European Union Bill

Charlie Elphicke Excerpts

Tuesday 8th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Ms Stuart]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I negotiated the opt-out for the junior doctors working time directive back in 1999, and in a sense we knew on the negotiating basis all the problems that would happen in the NHS that the UK Government saw coming. We also knew that the directive would not actually hit us until about 2008-09. Now it is here, and everyone here is entitled to say, “We didn’t see it coming.” In fact, on one level we did see it coming.

It is also important for the House to consider the fact that, during the discussions on the Convention on the Future of Europe, I was in the very unusual position of being a negotiating partner at Government level, and also representing the House. Therefore, provided that I used a legal adviser from the House, I could be given the legal advice that was given to the previous Administration.

We should consider the nature and length of debates in the European Union. I deliberately chose the working time directive for junior doctors as an example, because it started in 1992 and started to have legislative impact on this country 10 years later, and only now are we beginning to find out its full effect.

We have now moved from Conservative to Labour to Conservative, and within our Government machinery—[Hon. Members: “Coalition.”] It is okay—the Liberal Democrats came sixth in Barnsley, so there is a ray of hope. Given the veil that falls between one Administration and the next, which hides the accumulated knowledge that could allow parliamentary scrutiny, there must be a mechanism that transcends individual Administrations, which would give the House access to the information that has been given to Ministers. Although new clause 1 is limited, it is nevertheless an important wedge representing that principle.

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

I understand that the hon. Lady is suggesting not necessarily publishing everything for everyone on this country’s negotiating position, but perhaps listening to Parliament. Am I right in thinking that a similar system exists in Denmark?

[Ms Stuart]

Yes and no. I would caution against using the Danish principle, because it mandates Ministers bindingly. No one needs to talk to them when they are sitting round the negotiating table in Brussels, because they know what they will say. They do a head count and say, “The Danes say x.” The hon. Gentleman is right to refer to not publishing all the information, because too much information is also a weapon: people can be drowned in information, and they cannot see the wood for the trees.

The advice given to Ministers should be made public to Parliament, so that Parliament can decide whether it wishes to pursue something. More importantly, that would allow information to move from one Administration to the next, and Parliament could develop the collective memory of responsibility and decision making that is essential in our dealings with the European Union.

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Having taken part in many European decisions and negotiations, including on treaties, I say to the House that they are precisely that—negotiations. Perhaps because British parliamentarians are equipped with a better way with words than some of our more dramatically rigidified colleagues, we often find words that help the Council come to a better decision—often helped, it must be said, by our excellent officials. Frankly, the notion that those notes, scribbles and whispers can somehow all be published is bordering on fantasy, as the hon. Member for Stroud rightly said.

[Charlie Elphicke]

The right hon. Gentleman is giving an interesting depiction of matters in the Council of Ministers. Will he tell the House whether Governments such as the UK Government formally table amendments for discussion, or whether the process is more informal, with things written down at the end?

[Mr MacShane]

It is a mixture of both. First, one listens to the positions of all 27 member states, then one says things like, “Look, that’s not going to fly for us. We suggest you drop it. Here are our ideas.” Proposals go backwards and forwards between the Council secretariat and the Commission secretariat, and they come back here for discussion, as my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) rightly said. Whitehall has a very effective co-ordination operation. As a result, the finest civil servants in the land meet very early every morning—sensibly that is usually done without any gabby politicians present—and over a large English breakfast, on the eighth floor of some Hilton or Hyatt in Brussels, they hammer out a position and work out where every other country will be to maximise what Britain wants. Very often, we are the demandeurs who want to achieve a policy change in the European Union which requires skilled diplomatic negotiation. I say respectfully that the notion that all that can be minuted and published is not realistic.

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[Mr MacShane]

Yes, “relevant” is a difficult adjective to define. There is an even more difficult adjective in the Bill, which states that only a matter that the Minister judges to involve “significant” sharing of sovereignty should be brought back to the House for debate and a possible referendum. I put it to Members that no British Government or Minister would sign a treaty that they would then bring back to the House of Commons and offer for referendum. It would be a dereliction of duty. I have every confidence in the excellent occupant of the post of Minister for Europe, and his duty is to negotiate the best for Britain. If a treaty is not good enough for Britain, he should not sign it. We should effectively veto it there and then rather than have the nonsense and rigmarole in the Bill, whereby a treaty would be brought back to the House, we would have endless debate about what was and was not significant, and then it would be put to a referendum.

