UK’s Relationship with the EU

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

I really do not think that the hon. Gentleman should be so dismissive of issues that the Prime Minister has put on the table and which matter a great deal to the people whom both he and I represent in this House. There are very significant advantages to our national interest in remaining part of a reformed European Union, but opinions in the House have differed on the subject, quite honourably and openly, for many years and it is right that the people have the final say.

[Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

I am not convinced by my right hon. Friend’s explanation of the Prime Minister’s delay, which is that we need to study the document, because although it is characteristically long on words, it is short on substance. May I draw his attention to page 15, where it notes that the emergency brake in relation to immigration will operate on a proposal from the Commission, and to the draft legislation relating to the euro outs, which says that, if there is opposition to the Council adopting something by qualified majority, the Council shall discuss the issue? Well, that is an enormous difference from what we currently have. I just wonder whether the next 24 hours will allow Downing Street the opportunity to try to make bricks without straw.

[Mr Lidington]

As I have said, this is an ongoing negotiation and we have not reached agreement on all aspects of what is in the Tusk drafts. I would just point out to my hon. Friend that the document also includes a very clear statement by the European Commission that it believes the conditions already exist in the United Kingdom for the emergency brake on welfare access to be triggered.

Common Foreign and Security Policy

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Monday 1st February 2016 General Committees

[The Chair]

Before we begin, I will briefly outline the procedure. First, a member of the European Scrutiny Committee may make a five-minute statement about the decision of that Committee to refer the documents for debate. The Minister will then make a statement of no more than 10 minutes. Questions to the Minister will follow. The total time for the statement and subsequent questions and answers is up to one hour. Once questions have ended, the Minister will move the motion on the paper. Debate takes place upon that motion. We must conclude our proceedings by 7 o’clock. Does a member of the European Scrutiny Committee wish to make a brief explanatory statement?

[Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Wilson, and to explain a little of the background and why the European Scrutiny Committee recommended this debate.

These documents are, in one sense, run of the mill, in that they largely review past activity. However, they are of much greater significance than usual because the EU is undertaking the first review of its security strategy since 2003, with a view to the European Council taking major decisions in June 2016 on a new EU security strategy and, either then or later this year, on an EU defence action plan. Both will be politically controversial. Secondly, if the European External Action Service and the Commission were tasked with working in close consultation and co-operation with member states, which we expect in that development, the question arises as to how the House is to be involved.

Unfortunately, the previous Committee’s experience prior to and after the December 2013 defence European Council—the first since 2007—was not an encouraging precedent. The picture was of the then Government systematically frustrating the Committee’s long-standing endeavours to improve upstream scrutiny of common security and defence policy or European security and defence policy formulation so that it, and thus the House, would not be continually presented with legislative outcomes that it was too late to influence, hence the earlier European Committee debate on 12 March 2014.

Now the Government are again refusing to confirm unequivocally that they will enable either of these important policy documents—EU High Representative Mogherini’s proposed security strategy or the defence action plan—to be scrutinised in the right way, before they are endorsed by the Council and at a point at which the House has time to consider them properly. Instead, the Government seek to shelter behind spurious arguments about whether or not the documents in question, and especially the crucial new European security strategy, will be in “the right format”. As the scrutiny reserve resolution makes clear, in the final analysis, the ball is in the Minister’s court: where there is a will, there is a way.

The scene is set in the 16-page May 2015 Foreign Affairs Council conclusions, which noted that the

“global and European security environment has changed dramatically in recent years”.

It called for a “stronger Europe” with a “stronger and more effective” CSDP, and stated that by addressing conflicts, sources of instability and other security challenges in the EU’s immediate and wider neighbourhood, the EU and its member states were

“assuming increased responsibilities to act as a security provider, at the international level and in particular in the neighbourhood, thereby also enhancing their own security and their global strategic role by responding to these challenges together”,

with the EU and its member states, through the CSDP and other policies and instruments, having a “strong role to play” through the unique EU comprehensive approach to preventing and managing conflicts and addressing their causes. In one of her earlier papers, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini, also noted that

“While the EU is not a military alliance, it cannot ignore the ‘D’ in its CSDP.”

Notwithstanding what those Council conclusions might say and Ministers’ assertions about UK red lines, as detailed in the Committee reports in today’s debate pack, the Committee concluded that the European institutions and at least some member states continued to favour a deepening of the EU’s own defence capabilities. In so concluding, the Committee hoped that this debate would enable the Minister to bring the House up to date on developments in all areas encompassed by the present reports; demonstrate how UK interests have been protected thus far and outline how he envisages that process being taken forward, including proper prior parliamentary scrutiny of these key forthcoming documents; and how UK interests will continue to be safeguarded.

[The Chair]

I call the Minister to make his opening statement. I remind the Committee that interventions are not allowed during the statement.

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[Mr Lidington]

I will try to reply to those points. The purpose of the common foreign and security policy is set out primarily in article 21 of the treaty on the European Union. I will not recite it in full—it is lengthy—but it is basically about developing external action in a way that promotes European values and the fundamental interests of security, independence and integrity, and consolidates and supports democracy, the rule of law, human rights and the principles of international law in external action. The article goes on to list other criteria too.

NATO is to some extent reactive, in that it is the ultimate guarantor of collective security for allies. I do not want to get drawn too far into this question, but I think it is fair to say that at the Wales summit and again at the Warsaw summit later this year, we are trying to ensure that NATO is less reactive and is, for example, focusing very much on questions of resilience and how to have effective deterrents and response plans in place against hybrid attack, not just conventional military attack.

EU external action has particular value added in two ways. First, of course, not every EU member state is a member of NATO, so countries such as Sweden and Finland are able to contribute to EU missions, including military missions, when they would not be able to do so as part of a NATO mission. For example, the Austrians have deployed forces as part of an EU mission in the western Balkans, whereas they could not participate in a NATO mission. Secondly, EU work can provide civilian expertise in things such as training of military personnel; training of police and security forces; border work, including the training of border forces; and missions to try to improve the governance of neighbouring or more distant countries.

The roles should be complementary. One could argue, for example, that the cyber threat to military communications and military capability should be dealt with at NATO level, but we know there is a cyber threat to key IT systems for energy distribution and even for retail distribution in a modern economy. It is much more difficult to say that those fall naturally into NATO’s remit, but effective co-operation and complementarity between NATO and the EU, if done well, can add up to a very effective security response.

On the question of scrutiny, with every CFSP document we check whether the document in question falls within the terms of the scrutiny reserve resolution. If it does, it goes to the Committee anyway for scrutiny. The challenge from the Committee—it is one I understand—is that some quite significant policy documents on EU foreign policy, including some described as action plans in the past, do not fall within the current terms of reference of the scrutiny reserve resolution. The volume of such documents is so large that I would be reluctant to agree to submit all of them for scrutiny, so it comes down to a matter of my judgment as to which I send to the Committee.

I remain open to trying to agree with the Committee a set of criteria that would enable it to have oversight of the documents that it particularly wishes to see and that are genuinely important. I would, in return, want to have a serious discussion about the fact that some documents—not necessarily CFSP documents—go to the Committee at the moment that frankly need not go through the formal scrutiny process and could be dealt with in a more streamlined fashion.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I have three groups of questions. The first is on the scrutiny issue. I draw the Minister’s attention to page 331 of the documents. The criticism on scrutiny in this case is perhaps as much of the European Union as of the Minister: it took six and a half months to prepare the report on 2014, which made proper scrutiny by this House extremely difficult. It seems improper of the European Union to be so slow in producing documents that they cannot be scrutinised properly by national Parliaments, leading to a scrutiny waiver. What can the Minister do to improve that?

In response to the Minister’s suggestion of some negotiation between the Committee and his office as to what is sent for scrutiny, may I say that if the Government were a little more up to date with the debates that had been requested, including one now outstanding for more than two years, there might be more good will between those who wish to scrutinise and those who are scrutineered?

[Mr Lidington]

On the point about the slowness with which the EU sometimes produces documents, I am sympathetic to my hon. Friend’s comments. As he will know, I have exchanged correspondence with both the present and previous High Representatives about that, reminding them of the importance of our parliamentary scrutiny processes and the need for documents to be produced in good time wherever possible. In this particular case, it is fair to say that there was quite a complex negotiation at the level of ambassadorial representatives in Brussels, so it would be wrong of me to say this was all down to the External Action Service of Mrs Mogherini.

However, my hon. Friend’s general point is well made, although I would add that there are ways in which the House of Commons could improve its own scrutiny arrangements. It was probably unavoidable that for more than three months there was no House of Commons scrutiny arrangement in place, because from the moment of Dissolution, the scrutiny structure here fell away and did not operate again until almost the end of July 2015. That is not the fault of my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset and his fellow Committee members—it is a side effect of our constitutional arrangements, but the EU machine continued to turn out documents during that time. It will not surprise my hon. Friend to learn that my personal view is that scrutiny Committees ought to have some arrangement for monitoring documents and sifting them during recesses, because that would help the process.

My hon. Friend referred to the backlog from the previous Parliament. As he will know, we are making efforts to try to clear that as rapidly as possible. There is always a difficult balance to be struck in the allocation of time, both in Committee and on the Floor of the House, but the usual channels are well aware of the concerns of my hon. Friend and his colleagues and are endeavouring to clear the backlog as soon as possible.

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[Mr Rees-Mogg]

As a supplementary, I cannot let the Minister get away with the suggestion that the delay in reconstituting the European Scrutiny Committee was the fault of anybody other than Her Majesty’s Government. The Whips Office determines when these things happen, so I am surprised that he uses that as a defence. I remind him that these areas are subject to unanimity and if documents are produced late, the Government are in a strong position to refuse them and to say that they must wait for scrutiny by the House. It is not a matter covered by qualified majority voting. Moving on to page 337 of the Council’s conclusions, my first very simple question requires a yes or no answer. Am I right in thinking that these conclusions are conclusions accepted by Her Majesty’s Government?

[Mr Lidington]

Let me deal with the first point. My hon. Friend is clearly right that to some extent the timing of the setting up of any Committee is in the Government’s hands, although I think that what happened in this case was that once Parliament had met, elected a Speaker and heard the Queen’s Speech, it moved on to make provision for the election of Select Committees. Quite a few Members in all parts of the House wished to stand for membership of departmental Select Committees. Because the European Scrutiny Committee is not elected in the same way, it was felt fair to wait until the outcome of those elections to Select Committees were known before we moved on to selecting members of the ESC.

It is true that because CFSP decisions require unanimity, we can block things. We have to decide, when making a decision to block something, especially if the question is one where we actually support the policy, whether blocking on scrutiny grounds is going to cause a harm to our national diplomatic interest that outweighs the offence of not awaiting the correct scrutiny procedures. However, more than once in my time as Minister, I have simply refused to agree to something, which has meant a delay in implementing a number of quite significant EU measures. In this case, we were talking about the latest annual report in a series of annual reports. This has no policy impact—it simply reports what had happened during 2014. I will be straight with my hon. Friend: in those circumstances, and knowing that the Committee only had its first meeting on 21 July, the day after the Foreign Affairs Council, and that it was not likely to meet again until after the summer recess, I decided that it would not be in the United Kingdom’s interests to block the publication of an annual report, when, as we have shown, it would be perfectly possible to have a debate at a future time. No policy has been authorised as a consequence of that decision, because the report was purely retrospective.

