European Commission: National Parliaments

Debate between Mark Reckless and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Tuesday 10th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[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.

International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill

Debate between Mark Reckless and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Friday 5th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I very much admire and respect the emotion that comes from those who support the Bill, though it is not an emotion that I would express in that way. The problem with the Bill is that it does not reflect that depth of emotion. I listened carefully to what the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) said. The stories that she tells are desperate and tragic and deserve to have help in solving them. All decent people would think that is right. But then it is a question of how that help is to be given, and by what means this country as a whole, both as a Government and as a people, decides to give it, and that is where I find the Bill so inadequate.

I disagree with the hon. Member for Wakefield when she says that the Bill delivers on the commitment given in the party manifestos. Although I happen to think that it was not a wise commitment to give, I think that the Bill singularly fails to do that, because it says it does something but provides no means of ensuring that it is done, and that is not a proper means of legislating. If we had wanted a real Bill, it should have been introduced on a resolution from a Minister, because it would tie down spending, and Back-Bench Members, under the relevant Standing Orders, cannot bring in such Bills. The Bill is therefore unable to make a commitment to spending in any real sense.

What could a Government Bill have done instead? It could have set out where the revenues would come from to fund the promise. It could have hypothecated some element of taxation. It could have set up an independent body to ensure that the revenue was dedicated to the causes that are, in and of themselves, enormously admirable. But the Government chose not to do that. Instead, they chose to support a Back-Bench measure that will have absolutely no effect beyond a declaratory one.

What is the benefit of a declaratory Bill? We heard an hon. Gentleman say that it might lead others in the same direction—a good example Bill—but I do not accept that or think that it is right. We do not change the laws of other countries by what we say we are going to do. We might do it by what we actually do, but a mere declaration of good intention does not, in fact, lead to the good intention being carried out. Indeed, were that the case, the Bill would never have been brought forward, because the original declaration—on the commitment to 0.7% of GDP—was made in 1975, and it was made by a large number of countries that all missed it for many years. The idea that fine-sounding declarations lead to behavioural change is, I think, demonstrably false.

We then come to the details of what the Bill actually says. It would reinforce the duty to reach the 0.7% target from 2015, but, as has been pointed out, it would not come into effect until half way through 2015 so there is an internal contradiction as to its efficacy. It merely makes a statement that that has to be done, and done under a certain framework.

Beyond the declaratory effect, I do not think that that is the right way to legislate. All Governments at all times have a duty to consider their budgetary expenses in the round. There may be occasions when the most pressing expenditure is for a budget different from overseas aid—perhaps the health service in a particularly difficult winter, or the defence budget if the tensions caused by Russia become more extreme. To declare that one area of spending will be protected when no others will is not a sensible way to proceed when constructing the public finances. That has become clear with the issue of hypothecation of tax revenues, which has almost invariably led to an excessive amount of revenue in one area when other areas are in need. The most obvious example is the old road fund licence, where we simply ended up with too much money for roads and the fund was raided.

That is always the case with hypothecation of taxation, and it is why the Treasury has always set its face against hypothecating taxes, but the same applies to the reverse principle—the hypothecation of expenditure. There may be years when that is not affordable. There may be years when we need to spend more, perhaps because there is an emergency. That is the type of aid I am most in favour of: the emergency aid that only Governments can deliver. I believe that other forms of aid are fundamentally a matter of private charity, which Governments support through gift aid, allowing charities to claim back the taxation, rather than being something where it is right for Governments to tax modestly well-off people in this country in order to be charitable.

I have a slight suspicion—this does not apply to current Ministers and certainly did not apply to my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), who was a most distinguished Secretary of State—that it is always possible for Governments to grandstand about their generosity overseas using other people’s money. Therefore, I would not follow the principle even if I thought the Bill was any good, but I do not think it is any good. Its sanctions are useless. It refers to laying a statement before Parliament. Statements are put before Parliament every day. Hansard is full of statements put before Parliament, which are hardly read. I read some of them. Some are very interesting and important, and they are always beautifully written, because Hansard’s command of the English language is so fine that they do not allow sloppy grammar to get through, even from Her Majesty’s Government. A statement from a Minister is not a particularly powerful form of being held to account.

