Business of the House

Debate between Bernard Jenkin and John Redwood

Monday 1st April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

I say to my right hon. and learned Friend that the problem with the process of indicative votes is that MPs are free to pick and choose whatever policies they like, without any responsibility for what happens afterwards. There is an obvious flaw in that process—I look particularly at Opposition Members. Especially in a hung Parliament such as this, it is not unreasonable to suspect that individual Members might have ulterior motives for supporting or opposing particular measures, rather than voting just on their merits. After all, the House of Commons is a theatre, within which different political parties compete for power, either by trying to avoid a general election or trying to get one by collapsing the Government. Amid that chaos, who is to be held accountable for what is decided?

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Is that not particularly the case when Parliament is trying to issue instructions to the Government about an international negotiation, but only the Government can negotiate on behalf of the United Kingdom? We cannot have little groups of MPs who fancy their chances turning up in Brussels, purporting to represent the UK. It makes it a difficult exercise when Members are trying to influence a negotiation that only the Government can handle.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

I agree with my right hon. Friend. I have some criticism of the way in which the Government have conducted their European policy, but they cannot be held responsible for decisions for which they did not vote or prove impossible to carry out.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Bernard Jenkin and John Redwood

Committee: 7th sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 13th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[John Redwood]

Does my hon. Friend agree that this is a process completely driven by Parliament? We have an Act of Parliament to send the letter, an Act of Parliament proposed now to withdraw and then another Act of Parliament to implement any agreement. The whole thing is completely under parliamentary sovereignty. Will he also confirm that we must have the date in the Bill to ensure legal continuity, as, under international law, we are leaving at the end of March because of the treaty?

[Mr Jenkin]

It is wishful thinking that the deadline will be extended. Where I disagree with my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield is over the fact that, somehow, he thinks that the withdrawal agreement is necessary for us to leave the European Union and that the statute for the agreement is therefore necessary. Unfortunately, it is not. He voted for article 50, which triggered the process of leaving. Everything else is for our domestic legislation. Let us hope that there is a withdrawal agreement, but, actually, this Bill is what is necessary to provide legal continuity. Unfortunately, requiring another Act of Parliament before provisions of this Bill come into effect is just muddying the waters.

As the Minister has already demonstrated very forcefully, this is not an effective amendment. If my right hon. and learned Friend wants to table a different amendment, as colleagues almost seem to be suggesting, that might be a way to resolve this. I beg my right hon. and hon. Friends on this point. There is a summit tomorrow. This is not the moment to try to defeat the Government—[Interruption.]

The Government's Plan for Brexit

Debate between Bernard Jenkin and John Redwood

Wednesday 7th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that as we bring the country together it is important that people do not look for possible or imaginary problems, because we want the strongest possible position to negotiate the best possible answer for the country, and we need to unite to do so?

[Mr Jenkin]

I wholly agree with my right hon. Friend.

The Latin monetary union was formed in 1865 in Europe and lasted for 62 years, but has been completely forgotten. It is never discussed. It came and went, and I think that we will come to see our EU membership, barely longer than a generation, in the same way.

There are two aspects to the motion. First, the Government will produce a plan—we all agree about that now. I do not think it came as a surprise that the Government conceded that point. Secondly, it seems that most Members will vote for the invocation of article 50 by 31 March 2017. We can demonstrate to the country that there is a great measure of consensus, but it prompts the question why there is a court case, and why the courts have chosen to become involved, particularly once the motion is carried. We do not need a court to tell the House that it is sovereign. The House could stop Brexit whenever it wanted, as it could stop anything else that a Government do if it chose to do so. It is unfortunate that a different kind of judiciary is developing, as I do not think that Parliament ever voted for that. We await the outcome of the Supreme Court ruling with respect and great interest to see if that is the kind of judiciary that we want.

Parliamentary Scrutiny of Leaving the EU

Debate between Bernard Jenkin and John Redwood

Wednesday 12th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jenkin]

Is it not also incumbent on the Government to be mindful that article 50 was not put into the Lisbon treaty to make it less complicated to leave the European Union? If we try to include too many things under article 50 that stray into mixed competences, we will finish up with an agreement that requires unanimity. That would lead to a far more protracted negotiation than if we try to keep things simple. In fact, it would be an advantage to business if we could complete this in a much shorter period than the two years specified under the article 50 process.

