European Communities Act 1972 (Repeal) Bill

Douglas Carswell Excerpts

Friday 26th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Douglas Carswell (Clacton) (Con)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

I promote this Bill to repeal the European Communities Act 1972 not merely supported by many outside the House but as explicitly directed by more than 5,000 readers of the Guido Fawkes blog site. This is the first ever crowd-sourced private Member’s Bill. MPs are sometimes accused of not sharing the concerns of ordinary voters or the priorities of those outside the Westminster village, but this Bill was voted on by those outside Westminster.

Withdrawing from the EU can no longer be dismissed as unthinkable. It is no longer a marginal view confined to mavericks, but a legitimate point that is starting to go mainstream. It might have been many months since the House had a frank and open discussion about the merits of our EU membership, but perhaps that tells us more about the shortcomings of the Westminster system than about the cost benefits of being part of the EU club. According to a recent poll by Survation, a majority of voters—more than at any time in the past three decades—now want Britain to leave the EU. Some 51% are in favour of leaving and only 34% want to remain in. That is the highest level of discontent for a generation.

The idea that we should leave the EU might find few champions among the Sir Humphreys in King Charles street, but that just tells us how out of touch the Whitehall establishment has become. If we cannot get new people, perhaps we should try getting new Sir Humphreys. It is not just the people who want out; we hear that members of the Cabinet have started to come round to the view that Britain might, indeed, be better off out.

Britain joined the Common Market because, the people were told at the time, it would be good for the economy. What we lost in political sovereignty would be compensated for by material gain. Looking back, I can understand that view. We joined at a time when western Europe had been growing spectacularly. The Common Market that we joined in the early ’70s could look back at two and a half decades of the most spectacular growth. It seemed that we were joining a prosperous trade bloc. In 1973, western Europe accounted for 38% of total world output, but in 2010 that figure had shrunk to 24%, and in 2020 it will be 15%.

[Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on once again making history in the House. Given what he has just said, how would he respond to the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, who, on the Order Paper today, is inviting us to agree that “tough decisions” are

“being taken…in countries across Europe to…stimulate economic growth”?

[Mr Carswell]

I would be more than a little sceptical of such claims. I am no Keynesian, but the idea that measures being taken across Europe, particularly southern Europe, are producing prosperity and growth seems absurd.

Far from joining a growing and prosperous free trade area, it turns out that we joined a cramped and declining customs union. Far from joining a rising economic powerhouse, we have shackled ourselves to a corpse. Being part of the EU hinders us, rather than helping us to prosper. The common agricultural policy obliges us to subsidise our farmers’ competitors in continental Europe, raising food prices and penalising the poor. The common fisheries policy has caused an ecological catastrophe in the seas around us. The EU social and employment rules have made us uncompetitive. EU directives have struck at our industries, art dealers, slaughtermen, cheese makers, temping agencies and fund managers.

On the EU’s own statistics, the cost of regulation outweighs the benefits of being in the single market by 5:1. According to the European Commission’s own statistics, the cost of regulatory compliance amounts to €600 billion, while the benefits of being in the single market are €120 billion. The common external tariff has forced us behind protectionist walls. Far from giving us free trade, these tariffs of between 5% and 9% are higher now than they were a century ago. At a time when the non-western world is enjoying an extraordinary boom and an extraordinary surge of prosperity and growth, we are forced to watch. Rather than join in, we are cut off by the EU’s mercantilist mindset.

The absurdity is that we pay for the privilege of being members of this poverty-producing club. Britain has paid more into the EU budget than she has received back in every year bar one since we joined. It is not just that we pay; our membership fee for being part of the club has risen by 70% within the past three years. In 2009, our net contribution to the Brussels budget was £5.3 billion; in 2010, it rose to £9.2 billion, and our gross contribution is nearly £20 billion.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on bringing forward this Bill, which I wholeheartedly support. Is he as shocked as I was to discover that during the last five years of the previous Government’s tenure our membership fee was some £19 billion, while in the five years of the present coalition Government, that membership fee will be £41 billion? How many nurses, policemen, doctors and teachers would that pay for?

[Mr Carswell]

My hon. Friend is absolutely bang on the money. One would expect this Government to do something about it. Instead, we have heard many debates about the need for austerity and cuts, with Members of all parties expressing their concern about what reduced public spending might mean in their constituencies, yet all the coalition’s austerity savings taken together do not add up to anything like our annual EU membership fee. The 2010 increase in our net contribution is greater than the sum total of all the austerity savings made since the last general election. Exactly when we have to justify austerity in our constituencies, we have an Administration who are handing over ever larger sums of our money to remain part of this austerity club.

Too many people in Whitehall—too many of the grand Sir Humphreys—still think of the EU as though it were vital to our economic survival, but the fact is that it is becoming less important almost by the hour. In the first six months of this year, our exports to the EU fell by 18%, while our exports to the rest of the world rose by 28%. On every measure, the EU now accounts for a minority of our trade. That is not to say, of course, that the single market is not important. It is very important and it remains a large market, but it is just one market alongside the North American Free Trade Agreement, Mercosur and all the rest. No one is suggesting that we have to give up our sovereignty in order to sell to them.

