, to say that too many powers have gone and that they need to be returned if we are to restore this once-great Chamber to what it once was.
This Parliament wrestled power from over-mighty monarchs. This Parliament took on those who wished to dominate the continent of Europe and rejected the imperial ambitions of first Spain, then France, and then Germany. Because of the work of our predecessors in the House of Commons, we as a nation said to Europe: “We want a Europe of the free. We want a Europe of independent nations. We want a Europe where people’s sense of local belonging is respected. We are against a tyranny. We are against an over-mighty Europe. We do not believe that Europe can be governed as a whole.”
How proud that vision was, and how right it is that our Prime Minister has reminded us of the foundations of our beliefs: no to ever-closer union, yes to more democracy; no to restrictions and too much centralised government from Brussels, yes to greater freedom to breathe and to decide and to choose among all the smaller countries of western Europe. I suspect that many countries out there and many politicians in them respect that vision and are rather impressed by its boldness. We should all join together now in rallying the peoples of Europe to say yes to friendship, yes to trade, yes to co-operation, but no to centralisation and no to authoritarian interference.
Mr William Bain (Glasgow North East) (Lab)
It is 62 years since the treaty of Paris was adopted, and 57 years since the adoption of the first treaty of Rome. In that time we have seen peace among the great powers in Europe, a great boost to our growth and trade, and a greater sense of social unity between Europe’s peoples. That is now under threat because the Government no longer seem willing to make the case that pooling part of our sovereignty increases our collective economic strength within Europe, and that our influence in the world increases as a result.
The success of the European Union means that other countries such as Serbia and Turkey are queuing up to join, and the model of peaceful rules-based co-operation between nation states has been followed in Asia with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, in Africa with the African Union, and in south America with Mercosur. We know from the views of the American Administration and the Government of China that our sense of and influence in the world is bound up with our full participation in the European Union, and we risk that at our peril.
Like my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield), my grandfather served during the first world war and my parents were children during the second world war when Europe was in the process of tearing itself apart.
Mr Bain
Sadly I cannot because of time. For my generation, Europe stands stronger together with common rights at work, free movement for workers and a successful single market of 480 million with whom we trade more than 48% of our exports. On many issues, the common stance that we have adopted has added to our strength in the world. That is why, as a Scottish Member of Parliament, I am clear that we must remain part of the United Kingdom and through that play a crucial part in Europe. I am hugely concerned that the Scottish Government’s proposals to take Scotland out of the United Kingdom would impact on that strong link with Europe and lead to years of negotiations and uncertainty about our currency and central bank, and our inclusion in global trade agreements.
The EU is at an important crossroads and needs reform, not least of its economic policies. Through the fiscal pact to which 25 countries have signed up, we see southern Europe at risk of a generation of austerity. The tragedy of the Prime Minister’s leadership—as the ghost of Maastricht continues to stalk the Conservative Benches two decades after the ratification of that treaty—is that Britain is well placed to lead on major issues of reform such as reducing agricultural subsidies through the CAP, increasing Europe’s investment in science and innovation, and completing the single market in energy. Instead of prioritising those areas, the Prime Minister is throwing that opportunity away and trying to diminish the rights of workers within the single market to paid holidays, maternity and paternity leave, and safe conditions at work.
As the Government’s survey shows, if Britain is not part of the single market and if the rest of Europe completes it in our absence, our national income would be 7.4% lower—[Interruption.] The analysis, which Government Members can consult, was conducted by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.
The Prime Minister is placing his increasingly forlorn ambition of uniting his party above our national interests at the heart of Europe. It is the Opposition’s duty to make the positive case.
Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)
I am delighted to speak last from the Back Benches in this debate. Who laughs last laughs longest, so I hope to have some influence on Britain’s EU reform. I feel hugely optimistic. The Prime Minister’s vision for Britain at the heart of a new globally competitive EU, and an EU that is both fair and democratically accountable, is music to my ears.
