European Union (Approvals) Bill [Lords]

Debate between Chris Heaton-Harris and Kelvin Hopkins

Tuesday 3rd November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

It is a bit of both. The agency has the following main tasks:

“to collect, analyse and disseminate…objective, reliable and comparative information”

related to the situation of fundamental rights in the EU;

“to formulate and publish conclusions and opinions on specific thematic topics…on its own initiative or at the request of the European Parliament, the Council or the Commission”;

and it is also about

“the promotion of dialogue with civil society…to raise public awareness of fundamental rights”.

A debate is going on in this country about where those rights should lie, what sort of legislation should exist in relation to them and who should police them. Macedonia has had that debate in its own Parliament, has applied to join this agency and is willing to pay appropriations to it. I do not see why we should step in its way. As I have said, there have been problems with the agency in the past, but it serves an important function in that member states’ voting rights could be suspended, based on the findings of any of its reports. The agency has teeth in no uncertain terms, and it has a decent operating budget of over €20 million a year. Macedonia has made its own choice, and it is right for it to go down that route if it chooses to do so.

I want to speak briefly about the draft decision on a tripartite social summit for growth and employment. There is a new Council decision, following Lisbon, that allows the number of meetings to be increased from one to two a year, and allows the President of the European Council to attend. The European Commission is allowed to host and facilitate meetings, so there should not be too much of a cost to it. My questions are more about the direction of travel of this organisation, its duplication, its purpose in being and whether we can raise questions about what it does.

This is not the European Economic and Social Committee, whose abolition I have called for in the past because of the huge costs for members belonging to one of the three groups of employers, employees and various other interests. The employers group comprises businessmen, people from certain business lobbies; the workers group comprises members from 80 trade unions mostly affiliated to the European Trade Union Confederation; while the third group is made up of lobbies from civil society. Most of those groups are paid for by the European Commission to lobby it in different ways to get the Commission to do more. Many European countries have a national version. However, the organisation I am talking about is not that. It is a separate beast.

One important question is who are the EU’s social partners? A list of social partners organisations consulted under article 154 of the treaty of the functioning of the European Union includes Business Europe. Business Europe is quite an interesting organisation. Unsurprisingly, it has a particular view on the referendum we might be having here. It gets a small sum of money, nearly €457,000, as payment under a grant received for a project running over a couple of years, of which the total budgeted cost was €1.2 million. The members of Business Europe include our CBI—it is one of the ways in which the UK CBI receives some money from the European Union. It includes other organisations such as the European Trade Union Confederation, which I mentioned previously and which received €4 million from European institutions, spending over €1 million lobbying the EU.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

Given the sums that the hon. Gentleman mentions, is it not possible that these organisations will be more kindly disposed towards the EU—simply because they have received such substantial sums?

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I would like to think that they would not be. If I were a leading light in the CBI or the ETUC, I would want to make sure of being in a position whereby I would not be accused of being biased in one way or the other. Receiving money from the European Commission that is then spent lobbying the EU to do things—whether it be business organisations lobbying for liberalisation or trade union organisations lobbying for workers’ rights or whatever—seems almost like manufacturing a market in this area.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

Just recently, there has been something of a controversy about the BBC receiving some millions of pounds from the European Union for educational purposes—no doubt educating us all about the wonders of the EU. Does the hon. Gentleman not think that if organisations that are supposed to be independent and impartial take large sums of money from the EU, it might have some influence on them?

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

Again, I would like to think not. I follow what the hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friends have been doing on the European Scrutiny Committee. There has been a long and ongoing dialogue with the BBC, as I know because I was a member of the Committee over the last five years running up to the mandate of this Parliament. I hesitate to look in the direction of my Scottish National party colleagues, because I have a feeling they might have a view on partiality and the BBC when it comes to certain matters.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

Forgive me, Madam Deputy Speaker, as I did rather provoke reaction from my SNP colleagues, because I wanted to prove the point that when questions are raised about the partiality of an organisation, either through its funding or its actions, it could devalue that organisation’s input into something important, such as a European referendum.

Let me return to the point about who our EU social partners are in this dialogue that we are facilitating through the Bill. As I have said, in 2014 the European Trade Union Confederation received €4 million from EU institutions and spent more than €1 million of that money lobbying those same EU institutions on legislation. In 2013 the CEEP—the European Centre of Employers and Enterprises providing Public Services—spent €120,000 lobbying the European Union and received €155,000 from the EU’s directorate-general for employment.

I question the added value of the dialogue at the tripartite social summit for growth and employment. Like many things in the European Union, its title is motherhood and apple pie. Who could possibly be against a tripartite social summit for growth and employment? However, if it delivers very little and if the only people who attend it and talk to the European Commission are actually paid by the Commission to do so, that will be a significant issue because the conversation will simply go round in ever-decreasing circles.

The EU social partners have agreed to a number of things in the recent past, and they wish to discuss important matters. They have agreed to

“negotiate an autonomous framework agreement on active ageing and an inter-generational approach”.

That is obviously something we need to discuss at a national level, not to mention the European level. They have also agreed to

“step up efforts to improve the implementation of their autonomous framework agreements, with a specific focus on the 8-10 Member States where the implementation has been identified as insufficient”.

This group is going to lobby for more European regulation and harsher implementation of directives.

The social partners’ work programme also notes that they have agreed to

“highlight the importance of more public and private investments”—

I imagine that Labour Members would like to have a conversation about that, especially given their new leadership—

“in order to reach an optimal growth, to boost job creation and to revive EU industrial base”.

The joint working programme also wants to “prepare joint conclusions” on things that we would all wish to see, including

“promoting better reconciliation of work, private and family life and gender equality to reduce the gender pay gap”.

I cannot believe that any Member of this House would not want to achieve that. However, given that the European Commission pays indirectly for this group of people to turn up once every six months to talk about these things, and given that they have already done so for quite some time without any concrete achievements—in fact, some of those ideals may have gone into reverse during that time—perhaps we should question the validity of supporting such a social summit for growth and employment.

