European Union Bill

Chris Heaton-Harris Excerpts

Tuesday 25th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr MacShane]

I was concluding my remarks until various Members got up to intervene.

My conclusion is simply this. There may come a time—not now, I accept—when a majority in this House and a duly elected Government feel that they want to take the lead to alter a European Union treaty—to propose a new one or make amendments to an existing one. They will then find that they are being held back by the tone, if not the strict legal content, of this Bill. This is coming dangerously close to what an Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office, Mr Henry Hopkinson, said about Cyprus in 1956—that it would “never” be free.

I genuinely worry about the signal we are sending to our EU partners at a time when we all, quite irrespective of our party political positions, need more co-operation and more enforcement in Europe, whether it be on Tunisia, on growth policies or on finding solutions to the problem in Ireland, where, as the Prime Minister rightly pointed out, we export three and a half times more British goods than we do to China. I worry greatly that this Bill, and particularly the new clause on the need for effective prosecution of criminality in Europe, will send out precisely the opposite signals. Our nation might well suffer, not tonight or in the next few weeks or months, but in the future, as a result of this deeply isolationist proposal.

[Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con)]

The last time I spoke after the right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane), I was slightly unkind to him. Even though he has given me lots of material to do the same again, I will not. I was a Member of the European Parliament when he was the Minister for Europe and we would have had many disagreements, but I would like to think that we could at least agree to disagree in a friendly manner. The right hon. Gentleman was definitely treading on thin ice when he spoke about Robinson Crusoe being cut adrift, but it is all welcome for the purposes of debate.

I wish to make a point about the European public prosecutor, which I am against, and it is one of the reasons why I tabled the amendments. When I was an MEP, there was a great Scottish National party MEP, Sir Neil MacCormick. In the first debate that ever took place on this subject, he reminded me that having a European public prosecutor would mean changing the way we do criminal law in this country—moving away from habeas corpus towards a more Napoleonic code. Perhaps that is worth reflecting on in this place and giving the British people a chance to have a say on it. I very much welcome Government amendments 57 and 58, and I am pretty sure that the great Sir Neil MacCormick would have done so.

I tried to explain to my constituents at the last general election that I had a bit of experience of European matters and that, given the opportunity, I would try to use that experience in this place. I also explained how the Conservative party would try to stop any future power grab by the European Union, as set out in its manifesto. When this is coupled with my membership of the European Scrutiny Committee, I hope that my constituents in Daventry will forgive me for continually talking in the Committee stages of this Bill. It is a very important Bill which contains a great deal of merit.

My amendments 36 to 38 would simply require approval by an Act of Parliament and a referendum before a United Kingdom Minister can give final agreement in the Council to a proposed justice and home affairs ratchet decision when the UK has already opted into the proposal for that decision. Such proposals are subject to unanimity in the Council.

Amendment 40 requires a decision under the amending treaty, a decision under article 48(6) of the Treaty on European Union or a 48(7) ratchet decision that abolishes the veto of EU proposals on family law to be approved in a referendum. Family law matters can fall under EU competence, and the veto could be abolished by an article 81(3) ratchet clause. I know that that is highly unlikely, and I know that the EU’s ability to become involved in family law has existed for a long time—since long before the Lisbon treaty—but I think that Members on both sides of the Committee can agree among themselves and with our European partners on matters such as the mutual recognition and enforcement between member states of judgments and decisions in extra-judicial cases.

However, genuine concern is felt by many people, and I am definitely one of them. In December 2005, the European Commission tried to make a case for applying the pre-Lisbon ratchet clause to qualified majority voting in EU proposals concerning maintenance obligations, which are obviously a family law matter. It was knocked back in the Council at that point, but anyone who listens to or reads debates in the European Parliament—as I now do—and anyone who reads statements from European Commissioners will understand that a bit of pressure is beginning to be applied. I should appreciate an assurance from the Minister that he is aware of that pressure and will continue to keep an eye on any challenges that may be forthcoming. I do not intend to press the amendment to a vote.

[Mr Clappison]

Amendment 40 is very important, and my hon. Friend is making a very good speech which is clarifying matters. I understand from what he is saying that family law matters are currently subject to unanimity rather than qualified majority voting, and that he is concerned about what is being proposed. He will know that the Commission has a long history of moving from unanimity to qualified majority voting, and seeks to do it on many occasions. Can he confirm that, as this is within the framework of the treaty on the functioning of the European Union, the European Court of Justice will have jurisdiction over the family law matters to which he is referring?

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I believe that that is the case, although the Minister for Europe may correct me, as he is much better qualified to answer my hon. Friend’s question.

My main amendments are concerned with problems that I have identified in the justice and home affairs ratchet clauses or opt-ins. We saw an example here not long ago. Just after the general election, the United Kingdom had to decide whether to opt in to the European investigation order. Many Members considered the way in which the legislation was scrutinised and enacted to be unsatisfactory. Along with others, I tabled an urgent question with the aim of establishing whether we were going to opt in.

I think that there is a better way of scrutinising important justice and home affairs matters. I appreciate that in that instance the general election and various recesses caused a problem, but nevertheless I am sure that this place can do a great deal better when it comes to scrutiny, and I believe that the Government can do a great deal better when it comes to enactment. I therefore very much welcome last week’s written ministerial statement. Someone like me could pick a few holes in it—on dates and who has the first say, for example—but it is a massive step forward and I thank the Minister for it. I also welcome, as I said, the Government amendments in this area.

The Government have already opted in to the negotiations on the European investigation order, which allowed European police forces to insist that the British police put citizens in the UK under surveillance and grant access to their DNA. I suggest that that is quite a big deal to the United Kingdom. The way in which the EIO was put before the House—eventually, in an oral statement in July—was most unsatisfactory. The intention behind my amendments is to ensure parliamentary scrutiny of such matters.

[Mr Cash]

The investigation order has not yet been debated in the European Committee, as far as I am aware, so we should bear it in mind that although the Minister made a statement—on 15 June, I think—it is none the less still subject to scrutiny.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I thank the Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee for correcting me. He knows that I am often wrong, so he corrects me quite regularly. I appreciate the help and assistance that he gives me, as a new Member in this place.

In the simplest terms, on the JHA ratchets, the Government have wisely looked at article 86 of the TFEU and have closed down in the Bill many of the policy areas that could be taken up to European level. Article 86 deals with the European public prosecutor, as I think the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) alluded to earlier. However, it does not pay attention in the same way to the justice and home affairs criminal law ratchets, because those are contained in article 83. Is there a reason for that? Essentially, I am seeking from the Minister an idea of how we will deal in this place with matters similar to the European investigation order when the Bill is enacted.

The criminal ratchet clauses are often very important, but some, while important in themselves, would not be as important to the British people on the whole. It would be a very daring move for anybody—a Eurosceptic, a pro-European, or any Minister—to recommend such matters for a referendum. I am quite happy to think that we could deal with this by putting before both Houses of Parliament a motion or Bill that could be amended to include a referendum clause, should the need arise. However, we can do justice and home affairs scrutiny a lot better. Although the written ministerial statement goes some way in that regard, could the Minister give us some real-life examples to explain how such matters will be dealt with in future?

I do not want to detain the Committee further. I have explained the reasons for my amendments on family law—I will not be pressing those to a vote—and on the JHA ratchets, which I hope I will not need to press to a vote. All parties should be able to agree in general terms to better parliamentary scrutiny of justice and home affairs opt-ins—or, indeed, opt-outs. This is the right place for that to be done, and I look forward to the Minister’s comments.

[Emma Reynolds]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship as I make my first speech on the European Union Bill, Ms Primarolo. It is also a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris). He and I have something in common, because I, too, worked in the European Parliament for a number of years. He was an MEP for a decade and I congratulate him on his speech today.