[John Redwood]

Indeed. This is not a prediction, because I know that a lot of people have lots of good and bad reasons to want to delay and make this more complicated, but it would be quite possible to negotiate the trade issue very quickly.

We have two models available. My preferred model would be to carry on trading tariff free without new barriers, as we are at the moment. That is the most sensible model to adopt, and I think it makes even more sense for our partners, who are much more successful at selling to us than we are to them. I have not yet heard them say that they want to impose barriers. Then there is the WTO most-favoured-nation model, which would also be fine. If one wishes to have a successful, quick and strong negotiation, one should not want anything. We do not want anything from our former partners. We want them to get on and develop their political union in the way that they want, in which we have been impeding them, and we want to be free to run our own affairs in an orderly and friendly way.

We want to have even more trade with our European partners. We want more investment agreements, more research collaborations, more student exchanges and more of all the other good things we have. Those things are not at risk, and there will be an enormous amount of good will from a more united United Kingdom. [Interruption.] Opposition Members want to split us up by saying that everything has to go wrong. If they want us to negotiate successfully, they should show confidence and optimism—let us show that we can do this and be good friends with our European partners.

EU Referendum: Voter Registration

Debate between Bernard Jenkin and John Redwood

Thursday 9th June 2016 Commons Chamber

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

May I correct any misinterpretation? Everyone I know in the leave campaign—in Vote Leave, in particular—welcomes the enormous interest and surge in the number of people registering to take part in the referendum. It was clearly imperative that something be done, if possible, to address the anomaly that arose on Tuesday night. I welcome the fact that young people in particular are registering, and I absolutely take the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith) that anybody in politics who thinks they will thrive on a lower turnout is not thriving in a democracy that we want to be part of.

There will be a time for an inquest, not just by the Electoral Commission or the Government, but by the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee. We have already pencilled in what we will do in the aftermath of the referendum, to see what lessons should be learned, and in the aftermath of the general election, individual registration and so on.

[John Redwood]

Is it not particularly important in the case of big national issues, such as whether we want an independent democracy in one country, that the electorate be the one chosen by Parliament? Does my hon. Friend share my concern that there is not proper control over continental Europeans registering and voting in the referendum?

[Mr Jenkin]

I was going to come to that later but will deal with it now. With individual registration, it is imperative that every new registration is cross-checked with national insurance data and, if necessary, Border Agency data. There is no post-registration audit of electoral registers, so anybody who is mis-registered stays on them. This needs to be looked at, because we have no idea how many non-UK EU nationals not from Malta, Cyprus or Ireland are recorded as eligible to vote and have been sent ballot papers, not because of a software glitch but simply because they were mis-registered, either on purpose or inadvertently. Indeed, one electoral returning officer told a member of the House of Commons Library—off the record—that if somebody lies on their registration form and it cannot be checked, nothing can be done about it. The person still has to be registered. There is no way of cross-checking to find out whether someone has lied.

Defence Spending

Debate between Bernard Jenkin and John Redwood

Thursday 12th March 2015 Commons Chamber

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

May I first remark upon the absence of my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash)? He had wished to be here to support the motion but is attending the funeral of Sergeant Doug Lakey, who was awarded the military medal and was with my hon. Friend’s father, Captain Paul Cash, on the day he was killed in Normandy in July 1944.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and his colleagues on pinning their support for any future coalition Government to the 2% commitment, which is a significant benchmark. I hope that we will not be relying on his support after the general election, but I think that it sends a strong signal, both to people in my party and to others, so I commend him for that.

This debate is about the importance of defence. Every Member who has spoken seems to understand the importance of defence, but I hope that the House will forgive me if I go right back to basics and explain why defence is important. It is about what defence is expected to achieve: security. Security can be hard to define. It is best understood as a state of mind: how safe and secure people feel in carrying on with their daily life without undue anxiety about what might happen to them, to those on whom they depend, and to those who depend on them. It is also about providing security of expectation. We expect access to reliable supplies of clean water, food, energy and communications, which we all take for granted, and in the longer term we expect access to health, economic security, jobs, incomes and pensions, and education in order to strive for a secure future for the next generation.

