European Union Bill

John Redwood Excerpts

Tuesday 25th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

The wider issue of justice and home affairs opt-ins is the subject of a number of amendments and new clauses that have been selected for debate tomorrow. If the hon. Lady will forgive me, I think that that will be the appropriate time to deal with it. We have decided to single out the European public prosecutor because that was a clear and explicit commitment in the coalition agreement and the coalition programme. The agreement stated:

“Britain will not participate in the establishment of any European Public Prosecutor.”

In accordance with that policy, we are putting a referendum lock on a decision by any future British Government to join the European public prosecutor and a further lock on the UK taking part in any expansion of that prosecutor’s powers.

I am grateful to my hon. Friends the Members for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris), for Wycombe (Steve Baker), for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers), for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) and for Crawley (Henry Smith) for noticing a potential gap in the drafting of the Bill. As drafted, clause 6(4)(c) and (d) might not automatically trigger a referendum in the event that the UK chose to participate in the European public prosecutor after it had already been established. That is because the measure under the United Kingdom’s protocol on the area of freedom, security and justice, which would be used to allow us to take part in the European public prosecutor’s office or in an expansion of the office’s powers in those circumstances, does not have to cite the legal base of article 86 of the treaty on the functioning of the European Union.

Government amendments 57 and 58 respond to the concerns identified and expressed by my hon. Friends in their amendment in order to close that potential loophole. We did not intend to leave any doubt about the matter and, being keen to make that correction, I therefore urge the Committee to approve those Government amendments. These would ensure that a referendum would be required in all cases before the United Kingdom could join the European public prosecutor’s office or an extension of its powers, whether the decision was taken before or after the prosecutor had been set up, or before or after the powers had been extended.

[Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

I am very grateful for that concession, which improves the Bill. Now that the Minister is in this spirit of concession, does he not understand that most people think that criminal justice is central to their sovereignty in Parliament, and that the same provision should apply to all opt-ins under the criminal justice provisions? Why will he not concede that?

[Mr Lidington]

My right hon. Friend makes his point firmly, as I expect him to, but as I said earlier we will have the opportunity to debate justice and home affairs opt-ins in more detail during debates on the clauses that are set down for tomorrow. I look forward to hearing the concerns that he and other Members express on that occasion.

A number of amendments in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry seek to add a limited number of further JHA articles to either clause 6 or schedule 1, and I say to him and my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) that I am well aware of and understand the Committee’s concerns about justice and home affairs matters. I share their view that they are matters of political, often of legal and sometimes of constitutional, significance, so I look forward with interest to the arguments that my hon. Friend might put forward later today.

On those amendments, which will be the subject of debate later today, I signal now that I am confident that I can make a compelling case why those particular articles should not be listed in clause 6 but be left, where they are appropriately dealt with, in clause 9. I shall explain briefly today and, I expect, at greater length tomorrow how that fits into wider JHA issues, as I set out in my written ministerial statement last week.

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[Mr MacShane]

My hon. Friend is one of the most decorative parts of this House, and I hope that, after the reduction of representation in the wretched Parliamentary Voting and Constituencies Bill becomes law—it will weaken the House of Commons unless the other place defends our constitutional rights—when there will be 50 fewer of us, he is to be found among the survivors.

This is the eternal argument. The most sovereign person in the world was Robinson Crusoe on his island. No one could tell him what to do, and he did not tell anyone else what to do. Our nation’s history is entirely about finding partners and allies and making treaties. I invite hon. Members to go to the National Gallery and look at the depiction of the signing of the treaty of London signed in 1604, which has four British dips and four Spanish dips and you cannot tell the difference between them. That treaty brought to an end 50 years of conflict between Spain and Britain because—

[Mr Redwood]

We won.

[Mr MacShane]

That is a good crack, but I think that the right hon. Gentleman will find that Spanish power messed up the continent for another 100 years until we won again. If the House of Commons only exists to express the sentiment of the football fan that “We won, and they have to lose”, Britain will never advance.

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[Mr MacShane]

To be told to sit down by the hon. Gentleman, who, to his great credit, has never long warmed a Bench if he could stand up, is undoubtedly a real pleasure to be had from my small contribution to this debate.

[Mr Redwood]

The big difference is that the Government’s health reforms are reversible if they do not work or if a future Government do not like them, whereas the surrender of power to Europe is irreversible.

