Balance of Competences

George Eustice Excerpts

Thursday 12th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

I appreciate the fact that my hon. Friend was with me until the second sentence of my statement. However, given that in the first sentence I merely said that I was going to make a statement, I will not take that as a ringing endorsement.

Of course my hon. Friend has a strong view, which is different from mine, about membership of the European Union. However, I think that he will concede that reviews of this kind, which spell out in detail how competence is exercised and, in many instances, what the costs are, and which set out properly the facts of how it is exercised in a single market, in directives and in many other contexts, can at least ensure that any debates about that issue, now and in future, are better informed and take place on the basis of a common understanding of the facts that would otherwise be lacking.

[George Eustice (Camborne and Redruth) (Con)]

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s announcement as a crucial first step towards Britain’s inevitable renegotiation of its membership of the EU. Does he expect the review also to examine the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice and, in particular, its tendency to widen the scope of certain directives beyond the extent that national Governments originally envisaged?

[Mr Hague]

Yes, it is part of the history of EU competence that it has sometimes been extended, not by treaties and not by the decisions of nation states, but by rulings of the European Court of Justice, or by an expansive interpretation of the treaties by the European Commission. As we go through each of the issues, the way in which competences have developed in the past will be a legitimate factor in the assessment of how competence should be exercised in the future.