Another of the work programme objectives—this did not become controversial until quite recently—is to

“contribute to the efforts of the EU institutions to develop a mobility package, to address loopholes and enforcement issues on worker mobility and to promote mobility of apprenticeships.”

This country is currently having a debate about mobility and, indeed, the freedom of movement of workers and others. It is interesting that we are promoting such a debate—our European partners are also having a big debate on the very same issue—while at the same time funding a summit of the worthy and the good to discuss the same thing.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

The great constitutionalist, Walter Bagehot, said that there are two parts to the constitution: the decorative and the effective. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the body under discussion is one of the more decorative rather than effective parts of the EU constitution?

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I probably do, yes. I hate to beat around the bush: I do not think it is worth funding this organisation. It is duplication for duplication’s sake. Given the number of other direct opportunities available to the bodies that will attend the summit to influence the thinking of the European Commission, member states and others, I really do question the value of the group. Obviously, that is why I am on my feet asking the Minister why it is, when we have an opportunity to prevent duplication and to prevent some of the European budget from being spent, we do not actually take it.

I want to ask a number of questions along those lines. Article 152 of the treaty on the functioning of the European Union states that the EU will set up the social dialogue while respecting the autonomy of the organisations, but can those organisations and bodies that attend the summit truly be autonomous when they are funded by the EU? Will they not be a taxpayer-funded echo chamber?

What authority has the EU had until now if the former decision on hosting summits was based on an old article treaty? Article 152 states that the EU should respect the “diversity of national systems”. Given that our national system does not include such summits, can the Government guarantee that the outcome of the meetings will not have an effect on the European Commission’s work programme—in other words, the very programme to which the summit wants to provide input? Is there an estimate of how much the six-monthly meetings will cost, and will the UK choose to host them when it takes over the presidency of the EU in 2017?

The Commission’s directorate-general for employment, social affairs and inclusion has regular dialogue with all the parties that will attend the summit, and there are other EU bodies that do exactly the same thing. When voting on such matters, this place has been almost unanimously in favour of cutting the duplication of European spending. We need to make sure that this country’s massive contribution to the European Commission and Europe is spent more wisely. Given that I have some form in this area—I was a Member of the European Parliament for 10 years and raised many budgetary questions about the issues under discussion—I question the value of approving the Bill.

European Union (Finance) Bill

Debate between Chris Heaton-Harris and Kelvin Hopkins

Thursday 11th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

My hon. Friend is completely right about that, so I thought I should also share with the House the gross contribution figures given by the Office for Budget Responsibility in its March 2015 economic and fiscal outlook report. The gross contribution figures were £14.1 billion for 2013-14, £14 billion for 2014-15 and £14 billion for 2015-16. We are talking about massively significant sums and this Bill therefore needs some scrutiny, because it is the one that tells us how the EU budget is funded.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

These annual sums bear a striking similarity to the amount the Chancellor is proposing to cut from welfare spending. I would much prefer to see welfare spending increased and spending on the European budget reduced.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I hope the hon. Gentleman is able to spread that message far and wide across the Opposition Benches. What he says is true: wherever we have a cost in our finances, we make choices in other places. This is a significant sum, but it is one we have chosen to pay over. We must therefore ensure that we allow ourselves, as this decision on the own resources decision rightly does, to keep a check on how our money is being spent.

The European Union Act 2011 requires this House to give approval to own resources decisions. There has always been an Act of Parliament that does that, but the 2011 Act was a good piece of legislation—again, Labour Members came to it late in the process. It allowed greater scrutiny of how the Executive choose to act in European matters; it introduced the referendum lock on certain things; and it made sure that we get a debate on significant matters such as the one before us today. Although we have always had an Act of Parliament in place to do this, I welcome the greater scrutiny.

I should remind hon. Members of what the “own resources” of the European Union actually means. What are these figures for and where do they come from? Well, 12% of the own resources budget is comprised of customs duties, including those on agricultural products; a tiny sum, less than 1%, is sugar levies; there are contributions based on VAT, which comprises about 13%; and the remaining 74% or so is based on gross national income-based contributions. A significant mix of different things goes into our £14 billion gross contribution to the EU.

Actual European spending is set by the annual EU budget, but, as my hon. Friend the Minister said, the annual budget expenditure is governed by the ceilings set by the EU’s multi-annual financial framework. I was pleased to be reminded by him of the good job our Prime Minister did to ensure that the last MFF gave us an unprecedented real-terms cut in EU spending ceilings for 2014 to 2020, which was welcomed by Members on both sides of the House—it was eventually believed by the then Labour economic team.

Unlike the own resources decision, under EU treaties the multi-annual financial framework does not need the national approval of member states in accordance with their conditional requirements. Thus, it is already in force and this Bill deals only with the own resources decision. Alongside the agreement of the new MFF, we had this new own resources decision, which was formally adopted by unanimity by the Council in May 2014, and the Bill approves it for UK purposes. As the Minister said, the rules governing the UK rebate remain unchanged compared with the existing own resources decision. Alas, they do, however, repeat, and this answers a point mentioned earlier by the hon. Member for Luton South—

[Kelvin Hopkins]

North.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I mean the hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins). They roll in the old rebate loss that the former Prime Minister Mr Blair negotiated in return for common agricultural policy reform that we never achieved.

I have a couple of questions for the Minister, one of which has been raised previously by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg). The Minister mentioned the minor additional costs that this might bring to us, because there do seem to be some compared with the existing own resources decision. He talked about their being offset by other corrections and I wonder whether he could detail what they are, because I could not find them in the explanatory notes. I also seek clarification on the answer he gave to my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset on the change in the European system of accounts. I did not quite understand the answer and I would appreciate it if he could go into a tiny bit more detail.

I welcome the Bill and the scrutiny it is giving to EU accounts, and I welcome the opportunity to talk about this in greater detail when we go into Committee next week.

