Multiannual Financial Framework

Bernard Jenkin Excerpts

Wednesday 31st October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

The speech by the hon. Member for Preston (Mark Hendrick) sounded more like a speech in favour of an increase in the European budget, albeit disguised as a speech in favour of a cut, because that happens to be what he is being asked to vote for today.

I note that passions are high in this debate, not least among my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Sir Tony Baldry) and the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes). Let me assure them both—because I think they come from the same European stable—that the last thing those of us who support the amendment want to do is wreck Europe or to wreck our relationship with our European partners.

But something very big is happening in British politics—much bigger than this debate. We are debating the European multiannual financial framework, but there is something rather familiar about the positions being adopted by those on the two Front Benches. One could almost imagine that, if they were to change places, each would be making the other’s speech. Indeed, in the last Parliament, one felt that that was exactly what was happening. There is something deeply disconnected about the debates that we have been having in the House about our future relationship with the European Union, and about the aspirations of the British people and what they want that relationship to be.

I would caution my right hon. and hon. Friends against taunting Labour Members over their volte face on this issue. I have no doubt that they have made a volte face on the question of European spending, but for us to accuse them of doing so will cut absolutely no ice with the voters. I would note, however, that the Labour party’s volte face represents a big shift in the politics of this country and in the politics of our relationship with the European Union. Labour is an opposition party that is hungry for power. Even Labour Members can now sense the tide of opinion that is flowing against the European Union among our voters. They are picking up the vibrations from their constituents and from the voters they need in order to get elected, and they have discovered a new principle in order to reflect that: they now want to cut the European budget.

[Mr MacShane]

rose—

[Mr Jenkin]

I give way to my newly Eurosceptic colleague.

[Mr MacShane]

I am deeply grateful to the hon. Gentleman. Whether this is a volte face or a volte farce I am not quite sure, but he is quite right to say that the tide is flowing; it is flowing to Labour and away from the Conservatives.

[Mr Jenkin]

I believe that the Labour party is picking up the anger of the British people about the idea of spending more money on European policies when we are having to cut back on policies of our own.

There is something rather chilling about the exchanges between those on the Front Benches, which tacitly suggest that a veto is a defeat and that it could lead to a worse budgetary outcome for the United Kingdom than could a negotiated settlement. That seemed to be the burden of the argument put by the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie). I should just like to point out to him what that says about the relationship that we now have with the European institutions. Those institutions are so overpowering and so powerful that even the veto of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom cannot stop the European train on its way to its destination. The British people feel that something has gone wrong with that relationship. This was not the basis on which we were sold membership of the institution, and it was not the basis on which all the assurances were given by successive Governments that each treaty represented no substantial change and was just a “tidying-up exercise”.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that the veto does not really work. Ought we not therefore to be looking to amend the European Communities Act 1972, while recognising that this motion is dealing with the system as it is?

[Mr Jenkin]

I would just point out that we should not try to make ourselves too important in this debate. This is a take-note motion. I have spoken in many debates on such motions. The amendment expresses an opinion on whether the Prime Minister should adopt this little bit of body language or that little bit of body language. It will not make a blind bit of difference to what he does when he goes to the Council of Ministers. The amendment is simply a cry of despair from the British people who want their elected representatives to say something to the Front Benchers of both parties, who have betrayed the British people on the question of our relationship with our European partners throughout the 20 years I have been in Parliament.

The problem in this country is that the governing class is now so out of line with our people’s aspirations for the relationship with our European partners that they are putting the United Kingdom in the worst of all possible worlds. It cannot deliver the engagement of the British state with our European partners on the terms set down in the treaties, and it is not trying to deliver the different terms of agreement with our European partners that the British people would prefer, that our country needs, and that are in the national interest. So wide is this gulf that even the Labour party is picking up the vibrations and is beginning to respond.

[Mike Gapes]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Jenkin]

I will, because I mentioned the hon. Gentleman in my remarks.

[Mike Gapes]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that if he got his wish and the UK left the European Union, as did Norway, in order to get access to the single market and to sign up to the acquis, we would pay billions into the EU yet not have any say at all?