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[Emma Reynolds]

I was simply pointing out inconsistencies and contradictions in the Bill.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I thank the hon. Lady for being so kind to me and I congratulate her on her first contribution from the Front Bench; she is doing a sterling job. I very much appreciate the tone in which she is delivering her words. Given the welcome for last week’s written ministerial statement, I wonder whether there is a chance, bizarrely, for some collaborative work to break out across the divide on how we should deal with justice and home affairs opt-ins and opt-outs. Perhaps we could all, together with our Lib Dem colleagues, come to a better arrangement for the future.

[Emma Reynolds]

I certainly agree with the hon. Gentleman, who makes the point well. There are elements of agreement regarding last week’s written ministerial statement with which we can work. The Opposition favour any greater parliamentary scrutiny of the opt-in decisions that the Government make in this area. So, yes, there is quite a lot of agreement between us.

The Conservative party has come on a long, tortuous and at times destructive journey regarding the European Union. A Conservative Prime Minister took us into the then European Community and subsequent Conservative Prime Ministers signed up to the Single European Act and the Maastricht treaty—the biggest transfers of power from Westminster to Brussels in our history. There were no referendums on those issues. The Foreign Secretary has been part of that long and tortuous journey. He was not so keen on referendums in the early 1990s, when he and the hon. Member for Stone were on different sides of the argument during the long and heated debate on the Maastricht treaty that went through the night. The Foreign Secretary opposed a referendum on the treaty and the hon. Member for Stone consistently argued for one.

European Union Bill

Chris Heaton-Harris Excerpts

Monday 24th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr David]

The ultimate decision-making body in the European Union is the Council of Ministers, where, broadly speaking, votes are exercised according to the size of a country relative to other countries. I am suggesting that if a large country such as Turkey joins the European Union, the influence of the United Kingdom will inevitably diminish—that is absolutely simple and straightforward. Given the logic of the Government’s argument for this Bill, I find it incredible that that circumstance is painfully excluded.

[Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his wholehearted support for the amendment that I tabled on this issue, which, alas, we are not going to get to later this evening. Are we not assuming that Turkey would want to join the European Union? Given the direction in which its economy is going and given that it is already a member of the customs union, it would perhaps be very wise of Turkey to take a step back and have a look at where it is going. I was wondering whether this approach is a complete change in Labour party policy on this area, and it would be fascinating to know whether the party is for or against Turkish accession. Has the diminution of powers at the Council, whereby the previous Government gave away so many powers in different qualified majority voting circumstances that it sends shudders down the spine, led to Labour Members beginning to tighten up and see that we really should not have given away some of these powers?

[Mr David]

Perhaps I should not have given way on that point. I want to go on to make it absolutely clear that the Opposition would like to see Turkey join the European Union. There are a host of positive reasons for that to happen. Our position on the European Union and Turkey’s membership has not changed, but I cannot understand how the Government can say on the one hand that they believe in holding referendums on EU changes that affect the UK and on the other that they are against holding a referendum on such a huge issue of great importance to this country. The Government cannot have their cake and eat it.

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[Mr David]

No, because other Members want to contribute to the debate.

In conclusion, this tortuous Bill is problematic in the extreme. This part of the Bill in particular undermines the centrality of Parliament in Britain’s democracy. The convoluted clauses setting out when a referendum will be held are not only complex but contradictory; the significance and exemption clauses place a question mark over the Government’s true intentions; and the false impression given in the explanatory notes about judicial reviews is truly reprehensible.

We have tabled amendments that would significantly alter and, we believe, improve this ham-fisted Bill. Central to our main amendment is a belief that Parliament should be at the very heart of our democracy, and such an approach would ensure that the long-standing principles of representative parliamentary democracy were truly upheld. Without the amendment, this part of the Bill is at best a ragbag of half-baked inconsistencies and at worst a recipe for constitutional chaos.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

Before I make the couple of points that I want to make, I suggest to the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr David), as a Welsh Member, that referendums are quite important to people, that people understand simple and basic details and that they can understand, within the questions set, technical and important points. Democracy evolves, it always has done and it always will do, and through the Bill we suggest that referendums are a solid and sensible way forward. We trust the people who elected us in the first place to take a view, if asked, on the issues that the legislation raises.

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend know that the most recent referendum in Switzerland, a country renowned for holding referendums on technical and specific issues, had a turnout of 58%—a very high turnout, and probably somewhat higher than the vote many Labour MPs representing Welsh seats received—demonstrating that people will vote when they have to?

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I thank my hon. Friend, because every time he stands up, he educates me with a fact that I do not know.

The Labour proposals, in particular amendment 92, seek to redefine the referendum condition for UK ratification of amending treaties. As I will spell out in a couple of minutes, the proposed referendum committee would have to ask both Houses for agreement. As my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Stephen Gilbert) said, there must be agreement by both Houses before there is a referendum. The amendments are anti-referendum, anti-people and anti-common sense.

Currently, the referendum condition is that an Act approving an amending treaty must provide that its approval will not be effective until the ratification of the treaty has been supported in a referendum. Under amendment 92, the referendum condition would require an Act approving a treaty to provide that its approval will not come into force until the whole procedure has been completed. If the hon. Member for Caerphilly is to be believed, that procedure would involve the European Union referendum committee delivering a recommendation on whether a referendum should be held, both Houses of Parliament opposing or agreeing to the holding of a referendum, and a majority being in favour of ratification in a referendum on the treaty. The Bill’s main alternative, which is the exemption condition for UK ratification of amending treaties, would remain intact. That means that an Act approving an amending treaty could state simply that the treaty did not fall within clause 4—the definition of a transfer of competence or power—and a referendum would not be held.

Essentially, the hon. Member for Caerphilly is selling us a sop. There would be a whole procedure to go through, but a clause that says that there might not be a referendum would not be amended. Amendment 92 is not clear. It is probable that the redefined referendum condition would be met if an approving Act required a referendum to be held on the amending treaty, and if that produced a supportive result, without the EU referendum committee having made a recommendation on whether a referendum should be held. By seeking to amend some parts of the Bill and to leave other parts standing, the hon. Gentleman is confusing the point. I suspect that that is a deliberate ploy, because I am not convinced that the Labour party is willing to trust the people with decisions about significant moves in Europe. I am not convinced that many hon. Members understand the significance of the amendments.

Amendment 88 suggests that the intention behind amendment 92—both were tabled by Labour Front Benchers—is that no referendum should be held unless the European Union referendum committee has delivered an opinion on whether there should be a free public vote. Amendment 88 makes it clear that all amending treaties or article 48(6) decisions, which simplify provisions, that fall under clause 4 must be referred to the procedure involving the EU referendum committee and both Houses to determine whether a referendum is required. In other words, even treaties or article 48(6) decisions that are deemed to fall under clause 4, which require a referendum under the Bill, would be exempted from a referendum under the Opposition proposals. Again, that would take away the British people’s chance to have a say in these important areas.

New clause 9 would establish the referendum committee and the procedure for deciding on referendums on treaties and certain decisions, including article 48(6) decisions. It would report to Parliament in all cases on whether an amending treaty or relevant EU decision

“involves a significant transfer of power or competence, and if so…whether it requires a referendum to be held.”

In other words, only if the Committee judged there to be a significant transfer of competence or power would it provide an opinion to Parliament on whether the referendum should be held. For all other decisions, it would not have to report to Parliament. That is a recipe for keeping decisions on which the British people might want a say behind closed doors in this place, rather than for adding more transparency.

[Mr David]

Why does the hon. Gentleman assume that the meetings would be in camera? They would not; they would be open and public.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

That is not what is contained in the hon. Gentleman’s amendment. Perhaps we can have this conversation elsewhere at a later date, because I do not wish to take up the Committee’s time, but the Labour amendments would confuse the situation. Rather than open up the chance of our having referendums, they would close it down. I would like to think that we will not have to vote on amendment 85, but I fear that we probably will.