European Union (Approvals) Bill [Lords]

Debate between Chris Heaton-Harris and Kelvin Hopkins

Monday 13th January 2014 Commons Chamber

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

It is a privilege to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael), because I am going to start my speech with a similar point to that with which he finished his. It is interesting to see how we got to the point of having this debate. As the House knows, the legal position is that the UK now holds a veto over these proposals under the EU treaties and section 8 of the European Union Act 2011. The Government are not permitted to support the proposals or abstain unless they are approved by Parliament.

The European Union Act is the much-heralded Act that means that we, as the UK Parliament, are scrutinising some aspects of European business that have never been properly examined before by nation state Parliaments. Our Government should be congratulated on that and I thank them for the opportunity. To provide such parliamentary approval, the Government have introduced this Bill, and hence we have the debate today.

As we have heard, the Bill has already been approved by the House of Lords with minimal debate, but unless the House of Commons approves it the Europe for Citizens programme, for example, will simply fall. The UK will have to block that programme in the Council of Ministers and it will not be able to go ahead. To put it simply, voting against the measure means that Parliament is telling the Government to veto this element of EU spending. It is a welcome development for Parliament to be able to scrutinise such spending in such detail. I was pleased to hear that the Minister has done some of his homework and he has done very well at getting up to speed on the matter.

As a number of Members have mentioned, the Bill will also approve a pretty uncontroversial proposal, which is also subject to section 8 of the 2011 Act, that will require most European bodies to deposit their historical archives with the European university institute in Florence. I have a “Boring but important” box in which to file things in my office and also a “I don’t give a toss” box; this measure would certainly be flung into the latter. There is no reason to talk or get excited about that measure.

There is good reason, however, to talk about the Europe for Citizens measure. I first came across the measure during my work not as a member of the European Scrutiny Committee of this Parliament but as a Member of the European Parliament for the East Midlands, which I was for 10 years, when I sat on both the Committee on Budgets and the Committee on Budgetary Control. When, as a Member of the European Scrutiny Committee of this Parliament, I saw that the Government were proposing to support a draft EU regulation re-establishing the Europe for Citizens programme for the period from 2014 to 2020 it caused me to raise an eyebrow. I have many concerns about the programme—I have harboured them for a long time—and I want the Government to alter their position so that the UK and other EU countries are not saddled with funding what is likely to be wasteful pro-European propaganda, political in its very nature.

Ages ago, when I was a Member of the European Parliament, I asked questions of the European Commission about what organisations would get funding from the programme. I will talk about some of them, but let me say first that we are not talking about one or two organisations. I have in my hand a list of all the organisations that received funding from that budget—I will not read it out, as it has seven or eight pages of closely typed words. The copy I have brought with me is just for 2007.

I was concerned then about the level of transparency with which those organisations spent their money, with the European Commission’s evaluation of that programme and with how the moneys were spent. I am pleased to hear that the European Commission has decided at least to say that it has decided to up its game in evaluating the programme. Will the Minister tell us whether that is an admission by the European Commission of its failure to do things properly in the course of the previous programme? Lots of money was wasted on a number of projects, some of which I will detail later.

I would like to hear confirmation from the Minister of whether any official or Minister of a UK Government—either this Government or the previous Government—has raised any concerns about how money is prioritised and spent in the Europe for Citizens programme. I doubt that has ever happened.

The preamble to the draft regulations introduces the Europe for Citizens programme with the following words:

“While there is objectively an added value in being a Union citizen with established rights, the Union does not always highlight in an effective way the link between the solution to a broad range of economic and social problems and the Union’s policies.”

If one was Greek, one would probably say that those policies were the cause of the problem, not the solution. The preamble continues:

“Hence, the impressive achievements in terms of peace and stability in Europe, long-term sustainable growth”—

interesting—

“stable prices, an efficient protection of consumers and the environment and the promotion of fundamental rights, have not always led to a…feeling among citizens of belonging to the Union.”

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

I apologise for arriving late to the debate. The hon. Gentleman talks about stable prices, but prices have started to fall in Greece and deflation is a much more serious concern for anybody who understands economics than inflation. Greece faces a serious problem and prices are hardly stable.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I understand the statistics that the hon. Gentleman has just relayed. That just goes to prove that what the European Commission believes to be happening and what is happening are two completely different things. Indeed, the Commission is quite Orwellian in its interpretation of what goes on around it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

The few times in my political career when I have not relied exactly on facts, I have always stumbled and fallen over, so I will keep to what has happened and is happening, rather than having a guess at what might happen in future.

The 300 individuals, and the people they then talk to, will

“act as European Citizens of the future and peer-leaders. The festival will focus on the issues of precarity, poverty and solidarity in a Europe facing the financial crisis, as well as themes of common goods, media pluralism, migrants and Roma rights and the fundamental rights given by Europe.”

Obviously, to be involved in this scheme, one has to approve wholeheartedly of the application of the EU charter of fundamental rights by the European Court of Justice. Those interested in Roma migration should note that the festival was held in London, as well as many other European cities, to promote that sort of thing.

Last year, the festival was awarded €149,000 from the Europe for Citizens budget. It appears that the 2011 festival was awarded €150,000. In 2010, European Alternatives Ltd was awarded €40,000 for a project called “Transeuropa citizens”. In 2009, the same company was awarded €36,300 for a project called “active and transnational citizens in dialogue”. In 2008, the company was awarded €24,800 for a project called the “active and transnational citizenship programme”. I wonder what all these programmes did, or do; from the preamble, one can probably guess exactly what they did.

In addition, European Alternatives Ltd has been awarded grants to fund its existence, which the Commission said it would cut out; no longer could organisations bid for money simply to run themselves, so that they could bid for more European money to run projects for the Commission, so that they could bid for more money from the Commission, so that they could run more projects for the Commission. That was not the case here. In 2012, 2011 and 2010, it was awarded a €100,000 annual operating grant. In 2009, it did a bit worse: it got only €60,000. This one organisation was awarded, all in all, approximately €760,000 from one section of the Europe for Citizens programme budget over the period from 2007 to 2013. Bear that figure in mind when I come on to the sort of grants that have been issued to projects in the United Kingdom.