[Charlie Elphicke]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr MacShane]

Of course, but this is the last intervention that I will take.

[Charlie Elphicke]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman, who has been extraordinarily generous in taking interventions.

I raised with the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) the situation in Denmark, and she said, “Their negotiating position was known. We knew what they were doing.” Is not a potential concern about the new clause the fact that our negotiating position could be known? Does it harm Denmark in practice that its position is known?

[Mr MacShane]

The Danish Parliament is very different. The last time there was a majority Government in Denmark was 1909. Actually, perhaps that will not be such an unusual thing even for our own legislature in the years to come—let us wait and see how this century unfolds, especially if the people are so foolish as to adopt that ludicrous alternative vote nonsense. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] It is so easy to get that reaction.

The hon. Gentleman puts his finger on a good question: do we, as a House, take the European Union seriously enough? Do we have the mechanisms and structures to involve ourselves fully in EU debates and decision making? The Danish Parliament has an all-party Committee—although we should remember that the Danish Government are always a coalition—to which Ministers must report, and it is a much smaller operation. I would like this House to set up permanent Standing Committees to survey different areas of EU policy and legislation. Our Select Committees could have permanent Sub-Committees to track EU decisions that would otherwise be off the rota. Those Sub-Committees could travel around Europe, and not necessarily just to Strasbourg and Brussels—I keep insisting that decisions on Europe are taken in Rome, Paris, Warsaw and elsewhere, and not comprehensively and uniquely in the two European Parliament buildings.

I should like us to debate Council meetings after they have taken place rather than before—I made my maiden speech in a pre-Council debate and have taken part in many more.

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[Michael Connarty]

I not only accept it; I fully endorse and applaud it. There is a work programme that comes forward from the European Commission, and it is debated in Westminster Hall, but very few people turn up: that is the reality. We have tried to engage a number of Select Committees by referring to them matters of interest to the European Scrutiny Committee, which continues to be chaired ably by the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash). We are trying to engage Select Committees in those issues so that the European Scrutiny Committee and then the House could be advised of any European matters of substance that should be considered.

We could therefore change aspects of the apparatus we use before reaching the point to which the new clause refers, where a Minister is recommending a referendum. When this clause is triggered, the Government will have decided that they want to do whatever it is the referendum has been called to consider. It will be a referendum on a Government proposal, perhaps for a new treaty or a new decision that will change our relationship with Europe.

Let me finish by providing one example. We took a decision a long time ago—it was probably agreed across the Chamber because it was politically sensitive for us not to opt into all of the Amsterdam treaty—whereby we did not become members of the Schengen group of countries. That group is effectively all the European Union countries apart from us. Frontex, the new border police, is now trying to throw a ring around Europe and it is going to be heavily pressurised by migration from other parts of the world—particularly from Africa, and perhaps very quickly from north Africa. We are not a member of Frontex because we are not a Schengen country. We sit on the board—Frontex has been quite nice to us, even though we did not sign up to it—so we asked whether any of our officers engaged in a Frontex operation could have the same protection from prosecution as other Frontex officers. We are told “No, because you are not a member of the Schengen group.” The train is leaving the station very quickly to protect the rest of Europe, and the United Kingdom is running at the back waving a little flag saying “Can we join? But we do not want to be full members.”

We ought to be fully informed of the consequences of decisions such as that. I am not talking about those who are, for reasons of prejudice, Eurosceptic and against doing things on an EU basis, in the belief that they can somehow be done on a bilateral basis with 26 other countries. If we had been fully informed, we would have concluded that membership of Frontex was important enough for us to take the step of joining the Schengen countries and being a real part of Europe.