We joined the European Economic Community, as it then was, because we wanted to be part of a growing trade bloc. In the event, the growth has taken place elsewhere. The Prime Minister told us in Birmingham that European Council meetings are dominated by discussions about propping up Greece,

“while on the other side of the world, China is moving ahead so fast it’s creating a new economy the size of Greece every three months.”

While the eurozone stagnates, lurching from one round of bail-out-and-borrow blunders—usually supported by our Treasury—to the next, the International Monetary Fund expects the Commonwealth to grow by 7% every year for the next five years. This year, the Commonwealth’s gross domestic product overtook that of the EU for the first time. In just two years, exports to Brazil have increased by 25%; to China by 40%; to Russia by 80%. It is not me saying that; it is the Prime Minister. It is to this Government’s great credit that they recognise the need for us to realign ourselves economically. The Government have, I think, been successful in trying to refocus our efforts on trading with the wider world and on opening us up to the wider world. I would argue, however, that being part of the European Union is holding us back; it is stopping us from opening up the trade arrangements that we desperately need to be part of that network of global prosperity.

The Minister is, I know, an honourable man, a very clever and intelligent man and in many ways a great man. He can see beyond the Foreign Office brief on many things. He understands the arguments I am making, and I hope that in his response he will share with us his view on the extent to which we can realign ourselves economically if we remain part of the European Union. Can we? I do not believe we can. Could we have a Swiss-type relationship, through which we have access to Europe’s markets, but could at the same time negotiate entirely independent bilateral agreements with non-EU members on our own?

Of course, the Whitehall élite—the Sir Humphreys and Sir Jeremys—will say that we need to be part of the single market, but do we? Must we be part of the single market in order to trade with the EU? China seems to gain market access, and last time I checked it was not part of the single market. A firm in China, Japan, Australia or America that seeks to trade with the EU must conform to EU standards in order to sell its products there, but must it comply 100% with all energy regulations under the auspices of the single market? No, and the economies of those countries are in much better shape as a result.

About 80% of all the economic activity that takes place in this country this year will revolve entirely around internal trade, while about 20% will depend on external trade. Less than half of that 20%—between 8% and 9% of total output—will depend on trade with the EU. How can it possibly be right that all the economic activity that takes place in this country must comply 100% with single market rules, when only 8% or 9% of economic activity is geared towards trade with the EU?

[Mr Hollobone]

I am enjoying enormously my hon. Friend’s very impressive speech. Is not our trading relationship with the EU even more absurd, given that, on a regular and worsening basis, we actually have a trade deficit with the EU? In other words, the EU is doing better out of our EU membership than we are.

[Mr Carswell]

My hon. Friend is right. We have a massive trade deficit with Euroland, and, to compensate partly for that, we have to run a trade surplus with the rest of the world. When we first joined the Europe club, our trade with Europe was much more balanced. I cannot imagine that if we withdrew from the European Union, Siemens or some of the other great wealth creators in continental Europe would be any less likely to want to trade with us. Why should a business that is producing goods and services to sell outside the EU—to, say, India or America—be subject to red tape created under the auspices of the EU single market?

I leave the House with this thought. Switzerland is outside the European Union, yet it manages to do four and half times more trade per head with the EU from outside than we do from within. Let me ask the Minister this question. If Switzerland, with a population of 7 million or 8 million, can obtain more favourable terms with the EU than we have, could not we, with a population of more than 60 million, obtain even better terms than Switzerland?

Being in the European Union has done dreadful harm to our economy. It has put us in the global slow lane, but it has hampered our democracy as well. Public policy decisions are no longer made by those of us who are vulnerable to the electorate. They are no longer made by those who have to stand for marginal seats with the risk of being thrown out of office. They are now made by remote, unaccountable officials in Whitehall. Of course the Oxbridge-educated Sir Humphreys in Whitehall like being part of the EU, because it allows them to carry on making public policy. They do not have to answer to hoi polloi outside. However, it has corroded our democracy.

From agriculture policy to banking policy, from environmental rules to rules on bin collection, decisions that ought to be made by those who are vulnerable to the democratic process are made by technocrats. Technocracy is no more effective—in fact, it is a good deal less effective—than democracy when it comes to making good public policy. What is the point of voting if those whom the voters elect have no power? I cannot help noticing that voter turnout has fallen in every decade of our membership of the Europe club.

I am not introducing this Bill in the expectation that it will become law—yet. My aim is to ensure that we begin to give serious thought to the mechanics of withdrawal. Leaving the European Union will be simple, but it will not be easy. It will be simple because a simple Act of Parliament can get us out, but what then? What about all the acres of public policy that have been created under the auspices of the European Communities Act? How might we retain, for instance, perfectly sensible environmental protection rules, but change some of the secondary laws that need to be repealed? What process will we use to sort out the difference between public policy that we wish to retain and public policy that we need to get rid of? Do we need different mechanisms to deal with directives and to repeal regulations? How—and I say this as a staunch parliamentarian who is suspicious of all who sit on any Front Bench—do we balance the need for the legislature to oversee the process against the need for an Executive then to take action?