Let us look at another example of an organisation that has received money from the Europe for Citizens programme. The grants were intended to support the running of the organisation itself, so I am pretty sure that it would not exist were it not for this funding. It is the French think-tank called—perhaps Members will be able to work out why it has been awarded funding—Notre Europe, the Jacques Delors Institute. It was set up by Jacques Delors in 1996 after he stepped down as European Commission President. It aims to contribute to the debate on the future of Europe and to influence decision makers. We are paying for an organisation to try to influence decision makers in a highly political way on the future of Europe and other European integration matters.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I strongly sympathise with what the hon. Gentleman is saying, but he keeps referring to Europe, as so many people do, when he really means the European Union. They are two different concepts.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

He should have learnt that by now.

European Public Prosecutor’s Office

Debate between Chris Heaton-Harris and Kelvin Hopkins

Tuesday 22nd October 2013 Commons Chamber

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

It is a huge pleasure to see you in the Chair this evening, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is the first time I have had the opportunity to say, “Congratulations.” I congratulate you on your position.

I am a member of the European Scrutiny Committee, so it is a pleasure to witness the report being debated and accepted on all sides of the House. It is also a pleasure to see other members of the Committee—the hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) and my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Andrew Bingham). I am sure the Minister is delighted that unfortunately my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash) cannot be here this evening, so I intend to fill in for him to a certain extent by taking the next 45 minutes of his life away from him. [Laughter.] No, I do not intend to detain the House for too long.

It is obvious to all who have read the Committee’s report or listened to the speeches this evening that the creation of the European public prosecutor’s office would breach the principle of subsidiarity. In fact, it is so obvious that my good friend the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) has noticed that there is a breach. Blimey, it must be bad—if there is a breach that he can spot, most of us could drive a coach and horses through it. We should therefore be very aware of what the Committee is highlighting.

The European Commission proposal to establish the European public prosecutor’s office has been around for quite some time. I can remember as a Member of the European Parliament being stuck in a debate in the early 2000s listening to a fantastic German lady, Diemut Theato, who I think was the head of OLAF for a short period and then my chair of the Committee of Budgetary Control, argue vociferously for the office of European public prosecutor and everything that goes with it. This new regulation, however, would create a slightly different beast—it has morphed even since then. This would be a new EU body with a head, the European public prosecutor, and at least four deputies, with powers to conduct investigations and prosecutions in member states against people suspected of crimes against the EU budget—fraud. I heard the Minister say that there will be a further debate next week and I look forward to speaking in it, if I am called. . However, if I may, I would like to spend a few seconds on what the proposal might mean.

Each member state will have a representative of the EPPO, known as a European delegated prosecutor, who will be empowered to direct national investigative and prosecuting authorities when it comes to crime against the EU budget. There is an interesting question about what constitutes a crime against the EU budget and how that would be defined. They will have exclusive competence to investigate and prosecute suspected offences against the EU budget. The investigative measures include surveillance, search and seizure, and even the summoning of witnesses. These would be significant powers. The EPPO would also be able to act as prosecutor in national courts.

The possible creation of the EPPO is enabled via the Lisbon Treaty, and I recognise the work of the previous Government to ensure that we were not swept up at that time. It can be created through this new regulation, but we are not bound by it: we can choose to opt in thanks to the justice and home affairs arrangement. However, the Lisbon treaty actually discusses the public prosecutor’s power being extended to other serious cross-border crime, such as computer crime, money laundering and a host of others. In itself, that could make the EPPO more powerful than even the FBI, and it would hold the power to investigate and prosecute in nation states. That looks like the creation of a federal European criminal justice agency, which is not something that anybody in Britain would like to see.

The EPPO does not fulfil the “principle of subsidiarity”, by which

“the Union shall act only if and in so far as the objectives…cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member States”.

As the Minister outlined, I am aware that this is possibly only the second time that the yellow card will be used, and member states have an eight-week opportunity—which closes this coming Monday, I am told—to use that yellow card. As a football referee, I very much like the yellow card and believe we should use it more often when it comes to European regulation.

There are three aspects to why the European Scrutiny Committee says that the EPPO does not comply with subsidiarity, and I think they are worth highlighting. First, the European Commission has not adequately considered options for alternative means for improving the fight against fraud, such as preventive measures at the point EU funds are given out—that point was well made by the Chairman of the Justice Committee. Secondly, the Commission has not waited to see the impact of the proposed new directive on criminal offences and sanctions relating to fraud against the EU budget—indeed, I believe that that directive has not yet been properly agreed, so perhaps we are putting the cart before the horse on this occasion. Thirdly, the Commission used questionable data and flawed assumptions when assessing the proposal, such as unreliable convictions data from member states—it is questionable how much money the prosecutor would get back, and no one knows how the figure in the proposal was reached.

When becoming Members of the European Parliament, all are given jobs—that is part of the deal—and being the most junior of the juniors when I got elected in 1999, I was given the job of rapporteur for OLAF. That came on the back of the fraud of the European Commission in 1999, and the report of the committee of wise men that said what should be done.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I am most interested in the hon. Gentleman’s experience of the European Parliament. May I ask whether one is paid extra for these jobs?

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

If only that was the case. My wife questions the sanity of my move across to this place anyway. We were well rewarded for what we did; it paid exactly the same as for Members of Parliament at the time, but Members of the European Parliament now have their own salary, and pay a different tax rate on most occasions.