I confess that in response to my hon. Friend’s second question, I am slightly at a loss because the copy of the report that I have does not go up to page 337, but only goes up to page 301. There were no conclusions to the report.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I was moving on to page 337 of the package, which relates to the Council’s conclusions on the common security and defence policy, following the Foreign Affairs Council of 18 May. I just wanted to check that those conclusions were agreed by Her Majesty’s Government.

[Mr Lidington]

I will check the reference, and, if I may, I will try to respond to that in my winding-up remarks at the end of the debate.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am grateful. Perhaps the Minister may be able to find inspiration while I am asking the next question. If the Government did agree to those conclusions, I would bring to his attention paragraph 1 of the conclusions of the Council. As I understand it, Council conclusions are normally agreed by all members of the Council, so it would be odd, unless there was a specific reservation, if the Government had not agreed paragraph 1. It states:

“This calls for a stronger Europe, with a stronger and more effective Common Security and Defence Policy”.

I thought that it was the policy of Her Majesty’s Government to repatriate powers from the European Union, whereas the Foreign Affairs Council on 18 May 2015, in the opening paragraph of its conclusion, calls for more powers for the European Union. If the Government agreed to that, can the Minister explain why they did so?

[Mr Lidington]

The straight answer is that yes, we did agree to any conclusions that require unanimity and, if I may say so, I think that the slip that my hon. Friend is making is to equate support for

“a stronger and more effective Common Security and Defence Policy”

with support for a stronger role for EU institutions in constraining and directing the activities of member states. What we are talking about here are security and defence policies agreed in common, unanimously, by the free decision of 28 national Governments working together, because we have seen in cases such as the Iran nuclear programme, or action in the western Balkans, that we are able to achieve more if we are working together than if even one or two of the big member states try to act on their own.

I would argue that we should be confident and ambitious about the influence that the United Kingdom can and does have on the shaping and framing of those policies. We are one of a handful of EU member states that have a history of global engagement and a worldwide diplomatic network, which is delivering the 0.7% UN target on international development. In terms of the trust fund of Turkey, for example, that enables us to put our money and our commitment on the table, and lead the actions of others at European level.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am grateful for the further opportunity to discuss this. The Minister thinks that I have misconstrued the conclusions, but paragraph 2 of the Council conclusions goes on to say that the EU and member states

“are assuming increased responsibilities to act as a security provider”.

When it refers to the EU, that must refer to the institutions of the European Union and must refer back to the second sentence of paragraph 1. It is giving more power to the European Union institutions; it says it in the document.

[Mr Lidington]

But in this context, that is the European Union institutions acting on the basis of a unanimously agreed decision by the Governments of the member states meeting in the Council. If there is not unanimity, there is no EU foreign policy position and, therefore, no EU action.

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[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The Minister wishes to use words in a way that does not bear the normal meaning of them. Perhaps he will be able to help me in the usage of some words by the writers of the document, where the words do not have any normal meaning. Could he explain paragraph 4 of the document and tell us what the following means?

“The aim is to increase synergies in the EU response to priority horizontal issues”.

What are priority horizontal issues?

[Mr Lidington]

I have some sympathy with my hon. Friend’s dislike of what I sometimes refer to as diplo-babble. I have to confess that one finds this in national policy documents, I dread to say, as well as in European ones from time to time. I think he is being slightly unfair because he is quoting that phrase out of the context in which it is set. The context is the Council committing itself

“to further strengthen the links between external and internal security.”

The next sentence goes on to define priority horizontal issues

“such as terrorism, organised crime, foreign fighters, smuggling and trafficking in human beings, irregular migration, hybrid threats, border management, energy security and cyber security”.

The meaning behind that convoluted bit of jargon is that EU countries working together need to do more to co-ordinate. To take one example, that means co-ordinating the work that we do to strengthen our domestic arrangements to tackle terrorism with the external work that we do through diplomatic and other means.

I believe it is right, for example, that European countries, working through EU justice and home affairs provisions, should provide a system whereby we all have access to records of passenger names of people travelling within the EU or from EU airports to other flights. There is a natural synergy between that and working with countries, such as Turkey, that are used as transit routes by terrorists and organised criminals; just as there is a synergy with EU work to improve governance, public order and the rule of law in the countries of the western Balkans, which are very much prey to organised crime in all its forms, and which need and value external support from elsewhere in Europe to buttress their attempts to build the rule of law in their countries.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am grateful to the Minister for his translation of diplo-babble, but there are more examples, such as

“hybrid strategies and operations by state and non-state actors”.

I wonder who is doing the acting.

Paragraph 8 reports:

“Therefore, defence issues should also be considered in coherence”—

for the benefit of Hansard, I make clear that that is two words, “in” and “coherence”, rather than “incoherence”, although one might think the alternative is better—

“with other relevant EU policies and sectors, and vice versa”.

This is an extraordinarily unclear document, except when it is clear and the Government say that it is not.

In the context of my first question on the document, I will bring the Minister to paragraph 16. Could he explain what is meant by the following?

“The establishment of a EU facility linking closer peace, security and development in the framework of one or more existing EU instruments; and a dedicated instrument to this effect, in view of the mid-term review of the multiannual financial framework 2014-2020”.

Does that mean more powers to EU institutions?

[Mr Lidington]

No, it does not, is the straight answer. Because I do not have direct ministerial responsibility for Africa, I offer to write to my hon. Friend with further details once I have talked to the Minister for Africa. However, my reading of this section of paragraph 16 is that it is saying that an EU facility should be established to try to drive forward internal peace, security and development in African countries. It seems that those three objectives fit naturally together. An African country that is more secure is likely to be able to offer greater economic opportunities to its people, more economic growth and more employment, which in turn will reduce the attractiveness of crime, terrorism and so on.

The following line, which refers to the

“mid-term review of the multiannual financial framework”,

is saying that this new facility could be set up within the context of the mid-term review, meaning that funds that are currently spent in one particular way could be reallocated through the creation of the new programme. I can give my hon. Friend and the Committee a firm assurance that the unanimity lock remains on the ceilings that were negotiated by the Prime Minister in 2013. The mid-term review may come up with interesting ideas about how to reorganise expenditure programmes, but unless the Government changed their mind, which they have no intention of doing, those seven-year MFF ceilings remain in place.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that answer. If he does write to me, might he look at the opening part of paragraph 16? In that context, does

“the Joint Communication on ‘Capacity building in support of security and development – Enabling partners to prevent and manage crises’”

refer to the development of EU competence, of which I would always urge him to be cautious?

Paragraph 17j states that the Council

“Welcomes the clarification and understanding achieved regarding the possible use of Article 44 TEU”.

Will he explain what that possible use is? Although the document welcomes the clarification, it does not explain it.

[Mr Lidington]

It is part of the Lisbon treaty and permits the Council to entrust the conduct of a CSDP mission to a willing group of member states smaller than the entire EU membership, allowing those without an interest in the mission to give it their political blessing without actually having to participate. Under article 44, a coalition of the willing could therefore take on a mission under the EU banner with the support of EU infrastructure and spending programmes. Italy and a number of southern member states are particularly keen on that at the moment because they are talking about a further CSDP mission in the Mediterranean.

The article has the potential to be useful because it would provide a way to reflect the reality that it is inevitable in a diverse EU membership that member states have different levels of interest in particular crises. It will be no shock to the Committee if I say that Malta is concerned about what is happening in Libya and that Lithuania is concerned about the situation vis-à-vis Russia and Ukraine. Article 44 will add value only if it has some different rules that allow for greater flexibility of action. By definition, the article is likely to be used when not all member states want to be fully engaged in a mission and therefore use of the article should not come with an automatic expectation of common funding from member states that have chosen not to participate. Those who want to take part should pay for it.

We can delegate a mission to a particular group of member states, but we are very reluctant to support the idea of delegating responsibility for that mission’s conduct, even if it is being conducted by only a minority of willing member states. In any use of article 44, we would want to insist that standards of planning, organisation, governance and spending oversight in the conduct of a mission remained just as high if it took place under article 44 as it would for any other EU mission.

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[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I thank the Minister for his answers; he has shown once again that he has a full understanding of this issue and a comprehensive, encyclopaedic knowledge. There is a “but” coming, which I know he anticipates, and I am afraid to say that it is this: he is defending business as normal, which is a complete contradiction of the Government’s renegotiation strategy. On the one hand, in the next major area for Europeanisation of British competence and power, the Government are allowing things to move steadily in the direction of more Europe, while they are arguing for minor returns of power in the renegotiation. The two just do not go together.

The overwhelming majority of what is happening in the European Union is leading to ever-closer union, and Her Majesty’s Government are doing essentially a synthetic renegotiation to pretend that they are serious about returning powers. All the pages in front of us are about developing increasing competence over foreign affairs and defence for the European Union, and things have been moving in that direction for some time. The Government go along with that and have not been enthusiastic about scrutiny because they do not want it shown up that that is the direction of travel. That fits in with the overall picture of a steadily growing single European state.

[Jesse Norman]

I am interested in the line of thought my hon. Friend is developing. Does he think there is a potential tension between the drift he describes in the area of foreign security policy and the European Union Act 2011, which attempts to constrain what the Government can do in terms of granting, if not new competences, at least things that amount to new competences?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. The 2011 Act is a good Act as far as it goes, but wide areas are not covered by it and do not require a referendum.

We have the steady move of powers to the EU, and we have the good manners of the Government in the Councils of Europe not wanting to cause a fuss. When it is a question of whether we should upset our friends in Europe or stand up for proper scrutiny in this House, the choice is easy for the Minister: he does not want to offend our friends in Europe, so he does not veto a report that is extremely late, where the High Representative has been slow, lazy and tardy, regardless of the fact that it offends the House of Commons. Why? Because he is a good European and because he wants to go along with it.

It is not so much about the formal side of things, which is indeed protected at the highest level by a referendum, but the steady day-by-day accretion of powers, allowing more things to happen under the competences that already exist and pushing those competences to the edges. My hon. Friend the Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire is the distinguished Chairman of the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport—an area where there is almost no EU competence, but the European Scrutiny Committee still receives documents in that area, where the EU is beginning to evolve an interest.

That is where the Government are not being strong enough. They are not showing the backbone that I have called for them to develop over the past few years. They are allowing this to go through because they do not want to stand up to it; they probably believe in it, but they know that the British people do not like it, so we get a little bit of a renegotiation on the edges. This document is symptomatic of what is going wrong, and I urge my very civilised right hon. Friend the Minister to be a little less civilised in the Councils of Europe and a little more robust.

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[Mr Lidington]

I am grateful to both the hon. Member for North West Durham and my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset for their contributions. The hon. Lady was right that the document we are debating contains no new policy. It is purely a retrospective report on what happened or what was done during 2014. I say to my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset that I do not claim—and never have claimed—that everything about the EU is perfect, certainly not the way it does external policy. I probably know that better than any other member of the Committee after the last five and three quarter years. However, as I said earlier, I believe that in today’s world the reality is that, in order to protect our own citizens and advance the interests of our country, we need to work with others.

I remember my noble Friend Lord Hague saying to me after one extremely long Foreign Affairs Council when he was Foreign Secretary that, while it was utterly frustrating and infuriating to try to get 28 different countries all to sign up to a common package of sanctions against a third country, the effort was worth while, because, when that could be achieved, it was more effective than Britain acting on its own or even than Britain, France and Germany acting together. It closed down so many actual or potential loopholes for sanctions busting, and there was a greater political and economic effect on the country being targeted than if only a small group of the willing had taken action.