My proposal in this Bill is just one model. I propose that all secondary measures and laws would remain in place, but that Ministers would then, subject to the approval of this House, have the power to repeal or amend. Is this idea of statutory instruments and ministerial fiat enough? Might it not also be an idea to give Select Committees specific powers to try to overturn regulations introduced under the auspices of the 1972 Act?

I hope that by putting this Bill before the House I initiate some serious thought about the mechanics of withdrawal. It can be done, but those of us who want out need to give it serious thought. The question of Britain’s EU membership is no longer settled—it is now an open question. Many of us in this House, and indeed in the country, now openly question our EU membership. A referendum is coming, and it will boil down to in or out. The case for out gets stronger, but we need to give people a sense of what self-government is going to look like and feel like. I hope that this Bill helps us to begin to think carefully about what being a self-governing democracy once again would mean. The Whips may seek to talk out this Bill, but these questions will not go away.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

National Referendum on the European Union

Douglas Carswell Excerpts

Monday 24th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Douglas Carswell (Clacton) (Con)]

For 40 years, we have left Europe policy to Ministers and to mandarins—to a tiny Whitehall elite. Look at the collective mess that they have made of it. We have a fisheries policy with no fish; red tape strangling small businesses; financial regulation that suffocates the City; and now we are being asked to spend billions of pounds bailing out a currency that we never even joined. We have lurched from one bad deal with Brussels to the next, and from one disastrous round of negotiations to another. That is the price we pay for leaving it to Ministers and mandarins to decide our Europe policy. It is time to trust the people. Today, every Member of this House faces a straightforward choice. They can either vote to give people a referendum on the EU or they can vote not to trust the people.

[Mr Charles Walker]

Would my hon. Friend like to expand on that point?

[Mr Carswell]

I shall try to do so over the next three minutes, and I am grateful for that thoughtful and erudite intervention.

This is a matter of principle: is it right, in principle, to put the question of EU membership to a popular vote? Too many people in Westminster—in SW1—try to second-guess how the voters may vote in a referendum and then work backwards to decide whether or not they favour a referendum. Instead we should start from the principle: is it right for the people to decide? Yes it is, and I believe that this issue qualifies for a referendum. The issue is of massive constitutional significance, it divides all three parties and it cannot be adequately settled in a general election.

Referendums can no longer be dismissed, as they have been for many years, as somehow alien to the British tradition. We have had dozens of referendums since 1997, including a national referendum on the alternative vote.

[Richard Drax]

Does my hon. Friend accept that the reason why we are having more and more referendums is that the people who put us here simply do not trust us?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Carswell]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. There has been a mood change in this country away from what one might call “deferential democracy”, where people leave it to the 650 people here to make public policy, to a new kind of democracy, where people want more choice and they want politics to be done by them, rather than to them by a remote elite. Some people in my party and in our own Whips Office have not truly understood that sea change.

If we are to have a referendum to decide how we elect Members of Parliament, surely we can have a referendum to decide whether or not those we elect should make the rules under which we live. Today’s motion has been put on the Commons agenda by the people. It is to this coalition’s immense credit that it has introduced a mechanism to allow voters to trigger debates—some 100,000 voters have triggered this debate. But we cannot say that we want to renew democracy if we shy away from the outcome of what the people say. We cannot claim that we want a new politics if we then use old-style whipping tactics from the 1950s to crush debate—or, rather, we could do all that but then we would have the credibility of a Greek Government bond.

Today’s vote is about change. I am voting for an EU referendum because I want change—change not only in our relationship with Europe but fundamental change in the way this country is run. I am not voting for a referendum in the hope that it will take us to some insular, mythical island past: I am voting for an open society—a truly global country. Ultimately, this is not about flags, anthems or identity, but about whether it is right for millions of people to have their lives arranged for them by deliberate design of technocrats. It is about democracy.

I ask each Member to cast their mind back to the day they were first elected to this House. I ask them to recall that sense of pride mingled with awesome responsibility when the returning officer read out the winner’s name. Most hon. Members will have felt in their bones that entering this House was one of the most exalted and greatest moments in their lives. Look at how today we are scorned. “MPs don’t keep their promises,” say the cynics. “You say whatever you say to get elected,” they cry. Today is our chance to show the cynics that they are wrong.

All three parties until recently promised the people a referendum on the EU. There is no point in clever wordplay or in reading the clever brief from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office officials—most people understood that we were going to give them a referendum. That is what MPs in all parties wanted the people to believe and it is the impression that we deliberately conveyed. This evening, we have a chance to keep our promises, to honour our word and to keep faith in our country. I will vote to let the people decide and I urge other hon. Members to do so. My hon. Friends the Members for Peterborough (Mr Jackson) and for Gravesham (Mr Holloway) are indeed honourable and it is a privilege to be their colleague on the Back Benches.

European Union (UK Permanent Representative)

Douglas Carswell Excerpts

Tuesday 10th May 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr Douglas Carswell (Clacton) (Con)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to have this debate, Mr Leigh, and to the Minister for coming to respond for the Government. I am also very grateful to my colleagues. To allow for those who wish to speak, I will try to limit my comments to less than 10 minutes.