OLAF came out of the report of the committee of wise men. It was mainly to investigate Commission fraud and crime, which was one of the things that brought down the European Commission in the first place. It also had plenty of powers to protect the EU’s financial interest. In the debate next week I intend to highlight what can be done in the reform of OLAF to allow us to prove to the European Commission that the whole new power grab of having a European public prosecutor’s office is not required. If the Commission used the powers and bodies it already has—already well funded and in general relatively well run—we would not be in this position in the first place. I wholeheartedly support the motion.

European Union (Approvals) Bill

Debate between Chris Heaton-Harris and Kelvin Hopkins

Monday 11th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I am very concerned about this issue because before my time in Parliament, I was involved in the trade union movement, in which I have a strong interest, and my feeling is that the agency and fundamental rights in the European Union are a bit of a paper tiger when it comes to defending workers’ rights. As I said when I intervened, I want fundamental rights to be strengthened. Whether they are strengthened by legislation in this Parliament or at the European Union level is a matter for debate, but they certainly need to be strengthened. The rights of trade unionists were weakened considerably by previous Conservative Governments and they have not been restored to anything like my satisfaction.

The “paper tiger” nature of fundamental rights in the European Union was shown in the Viking Line case. Industrial action was taken and, strangely, the fundamental right to take strike action was overridden in favour of the interests of employers. Profits and the rights of employers were seen to have primacy over the fundamental rights of trade unionists. So, I am not impressed by the fundamental rights guaranteed by the European Union. If they are fundamental, the trade unionists taking that action should have been found to be in the right, and the European Court of Justice should not have ruled against them, finding in favour of employers. There have been two such cases, major cases, and they have shaken the confidence considerably of many trade unionists who mistakenly put their faith in the European Union to defend their rights.

I was never impressed with the European Union. As the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) knows, I am a critic from a left-wing, rather than right-wing, point of view. I was never as confident as perhaps some of my colleagues were that the European Union would defend trade union and worker rights. I will not necessarily be voting with the hon. Gentleman on this issue—if a vote is indeed called—but I do want the fundamental rights of workers and trade unionists strongly supported and defended, be that in the European Union or in the United Kingdom.

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

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate, and I want to talk about the agency in general terms. I am very concerned about the growth in the number of agencies at European level: the European “quangocracy”, as many call it. As a Member of the European Parliament, I sat on the Committee on Budgetary Control, whose purview extended to the agencies when we approved their accounts or gave them a statement of assurance each year. People always moan about the risk of fraud, mismanagement and maladministration in the European Commission, but it was fairly obvious that the further away from the Commission—from the centre—agencies were, the less the scrutiny of their accounts.

My concern is that giving the Fundamental Rights Agency a multi-annual financial framework and such a big budget increase could lead to issues with the way it runs its accounts. I am not saying it had issues in the past—actually, it did have one—but we are talking about a massive expansion in its budget. It is an arm’s length body that has very little oversight from the European Commission, the European Parliament or national Governments.

Over the years, the European Court of Auditors has sporadically looked at projects run by the agency. It is fair to say that they have been of mixed value. They have certainly improved over time, as one would expect, but I understand why concerns are being raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope), among others, about including an agency whose work obviously duplicates other bits of work going on within the European Commission, the Council of Europe and possibly in other places.

European Union (Approvals) Bill [Lords]

Debate between Chris Heaton-Harris and Kelvin Hopkins

Monday 4th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I think that all scepticism should be based on reality. We should talk about things with decent facts in front of us. This is a very good forum in which to discuss the facts, so let us do that.

The Bill has been produced as a result of the requirement of the excellent European Union Act 2011 to approve the three EU decisions that have already been mentioned. Under the Act, before a United Kingdom Minister can give final agreement in the Council of the European Union or the European Council to decisions proposed on the basis of the EU treaties being used in these cases, the proposed decisions must be approved by an Act of Parliament. That is what we are doing today. Although certain proposals based on the EU flexibility clause are exempt from the requirement for an approving Act of Parliament, those exemptions do not apply in these cases. I will happily go into the details if Members want to know what they are. The hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Nick Smith) is obviously keen to discuss them; perhaps we will do so afterwards, over a beer.

Under the EU treaties, EU decisions of this kind require unanimity in the Council or the European Council, which means that without the UK’s support they cannot be adopted, at least to cover all member states.

Members have already listed what the proposals would achieve. There is an EU regulation enabling the electronic rather than the printed version of the Official Journal to take EU legal effect. There is an EU decision that would set out the broad areas of work of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights between 2013 and 2017. There is also an EU decision on the number of European commissioners.

Although the first two proposals may not seem to be hugely important, they are based on the flexibility clause, which gives the EU sweeping powers to adopt laws when the treaties have not otherwise given it the power to legislate. It has been used to adopt significant EU measures in the past, such as the creation of the EU bail-out fund for non-eurozone member states. It was therefore thought to warrant parliamentary control, and that thoroughly good idea was introduced by the European Union Act.

The two proposals dealt with by clause 1 are being introduced under the flexibility clause: they are article 352 decisions—flexibility decisions. As I said, the flexibility clause has been used to co-ordinate national social security systems for the benefit of all member states’ nationals when moving within the EU; to provide for measures against the counterfeiting of euro coins that apply to member states outside the euro; and for the bail-out fund. We are talking about significant measures.

The Bill deals with the EU Official Journal, which is not exactly the most exciting document in the world but, as the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David) said, it contains striking elements of importance to the functioning of the single market, and to EU business and UK business in general. I have a small problem with it, because everything has to be translated into each of the official languages of the European Union. This is not a debate for now, but that approach means that everything that is said in the Official Journal has to be translated into, for example, Gaelic, and that is perhaps not the best use of money.

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

I was recently at a European Union conference where the Irish did speak in Gaelic, and I applaud them for doing so. The great linguistic creations of humankind should be preserved, and I am glad that the Irish are speaking in their own language and insisting that it be translated.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I completely understand the cultural point that the hon. Gentleman makes, but the European Central Bank uses only a couple of languages and many international institutions manage to cut down the number of languages they use, and they do so purely to keep costs down. The European Commission, the European Parliament and other European institutions do not do that and perhaps they should examine their approach. I merely wanted to make that point in relation to how difficult it is to produce the Official Journal for the very next day in written and electronic form. The Government have given political—not legally binding—agreement to the proposed regulation, with the Council supposedly ready to adopt it and the European Parliament having given its consent.

