European Union (Approvals) Bill

Debate between Emma Reynolds and Michael Connarty

Monday 11th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Connarty]

I know that the right hon. Gentleman has a strong view about that. I do not happen to think that a referendum on an issue as complex as the EU would be debated according to the quality of the information that is required. Referendums become a mass populist vote either for or against a Government. If this Government went for a vox pop at the moment, they might be in great danger of being voted out of office. Why does he not put that to the people?

[Emma Reynolds (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the biggest transfers of power happened in the 1980s with the Single European Act and with the Maastricht treaty in 1992? Actually, the current Foreign Secretary voted against a referendum on Maastricht.

[Michael Connarty]

I recall that well, because I have been a Member of the House since ’92, and I remember the very lengthy debates that took place, but this is not about the Maastricht treaty; it is about the proposal in the Bill, which is basically to set up a

“Multiannual Framework for the Fundamental Rights Agency”.

That is the point that is of interest to me, because that is an important thing to do and we should be going forward with it. I hope that we do. If the Government really are about to do an about-face and vote against that, I wonder what their position was in the Council, when this went through. Were they voted down in the Council? Are they about to change their position?

I am interested in the Government’s position as much as anyone else, but I am speaking from my point of view, looking at this as someone who has been on the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and the European Scrutiny Committee for a long time. It is important, I believe, for us to realise that, while we might not like the fact that the EU sometimes asks us to do things that we might not have wished to do ourselves—for me, some of those are in fishing and agriculture, neither of which has been massively amended by anything that has happened recently under this Government—human rights will not be harmed in this country but will be advanced markedly in other countries by having the EU alongside the Council of Europe and the Court of Human Rights, fighting for human rights for all in Europe. Who would wish to deny that, apart from the hon. Member for Shipley?