The provisions laid down in the Bill for what the statement will need to say are otiose. No Bill, once it is an Act of Parliament, can be enforced against proceedings in this House. If a Minister entirely fails to take any notice of the requirements of clause 2(3) and puts down a statement saying, as a former Labour Minister memorably said, “There’s no money left”, or something pithy like that, the Bill has no form of recourse against what he has done.

[Mark Reckless]

Does the hon. Gentleman consider that the Bill will be susceptible to enforcement through judicial review? For instance, could a judge determine that a decision on spending for a certain year needed to be taken again because it was not compliant with the law?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

No, it would not be enforceable by judicial review because the sanction provided for is a proceeding in Parliament, and proceedings in Parliament are not judicially reviewable.

[Mark Reckless]

Is not that, of itself, a reason why a judge might determine that because the legislation specifies no remedy that a court can enforce, the general remedy of judicial review would be applicable?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

No. There is a remedy, but it is not enforceable in the courts. It is essentially at the discretion of Ministers because it is a proceeding in Parliament and therefore not challengeable outside.

Parliament is very unwise to bring its proceedings into legislation because it is of such constitutional importance that our proceedings are not judicially reviewable. If we legislate in such a way that we bring our proceedings into the orbit of the courts, we have to be careful about whether a judge may feel that Parliament’s intention was to allow the courts to interfere, overriding the Bill of Rights. I therefore take the greatest exception to clauses 2(3) and (4), which are erroneous in terms of what Parliament ought to be trying to do.

The Government really ought to be held to account for clause 5. They removed from the Bill a detailed, if perhaps rather expensive, way of holding the Government to account and put in something of the most utter wishy-washiness.

I return to the question of whether this Bill increases or decreases trust in politicians. When the House of Commons, and later the House of Lords, legislate to say merely that it is nice to do something, but with no means of enforcing it, and failing to use all the procedures that we have at our command to make sure that it happens, are we assuming that electors do not understand what we are doing and that we can pull the wool over their eyes? Will they not look at what we are doing? This is not a real keeping of the commitment that was made. It is a minimalistic, tokenistic approach to pretending that we have done what we said we would do, because when we looked at what we had proposed in our respective manifestos we realised that it was a silly thing to do because the hypothecation of expenditure is fundamentally unwise in any budgetary system. For that reason, I will oppose Third Reading.

Justice and Home Affairs Opt-out

Debate between Mark Reckless and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Monday 7th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

My right hon. Friend is fully aware that Parliament can overrule any court in this country by an Act of Parliament. That is how our constitution works; it is the absolute essence of our constitution and our democracy. He, of all people, must know that. We have in this House, and together with the House of Lords, the ability to change the law if there has been a judgment that is alien to our understanding of how the law should be enforced. That is simply not the case as regards the European Court of Justice. It is a court that is outside the control not of Parliament but of the people of the United Kingdom, whose rights are being given up. The arrest warrant would be handed over as part of the creation of a state.

Tied in with this is Europol. Europol, in its current form, is limited, but once we have signed up to this measure, its development will be subject to the qualified majority vote. Europol exists to provide support and assistance to member states in the fight against organised crime and drug trafficking. What are we doing in this regard? Are we setting up the very beginnings of a federal bureau of investigation? Are we starting to say that we will have a police force in Europe with a power that goes across national borders? Are we therefore saying that British subjects may be subject to a law that this country has not agreed to—indeed, we may even vote against it—and that has emanated from a judicial system that is not controlled by the democratic will of the British people?