Exactly a year ago today, at an emergency meeting of EU Finance Ministers, the then Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling), committed Britain to bailing out the eurozone. The deal he struck has made UK taxpayers liable for more than £10 billion—so far. By any measure, that has been a pretty disastrous deal for Britain. Having spent the past 12 months struggling to cut public spending by £6 billion, we have ratcheted up liabilities worth far more than that.

At a time of austerity at home, the Portuguese component of the bail-out alone could have covered the basic salaries of either a quarter of a million nurses or private soldiers, 114,000 NHS doctors or 160,000 police constables. Why are Ministers about to promote Sir Jon Cunliffe, one of the senior officials behind that disastrous deal, to be the next head of the United Kingdom Permanent Representation to the European Union?

We do not actually know for certain that Sir Jon will be the next head of UKRep. Perhaps the Minister will confirm that in his comments in due course. Indeed, despite attempts through parliamentary questions and letters, and freedom of information requests, we are not even allowed to know that his predecessor, Sir Kim Darroch, is standing down next month, in June; we know or suppose that only on the basis of anonymous Whitehall press leaks.

My point is this: why should we not know? The head of UKRep is a public servant, and yet is almost entirely without accountability to the public in whose name he cuts such deals. Not only should the public have a right to know, but those whom they elect should have the right to approve—or indeed veto—candidates for the role. Through an accident of history, the Prime Minister has inherited, more or less intact, the powers that once attached to the monarch: the award of peerages, treaty-making powers and, most importantly, the power to appoint officials. I propose that those powers should pass to Parliament. The next head of UKRep should be appointed following an open confirmation hearing before the Foreign Affairs Committee.

Now that we have changed the Standing Orders to free Select Committees from the dead hand of the Whips and placemen, the Commons Select Committees are no longer the hiding place for such people. I believe that the Committees are up to the task of holding the Executive to account. They should be given responsibility for confirming key Executive appointments, beginning with that of Sir Jon Cunliffe.

Democratising the appointments process, when it comes to senior officials, is hardly controversial. Indeed, we have been toying with the idea for more than a decade. As early as March 2000, the Commons Liaison Committee issued a report, “Shifting the Balance: Select Committees and the Executive”, which mooted the idea. Indeed, as early as July 2007, the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), in his first statement to the House as Prime Minister, promised pre-appointment scrutiny hearings—even if his Ministers chose subsequently to ignore the views of some of us on the Children, Schools and Families Committee regarding the appointment of a new Children’s Commissioner.

[Guto Bebb (Aberconwy) (Con)]

My hon. Friend will be glad to know that the Government are taking the issue seriously. Yesterday, the new chairman of S4C, the Welsh television channel, was announced by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. The Department has agreed that the Welsh Affairs Committee will be allowed to undertake a pre-appointment hearing to see whether it approves the appointment. That is a positive way forward and shows that the appointment has to be scrutinised by Parliament.

[Mr Carswell]

Absolutely. My hon. Friend makes a very good point. As in many things, Wales is ahead of us. His point also shows that across the board there is an appetite for restoring to the people’s tribunes the power to say yes or no to appointments made in the name of the Crown. It is an abuse of Crown prerogative when key appointments are made without those we elect having the right to their say.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend think that this could happen with immediate effect?

[Mr Carswell]

Absolutely. When the chairman of the BBC Trust was appointed recently, it was made clear that he would be appointed only following a confirmation hearing. It is one of those great things—it does not actually require primary legislation, or even a change in the Standing Orders of the House, to bring into effect.

The Liberal Democrats have supported measures to strengthen the legislature over the Executive for as long as anyone can remember; I hope that they remain as committed now that they have joined the Executive. In opposition, the Prime Minister specifically championed the idea of reforming Crown prerogative. In government, he threw his weight behind the idea of confirmation hearings, insisting that Chris Patten face such a hearing before being confirmed as chairman of the BBC Trust. Why not hold a similar confirmation hearing for the man who, more than any other, will be responsible for negotiating our future in Europe? As its own website states, UKRep

“represents the UK in negotiations that take place at the EU level, ensuring that Britain’s interests are heard”.

Kim Darroch, the current head of UKRep, apparently

“represents the UK’s interests at weekly meetings of heads of mission from all 27 Member States.”

At what point do those who profess to represent our national interests answer to the nation for the deals that they strike in our name?

We fight general elections with politicians promising, to one degree or another, to change policy on Europe, yet in what sense are those who make European policy answerable to the people’s tribunes? The conventional model of accountability for European policy via Ministers no longer works. The Brussels agenda is too vast and all embracing, and the scope of deal making too wide for Ministers to track how it works two or three days a week from London. That leaves too many Ministers signing deals that they did not actually author, and nodding through agreements that they have not properly considered.

Ministers in Brussels might make key decisions about what is on the wine list, but in Brussels the real business is conducted all too often by permanent officials. As the great diarist Alan Clark—some of us may have read his books—commented about a Council of Ministers meeting run by UKRep, way back in 1983:

“A succession of meetings, but no possibility of getting anything changed…Everything is fixed by officials in advance. Ministers shaking hands are just window dressing”.

I suspect that very little has improved in the past 28 years.

[Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

My hon. Friend speaks as if the appointment of Mr Cunliffe as our next ambassador to Brussels is a done deal. Did he not read two weeks ago in The Sunday Times a profile of the Prime Minister by Anthony Seldon, which said that the Prime Minister was taking a close, personal interest in this appointment?

[Mr Carswell]

I did, and I glean the pages of the newspapers for little hints and Whitehall leaks as to who may fill that vital role. Precisely because we are led to believe that the Prime Minister takes such a keen interest, I have every hope that he may do the right thing and allow the people’s legislature to have the final say on whether that man should indeed occupy that important position.

I suspect that if Ministers and ex-Ministers today were as honest and candid as Alan Clark, they would perhaps admit that much the same happened at the two ECOFIN meetings last May, with officials making key decisions that Ministers nodded through. The Economic Secretary to the Treasury, my hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Justine Greening), wrote candidly in a letter dated 18 July to a Lords Select Committee about the decision to participate in a bail-out mechanism:

“While these decisions were taken by the previous Government, this Government judges them to be an appropriate response to the crisis.”

I am not sure how easily that sits with the Government’s claims that we are necessarily reluctant participants in the bail-outs. Perhaps that conveys the impression that Ministers may change, but the permanent officials and the policy that they determine remain the same.

Requiring Mr Cunliffe—or Sir Jon, I should say—to appear before the Foreign Affairs Committee to explain why he is the best man to negotiate for Britain in Brussels begins a process of changing all that. Regardless of whether Sir Jon is given the job, the process of confirmation hearings would end the appointment and promotion of senior Europe diplomats without scrutiny.

When George Shultz was US Secretary of State in the 1980s, he had a routine for appointing US ambassadors. He would ask them to come into his office and to point to their country on a large map in his office. They would duly point to Kenya, Uganda, Guinea Bissau or wherever. “Nope,” he would tell them while tapping the USA, “this is your country.”

It is perhaps no coincidence that the US, which has always had a degree of legislative control over both appointments and treaties, has a clearly defined strategic vision and a readiness to deploy proportionate force in defence of its interests. Nor can it be entirely coincidental that, when Parliament was supreme and our diplomatic service small and subordinate, we, too, were willing to project our interests. Without effective parliamentary oversight, however, our salaried officials negotiating with Brussels last May managed to make us liable to bailing out a common currency of which we are not even a part.

For too long, Westminster politicians have contracted out large chunks of international relations to the permanent functionaries in Whitehall. Regardless of whether they come from a background in the Treasury, the Cabinet Office or indeed the Foreign Office, we should no longer defer key policy making to unelected officials.

Hugo Young, not a man I quote often, was a convicted —sorry, convinced—Europhile, Guardian journalist, author of “This Blessed Plot” and perhaps the foremost federalist of his generation. He understood how contracting out policy to permanent officials had profound consequences for the development of Britain’s Europe policy. As he perceptively grasped, it meant that Britain’s Europe policy was driven by diplomats rather than by their elected, albeit nominal, masters or bosses:

“By 1963, a corpus of diplomats was present in and around the Foreign Office who saw the future for both themselves and their country inside Europe. The interests of their country and their careers coincided. It was an appealing symbiosis.”

Sir Oliver Wright, who served as ambassador to Germany and the United States, describes the phenomenon as “déformation professionelle”—the skewing of someone’s outlook by his career imperatives. It happens to Whitehall officials as much as to us politicians. The Europeanism of the Whitehall grandee is just one manifestation of his déformation professionelle.

Unchecked by the people’s tribunes, our salaried officials negotiating with Brussels have brought home a succession of dreadful deals. If Sir Jon is to get the role of chief deal maker with Brussels, he must come before this House to explain why he is the best man for the job. In doing so, he might at last start to realign the policy that officials pursue in our name with the kind of Europe policy that the rest of the country would like to see.

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

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Bellingham]

Thank you, Mr Leigh. I will return to the subject of the debate, but if my hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless) writes to my right hon. Friend the Minister for Europe, I am sure that he will provide a detailed response, which I do not have time to do now.

Work continues with the development of a reformed and effective neighbourhood policy on the back of the Arab spring, which will continue to require skilful and proactive negotiation from UKRep. In the area of economic policy, the permanent representative and his team played a vital role in ensuring that the Prime Minister was able to secure positive and robust language in December for the next financial perspectives. They also developed a broad level of consensus for the Prime Minister’s joint letter on growth ahead of the spring European Council. Similarly, UKRep played a vital role in preparing the ground for a good set of European Council conclusions on the euro-plus pact.

My hon. Friend the Member for Clacton made various comments and assertions about particular officials and their roles in negotiations on EU issues. The topic for debate today is the appointment process, not the policies, as you rightly pointed out, Mr Leigh, so I will not dwell on the policy issues that my hon. Friend raised, and I will not comment on individual civil servants. However, what is clear to me is the importance of the distinction between the roles of Ministers and officials. Ministers take decisions on policies, and are accountable for them to Parliament. Officials in UKRep then negotiate within the mandates and instructions that Ministers have provided. Those mandates are adjusted and updated as the negotiations progress, but it is a myth that UKRep has the freedom to operate outside the negotiating mandates that they receive from Whitehall, or to make independent judgments about compromises or deals.