[Mr MacShane]

Again, this shows a failure to understand that if we do not like a treaty, there is an alternative. I have been told over the 16 years in which I have sat in the House that almost any change would undermine Britain. Indeed, the right hon. Gentleman famously said that the Amsterdam treaty would mean the abolition of the United Kingdom. Can anybody in the Committee tell me a single thing that was in the Amsterdam treaty?

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[Mike Gapes]

That is very true. The hon. Gentleman should therefore welcome the fact that I am a signatory to an early-day motion on this very issue, which was tabled recently by one of his colleagues.

[Mr Redwood]

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman has been here long enough to know that signing an early-day motion never succeeds in doing what we wish. Does he have any better ideas for saving our fish? I am with him in wanting to do so.

[Mike Gapes]

We need a general approach that recognises that the planet’s resources are finite, so we need to try our best to conserve them. In saying that, however, I am sure that I am moving well away from a clause stand part debate or indeed from a debate on any of the amendments to clause 6.

The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron), who is no longer in his place, tried to explain why the Liberal Democrats support the Bill and clause 6 in particular. I was struck by the fact that the real reason for that support was not explained. The real reason lies in the fact that a party that is allegedly pro-European—and whose Chief Secretary to the Treasury used to work for the European Movement—has become very European in the sense of taking on the Stockholm syndrome.

The Liberal Democrats have been captured by their partners to such an extent that they have signed up to making a gesture towards the Eurosceptics, giving the impression to the hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel) and others who would rather have an in/out referendum—she said as much in response to an intervention—that the proposals before us are highly significant. I suspect that, in many respects, they are not significant, but if they were, and if many referendums were to be triggered in respect of the list of items set out in the Bill, and particularly those in the amendments in the group, the cost of having them would be enormous. I refer not just to the costs of running the referendums, but to the costs of the litigation and judicial reviews that would be incurred—as usual, it would be the lawyers, not the British people, who reaped the financial benefit out of the provisions. We would simply have to pay for the processes brought about by these measures being incorporated into the Bill.

The hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash), the Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee, and I had an exchange about these issues on Second Reading. He seemed to agree that there are dangers in bringing about a large amount of litigation and in conferring extra powers on the courts, taking them away from our parliamentary democracy. What we face today is the potential for this to become a dog’s breakfast and a lawyers’ paradise.

Amendment 8, tabled by the Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee, deals with the European financial stability mechanism. This would not only be costly; it would not be in this country’s national interest. As the hon. Member for Stroud pointed out, more than half our trade—I think it is 60%—is with our fellow EU member states. We therefore have a national interest in the success of the euro; we have a national interest in growth in the German, French, Danish, Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese economies, for example; and we have a national interest in the prosperity of the European region.

It follows that measures will be required to stabilise the financial institutions in the EU, to stop the collapse of banks, to deal with a crisis such as we have seen in Greece, and to deal with the change in the Irish Government that is likely to happen in the next few weeks or perhaps to respond to the welcome return to government of a man who was a Finance Minister under the excellent Labour Government in Ireland, Ruairi Quinn. In light of that, it will be in our national interests to assist the stability and success of the other European economies. Amendment 8 should be opposed vigorously, because it is not in the interests of this country.

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[Mike Gapes]

The hon. Gentleman and I have been debating these issues for nearly 20 years. We have never agreed on matters relating to the European Union, and I do not think that we are going to do so now.

I do not believe that it will benefit our country if the European Union and the European economies implode, as the hon. Gentleman seems to wish them to do. Certainly there are problems in some—not all—European Union economies, and some, including the German economy, are growing quite rapidly. At the same time, the world’s economic centres are shifting, overwhelmingly to Asia but also to other parts of the world, and as a result we as Europeans will face a very difficult period in the coming years and decades. We need to think carefully about what will happen if the British economy is speculated against in the next 10, 15 or 20 years, and—given that the coalition Government are presiding over a return to recession—about what will happen to the long-term future of the economy if, as the hon. Gentleman wishes, the European economies fail and the European Union implodes.

[Mr Redwood]

I certainly do not want those economies to fail. However, if, according to the hon. Gentleman’s analysis, it is right to involve ourselves in economic governance and in mutual subsidies to protect our trade in physical goods with euroland, should we involve ourselves in the same way with the rest of the English-speaking world? Should we aim for stronger economic governance and more transfer of subsidies to protect our extremely important trade in services, most of which takes place outside Europe?