That ties in with Eurojust, which is about creating mutual legal assistance to aid investigations and prosecutions and how judicial action in a cross-border case should take place. What is happening? We are creating an arrest warrant, the beginnings of a European police force and Eurojust, which will allow co-operation in a judicial and prosecutorial capacity. That is not a million miles away from creating a European public prosecutor, which for some reason is singled out as the one thing that is a bridge too far and that we must never have without a referendum, but everything that is being put in place makes that the next logical step. If we do this, it would be no surprise if a future Government said, “We have the arrest warrant, Europol and Eurojust, so surely we don’t need a referendum to have a public prosecutor, because that is the next thing we should do.” This is further evidence of the creation of a European federal state.

The argument in favour of this measure is that it will help ensure that criminals get caught. Everyone is in favour of that: of course we want criminals to be brought to justice. Is there not, however, an ancient view of British justice that it is better for 100 guilty men to go free—I say “men” deliberately, because women very rarely commit crimes that get them sent to prison, much less so than men, and I do not want to upset any hon. Ladies—than for one innocent man to go to prison? That seems to be at the essence of our understanding of justice. This is about risking our belief in justice for the convenience of the Administration.

Is it not that the worst argument of all that their noble lordships have produced a report saying that public officials are too idle to do their jobs properly for us to have a system of bilateral negotiations? I know that our public officials are among the greatest and hardest working people in the land. When one sees them arrayed in front of us, one knows that they would be willing to burn the midnight oil and act in the nation’s interest to ensure that we have those bilateral agreements. Although it has not yet been done, there is nothing in European law to prevent a member state from having an agreement with the body of the European Union. The European Commission does not want that to happen, but that is a very different question from whether or not it is legal. It could easily be done by a relatively simple treaty change, if it is not provided for in the current treaties.

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

If we were to take that path, would the resulting international agreement be judiciable in The Hague rather than in the integrationist Court in Luxembourg?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

In my view, it would be judiciable in our own courts and, like any other international agreement, we would be free to withdraw from it. It would not come under the European Communities Act 1972. I do not wish to cede power to the European Court of Justice, because that would be the means by which we would give up our independence as a nation state. If it is not our judges—who are subject to our democratic control—who make decisions, we will not be able to run our own affairs.

I want to continue with the point I was making about the United Kingdom’s understanding of justice. I think we get too tied up with the convenience of the law enforcement bodies. Of course, the views of the police should be taken very seriously, but they ought not to be writing the law of the land—they should be enforcing it as it is determined by this House and their lordships. One of the measures that the Government wish to opt back into is that of mutual recognition of judgments given in absentia. Page 57 of the European Scrutiny Committee’s report notes the Government’s view that the

“Framework Decision ensures that fewer criminals will be able to evade justice by arguing that their conviction was unfair”,

but what if their conviction was unfair? Surely we should not be depriving our fellow citizens of the right to argue that a conviction in absentia was unfair when it could have been. That must be an essential protection for the state to provide its nationals, and to take it away would be a fundamental error.

What we have and have not opted into is a relatively random collection of parts. I agreed with the shadow Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), in her mocking of some of the measures we are not opting back into. On the opt-ins, including that of taking account of convictions in EU member states in the course of new criminal proceedings, page 53 of the ESC’s report notes:

“The principle of taking into account overseas convictions in the same way as domestic ones exists in UK domestic law”

already, and:

“The mutual recognition principle it sets out is already recognised in statute and common law in the UK. Opting back in to this EU measure would introduce full Court of Justice jurisdiction into this area of UK criminal law, with unpredictable results.”

What is happening here? We are opting into something that already happens and that can continue to happen. All we are changing is that other European countries do not have to take into account our decisions, but they may if they want to—they are not prevented from doing so. Crucially, however, we are bringing the European Court of Justice into it. Therefore, if a judge were to pass sentence on somebody who had committed a crime abroad and the European Court of Justice deemed that it had not properly taken into account the previous conviction, sentencing in the United Kingdom could end up being a matter for the European Court of Justice. Does Her Majesty’s Government realise that, although some of these things appear superficially to be unnecessary and broadly irrelevant, they are agreeing to major transfers of sovereignty to the European Union?