I wish to talk about the significance condition in the Bill, and about amendment 11, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr Clappison)—an important amendment on which we should divide. The British people have given up on politicians and political parties a bit when it comes to Europe. They elect representatives to this place on party platforms that do not necessarily reflect their views on Europe, because matters European do not stack up in their priorities at a general election. People make decisions based on reforms to the health service, education, defence and a bunch of other matters, and when we ask them how significant Europe is in deciding how to vote, we find that it falls way down the list. They are therefore trusting us, in a way, to do a job for them when we discuss the matter in the House. We, the political classes of this country, and I as a former MEP, have let the people of this country down.

The hon. Member for Caerphilly might say that the Lisbon treaty was not the constitution, but the fact is that the British people do not trust anybody on these matters now. They think that we are all the same, and that whatever we say will simply not happen. As the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) put it, we are all in favour of referendums when we are in opposition, but we are certainly not when we are in government. I welcome the Bill, because we can say to the British people that that has stopped.

There are matters in the Bill on which a Minister must judge whether something is “significant”. I understand the fact that it sets out 44 vetoes, 12 decisions and eight ways of increasing EU competences on which a referendum will be mandatory and there will be no significance test. I hope that the Minister will say in what situations the significance test will be used, because I should like clarification of that point.

I believe that the significance test will apply when there is a possibility of conferring on an EU body or agency new powers or the ability to raise sanctions against the UK. There is a whole list of exciting and interesting EU agencies, and I understand that the European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders having an extra competence might not seem a huge issue for the Committee. However, I should like the decision to be taken by the House, not by a Minister. Such decisions are best taken by the Members of this place and those of somewhere else a bit further away. I should like the Minister to state why he believes such minor matters, as it were, do not warrant debate in the House.

[Mr James Clappison (Hertsmere) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a compelling case. He is talking about minor matters, but does he agree that the Government concede that they could be significant enough to warrant a referendum? The question is not whether they are significant enough, but who decides whether they are significant enough. Would a Minister alone or the House make that decision?

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I concur with my hon. Friend. Although I completely trust the Minister, I am slightly concerned that, in future, the role might be played by a Minister who was not so interested in those matters.

[Ms Gisela Stuart]

As a former Member of the European Parliament, the hon. Gentleman knows that the decision-making process on those minor amendments is infinitely longer in the European Parliament than in the House. I cannot remember how many Ministers for Europe there were in the 13 years of Labour government, but although I hate to say it, collective memory in this place is vested not in the Minister for Europe, but in the civil service. It is not even a Minister who makes the decision, but the civil service.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I concur with the hon. Lady. Several manoeuvres have taken place under previous Governments to determine who is Minister for Europe. The incumbents do not often stay in the role for long. Either they are, like the current incumbent, sufficiently ambitious to move up the ministerial pay scale, or they could easily be a journeyman on the way out. There is a historical context to some decisions about conferring a competence on an EU agency, and one needs to know what the agency was formed to do in the first place. I perceive such conferral as part of the mission creep in Europe. The European Commission, in establishing so many new agencies on such a regular basis, creates its own quangocracy.

When I was a Member of the European Parliament, it was difficult to police the spending and powers of an agency that the European Commission set up. Indeed, it was more difficult than policing some of the agencies and quangos that Governments of different complexions established in this country. If those agencies grab power and take more competences—even for a valid reason at the time—it is important that the Minister of the day understands the historical reasons for setting up the agencies and the intended limits on the powers. I was present when Eurojust and Euro-magistrate were set up—all part of the European public prosecutor, which I look forward to debating tomorrow, and all part of a significant salami-slicing approach of taking powers away from individual member states, and building something that nobody particularly wanted.

I understand that any ministerial decision on the significance test has a kind of double lock. It has been drawn as narrowly as possible, and I would therefore like the Minister to answer a couple of questions. First, I want to check whether any treaty change will require an Act of Parliament. I should like to think that Parliament will have every opportunity to vote for a referendum on such a change. That is why I support amendment 11. Secondly, the decision on significance is subject to judicial review to ensure that decisions not to hold a referendum only on genuinely insignificant matters are backed.

Those matters are important because, as I said, they are about getting the British people to trust the decisions that we make on Europe again. No member of the public wants decisions to be made behind closed doors, without reasonable explanation. I emphasise strongly to the Minister that the amendments are not about trust in him, his ability to undertake the role or his decisions. I would like clarification that Parliament will have a say because that is what we were sent here to do.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash) has tabled some tempting amendments to which the Minister and the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston alluded. In amendment 1, my hon. Friend manages to do a fantastic decapitation job on the Bill that would basically put all changes up for referendum. Although there is validity in my hon. Friend’s reasoning—he has seen through the years a lot more of what goes on in this place than I have—I do not want everything to be decided by a referendum. The British people will not take that. They want Parliament to say, “These are important decisions and there will be a referendum, a debate in both Houses, or an Act and a vote,” and the Bill makes such provisions. We can then choose whether to amend a measure so that it is subject to a referendum because we believe it to be so important. If we think that a subject is insufficiently important, we can decide not to have one. I am tempted by amendment 1, but I am simply unable to support it for those reasons.

I was tempted by amendment 1 because of the accession exemption, which the hon. Member for Caerphilly and a number of hon. Members mentioned. I tabled an amendment on accession to the EU that we will not decide on today, just as we will not decide on many amendments that have been tabled. Amendment 21 is exactly as the hon. Gentleman described it. It would mean that a 3.5% dilution of our voting powers on the European Council triggered a referendum. That is a catch-all—it is completely designed as such—so that we would have a referendum on the accession of big countries.

Given that, amendment 1 all of a sudden comes back into play and I am once again tempted. I would much rather have had a comprehensive and sensible debate on clauses 4 and 5 today or tomorrow or in extra time.

[Mr Cash]

I understand where my hon. Friend is coming from, but there is a difference between significance and the opinion of the Minister on the one hand, and the question of exemption on the other. Clause 4(3) says that certain matters are forbidden territory. I am tempting my hon. Friend by saying that that whole category of exemption should clearly be removed, even if there will be a debate on what is or is not significant.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I understand what my hon. Friend says and I am quite sorely tempted, but my problem, as I described earlier, is the minutiae that might be sucked in under amendment 1.

[Mr Cash]

I understand my hon. Friend’s reasoning, but the specific exemptions are set out in clause 4(4)(a), (b) and (c). I understand that he would not want my proposal to go too far. The British people expect these things, which after all include matters such as Turkey and treaties of the type proposed by the French only the other day, not to be exempted. The British people would be left out and not taken into account on such decisions and treaties, yet they would have the most incredible impact on them. I shall explain that later.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I always appreciate the lessons that my hon. Friend can teach a humble new Back Bencher and member of the European Scrutiny Committee, and I very much look forward to receiving them, but he makes a salient point. This is about what the people who put us here expect. That is why I ask the Minister please to listen to what hon. Members say about the significance clause and amendment 11. The proposal is not against him; it is about enhancing Parliament and its transparency.

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[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

I rise to speak to the amendments standing in the names of my Labour Front-Bench colleagues. People elect their MP to speak up for them in Parliament and that is what they expect us to do. They expect us to speak up, to do business for them and to do certain work for them because they have put us here and they cannot spend every minute of every day looking at every detail that they want us to look at. They expect the party in government to tackle the problems of the day. When I say that the general public do not want numerous referendums on technical matters it is not because I doubt their ability to study the issues and make up their own minds—they could of course spend their time doing that. What people tend to say to me is, “Nia, it is your job. You’ve been elected to do this. We want you to look at these things and tell us the best ways forward.” That is not because they cannot do this themselves. They expect us to do the nitty-gritty work on the legislation.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I understand where the hon. Lady is going with this argument, but is what she is describing not exactly what she is asking the people of Wales to do in a certain referendum in March?

