European Union (Approvals) Bill [Lords]

Kelvin Hopkins Excerpts

Monday 4th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I think that all scepticism should be based on reality. We should talk about things with decent facts in front of us. This is a very good forum in which to discuss the facts, so let us do that.

The Bill has been produced as a result of the requirement of the excellent European Union Act 2011 to approve the three EU decisions that have already been mentioned. Under the Act, before a United Kingdom Minister can give final agreement in the Council of the European Union or the European Council to decisions proposed on the basis of the EU treaties being used in these cases, the proposed decisions must be approved by an Act of Parliament. That is what we are doing today. Although certain proposals based on the EU flexibility clause are exempt from the requirement for an approving Act of Parliament, those exemptions do not apply in these cases. I will happily go into the details if Members want to know what they are. The hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Nick Smith) is obviously keen to discuss them; perhaps we will do so afterwards, over a beer.

Under the EU treaties, EU decisions of this kind require unanimity in the Council or the European Council, which means that without the UK’s support they cannot be adopted, at least to cover all member states.

Members have already listed what the proposals would achieve. There is an EU regulation enabling the electronic rather than the printed version of the Official Journal to take EU legal effect. There is an EU decision that would set out the broad areas of work of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights between 2013 and 2017. There is also an EU decision on the number of European commissioners.

Although the first two proposals may not seem to be hugely important, they are based on the flexibility clause, which gives the EU sweeping powers to adopt laws when the treaties have not otherwise given it the power to legislate. It has been used to adopt significant EU measures in the past, such as the creation of the EU bail-out fund for non-eurozone member states. It was therefore thought to warrant parliamentary control, and that thoroughly good idea was introduced by the European Union Act.

The two proposals dealt with by clause 1 are being introduced under the flexibility clause: they are article 352 decisions—flexibility decisions. As I said, the flexibility clause has been used to co-ordinate national social security systems for the benefit of all member states’ nationals when moving within the EU; to provide for measures against the counterfeiting of euro coins that apply to member states outside the euro; and for the bail-out fund. We are talking about significant measures.

The Bill deals with the EU Official Journal, which is not exactly the most exciting document in the world but, as the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David) said, it contains striking elements of importance to the functioning of the single market, and to EU business and UK business in general. I have a small problem with it, because everything has to be translated into each of the official languages of the European Union. This is not a debate for now, but that approach means that everything that is said in the Official Journal has to be translated into, for example, Gaelic, and that is perhaps not the best use of money.

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

I was recently at a European Union conference where the Irish did speak in Gaelic, and I applaud them for doing so. The great linguistic creations of humankind should be preserved, and I am glad that the Irish are speaking in their own language and insisting that it be translated.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I completely understand the cultural point that the hon. Gentleman makes, but the European Central Bank uses only a couple of languages and many international institutions manage to cut down the number of languages they use, and they do so purely to keep costs down. The European Commission, the European Parliament and other European institutions do not do that and perhaps they should examine their approach. I merely wanted to make that point in relation to how difficult it is to produce the Official Journal for the very next day in written and electronic form. The Government have given political—not legally binding—agreement to the proposed regulation, with the Council supposedly ready to adopt it and the European Parliament having given its consent.

The Bill also deals with the proposed EU decision establishing a multi-annual work programme to cover 2013 to 2017 for the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights. Again, one can give a parting shot, at least, about the growth in the number of these EU agencies; there is a huge number now and, as with commissioners, one at least has to go to each member state. In 2007, the EU adopted a regulation, based on the flexibility clause, establishing the agency, which is based in Vienna. Its objective has been outlined by the hon. Gentleman, but according to article 2 of its founding regulations it is to provide “assistance and expertise” to support member states in fully respecting fundamental rights. Under article 4 of its founding regulations, the agency’s activities include: gathering, analysing and disseminating information; publishing reports; and developing “a communication strategy” and a

“dialogue with civil society, in order to raise public awareness of fundamental rights”.

In 2013, the agency will receive a subsidy of €21.3 million from the EU budget, about half of which will be spent on staffing. According to article 5 of the agency’s founding regulation, the Council needs to adopt five-year multi-annual frameworks that set out

“thematic areas of the Agency’s activity, which must include the fight against racism, xenophobia and related intolerance”.

