European Union Referendum Bill

Debate between Baroness Hoey and Damian Green

Tuesday 9th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green (Ashford) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) on making such a good maiden speech. He will clearly be a strong and eloquent voice for his constituency and he is very welcome in this House.

I rise to speak in favour of this Bill, and I do so as one who believes that it is significantly in Britain’s interests to remain a member of the European Union, and that it will be even more in our interests as a result of the reforms the Prime Minister has now started negotiating.

I have huge respect and admiration for the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey), but she said she objects to being called anti-European, which is fair enough, yet she then went on to describe the European Union as a dictatorship. It is a collection of democracies who come together in their mutual interest. Each of those countries is a democracy and to describe the institution as a dictatorship is an inflation of language of the type she disapproves of when she is accused of being anti-European. I do not think that is how the debate should be conducted.

[Kate Hoey]

I certainly think the European Commission dictates what it wants to do and, with majority voting and all that goes on within the institution, we in this Parliament have very little or no say in how the money is spent and what it does.

[Damian Green]

Our Government are represented in the Council of Ministers and the Parliament; that is the democratic check. It can of course be improved—nobody is saying that the EU is perfect—but there are many institutions that need improving. Indeed, Parliament needs improving, but that does not mean we should give up on the many and manifold advantages of parliamentary democracy. That is the attitude with which we should approach the EU.

I am also in favour of the Bill because I am happy to take on in friendly public debate those who want to cut our close ties with friendly neighbouring democracies, and because I believe it is appropriate to have this debate now. The subject of Europe is a curious one in British politics. For a small number of people—some of whom have spoken today—it is an all-consuming passion. For the vast majority of the British people, however, it rarely features in the top 10 things they want Governments to get to grips with.

I will be happy to play a part in persuading the British people that the risks of turning our back on our democratic neighbours massively outweigh the benefits, but I will do this in the spirit of removing a cloud that has hung over politics for too long. Having the in/out debate always hovering around adds an unnecessary level of uncertainty to our national debate on many subjects, and it leaves the rest of the world, particularly our friends, unsure about Britain’s view of its own place in the world.

It has been clear for some time that we are going to need a referendum to clear up this uncertainty. It has been 40 years since the last one. The world has changed, the UK has changed, the European Union has changed. So let’s get on with it. Let us focus the British people’s minds on the choice before us, and see what they say.

Immigration Queues (UK Airports)

Debate between Baroness Hoey and Damian Green

Monday 30th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

If the rules can be relaxed for anyone, Mr Speaker, they should be relaxed for my right hon. Friend. I take the importance of what he says. It is of course annoying not just for British business men coming back, but for foreign business people who also want as smooth a procedure as possible. That is why we worked so hard to introduce the e-passport gates. With every year that passes, 10% more British people get a new modern passport that enables them to use those gates, which can often provide a considerable improvement in itself. This debate is bedevilled by anecdote, with everyone having an individual story to tell, either good or bad. My own is that I came through Heathrow last Thursday and used the e-gates. I am happy to say that from arriving in the immigration hall to leaving took precisely four minutes.

[Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab)]

Does the Minister understand that British subjects and British passport holders are not really interested in targets, but in getting back into their own country as quickly as possible? Will he now answer the question asked by one of his hon. Friends? Why can we not simply say to the European Union that we are going to give priority to our British passport holders, who are going to have a separate queuing lane so that they can join it and get in first? Surely that is what we should be doing as an independent country.

[Damian Green]

As the hon. Lady knows perfectly well, that would require significant changes to the law going way beyond immigration policy. I gently suggest to her that all her constituents who want to go on holiday to other countries in the European Union would feel slightly short-changed if they had to wait much longer because there was a separate lane there, too.

Home Department

Debate between Baroness Hoey and Damian Green

Thursday 7th July 2011 Ministerial Corrections

[Kate Hoey]

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what assessment she has made of the safety of Syria as a place for visa applicants in Iraq to collect their visas.

[Official Report, 21 June 2011, Vol. 530, c. 211W.]

Letter of correction from Damian Green:

An error has been identified in the written answer given to the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey) on 21 June 2011.

The full answer given was as follows:

[Damian Green]

We are closely monitoring the security situation in Syria. Our visa application centre remains open for business and applicants are able to make their applications in the normal way. Applicants who live in Iraq can choose to visit Syria, Lebanon or Jordan to make their applications.

The correct answer should have been:

Passenger Name Records

Debate between Baroness Hoey and Damian Green

Tuesday 10th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

I am very happy to give my hon. Friend that specific assurance that the data will not be used for profiling. Indeed, the amount of sensitive personal data that will be put on the system is one of the liveliest matters for negotiation. I entirely share his instincts, which I know to be that although data need to be collected and stored for the protection of our citizens, that must done proportionately. In many ways, the ideal situation is that we collect and store the exact minimum of data that we need to enhance the security of the people and do not drift into the situation that the previous Government fell into. They believed that they made us safer by collecting and storing more and more data and keeping them for longer. That did not make any British citizen safer but it did amount to an assault on our civil liberties.

[Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab)]

The Minister has said on a number of occasions that opting into this directive will make Britain safer. I presume that he meant to say the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, although I frequently hear Ministers refer to “Britain”. He said that this approach would be used “only on routes of high risk, whether these are between a third country and a member state or between member states.” Does he envisage it ever being used for journeys between Belfast and London?

[Damian Green]

I am perhaps careless in saying “Britain” when I mean the United Kingdom, and I am happy to assure the hon. Lady that I mean the United Kingdom on this occasion. Like her, I regard flights between Belfast and London as being entirely British domestic flights and therefore certainly not included in the terms of an international agreement between EU member states.