[Nia Griffith]

Indeed. I shall be dealing with that point shortly, because it is very important. There is a huge difference between the attitude now in Wales and the one prior to 1999, when people were very excited and enthused about the setting up of a new institution, there was a lot of media coverage and a lot of people were talking about it. With five weeks to go before the vote on 3 March, people are not particularly interested. They are saying, “This is a technical difference. If it is a matter of making the process better and simpler, so that things can be done in the Assembly rather than in Parliament, could you not just get on with that and do it?” That is not because people are not interested, because they do not appreciate what the Assembly is doing or because they do not accept that we have different ideas about how to run the health service and education and about how to protect the education maintenance allowance; it is because referendum fatigue is setting in. People are saying that on the big issue they want to have a vote—they want to say that there is going to be an Assembly—but on the technical issue they are saying, “You are telling us that there are better ways of doing things. We would like you to look at the detail, rather than for us to have to do that all the time.”

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[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I thank the hon. Lady for giving way again; it is very kind of her. Following on from the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke), the hon. Lady said that the shadow Chancellor had kept us out of the euro. He has ensured that we will never be able to go in, because of our massive level of debt. Would a debate on entering the euro go before the committee before anybody could decide on it in either House?

[Nia Griffith]

I will address my remarks to the question before us. The issue that the hon. Gentleman raises is much wider and would merit full debate in the House before any decisions were made. It may well be outside the remit of the Bill. It is a matter that any Government would want to discuss thoroughly. I can hardly see it being a popular move without proper discussion and consensus.

We need to remain in Europe. We do not want the label that Giscard d’Estaing threw upon us in the Lisbon treaty discussions, when he said that the UK would opt out of this and opt out of that, and that we were for ever opting out. We got a reputation as the country that cried wolf all the time and did not engage with the serious issues. It is important that we do not become the spoilt child of Europe. We must take our part; we must stand up and be counted; and we want a mature and sensible approach to what merits a referendum and what does not.

In conclusion, I fully support the idea of a special referendum committee being set up, which would have as its remit to look into the necessary factors and then make a recommendation to both Houses about whether a referendum were needed.

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[Charlie Elphicke]

I defer to my hon. Friend. His independence of mind and spirit is well known, and his championship of the cause of our nation in the matter of Maastricht is well recognised and on the record of the House. I would be proud if I were half as strong, resolute and bold as he is. I hope the day will come. It is, as everyone knows, a feature of the working of our political process that there will be heavy pressure in both Houses for a Government to get their agenda through.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

There is history here, is there not? Were we not told as a nation by a former Minister for Europe, the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), that the charter of fundamental rights had no more significance than The Beano? The charter is now incorporated in the Lisbon treaty and we are all suffering from it. A judgment call by a Minister about what is significant could turn out to be very important indeed.

[Charlie Elphicke]

I entirely agree. I remember in times past the former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, saying that the Scottish Parliament was a parish council, but it has far more sweeping powers than that. He was making a point about sovereignty and saying that it would not change anything, but a considerable amount of devolution has been given to Scotland. In the same way, the movement towards ever-closer union, which we have seen latterly in the Lisbon treaty, has highlighted the fact that although we are told, “It’s okay, it’s a small step, it won’t make any real difference,” it makes a massive difference.

I will be corrected if am wrong, but I think that about seven of every 10 of our laws are now effectively made in Europe. I have costed that and found that the European Union costs each and every household in this country an average of about £2,000 a year in taxes, which is a substantial sum. The hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) rightly said that our constitution and how we interrelate with Europe are important matters. If he wants to intervene on that point, I will give way.

European Union Bill (Programme)(No. 2)

Chris Heaton-Harris Excerpts

Monday 24th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con)]

I rise rather sheepishly, because I almost feel partly responsible for the Government adding an extra day. Some of their amendments have taken over from ones that I had previously tabled, so I find them quite important.

I am particularly pleased that the Government have tabled amendments 57 and 58, which are about the European public prosecutor, because they had inadvertently left a gap in the Bill relating to opt-in arrangements under the EU treaties. They are now closing that gap. They have also tabled the important amendment 60, relating to the common foreign and security policy, so I am pleased that we have the extra time for debate.

I understand what hon. Members have said about what will happen later today, but from a personal point of view I have been chasing amendments such as those that I have mentioned for quite some time, to close the gaps in the Bill, and I am very pleased that the Government have paid some attention to what I and other hon. Members have said.

European Union Bill

Chris Heaton-Harris Excerpts

Tuesday 11th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr David]

We would want an accurate reflection of what has been happening in the British courts and the European Court of Justice. I want to see the objective evidence presented to us. It is interesting that we have not heard from the Government in this debate as to whether there is more justification than what they have so far presented to us. I suspect that there is none, but there are many Conservative Back Benchers who believe that there is ample evidence. What I am saying is that there is certainly an indication that there are more things to be considered.

[Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman will know from his time as leader of the Labour MEPs that for those of us who are concerned about sovereignty in the United Kingdom, there is another problem—the mission creep that is omnipresent in the European Parliament across most political groups, including the European socialist group, which is probably the worst in that respect. Does he not believe that if his amendment were to have any weight and value, it would be worth looking at mission creep from the European Commission and the European Parliament as well?

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s argument, but does he not agree that the European Court of Justice has been saying for decades that it believes it has been creating a new legal order—I cite the Van Gend en Loos judgment of 1963—and we entered into that through the European Communities Act 1972? Therefore, we have already impinged to some degree on our parliamentary sovereignty.

[Mr Jones]

The hon. Gentleman needs to realise that it was this House that passed the 1972 Act that took us into that. If we want to amend it, we can do so by treaty. We could also have said at the time that we were not going to accept certain parts of the treaty negotiations. However, it is not the case that some far-off distant land is imposing things on this country. I know Conservative Members do not like the 1972 Act, but at least it was this Parliament that passed it. That is the important point.

This topic was covered by the European Scrutiny Committee, which says:

“If Parliament wills it may legislate to override the European Communities Act 1972 or the EU Treaties by repealing them”

or

“amending them”.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

Thank you for calling me to speak, Sir; I call you “Sir” because I am not sure whether I should call you Mr Deputy Speaker or Mr Evans, given the seat that you are in at the moment.

It is interesting to follow the right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane) in a debate such as this. I was a Member of the European Parliament, which is arranged in such a way that the lights get brighter if the debate gets exciting and dimmer if the life goes out of the debate. If we had such a system in the House now, I fear that I would be speaking in complete darkness.

It would be easy to answer a number of the points made by the right hon. Gentleman, but I agree with what he said at the very beginning of his speech. I have tabled a bunch of amendments to the Bill, which deserves tightening up, although there is something in it worth salvaging. However, I looked at clause 18 and thought that it did not mean anything, so it was not worth tabling an amendment to it. It is a declaration.

Does clause 18 put the sovereignty of Parliament in relation to EU law beyond speculation? I do not think so. Does it affirm and confirm that EU law has legal standing in the UK only because Parliament wills it through Acts of Parliament? I am not convinced that it does. Equally, however, I am not convinced that the amendments tabled to clause 18 would add anything to it; they are not anything to get excited about. I do not think that clause 18 is a very good clause, and I am pretty sure that it is not a sovereignty clause. If it has a place anywhere in the Bill, it should be in the preamble. It would be a good place to start—a sort of “This is where we came from”.

I have been following this process through the European Scrutiny Committee, and I have been fascinated by the different sorts of opinion that we can get from academics. In my 10 years as a Member of the European Parliament it was always interesting to get at least three academics in the room to give advice, because people knew that they could then get three completely different opinions and choose the one that they wanted.

I like to call myself a pragmatic Eurosceptic; I am a great believer in dealing with what is on the table and what we can achieve. I would like to think that the Bill will be able to achieve some things when we come to later clauses and amendments, but I just cannot bring myself to get excited about clause 18. I wish that the Government had not called it the delivery of the pledge made in the Conservative party’s election manifesto, because I simply do not believe that it is.