Although such information and debate would be extremely useful, that will not be made possible by the new clause, and I therefore hope that it will be withdrawn. However, we need to make those changes in the Chamber if our constituents are to understand that we know what we are talking about in Europe, and that we are acting on the basis of analysis and proper information rather than prejudice.

[Charlie Elphicke]

It is a privilege to follow the extraordinarily interesting and thoughtful speech of the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty). The debate on the new clause has been largely underpinned by a dislike and distrust of the European Union and its works, and I share that distrust. Many Members feel that an organisation that spends vast swathes of our money and imposes massive increases in our budget contributions in return for no obvious value, at a time of great downturn across the continent, is not an organisation that is in touch with this country—or any other country. They do not trust an organisation that feels so remote from the electors of this country and every other country in the European Union. Even in Germany, an increasing number of people are finding the European Union and its works troubling.

[Martin Horwood]

The hon. Gentleman says that he attaches no obvious value to the European Union. Does he exclude from that the EU’s important contribution to world climate change and trade negotiations? Does he exclude the European arrest warrant, which enables us to fight terrorism across international borders? Surely those things have some value.

[Charlie Elphicke]

They could all have been achieved by nation states. Obviously we welcome the ability to do some things on a wider and more agreed basis, but we do not want the spider’s web of intrusion into our national lives and the lives of member states that we have seen in the European Union. That is why many Members object to it and say, “We don’t trust anything that happens there.” Every time there is a treaty negotiation the spider’s web creeps further out, more of our money is sucked in, and more of our national vitality is taken away from us and planted in Brussels.

I am merely recording the sentiments that, in my view, underlie the new clause. It is felt that we have been shut out of the process, and that we do not have a say. For the last 20 or 30 years, the Governments of all the member states in Europe have been saying that they have secured great deals in Europe, but the general public in countries throughout the European Union have a sense that they have, to some extent, been sold down the river.

The new clause is underpinned by questions such as, “What are the amendments that you are moving? What are the discussions that you are having? What really happened behind those closed doors?” I understand that view, but although I share the deep concern that has been expressed about our involvement, and future involvement, in the European Union, I am not sure that the new clause represents the right way in which to deal with it. There is a balance to be achieved, given the inevitable tension between transparency and the need for negotiations. I am a massive fan of transparency, because I want to know how the European Union spends our money, and I want government that is accountable to our people. Dare I say it, I want government of the people, by the people, for the people. On the other hand, we must take part in negotiations, and we must ensure that our negotiating position does not blow up in our faces.

Many examples can be given. The Cabinet meets in secret, and we do not learn what happened until some years later; the NATO councils and some of the United Nations councils meet in secret as well. Traditionally, relations between member states tend not to be published on a case-by-case basis. I have listened with interest to the argument being put that the Council of Ministers is not an executive organisation but a legislature. That is a technical, semantic argument about what is really a negotiation between Governments of member states—it is an intergovernmental negotiation.

I have grave misgivings about giving away our negotiating position and telling other nations, which we want to squeeze for a better deal, where our top and bottom lines are in that negotiation process. I make that point because I must tell the House, with regret, that I used to be a law firm partner—I was a poacher before I turned gamekeeper—and in that time I would negotiate for my clients against the lawyer on the other side of the table who was representing their client. I did not want to tell them what I was going to concede; I did not want them to have an idea of what I and my client might, and might not, give away in future negotiations. I did not want to reveal where the lines of debate were or when I would say, “No further,” because if I had I would not have got the best deal. Just as in those times I wanted to get the best deal for my clients, in these times I want to get the best deal for my clients, who are now the people of Dover, and the nation as a whole.

[Stephen Phillips]

Actually, my hon. Friend is a gamekeeper turned poacher. He is making a compelling argument about not giving away our negotiating position to other EU member states. The difficulty here, however, is to do with the use of the word “relevant” in the new clause. Does that mean that under this clause we would disclose information that would not already have been known to other nation states? In that case I can see the point of his argument. However, if it means something different, it may not have that effect. Does he have any grip on what the word “relevant” means here, and does this problem not underline why the new clause should not be added to the Bill?