It is true that military capability is just part of what we need in order to achieve true security. We want to shape the world for our own benefit and to advance democracy, human rights and free trade for the benefit of all humanity. We and our allies must therefore separately and together conduct campaigns to advance those ends. For the most part we want to use soft power—diplomacy, trade, aid and cultural links—to succeed in those campaigns. In a peaceful world, the exercise of soft power is the only acceptable way to conduct international relations.

During periods when it is less obvious how expensive military capability can be of much value, as was the case in the period immediately after the end of the cold war, it is tempting to believe that national or European defence is not about being prepared to repel invaders or protect from potential aggressors. The use of soft power can seem to be the only way to combat insurgencies driven by religious tensions or extremist ideologies, but there is another danger in that regard. Some offer soft power as an alternative to hard power, and that is particularly attractive due to the war-weary sentiment that pervades our politics today. Some even warn that using or threatening to use hard power—we heard this from my friend and Public Administration Committee colleague, the hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn)—undermines and discredits our commitment to the objectives that we Europeans wish to achieve in the world. That is a dangerous fallacy.

The lessons of history are very clear. We cannot enjoy a soft-power world unless we also have recourse to hard power when necessary. Central and eastern Europe were able to emerge from under Soviet communism and join the western family of democratic nations only because the west’s determined hard-power stance succeeded in facing down Russia during the cold war. Today, democratic nations must be ready and willing to deploy hard power to maintain global peace and security. The successful resolution of the 1990s Balkans crisis, which was not a humanitarian operation, proved that when NATO threatened a ground invasion in order to resolve the conflict.

Therefore, as we Europeans—I say “Europeans” because this spending problem is a European problem—conduct our global campaigns to promote peace, security and prosperity around the world, and we seek to do so by using our influence through trade, aid and diplomacy, we need to remember that global security and the rule of international law depend on our ability to defend them—in the last resort, by force, if necessary. The commitment to foreign aid, which eschews the national interest, is no more important an indication of the national will than our commitment to spend the NATO minimum of 2% of GDP on defence.

This concept of defence rests on the concept of deterrence, which has already been mentioned. It is a grave mistake to see defence merely as a collection of tools to be kept in a box that is taken out of the cupboard under the stairs only when something goes wrong, and is put away again when the job is done. Some like to see defence as a kind of insurance against worst-case scenarios. Britain’s nuclear deterrent is often described in that way, but the analogy is deeply misleading and dangerous, because it encourages a false belief that we can balance what we have to spend on defence against what we perceive to be the risks or threats. Not even the nuclear deterrent can buy national or European security on its own.

[Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Is it not also the case that if someone belongs to a club, they have to pay the subscription? We are never allowed to cut the subscription we pay to the European Union, from which some of us do not think we get value, and now people are suggesting that we can cut our subscription to NATO, which is vital to our security.

[Mr Jenkin]

Yes, and it should not be forgotten that our subscription to the EU is also written into legislation, and that we are not allowed to change that. I am thinking of asking the Library to speculate on when our contribution to the European Union will overtake what we spend on defence.

The question is what role defence plays in shaping the kind of world we want. We need to possess and be able to deploy the capacity to discourage, or even to retaliate against, those who would disrupt that. Opponents of the maintenance of our minimum nuclear deterrent systems in the UK and France often assert that they are a waste of money “because they are never used”. Actually, our nuclear deterrent is used every hour of every day of every year. All that we require potential adversaries to know is that we can and might use it, if circumstances arose that would make that expedient. That is how we influence the global strategic environment.

The same applies by degrees to all military capabilities that nations, or groups of nations, possess that can inflict harm or disadvantage on adversaries who threaten our interests or global security. The mere possession of military capability is not a threat to international security. The lack of it on our part, in the face of those who do have it and have the intention of using it, is the threat we confront today. Money spent on our capability is not wasted if we never use it. It is an indication of our will—our determination to succeed in our aims of promoting international security and the rule of international law. We need military capability in order to be peacekeepers. What we possess changes how potential adversaries perceive us because of what we can or might do in response.