There are many voters across the country who are slightly sceptical about Europe. The hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) has left his seat, but many voters in his constituency will be sceptical about what goes on in the European Union. I do not think that they will feel comforted by the fact that clause 18 is in the Bill. If we vote for the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash), I do not think that they will wake up and think that that has achieved very much. Whether the clause stays as it is or the amendment is accepted, we will still be where we are: nothing will have changed.

I followed the process in the European Scrutiny Committee with great interest because some interesting and eminent people came before us. They often looked at the exciting parts of the Government’s explanatory notes to the Bill, especially the statement:

“This clause has been included in the Bill to address concerns that the doctrine of Parliamentary sovereignty may in the future be eroded by decisions of the courts.”

I assume that that means the British courts, but because it is fairly vague I guess that it could equally mean the European courts. I have written to the Minister for Europe asking for clarification on a number of points about the Bill, but the explanatory notes already say:

“Clause 18 is a declaratory provision which confirms that directly applicable or directly effective EU law only takes effect in the UK as a result of the existence of an Act of Parliament.”

I think that the whole House can concur with that point. The principle of parliamentary sovereignty is that Parliament is free to make or unmake—that is a terrible phrase, but it means to get rid of—any law if it wishes to do so, which will be upheld by the courts. That has been a keystone of the UK constitution for centuries. Nothing in the clause, or indeed in the amendment to the clause, would change that.

We must remember that the British people have a distinct lack of trust in what anybody says on this subject in this place. They do not trust Her Majesty’s Opposition, because although the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr David), may say that the constitutional treaty was very different from the Lisbon treaty, the majority of the public are not fools and they understand that the words were basically the same; in fact, even the order in which they appeared was basically the same. The Lisbon treaty was pretty much the same thing, and we should have had a referendum. Even if the hon. Gentleman disagrees with that point, he must understand that people outside this place feel like that.

I am happy to concur with the people who say, “Let’s be honest about this.” I would like to repeal sections 2 and 3 of the European Communities Act 1972, and I would like to have a proper sovereignty Bill. However, that is not on offer. I am in a coalition Government and lots of compromises have had to be made, some of which I am deeply disappointed about, but all of which I understand, because we are here to sort out the economic mess that the other lot left us. I want to get on with doing that particular job. I cannot get myself excited about all this.

[Mr Cash]

My hon. Friend is making remarks with which I must, unfortunately, disagree. In particular, I do not think that he has quite understood the nature of sovereignty. The United Kingdom Parliament is sovereign only in so far as it is not affected by decisions taken by the courts. Sovereignty is about the rule of law, which pivots between the courts on the one hand and Parliament on the other: we make and they interpret. When they get into the position of seeking, as they now are, through the common law principle and their judicial assertions to erode sovereignty by specific words, they are invading our sovereignty. In amending and eliminating that, as I seek to do, we would revert back to the supremacy that we have always wanted and insisted on.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. However, during my 10 years as a Member of the European Parliament I gained a rough idea of what sovereignty was and how it is viewed by different member states within the European Union. His amendment would have some strength if we had market-tested it on the academic experts who appeared before the European Scrutiny Committee. I truly believe that if we had said, “This is what clause 18 states. What do you think of that?” they would all have said what we have said about the clause, which has been repeated a number of times. If we had asked whether adding this sentence to the clause would protect us in any way, I am pretty sure they would have said, “No, not really. This is all a matter of interpretation for the lawyers. We won’t get anywhere like that.”

[Ian Paisley]

Is not the reason why people do not get excited about this sort of stuff—the hon. Gentleman has put his finger on it—the way in which laws are changed in this country? He is right: it is not a bang theory. As someone who has worked in Europe and been a Member of the European Parliament, he will know that Europe changes laws in a very nuanced way. A European directive informs our officials what they should do and our officials make those changes, sometimes at the behest of our own courts. However, such changes happen as a result of a nuanced change in Europe. They are dumbing us down quite deliberately, so that this Parliament is no longer sovereign.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I agree, which is why I focused my attempts to amend the Bill on the parts of it where there are opportunities to get this place to debate matters more thoroughly. We should get the country more interested by having referendums on some of the big changes that happen in Europe. In the Lisbon treaty there is an awful clause—the passerelle clause—which has untold danger written across it.

There are many things that former Ministers for Europe did; I am talking not about the right hon. Member for Rotherham, but about a friend of mine, the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) when he was Minister for Europe. The European charter of fundamental rights was meant to have no more relevance to British law than a copy of the “Beano,” but it is now enshrined in the Lisbon treaty. I am very wary of the process and how it works, which is why I am keen on tightening up many other matters in the Bill, and have tabled amendments to do that.

None of those issues are helped, or indeed hindered, by clause 18. The Government’s apparent intention is that the clause will combat any argument that parliamentary sovereignty is limited by EU treaties directly—in other words, that Parliament cannot act contrary to those treaties while they apply to the UK. A strict reading of clause 18 would not prevent someone from arguing that parliamentary sovereignty would be limited by the European Communities Act as applied by the courts. There are many different arguments on this matter, but I want to return to the simple fact that we can take from the expert witnesses’ testimony before the European Scrutiny Committee anything we like, to allow us to argue on any side of the issue. Sensibly, Professor Adam Tomkins submitted in written evidence to us that

“European Union law is far from being the only contemporary challenge to the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty”.

That is a very salient point. Human rights law, and indeed common law itself, would also pose challenges, as would different types of law coming from different places through different courts. Those challenges will not be affected by what clause 18 states, and will not be changed or challenged by the amendment if it is passed. We will still be in the same position.

I am concerned because I have a strong belief that we will not be able to negotiate strongly with our European partners until we start banging our fists on the table, reminding them that we are the second largest net contributor to the European Union and using the vetoes that we have. We should do exactly what the French and the Spanish do in all budgetary and other negotiations, which is to play their hand as hard as they can for the best interests of their country. That is what I would like our Ministers to do, and what I would like to believe they are doing. I want to hear from our Ministers that we will not only talk and be good at the rhetoric, but that we will start instructing United Kingdom Permanent Representation to the European Union to do the right thing by our people. Again, none of that is affected by clause 18 or the amendment tabled to it.

I humbly suggest to my colleagues who may be excited by the clause that perhaps this is not the battle we should be fighting. There may be other areas where we can give the people we represent the referendum they want, and we should be angling for that. Perhaps there are ways in which we can tighten up the Bill through other amendments to other clauses. The timing of the implementation of the Bill means that it will apply to decisions made by the Government in the future. Perhaps we can do a much better job by tightening up the rest of the Bill, rather than getting excited about this clause.

Maybe at some point in this Parliament we can have a referendum on Europe, which is something on which I have not had the opportunity to express my view. I would love an “in or out” referendum; hon. Members can guess which way I would vote in that. Based on where we are now and what we have, it would certainly be “out”. I want the British people to have their say on our relationship with Europe and I also want them to be engaged in what is going on in their name in this place and in the negotiations. Other parts of the Bill, rather than this clause, are the place to try to bring that about.

[Thomas Docherty]

Several Members on both sides of the Committee have referred to England, the English Parliament and Britain. Let me gently remind the House that our nation state is the United Kingdom, and it is much more pertinent, particularly when discussing the issue of sovereignty, to get its name right.

European Union Bill

Chris Heaton-Harris Excerpts

Tuesday 7th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con)]

I rise as a sinner, because I would like a referendum on Britain’s future relationship with our European partners. As I am a former member of the European Parliament, that certainly makes me a sinner in the eyes of those out there. Many of the British people are sinners also. We all entered this European garden of Eden fully clothed, and now the British people feel that their clothes have been stolen by previous Governments of both colours, with their shirt finally having been stolen from their back by the last Labour Government when they gave away a huge part of our rebate. That is why we have the Bill.

It is fairly obvious to anyone who cares to ask our voters that they are really fed up with our relationship with the EU, and do not trust the European institutions. Equally, our voters have lost a huge amount of trust in the ability of British Governments trying, or even endeavouring to try, to stand up for our country.