[Charlie Elphicke]

I completely agree, and I was about to turn to that argument.

The new clause is important in prompting a debate that should be had—and might previously have been had—about the relationship between this House and the Executive in respect of our negotiations in Europe. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) nods from a sedentary position. This is a very important point, which goes to the heart of things, and it is why I asked about the situation in Denmark. I did so not in order to trip her up but because I was genuinely interested and knew that, as she is an expert on European matters, including the Council of Ministers, she would have experience to share on that subject.

The phrase “relevant documentation” in the new clause is not, of course, defined; it could mean anything or nothing. That is a technical deficiency, therefore. I also think that there is a technical deficiency in the phrase, “amendments sponsored”. I asked the former Europe Minister, the right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane), how amendments are dealt with in Europe: is an amendment tabled and moved, or is there a nice bit of Euro chit-chat and then everyone comes to an agreement at the end? The hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston can correct me if I am wrong, but my impression is that it is a bit of a mishmash of everything, and out of the sausage machine of discussion comes a new piece of Euro-legislation, freshly approved with the mark of Europe stamped on it.

[Ms Gisela Stuart]

I fear the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. The Austro-Hungarian empire would have called the process “durchwurschteln” as it is a sort of sausage machine. I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on having such a good grasp of what goes on even though he has never been inside any of those negotiating rooms in Europe. The key problem is that the practice and the theory are so far from what we think they are. That is why I thought it was so important to try to open the door on what goes on, and it also highlights why it is important to keep asking questions about how these things work.

[Charlie Elphicke]

I thank the hon. Lady, and I am humbled by her kind words and great generosity. An important issue of transparency is involved here. We want negotiations to go on; we do not want to have everything picked over later, to risk our negotiating position in future and to risk our relationship with other member states. They might not want some of their information put into the public domain.

I want discussion to be full and frank. Why is that? I do not know how anybody else feels, but I remember that this country went through a phase of “sofa government”, when there were no minutes, no notes and no discussion. Not everybody thinks that that was a high point of our national life. Some people think that it was a particular low point because little deals got cut on sofas, in corridors and far away from anyone taking any minutes. That is the risk when we say, “Let us know what goes on behind closed doors.” Funnily enough, this sort of thing will not go on behind closed doors; it will go on in closed corridors and on sofas. I worry about that, because it is a real concern.

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[Ms Stuart]

May I encourage the hon. Gentleman to go on about Finland, because it has this much more right than the Danes do?

[Charlie Elphicke]

That is exactly the argument that I seek to put. There is massive distrust of the European Union in this House, and massive suspicion that Ministers—of all parties—go to Brussels and sell us down the river without our knowing what goes on. Meanwhile, our electors give us a good kicking about why this, that and the other happened, and we cannot really explain why it happened and what our role in it was. So there is an accountability deficit.

Denmark has an open process, whereby its Folketing’s European affairs committee meets in public and agrees a mandate system, as the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston told us. It says, “This is your up line and this is your down line. Go off to Europe and negotiate.” The process is public so, as she beautifully put it, people do not need to worry about Denmark because they know where it stands. People count it in or count it out, and negotiate with everyone else. I suspect that Denmark is left out of negotiations because people say, “We don’t need to cut a deal with those guys.”

[Ms Stuart]

The difference is that although Finland mandates, the mandate can still be negotiated with its Parliament, whereas the Danes are mandated and the Ministers cannot change their minds. They are therefore at the meeting simply to say what their Parliament has told them. The Finnish system is better because it still allows for mandating movement.

[Charlie Elphicke]

Beautifully put, as ever, by the hon. Lady, who describes the problem exactly. The Danes’ mandate becomes an open negotiating position and they lose their ability to be flexible and to push other member states in the give and take that sits at the heart of true business or governmental negotiations.

Finland, like Denmark, does involve its national legislature, but the difference is that in Finland this is done in private. The Finnish grand committee meets in private, away from the cameras and the spotlight, so it can have that important discussion.