The Bill also deals with the proposed EU decision establishing a multi-annual work programme to cover 2013 to 2017 for the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights. Again, one can give a parting shot, at least, about the growth in the number of these EU agencies; there is a huge number now and, as with commissioners, one at least has to go to each member state. In 2007, the EU adopted a regulation, based on the flexibility clause, establishing the agency, which is based in Vienna. Its objective has been outlined by the hon. Gentleman, but according to article 2 of its founding regulations it is to provide “assistance and expertise” to support member states in fully respecting fundamental rights. Under article 4 of its founding regulations, the agency’s activities include: gathering, analysing and disseminating information; publishing reports; and developing “a communication strategy” and a

“dialogue with civil society, in order to raise public awareness of fundamental rights”.

In 2013, the agency will receive a subsidy of €21.3 million from the EU budget, about half of which will be spent on staffing. According to article 5 of the agency’s founding regulation, the Council needs to adopt five-year multi-annual frameworks that set out

“thematic areas of the Agency’s activity, which must include the fight against racism, xenophobia and related intolerance”.

In addition to the multi-annual framework, the agency can respond to requests from the Council, the European Parliament or European Commission for it to conduct studies or produce conclusions on particular topics.

The draft Council decision before Parliament is the proposed multi-annual framework for the four years between 2013 and 2017, proposed by the European Commission on the basis of the flexibility clause. Under that decision, the thematic areas of the agency’s work in that time period will be: access to justice; victims of crime, including compensation for victims of crime; the information society, particularly respect for private life and the protection of personal data; Roma integration; judicial co-operation, except in criminal matters; the rights of the child; discrimination based on sex, race, colour, ethnic or social origin, genetic features, language, religion or belief, political or other opinion, membership of a national minority, property, birth, disability, age or sexual orientation; immigration and the integration of migrants, visa and border control and asylum; and racism, xenophobia and related intolerance. The Government have given political but not legally binding agreement to the proposed decision. The Council is apparently ready to adopt the proposal and the European Parliament has already given its consent.

That leaves us with the final measure, which is probably more controversial than was originally said: the retention of one European commissioner per member state under clause 2. The European commission consists of one national of each member state, so there are 27 commissioners and there will soon be 28 when Croatia comes in. Following great debate in the European Parliament and many other EU institutions and in the Parliaments of many member states, the treaty of Lisbon introduced the ratio of two thirds commissioners to member states. The logic was quite sensible: it was an attempt to stop bureaucracy growing out of control and to maintain some easier management of the bureaucracy from the top. The member states whose nationals would be commissioners would be decided

“on the basis of a system of strictly equal rotation between the Member States, reflecting the demographic and geographical range of all the Member States”.

The system would be agreed by unanimous decision at the European Council and each commissioner’s term would be five years.

Article 17(5) of the treaty on European Union states that the European Council, acting unanimously, can vary the size of the Commission from November 2014. As the Government’s explanatory notes to the Bill state in paragraph 12:

“when the Irish people voted ‘no’ in a referendum on Lisbon Treaty ratification in June 2008 the loss of a guaranteed”

Irish commissioner in every Commission

“emerged as a key concern. Without Irish ratification the Treaty could not enter into force, and as a result EU Heads of State and Government offered concessions to Ireland”.

One of the main concessions, offered in December 2008 and reiterated in June 2009, provided that when

“the Lisbon Treaty entered into force, a decision would be taken…to the effect that the Commission shall continue to include one national of each Member State”.

Those concessions seemed enough for the Irish people, who voted in the second referendum in October 2009 and approved that treaty.

The draft European Council decision based on article 17(5) has now been introduced and provides that from November 2014 onwards that the number of commissioners will continue to equal the number of member states. The draft decision states that it will be reviewed in advance of the appointment of the Commission due to take office in 2019, but for the decision to be altered there will need to be unanimity in the European Council, meaning that any member state can veto such a change. Having a European commissioner is a big deal for many, if not all, of the countries of the European Union, so it is highly unlikely that the change will ever be made. We will therefore continue to build on the number of European Commissioners.

Commission Work Programme 2013

Debate between Chris Heaton-Harris and Kelvin Hopkins

Monday 7th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

As a member of the European Scrutiny Committee, I am partly responsible—I suppose—for bringing this document to the House, so it is important that I say a few words.

The word “work” will have great appeal to the millions of European citizens currently without work, but that is the problem, because none of the many initiatives in the document addresses the immediate economic crisis in the EU or the eurozone and will not solve the problem in the longer term either. We have mass unemployment and we have economic contraction in a number of countries, and more austerity is being inflicted on Greece. Apparently, Greece’s economy is expected to contract by another 10%—God knows what is going to happen in Greece after that. Spain is in serious difficulty and Portugal is going to inflict on its people a fire sale of public assets; it will simply be selling off the family silver at the pawnbroker’s and that will solve nothing in the long term once the money is spent, as it will be. Other countries are in difficulties and there is worse to come.

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

Action 58 in the Commission’s work programme deals proposes a

“Comprehensive Approach to Crisis Management outside the EU”.

The document says:

“The European Union more than any other international actor, has a unique array of tools at its disposal to promote the resolution of complex external crises.”

It is said that experience can be learned from, and I guess that the European Commission does have a lot of experience and a lot to teach here.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for intervening. The document talks about solving external crises, but what about solving the internal crises? The European Commission has not shown much ability to do that. The problem is that it has inflicted supply-side measures—most of these are supply-side measures to try to deal with the economic problems—whereas the real difficulty is a serious lack of economic demand. That is the deficiency and macro-economic policy is the problem, as it is failing and is, in most cases, completely misguided. Item 1 in the document refers to an “Annual Growth Survey”—perhaps that ought to be re-titled the “Annual Contraction Survey”.