The safeguards that we have with regard to the exercise of the EU’s foreign and security policy responsibilities are, first, that it is laid down in the treaties that, for a foreign policy position to be adopted, all member states have to be in agreement. Every country, including the United Kingdom, has a veto. Not only that, but the European Court cannot second-guess policy positions. It has a limited right to look at the implementation of unanimously agreed decisions, for example on sanctions. An individual who is subject to EU sanctions can go to the European Court and argue that the sanction was imposed improperly or on the basis of false evidence, or for whatever other reason. However, the Court cannot intervene in the making of a foreign policy position.

In addition, the European Union Act 2011 provides explicitly for a referendum to be held in this country were any future British Government to be tempted to agree to move from unanimity towards majority voting for common foreign and security policy or common security and defence policy.

I also say to my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset that yes, we do need to be vigilant about attempts to stretch the envelope over competence. For example, since 2010 I have instructed my officials to be very active in resisting what we believe to be unwarranted attempts by the Commission to supplant the role of member states or the rotating presidency in representing the EU position in international organisations. That is a battle that I am sure will continue.

Also, when considering vetoing a particular measure, or at least delaying agreement to it—what my hon. Friend asks me to do more frequently—I consider what the impact of such a veto or delay would be. Sometimes, when the final unclassified version of a document has regrettably, for whatever reason, been produced late in the process by Brussels, I am faced with the decision of whether to override scrutiny in order to allow agreement, or to do as he asks and block agreement pending scrutiny. Sometimes that might mean deciding whether to put at risk the continuation of an EU peacekeeping or training mission in a country where the operation of that mission is important to the United Kingdom’s interests.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Of course I accept that there are urgent occasions, particularly in relation to sanctions, when it is right to override scrutiny, because giving us time to scrutinise sanctions would also give the person who is supposed to be caught by them time to change his affairs. This document, however, was a report on what happened in 2014, so it was in no sense urgent that it be agreed in July; it could easily have waited until proper scrutiny had taken place. It seems to me, therefore, that the urgency argument really does not apply in this case.

[Mr Lidington]

In this case, as I described earlier, had we blocked agreement on 20 July, it would have been in the knowledge that we could not return to it until scrutiny processes had been completed, which would have taken us well into the autumn, given that Parliament sat for only two weeks in September, and I think the Committee met only once in those two weeks. A debate could probably not have taken place until the second half of October at the earliest.

We had, as we always have, many political objectives at stake during a Foreign Affairs Council meeting. The Foreign Secretary and I took the view that to hold up agreement on this would simply be an unwelcome use of negotiating capital that we wanted to keep for substantive foreign policy issues where getting others to agree to the British position was challenging but important for our diplomatic interests. My hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset is perfectly entitled to say that we misjudged that and that we should have been more rigorous in defending parliamentary scrutiny, but that was the way in which my right hon. Friend and I approached it.

In conclusion, it remains the case, in my view, that we can achieve important objectives of this country by working co-operatively with our nearest neighbours and partners. Furthermore, the diplomatic weight that the United Kingdom brings to the European table is significant. We can and do have a major influence on shaping what later become common European policies. In that sense, we can use the European arrangements to amplify our own diplomatic reach and punching power. Indeed, people from the United States often tell British officials and Ministers that they want us to get involved in bringing other Europeans to the table. In fact, the Prime Minister was very active in ensuring that the United States and European Union positions on Russia sanctions have been very closely aligned throughout the Ukraine crisis.

Although these institutional arrangements are not perfect—I am not going to claim that we will win every single battle—I believe that we can use our power and influence effectively to shape European policy positions in a way that brings tangible benefits to the security and prosperity of the people of the United Kingdom. On that basis, I commend the Government’s motion to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

Subsidiarity and Proportionality

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Monday 7th December 2015 General Committees

[The Chair]

Before we begin, it might be helpful if I remind Members of the procedure in European Committees. Proceedings must conclude no later than two and a half hours after we start. First, I shall call a member of the European Scrutiny Committee—I understand that it will be Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg—to make a brief statement about why the Committee decided to refer the documents for debate. Secondly, I shall call the Minister to make a statement, followed by questions for up to an hour, although I have some discretion to extend that period if there is appetite for it. Thirdly, the Committee will debate the Government motion. I will put the question on the motion when the debate or the time available—whichever comes first—is exhausted. Does a member of the European Scrutiny Committee wish to make a brief explanatory statement about the decision to refer the documents to the Committee?

[Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

May I say what a pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Main? Although these two Commission annual reports are essentially factual documents, they were recommended for debate on the Floor of the House as their subject matter goes to the heart of the European Union debate: the democratic deficit of the EU. In the words of the Prime Minister in his Bloomberg speech of January 2013:

“It is national parliaments, which are, and will remain, the true source of real democratic legitimacy and accountability in the EU.”

It is notable that in the Prime Minister’s letter of 10 November to the President of the European Council, he also stated that he is seeking a new arrangement—a red card—

“where groups of national parliaments, acting together, can stop unwanted legislative proposals”

from the EU, and that he wants

“to see the EU’s commitments to subsidiarity fully implemented, with clear proposals to achieve that.”

The first report from the Commission sets out its assessment of how the EU institutions addressed compliance with the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality, including the operation of the formal reasoned opinion procedure whereby national Parliaments can raise objections to an EU proposal for legislation on the ground that it does not comply with the principle of subsidiarity and, if enough do so, they can force a reconsideration. The Commission concludes that the smaller number of reasoned opinions raised by national Parliaments

“must however be seen in the light of the decrease in the number of legislative proposals issued by the Commission towards the end of its term of office and not as an indication of diminishing interest of national Parliaments in subsidiarity matters. This conclusion is confirmed by the ongoing debate among national Parliaments concerning the subsidiarity control mechanism.”

It is noticeable that during 2014, 15 national Parliaments or Chambers issued 21 reasoned opinions covering 15 proposals. The highest number for any one proposal was three—well short of the lowest threshold for forcing a reconsideration of the proposal. This House issued three, proposing new measures concerning the presumption of innocence, animal cloning and undeclared work.

The second report sets out the Commission’s assessment of its relations with national Parliaments, focusing on informal political dialogue, rather than the formal reasoned opinion procedure. This vehicle can be used when it is not possible, because of the tight deadline, to issue a formal reasoned opinion. The Commission’s report records a drop in those informal opinions. In the analysis of key topics of dialogue, it identifies the discontent expressed by 10 Parliaments or Chambers, including this House, on the Commission’s reaction to the formal reasoned opinions against the proposal for a European public prosecutor’s office, in respect of which a yellow card was issued in 2013.

The report concludes by marking the commitment of the new Commission under President Juncker to forge a new partnership with national Parliaments, as evidenced by its early action in increasing visits and specifically inviting comments on its 2015 work programme. The European Scrutiny Committee originally called for the debate not just because of its analysis in these reports of relations between national Parliaments and the EU; as already indicated, they cover a subject that goes to the heart of the role of national Parliaments in the EU.

The European Scrutiny Committee’s report drew the House’s attention to the call, so far unanswered, of many national Parliaments and Chambers for the President of the EU Commission to set up a working group to look at the role of national Parliaments. It also welcomed the Commission’s efforts to improve its dialogue with national Parliaments, including its responses to reasoned opinions and the opportunity to improve parliamentary scrutiny arising from the early consultation promised by the Commission’s Better Regulation package.

Finally, the Committee’s report drew attention to the development of the informal green card procedure, whereby national Parliaments can suggest matters for which either new EU legislation should be brought forward, or existing legislation should be amended or even repealed.

[The Chair]

I call the Minister to make an opening statement. I remind the Committee that interventions are not allowed during the statement, although questions are allowed afterwards.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Lidington]

I will try to respond as fully as I can within the constraints of time to the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East.

As the Prime Minister said in his letter, the level of a threshold to trigger a red card that would amount to a block on legislation would be a matter for the negotiation itself. I cannot pre-empt those detailed discussions, but we envisage that at a certain point what is currently a power for national Parliaments to require the Commission to review a particular initiative should become an outright bar to further progress.

As for the yellow card, to my mind a change that would be particularly welcome would be an extension of the timeframe allowed beyond the eight weeks permitted under current law. That would enable national Parliaments to consider proposals more closely and to co-ordinate with one another. I would also like to see such a change to the yellow card take into account the very creative proposal from the Dutch Parliament for what it termed a “late card”, so that in the event of a legislative measure changing significantly during its progress through the various institutions it would be possible for national Parliaments to come back and have another look at it, because at the moment that opportunity is forbidden to them regardless of how far-reaching any amendments might be.

Finally, the Government support the green card, but it is also an initiative that is actively being taken forward by national Parliaments at the moment. Yes, we support it, but if it can be achieved through Parliaments working together in COSAC, persuading the institutions to take that change on board, then we are happy simply to support the work that the Parliaments themselves have initiated.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

May I ask the Minister a bit more about the red card? Is it fair to assume that the number of countries that would be required to send in a red card would be lower than the number required to vote against it in the Council of Ministers to provide a blocking majority under qualified majority voting?

[Mr Lidington]

The difference between the two arrangements, as my hon. Friend knows, is that to assemble a blocking majority in the Council of Ministers one has to assemble that majority on the basis of weighted votes, with the most populous countries having greater weight, in the calculation of a majority or minority, than the smaller member states, whereas in the case of the yellow card system each parliamentary chamber in the EU has a single vote. I suppose that it operates a bit like the way that the US Senate operates, with no regard to the relative populations of the different countries.

The answer to that question would therefore depend very much on what the comparator was in terms of the blocking minority among member states. I certainly envisage that a red card would have to involve a higher threshold than a yellow card would, since it would be a more far-reaching measure.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am grateful to the Minister for his answer. However, could the red card serve any useful purpose if it were harder to get than a qualified majority vote against a proposal coming from the Commission, because all Governments are responsible to their Parliaments, and therefore to make it a workable proposition, the assumption would have to be that a matter had a qualified majority in favour but the Parliaments sought to stop it?

[Mr Lidington]

Having served as a Minister both in the last Parliament and this one, I have to say that I do not think that Governments can automatically assume that they have the majority in Parliaments, particularly on European matters. So, while the circumstances that my hon. Friend describes would be unusual, it would nevertheless be worth while to have that democratic back stop. Also, a strongly expressed parliamentary view would perhaps, in the case of a number of member states, put greater backbone into a Government resisting a measure to which their Parliament had declared itself opposed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The very idea that Governments will have backbone in the face of Europe is a novel one, but I hope that we might see it one day.

Moving on to yellow cards, does my right hon. Friend think that part of the reason for the number of cards going down, apart from the lower number of proposals coming forward, is that once the decision was given about the EPP, Parliaments thought there was little point? The Commission did absolutely nothing regarding that important proposal. What is the purpose of this House or any other Chamber passing resolutions if they are just ignored?

[Mr Lidington]

As I said in my opening remarks, that might be part of the explanation. One would have to go back and talk to parliamentarians from the 27 other member states to have a clear analysis. I suspect that with some countries the lack of yellow cards might be down more to domestic political circumstances—perhaps a general election and a change of Government—than to anything happening at the EU level.

It is also fair, however, to take account of the changeover of the Commission. The Juncker Commission’s track record of launching many fewer new initiatives than the Barroso Commission, even in its first term, inevitably reduces the number of targets for national Parliaments. That too is part of the explanation. Frankly, if the Commission is going to stick to that approach and take account, in advance, of what national Parliaments and national Governments would regard as the right priorities, that is a change we should all welcome.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

On that very point, the Commission has tended to respond even when a majority has not been reached, but it has often been pretty stubborn in pushing forward with its proposal anyway. Indeed, in one of the documents we can even see that it wanted to bring forward a more ambitious proposal rather than sticking with the one it already had. To date, therefore, the yellow card has not been hugely successful, as far as one can tell. Does the Minister accept that? Does he also accept that the time limit he mentioned, which it has been argued ought to be extended, can be extended only through treaty change? Is that part of the Government’s intended renegotiation?