I do not know what other Members think, but I believe that my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash) has some good points to make. He makes them with great passion and often at great length, and he is well informed. He passes the Linlithgow test, because he reads all those boring papers, whereas all the rest of us put our heads in our hands and then flip through them quickly to pick out the main points. My hon. Friend actually reads this stuff—I do not know how he does it, but he does—so he is able to have a substantial and serious discussion about the issues. I put it to the Minister—I hope that he will respond in due course—that we need a mechanism, perhaps a Committee system, whereby those hon. Members who are interested, even obsessed, with the European Union can represent the House’s interests and hold discussions in private, as the Finnish grand committee does, before a negotiation happens.

The Intelligence and Security Committee knows what goes on, and therefore builds in some democratic accountability, but it does not blab to everyone exactly what our spies are up to around the world and what our security interests are. If it were possible to have a mechanism similar to the grand committee system in Finland, so that Parliament could be involved, perhaps there would be a greater sense of trust and a greater sense not only that we have the essential transparency, but that we do not send our Ministers in to bat in Brussels with—as I think a former Prime Minister put it—one arm tied behind their backs, so that they cannot negotiate in this country’s fullest interests.

[Mr Buckland]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful case in relation to Finland. Does he not agree that the system in Sweden, which is quite similar to that in Finland, would provide a useful way forward? Such a committee could meet, usually in closed session, and give a mandate to the Minister. The Minister would have discretion to depart from that mandate, but the position would be clearly defined before the Minister went to the Council. That has all the attractions of the systems that my hon. Friend has been ably advocating.

[Charlie Elphicke]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. I do not think that it is for me, as a Back Bencher, to find the detailed solution, but those who are senior in the House, such as Front Benchers, should consider the other models of accountability used in Europe. They should consider the fact that we want accountability and transparency, without prejudicing the United Kingdom’s negotiating position in the discussions that are held in European Councils. So long as we have to put up with being a member of the European Union—or, indeed, are enthused by that fact—we need to negotiate well and get the best possible deal for this country.

[Martin Horwood]

I originally intended to speak in support of the comments made earlier in the debate by my Gloucestershire neighbour, the hon. Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael), but I found myself in a surprising degree of agreement with the hon. Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke), who gave a learned analysis of the implications of the new clause, as opposed to its intent.

As described by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) and others, the intention is to create more transparency and openness—that is obviously a good thing, which we would all support—but somewhere in the drafting of the new clause it has become a little confused, or perhaps awkward, in the attempt to bring it within the scope of the Bill.

The effect of the new clause would be to reveal a great deal of documentation, but after the decision had been taken. The decision to which the statement under clause 5 related would have already happened. Although much of the documentation would be relevant in the sense that it related to that decision, it might not prove to be very pertinent to the decision. Much of it might be advice, even legal advice, that was ultimately rejected. So it would not have materially affected the decision under consideration. What really mattered would be the outcome, and the proposals that the British Government were putting to Parliament and, perhaps even in a referendum, to the people of this country. We could discuss that without the benefit of all the paperwork that had been discarded earlier in the process.

The second problem with the new clause is that a lot of what the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston said was about trying to add transparency to the process at European level—to the Commission’s decision-making processes and the debate in the Council of Ministers. The hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) compared that to the former secrecy of debates in this Chamber, but the new clause would not reveal the debate that took place at European level. It would reveal only the background paperwork, which would be rather like getting a House of Commons briefing, but with no copy of Hansard to follow.

The new clause would not bring great openness or transparency to European processes. The only transparency that it would provide would be on the British negotiating position. Then we would start to have a problem, because although that would be revealed after the event, the nature of the advice, especially the legal advice, could have profound implications for future negotiations. If we revealed all that documentation, that would clearly impact on the position of British Ministers in subsequent negotiations. It would almost certainly impact on the advice, especially legal advice, that officials felt able to give to Ministers, because they would know that it was not private advice, but would become public in due course. Clearly, that would put British Ministers at a disadvantage relative to other Ministers in the European Council. It would undermine the British interest and thereby achieve, presumably, the reverse of what the new clause intends. It would, in a real sense, send British Ministers naked into the Council of Ministers. In some cases, that is a very sobering thought indeed.