Item 6 makes the only reference in the whole list to the

“importance of a sound macroeconomic framework”.

I absolutely agree with the importance of that, but there is no sign of such a framework as yet. Indeed, we have the opposite: co-ordinated deflation driving the EU towards deeper recession. Thank goodness this country is somewhat to the side of that. We will of course lose if—[Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for Preston (Mark Hendrick) is intervening from a sedentary position, but I cannot quite hear what he is saying. The euro is the primary problem; Greece, Italy, Spain and a number of other countries ought to be able to recreate their own currencies, to depreciate and to reflate behind that.

Draft European Union Budget

Debate between Chris Heaton-Harris and Kelvin Hopkins

Thursday 12th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I do not really agree with the amendment, because it seems to suggest that the Prime Minister is some sort of militant Eurosceptic, which is far from the truth. I would like him to take a stronger line.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

rose—

European Union Bill

Debate between Chris Heaton-Harris and Kelvin Hopkins

Monday 11th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Kelvin Hopkins]

The hon. Gentleman recently said that the tectonic plates were starting to move. I think that he is right. Senior civil servants have even said in public that the game is over. I have talked about the sands shifting rather than tectonic plates—different metaphor, same thought. The Governments of Europe will now have to listen not just to their own people, who are increasingly Eurosceptic, but to those in the global financial system who now have doubts about the future of the euro.

My hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly said, “We’re not going to have a referendum on paper clips.” Such matters are indeed referred to the European Scrutiny Committee, of which the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash) is Chair and, on the Committee, we leave no stone unturned, as I am sure he agrees. Paper clips are not a constitutional matter, although some people might argue that we do not want the EU interfering in our paper clips. On constitutional matters, we want to leave things open for Governments to choose when a referendum is appropriate, not to restrict the provisions to the areas in the amendments. There are those who would seek to use every opportunity to extend the EU’s control by skirting carefully around these tight definitions of areas that would require referendums. However, the Committee, led by our Chair, does a good job on non-constitutional matters—several of its members are in the Chamber now and would, I am sure, agree.

The sunset clause puts the onus on a Government after an election to reintroduce the legislation, and no doubt a sensible Government would do that, but if there is no sunset clause, the onus is on the new Government to get rid of the legislation. They could do that by repealing it, but they would then face the anger of the British people for having taken away their referendum rights. A sunset clause is very different from the possibility of repeal after election. The House can repeal any legislation—even, I suspect, treaty obligations. Over time, we could say that we wish to withdraw from a treaty. No doubt we would have to give notice and negotiate, which would cause all sorts of difficulties, but the House could, if it chose, withdraw from a treaty. If there were to be a referendum on membership of the EU and there was a substantial vote in favour of withdrawing, the House would have to debate withdrawing from a treaty. It would have to tell that to the EU. I am not saying that that is going to happen any time soon, but it is a possibility. If a particular piece of legislation is not to the taste of a future Government, they could repeal it, but that is very different from having it automatically die at the point of an election. I therefore strongly oppose the sunset clause, and if there are Divisions on any of the Lords amendments, I will certainly vote against them.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins), who is a very wise and knowledgeable man in this regard.

The European Union Bill is not exactly what I thought we were going to get at the start of this process. When I stood for Parliament, I was looking forward to a sovereignty Act or a Bill of Rights—something with quite a lot of guts in it. We have now had this forced marriage between my party and the Lib Dems, however, and the dowry that we paid involved the slight watering down of many of the items that I, standing on a Conservative manifesto, would have liked. This was one of them.

After our debates on the Bill here and in Committee, during which it was lovely to learn all about how Parliament works, we happily sent the Bill on its way to the Lords. It was interesting to note that the Opposition decided that they did not have any views on Europe at that point. They decided not to vote; it was a matter of a one-line Whip, and they really preferred it if most of their Members went home. That gives me even more reason to admire the hon. Member for Luton North, who has stuck with the Bill through thick and thin during its progress through this place.

At the end of the Bill’s Third Reading, I said that I could hear strange noises emanating from the other end of the building, as though tombs were opening and strange beasts appearing. The Minister for Europe is much more generous and benevolent than I am when describing the people in the other place who have amended the Bill. For me, the Lords amendments have raised a huge number of concerns.

My first concern is about the turnout threshold. When their Lordships were discussing the alternative vote referendum, not many of them were interested in thresholds; the wonderful Lord Williamson of Horton, who tabled amendments on thresholds in this Bill, was certainly not. He was much quieter on thresholds in the AV referendum, but I am sure that his views on thresholds in matters European were not in the least influenced by his time as a career civil servant who served as head of the European secretariat in the Cabinet Office from 1983 to 1987, and as Secretary-General of the European Commission from 1987 to 1997. He was ably supported on one particular amendment, which did not pass, by Lord Liddle, about whom I shall say more in a moment.

Lord Liddle had an interesting take on why the Lords were trying to confuse what we had passed in the House of Commons. Speaking to a consequential amendment to amendment 5, he said that

“if you are seriously committed to Britain’s participation in the European Union, you want a British Government to be able to respond flexibly to events and to be a good partner to our partners in the Union. We cannot completely tie our hands in advance when we do not know the future—as the example of the European stability mechanism shows.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 8 June 2011; Vol. 728, c. 311.]

I only wish that we had had this Bill before the European stability mechanism was proposed. That would have ensured a very different financial outcome for our country.