The House of Commons has the opportunity, through its excellent European Scrutiny Committee, which is under the proactive and assiduous chairmanship of my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash), to set out its views on European documents ahead of agreement. The Committee has the right to ask for a debate in Standing Committee or on the Floor of the House. This Government value the work done by Parliament on EU work, as it is fundamental to making the Government of the day more accountable to EU decision-making, as well as to making the EU process more transparent.

My right hon. Friend the Minister for Europe made a statement along those lines to the House on 20 January, and encouraged the Government and Parliament to explore ways in which Parliament’s scrutiny role could be further strengthened on EU issues, including on justice and home affairs. That is the right way for Parliament to be satisfied that, through ministerial accountability, officials throughout Whitehall and posts—including the Permanent Representation—are promoting the national interest effectively in the EU.

[Mr Carswell]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Bellingham]

I do not have long, so I shall carry on. Like other diplomatic service appointments—I am coming to key points about the process—I am clear that the permanent representative’s role is to advise Ministers on how to secure the best results for the UK in the EU, and to negotiate to achieve those results for the Government. Ministers decide and are accountable to Parliament for policies on European issues, and for the positions that the UK Government take in negotiations in the EU. The appointment process for the position—the appointment of an official, not a politician—therefore follows the general principles followed for diplomatic civil service appointments, and the code. It is critical that the appointment be made on merit. The civil service and diplomatic service are founded on the principle of impartiality. Officials must be able to serve with integrity the Government of the day, of whatever political party or parties.

Robert Peel said to this House in 1827:

“I may be a Tory—I may be an illiberal—but…Tory as I am, I have the further satisfaction of knowing, that there is not a single law connected with my name, which has not had for its object some mitigation of the severity of the criminal law; some prevention of abuse in the exercise of it; or some security for its impartial administration.”—[Official Report, 1 May 1827; Vol. 17, c. 411.]

That principle has served successive Governments well, allowing them when they come to office to make use of the continuity of expertise and professionalism of civil servants and diplomats. Indeed, I have seen for myself since I was appointed nearly a year ago that civil servants and diplomats who served the previous Government with great professionalism and integrity now work with Ministers with a different set of priorities. The seamless transition to the new team—the commitment, tireless hard work and dedication—is a huge credit to the British civil service. For those reasons, I continue to believe that to introduce a further stage in the appointment process for the permanent representative or for other senior appointments when a selection has been made would not be consistent with the principles of impartiality and appointment on merit, and could indeed be seen to politicise the appointment process.

I am sorry to disappoint my hon. Friend the Member for Clacton, but I do not intend to propose that Parliament should be offered hearings on senior appointments. That would blur the distinction that I emphasised earlier, by implying that officials in UKRep, however senior, had some sort of independent role, separate from the Whitehall process. As I have said, officials implement the policies and work within negotiating mandates decided on by Ministers, and for which Ministers are rightly always accountable to Parliament.

However, I welcome the House’s interest in the issues raised today. I therefore propose that the Foreign Affairs Committee be informed in writing of appointments to the most senior overseas positions at permanent secretary level—obviously including that of the permanent representative to the EU—when the selection has been made, providing a copy of the successful candidate’s CV and job specification. In the case of the permanent representative to the EU, I propose sending a copy of that letter to the European Scrutiny Committee. I hope that that goes some way—not the whole way, but a small way—in the direction that my hon. Friend wants.

My hon. Friend is concerned that some questions to the Foreign Office have not been properly answered. I have looked at the correspondence and some of the parliamentary questions that he tabled, and I am satisfied that the issues raised by my hon. Friend have been addressed as fully as possible. Both officials and Ministers have addressed the questions about the nature of the contract and the way in which the permanent representative is tasked and appraised.

Similarly, the permanent representative’s personal performance is assessed on a personal basis between him and his line manager. My hon. Friend would like to make the permanent representative more directly accountable to Parliament. I have said that I believe that it is right that Ministers remain accountable to Parliament for policy decisions and for the positions taken and agreed in the EU.

Around 157 years ago, the Northcote-Trevelyan report on the organisation of the permanent civil service stated its principles. It says:

“It may safely be asserted that, as matters now stand, the Government of the country could not be carried on without the aid of an efficient body of permanent officers, occupying a position duly subordinate to that of the Ministers who are directly responsible to the Crown and to Parliament, yet possessing sufficient independence, character, ability and experience to be able to advise, assist, and, to some extent, influence, those who are from time to time set over them.”

Those principles held firm 157 years ago, and still do today.

Question put and agreed to.

Oral Answers to Questions

Douglas Carswell Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Douglas Carswell (Clacton) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend believe that the appetite for democracy is universal? If so, what moral support and encouragement will he offer those in Iran who seek to live freely as we do?

[Mr Hague]

I agree with my hon. Friend. We believe that human rights, including democratic rights, are universal. It is particularly pertinent to raise the situation in Iran because the two principal leaders of the opposition forces in Iran, Mr Mousavi and Mr Karroubi, have been detained with their wives—they have disappeared with their wives. I am glad that my hon. Friend raised this matter because it is important, amidst the current turbulence in the middle east, not to forget what is happening in Iran and to remember that a country that has preached support for protest in other nations does not hesitate brutally to suppress protest within its own borders.