I find it astonishing that Opposition Front Benchers say that the Prime Minister’s speech causes rather than resolves uncertainty. They need to focus on the fact that the uncertainty over Britain’s future in the EU is the same as the uncertainty over the EU’s future. The eurozone has faced an unprecedented currency crisis and an existential crisis. While we have been worrying about jobs and growth, they have been worrying about the literal collapse of their currency and their eurozone union. Change is not just something that Britain would like to have and haggle over a bit here and there at the edges; change is essential across the whole of the EU, something already in evidence in the recent actions in the eurozone.
Mr Redwood
My hon. Friend has done an important study of EU powers. Did she find that the EU either now controls, or has substantial influence over, every part of Government?
Andrea Leadsom
My right hon. Friend makes a good point. Clearly, as part of a newly negotiated relationship with Brussels, it will be important for Britain to bring back significant powers. At the same time, the EU is set to change itself. It is already changing significantly, and changing in ways that already benefit Britain. Just one example is the eurozone’s decision to create a single regulator for eurozone financial institutions, and the recognition that in doing so there was the potential for member states to caucus against non-euro members. It has been agreed, at the request of Britain and other non-euro member states, to have a double majority, so that eurozone members cannot exclude non-euro countries from having a say in a vote. That is an important, game-changing precedent that points the way to a future for the European Union. There is a group of eurozone members that need to move towards a country called Europe where they underwrite one another’s debts and move to a federal united states of Europe. At the same time, there can be another very strong group of non-euro member countries that can find a different path. The Fresh Start project, which I was closely involved in establishing 18 months ago, has recently recommended a number of reforms. I hope that the Government will take close account of its recommendations.
Emma Reynolds
We have been clear and consistent about our position. I was in the Division Lobby with each of the right hon. Gentlemen who are sitting on the Treasury Bench, voting against a referendum on our membership in October 2011. We are not the ones who have changed our position; they are the ones who have changed theirs.
The Government’s commitment to a referendum also weakens the UK’s negotiating position with the rest of the EU. Opposition Members would like meaningful reform of the European Union, but we do not do that by blackmailing our European partners. Although my right hon. Friend the shadow Foreign Secretary has been specific about what kind of EU reform he would like, the same cannot be said of the Prime Minister’s speech last week, which gave very little detail about which powers he wanted to repatriate. Indeed, he did not even mention the word “repatriation”—much to the disgust, I am sure, of his Back Benchers—and he was also unclear about how he would campaign if he was not successful in that negotiation. When the Minister winds up, it would be useful for the rest of the House and the country if he put an end to that obscurity and told us which powers the Conservatives are attempting to bring back. What is their strategy, if they have one, and why are they so sure that the timing, in 2017, chimes with any sort of timing in the European Union? Chancellor Merkel has gone very lukewarm on the possibility of treaty change. It is not clear that we will have any treaty change between now and 2017.
Mr Redwood
Why did the Labour party in office give away a lot of our rebate, which a Conservative Prime Minister had negotiated, and then get no agricultural reform, which it had promised?
Emma Reynolds
I correct the right hon. Gentleman: he may have longer experience than I do, but I can tell him that there was significant reform of the common agricultural policy, and we put our contribution, for the first time in our history, on a par with the French contribution.
Labour’s agenda for the EU is reform, not exit. We believe it is in our vital national interest that the UK remains a full member of the EU, arguing and pushing for reform from the inside. In a global economy dominated by economic giants—the US, China, India and Brazil—it would be economic madness to shrink our domestic market from 500 million people to 60 million people. The EU is the biggest collective negotiating tool when negotiating trade deals with those emerging economies. At a time when the economy is flatlining, the Prime Minister’s attempt to unite his party might prove incredibly damaging. [Interruption.] I hope that it is not, but those are the warnings that we are getting on jobs, trade and inward investment in the years to come. That is indeed regrettable.