Defence is not just about having the armed forces to match the particular military threats that we can see or imagine. Defence policy is about how we decide what military capability we need to possess in order to help shape the world to be more as we want it to be, rather than subject to the will of those who seek to take unfair advantage, or to disrupt that. These days, defence policy extends beyond the traditional domains of land, sea and air, as was so ably described by my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart). In the globalised and technological world of today, we need to think of defence in wider domains such as economics, trade, aid, cyberspace, technology, industry, media, communications and even politics, and throughout the whole sphere of global society.

For each nation to be effective in international statecraft, we need to act collectively where we can, which is why we Europeans must be prepared to commit national resources to defence, to harness our potential together, and to join with other global allies, or we will find that we have failed to provide for our own security.

That brings me to the absolute primacy of NATO. The idea of a happy new world order, which some still seem to believe we can enjoy, is disappearing before our eyes. That is evident from the failure on a spectacular scale in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in the emergence of a more Soviet-style leadership in Russia. Putin pursued a brutally repressive war in Chechnya and then tested his revived military capability in the invasion of Georgia. The subsequent diplomatic stand-off was resolved only when President Sarkozy of France made a unilateral visit to Moscow and effectively conceded permanent Russian annexation of the Georgian provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Perhaps that led to his later boldness. We have seen the Arab uprising lead to chaos in the middle east, not the spreading of democracy that we had hoped for.

It is clear that we live in a world where soft power must still be sustained by hard power. We will need to continue to live up to the 2% commitment that all NATO members agreed to at the summit in Wales. If we will not do that, which countries will we have to rely on for our security and for the future of world peace, stability, freedom and democracy around the world?

Select Committee on Governance of the House

Debate between Bernard Jenkin and John Redwood

Wednesday 10th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

This is a crucial decision and we need to make it in a timely and sensible way.

We stand on the threshold of momentous constitutional events. We might even lose a country from our United Kingdom, or we might go into a period of fundamental constitutional change with a massive devolution of powers. We will need good professional advice and leadership to complement the crucial work of the democratically elected politicians.

The Speaker is the servant of the House. Mr Speaker has shown, by the way he has said that there has to be a pause and a reconsideration, that he knows that he is the House’s servant. In turn, the House has to be fair to Mr Speaker. It is our duty tonight to set in process a way of resolving this problem in the best interests of everyone and in a good spirit, knowing that Mr Speaker also wishes the best for our House of Commons and will be guided by the House. It is our duty to come up with competent and sensible guidance for him. He undertook a process with a series of senior Members and an outside adviser in good faith and they came to a judgment. Apparently, that judgment does not suit the House. That is the House’s privilege, but we now need to find a better way of resolving the matter.

This situation has consequences not just because we need good guidance, and especially so at this time, but because if we want the best talent from around the world to apply for jobs in this place, we need to show that we are professional in handling such matters and that there is no danger of an unsuccessful candidate having their name revealed or trashed in the process. That is completely unacceptable.

I am therefore drawn to the view, which some are expressing, that we need to examine quickly but thoroughly the idea that there are two functions and that there need to be two different roles. There are many fine things about this House, but I think that we could be better at some of the things that come under the chief executive’s remit. We have many able, hard-working and talented staff and I do not wish to imply any criticism of them. However, a good chief executive would look at the way in which we handle guests. Are we happy with the queues and the way in which security is handled? We wish to be safe, but we wish to welcome people. They are our guests or our constituents. I do not think that we always get it right. We need to ensure that our catering provides what people want in a timely and sensible way. There might be opportunities to improve that. We certainly need to look again at technology and the how we communicate with those who communicate about us and with the wider world.

Those are all time-consuming tasks and I am not sure that they can be carried out by a constitutional expert living through a constitutional crisis, who needs to be up to speed with everything that happens in this Chamber and with the long history of our traditions, our law codes and our constitution, written and unwritten as it is. Somebody needs to provide that guidance.

[Mr Jenkin]

My right hon. Friend’s description of the importance of the role of Clerk of the House is absolutely right. I heard the right hon. Member for Neath (Mr Hain) say that he did not understand why the Clerk was paid on a different scale from the Speaker and a higher amount. The Clerk is paid on the same scale as a High Court judge, because he is the arbiter of the law of Parliament across the entire Commonwealth. The independence of his remuneration is part of his independence and has to be preserved.