[Mr Lidington]

I agree that although there is innovation in the Lisbon treaty—which was an advance, and better than not having any such process—it has not been particularly successful so far. It has certainly taken time for the culture of the Commission leadership to respond to what is necessary. The fact that someone such as First Vice-President Timmermans, who has been an elected politician in a country that has given a high priority to the opinions of its national Parliament, is now a key authority within the Commission has been an important contributing factor to the change we have seen on the part of the Commission in the past year and a bit.

Whether treaty change is needed is something that we are addressing in the course of the detailed negotiations. The technical talks that took place over the summer between UK officials and the secretariats and legal services of the institutions have, on that issue and on the others on which we seek reforms, fleshed out a menu of legal and procedural options for leaders to select from, depending on what deal leaders eventually succeed in negotiating. It would be wrong of me to go further than that, when those negotiations still lie ahead.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am grateful for that because footnote 16 on page 12 of the document gives the Commission’s view that the deadline is enshrined in the treaty and therefore would require treaty change, but the Commission can err, so I hope the Government are right.

Finally—although I may have two questions on this point, depending on the Minister’s answer—I want to ask about the green card issue. Are the Government supportive of a situation in which the Commission loses its exclusive right to propose legislation?

[Mr Lidington]

That is not part of our set of proposals and it would probably be very hard to negotiate that. My word of warning to my hon. Friend is that if that issue were opened up, we would probably see a lot of institutional pressure from the European Parliament to have a right to initiate legislation, and that there would be quite a lot of national Governments around Europe, particularly those of smaller member states, that would be quite attracted by that idea.

As for my hon. Friend’s earlier point—alas, I have lost my thread, so perhaps he could just remind me.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Prior to the green card issue, I asked about the treaty change and the Minister answered me.

[Mr Lidington]

That is right, and if I have not satisfied my hon. Friend, at least I have replied to him. I will rest it there, Mrs Main.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am a bit puzzled by the Minister’s last answer. I thought the whole point of the green card was to give a group of member states the ability to propose changes to, amend, alter or even repeal EU legislation. Now, if it is not giving them the right that is otherwise the exclusive right of the Commission, I do not see what it is doing and whether it serves any purpose.

[Mr Lidington]

The distinction is this: the green card proposal would permit the national Parliaments acting collegiately to propose changes and to seek reviews, but it would leave it then for the Commission, having reviewed the matter, to decide whether to bring forward particular amendments.

That is perhaps analogous—not exactly the same as, but analogous—to the European Parliament’s powers to propose an own-initiative report, which can put forward ideas either for new legislation or the amendment or repeal of existing legislation but which cannot bind the Commission to act in a particular way. What one has found in practice, however, is that the Commission has taken very seriously those reports and frequently acted upon them. I hope that if we got a green card accepted, we would find that the Commission responded in the same way to well-evidenced, well-argued proposals from national Parliaments.

I now recall the point on which I was going to respond to my hon. Friend earlier. He expressed doubt as to whether, in the absence of treaty change, having a red card would mean anything. Of course the Commission, while it has the sole right of initiative, can always choose whether to initiate or to persist with a particular piece of legislation, so it faces a certain political choice when it is in receipt of objections from national Parliaments.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

You are being very generous today, Mrs Main; I promise that this is my last question. Is the Minister therefore saying that the democratic deficit will be addressed by the good will of the Commission when it feels like listening to national Parliaments?

[Mr Lidington]

What I am saying is that the democratic deficit needs to be addressed by a number of different and complementary reforms. Those will include some in the culture of the institutions, which we are starting to see, such as a focus on a rigorous selection of limited priorities where the European Union can genuinely provide value-added to all its members from European-level action, rather than leaving it to member states.

I believe that our proposals on national parliaments are not a panacea, which I have never claimed for them, but will help to reconnect electors with what the European Union is doing on their behalf. Obtaining some kind of mechanism for turning the Laeken commitment into institutional reality in the EU would be a further way in which to bridge the democratic deficit.

At the end of the day, bridging the democratic deficit will be about cultural change as much as about legislative and institutional change. It will be about the EU and its institutions demonstrating through their choice of actions that they are attuned to the policy priorities that matter to the people—the citizens whom they claim to represent.

Motion made, and Question proposed,

That the Committee takes note of European Union Documents No. 10651/15 and Addendum, a Commission Annual Report 2014: Subsidiarity and proportionality, and No. 10663/15 and Addendum, a Commission Annual Report 2014: relations with national parliaments; recognises the importance of the principle of subsidiarity and the value of stronger interaction between national parliaments and the EU institutions; welcomes the Government’s reform agenda and efforts to ensure that the Commission responds to future objections under the yellow card scheme by substantially amending or withdrawing the proposal that has been put forward; calls on the Commission to respond to the request of 29 national parliament chambers to establish a working group to consider reforms to strengthen their role; is encouraged by the Commission’s announcement of its intentions to forge a new partnership with national parliaments; and calls on the Commission to set out its plans to do this.(—Mr Lidington.)

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am very sympathetic with the point that the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East makes that this might be the wrong issue to discuss, and that the real issue is how the nations of Europe can co-operate together. My answer is that they should do so through the nation state, because the nation state has validity and the European Commission does not. What we discover in today’s debate is that it is actually all about the validity of the European Commission, and that national Parliaments will be given a bauble here and a bauble there. They will be given a red card, a yellow card and a green card—they will have a three-card trick. They will have a whole deck of cards, but they will not be able to do anything with it because everything goes off to the European Commission, which may—if it is feeling benign—condescend to listen to the national Parliaments.

The Commission may take the Parliaments into account, and it may make proposals. How enormously generous. How thoughtful of somebody unelected, who was appointed against the will of the British Government, who has no mandate and who represents one of the smallest countries in the European Union. It is going to be up to Mr Juncker whether he listens to the German Parliament, the British Parliament or the French Parliament, all of which were elected by millions of people across Europe. One grand panjandrum in Brussels will decide whether he will take any notice of those cards at all.

The Government are great in their way—they push back a bit and say, “Oh, well, we’ve got a backbone, so therefore we’ll be tough and stand up to this. We’re going to put Britain first, the United Kingdom first, and make sure that we have our way.”

[Mr McFadden]

I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s strength of view, but he is in danger of forgetting the existence of the Council of Ministers, on which sit the elected representatives of all of us—the Prime Ministers and Presidents.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The right hon. Gentleman is right. The Council of Ministers used to operate by unanimity, so our interests could be protected. At the heart of this is the question of who has the right to initiate legislation, because that is where the real democratic deficit is located; it is not the Council of Ministers but the unelected Commission that does that. That is a most extraordinary power. When one considers the power of this House, one sees that our right to initiate money Bills dates to 1407, and the power of this House grew because of that right of initiation and that right to control finances, which leads to control of the legislative programme.

The Commission’s right of initiation is central to its authority, and how sensitive was the Minister on its behalf when I said that this green card might interfere with that noble right of the Commission to initiate legislation—“No, that could not happen at all. It would upset the Commission too greatly, and the European Parliament might be a bit jealous.” The European Parliament is a body that has modest democratic legitimacy. A few people occasionally vote, but no one feels that it is their Parliament. People occasionally turn out to vote when they have to vote for something else. Even a police commissioner is more exciting to vote for than the European Parliament—well, not by very much, although it is a little more exciting. The democratic deficit is addressed not by the European Parliament, but by national Parliaments that represent individual citizens.

To return to the right hon. Gentleman’s excellent point about how Europe addresses such problems, it addresses such problems if it has validity, and it has validity if it is based on democracy. The European Union is facing problems at the moment because it has become so remote from that democracy. The President of Portugal is saying that a new Government cannot come in because that might upset the European Union, even when, in a coalition, the Portuguese Government have more support than any other nation. [Interruption.] We are saved by the bell.

--- Later in debate ---

On resuming—

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

We were not quite saved by the bell, as some had hoped. There is one final point that I want to make, which is that in the European Union Act 2011 the Government included a section clearly stating that sovereignty resides in this House and that we are only members of the EU because of that. It was a very good section that reminded us of what had been the perceived wisdom under the European Communities Act 1972: that the sovereignty of the British people is vested in this House and that only this House can use it in a fundamental way. If this House or this Parliament decides not to use it, we would be able to withdraw and restore all our democratic accountability. That underpins the importance of national Parliaments. Without their willingness or acceptance of a supranational body, and without the delegation of authority, there is no authority in the Commission. It does not exist in a vacuum. It is not a body created by God—the divine right of Commissioners—to rule over the whole EU; it is a body whose authority is drawn from us, but that is a drawing that can be withdrawn and perhaps may be.

Iran: Nuclear Issues

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Tuesday 24th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ellwood]

There were of course delays, but, as I have articulated, had we not taken the measures, and introduced and pursued the documents we are now discussing, we would not have kept Iran at the negotiating table, which it was important to do to get the result we now have.

[Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

I am not entirely clear about my hon. Friend’s answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash). Were there sensitivities prior to the agreement on 14 July, or did they come afterwards and therefore contribute to the delay in having the debate in this House?

[Mr Ellwood]

I do not believe that there was a delay in debating the matter in this House. I am delighted to be here today. I will certainly look at the detail of the point that my hon. Friend raises. I am articulating why there were delays and, indeed, extensions in the discussions and in the requirements for the documents to be in place in order to secure agreement with Iran.

Following the agreement of the joint comprehensive plan of action on 14 July, the second set of documents extended the limited sanctions relief, this time for a longer period. That created a window to allow Iran to take the required steps to limit its nuclear programme and to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency to confirm that those steps had been taken ahead of full sanctions relief. Had the limited sanctions relief not been extended, the incentive for Iran to complete those actions would have been greatly diminished.

The final set of documents deals with the crucial matter of the implementation of EU commitments under the deal by providing the legal framework for the termination of the nuclear-related economic and financial EU sanctions on Iran. Those measures were passed on adoption day, 18 October, as was required by the joint comprehensive plan of action. In adopting those measures, we and our partners demonstrated our intention to honour our commitments fully and in good faith. Iran still has plenty of work to do to live up to its commitments. That is why the sanctions relief will come into effect only on implementation day, when the IAEA verifies that Iran has completed the crucial steps in its nuclear programme.

To conclude, I will emphasise three crucial points that are illustrated by the documents and their adoption. First, the documents highlight the importance of close engagement with our diplomatic partners. The success of the negotiations was based on strong co-operation among the E3+3. Maintaining the pressure and the effect of EU sanctions was vital to bring Iran to the negotiating table. That required the co-operation of all 28 member states. The smooth implementation of the agreement and robust enforcement of the sanctions that remain in place will require a similarly united effort in the coming months and years.

Secondly, by providing the opportunity, through sanctions relief, for Iran to re-engage with the world economically, this deal and these documents are allowing the Iranian people to feel the tangible benefits of international co-operation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)]

The nuclear deal that was agreed in July between the E3+3 and Iran was the culmination of many years of intense diplomatic efforts. At its heart is a simple concept, but it nevertheless took a huge amount of work to reach a robust and verifiable agreement. The simple concept is that Iran will desist from its efforts to develop a nuclear weapon in exchange for the lifting of sanctions that have had a major impact on its economy over many years.