European Union Bill

Douglas Carswell Excerpts

Tuesday 1st February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

I am confident because of what I see and hear when dealing with Ministers from other European Governments who have woken up to the scale of the competitive challenge that Europe faces from other regions of the world. When one talks with Ministers from Germany, Scandinavia, much of central and eastern Europe and even France, which has historically had a different approach to business and trade than we have had, one realises that there is a real fear that we are facing not only a difficult economic downturn and an ongoing economic crisis, with high unemployment across our continent, but a profound, long-term challenge to the competitiveness, and therefore prosperity, of our societies. I find Ministers from other countries alive to that challenge and so have greater hope that we can make progress than does my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr Shepherd).

[Mr Douglas Carswell (Clacton) (Con)]

Will the Minister not find that that is precisely the sort of lip service that was paid to reform at the time of the Lisbon agenda more than a decade ago, when Ministers throughout Europe said that they would achieve reform and precisely nothing happened? Have we not been here before and heard that song sung too often?

[Mr Lidington]

The Lisbon agenda was certainly a grievous disappointment, and our chief concern about the Europe 2020 programme is that it will go the same way by being much too concerned with targets and inputs and not looking at competitiveness. However, if we look at the history of this country’s relationship with the EU, we can see how the UK has at key moments helped lead a movement that has changed Europe for the better.

I was teased earlier by Opposition Front Benchers about the impact of the Single European Act, but the creation of the European single market gave opportunities to business and individual workers in this country and in every other member state, and that has helped us to become more competitive and prosperous now than we would have been had Margaret Thatcher and Lord Cockfield not had the vigour and commitment to see it through.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Lidington]

It is possible for that to happen, but it depends crucially on the content and complexity of the measure. Regulation is not desirable simply because it takes place at a European level and replaced national regulations. It is especially undesirable from the UK’s point of view if a familiar system of regulation that reflects the way we do business is replaced by something modelled on completely different practices from a different member state.

[Mr Carswell]

The Minister sings the virtues of the single market, so will he explain to the Committee why we have had a trade deficit with Europe every year since we joined the single market, whereas before we had a trade surplus? Will he also explain why non-EU states such as China seem to have no difficulty in gaining market access without having signed up to many of the regulations he supports?

[Mr Lidington]

I am sorry that my hon. Friend seems to regard Margaret Thatcher as having sold out to Europe when she agreed to the single market. I ask him to talk to UK businesses, as he will find that they regard the single European market as a great boon. It was the combination of the UK being in the single European market and at the same time offering the best deal, with regard to regulation and low taxes, that led the UK, under the Conservative Government that he and I supported, to attract the lion’s share of foreign direct inward investment into the entire EU.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hollobone]

The democratic deficit in this country lies in the fact that most people want to leave the European Union, but are not being given a say in that.

[Mr Carswell]

If Labour Members are so confident about their position, why did they not support the proposal for an in/out referendum so that they could put their views to the British people and let them settle the issue in that way?

[Mr Hollobone]

Exactly. It is not necessary to believe that we would be better off out of the European Union to support new clause 11. If Members here are so confident that Britain has a bright, rosy economic future in the European Union, they too should welcome the opportunity to take their case to the British people and settle this wretched argument once and for all.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

I can assure hon. Members from all parties that the Opposition Benches are not empty. Indeed, some of us feel roused to contribute to the debate, having heard the exhortations of the hon. Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone), for example. It is an extraordinary saga. Every time one looks outside and sees the dark clouds and the moon hovering, Europe must be being debated again.

This is the party that, under Edward Heath, took us into the Common Market; the party that, under Margaret Thatcher, took us into the Single European Act and everything that flowed from it, including unlimited immigration from across the European Union; the party that, under John Major, signed the Maastricht treaty—on every occasion it is the Conservative and Unionist party of Britain that has deepened and strengthened our European ties, and yet when they are in power Conservative Members love nothing better than to debate these things. How many days was it last week? How many hours has it been this week, as they queue up demanding a referendum? Voters have had the option to vote for the UK Independence Party. UKIP stands proudly, clearly, as a voting option in my constituency and others, as it did at the last general election, and when it stands, the voters have the opportunity in their tens of thousands to flood to the polling stations to the rallying cry of UKIP. But such is democracy, they fail to do so.

With this Euro-fanatical Conservative party in power, we see yet again the rebellion from the discontented masses. They understand fully what is going on among their Front Benchers, because the Conservative party appeals to two different values. One is that of the little Englander, amply represented by my neighbour the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy), as one of the few Members who have attended this debate and joined the traditional long-standing contributors to Conservative thinking on these matters. The other is the vested interest of big business: when it comes to the crunch, the Conservative party in its very blood, and its Front Benchers at every opportunity, wish always to strengthen and deepen the ties with Europe. By giving space to its discontented Back Benchers, as it has done repeatedly in this Parliament, the Conservative party shows that it likes to announce to the British people that it has a great tradition of Englishness and Britishness—of separation from Europe—but when it comes to the decisions, every single time it is the Conservative party that throws us further and further, deeper and deeper into the European Union. This new Government, albeit a coalition with the Euro-fanatical Liberals, are doing the same.