Those were the wonderful bits about the threshold. The amendments to clause 6 also give me great cause for concern. They are the bits that cut out all the referendums that we in this place want to see. Lots of the amendments tabled in the other place were tabled by Lord Hannay of Chiswick. He was the UK’s permanent representative to the European Union from 1985 to 1990; he was part of the diplomatic service, bless his soul. Others were tabled by a very special man whose credentials I cannot criticise: Lord Liddle, who was a special adviser to Tony Blair when he was Prime Minister from 1997 to 2004. He then went to Lord Mandelson’s Cabinet, and he was principal adviser to the President of the European Commission from October 2007. A third person in the Lords also tabled amendments on these matters: Lord Tugendhat. He was a Conservative Member of Parliament from 1970 to 1976, after which he was a European Commissioner. Hon. Members will be able to see a theme developing here in regard to the sort of people who have tabled amendments at the other end of the corridor and who want to wreck these measures.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

First, I shall give way to the hon. Member for Luton North.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I am interested to hear about the particular Members of the House of Lords whom the hon. Gentleman mentioned, but he ought also to mention a number of Conservative former Members of this House who were enthusiasts for, and indeed constructed, the policy for joining the exchange rate mechanism, which almost led to an economic collapse and certainly led to the collapse of support for the Conservative party. It is only fair to mention them as well.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

Please do not steal my thunder for later. I am aware that Madam Deputy Speaker might rule me out of order, so to stay well in order, I shall detail how the peers at the other end of the corridor have taken away referendums from the people on matters of EU taxation.

But hold on, let us not talk about Members of the House of Lords. It was difficult to understand from the comments of the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr David) whether Labour supported the British people having a referendum on an EU tax. We know that the peers do not, because they voted on that matter, but we do not know whether Labour Members would troop through the Lobby in favour of that proposal if we were to get into a game of constitutional ping-pong with the Lords this evening. What about foreign policy? That referendum has been taken away from the British people. Will Labour Members support us in the Lobby on that question? What about the questions on the abolition of vetoes, the European public prosecutor’s office, the transfer of power in employment law, operational defence policy or the introduction of a carbon tax?

Section 5 of the European Communities (Amendment) Act 1993

Debate between Chris Heaton-Harris and Kelvin Hopkins

Wednesday 27th April 2011 Commons Chamber

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

I want to speak briefly on this document and to support my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie), who sits on the Opposition Front Bench. The Government’s economic policy will drive us into recession. The cuts have not really started yet, and when they do, unemployment will rise, and when unemployment rises, people will lose confidence and stop spending, and we will see a downward spiral into recession. I am convinced of that. I am not the only person saying it. As I have pointed out in the Chamber more than once, Paul Krugman, the Nobel prize-winning economist, has said that the Government are going in precisely the wrong direction. They should be trying to stimulate the economy through additional spending in labour-intensive areas, such as construction and the public sector—but that is the absolute opposite of what they are doing.

If we bring down unemployment, revenues will rise, benefit payments will reduce and the economy will grow, and that will reduce the deficit. I have used this example many times: after the second world war, under Conservative and Labour Governments, we had a gross debt two and a half times GDP—about four times what it is now—but we just maintained a policy of full employment, led by the magnificent Atlee Governments in 1945 and 1951. We had full employment, we created the national health service, living standards rose and we even ran a labour shortage such that people came from abroad to work here because the economy was growing so fast. We ran a growth economy led by public spending. That is what we should be doing now, but we are doing the absolute opposite. If other countries do the same, we will see the 1930s relived, but people have so much more to lose now it will be politically quite dangerous.

There is already a reaction in Europe to what is happening. In Finland, a Government have been elected who are baulking at the idea of bailing out some of the weaker members of the eurozone. I have no idea why we should be bailing out members of the eurozone. Ireland is a special case, because it is our nearest neighbour and effectively part of the sterling-zone economy, not the eurozone economy. We are its major trading partner and we have an exchange of population, so Ireland is a different case from the rest of the EU. For us to be bailing out other countries in the eurozone is complete and total nonsense. The sooner they leave the eurozone, recreate their own currencies and depreciate them, the sooner they will recover.

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

The hon. Gentleman puts a happy and cuddly aura around the old hard-left of the Labour party. Bearing in mind that for years we and other European countries have been reporting to the European Commission on these matters, does he think that the Commission has learned any lessons from the information it has been sent? If it has, why did it not try to help the economies of Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Italy and so on?

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I think that the hon. Gentleman and I agree on this point. It has learned absolutely nothing. To try to squeeze the life out of an economy that is already almost wrecked is nonsense. The Commission should allow those economies to grow, and they can grow only if they can recreate and depreciate their own currencies, and start to compete again. Ireland is in a terrible state because it chose—foolishly, I think—to join the euro. I have said to Irish politicians—in as friendly and comradely a way as possible—that they should recreate and depreciate the punt to something like the level of sterling, and rejoin the sterling zone, which is where Ireland belongs. Its economy would then start to recover. Without that, it will not recover.

European Union Bill

Debate between Chris Heaton-Harris and Kelvin Hopkins

Tuesday 8th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I was not asserting that, although we have given away lots of justice and home affairs powers, and I do not think many Members or many of the British people fully appreciate how much we have potentially given away. This is an important point. Although the Bill has many problems, the referendum lock would ensure that we do not go down such a route in respect of the European public prosecutor and other matters to do with the criminal justice system. The measure I am talking about came in under the Lisbon treaty. No country has pressed the emergency brake yet. I would like to think that the Government would trust Parliament sufficiently for Parliament to have its foot on that brake, rather than for the Government alone to have their foot on it.

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

I find the hon. Gentleman’s arguments very persuasive. At least we, as well as Germany, could stand up and be counted. If it is good enough for the Germans, it should be good enough for us. I would like such a provision very much indeed, but is not the worry for our Government in particular that our Parliament is especially likely to exercise that power over Ministers going to the European Council? Is not their concern that we might actually exercise our right to put our foot on the brake?

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

Quite possibly, but that is the essence of democracy, and one of the reasons we were put here in the first place is to keep check if not on what our own Government are doing, at least on what institutions to which we are giving powers might be doing with them. I would like the Minister to reiterate the comments I have heard from his officials about the emergency brake and new clause 4 possibly not being needed.