I pay tribute to the efforts of all those involved in those intense diplomatic efforts, and particularly Baroness Ashton of Upholland who played such an important role during her five years as the EU’s High Representative for foreign affairs, and Jack Straw who was important in getting the process started and who remained an unstinting supporter of it during the last Parliament. Such diplomacy is not easy. Trust was in short supply, for understandable reasons, and there were—and remain—many who said that the deal could not work. Agreement is one thing, but its implementation matters even more.

The European Union played an important co-ordinating role in the talks, and all parties have testified to the value and importance of that role. The agreement is a good example of what can be achieved when the UK works with others and uses the EU to increase its leverage when patient but determined diplomacy is used. There must have been many times when it all seemed too difficult, but the thing that concentrated the minds of negotiators—this should also give pause for thought to critics of the deal—was the consequence of having no deal or of allowing negotiations to fail. What would that have meant for nuclear proliferation? What would it have meant for the middle east or for other situations—such as those now at the forefront of our minds—in which Iran is involved, if we did not have the increase in trust that has come about as a result of this agreement? That does not mean that all our issues with Iran are over, but the agreement has helped to build trust. If it is implemented properly, that trust will increase.

This debate focuses on how the sanctions regime is to be lifted, and on the snapback mechanism incorporated into the deal should it be judged that Iran is not implementing its commitments properly. The lifting of sanctions is linked to the implementation of the agreement, and that must be verified by the IAEA. A positive report by that agency will trigger the lifting of sanctions. The Deputy for Legal and International Affairs at Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mr Abbas Araghchi, told reporters in Vienna in the last couple of days that he expects the deal to be implemented in January next year. That follows approval of the deal by the Iranian Parliament last month. We welcome that aim. It shows momentum behind the agreement, although it will, of course, be important that the claim of implementation is properly tested and verified by the IAEA.

The European Union has already begun preparing for the lifting of sanctions. Last month the EU High Representative, Ms Mogherini, said that the EU had

“adopted the legislative framework for the lifting of all nuclear-related economic and financial sanctions”.

That decision will, of course, only take effect when the agreement is implemented. The Government, in keeping to this timetable, exercised an override of the normal scrutiny procedures on some of the measures. That is never ideal, but in the circumstances, given the combined international efforts to get the deal implemented, I believe it is understandable. For our part—the Minister put the question to me—we remain supporters of the agreement as long as it is fully and properly implemented, and as long as the IAEA is given full and proper access to all the facilities it needs to inspect to satisfy the international community that both the spirit and the letter of the agreement are being adhered to.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The European Scrutiny Committee did not object to the scrutiny override in these circumstances. Its objection has been to the delay in scheduling this debate, which was asked for in September. Here we are in November and we have finally got it. It is the slowness that is the source of complaint.

[Mr McFadden]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. He will know the point he raises is something of a recurring theme in examining these issues. It is good that he clarifies that it is not the override that was objected to. I am glad he agrees with me that, while it is never ideal when dealing with something like this, it is sometimes understandable.

In conclusion, at a time when there are many grave international issues before us, this diplomatic achievement should give us cause for some cautious hope and optimism. I appreciate that some have doubts and some still lack trust in this, but the best way to answer those doubts is to have a full, proper and strictly verified implementation of the deal. If we have that, we can move forward both to progress on non-proliferation and to the building of trust that can be of wider benefit in the region.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who always makes interesting and important points, none more important than those he was making today about the persecution of Christians.

I want to cover initially the question of the scheduling of this debate, which has been raised in interventions both by me and by the hon. Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant) because the scrutiny of European Union decisions by this House is important. It is a fundamental democratic right that this House is able to scrutinise the decisions made by the Government, and that needs to be done in a timely fashion. This debate was asked for in September; we are now two months on. It is worth bearing it in mind that the longest outstanding demand for a debate was one first made nearly two years ago. The second anniversary will come up in January, and if we have not had the debate by then I shall no doubt hold a birthday party for it. It is quite improper of Her Majesty’s Government to treat the House of Commons in that fashion. When debates are asked for, if the Government do not want to give them, there is a procedure under Standing Orders to put a motion before the House to refuse the debate.

[Mr Ellwood]

I say in all politeness and courtesy to my hon. Friend that we are now spending a lot of time discussing when the debate should happen. It is happening now. With respect to the European Scrutiny Committee, we have made it very clear that this is the earliest I have been requested to come to the House. I would have been delighted to come earlier. I make it clear that we have had other debates. Now that we are here, I suggest that we focus on the issues.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. We do not want to get into a debate about when we should have the debate. I know that the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) wants to get back to the issue and is going to bring us back to it now.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I must finish my point on this crucial issue because it is appalling of the Government to take this high-handed line with scrutiny in the House of Commons. It may be that the Minister did not know that this debate was asked for, but if he cared to read, daily, the daily agenda and the requirements for debates, he would have seen that this debate appeared day in, day out. If the Minister has not heard that from his officials, or read it for himself or been told it by the Whips, that is not the fault of the European Scrutiny Committee; it is that the Government are deliberately obstructing debate in this House. They always have time.

I will finish on this point shortly, Mr Deputy Speaker, but it is so important because we need to have these debates scheduled properly and quickly. The time that we have now is outside the normal sitting hours, so the argument that there was no day previously when it could have been held is false. We could have an extra 90-minute debate on any day since the request was made by the European Scrutiny Committee two months ago. And that is not the worst of the Government’s treatment of debate in the House. It is quite wrong that the Government should shy away from democratic accountability. I shall say no more on that today, but it is a subject that I will come back to if the Government do not treat the Chamber of the House of Commons properly.

To come on to the documents, I am afraid that I am going to change tack because the Government find me in support of what they are trying to do and, indeed, accepting of the override of scrutiny. When it comes to sanctions on individuals and the lifting of those sanctions, they cannot necessarily go through the full scrutiny process prior to the decision being reported to the House because, particularly when sanctions are being imposed, people would have the opportunity to avoid them in advance. There is a natural understanding of the confidentiality in relation to imposing and lifting sanctions and of the sensitivity with which this was being discussed with Iran. That is completely reasonable.

The second point that is worth making is that most of this was agreed under article 29 of the treaties on the European Union, which operates under unanimity. That is relevant because it shows that the European Union can work on a unanimous basis without any sacrifice of sovereignty by the individual member states. That is a model for future European activity—that we should take action when everybody is agreed because it is then much more powerful.

That is the next point: what has been done has succeeded and what was being aimed for was of the greatest importance. Trying to ensure that Iran did not become a nuclear state in the broad perspective of global security must have been a pre-eminent interest. It is worth noting that the most rogue of rogue states, which I think is North Korea, is secure in its wrongdoing and its internal oppression and is cocking a snook at the rest of the world because Kim Jong-un has a nuclear weapon. Those of us who wish to see a sensible world order want a limit on the number of states with nuclear weapons, and want to try to stop states that are on the margins of the international order getting hold of nuclear weapons. This is a successful policy that has had great advantages for security, but in the process that the Government have undertaken with other states and with the United Nations an important step has been taken in bringing Iran back into the global community. I slightly disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Dr Offord) and, indeed, the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). I think it is a great advantage that Iran is back in the community of nations.

It has long been the case that the best way of achieving international security is dealing with nation states, but all nation states have an inherent interest in their own stability. They wish to maintain law and order within their own nation because it threatens their rule if they do not do so. That makes most nation states in most circumstances the enemy of the terrorist. The terrorist is a greater threat to the United Kingdom than the rogue nation state is likely to be. Equally, the rogue nation state is easier to deal with, because it has a structure that can be attacked from outside if fundamental national interests are offended. Terrorists cannot be attacked in that way, because they are harder to pin down.

We have come to the point in British foreign policy—and, perhaps more importantly, US foreign policy—at which Iran is being brought back into the family of nations. That could be a significant boost to our ability to ensure security in the middle east but also more broadly because it goes back to a fundamental principle that has generally been accepted by most countries since the peace treaty of Westphalia in 1648: the principle that it is the nation state that underpins that security. It is what went wrong from the late 1990s onwards, when it was thought better to interfere in the internal activities of nation states to make them better nation states. That policy turned out to be fundamentally wrong-headed.

We have gained three very good things from the suspension of sanctions. First, it has been shown that the EU can work on the basis of unanimity. Secondly, it has reduced the likelihood of Iran having a nuclear bomb, and, thirdly—this is overwhelmingly the most important—there has been a change of attitude back to treating the nation state as the building block of global security. I very much hope that the Government will apply that in other cases.

Europe: Renegotiation

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Tuesday 10th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

Obviously, as Parliament is sovereign, not least in the fact that EU law has direct effect in the UK only because of Acts of Parliament—decisions of this House—the irreversibility of any decision any Government take on anything is limited. To answer the hon. Gentleman’s question, we are keen to avoid a repeat of the sort of thing that happened over the European financial stabilisation mechanism earlier this year, when, in the heat of a crisis in the eurozone, a deal that had been solemnly agreed by all 28 member states in December 2010 suddenly appeared to be at risk and came up for discussion in a meeting where only 19 member Governments were gathered together. That is not the way in which we can do business in Europe in the future.

[Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend must know that this is pretty thin gruel—it is much less than people had come to expect from the Government. It takes out a few words from the preamble but does nothing about the substance of the treaties; it deals with competition, for which the European Commission itself has a proposal; and it fails to restore control of our borders. It seems to me that its whole aim is to make Harold Wilson’s renegotiation look respectable. It needs to do more; it needs to have a full list of powers that will be restored to the United Kingdom and to this Parliament, not vacuously to Parliaments plural.

[Mr Lidington]

The problem with the idea of a unilateral national parliamentary veto, which my hon. Friend advocates, is that it would mean that, for example, the most protectionist Parliament in any one member state could veto every deregulatory and every single market measure that the United Kingdom believed was profoundly in the interests of our people and our prosperity. Such a unilateral veto would be incompatible even with the arrangements that Norway and Switzerland have with the European Union. I just say to him that if he had had the privilege and responsibility of sitting at Council of Ministers meetings in Brussels, a responsibility that he may well indeed enjoy at some future stage of his career, he would be less sanguine about what he terms the unambitious nature of what we are proposing. What we are proposing is going to require some very tough negotiating indeed.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Tuesday 9th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

As the Prime Minister made clear yesterday, he has been consistent. Indeed, the comments that he made in his press conference yesterday afternoon were exactly the same as the comments that he made in this House last week. He feels that his previous comments were misinterpreted. He has now clarified the situation and we are able to move on.

[Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

As a sign that Europe is open to reform and is willing to renegotiate, would it not be sensible for Her Majesty’s Government to help Switzerland enforce its referendum result, getting it out of the free movement of people, as a model for British renegotiation?

[Mr Hammond]

On the contrary—what is happening to Switzerland is an important lesson. I have heard many people outside this House and one or two inside it talking about the Norwegian model or the Swiss model, implying that it is possible to partake fully in the single market without having to comply with single market rules. Of course, that is not the experience that the Norwegians or the Swiss have had. Access to the single market has a price, and the price is contributing to the EU budget, complying with all the EU’s rules and having no vote on how those rules are made.

European Commission: National Parliaments

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Tuesday 10th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins), who speaks such sense on these matters. It was also interesting to hear about his holiday plans for the summer, and I hope that he will tell us more about them in future debates.

