European Union Bill

Louise Mensch Excerpts

Tuesday 8th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Ms Louise Bagshawe (Corby) (Con)]

I admit that, for the first time, I find myself mystified by my hon. Friend’s arguments. Surely, the point about the Lisbon treaty was that it altered the relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union in a most disadvantageous way for the United Kingdom. In the situation that he describes, where the Eurocrat nations are heading off at jet speed to unite themselves, I am quite content to be in the rowing boat, and I would prefer it if the rowing boat were being paddled very fast in the other direction. I cannot understand why we would need a referendum in those circumstances.

European Union Bill

Louise Mensch Excerpts

Tuesday 1st February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hollobone]

I cannot think of a single reason—a straight answer to a straight question—and my Kettering constituents would greatly welcome the repatriation of powers that we have given away all too freely. Another example is the disgraceful common fisheries policy. I notice that a Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Minister is now on the Treasury Bench; he is doing his best in Brussels to try to end the scandal of fish discards, but it is like pushing water uphill. We are not going to get anywhere with Brussels because it will not see sense on these issues. If I were to ask my Kettering constituents whether we should repatriate our powers over Britain’s fishing waters, there would be an overwhelming vote to do just that. We have given all these things away.

[Ms Louise Bagshawe (Corby) (Con)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend and parliamentary neighbour for giving way. On that very point of the repatriation of powers, is he not concerned that new clause 11 presents a fourth choice to the British public? It offers a straight in/out choice. It does not lay in front of the British public what many of us would like to see, which is perhaps the most significant element that the Conservative party lost in the coalition agreement—a vote on the repatriation of powers. Many of us do not want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, but would like to see some of those powers repatriated to our country.

[Mr Hollobone]

That would be very nice, but I do not see the coalition Government repatriating any powers. For many people, it has now come to the issue of whether we are in or out. I do not believe that we can be “In Europe, but not run by Europe”. That slogan is, I am afraid, no longer valid.

I know that many Conservative Members believe that we can reform Europe to make it better, but some of us have reached the point where we simply do not believe that that is achievable. I do not want to spend the rest of my life arguing that we can improve Europe for the better. I believe that Britain’s best chance is to be an independent, sovereign, self-governing nation, with an enterprise economy looking out into the world, free from the restrictions that the European Union imposes upon us.

If Britain left the European Union, that would not mean the end of the European Union. It would still exist, but we would be freed from its shackles. We would be able to look out on the wider world, regain our economic self-confidence, and start to trade properly with superpowers such as China, India, and all the other countries with which we used to have such a wonderful relationship. Membership of the European Union is increasingly holding us back from both our past and our future as an entrepreneurial nation.

Our best hope of securing a decision in this Parliament lies in new clause 11. The new clause tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough may well present us with the only opportunity that we will have in the five years of this coalition Government to decide whether we are to have an in/out referendum. I know that the new clause does not provide a perfect solution, but part of the genius of my hon. Friend is that he has got this far.

European Union Bill

Louise Mensch Excerpts

Tuesday 11th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jenkin]

What has changed is the nature of the legal order in the EU and the UK’s relationship with that legal order. If it had been explained to Parliament in 1971, when the European Communities Bill was progressing through the House, that in future a UK court would be able to strike down an Act of Parliament in the name of the European Union, there would never have been any possibility that we would have joined. The development of the European legal order, with the huge number and range of powers that have been passed over from the UK to the EU, means that I fail to see what competences the EU does not now possess that it could ever possibly need in order to become a fully fledged state. If the hon. Gentleman does not recognise that the situation is fluid, I think he is living on another planet. He had better listen to the rest of my speech.

We know where sovereignty lies in the British constitution—here in Parliament. Under a written constitution, it does not necessarily lie with the people, although the authority to exercise it might lie with the people. I would argue that the authority of Parliament’s sovereignty also rests with the people. Under the American constitution, sovereignty is dispersed among various institutions but ultimately rests with the judges. If we moved towards a written constitution, we would overturn the democratic constitutional settlement that we have enjoyed in this country and that has given us such flexibility and agility for 300 years. We would lock ourselves into a judicial system, which was fundamentally undemocratic because it would be ruled by judges, not the British people.

[Ms Louise Bagshawe (Corby) (Con)]

Having lived in the United States, I absolutely share my hon. Friend’s concern about judges’ encroachment on parliamentary sovereignty. However, in the context of the Bill, is not he in danger of making the perfect the enemy of the good? Is not clause 18 a great first step towards limiting the abrogation of the sovereignty of this Parliament by the EU? By outlining a perfect situation, is not my hon. Friend in danger of making the enemy clause 18, which is surely a step in the right direction?

[Mr Jenkin]

I fully accept that my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench have attempted to take a step in the right direction. However, by the advice that they have accepted and their framing of the clause, they have not achieved the objective or made any progress, and they may have set us back. To put it bluntly, if clause 18 is all that Parliament has to say about its sovereignty, that is an invitation for the judges to come for us, as I shall explain.