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[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, but I am afraid that he entirely misses the point. In framing the new clause I have been working within the confines of our unwritten constitution, using the elements and protections that are already there, and extending them to the Bill. I absolutely accept that it is an irony of our constitution, as it already exists, that the protection against a Parliament lengthening its own life is an unelected Chamber a few yards down the way. However, that is the situation in our constitution, and it is one that has been enormously effective for 100 years.

[Charlie Elphicke]

Does my hon. Friend not agree that his argument would have more force and credibility if the sunlight of democracy shone over the other end of this building?

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[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I so wish that the hon. Gentleman, who is a most distinguished Eurosceptic, were right, but unfortunately the judges have taken that power to themselves. I return to what Lord Justice Laws said in his judgment on the metric martyrs case:

“Ordinary statutes may be impliedly repealed. Constitutional statutes may not.”

The judges have set up for themselves two different types of Act. It seems to me that we should claim that power back for the democratically elected Chamber of Parliament, and say that when we think an Act is of significant constitutional importance, what we will do is not entrench it—that is against the spirit of our constitution—but give it a modest protection by saying that it can be repealed only with the full consent of both Houses. The great advantage of that, for those of us who remember what happened prior to 1911, is that it would require a Government to win a general election—to go back to the people—before they could get something through the House of Lords, if the House of Lords said no. That happened in 1911, with the reforms to the House of Lords, and in 1832, with the Great Reform Bill. That provision has been an historic and traditional way of protecting our democratic rights—one that, oddly, involves the undemocratic Chamber—and that is why I think it would improve the standing of this Bill. It would protect the democratic rights of the British people and deal with the constitutional situation as it is—as the judges have developed it—rather than the constitutional system as the hon. Gentleman and I might wish it to be.

[Charlie Elphicke]

It is not only an incredible privilege and honour to listen to the superb eloquence of my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg), but an even greater privilege and honour to follow him. Nevertheless, on this occasion I do not follow him in the sense of agreeing with the new clause that he is propounding. I put it to him in an intervention that it was ironic that he was seeking to use the unelected Chamber as the guardian of the people’s democracy. His answer was, “Well, look at the preamble to the 1911 Act.” I was reminded of the dictum of St Augustine of Hippo, who, as I am sure he knows only too well, said, “Make me pure, Lord—but not yet.”

[Mr Binley]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Charlie Elphicke]

In one moment.

I do not think that it is an excuse to say that because the House of Lords is partly reformed, we can give it a role as the guardian of our democracy pending the completion of that reform. Given that we have been racing towards the reform set out in the preamble to the 1911 Act for 100 years, it may take another 100 years to complete it—and given the way things carry on in this place, I suspect that we will indeed be waiting for 100 years to come.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way, but I just wonder whether he thinks the House of Lords has done a bad job since 1911 in the one area in which it is exempt from the 1911 Act—that is, in defending the right of the British people to have an election at least every five years?

[Charlie Elphicke]

I do not decry the role of the House of Lords, the excellence of their lordships, the work that they do, their courage or the passion with which they advance their cases. Indeed, it is often said that the debates held in their lordships’ House are far more informed, considered, interesting and informative than our debates in this House. Having been in this place and not that place, I cannot compare the two. Nevertheless, it is a dangerous principle to say, “Let’s include a provision in the Parliament Act to say that the House of Lords should be not only the guardian of five-year Parliaments but the guardian of this Bill, to protect it from being altered.”

I would have much more faith in the proposal if reform of the House of Lords had been completed—something that I hope will come to pass. One of the problems that I have with the House of Lords is not the people in it or their mental ability—many of them are excellent people and their mental ability is far superior to mine—but my concern that they do not hold a democratic mandate. It is an important principle that where we have representatives in our legislature, they should have a mandate from the people. I guess it is because I am a Lincolnian politician—I believe in government for the people, by the people, of the people—that I believe that the sunshine of democracy should permeate our entire legislature, and not just this House. I admit to some radicalism in my thinking on such matters, but I believe it is important that all our politicians should be elected and have a democratic mandate.