I turn immediately to the wording of the motion. Her Majesty’s Government like to say all the right things and do all the wrong ones. Let us look at the end of the motion, which proposes that the House

“welcomes the Government’s commitment to increasing the power of national parliaments in EU decision-making by strengthening and, where possible, enhancing current provisions.”

It sounds splendid that we in the national Parliaments should have an increased role and that there should be proper scrutiny within this House. But let us look further into the Order Paper, where we find the European business and the debates set down to take place on the Floor of the House. We had one yesterday. How generous of Her Majesty’s Government to allow us, after months of delay, to debate an issue that had been suggested for debate by the European Scrutiny Committee!

Turning to the future European business, however, we see that no time or date has been set for the first debate in the list, on the free movement of EU citizens, despite its having being asked for more than a year ago. Debate No. 2 would be on strategic guidelines for EU justice and home affairs to 2020. Debate No. 3— [Interruption.] Bless you! Debate No. 3 would be on the rule of law in EU member states. Debate No. 4 should be on ports, a highly controversial matter awaiting the discussion that was suspended in the Committee because the Government had not got their act together. No. 5 is the topic that we are discussing now. No. 6 should cover the EU budget 2014, which is not a minor matter. Indeed, it is rather important. When we discuss our own Budget, we have four days of debate on it, yet we are not even given 90 minutes for the EU budget. No. 7 on the list is the EU charter of fundamental rights. So there are six further debates that we have not been given, yet today we are debating the Government’s wonderful commitment to increasing parliamentary scrutiny of European matters.

There is a saying that fine words butter no parsnips. We get a lot of fine words from Her Majesty’s Government but the parsnips remain distinctly unbuttered, and as I represent a dairying constituency, I think it is about time we had some butter and got the debates that the European Scrutiny Committee has been asking for. There is a considerable lack of wisdom in this approach—this contumely towards the House. These debates take place in an atmosphere of considerable cross-party consensus. Those on the Opposition Front Bench rarely cause any trouble in European debates, and the motions that are tabled are normally so anodyne that it is hard to oppose them. The Government broadly say that they are in favour of motherhood, apple pie and democracy while giving away as many of our freedoms as they can, as quickly as possible. Furthermore, these debates do not end up being front-page news.

Where the Government get into trouble, however, is through their lack of willingness to go along with what the European Scrutiny Committee has asked for. At that point, they run into procedural difficulties. We saw that in spades over the European arrest warrant, and we thought that the Government might have learnt the error of their ways and realised that trying to obstruct the procedures of the House of Commons is an error. They might have found from yesterday’s experience, when an amendment was tabled on a subject that the Government did not want us to discuss, that the House would get its way in the end. It did so because, fortunately, we have a robust Speaker who ensures that the House gets what it wants in the end. That is much to be welcomed. However, there should not be this constant battle between the European Scrutiny Committee and the Government to get that which the Standing Orders of the House of Commons require. The Government come out with ridiculous promises and fine words but simply fail to deliver on their promises.

[Mr Redwood]

Could it be that the Government believe their own propaganda? We are faced with having two Governments for the price of three in this country, a European Government and a United Kingdom Government, but the Government fondly believe that they are the sole Government and have not recognised that there is a much bigger Government over there doing a lot of their work for them. They do not want us to look at that.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

My right hon. Friend makes the interesting suggestion that the Government are naive and foolish, and that is one way of looking at it. My view is that they are deliberate in their attempt to subvert the will of the House of Commons and its efforts to debate things. My right hon. Friend is a generous and kindly figure, for which he is renowned across the land, whereas I am afraid that I am perhaps rather more hard-nosed on this occasion and think that there is a desire to run away from debate. I do not know where that desire comes from. It is fundamentally unhealthy and undemocratic and the Government must understand that many of us will complain if this continues to happen.

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

Does the hon. Gentleman recall the Prime Minister stating expressly at the Dispatch Box that he would deliver a vote on the European arrest warrant before the Rochester and Strood by-election? What happened to that promise?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless), who knows only too well about that by-election. It is extraordinary that other people within government try to subvert the will of the Prime Minister. Our constitution works well as the Prime Minister, as the head of the Government, shows leadership. However, there are then people, minions—I do not know who they are, as they will not emerge or admit the role they play in undermining parliamentary scrutiny—who deliberately undermine what the Prime Minister has promised. That is the most extraordinary state of affairs, Mr Speaker, as the Prime Minister needs your help to deliver on his promises. Your impartial help is needed to get the Prime Minister out of a hole dug for him by his own officials. This is a quite extraordinary and regrettable state of affairs.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The hon. Gentleman is making liberal reference to the Chair, to which I have no objection, but in so far as he is foraging in the undergrowth to try to find a solution to Parliament’s difficulties as we approach Prorogation and then Dissolution, he might find that the shortage of allocated time is such that his only recourse is to seek a debate under Standing Order No. 24. He should not be put in that position, but he can always have a go, with no promises and no advance undertakings. We should not be reduced to this state of affairs, but needs must.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I am grateful, Mr Speaker. I was worried when you said that I was making liberal reference to the Chair; I hope that I was making Conservative reference to the Chair. Other than that, I am much obliged for your helpful reminder of the Standing Orders of the House.

I do not want to go on for too long, as my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr Walker) has an important debate that will follow this one. In that context, I note that when I sit down before the full time for the debate is complete the Government will once again say that the debate did not run for its full time and that the desire for such debates is therefore not as great as we might think, so they do not need to give them in future.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I know that the hon. Gentleman is being respectful to the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr Walker), but the obvious solution would be for him to spin out his speech to the end of the time. I would certainly enjoy listening to it.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I would hardly have begun my speech if I were going to go through all the intricacies it might be necessary to cover, but I do not want to upset my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester, who has a serious matter to discuss that concerns my constituency.

The Government must bear in mind the fact that the debate is truncated thanks to the good nature of members of the European Scrutiny Committee and the Whips scurrying around asking whether we would be kindly. It has not been truncated because there is not a great deal to discuss. When the answer comes back that we are not interested as we do not take the full time, that will be an untruth. I am glad to see that the Minister for Europe is looking in my direction and notes that, because he never says anything other than the truth. I have great confidence in his intellect, if not always in the answers that come from it.

Proportionality and subsidiarity are of considerable importance. I am slightly suspicious of subsidiarity because, as the shadow Minister the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden) has said, it comes from the teaching of the Catholic Church. The holy mother Church, to which I belong, is a great, illustrious and historic institution, but if it is known for one thing other than its piety, it is its centralisation of power. It therefore strikes me that, if subsidiarity has been thought up by the holy mother Church, it is more likely to be to do with reinforcing the authority of the Holy See and of the papacy in particular than with spreading it far and wide. I happen to think that, in the case of the Church, that is a thoroughly good thing.

[Mr Redwood]

Is it not the other way round? We want this House to be able to do the big things. We do not want to be left with the crumbs from the table—we want the main meal.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I entirely agree with my right hon. Friend and I was coming on to that.

The heart of the matter is the question of where we think democracy lies in the European Union. Does it lie in the Commission? The answer, in fairly short order, is no. Every country has a commissioner and, as the hon. Member for Luton North has said, commissioners from very small countries sometimes get very important briefs. It was the Maltese Commissioner who finally decided whether neonicotinoids could be legal across the whole of the European Union. Malta has a population of about 250,000—which is tiny in proportion to ours, let alone that of the whole of the EU—and it was someone representing them who made a decision for all of us without any democratic accountability because the Council could not come to a decision.

There is no election for European Commissioners—they are appointed by their home Governments. The President of the Commission represents Luxembourg, which is hardly the great bulwark of population and importance for which one might hope. It is not exactly the Texas, or even the Illinois, of the European Union. Relatively minor figures from their own domestic functions are put forward as commissioners, with no support from, or knowledge of, the people living in the other member states. Before he became a commissioner, very few people in the United Kingdom could have named the former Prime Minister of Luxembourg. There is no democratic accountability in the Commission.

Perhaps there is democratic accountability in the European Parliament, but, if there is, it is of a most extraordinary kind. The d’Hondt system for electing people is most unsatisfactory and means that most people have no clue who their MEP is. It is very difficult to seek redress of grievance through the European Parliament in the way our constituents can seek redress of grievance through this House. Indeed, one of my concerns about the whole European project is that it denies our constituents that proper redress of grievance that they can get through the House of Commons.

Crucially, the European Parliament cannot have democratic accountability because it does not represent a single people. When the issue of unemployment in Greece, Spain and Portugal came up in yesterday’s debate, it was absolutely instructive that there was a complete lack of concern for unemployment in the other member states of the European Union. There is not a feeling that somebody unemployed in Greece is as important as somebody unemployed in Newcastle. Until we have that fellow feeling—the feeling that they are one people with us—there cannot be a proper democracy. The jargon, clearly, is that without a demos there cannot be democracy and there is not a single European people. Therefore, even if the European Parliament had Members who anyone knew about, and even if it was elected on a system that anyone thought was a reasonable system to elect people on, it would still not have proper democratic representation because it does not represent a single people.

That brings us to the Commission, which I think is the closest we get to democracy in the European Union. The Ministers represent their Governments and those Governments have to command majorities in their respective Houses of Parliament. That brings us back to exactly where we want to be: the democratic rights of Parliament and what Parliament should be able to do within the overall system and context of the European Union. Ultimately, democratic accountability within Europe—that thin thread of accountability that exists—is through the Commission to Parliaments.

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

I hate to interrupt my hon. Friend in mid-flow, but I believe that he is talking about the European Council, not the European Commission.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I am so sorry. I do indeed mean the Council. The Council has that thin thread to the Parliaments, which provides that democratic accountability.

We then look at what those Parliaments can do. They can have a limited amount of scrutiny but, as my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Mr Walter) said, that mainly comes after things have been decided; the European Scrutiny Committee gets to look at things that have already reached a far stage in the approval process within the whole European system. It is very hard to stop anything at that point, so we then move on to yellow cards.

[Graham Stringer]

The hon. Gentleman, as ever, is making an interesting and illuminating speech. Is not one of the travesties and caricatures of democracy in the European Union the fact that the only body that can propose new legislation is the European Commission, not even the Council?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. That is part of the control of the Commission and part of the anti-democratic set-up of the European Union, and I do not think that is accidental; were it genuinely democratic, it would never have evolved to its current state.

We get these sops, with this business of the yellow cards, of which only two have been accepted by the Commission, and one of those was immediately dismissed—it said that the one for the public prosecutor was not a matter of subsidiarity anyway and so it would push ahead regardless. We have a threshold that is very hard to reach, and as a result of which nothing need happen, and a two-month period that makes it incredibly difficult for national Parliaments to get their responses in within the limited time available. The red card would be little better.

What we actually need is for our constituents—the people of the United Kingdom—to take back control of their own Government. That might be possible through renegotiation if the Government are robust, but the problem is that at the moment the Government show no sign of being robust or willing to push back to the European Union. They come out with platitudes that support the continuing accretion of power to the EU. They come forward with the fine words I have mentioned but never push on the difficult decisions. Yesterday the Minister for Europe told us that Switzerland wants to pull out of one of the treaties and that it has to take it all or leave it all, but that is an outrageous position to take if we are in favour of renegotiating for ourselves.

I urge the Government to be robust, to support democracy and to make sure that, for once, what they say and what they do match.

Commission Work Programme 2015

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Monday 9th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

I think that my right hon. Friend is being too pessimistic. As I said earlier, the test will be whether at the end of five years we can look back and say that the Commission has delivered in practice what its words indicated at the start of its tenure. I completely accept that there is a real problem with the Commission’s working culture, which, to be fair, like many national Government Departments, tends to judge success by the output of new law and new regulation, rather than the quality of what is actually done on a number of core priorities.