The independent Office for Budget Responsibility outlined in great detail how, under this coalition Government, immigration from within the European Union to the United Kingdom in this Parliament will be not the same as under the previous, so-called federalist, Labour Government. It will be not less, but more—significantly more. Why is that? It is because the Conservatives’ paymasters—big business, as documented in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests for all to see—demand that the Conservative party in power strengthens those ties with Europe while talking a different game and filling the parliamentary agenda with opportunities such as tonight’s. So, yet again, we will see vast amounts of new labour joining this country—

[Mr Carswell]

The hon. Gentleman is rather verbosely explaining why we cannot trust politicians with these matters. Is that not a further argument for an in/out referendum, in which the people have the final say?

[John Mann]

There is nothing verbose in these remarks; if the hon. Gentleman wants verbose he can have verbose, but that would be quite improper. These are succinct remarks on the inherent contradictions of the Conservative party, which can never, ever break from the pressures of big business, which demands that once in power, it strengthens those links. That is why 700,000 new EU migrants will enter this country in this Parliament. When the Conservative party talks about growth and trade, what it really means is cheaper labour, and worse conditions for workers in this country. That is the free market that the Conservative party represents: allowing competition at the lowest common denominator. No doubt, I will again be going on rallies at power stations, where British workers are finding their pay and conditions and ability to apply for their jobs undermined by the so-called European single market that the Conservative party took us into.

European Union Bill (Programme)(No. 2)

Douglas Carswell Excerpts

Monday 24th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Charlie Elphicke]

I defer to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and apologise for using language that was perhaps too simple. Of course, the amendment could not be a wrecking amendment; it is an amendment that would bring destruction on the Government’s intent and purpose in the Bill. I hope that I remain in order with that description.

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin), who makes an important point about the time that is needed to discuss the purpose of referendums and whether we should have a national debate—perhaps a referendum?—on whether to hold an in/out referendum. It seems that we will not have time to discuss that today. I hope that, at some point—perhaps not in the Bill, but sometime—the House will be able to discuss that properly.

[Mr Douglas Carswell (Clacton) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend share with the House whether his Whip asked him to take part in the debate?

European Union Bill

Douglas Carswell Excerpts

Tuesday 7th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

The Bill is aimed at all Governments, including our own, any future Governments and any combinations of Government. Yes, we have new partners in government and, on the basis of the past seven months, I trust them a great deal more than I would trust the Government we had before the election. Let the hon. Gentleman be absolutely clear about that.

On how the Bill works and ministerial accountability for decisions on whether to hold a referendum, a Minister of the Crown will be required to make a statement within two months of a treaty change being agreed by member state Governments. That ministerial statement will have to give reasons why the treaty change does or does not require a referendum, and those reasons will have to refer to the criteria set out in clause 4.

[Mr Douglas Carswell (Clacton) (Con)]

Will the Foreign Secretary give way?

[Mr Hague]

I will in a moment, yes. Like any ministerial decision, it will be open to any member of the public—yes, any member of the public—who is entitled to vote in a referendum to challenge the Minister’s judgment through judicial review. The reasoned statement set out in clause 5 makes any such ministerial decision as amenable to judicial review as is possible. That provides a powerful reason for Ministers to stick to both the letter and spirit of the law, and not to seek to sidestep the requirement for a referendum. We have ensured that we are as precise as possible about what would require a referendum.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Carswell]

The Foreign Secretary has spoken of a referendum lock. Given that this Parliament cannot bind the next, that a future referendum would rest on a ministerial decision in the way that he describes, and that a new law would be required for such a referendum to be held, in what sense is it a referendum lock? It is a piece of legislative PR, perhaps, but not really a lock.

[Mr Hague]

My hon. Friend, perhaps deliberately, understates its importance by overstating the scope for ministerial decision and the significance test. The Bill is very clear that, on 44 specific treaty articles, the removal of the veto requires a referendum, and that the substantive use of 12 treaty articles requires a referendum. There is no scope for Ministers to decide that those things do not require a referendum. There is no scope for Ministers to decide that a decision to join the euro, to subscribe to a European army, to give up our veto on the financial framework, to give up our veto on foreign policy or to give up control of our borders does not require a referendum. Let us be absolutely clear about that.

My hon. Friend said that we cannot bind our successors in this respect, but of course that could be said about so many of the laws that we propose, and are proposed under future Governments, which we intend to have long-term effect. If we took that attitude on everything, there would be no point in doing anything or ever getting up in the morning to come to Parliament at all. We are trying to create a long-term and enduring framework, and I believe that we have a very good chance of doing so.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Douglas Carswell (Clacton) (Con)]

Then get out of it.

[Tim Farron]

That is an honest position at least, which my hon. Friend sets out from a sedentary position. It is vital that we assert our sovereignty in Europe, but it is also vital to understand that one of the reasons why we have seen our sovereignty wane is our pig-headed failure to embrace the EU and take a positive role in shaping its future. It is high time that we moved on from dismal EU constitutional wrangling and focused instead on the issues that really matter.