[Mr Cash]

Will my hon. Friend turn his mind to this radical thought? If the House of Lords were to become an elected Chamber, it would not make the slightest bit of difference in respect of the argument that he is presenting, because the Parliament Act would remain on the statute book. The argument that my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) has put forward would also apply to an elected House. The question, in a nutshell, is one of judicial supremacy, which is why I strongly support what my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset has been saying.

[Charlie Elphicke]

I take the view that this will be an important Act. It will introduce a referendum lock to ensure that we do not get dragged further into the European Union without consulting the British people. Inevitably, because Parliament is sovereign, it would be able to unravel the Act, to repeal it and to take away the people’s right to have a say in a referendum. That is the right of Parliament, but I do not agree with the argument for entrenching it to the same extent as the Parliament Act, as is suggested in the new clause. The Parliament Act is an entrenchment of our basic right not to have our democracy stolen from us. I would not place this legislation on that same lofty plane. It is important that Acts of Parliament should be able to be changed or repealed by a sovereign Parliament. The political issue is that any person or party that repeals an Act such as this will reap the whirlwind from the electorate. I am happy that we are able to pass and repeal Acts, and that the electorate should have the final say at an election, at which point they can condemn any such behaviour. I shall now give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South (Mr Binley).

[Mr Binley]

I have no wish to ask you a question.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. Can we conduct the debate through the Chair, please?

[Charlie Elphicke]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I conclude my remarks.

[Michael Connarty]

First, may I compliment the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) on the eloquence both of the construction of his new clause and of his delivery in arguing for it? I believe that the new clause is flawed. He suggested that the evidence that we had received—he kept referring to Lord Justice Laws’ ruling—was correct, but we received evidence from many other people that it was incorrect. It was suggested that we could not establish two tiers of laws just because a judge decided to make a remark in court, and that all laws, including the European Communities Act 1972, stand the same and can have implied amendment and repeal.

If Parliament decided to pass a law here that was contrary to a ruling, directive or regulation of the European Union, it would still stand as a law. The dilemma would then be whether the European Court of Justice would have the right to overrule that decision or whether we would press on our courts our decision in the new Act, which would cause a judgment to be called for in the European Court. If no one called for such a judgment on an Act that we had passed contrary to a regulation or directive of the European Union, it would continue to apply. It would not be knocked down, and no penalties would be imposed on the UK, unless someone called for the European Court of Justice to make a judgment on that new Act. So it was nonsense to suggest that in 1972 we had suddenly created an Act that was incapable of implied repeal or amendment.

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[Mr Alexander]

I find myself in sympathy with the Conservative position at the times of those treaties. The Conservatives were not convinced by the case for a referendum, and neither was I. It rather reflects the changing disposition of those on the Conservative Front Bench that, as I recollect, the Foreign Secretary was a fierce advocate of the avoidance of a referendum on the Maastricht treaty. At least on that, we are at one.

The real guard is the precedent established by political consensus that, for example, no party will join the euro without a referendum. No party pledged to ratify the proposed European constitution without a referendum. There was no consensus on Lisbon. Labour and Liberal Democrat Members did not believe that a referendum was needed, but Conservative Members did, and the Conservative leader did until he suddenly realised that he might be in government in just over a year’s time and did not fancy spending the first two years as Prime Minister obsessing over European renegotiations.

[Charlie Elphicke]

I hate to intrude on the right hon. Gentleman’s reworking of history, but to describe the Lisbon treaty as nothing to do with the European constitution is a travesty of the truth and of what actually happened. Does he accept that he should regret not following through with a referendum on that matter?

[Mr Alexander]

I do not wish to intrude on private grief, but I sense that that question would be better directed towards his new-found colleagues in the coalition, who clearly do not share his view. If he was to achieve consensus on his side of the House, he might have a better chance of achieving it across the whole House.