I was pleased to note that the Commission confirmed this weekend that 73 of the measures proposed for withdrawal have now been formally withdrawn. By comparison, the 2014 work programme proposed 29 new initiatives and prioritised a further 26 measures for adoption, and in 2010 there were some 300 new measures proposed. This work programme is focused on fewer measures, and on measures that will encourage growth and jobs, deepen the single market, conclude trade agreements and improve regulation, freeing up business from unnecessary regulatory burdens. The Government welcome that new focus.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

I cannot agree with my right hon. Friend. Of the 73 proposals being withdrawn, 71 are either obsolete or have already been blocked by the Council. Of the 79 actions being withdrawn under REFIT, 58 are evaluations or studies, five are proposals to codify, two are proposals to simplify, one is a proposal for a simplified framework and two are proposals for an update or a review. There is only one that would reduce something, against 452 Commission proposals, less the 73 that are sitting on the table. He tells us that this is a great success for Europe. What would be failure?

[Mr Lidington]

Failure would be Europe failing to give priority to job creation, economic growth and competitiveness at a time when a horrifying number of people, particularly young people, are out of work in this continent and when European competitiveness is not only slipping behind that of the United States, but is at risk because of the global shift of economic power to Asia and Latin America. The answer to those economic challenges lies in Europe raising its game dramatically as far as competitiveness is concerned.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Lidington]

We can argue about all sorts of improbable hypotheticals, but the key point is that, while President Juncker was expressing a view that he has made no secret of holding in the past, this is not a live issue for debate around the table in Brussels at the moment. In fact, both President Juncker and others who have spoken in support of a European army or defence force have said that they see it as being a very long-term objective.

Turning to the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend and a number of other members of the European Scrutiny Committee, the Government recognise public concerns about immigration from other member states and the need for the Commission to do much more to address the abuse of free movement rights and the problems to which it gives rise. That is why this Government have gone further than any previous Administration to try to tackle the problems associated with free movement both domestically and at the European level.

We have acted domestically to tackle abuse and ensure that the rules governing access to our welfare system and public services are as robust as possible. Only today, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has laid regulations in Parliament to ensure that EU jobseekers have no access whatsoever to universal credit.

At European level, we secured language in last June’s European Council conclusions on the need for the Commission to support member states in combating the misuse of free movement. We continue to work both with member states and the Commission to reform EU social security co-ordination rules so that they better reflect current migration patterns and the divergent, diverse nature of member states’ welfare systems, while ensuring that member states can maintain effective control of their own welfare systems. Welfare provision is of course set down in the treaty as belonging to the competence of member states, rather than that of European institutions.

We welcome the proposal in the work programme on the labour mobility package—it covers several such items—which will assist us in carrying forward our ideas. However, we are very clear that there is much more to do, as my right honourable Friend the Prime Minister made clear in his speech on 28 November. I therefore have no problem in welcoming the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash), which will be agreed to at the end of the debate.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I commend my right hon. Friend’s wisdom in accepting the well thought through amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash). In relation to the debate on free movement, will Her Majesty’s Government reconsider their stance on Switzerland? If we are serious about renegotiation, it seems to me that we must take a sympathetic view of its effort to get out of the principle of free movement. If that is one of the four fundamental principles applied to Switzerland, which is not even a member state, how can we have a thorough renegotiation?

[Mr Lidington]

The challenge the Swiss Government face is that they have entered into a series of bilateral agreements with the European Union linking a number of different elements together. For example, in the Swiss bilateral treaties with the EU, access to some of the EU’s single market provisions is explicitly linked to accepting the principle of freedom of movement. At the moment, it is written into that package of bilateral treaties that if one is revoked or renounced, all of the agreements will fall by a certain deadline. That is the challenge the Swiss Government face following the referendum early last year. We remain in close touch with Switzerland, a friendly country, and we hope that we can find a satisfactory way forward.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

rose—

[Mr Lidington]

If my hon. Friend will allow me, I am conscious that the debate is time limited, and I want to let other Members speak.

Before I conclude, I want to refer to the question of regulation. During his hearing in the European Parliament, Vice-President Timmermans pledged to conduct a review of pending legislation, which was completed in late 2014; to launch a revised inter-institutional agreement on better law-making in spring 2015; and to conduct a review of better regulation by October 2015.

We are continuing to work with other member states to implement the recommendations of the Prime Minister’s business taskforce on EU regulation—the introduction of EU burden reduction targets, even greater use of lighter regimes and exemptions for small and medium-sized enterprises and micro-enterprises, and greater independence and powers for the Commission’s Impact Assessment Board.

Thirteen of the 30 recommendations of the Prime Minister’s taskforce have been fully implemented at European level, and progress is being made on others. The Commission has set out its intention to review, recast, merge or replace some 79 EU Acts as part of its Refit programme. We have long pushed for EU legislation to minimise unnecessary costs to business, particularly SMEs, and it is positive to see that reflected in the work programme and what appears to be a reinvigorated approach by the Commission to better regulation.

Overall, the work programme shows encouraging signs that the Commission wishes to take the EU in what we consider to be the right direction, at least on the economic priorities. It is important to judge the Commission by what it now does in practice. In our view that means implementing the work programme in a way that respects the principle of “Europe where necessary, but national wherever possible”, reduces the burden of European regulation on business and eliminates barriers to growth, and supports increased competitiveness, trade and the completion of the single market. If that is the outcome, it will demonstrate important progress in the Government’s EU reform agenda.

During the past five years, we have already secured the first ever reduction of the EU’s budget; significant reform of the common fisheries policy, including a ban on discards; the launch of talks on an ambitious transatlantic trade deal; and important protections for non-eurozone countries in respect of banking union. Just five years ago, it would have been unthinkable for the first work programme of a new Commission, which would want to demonstrate its ambition, to contain just 23 priority initiatives. That is evidence that this country’s messages are being heard and acted on.

We launched this debate, and today there is growing consensus across Europe in favour of reform. We will continue to work energetically to ensure that the EU becomes more competitive and democratically accountable, deepens the single market to enable free movement of services and capital, and tackles abuse of the principle of free movement. I commend the motion to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

I beg to move amendment (a), at end add

‘; and urges the Government to encourage the Commission to develop policies during 2015 relating to the free movement of EU citizens.’

It is truly shocking that it took more than a year for the Government to bring forward a debate on the free movement of EU citizens, given that the document in question was recommended as long ago as January 2014 regarding a matter of enormous significance that was discussed on 5 December 2013 in the Justice and Home Affairs Council. This issue goes right to the heart of the immigration question, which in turn lies at the heart of the European question as it applies to the United Kingdom, and it is a matter of intense political and controversial debate. It is inconceivable that this matter should have been so shockingly delayed, and that led the European Scrutiny Committee to ask the Leader of the House to give evidence and be cross-examined on why these important matters, including free movement as well as things such as the EU budget and the charter of fundamental rights, are outstanding. We were told by the Minister and the Leader of the House that they could not disclose how that decision had been arrived at because it was a matter of collective Government responsibility. The Committee is glad that by tabling the amendment it has forced the Minister to welcome it.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I wonder if I might add to what my hon. Friend is saying. Although the Minister and the Leader of the House said that they could not possibly tell us who was blocking the provision, the Home Secretary, the Foreign Secretary, the First Secretary of State and the Minister for Europe all intimated that they were very much in favour of having the debate, and wished that it could be brought forward as a matter of urgency although forces beyond their control prevented it.

[Sir William Cash]

My hon. Friend is right in every respect and we have all the transcripts to prove it, including from various Secretaries of State. It is effectively an example of decisions being taken behind closed doors in smoke-free rooms. Those are the new modernising methods of government. I disapprove of them and so does my Committee, as shown by the fact that we tabled this amendment.

Let us move on and accept that we are now able to debate free movement; I particularly want to concentrate on EU migration and benefits in that context. I wrote a letter to the Prime Minister on 18 November, which was 10 days before he made his speech at JCB in Staffordshire on the question of free movement, and I drew attention to the fact that I believed we were faced with a real problem. However much we might want to make certain changes, unless we were prepared to dig in and make this Parliament supreme on matters of such vital national interest, we would not get the necessary changes because some of them required treaty change and others required overriding the charter of fundamental rights. Although the Prime Minister accepted in questions after his speech that some of those matters would require treaty change, in reality that is not on offer in any substantial way from the other member states.

The principle of free movement is embedded in the ideology and principles of the other member states, and particularly the European institutions and European Commission, despite how that may affect us as a small island with a greatly increasing population and pressures on social housing and education—the list is endless. Unlike other member states such as France, Germany and Spain that have large land masses and can absorb many more people, we simply cannot do so. It is therefore a matter of vital national interest—quite apart from questions that I will mention in a moment about abuse of the system—that has led us to a position where we have desperately wanted to put our foot down. Some of us believe that we should override European legislation and the charter of fundamental rights by using the “notwithstanding” formula—that is notwithstanding the European Communities Act 1972, which is past legislation as I have said many times before—so that we can ensure that our Supreme Court obeys the laws of this Parliament which is elected by our voters in general elections.

When the election comes—it is only a matter of 60 days or so—this issue will be at the centre of gravity in that election, and we will be asked whether we will take the necessary steps in line with what voters insist on. I am afraid the answer to that question is that there will be no treaty change or overriding of the charter, and when I have asked Ministers and the Prime Minister whether they will use the “notwithstanding” formula, I have been told no.

--- Later in debate ---

[Keith Vaz]

I am most grateful to the Minister. It might not seem long to him, but, picking up on a point made by the shadow Minister, it is good to have these matters debated in the House as quickly as possible. If Parliament is to have any influence on the Commission, it is good to have them before us as quickly as possible.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I support the right hon. Gentleman’s comments entirely. The Commission work programme is the equivalent of the Queen’s Speech, and it is inconceivable that the House would wait nearly three months before debating the Gracious Speech and then allow only 90 minutes to do so.

[Keith Vaz]

Indeed. As the hon. Gentleman says, there is the time issue. Several right hon. and hon. Members wish to speak—even if they are the usual suspects—and to give these issues our proper attention, we need longer than 90 minutes. I know how much you enjoy these European debates, Mr Deputy Speaker.

May I again congratulate the Minister for Europe on lasting five years? To get a five-year sentence under the criminal law, one has either to have been trading in firearms or to have been guilty of violent disorder. I do not know what he did right, but he is obviously the Prime Minister’s blue-eyed boy, because he has kept him tethered to the Dispatch Box as Minister for Europe. I would love to see how many stamps he has in his passport—but it is the EU so there will be no stamps. Anyway, well done to him for surviving so many of these debates.

I want to concentrate on one aspect of the five headline points in the Commission programme—migration. The hon. Member for Stone talked about legal migration and the issues confronting the British electorate—issues that we need to discuss—but I want to concentrate on illegal migration. On a recent visit to Calais, the Home Affairs Committee accepted the point made by the Mayor of Calais that once illegal migrants get there, they can see the UK and it is therefore already too late. Even the fence, like that used to surround and separate G8 leaders from the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn), though robust, has been blown down twice. It is too late, once the illegal migrants get to Calais; this issue needs to be dealt with by the EU and the Commission at the point of departure from north Africa.