In addition to the multi-annual framework, the agency can respond to requests from the Council, the European Parliament or European Commission for it to conduct studies or produce conclusions on particular topics.

The draft Council decision before Parliament is the proposed multi-annual framework for the four years between 2013 and 2017, proposed by the European Commission on the basis of the flexibility clause. Under that decision, the thematic areas of the agency’s work in that time period will be: access to justice; victims of crime, including compensation for victims of crime; the information society, particularly respect for private life and the protection of personal data; Roma integration; judicial co-operation, except in criminal matters; the rights of the child; discrimination based on sex, race, colour, ethnic or social origin, genetic features, language, religion or belief, political or other opinion, membership of a national minority, property, birth, disability, age or sexual orientation; immigration and the integration of migrants, visa and border control and asylum; and racism, xenophobia and related intolerance. The Government have given political but not legally binding agreement to the proposed decision. The Council is apparently ready to adopt the proposal and the European Parliament has already given its consent.

That leaves us with the final measure, which is probably more controversial than was originally said: the retention of one European commissioner per member state under clause 2. The European commission consists of one national of each member state, so there are 27 commissioners and there will soon be 28 when Croatia comes in. Following great debate in the European Parliament and many other EU institutions and in the Parliaments of many member states, the treaty of Lisbon introduced the ratio of two thirds commissioners to member states. The logic was quite sensible: it was an attempt to stop bureaucracy growing out of control and to maintain some easier management of the bureaucracy from the top. The member states whose nationals would be commissioners would be decided

“on the basis of a system of strictly equal rotation between the Member States, reflecting the demographic and geographical range of all the Member States”.

The system would be agreed by unanimous decision at the European Council and each commissioner’s term would be five years.

Article 17(5) of the treaty on European Union states that the European Council, acting unanimously, can vary the size of the Commission from November 2014. As the Government’s explanatory notes to the Bill state in paragraph 12:

“when the Irish people voted ‘no’ in a referendum on Lisbon Treaty ratification in June 2008 the loss of a guaranteed”

Irish commissioner in every Commission

“emerged as a key concern. Without Irish ratification the Treaty could not enter into force, and as a result EU Heads of State and Government offered concessions to Ireland”.

One of the main concessions, offered in December 2008 and reiterated in June 2009, provided that when

“the Lisbon Treaty entered into force, a decision would be taken…to the effect that the Commission shall continue to include one national of each Member State”.

Those concessions seemed enough for the Irish people, who voted in the second referendum in October 2009 and approved that treaty.

The draft European Council decision based on article 17(5) has now been introduced and provides that from November 2014 onwards that the number of commissioners will continue to equal the number of member states. The draft decision states that it will be reviewed in advance of the appointment of the Commission due to take office in 2019, but for the decision to be altered there will need to be unanimity in the European Council, meaning that any member state can veto such a change. Having a European commissioner is a big deal for many, if not all, of the countries of the European Union, so it is highly unlikely that the change will ever be made. We will therefore continue to build on the number of European Commissioners.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

First, I apologise for not being here for the Front-Bench speeches. I was detained elsewhere, and I assure fellow Members that I shall not speak for long.

However, I have been provoked into speaking by the hon. Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris), with whom I frequently agree on European matters, but on this one I disagree. It is very important indeed to retain one member of the Commission for every member state, and I see a parallel in the American Senate, where states, however large or small, have two senators. If New York, California and Texas began to get together to say, “Well, Delaware and Rhode Island will no longer have senators,” there would be all sorts of problems. I am sure that there are other ways of overcoming the problems of inefficiency—perhaps with departmental arrangements for more than one commissioner in Departments that are particularly big, as we do in our own Government: we have more than one Minister per Department.

Proportionality exists with qualified majority voting, and on many voting issues, different countries have different weights. It is important that, at the highest level, every individual country has their say, just as in the American constitution, every state, however small, has a say at the top table. It is important, too, to have the occasional bit of grit in the oyster. Small states, as well as large states, can occasionally become disagreeable, and I think that being disagreeable is part of the essence of democracy. Having a machine dominated by bureaucracy and officials who just go along with it is not healthy for democracy. I have many criticisms of the European Union, and I have been very critical of the secrecy with which the Commission operates. I hope we will always preserve a single member per state as the method of composition of the Commission, even if we make some different arrangements for how it works.