My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said in her introductory speech that several hundred questions have been tabled. I am delighted that my hon. Friend the Minister for Security and Immigration has just come into the Chamber, because he, poor man, had to reply to the many dozens of questions that I tabled. I thank him for the diligence with which he replied to my questions about the measures that the Government decided not to opt back into. Of those 95 measures, 43 were irrelevant, so there was no point asking any questions about them. I asked about the remaining 52, of which 24 turned out to be implemented already without any change; 11 had been de facto implemented with no change; two had been implemented and never used; and two had not been implemented. As the shadow Home Secretary rightly said, most of what we are not opting back into is, effectively, unimportant and irrelevant and cannot honestly be described as a reclaim of British sovereignty, because, as I said in my opening remarks, that sovereignty was never ceded in the first place, because the matters remained entirely under the jurisdiction of the British courts, the British House of Commons and their lordships.

I will quote the details of one of those matters in order to give a flavour of what is going on. Council decision 2005/387/JHA on the information exchange, risk-assessment and control of new psychoactive substances has been implemented to the required standard by the UK and, according to the response I received from my hon. Friend the Minister for Security and Immigration:

“Co-operation and information exchange with other member states and EU bodies will not change as a result of opting out of this measure.”—[Official Report, 17 October 2013; Vol. 568, c. 823W.]

That has been broadly true of the overwhelming majority of the measures we have opted out of.

We therefore have this opt-out—the previous Labour Government, in a desire to get away from a referendum, negotiated it—which fortunately came to the benefit or aid of this coalition Government, who have used it. They looked at it, but they undoubtedly had a political problem. One part of the coalition is made up of Europhiles red in tooth and claw—although my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) does not necessarily look red in tooth and claw, he adopts that position on the European Union—who want an enlarged European organisation. They may quibble with me about whether it is a single state, but they want to see powers with Europe, because they believe that that is an advantage to the nation. They met the Conservative view—it has now been the Conservative view for a long time—that we do not want more powers to be ceded to the European Union. It was negotiated in the coalition agreement that no further powers would be passed to the European Union.

The time came to exercise the opt-out—it had to be exercised before the end of this year, 1 December 2014—and last year it was duly exercised. We are therefore in the happy position, the paradise, of no longer subscribing to any of the measures. That would be a happy place to stay, but the Government, throwing away the coalition agreement and abandoning what unites the Tory party, have decided to give away the things that most certainly create, build up and advance the federal European state that so many of us wish not to see. That contradicts the Prime Minister’s effort of renegotiation, as well as past statements by Conservative Ministers and politicians throughout the Front and Back Benches. It would be a grave error to opt into all 35 measures. It is against the national interest, and to do it for administrative convenience—because we cannot get officials to do the work—is a shameful way to treat our hard-working and admirable officials, who would all be delighted to do the work to preserve the independence of our country.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Reckless]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for drawing that example to the attention of the House. It goes to show that in principle we cannot sign up to the European arrest warrant, because we do not have a sufficient degree of trust in the similarity and protections of all EU 27 judicial and policing systems to allow us to do that. People in our country deserve and have had, over centuries, protections that are greater than those now offered within the European arrest warrant. It is for that reason that I hope and believe it is still possible that we will choose not to opt back into it.

The Home Secretary has given her view, but there are many views in the Conservative party. Those views are held not just on the Back Benches, but, I know, deep in the most senior levels of Government. I ask that we listen to the electorate. Once the electorate, on 22 May, passes its judgment on the “party of in”, and on how weak their arguments are, with the Deputy Prime Minister just recycling arguments he has picked up without giving any liberal thought as to what they are or what the principles should be, we will see that this is not what the people in this country want. Ultimately, we still have the right to make a different decision. What we have seen with the opt-out we have already made is that the opt-ins are still to come. One analogy that Members, at least in my party, may find instructive is with regard to what happened over the AV referendum and the boundary changes. We agreed, in good faith, to give the Liberal Democrats their referendum on AV. In return, they agreed to later give us boundaries that would give fair representation across constituencies. They banked their AV referendum, and then did not give us the boundaries that there was, at the very least, an understanding that they would give.