As my right hon. Friend the shadow Minister said, the Italians are bearing the brunt of this problem. More than 250,000 people travel cross the Mediterranean every year; 3,200 have died—those are the ones we know about; and the Mare Nostrum initiative has been stopped because Frontex simply cannot deal with the problem. It is not just Italy, though. In the past five years, the Committee has also visited the border between Greece and Turkey. We know what pressure the Greeks are under, because of their economic situation, and people are flooding into Turkey from Iraq and Syria, despite the efforts of the Turkish Government. Once they arrive in Greece, they are kept in detention for up to three to four months, before being released on the border between Greece and Turkey. They end up in Athens, but their destination of choice is the UK and western Europe.

Illegal migration is the No. 1 issue facing the EU, and although it is recognised as such in the Commission’s programme, under the heading “Towards a New Policy on Migration”, actually we do not hear enough from the Commission and Ministers about this critical issue. It requires a new deal with the countries of north Africa, particularly in respect of how the Egyptians, Libyans, Algerians, and to a lesser extent the Moroccans and Tunisians, deal with the people traffickers, who take up to €10,000 each from each migrant on the boat and then leave them, sometimes without a captain, in the hope that the Italian Government will send ships to save them, which does not always happen. So although it is not necessarily on the conscience of people sitting in this House, it is certainly on the conscience of the Commission, if it has one.

Dealing with illegal migration requires an EU approach; it is not just a matter for the United Kingdom. As I have said, once the migrants have reached Calais, it is far too late. I would be keen to know from the Minister today, and from his successor—unless the Minister’s party wins the election and the Prime Minister is persuaded that the right hon. Gentleman is prepared to do another five years—what is happening in the EU with illegal migration, because it is a huge problem that needs to be resolved.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

Let me begin by talking about the way in which we have arrived at this debate, and also about the amendment that has been tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) and all the other members of the European Scrutiny Committee who were present at Wednesday’s meeting. It is highly unusual for a Select Committee to table a cross-party amendment on a subject that was recommended for debate nearly 14 months ago.

The Government should bear it in mind that no Government are in office for ever. They should bear it in mind that the great protection of our liberties is the House’s entitlement to debate what it wishes to debate, and that they should treat that entitlement properly and respectfully by allowing such debates to take place. They should also bear it in mind that delaying deliberately, for 14 months, a debate on the free movement of people—a subject which, as we heard from the hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins), is being discussed on every doorstep in the country—shows a contempt for the House of Commons that constitutes a grave error.

When things change and another party is in government, that party too will notice that it is possible to ignore the Standing Orders of the House. That party too will notice that it is easy to clamp down on discussion in what ought to be a hotbed of democracy, and our freedoms will ebb away.

The Government ought to be ashamed of themselves for their delay, and the Ministers who claimed to be so much in favour of the debate when they appeared before the European Scrutiny Committee—or on the Floor of the House during questions to the Leader of the House—ought to recognise that they are powerful figures. When the Home Secretary, the Foreign Secretary, the Minister for Europe and the First Secretary of State all want a debate, it is extraordinary that we do not get that debate. Who is the mystery figure, hidden somewhere in the corridors of Whitehall, who vetoes debates?

[Sir William Cash]

Clegg.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

Is it our right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr Clegg) who vetoed the debate, or is it simply some mystery in the machine? Is it some faceless bureaucrat, some poor fellow sitting patiently in the officials’ Box?

[Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)]

rose—

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

Or is it my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham, who now wishes to intervene?

[Martin Horwood]

It certainly is not the hon. Member for Cheltenham, or indeed, I suspect, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr Clegg). The purpose of my intervention, however, is to take a rare opportunity to agree with the hon. Gentleman. I, too, think that debate on European matters in this place should not be subject to undue delay, and that European scrutiny that is scrunched into two short periods after a long delay is utterly inadequate when it comes to what the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) rightly described as a European equivalent of the Queen’s Speech. We should take a fresh look at all this in the next Parliament. Nevertheless, I should like the hon. Gentleman to substantiate any other allegations that he makes about individual Members.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I am grateful for that helpful intervention. I was only speculating that the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam—my friend—was responsible. In fact, I think that that is unlikely; I think that the person in question is more deeply hidden in the machinery than such an easy target as the Deputy Prime Minister.

This topic is of fundamental importance. According to press reports that have appeared over the past few days, 187,370 Romanians and Bulgarians were given national insurance numbers in 2014 alone. In other words, more than 200,000 people from Romania and Bulgaria have been given national insurance numbers during the period in which we have been waiting for this debate. That is an extraordinary state of affairs. According to a report from Oxford university, the population has risen by 565,000 in three years, and two thirds of those people are from European Union countries. In London alone, the population of EU member state nationals has risen by 161,000, from 711,000 to 872,000, during those three years.

The Government shy away from debates on this subject, thinking that if they do not talk about it, the nation will not notice; but the nation has noticed. I see that the hon. Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless) is present. His entire party is making hay with the subject, because other politicians, including the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden)—other major political figures—are shying away from it. They believe that if they keep quiet, no one will notice. However, this is an issue of great importance to our constituents, who are worried about the sheer number of people who are entering the country because of free movement.

The Government are not setting out the groundwork for the renegotiation properly. At the December 2014 Council, they agreed to the following words, which appeared in the Council’s conclusions in relation to Switzerland:

“It”

—the Council—

“considers that the free movement of persons is a fundamental pillar of EU policy, and that the internal market and its four freedoms are indivisible.”

That seems to me to be a pretty bold statement, especially in connection with what we have heard about the Prime Minister’s speech on immigration being sent to Mrs Merkel for approval before being delivered. It seems that our policy on immigration must have the stamp of approval from Berlin, but we must be so committed to the European ideal that we view the free movement of people as unchallengeable. If we think that in regard to Switzerland, how can we renegotiate ourselves?

When I raised that question with my right hon. Friend the Minister for Europe earlier, he said that Switzerland had tied itself into a number of treaty arrangements, and that if it removed itself from one of them, it might find itself being removed from all of them. Surely that is exactly what we are trying to do in a renegotiation: surely we are trying to remove ourselves from some of the treaties to which we have agreed, but not from all of them. Perhaps the Government think that that is an equally disgraceful approach, but if it is sauce for the Swiss goose, surely it is sauce for the British gander. It cannot be right for the Government to take such a strong pro-European line in this regard. It shows a lack of sincerity in their approach to renegotiation—and if they renegotiate with a lack of sincerity, the British people are far more likely to vote to leave the EU, and the Government will get precisely the result that they do not want.

Time is short, and you, Mr Deputy Speaker, have asked for the Minister for Europe to be given a couple of minutes in which to wind up the debate. It is illustrative of how little time we have been allowed that a debate on the equivalent of a much longer Queen’s Speech and the free movement of people has been so truncated because of the Government’s failure to deliver on their promises. However, I want to make one more comment, in support of my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood). The financial transaction tax and the uniform corporation tax base represent a fundamental effort to take sovereignty from this country in fiscal matters, and patriate it to a European state. The fact that we have been given only 90 minutes in which to debate a matter of such importance is pretty poor according to the Government’s standard.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Philip Hammond]

We routinely make representations to the Israelis on all aspects of illegal conduct—of which that is just one example—and we will continue to do so.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

As the Government prepare for renegotiating the European treaties, will they give their full support to the Swiss in their efforts to change their terms of free movement of people as a sign of their sincerity and a symbol that free movement of people is not an unchallengeable part of the European state?

[Mr Hammond]

As everybody knows, Switzerland is outside the European Union and has negotiated terms for access to the single European market, as has Norway, but those terms require the Swiss and Norwegians to accept wholesale the body of EU law without having any say in the making of it, to contribute financially and to abide by the principles of free movement. The Swiss have sought unilaterally to change that arrangement and they have been firmly rebuffed by the EU.

European Union (Referendum) Bill

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Friday 17th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Leigh]

rose—

[Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Alexander]

I will make a little progress and then I will be happy to give way again.

As I stand here again, a year on, after yet another Friday morning meeting in Downing street to rally the beleaguered troops—I venture to suggest that never have so many bacon rolls died in vain—looking at Conservative Members, or at least what is left of them, gathered to talk about their favourite subject of Europe, I have to say that I feel a certain sense of déjà vu. The only thing that seems different this morning is the absence of the Chief Whip and the Prime Minister.

Even if the Bill has not changed, some things have changed since we last gathered a year ago. Back in January 2013, when the Prime Minister gave at Bloomberg what his aides rather optimistically, as it turns out, briefed would be

“his last speech on Europe in the parliament”,

I was, on balance, prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt, even if some of his own Back Benchers, even at that time, were undoubtedly not willing to do so. I believe that when he committed to holding a referendum in 2017, he assumed sincerely that, given the push at the time towards closer eurozone integration, there would be a major EU treaty change within the time frame that he set out. Since that speech at Bloomberg last year, however, the prospect of extensive treaty changes by 2017 has receded rather than grown. He knows that, we know that, Conservative Members know that, and, most worryingly for the Prime Minister, the Back Benchers who are concerned about whether he can deliver on his promise know that.

Only this month, the French Prime Minister—perhaps one of the individuals that the Foreign Secretary has had those obscure and rather elliptical conversations with—said that EU treaty change would be “perilous” and ruled out a “shake-up of its treaties” any time soon. In January, the French President said during a visit to London that treaty change was “not urgent” and “not a priority”. After the signing of the German coalition agreement in November last year—without, I point out, a single reference to treaty change—Chancellor Merkel said in February this year that the Conservatives’ hopes would end in “disappointment”. For full measure, her Foreign Minister then said that it would be “an exaggeration” to assert that Germany and the United Kingdom were on the same page when it came to treaty reform in the EU. We have heard a little more exaggeration from the Foreign Secretary this morning.

Nearly two years on from the Prime Minister’s announcement of a 2017 referendum, the ground beneath his feet has shifted. It has left him asserting, ever less convincingly, that he can initiate, negotiate and secure the unanimous support of 27 European Heads of Government for a fundamental redesign of the European Union within 19 months of May 2015.

How likely a prospect is that for our Prime Minister, given his recent track record of negotiations in Europe? This boast is made by a Prime Minister who just this year managed to turn a Europe divided over Jean-Claude Juncker into a Europe virtually united against the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister was certainly not the first British Prime Minister to take a tough negotiating stance in Brussels, but he will go down in history as the first British Prime Minister ever to lose a vote in the European Council. He went to Brussels with, incidentally, a cross-party mandate—the Liberals and, indeed, the Labour party were behind him—to secure consensus on the best candidate for Commission President, but he failed to build alliances.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Alexander]

It’s called losing, actually, and I do not think that Britain wants a Prime Minister who keeps losing.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

The right hon. Gentleman has expressed the utter supineness of the socialists, who give in to everything Europe wants when our Prime Minister is willing to put the British case, even when sometimes that does not succeed. It was courageous and it was the right, firm approach for dealing with renegotiation.

[Mr Alexander]

There speaks the authentic voice of the 18th century! Our dispute seems to be about the efficacy of principle and the effectiveness of statesmanship. The hon. Gentleman argues that the Prime Minister was efficacious in upholding a principle, but I maintain that he was hopelessly ineffective at securing statesmanship on the international stage. Let us remember that the Prime Minister failed to use the weeks following the European elections to work to build a coalition that could have been built with countries such as Denmark, Sweden, Holland, Hungary and Italy.

Let us treat that as a textbook example of what the Foreign Secretary has just asserted can be achieved in the months after 2015. If the Prime Minister failed to prevent a not universally popular candidate from becoming Commission President, what hope is there that he could secure unanimous support for a fundamental redesign of Europe on an arbitrary timetable that other European Governments simply do not accept?