European Union Bill

Louise Mensch Excerpts

Tuesday 7th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)]

The significance of the Bill cannot be ignored. I say that following the disgraceful way in which the previous Government and Members on the now-empty Opposition Benches denied the British public a referendum on the Lisbon treaty. I desperately hope that this Bill will reassure my constituents and the rest of the British public that that will never happen again. I congratulate the Foreign Secretary on bringing forward the Bill in the Government’s first year in office. It has been a long time coming, and it is a positive step in the right direction. However, a number areas in the Bill need to be strengthened to defend the interests of the British and truly guarantee the sovereignty of this nation. We have already heard some of the arguments on that this afternoon.

The Bill needs more clarity over exactly what transfer of powers would trigger a referendum. It needs to go further in guaranteeing our red lines and in demonstrating a full commitment to repatriating powers from Brussels. It also needs to enhance the transparency and accountability of anything that involves the EU. As it stands, there is considerable uncertainty about how the Bill will function in practice.

I would like greater clarity in the exemptions referred to in clause 2 and the significant condition mentioned in clause 3. Clearly those provisions offer a Minister what I call a get-out-of-referendum-free card. I do not believe that any Conservative Minister in the current Government would seek to pull the wool over the eyes of this Parliament and the British public by abusing that clause. However, let us not forget that it was not so long ago that this country had a pro-European Government who were blinded so much by the taxpayer-funded propaganda of the European project that they neglected the British interest.

Under the previous Government, the rebate was sacrificed and power was scandalously surrendered under the Lisbon treaty. Even with the referendum lock outlined in the Bill, it remains possible for a future Government to hand more powers over to Brussels through the back door. Clause 3 states that an Act could be passed by Parliament—thereby bypassing the need for a referendum —by stating that the transfer of powers was “not significant” in its impact on the United Kingdom. That is a highly subjective test that would be based on the recommendation of Ministers.

Some of the EU’s areas of exclusive competence and shared competence are so worryingly generic that it would be a legal minefield to assess which policies may require a referendum. We have already seen the controversy over the European investigation order. On justice and home affairs, we may be guaranteed a referendum on the establishment of the European public prosecutor, but there is no such commitment given on the actions that Eurojust could take.

What would happen if a future Government decided to give up the 12 and 6-mile fishery limits? Under the Lisbon treaty, the EU already has competence for fisheries and marine biological resources. If proposals come forward from the Commission to remove or amend the controls that Britain can currently exercise within those limits, that could be done without the British public having a vote. Our fishing communities would be left devastated if the regulation was revised to remove the limits. However, there is no guarantee that the limits would be protected by the referendum lock.

It is also possible that, over the course of a Parliament, a Government could transfer a number of powers that individually may not be perceived as being significant enough to warrant a referendum but that, taken as a whole, could be highly significant over a period of time.

[Ms Louise Bagshawe (Corby) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech and is raising a number of excellent points. I particularly agree with her on the issue of salami-slicing, which was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris). Does she agree that it is absolutely necessary for the language to be tightened up in Committee, given that the previous Labour Government were able to come to this House and state that the Lisbon treaty was not the same as the European constitution? How much easier would it have been for them to state that something was not significant when it was significant?

[Priti Patel]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. I absolutely agree. We cannot have any grey areas—areas where subjectivity can come back into the decision-making process whatever.

We should remember that it is not just a referendum or adverse, ignorant and reckless government that could further threaten the sovereignty and primacy of our Parliament. Despite the principles behind the Bill, the authority of this Parliament can still be undermined by the bureaucrats and the judges in Brussels. As we have already heard, clause 13 may well confirm that the presence of EU law in this country is dependent upon an Act of Parliament. However, as we know from case law, the text of the Lisbon treaty and on the basis of treaties, EU law holds primacy over that of the laws of member states. In other words, where there is a conflict, EU law will always prevail.

That leads me to question what would happen if the EU decided to challenge the legitimacy of this country holding a referendum on an issue, or if the Commission disagreed with the view of the UK on the extent to which an EU decision affected this country. The judges in Brussels could look at the treaties and pass a judgment that denied the British people a referendum. That would be thoroughly undemocratic. We should guarantee the supremacy of this Parliament when it comes to making laws in this country.

This Bill is a welcome step, but it could have gone much further and contained stronger measures to bring democratic control back to Britain and to safeguard against what I would call competence creep. Many Members of this House know that Europe has already gone much too far in taking powers away from Britain without the consent of the British public, and we are now at a point in our history where the overwhelming consensus among the population is that we need less EU and more Britain. Under this legislation, I would like Ministers to go further to address the situation and come forward with a list of EU laws that should be revoked or disapplied to the UK to defend our national interests and our sovereignty. I do not believe that it is beyond the ability of the parliamentary draftsman to improve the Bill and empower Ministers in this Government to go to Brussels with a mandate to repatriate powers from the EU and return them to their rightful place in this country and to this sovereign House.

The sentiment behind the Bill is right, but it needs to be improved truly to reflect the sovereignty and primacy of this Parliament and the independence of our country, and, importantly, to put Britain’s interests first.