I would argue that the mass opt-out equates to the AV referendum in that analogy. I do not think that we would have any more reason to agree later to opt in to matters in which we do not believe because of that opt-out than the Liberal Democrats had to give us our boundaries because they secured their AV referendum; and I think that after 22 May, we will be in a different political situation.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

Does my hon. Friend agree that this issue is of such constitutional importance that it might be better to delay it until after a general election? If we did not exercise the opt-ins, and if the Liberal Democrats left the coalition and we had an early election, there would be no great harm in that.

[Mark Reckless]

My hon. Friend has made a very sensible point. I think that, as we get nearer to the election, we need to differentiate between what we believe in as Conservatives and what we have been forced to agree to by the need to be in harness with the Liberal Democrats. Given that they have not fulfilled their promises to us, and as we discover in the course of our negotiations with our European partners that we may not be able to secure protections in every area in which we would like to secure them, we shall have to consider, in those new circumstances, the balance of the opt-ins that are proposed, and decide whether we, as Conservatives, wish to agree to them.

2014 JHA Opt-out Decision

Debate between Mark Reckless and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Monday 15th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mark Reckless]

It seems the Minister is saying that in substance it would be something to trigger a referendum, but there is some technicality that means it will not in this instance.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend because this is a most interesting point. Is it arguable to say that Lisbon is itself a treaty change, and that what is happening is consequent to a treaty change and therefore triggers the referendum mechanism, in spite of what our right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has said? Might that not be worth testing at judicial review?

[Mark Reckless]

My hon. Friend is right to say that these matters could lead to significant delays in the courts, and a test of judicial review. Some of those procedures can go on for some time, and there would be the prospect of a number of appeals. I wonder whether the Government have taken the sequencing of these issues into account in their timing.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

The education at Stonyhurst of my hon. Friend is exquisitely fine. His quotations are better than mine, and I pay tribute to his ability to quote such fine words.

The elastic last Tuesday was firmly broken. Instead of having proper time for parliamentary scrutiny, and instead of having time when the Select Committees could do their work thoroughly and consider this matter of the greatest importance, we were told that what was going to happen was a vote today to agree to the Government’s position, with very little opportunity for any scrutiny at all. It is therefore hugely to be welcomed that the Government decided that that was not the right way to proceed, and that the views of Parliament, representing our constituents, were important in this matter to be able to see what was happening, to deliberate, to report, to take evidence and to decide what, if anything, it might be in the national interest to opt back into. While I am grateful that the opportunity for parliamentary scrutiny has improved, it was really quite extraordinary that last Tuesday we were in such a situation as to have been denied parliamentary scrutiny almost altogether. There is some praise now, but it came from a position of dispraise before.

We have heard the most wonderful, glorious line repeated by a number of speakers that this is a most noble repatriation of powers: that never before in the history of the European Union have powers been repatriated to a nation state and that previously it has been a one-way street. The power has gone out: it has left the United Kingdom and gone to our friends in Brussels, but on this occasion there was a noble fight. Horatius was on the bridge standing there fending off the massed hoards coming from Europe to impose their will on brave little Blighty, and happily 98 powers have been restored to this great country. And the ones that are being given back? Well, they have them anyway, so why are we worrying about that at all? [Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for Stone is saying that I am leading up to a quotation. No, I am not; I am leading up to the detail.

This may be rather boring, and one might think speeches in this House unaccustomed to delving into such matters as detail. I hope that under, I think, Standing Order No. 42, this will be neither repetitious nor tedious—well, it may be tedious, but it will not be repetitious, because nobody else has mentioned the detail—but I should like to go through some of the items that we are opting out off, the repatriation of powers that we are getting.