[Mr Swayne]

This House voted not to have a referendum on the Lisbon treaty. If those of us who argued with the Minister, who continued to insist that it was merely an administrative tidying up, had only had the ability to go to judicial review, as this Bill allows, we would have been much better for it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

That is why the Bill is very important, and equally why it is dangerous to oversell what the Bill does.

Government Members have a number of qualms, as do Labour Members, about the sovereignty clause. Vernon Bogdanor, in his evidence to the European Scrutiny Committee, said:

“Although there is therefore a basic rationale for the European Union bill, it seems to me that its provisions are inconsistent with the declaratory clause insisting that Parliament is sovereign. Indeed, the purpose of the bill is unclear to me. A government will not provide for a referendum unless it wishes to support a proposal for treaty amendment or transfer of powers. If it is opposed to such a proposal, it can use its veto, since all matters to be made subject to the referendum require unanimity. The present government has indicated that it will not support any amendment or transfer of powers in this parliament. Therefore, the purpose of the bill must be to prevent a future government from supporting such an amendment or transfer without a referendum. The bill seeks, in other words, to bind a future government. That seems to me inconsistent with the declaratory proposition that Parliament is sovereign.”

I should very much appreciate the Minister’s thoughts on that piece of evidence.

The Minister kindly came to the European Scrutiny Committee yesterday and gave a tour de force on the outcomes that he expected from the Bill. He said that

“it delivers on what was in the coalition programme simply as an agreement to consider the case for a sovereignty Bill—that Bill is being introduced by the means of clause 18.”

Yesterday, at the end of his speech, that was reduced to just a few words:

“Clause 18…is declaratory in intention and in substance.”

May I suggest to the Minister that he must not oversell that clause? There is some value in clause 18 as a declaration, but it absolutely does not represent a sovereignty Bill.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr Clappison) made some salient points about justice and home affairs measures, which are a good example of what goes on in the European institutions. The Bill seemingly stops powers heading out to Europe in big chunks, but anyone experienced in such matters knows that European negotiators rarely try to swallow their prey whole. They would if they could, but to get past the public anger and angst that such huge transfers of power always cause they have long preferred to chop things up and to salami-slice: they chop away piece by piece, or sliver by sliver, until they reach their goal. Current justice and home affairs arrangements on the opt-in, opt-out basis receive little scrutiny, and the measure before us really put its finger on that.

The European public prosecutor, which is one of those proposals that triggers all the alarm bells in the Bill, simply cannot be introduced under this legislation without a referendum or the people having their say, but the European institutions desperately want it. As a member of the European Parliament, I was there at the start of the EPP debate in Brussels, and it evolved a little like this. Initially, the proposal was about introducing a common body of law in justice and home affairs, but it was not that important; it was just about protecting the Commission’s raising of its own resources. The Commission raises money in many ways, one of which involves VAT, and one role of the anti-fraud office, OLAF, was to ensure that money did not disappear through theft, fraud or VAT avoidance. OLAF was meant to police the Commission’s budget when the wise men set it up, but that story is for another day.

Let us say that OLAF did its job properly and got the authorities in Spain to arrest a British national for not paying VAT on smuggled cigarettes in Bulgaria. It is complicated to get all those authorities to investigate and co-ordinate arrests and prosecutions, so, the argument goes in Europe, we need a European arrest warrant, investigation orders and a whole lot more to make the process work. Before we know it, we have, through various justice and home affairs instruments, all the guts and the body of a European public prosecutor. Its creation would trigger a referendum under the Bill.

Can a current Minister, however, guarantee that a future Minister will not see that measure as a tidying-up exercise, or as just an insignificant power transfer with a European public prosecutor at the end? Can a current Minister guarantee what a future Minister will think is significant? Even if they are able to, will we get the British public to trust a Minister who says that? Not too long ago, a Minister for Europe suggested that the European charter on fundamental rights was of no more significance than The Beano. The Bill is for future use—not much good if no Government can bind their successors. But we are told that we do not need to worry about this Government, as under them there will not be any transfer of power to Europe.

Yesterday, when giving evidence on the Bill, the Minister for Europe told the European Scrutiny Committee—this was confirmed today by answers to questions that my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere asked the Secretary of State—that up to 40 justice and home affairs measures might be passed through the channels of Government in any given year. That is an awful lot. The Secretary of State said that those could take time to investigate. Yesterday, the Minister told us that

“there is a strict time limit attached to our opt-in on these measures—that we have to take a decision within three months. It takes the Government, through interdepartmental consultation, some time to work out what their own assessment of a particular measure is once it is published.”

That causes a problem, because it means that there is no time in the parliamentary timetable for us to investigate those measures properly.

What does the Bill do? It might not tickle the fancy of my fellow Eurosceptics, but I am sure that, when looking at the next area of policy from which to grab power, the Commission negotiators will have at the back of their minds a worry that at one point the British people might have a say about what they are trying to do. As has been described in so many books, they knew in the past that a friendly chat with close friends at the Foreign Office could mean a little less excitement down the line.

At the beginning of my remarks, I described how the British public and British politicians had entered the European garden of Eden fully clothed, only to find that over a period of years we had been stripped. Although I appreciate that the Bill is just a fig leaf, I will happily vote for it because it covers a tiny piece of our modesty.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Heaton-Harris Excerpts

Tuesday 9th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

I think the MEP concerned is demonstrating a certain amount of wishful thinking. Our position remains that we are not prepared to accept anything beyond 2.9%, and the Prime Minister was able to win the support of 12 other Heads of Government for that position at the recent European summit.

[Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con)]

At a time when the European Commission’s accounts have not been signed off for the 16th year running, would that not be a decent priority for the Government to raise in the coming year?

[Mr Lidington]

It certainly forms part of the efforts that we need to make to ensure much more effective budgeting and expenditure control by all the European Union institutions. As my hon. Friend knows, part of the problem is not simply fraud; it is the over-complicated, bureaucratic nature of many European Union rules. That root cause needs to be addressed.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Heaton-Harris Excerpts

Tuesday 14th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con)]

Has the Minister read last week’s interesting and very long speech—a state of the Union address—of the President of the European Commission, Mr Barroso? He calls for own resources to be raised by the European Union. What is the Government’s view and will this be subject to the referendum lock?

[Mr Lidington]

The President of the Commission made his comments in the context of the forthcoming negotiations about the new financial perspectives. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, who will be leading the Government in our approach to those negotiations, has made it clear that we will seek cuts in the European Union budget for the protection of the British rebate and no new European-level taxes.

European External Action Service

Chris Heaton-Harris Excerpts

Wednesday 14th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

I shall be voting on the substance of the matter, which I wholeheartedly support and, I have to say—this will come as a great disappointment to the hon. Gentleman—in words almost identical to those used by the Minister. No, I do not think it is a good reason to seek to divide the House, but if the hon. Gentleman wishes to, obviously he is free so to do.

The reason we support the European External Action Service, and have for some time now, is that we believe that we are moving, as the Foreign Secretary himself said earlier this year in a speech, into a much more multilateral world, where we cannot just accept that there will be two great powers—the United States of America and China. We have to make sure that our power, both exercised independently ourselves and through the European Union, is used to its best effect. We know that in relation to the emerging economies of China, Russia, India, Mexico and Brazil, it is all the more important that Europe takes a united stance if we are to achieve effective outcomes.

We also know that the EU’s previous foreign relations structure has been grossly inefficient, thus an individual country has a desk officer for the European Council and a desk officer for the European Commission, and, on top of that, two different departments within the Commission might have desk officers. That is clearly a duplication—not the one to which hon. Members referred earlier, but one that we want to see done away with; and that is why we support the EAS.

[Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Chris Bryant]

Of course I give way to the honourable former Member of the European Parliament.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

Should the EAS come into effect, how hopeful is the hon. Gentleman that, given the duplication that he just outlined, and not the duplication to which others referred, the Commission will actually shed staff?