[Mr Redwood]

I quite agree. It is a crucial role for a very senior lawyer and has to be rewarded accordingly, and at a level that means that they do not have money worries, because they need to spend all their time concentrating on the job. I am quite sure that the Clerk’s role is senior to and more crucial than that of the chief executive, but I also believe that we need to do our guests and ourselves a favour by having the best possible management. We need someone to come in and look again at our standards, our quality, the choice that we offer and the way in which we handle guests, technology, information and research, and our messages.

That is the spirit in which we should enter the debate. We should get behind our Speaker and give him the right instructions, and then we will have a better answer.

Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill

Debate between Bernard Jenkin and John Redwood

Tuesday 8th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

It seems to me that the kernel of the problem is that this is a Bill to regulate lobbying. An important part of an MP’s job is to lobby for his or her constituency and constituents, and we are paid salaries, so in that sense we are paid lobbyists; but surely that part of our role, like every other part of the role, must be immune from the interventions of the court and must not be in any way modified by the legislation before us.

[Mr Jenkin]

I hear what my right hon. Friend says, but it is not generally asserted that, for example, correspondence between him representing his constituents and a Minister is privileged, because it would be difficult to prove that that constituted proceedings in Parliament. I do not think, therefore, that we can seek to extend parliamentary privilege in the Bill. What we do as our job to represent our constituents is clearly not intended to be included in the regulation of lobbying. It would be intolerable if Members of Parliament had to register as lobbyists in order to represent their constituents, or indeed represent any other interests. I will return to that point later, if my right hon. Friend will forgive me.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jenkin]

I wholly agree with my right hon. Friend. I just want to emphasise that the amendments I am speaking to deal with the narrower question of privilege, although I will return to the risk, which I think the Minister must address, of the wider drawing in of Members’ activities into the scope of the Bill.

[Mr Redwood]

Further to that exchange, does my hon. Friend not see my case, which is that if the Bill is in danger of restricting our privilege to write letters on behalf of our constituents as properly paid advocates for our constituents, we need to stop that happening? Otherwise, my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan) will not be able to campaign against something in her constituency by writing to a Minister without registering under the Bill.

[Mr Jenkin]

I will return to that matter, but when my right hon. Friend employs the word “privilege” in that context, he is not employing it in terms of parliamentary privilege. It is not a parliamentary privilege that protects our ability to write to Ministers on behalf of our constituents. That is not covered by parliamentary privilege.

With the indulgence of the House, I wonder whether I might quote the Lord Chief Justice when he made it clear that we should, if possible, avoid legislating on matters regarding privilege. He said:

“Parliament has to decide whether it has sufficient privilege to be able to conduct its business in the way that Parliament wishes. If you have reservations about that, you have to produce a system that enables you to have the conditions under which you can perform your responsibilities properly. If you had no real reservations about it, I would not go down the legislative route that defined, semi-defined, subdivided, allowed for, or exercised this and that, because you would end up in interminable discussions, and, in court, interminable arguments, about what that really meant. Unless you are dissatisfied with the way in which your privileges operate, I would leave this well alone.”

By that, I think he means that the courts are predisposed to defer to proceedings in Parliament, whatever statutes may say.

The 1689 Bill of Rights is one of those special statutes in our legal system that is implicitly present in every statute. We do not need to repeat what is in the Bill of Rights 1689 in every statute in order to immunise it for the purpose of parliamentary privilege. The one exception that we have made is in respect of the IPSA legislation—the Parliamentary Standards Act 2009—in which we inserted the words that I am proposing in my new clause:

“Nothing in this Act shall be construed by any court in the United Kingdom as affecting Article IX of the Bill of Rights 1689.”

I submit that the House of Lords put that clause in the Parliamentary Standards Bill in rather extreme circumstances. When that Bill arrived in this House, it seemed that it was going to go into areas that were previously considered part of the exclusive cognisance of this House. It was going to refer to disciplining Members for what we did in this House, and that was going to draw parliamentary proceedings into the consideration of the courts in a way that was unprecedented. All that was eventually taken out by the House of Lords. In those exceptional circumstances, when the courts were under enormous public pressure to take more draconian action following the expenses fiasco, it was reasonable for Parliament to put that clause into that Bill, but generally we should try to avoid putting any reference to the Bill of Rights 1689 into legislation.