[Mike Gapes]

Mr Caton—

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[Mr Cash]

Indeed. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend, who, as a member of the European Scrutiny Committee, played an important role in the preparation of its report. As I am sure he will speak in the debate, and given his expertise as a member of the Select Committee on Home Affairs, I shall restrict my own remarks, and leave it to him to deal with these questions in his own time and his own way.

I simply make the point that these are well-founded concerns, and I can think of no reason on earth why the Minister would not want to accept these amendments. Perhaps he will, but while the Government have had regard to what the European Scrutiny Committee has said in a report that has been universally welcomed—by both Front-Bench teams and by all those with the competence to understand these matters—they have tended to ignore that almost entirely in considering our recommendations. I shall return to that issue later, but not today.

I turn to the reasons that we gave in the European Scrutiny Committee report regarding questions of criminal law:

“To be consistent with the extension of shared competence under clause 4”—

we debated that yesterday—

“the application of both of these provisions”—

the two provisions and the amendments relating to criminal procedure and serious crime—

“should be premised on a referendum and Act of Parliament, as in clause 6; not an affirmative vote before the Government’s opt-in decision and an Act of Parliament before it agrees to the adoption of the legislation.”

The fact that the report states that ought to be put on the record. Our view is that family law

“is…of similar if not greater importance to social or environmental policy and ought to come within clause 6, triggering a referendum as well as an Act.”

We can see no reason for not doing all those things.

On opt-in decisions, I defer entirely to my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere. Our conclusion is that it

“would seem to us consistent with the aim of Part 1…for all opt-in decisions to be subject to formal Parliamentary approval.”

My hon. Friend the Member for Witham referred to fishing, and there she was in sensitive and deep waters. She explained very well the six-mile limit, the fisheries limit of up to 12 miles, the 2002 regulation and the associated issues, but that does not alter the fact that this is a serious problem for the fishermen of the United Kingdom. In considering the idea that there should be any restriction of our sovereignty and territorial limits in these matters, we should remember that the entire fisheries policy, which we shall not debate in detail today, I can assure you, Mr Caton, is a complete travesty. There is no question about it: it constitutes the most monumental waste of good fish, which are thrown away and literally left to rot. It is pathetic, and I need say no more than that. That we should regain a degree of sovereignty and territorial competence in relation to fishing is to my mind a given.

[Mr Redwood]

My hon. Friend has made a very powerful comment. Many of us have felt for many years that the fisheries policy was a scandal. Successive Governments have said that they would do something about it; none have yet succeeded. Does this not show why we are also worried about the surrender of criminal justice powers? We are surrendering them to the very people who have made such a mess of our fisheries.

[Mr Cash]

Absolutely, and the same problem permeates so much of what goes on in the European Union. I am anxious not to get into discussing the merits of the European Union as a whole, and I shall certainly ensure that I keep to the amendments; but I entirely agree with my right hon. Friend. I will come on in a moment to the financial stability mechanism, and try to demonstrate exactly how wrong I think the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) is about the broad questions attached to it. I shall also deal with the mistaken remarks of the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) regarding the necessity for my amendments.

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[Mr Cash]

Absolutely, and I shall elaborate on that very quickly. Article 122 concerns matters of emergency and natural disasters, and its use for the purposes of financial stability is clearly—as the European Scrutiny Committee has said—not based on a sound legal footing. That is the issue. I had made that point, but I am happy to repeat it. However, it goes further: because of the failure of the legal base, the whole deal is vitiated. That is the problem. The deal was done in an interregnum and by consensus between the two Chancellors, but it ends up being vitiated as a matter of law. That is very serious given that the whole deal is for €60 billion—£52 billion—but according to the right hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling), the United Kingdom is exposed to a risk of £8 billion.

[Mr Redwood]

Although we must ask the former Chancellor and the Chancellor to speak for themselves, as I understand it the former Chancellor quite properly consulted the then shadow Chancellor, who said, “You are the Chancellor”—he could not be sure at that point that he was about to become the Chancellor, because there was no coalition agreement—“and it is for you to make the decision.” It is also fair to say that I do not think that the present Chancellor objected to the proposal or sought to block it. I think he felt that it was not his decision to make. It was not a co-decision; it was a decision by the former Chancellor, which the present Chancellor knew about.

