Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Turner Excerpts

Tuesday 21st January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

Confidence-building measures would assist enormously, including prisoner releases and local ceasefires. Although there have been discussions about those issues over the past 10 days, they have not yet borne fruit, and it is important that real effort is made on that in the opening stages of the Geneva II talks. I will attend the opening of those talks tomorrow and speak on behalf of our country, and I will encourage progress from all sides on the creation of a transitional governing body. Realistically, we are starting a process; it is important that a political process is started and then pursued.

[Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

13. If he will make an assessment of the effect of a codified constitution on member states’ ability to regulate within the European Union.

[The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr William Hague)]

European Union member states have widely differing constitutional structures. In Germany, for instance, the constitutional court has highlighted instances of where the Bundestag’s rights are close to being infringed. In the UK, European Union law takes effect only by virtue of the will of Parliament.

[Mr Turner]

We are fortunate in that our constitution is unwritten, or rather written on a number of documents. Why does the existence under EU law of a written constitution protect the rights of Germans, while our unwritten constitution does not give the UK equivalent protection?

[Mr Hague]

My hon. Friend is right about the importance of the German constitutional court and its written constitution, and it has sometimes warned of the limits of the EU’s role. It has insisted that questions should be referred to the German Parliament, but it has never directly overridden EU law, and we must bear that in mind about its constitutional structure. As my hon. Friend knows, and as he supported in the European Union Act 2011, we have made clear the ultimate sovereignty of Parliament in this country. That is the constitutional position, but we made it clearer in our 2011 Act.