Another factor in all this is who the commissioners are. I like to think that from time to time we as the British people might appoint a commissioner whose first loyalty is to the interests of British people, and who reflects their views as well as their interests. Their views may sometimes be awkward and may certainly be grit in the European oyster. That would be right.

Once the commissioners are appointed, which portfolio is allocated to which member state? I have been told by certain MEPs that from time to time conclaves of Commission officials get together to allocate dodgy portfolios, in particular the portfolio of Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, to weaker members. I know that there is always the worry that a commissioner might turn out to be a bit of a trade unionist, a bit of a leftist. That would be very dangerous. We must have someone who knows that the market and employers come first. Above all, we must make sure that profits come first, not the interests of working people.

Who is appointed as a commissioner for each member state and which portfolio they are given are very important matters. I hope we will see to it that at least Britain has commissioners for the foreseeable future—for as long as we are in the European Union—who truly represent the views of the British people, and not just the interests of the British people as they see them. I hope also that we get appropriate portfolios, and that the small countries that might be squeezed out also have their say.

--- Later in debate ---

[Martin Horwood]

It is above my pay grade to judge, but I am sure that is not true.

The substance of the Bill relates to three measures, two of which are completely uncontentious—the e-publication of the Journal and the business plan, effectively, of the Fundamental Rights Agency. Other hon. Members are right that the third measure is worth more substantial debate, as it adjusts a mechanism that was supposed to limit the size and endless growth of the Commission. There are a number of issues that that growth has raised. It was not simply the practicality of having an ever-increasing number of commissioners. Without being unkind to some of the smaller member states, we know that there is a bit of a capacity issue in terms of their ability to produce candidates of sufficient calibre for a portfolio that affects the entire continent. Moreover, in terms of public perception, it slightly muddies the whole idea of the Commission. The Commission should be, in essence, the equivalent of our civil service. It should be the servant of the Council of Ministers, the various European ministerial councils and the European Parliament, and not pretend to be a representative body.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I agree with that sentiment, but the reality is that the Commission and its officials act like a Government rather than a civil service. Only this week, I was told by someone who knows about these matters that when Commission officials decide on something it generally happens.

[Martin Horwood]

I do not often agree with the hon. Gentleman on matters European, but I do agree that there is a slight risk of that happening, as we have all been aware over many decades. We have to be careful about the level of democratic accountability in the European Union. I would always support increasing democratic reform and democratic accountability in the EU where we can do so.

There is the potential for endless growth in the number of commissioners, or at least for the number to be limited only by the number of European states that might join the EU. It was clear from the Irish referendum debate that, as any fan of the TV series “Borgen” will know, for smaller countries the appointment of a European commissioner is a major political issue to which people attach a great deal of importance, and we have to respect that. We are a community of many nations with many different priorities, and it is important that we acknowledge that. To that extent, I support the Government in backing this measure.

The hon. Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris) made a brave effort to make this debate sound like a very contentious one that demands this level of scrutiny. In the spirit of coalition unity, I recognise that the European Union Act 2011 has brought a greater level of accountability and scrutiny to European legislation in this place, and that process could go further. At the beginning of last year, Ministers announced that there would be a review of the way in which scrutiny of European legislation took place. Submissions were invited, and I found myself in rare agreement with the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash) in suggesting that Select Committees should automatically and routinely vet European legislation that was relevant to their briefs. Will Ministers update us on the progress of that process and say how far down the path we are towards introducing such routine and automatic scrutiny by Select Committees?