[Mr Cash]

It was indeed. Furthermore, this is not just a bit of esoteric dancing on the head of a pin. The Select Committee on Political and Constitutional Reform has examined the matter and I happened to be watching its proceedings when there was a discussion involving Professor Hennessey and two other eminent professors, Professor Hazell and Professor McLean. My hon. Friend the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner) asked a perceptive question about the status of the arrangement in the context of the Cabinet manual, which, as we know, is now out in the open and being discussed by that Committee in relation to caretaker Governments. The conclusion was that it was within the province of the incoming Chancellor to enter into such a bilateral arrangement in that context, in which he made his decision based on the information he was given by the outgoing Chancellor. My right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) is right. The problem is that, if that was unlawful, there was no basis on which either of them should have come to that conclusion.

[Mr Redwood]

As I understand it, the current Chancellor refused to make a decision. It was not a co-decision. He did not object or support it, but said that it was for the outgoing Chancellor to make the decision. Of course, in practice, if he had not agreed he would have unscrambled it when he got into office, because he had the majority and the outgoing Chancellor did not.

[Mr Cash]

I am very happy for that matter to be looked into further. My right hon. Friend might well be right, but I have an article that quotes the outgoing Chancellor of the Exchequer on the BBC’s “Today” programme, saying:

“Overall it is a very good deal for all of us in Europe but also for the wider world. It is”—

something for us “together”. He also said:

“Our exposure for the additional amount of money could be £8 billion”.

The article also states that he

“confirmed he had spoken to Shadow Chancellor George Osborne and Lib Dem Treasury spokesman Vince Cable about…responsibility for it”

and goes on to state:

“All three had agreed ‘there was no way Britain was going to underwrite the euro’.”

When he was pressed, he said:

“I am not going to disclose the conversations we had, because we had them on the basis that they were private and confidential.”

The article goes on:

“A statement issued after the talks confirmed that the new fund placed the potential risk squarely with the eurozone.”

That worries me. I do not know where that came from, because it most emphatically is not the case, as we are not part of the eurozone.

I hope that the Select Committee on the Treasury will look to considering all that. We are talking about substantial sums of money, about an interregnum period and about a rather unusual situation. We might be talking about errors of judgment involving considerable exposure for the taxpayer. For all those reasons, it is very important that we get to the bottom of this. We do not need to turn it into a witch hunt—I do not believe in those sort of things—but as regards scrutiny and accountability, this is an important matter that needs to be resolved properly and efficiently.

Proper answers need to be given, the Treasury needs to put forward the arguments that it presented and it should disclose the papers. We know perfectly well that, in the kerfuffle of 9 May and the days leading up to it, the then Chancellor might understandably have had a lot on his mind. In the circumstances, all sorts of things could have gone wrong. That is the moment, as I see it, when important strategic decisions involving enormous amounts of money and affecting the taxpayer on what I would term an unlawful basis—a basis that certainly is not legally sound—need to be considered very carefully.

It might not surprise some hon. Members that I tabled amendment 8. In all such circumstances, other than the situation vis-à-vis the Republic of Ireland, attention should be drawn to these matters, but under no circumstances whatsoever should we give money to Portugal or Spain when there is a facility, agreed at around the same time, for €400 billion to be available for the eurozone. Now a new arrangement has emerged which will be made available permanently after March 2013. If Portugal and Spain are going to go under, however, they will definitely go under before March 2013.

[Mr Redwood]

On the important point raised by the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell), is it not the case—my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash) would know—that the German Government are so worried about the legality of what was done under article 122 that they think we need a new treaty to cover that point?

[Mr Cash]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I have here an incredibly interesting article from this week’s edition of Newsweek. It is headlined, “To Rule the Euro Zone”. Hon. Members will know that I have tried to take a mild interest in European matters since I came to the House—I notice that one or two people are quite surprised—and I do so for good reasons. Indeed, in the first book I wrote on the subject, “Against a Federal Europe”, I drew attention to what I then perceived to be a significant danger that Germany would take a disproportionate and predominant role in European affairs, for which I received a great deal of censorship and some abuse. It was suggested that I was talking about the Germans in rather disrespectful terms, which was quite untrue. However, the sub-heading to an extremely interesting article by Stefan Theil, dated 23 January 2011, reads:

“The unified currency was supposed to limit German power. Now the Germans are in charge—and no one is happy, not even the Germans.”

The article merits careful reading.