My amendment 1 suggested that we delete paragraph 1 of schedule 1. I note that the Government have now proposed that we remove both paragraph 1 and paragraph 2 of schedule 1. Paragraph 1 removes language which is lifted from the Bill of Rights 1689, without referring to the 1689 Act. Because there is no reference to it, paragraph 1 does not place the wording in the special category in which the Act exists.

Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base

Debate between Bernard Jenkin and John Redwood

Wednesday 11th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Redwood]

I am delighted if a case can be made under subsidiarity, but surely there is a much simpler case: taxation of companies and incomes was never part of the deal for the powers of the European Union. What it is trying to do is quite illegal, and all we need to do is to say so.

[Mr Jenkin]

But that was always the danger with article 5 and the subsidiarity clause. There are some very general objectives set out in the treaties, and subsidiarity is one of those catch-all arrangements that can justify stretching the meaning of other articles, as we have already seen.

How does the European Union justify the bail-out mechanism that the previous Chancellor of the Exchequer approved under article 122 of the Lisbon treaty, which was designed for natural disasters? How can a crisis in the euro possibly be classified as a natural disaster? The mechanism has, however, been allowed to go through by default.

The arrangement before us is another that will go through by default if we do not challenge it. Indeed, article 26 of the draft directive, the penultimate paragraph of the preamble, states:

“The objective of this Directive cannot be sufficiently achieved through individual action undertaken by the Member States because of the lack of coordination among national tax systems.”

It goes on to justify the objective as being

“in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity”—

and in its own terms that is very difficult to argue with.

I appreciate the European Scrutiny Committee’s points about the direct legal base, but the European Union is going for an indirect legal base. That demonstrates that subsidiarity was always a deceit. It was always something that could be a centralising, as opposed to a decentralising, concept, and if we rest our case against the proposal purely on the principle of subsidiarity we will allow the EU, rather than what we want ourselves, to determine what is imposed upon this country. If we rest our case against this proposal purely on the principle of subsidiarity, we are allowing the European Union to decide what shall be imposed on this country rather than deciding what we want for ourselves.

European Union Bill

Debate between Bernard Jenkin and John Redwood

Tuesday 7th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

This Bill is born of a very serious mood in our country. A majority of people in Britain feel that a great amount of power has already passed to the European Union over the past 20 years, and they feel that powers are still drifting away under this new Government. They would like to see that progress arrested, and they would like to see powers brought back in certain crucial areas. They would like to feel that more of their lives were under democratic, accountable government here in Westminster than under the less accountable, less democratic government of the European Union. The Government would be wise to heed the seriousness of that view among many in this Parliament, representing many outside it.

I welcome the Foreign Secretary’s noble aim. He says that the aim of his legislation and policy is to give us all a greater sense of empowerment when it comes to matters of European governance and action. I would urge him to look again at his Bill, however. It is certainly cleverly contrived, and it is certainly contrived in a great deal of detail, but it is, in practice, the not-the-referendum Bill. On every area of competence and power that we see drifting away or being transferred from us as we have this debate, we are told, “That would not qualify for a referendum under this legislation.”

I believe that the Foreign Secretary has taken legal advice, and he wants to have a referendum on the transfer of competences rather than on the transfer of powers. I would suggest that that is a tad too clever. We all know that most of the competences have already gone. That was what Lisbon was all about. That was why he and I fought tooth and nail, together, against that treaty and in favour of a referendum on the treaty. Most of the things that the Government now wish to do are a shared competence with the European Union. What matters is not a further transfer of competence, but a further grab or transfer of power by the European authorities.

When the Conservatives were in office, we made it very clear that we wanted trading relationships and friendships, and a certain amount of common legislating in single market and related areas, but not a common Government or political union. To reflect that, the architecture that we persuaded the partners to accept had the third pillar areas of foreign affairs and home affairs, which were matters for independent sovereign states to decide, and we always preserved the veto on any common action. That has now been eroded. So, as we meet to debate the so-called referendum lock, we see powers on home affairs being surrendered, issue by issue, by this Government—as they were by the previous Government—which will result in a much more common criminal jurisdiction from the European level. The British people need a voice on that matter; they need to be asked about it. Some of them might even agree with it, but they want to be treated seriously, as grown-ups, and asked if that is how they want their country to be run in the future.