[Chris Bryant]

The Commission does not have any choice, because the staff will be automatically moved into the EAS. The same applies to the Council. If each country approves the measure, through their parliamentary processes, the move will happen automatically, so I have confidence in the Commission. There are many areas where I do not have confidence in the Commission shedding staff, and where the hon. Gentleman is right to say that sometimes we have to ensure that it does not encroach on the powers of member states, but this is not one of them.

When I was Europe Minister, I tried to fight for some important principles. First, it was important to make it absolutely clear that the head of each delegation had full power over the whole delegation, because otherwise, in any individual deputation in any country throughout the world, different elements might compete against each other. Although Europe might have spoken with one voice, because it had established a single mandate, the individual delegation in that country might not. I am glad that we won that argument.

I am glad, too, that we won the argument to bring the politico-military structures, the civilian planning conduct and capability element, the crisis management and planning directorate and the EU military staff inside the EAS, because it would simply have been to duplicate and make the system more complex if we had left them outside.

I shall not take up much time, because I want to ensure that there is more opportunity for other Members to participate, but I must note two areas where, to be honest, I felt that I had to handbag the High Representative. Indeed, there were sharp words at April’s General Affairs and External Relations Council. First, I do not believe that the EAS should set up consular services for every country in the European Union, and I was determined to ensure that the text that came out of April’s Council made that absolutely and abundantly clear. I confess that the text that we ended up with—I am sure that all hon. Members will have read it—is slightly complex. Indeed, article 5(10) states that the Union delegation shall, acting in accordance with article 35 third sub-paragraph of the TEU, and upon request of member states, support the member states in their diplomatic relations and in their role of providing consular protection to union citizens in third countries on a resource-neutral basis.

Two elements of that are vital, but they sound misguided. First, “on a resource-neutral basis”, means that no additional money should go into the EAS to provide consular services on behalf of other countries. Secondly, the reference to article 35 of the Maastricht Treaty on European Union, as I am sure the Minister knows, means that the circumstances in which the EAS can provide consular services are very closely constrained. The Maastricht treaty—under the provisions that John Major introduced, incidentally—makes it clear that where an individual citizen of any EU member state is in a third country and their member state has no representation, other member states can provide support. That happens fairly regularly. In countries where Britain has no representation, sometimes a British citizen will be supported by other EU members. It is also true that the services of other countries are provided to us. For instance, in Laos, where we have no representation, the Australians provide consular protection.

In our discussions leading up to April’s Council meeting, I thought it very important to ensure that countries such as Estonia and Latvia, which would dearly love the EU to provide consular services and remove the power of member states to provide them throughout the world, should not see the measure as a great cash cow. While many in the room argued forcefully that we should be moving towards European consular services, I said that we would use the British veto if that proposal came forward. That is why we have the document that is now before us.

The next issue is budget neutrality. As I said, there has been considerable duplication in the system in the years thus far, whereby there are desk officers for the same country from different elements of the structure of the European Union, and that has been counter-productive. I am confident, with Cathy at the helm, that there will be a strong insistence on ensuring that those duplications do not survive, and that there is therefore no reason why the EAS should cost us more in the long term.

I note the Minister’s optimism when he says that in the short term this will cost us only £1.1 million more.

European Affairs

Chris Heaton-Harris Excerpts

Thursday 3rd June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con)]

Reduce them.

[David Miliband]

The hon. Gentleman says, from a sedentary position, that we should reduce them, but he will know that the 2004-05 budget deal agreed for the first time that British and French net contributions should be more or less equal. That had never been achieved before under any previous Government.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson) on his excellent maiden speech, and all the other hon. Members who have made their maiden speeches today. I particularly welcome the fact that we have had four superb speeches from new women Members on the Labour Benches. That demonstrates the fact that, although it is still happening too slowly, the more representative the parliamentary Labour party becomes, the more effective we will be. As an Opposition, we will be far more effective as a result of their contributions and those of others that we shall hear. That was ably demonstrated during the debate.

I also note that, during the past three hours since the Front-Bench speeches, the notional quorum of 40 has not been reached in the House. There are no specific business votes today, but this situation will need to be challenged—perhaps not today, but in the next few weeks. It is neither fair nor reasonable that we should have a coalition Government with only half the coalition present. I apologise if there are Members whom I do not recognise because they are new, but I do not spot any Liberals here. I have spotted some documents that have arrived, however: the Liberal party, in government for the first time in 80 years, is represented here today by a pile of papers. For the past two hours, there have been no Liberals present in the Chamber. They have a responsibility, when in government, to be here to listen and to argue their case.

I commend the Minister for Europe, and welcome him to his job. I believe that he has been present throughout the debate. That is appropriate Front-Bench activity for any party, but where is his Liberal deputy, or any Liberal? Not so long ago, the Liberals would have crawled across broken glass to attend a debate on Europe to show their enthusiasm for the European Union. Perhaps that explains their reluctance in this new coalition, when Members such as the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash) can congratulate them on their speeches on Europe and tell them how far they have moved in three weeks.

This fragile coalition will, I predict, be still more fragile on the issue of Europe in times to come. One thing I can assure the Liberals of is that they are going to have to provide, as a coalition Government, sufficient Members at any one time—or they will be challenged, whatever day and whatever time of day it is. That is particularly so when the new Government want to reduce the number of Members—by 65, I believe. Well, that is a legitimate debating point and we will no doubt vote on it at some stage in the future, but if we are going to reduce the number of Members, we have to have those who are Members here in the Chamber in the first place. That is the first duty of Government. We, of course, have less onerous duties in terms of—[Interruption.] Oh, I see that a Liberal is belatedly emerging, which gives me the opportunity to reinforce my point, and the Liberals will be particularly keen to understand and contemplate it, given their role in the coalition.

It seems to me that politicians across the world and within Europe, however it is defined, are not addressing the two biggest issues in the world. The first is population. It is not sustainable for the world population to continue to increase in the way it has. Politicians across the world, including in Europe and in this House, have virtually nothing to say on that key issue. The second issue that goes alongside the growth of population and exacerbates it is the problem of migration.

Peoples have always migrated, but when the number of people migrating and the volumes and speed of migration are increasing as fast as they are today, conflict will emerge in all parts of the world. Some of those conflicts will be based on resources, some on climate, some on wars—in fact, some will create wars—and some on economic migration, but conflict is fundamental. Given the size of the world population, it seems to me that the levels and speed of migration are not sustainable. A quarter of the world’s countries have had food riots in the past 18 months. Many of the mass migrations outside the European Union in recent years have led to major conflict, leading to multiple deaths because of war.

One of the dilemmas and problems that this coalition will have to face over the EU is that although the Prime Minister makes great play of how tough he is on immigration, on all occasions when he refers to immigration, he means immigration from outside the EU. Thus doctors from India cannot get into this country, even when our hospitals want them, because the Government—it was the same under the Labour Government—are “toughening their stance” on immigration. As I say, that means immigration from outside the EU.

Earlier today, however, we heard a leading Liberal, the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes), when he had bothered to attend, say that the new coalition was potentially in favour of Turkey acceding to the European Union. We have also heard the new Foreign Secretary outlining how there will be no referendums on accession. He was prepared to name Croatia, but how many more countries are there? With accession, of course, comes free movement of labour. The Maastricht treaty, as voted through by the Foreign Secretary and his colleagues in 1992, created the format, using the treaty of Rome as its basis, but going much further on the free movement of labour.

We have heard speech after speech, including those from the Eurosceptics on the Conservative Benches, saying unequivocally that what they want is more flexibility—in other words, a cheap labour pool for business. That is what flexibility is about for them. For a power worker at Staythorpe power station or for a worker at the East Lindsey oil refinery, or at many other places, as new migrants have come in, the agencies have squeezed wage levels and reduced the opportunities for jobs. In my area, the agencies recruit in Polish from Poland and then employ those people in factories on a casual basis, day by day. The fact that workers in my constituency and surrounding constituencies cannot compete with those wage levels is causing fundamental problems which this dishonest coalition is refusing to address.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

During their 13 years in office, how did the last Labour Government manage to address the problem that the hon. Gentleman has described—of “British jobs for British workers”?