[Mr Jenkin]

I do not want to leave the European Union; I want us to engage in a renegotiation of our terms of membership. Now is perhaps not the occasion for such a debate, but it is quite clear that the European Union is becoming a very different kind of European Union—even from the European Union agreed in the Lisbon treaty, let alone from the Common Market, which the British people voted to join all those years ago. It seems to me that if the EU is changing fundamentally and we do not want to be part of a political union, an economic union or part of a currency union or a banking union, we are going to have to change the arrangements by which the EU can legislate to make the laws in our own land.

That seems to me to be absolutely plain and axiomatic, absolutely simple, yet what we have at the moment is a coalition that is paralysed by that coalition—paralysed by an institutionalised disagreement by the two parties in coalition. The renegotiation opportunities at the moment are passing us by. The British people are aware of that paralysis and I do not think that they will put up with it. We are going to finish up having more debates like this, more crises, more difficulties, more dysfunctionality in how Ministers are forced to conduct themselves in the Councils of Europe—and that will put this country in the worst of all possible worlds. To that extent, I agree with the hon. Member for Ilford South.

What this country needs to do is rapidly reassess what relationship we want with the European Union so that our resources can no longer be appropriated in a manner over which even this House, which founded its powers on the control of supply, has no control. As for “own resources”, it is about the European Union having the right to sequester taxation, money and supply from our country, without the consent of this House. I do not think that is what the British people want; it is certainly not good value for money, and they can see that. This relationship is in crisis. The message that a vote for this amendment tonight will convey to the Government is that they are not addressing this crisis with sufficient urgency.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab)]

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven. Without indulging in some of stronger language and rhetoric of different colleagues, I say that this may be an important parliamentary moment, because the British people decided in May 2010 not to give any of us a majority. I think they wanted a different kind of Parliament to emerge, one that was a bit freer, a bit more liberal and a bit less whipped; I am a party animal myself and the Whips are necessary, but perhaps tonight some signal can be sent that we are listening.

There are technical points that can and cannot be made. I would dearly love to see, in South Yorkshire or perhaps in Northern Ireland, every public servant’s salary reduced to €100,000—about £80,000. If that salary level was applied, there would be a revolt in Whitehall, and among Cabinet Ministers and senior Ministers of State, if not perhaps among junior Ministers of State.

We have heard the language of “betrayal” used, and I think that is silly, because the country is going through a serious discussion about what its future relationship with Europe will be. The people have never elected Mr Nigel Farage or the UK Independence party to a seat in this House, although they have elected him to the European Parliament. However, his spirit has been present in much of tonight’s debate.

We are facing a fundamental divide, as there are two approaches to European politics. We heard one earlier today, when the ten-minute rule Bill was introduced. It was supported by a large number of Conservative Members and it called for the end to the free movement of people in Europe. It was a well-argued case, but of course it utterly destroys the purpose of the European Union if we are to have passport checks at every border and not allow people to live where they wish.

We are now finding that there is a big debate about the money we spend. I take all the points that have been made about cuts, but we could have the same argument about the Department for International Development’s spending, and I might argue about whether the £13 billion we spent in Afghanistan is money wisely spent. Underneath it all is this dichotomy over Europe. There is a debate about being in or out—an honest debate that we are beginning to have—and another debate among those of us who believe we should stay in the European Union about what kind of European Union there should be.

The voting of money is, of course, what determines what kind of policy we have. This budget is the wrong budget, drawn up by conservatives and cautious, complacent centre-right bureaucrats and politicians. It is inappropriate and it keeps the European budget in the same old tramlines of protectionist common agricultural spending and ineffective regional spending.

[Mr Jenkin]

rose—

[Mr MacShane]

I will not give way. I am very happy with the Speaker’s reduction of the time limit.

Last week, Labour MEPs voted against that budget and for a different priority that would focus on growth, on jobs and on what is needed. That is what I believe should be done, which is why I am happy to vote for the amendment tonight. I am not sure what will happen thereafter. This country will have to face a big question. Tonight it is right that Parliament asserts its authority. That does not mean the end of the debate; it is just the beginning of the debate about whether we stay in the European Union or not.