On foreign affairs, we are being told as we meet that we still have a veto on the big issues and that my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary can play his part in shaping a common European action and diplomatic strategy. At the very same time as we have to cut severely the growth rate of our public spending and make some deep cuts in certain areas, which we do not like, we see the European budget going up rapidly, partly to finance a big expansion in the European diplomatic service. This is not being done in order to have holidays in the sun, as some national newspapers seem to suggest, but because the EU wishes to exercise power and authority on our behalf and on behalf of other member states.

[Mr Jenkin]

I do not think that the Foreign Office has fully understood the consequences of encouraging this to go ahead, which is what it did. I am afraid that a great many of us voted for it in this House. The European External Action Service is ordering much more expensive cars, is to have grander embassies and is to pay much higher salaries than our own diplomatic service. That will be to the detriment of our diplomatic service because it will attract the talent away from our service and towards the European External Action Service.

[Mr Redwood]

It means that when a British Foreign Secretary makes foreign visits, he or she will be kept waiting while the EU ambassador is received and considered, because the latter will speak with more authority on behalf of more people and more states.

It is the third area that we have always reserved for national veto and national competence—central economic policy making—to which I shall address the remainder of my brief remarks in this truncated debate. Literally as we meet here this afternoon, crucial and massive issues are being hammered out in secret around the Council table in Brussels. Quite likely to be on the agenda is the issue of European sovereign bonds and the effective creation of a European sovereign in financial matters that issues debt and guarantees debt on behalf of member states. Do we want that? Are we in it? Is it not a transfer of power if we go along with it? Is it not an issue on which we should be invited to express our views?

Another item on the agenda may be the future membership of the euro. The Council could be considering in secret whether all member states are able to stay in the euro and whether the strong or the weak members should leave. If they are to keep the euro area together, what will be the arrangements for the large transfer payments that need to be made if the single currency is to have some hope of a decent life in the future, as all successful single currency areas have much bigger transfers of tax revenues, subsidies and money around them than the euro area currently has?

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Bernard Jenkin and John Redwood

Monday 18th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jenkin]

Let me apprise my right hon. Friend of an example of just such a problem. I have seen the Electoral Commission asked whether it is true that a candidate has to get 50% of the vote to win under the alternative vote system. The Electoral Commission immediately replied that this was a subjective judgment and that it would not get dragged into the evaluation of the two systems, but how then could it describe the system? It is either correct that a candidate needs more than 50% of the votes to win or it is not, so what is the Electoral Commission going to say? Will it decline to inform the voters about the very nature of the system in order to avoid controversy? If so, it might as well not put out any information at all.

[Mr Redwood]

I agree, and the conclusion is just that: the Electoral Commission should not put out information because that might drag it into the debate. The whole purpose of testing a proposition in a referendum or testing candidates in an election is to allow a free exchange of ideas and views. The two campaigns will, of course, be heavily involved, but there will also be lots of other people, institutions, media representatives and newspapers claiming to be doing impartial analysis on the claims of the two sides. Some of them might even do something that gets close to being an impartial analysis of the claims of the two sides, but they will all discover, as we saw in the last general election, that having something that everybody regards as impartial is an impossibility.

The issue behind this debate may be for the political classes only. I do not think that it is the subject of much discussion in the pubs, clubs or schools of Wokingham, for example, but it is of passionate interest to the political classes. A large number of people now earn their living out of politics one way or another, and they will be watching every word and every sign, in every part of the referendum campaign, to see how it is going and whether it is fair.

I do not think that the Minister is about to give ground on the non-Government amendments in this group. I would therefore urge him to say to the Electoral Commission, ex cathedra, from his pulpit, “We love you dearly. We wish you to be impartial. Hesitate, hesitate and hesitate again before you start to make statements about this highly charged territory.” While there may be 40 million people out there who are not much moved by this subject, there are another 1 million or 2 million who are very moved by it—whose livelihoods depend on it or who are preoccupied by it—who will be watching every word. It will be extremely difficult to come up with that perfect, impartial prose that even describes the system, let alone avoids the obvious pitfall of wandering into opinion. There is nothing more annoying in the heat of an election campaign than for someone to claim impartiality, but then to say something critical of one’s own position, which is what happened in the last general election.