[John Mann]

The hon. Gentleman has not had the privilege and joy of listening to my speeches about the issue in the past, but I will give him an opportunity to do so now. I have made the same criticism of the Labour Government, who made a fundamental error in failing to address the problem of agency workers and the programme of migration.

This issue will not go away. We cannot go on expanding the European Union and allowing more cheaper-wage economies to move in, because that is not sustainable. There is a deeper unsustainability when we see people migrating to where social conditions are better. The Germans have a solution with their Gastarbeiter—there are 20 million Turks living in Germany who are not official citizens—but it cannot be applied within the European Union.

People migrate here quite legitimately, realising that they can work here and then retire here, benefiting from health and education services that are significantly better than those in the potential new accession countries. In their position, I would think it rational to move. I would think it rational to get my children into good British schools. I would think it rational to use the British health service, because investment has made it far better than others. The people who lose out, however, are not the middle classes, who are happy to enjoy a plethora of new restaurants in London and happy to benefit from the au pairs, gardeners and other advantages of cheap labour, but working-class communities. That is where the new migrant labour lives. The pressure on health and schools has a disproportionate impact on the very people who do not gain the benefits of that migrant labour, and who are competing with it for jobs. That is not a sustainable social model.

A major change will be necessary at the heart of the treaty of Rome. Currently, under that treaty, the Maastricht treaty and the various accession Acts that have been passed by successive Governments, workers and family members must not become a burden on the social assistance system. Well, they are not, but that is to do with the benefits system. The real cost is the cost to the working-class communities in schools, in health and in infrastructure. It is those communities who are losing out, and the middle classes who are benefiting.

I hope that the spokesmen on my party’s Front Bench are listening, because this issue is fundamental to the people whom we represent. The social model within Europe that allows this mass migration—the free movement of labour to whatever destination—is not sustainable, and the European Union is not sustainable with it. There must be a restriction to protect the position of those working-class communities, not least mine.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for giving me my second opportunity to speak in what is only my third week in this place. I look forward to goading my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), the former Minister for Europe, into answering some of my questions in a few moments.

I come to this place after 10 years of experience in the European Parliament. Throughout that time, the hon. Member for Rhondda was ever present in European circles. He first came to us as a lobbyist, talking to us in BBC-speak about the audio-visual media services directive and such like, but his later guise was as the Minister for Europe.

However, first I want to address the current Minister for Europe. There are a number of tricks of the trade—I know that my hon. Friend will learn them very quickly—but I do not think that they were completely grasped by his predecessor in the role.

First, I do not think that we have ever used all the power that we should be able to wield in European institutions. We are, and have been for a number of years, the second largest net contributor to the EU budget. We all know, because it is often talked about in this place, that for the past 15 years the European Commission’s accounts have not been signed off—in the technical language, given a “positive statement of assurance”—by the European Court of Auditors.

That state of affairs has continued since 1994. During all 13 years of the previous Labour Government, not one Treasury Minister visiting Brussels queried whether we were getting value for money. Not only that, but no one asked whether so much money should be spent on projects that were well known to be affected by fraud and mismanagement.

If we were to punch above our weight—or at least at our weight—in Europe, I would suggest that we honour, almost, what French, German and Spanish colleagues do. They would stop at absolutely nothing to get their way in those institutions. They would drag the budget process to a halt. They would drag a former British Prime Minister to talk about trumpets at the gate and say that he is actually just about to give away a huge amount of British money to keep them quiet—to stop them moaning at him for some other engagements that he might be doing around the world. We must absolutely remind our European partners that yes, we do want to play a full part in European institutions with our European friends, in whatever future Europe has, but that actually we want to be regarded as a fair partner as well. We have been playing—and paying—their game for too long.

I suggest to my hon. Friend the Minister that we should be arguing for more repeal of European legislation—something that just does not happen any more. We want sunset clauses in all new directives passing through the European Commission, as I hope we would expect in any new legislation that passes through this place, so that if a directive does not work, there is an opportunity for it to fall.

I would advise my hon. Friend about EU-creep. No, I am not like Nigel Farage, the former UK Independence party leader, referring to the Presidents of the European Council. I am talking about where Europe gradually extends its field. Six years ago, as a Member of the European Parliament, I went to a meeting where I was advised that the External Action Service—which we commented on earlier today—was simply not going to happen. On the way to that meeting, I met a friend of mine who had just had a job interview for a position with that External Action Service. I told the gentleman from the Foreign Office who had told me that the service would not happen that I had this friend and that jobs were available, and he said that no, he must have got that absolutely wrong. For years, those who now sit on the Opposition Benches have said that there would be no such thing—that it would not happen—and now we have a full-blown External Action Service. We are going to have European Commission offices acting like embassies across the globe, diminishing the role of those of member states.

I am deeply concerned about the passerelle clause that came into being in the Lisbon treaty—the constitution: it was and is the same thing. I believe that that clause will be actioned on many occasions, and probably is being actioned at this moment. I am equally concerned about the growth in the European Union’s budget. All these things are not negatives taken on their own, but together they add up to what I call Euro-creep: a growing tendency for powers and money to gravitate towards the centre, which is Brussels—and, of course, Strasbourg.

I opened my maiden speech by saying that it was a great shame that we have to have Strasbourg as a home for the European Parliament. Ministers, the current Deputy Prime Minister and I set up a campaign in the European Parliament. We had a petition that got 1 million signatures online—including that of the now European Commissioner from Sweden—to try to get only one seat for the European Parliament. I know the problems that go with it, but I emphasise to hon. Members that surely the current arrangement is one example of a member state punching way above its weight.

[Ms Gisela Stuart]

The hon. Gentleman is a former Member of the European Parliament and before he gets too sanctimonious, I remind him that during the Convention on the Future of Europe the European Parliament refused to agree on one seat because the default position in the treaty is that the Parliament sits in Strasbourg. Without French agreement, it would have had to give up its seat in Brussels.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

There are many other examples, from debates held over the years in all institutions in Europe—and from debates that I have read in this House—of wonderful ideas on what we could do with the buildings of Strasbourg or Brussels. The fact is that we are talking about a huge, expensive white elephant that the people of Britain think is yet another waste of taxpayers’ money.

I know that this will not make my hon. Friend the Minister particularly popular when he is in negotiations on the other side of the channel, but I just ask him to mention, every now and again when the French delegation gets a bit excited about reformulation of the common agricultural policy or something else—the French get excited about all sorts of things—that we have been very generous in allowing them to maintain the seat of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, because it is unpalatable to most of our electorates.

I wish my hon. Friend the greatest of luck in his new role. There are great difficulties across the continent at the moment. There is the crisis of the huge debt that many countries have, and the incongruous way in which that debt may have to be serviced by other members of the eurozone—I like to think that it would not be serviced by British taxpayers. There are other pressures, too. The hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) made the point that we cannot have British jobs for British workers, and talked about the pressures that future accessions might bring. I know from my time in the European Parliament, and from going round schools in what was my region and is now my constituency, how deeply unpopular among the British people the possible accession of Turkey could be. If we press forward with it, we will have a great deal of work to do in explaining to our electorate that it is the right thing for Britain and British workers.

[John Mann]

Can the hon. Gentleman explain why the new coalition Government will potentially have referendums on all sorts of things to do with the European Union, but not on the question of any accession? Does he not see that as rather a contradiction?

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for asking me a question way above the pay grade of such a cub Member; I refuse to answer it because I haven’t got a clue what the answer is. That is the blunt honesty that will, I hope, become associated with me. If we go down the line of accession, we should look not only at Croatia, but at countries such as Macedonia, which has been held back because of its problems with Greece over so simple a thing as its name and history.

There are many items on which there are problems ahead, but I would like to think that my hon. Friend, the Minister for Europe, has it all completely under control.