The muddle in that part of the Bill is as nothing compared with clause 18—the so-called supremacy clause. That was meant to be the red meat, but the more erudite Government Members simply are not biting. The hon. Member for Stone called it a “mouse of a Bill” when referring to this point. Those Members know that this is Britain’s first foray into what can safely be described as decorative legislation. It demeans this House to assert that it is sovereign when the fact is not seriously questioned. What we have seen in the middle east and north Africa in recent weeks should be a salutary reminder to us all that Parliaments and states derive their sovereignty from the people they serve. This Parliament will be no more or less sovereign because of the superfluous clause 18.

The question that we are all left asking is, “What is the rush?” The Government say that they have no intention of passing any powers to Europe for the next four years, so part 1 of the Bill will not be used, and clause 18 has already been shown to be superfluous. However, the Bill has been brought before the House for Third Reading before the Localism Bill, the Health and Social Care Bill, the Budget Responsibility and National Audit Bill and the Welfare Reform Bill—before any of the legislation that is supposed to define the very purpose of the coalition Government.

If the Bill is not just a legislative attempt to distract the Conservative right, I am afraid I can think of only one possible explanation. The week before last, the Deputy Prime Minister was reportedly shocked to discover that he was briefly in charge of the Government. The only real purpose for the Bill that I can adduce is that it is designed to guard against an eventuality such as this: the Prime Minister abroad on a trade mission, the Foreign Secretary about to head to Washington for important discussions and the Chancellor in Klosters, with the Deputy Prime Minister seeing an awful Liberal Democrat election result and deciding to make a dash for the history books by joining the euro before any of them manage to get back to the country. I tell Conservative Members who are slightly concerned by that scenario that in reality they need not worry; the mere fact of the Deputy Prime Minister’s support is probably a bigger barrier to Britain joining the euro than any referendum lock contemplated in the House.

We are content for the Bill to proceed to the House of Lords for further scrutiny, particularly of clauses 3 to 6. However, what it reveals about the Government is probably of more import than its true legislative effect. Dramatic, epoch-making events are taking place in the middle east as we gather here this evening. In Libya, Foreign and Commonwealth Office Ministers have not exactly covered themselves in glory, and the root of the problem appears to be their failure to co-ordinate either within Government or among our allies. May I respectfully suggest that the Bill is distracting Ministers from what should be their overriding focus at this time?

In February, the Foreign Secretary said that the cost of simply drawing up the Bill had already run to £200,000. We are left wondering not only how much the final bill will be but whether it is really the best use of the Foreign Office’s resources when it is having to make significant efficiencies. Of course, the bill for this Bill has not yet ended, because the Government have ignored amendments tabled by the Opposition and are leaving judicial review, rather than Parliament, to determine in the final instance whether there should be referendums. We do not know how often judicial reviews will be called or a decision will be reversed, but we do know that what has been called the William Cash memorial Bill could equally be called a fiscal stimulus for any legal practice specialising in judicial reviews.

The Conservatives’ monomania about Europe in opposition was an eccentricity, and the further they sank in the polls, the grander their rhetoric became. I confess, for that reason alone, to occasionally having cheered them on. However, they are in government now and the time has come to put away the party preoccupations that kept them going in the dark days of general election defeats. Now their job is to run the country and develop a foreign policy worthy of the name. Now is not the time for legislation designed to appease their own Back Benchers.

I have enjoyed both versions of the Foreign Secretary that have been seen in the House in the past decade—the baseball-capped, 14-pint-a-night young Conservative with extraordinary rhetorical skills, and the rather more world-weary, scholarly voice of experience in a Cabinet that all too often lacks it. There is a lot for Opposition Members to admire in both those characters, but surely to be a strong Foreign Secretary he needs to decide whether the Bill really fits with the seriousness needed from a British Foreign Secretary at a time of global economic and political turmoil. His 2001 persona would surely have loved the Bill, but I and many others had hoped that he would take that fact as a warning rather than an endorsement.

The Foreign Secretary has my support in putting pressure on the Gaddafi regime in Libya in the coming days, and the Minister for Europe has my support when he speaks out against human rights abuses in Belarus, as he did at the weekend. In seeking the right reforms in Brussels, they have not merely my support but my sympathy. I just wish that they would get on with those vital tasks instead of wasting so much of the people’s time with a Bill that satisfies few and achieves so little.