--- Later in debate ---

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I am bombarded with messages from across the country, and probably internationally, from people who want to know that the laws that affect them are made clearly so that they know what they are and are not caught out by trickery and underhand practices. That is a fundamental principle of why they send me here. I would argue that everybody who voted at the last election wants to sleep securely in their beds knowing that the law is fairly and properly made.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I often agree with the hon. Gentleman, but on this point I agree very strongly. I am perhaps alone in insisting on having hard copy in my Select Committee meetings rather than an iPad. I can operate an iPad but I want hard copy, and I still have it. Much as we know that we are in an electronic age, paper still has its place.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

The hon. Gentleman, as so often, is wise and right in this instance.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

There are two parts to my hon. Friend’s point. On the first part, I disagree with him. The form in which instructions are sent out is important, and it is right that people should know about it. It is a long-standing principle of our law that ignorance of the law is no excuse. If that is fair, it is also fair that knowledge of the law should be made available to people in a timely and efficient way, because it is something that might affect their lives, and that when a change to the method of notification takes place, that should be debated in this Chamber and passed into law. On the second part, I completely agree that the number of commissioners is significant.

The second point that I raised with my right hon. Friend the Minister is crucially important. It relates to the change from article 308 of the previous treaty to article 352 of the treaty on the functioning of the European Union. Article 352 is broader in scope. Had it been assumed that anything previously incorporated under article 308 could be transmuted under article 352, that could have allowed all sorts of laws—my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris) went through a number of them—to pass into the body of European Union powers without any further scrutiny by this House. As is often the case, something that is in itself minor has set an important precedent in protecting the rights of this House to scrutinise these matters and to ensure that the interests of our constituents are protected.

I wish briefly to discuss the number of commissioners. I do not have the confidence that some hon. Members have in our commissioners, and I do not feel happy that we have one representing us. Commissioners take an oath that they will act in the best interests of the European Union. Some have argued that that is directly contrary to the oath that they have taken as Privy Counsellors, and we should be concerned about that. They are there, by design, to represent the interests of Europe, not of the United Kingdom. Perhaps because of our history and our civic traditions, our commissioners tend to take that very seriously, whereas commissioners from some other countries may simply represent the nation state that has sent them. I do not have great confidence that the person representing the United Kingdom is waving the Union Jack; they could just as well be waving that awful European Union flag.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way yet again. I am one of those who have been concerned for many years about our commissioners, not just because they do not represent my view, but because I do not think they represent the collective view of our people, if there is such a thing. One possibility might be for them to be elected. We have started to elect police commissioners, but European commissioners are much more important.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

That is a brilliant idea. If they were elected, there would be less chance of their going native, because they might be able to stand for election again. At present, there is a fear that, when people go off to Europe, the moment they arrive they send out for Belgian dress so that they can appear to fit in with the ethos of the European Union.

I want to address the question of Ireland and the specifics of what it was given to persuade it—bully it, perhaps—to ratify the Lisbon treaty. That shows—I think that this strengthens the Prime Minister’s renegotiation position—that countries can renegotiate with the EU for things that they feel they need when discussions are being held in the European Councils. That is an important point. We have often heard people say, “The Prime Minister can go off to Europe, but they will not give him anything. It’s too bad: you’ve just got to like it or lump it.” Actually, the European Union, for all its many faults, is a fundamentally pragmatic body in how it gets agreement among member states. It does a lot of horse trading, one way or another, to get agreements. I do not know whether the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) wants to intervene, but she seems to be nodding vaguely in response to that particular point.

The situation means that, if we go to the EU and say, “If you want X, you must give us Y,” or, “If you want X, you must give us A to Z in return,” that is a strong position for us to be in when the requirement is for unanimity. What Ireland has done, and what we are bringing into law, is very important and very encouraging for the United Kingdom and for the position of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister in his negotiations.

Finally, I praise the Government for the Bill, which has been proposed as a consequence of the 2011 Act. When the Act was going through Parliament, it was not universally welcomed, certainly not by those on the Opposition Benches, but even Eurosceptics on my side were sceptical about the effect that it would have. I was extremely pleased to hear the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David) welcome the Bill and I am pleased that the Government have changed their view so that the multi-annual financial framework has to go through British law. That shows that the 2011 Act is working and acting as a proper check on what goes on in the European Union.

Without the Act, none of the three things under discussion today would have required legislation, but, because of it, they all do. As a result, crucial issues, such as the future number of European commissioners and renegotiations such as that which took place with Ireland to get it to support the Lisbon treaty, have come before this Chamber. Although in this instance the Bill has turned out to be uncontroversial, it could have been very controversial. I think that we are now secure, thanks to the Government, in having a better check on the accretion of powers to Europe. I might like to reverse them, but at least we are now checking them.