Commission Work Programme 2013

Anne Main Excerpts

Monday 7th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

My hon. Friend displays his usual prescience in these matters, because I was about to refer to the list that he recited. The Government welcome the inclusion in the work programme of a list of simplification measures, but we need to be vigilant to ensure that they deliver genuine savings for business. The list of 14 withdrawn proposals that the Commission has published is disappointing, because those measures are obsolete already or are due to be replaced by further proposals. The Commission needs to do much better than that to remove unnecessary or excessive legislation from the statute book, and not only the Government of the United Kingdom but the Governments of a significant number of other like-minded member states are committed to achieving that.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

On the commitment to reducing the burden of these legislative measures, does the Minister have any idea of how many we would like to get rid of? Are we suggesting that anything is dropped instead of just waiting for the Commission to show us what it is proposing?

[Mr Lidington]

Yes. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills keeps returning to this point. The working time directive is one example that the Prime Minister mentioned again in his television interview on Sunday. The best thing I can do for my hon. Friend is to undertake that I or one of my colleagues in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills will write to her with more detail on this point.

A third important theme for the Government is safeguarding the United Kingdom’s interests as a sovereign state. As set out in the coalition agreement, we will not participate in the establishment of a European public prosecutor and the UK will not exercise its opt-in for this measure, which is proposed in the Commission’s work programme. Several other measures in the area of justice and home affairs will also trigger opt-in decisions. These will be considered on a case-by-case basis, with a view to maximising our country’s security, protecting civil liberties, preserving the integrity of our criminal justice and common law systems, and controlling immigration.

We also have concerns about subsidiarity in relation to a small number of items in the work programme, such as those with regard to standardising VAT forms throughout the EU. Parliament, of course, has an important role to play in this regard, not least in deploying the additional powers that it has under the Lisbon treaty to issue a reasoned opinion when it considers that a proposal is not consistent with the principle of subsidiarity.

I hope that today’s debate will set the tone for close consultation between Parliament and Government on European Union issues in 2013 and beyond. We consider Parliament’s role to be vital in strengthening democratic oversight of EU activity and, more broadly, in improving trust in the decision-making process between citizens, Parliament and Government, and fuelling a well-informed public debate on EU matters.

Of course, responsibility for most of the measures in the work programme lies with other Government Departments and not the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, but I will be happy to discuss further, both with the European Scrutiny Committee and departmental Select Committees, how best to engage in a deeper dialogue about EU issues during all stages of their development. The scrutiny of EU legislation by Parliament is vital to the robust functioning of democracy.

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[Mrs Main]

Of course, the other point is that we usually compare and contrast the Queen’s speech with the manifestos of the parties. As for what happens in Europe, we rarely get it in our manifestos.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There is no manifesto; nobody stands for the European Commission saying what they want to do and the programme they wish to propose. No, no—it comes down from on high. Is it not interesting that that which has the appearance of power has none whereas that which has the reality of power uses it as far as possible by stealth?

Annex I contains 58 recommendations, 38 of which are legislative—including some elements that are non-legislative in bits of them. One rather splendidly requires “soft law”, a term that I have not heard before. I wonder whether when up before a judge one could say, “I am not sure whether I broke the law, because it was only soft law—does it have to be hard law?” Another is a negotiating directive that is not law by first degree but becomes law a little later.

Annex II is on simplifications and 17 out of the 18 proposals are legislative. Is it not interesting that when the European Union simplifies, it has to pass more law? It does not just repeal things—not a bit of it—but passes more laws. It reminds me of that quip: “Big fleas have smaller fleas upon their backs to bite ’em, and little fleas have lesser fleas and so ad infinitum.” We go on and on legislating, apparently making things simpler, but it seems to me that we are just being bitten by the fleas of the European Union.

I know that time is short, so I want to go to the absolute heart of the matter, which, as so often, is in the introduction, which refers to the state of the Union speech by Mr Barroso—that reference is wonderfully grandiloquent and makes it sound as if he is President of the United States and a democratically elected and important figure rather than a minor panjandrum—and states:

“The State of the Union speech launched ambitious ideas for the long term framing of the EU—a deep and genuine economic union, based on a political union. This vision must be translated into practice through concrete steps, if it is to address the lingering crisis that continues to engulf Europe, and the Euro Area in particular.”

These are concrete steps about creating an economic union based on a political union; they are not in the interests of the United Kingdom.