Europe
Debate between Baroness Hoey and Henry Smith(11 years, 2 months ago)
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Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
Thank you for this opportunity to speak in what is an extremely timely and important debate, Mr Deputy Speaker. As Members of this House, we are all very privileged to have the opportunity to contribute and have our say. Every time I walk through the doors, I am conscious that there are approximately 100,000 people in my constituency whom I am seeking to represent. I was struck by the concluding remarks of the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern). She has left her place, but she spoke about giving dignity back to our constituents. I can think of no greater way of doing that than to give them a say on our future relationship with the European Union. The influence of the EU in the past four decades has increasingly dominated every aspect of our national life.
On 1 January 1973—I do not remember it; I was only three years old—we joined what was then referred to as the Common Market or the European Economic Community. When I was six, our membership was confirmed in a referendum. It is important to say that most people thought they were voting in favour of a common market—a customs union or a free trade area. [Interruption.] At the time, some people referred to the small print in the treaty of Rome about ever-closer union, but generally people believed that, essentially, they were joining an economic free trading agreement.
Over ensuing decades, the European Economic Community developed into the European Community and then into the European Union, and the various Acts and treaties, including the Single European Act, which has been referred to, the Maastricht treaty and the failed EU constitution, which had to be rebranded and essentially presented and passed by the previous Government as the Lisbon treaty, have seen an inexorable moving of power from this Parliament to a centralised EU.
I am often struck that people refer to the EU as a federal project—if only it were a little more federal with more subsidiarity! Over the past 40 years, however, it has grown into a central government project, and it is right that the Prime Minister has offered the country a chance to decide its future relationship with the EU. Last Wednesday’s speech will prove to be one of the most important speeches that a British Prime Minister has made in the past half century, and I, for one, am grateful for the clear direction he has set out—as the Foreign Secretary said, it is much clearer than what we hear from Her Majesty’s Opposition.
I only wish that our coalition partners were also signed up to a referendum. It certainly used to be their policy. I do not often quote the Deputy Prime Minister, but I would like to now. Writing in The Guardian on 25 February 2008, he said:
“It’s time we pulled out the thorn and healed the wound, time for a debate politicians have been too cowardly to hold for 30 years—time for a referendum on the big question. Do we want to be in or out? Nobody in Britain under the age of 51 has ever been asked that simple question. None of them were eligible to vote in that 1975 referendum. That includes half of all MPs. Two generations have never had their say.”
That was five years ago, so now that age is 56, and we are into a new Parliament.
Henry Smith
I wish I knew how the Deputy Prime Minister’s mind worked. You would be quite right, Mr Deputy Speaker, to rule me out of order for being unparliamentary if I used the word “hypocrisy” in the Chamber, and I would never use the word “hypocrisy” in the Chamber to refer to another right hon. or hon. Member, but I think that the Deputy Prime Minister is guilty of rank inconsistency over his party’s position on a referendum.
This country has a unique position in the world; we have global links like no other nation on earth and we of course have our proximity to the European continent. This nation’s success has been rooted in being a free trading nation that seeks links and co-operation with the world. Our best opportunity for the future, as in the past, is to utilise those unique links and act as a conduit—a bridge—between the world and the European continent.
Data Protection in the Areas of Police and Criminal Justice (EU Directive)
Debate between Baroness Hoey and Henry Smith(12 years ago)
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Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab)
It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash). The hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), who is just leaving the Chamber, made an excellent speech. I agreed with practically every word he said, as I did with the hon. Member for Stone, who outlined that the way in which the measure is being put through the House is totally against the way in which the new Government supposedly intended to treat European legislation. That is wrong but rather typical of Governments. This Government and the previous one, and everybody in the establishments of the parties at the top level, want to avoid a genuine debate––and certainly any debate in the country––and rush measures through.
I, too, read the directive checklist for analysis on EU proposals. I happen to feel sorry for poor Mr John Bowman, who is the lead policy official who wrote it, because everything in it points towards why we should not support the motion to not opt out of the directive. That is not just because of the cost analysis, but it is worth quoting that for the public, who may well be listening. It states:
“The proposals would impose substantial costs which would largely fall on the criminal justice agencies”
and ultimately on the taxpayer.
The checklist also states:
“The overall impact is likely to be substantially negative”.
I heard not one single word from the Minister on that. He should have listened to the previous European debate just an hour and a half ago, when the Financial Secretary to the Treasury took many questions and ended up getting a lot more information. This Minister simply wanted to get through his speech and was prepared only very rarely to give way. He did not in any way respond to all the arguments against supporting this motion tonight.
The ministerial sign-off—presumably by the Minister tonight—reads:
“I have read the analysis above of the potential impacts of this proposal and I am satisfied that, given the significance of the proposal, the time and evidence available, and the uncertainty of the outcome of negotiations, it represents a proportionate view of possible impacts.”
That is precisely why the people of this country are sick, sore and tired of everything that this Parliament does on the European Union.
If the outcome of the case of the Romanian rapist, who has suddenly become a very famous person tonight—my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) also mentioned him—was possible before we had this directive, why do we need it? The system worked perfectly well in that case. It even worked for the Albanian head chopper. It seems to me that we are struggling for reasons to prove that this directive will help, but the real reason we are pushing it through quickly is, as the hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth said, that there is a whole raft of European Union regulations coming that we will have to make a decision on and this Government know that on their Back Benches, and increasingly on this side I am glad to say—although there are none here tonight apart from my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East—resentment is felt towards the European Union and its regulations, its burden and its undemocratic nature. The Government therefore want to get this through as quickly as possible.
I cannot understand why we cannot have bilateral agreements. If we have the agreements there already, why cannot we strengthen them?
Henry Smith
Is it not the case that if we opt in to this directive, it will be a one-way decision that we cannot back out of? It will be decided through qualified majority voting, so we may not get exactly the sort of directive that would suit the United Kingdom, which is yet another reason.
Kate Hoey
I absolutely agree, and that is precisely what some of us wanted to ask the Minister about, but he was not prepared to take interventions. I hope that he will respond to some of these questions. He himself said that he does not like bits of it—some of it is excessively bureaucratic and it is far too prescriptive. He said that the Government do not like the domestic aspect of it, but that they will negotiate. He actually thinks that we are going to believe that we would manage to change very much of this, when the reality is that we rarely change things and we ultimately give in. We will give in on this. If this is put through tonight, no matter how much we decide that it is not a good thing, we can do nothing about it.
It is an absolute disgrace that after a one and a half hour debate, and my party refusing to even vote on it, this will be pushed through. This is just one more sign. I remind the House of the people’s pledge campaign, which is all-party—including my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East. We are keen to see a referendum on the European Union. It is holding by-election-type referendums across the country. In Thurrock, just before Easter, 90% of the people who voted—in a higher turnout than in most local elections—voted for an in/out referendum. Anyone who has been watching this debate tonight and listening to the arguments put by the Minister will even more strongly believe that we need a referendum and an opportunity for the people to decide their destiny.