[Mark Reckless]

My hon. Friend says that he is going to tackle a matter of detail. Before he proceeds on his new list, perhaps I can tell him that the detail we were discussing before related to when a referendum is triggered. The actual text of the European Union Act 2011 is:

“Subject to subsection (4), a treaty or an article 48(6) decision falls within this section”.

There is no comma separating

“a treaty or an article 48(6) decision”.

This can surely be described as a treaty decision, in which case it would be caught.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I am very sympathetic to the view that my hon. Friend is expressing. The view of the Government is otherwise, but when the 2011 Act was being debated it was made clear that these matters can be settled by judicial review. If there is a continuing uncertainty, that is a sensible route to go down once we know what issues will be opted into.

European Union (Approval of Treaty Amendment Decision) Bill [Lords]

Debate between Mark Reckless and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Monday 3rd September 2012 Commons Chamber

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

Today we are agreeing to treaty change, yet we are getting nothing in return. In December, the Prime Minister, at an EU summit, told us that he was vetoing the EU treaty because, while this country supported the eurozone putting in place what it needed to in order to make the eurozone work, to the extent that that is conceivable, this country required something in return for our agreement to that EU treaty change: protection for our key national interest—the City of London. In particular, we wanted all future financial regulation to require unanimity, rather than a majority vote. We have not received that protection for the City of London, yet today we are agreeing to treaty change—without getting what we said we required if we were to support that treaty change.

It is not as if, through that agreement, we got out of using the European financial stabilisation mechanism for Ireland, to which we gave a bilateral loan, and for Portugal, to which we did not, and where the use of the EFSM was simply nodded through. It is the position of many in the House and, as far as I can discern, of Her Majesty’s Government that the use of article 122 and the setting up of the EFSM was not a proper and legal action under the treaties, yet it inflicted on this country a liability of €26.5 billion in respect of Portugal, to be shared through the EU budget, with our share being about 13%. That liability will still, under this arrangement, accrue to this country.

Article 122(2), the “natural disasters” clause, which was used to justify making the EU budget and this country liable for supporting member states that have the euro—a currency that we chose not to join—is still in the treaties. Unlike article 136, it is not amended through use of article 48(6) provisions. It could be used once more. I fear that the chance of it being used in future has been heightened by the way we have dealt with the issue. We agreed to its use at the summit in May 2010. I say “we”, but I cannot go much beyond that, because the Government refuse to release the details of what happened, within the Treasury and beyond, in the period when the coalition Government were being formed and there was a caretaker outgoing Labour Government.

The previous Chancellor has said that he decided that we could not stop use of the provision, and therefore had to agree to it. He states that the current Chancellor raised the radical prospect of us abstaining, but we none the less supported that use, which I believe we hold to be unlawful. My hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice) referred to shoddy negotiation, but who was conducting that negotiation? In this case, as there was a transitional caretaker Government while a coalition Government was being formed, and a lack of clarity among the political participants on who said and did what when, it is perfectly proper that those very senior civil servants who were conducting the negotiations, preparing the Government line, and advising on whether such action was a lawful or proper use of the treaty, should be held to account, ideally through the Government releasing the relevant documents, which will show who was responsible, and whether the action was agreed by us or the previous Chancellor, or whether it was something that largely happened through officials and their interfacing with officials in other EU countries.

The hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) is absolutely correct to draw attention to the worrying trend of officials in this country taking a position that is properly that of politicians, and of being infected by practices in some EU countries and in the EU institutions. We must put a stop to that. If officials trespass beyond the role that they have traditionally had in this country, they should not be surprised if they are criticised in this House and elsewhere in political discourse. If the Government were so strongly against what was agreed and how we became part of the EFSM, why did they promote the official who was at least a key cog in conducting those negotiations, and make him our permanent representative in Brussels, and why does the House not have a say in our foreign policy when it comes to what is perhaps the single most important diplomatic appointment, particularly in terms of the ramifications from the EU for our domestic law? Why was that appointment not put before a Committee of this Parliament for it to decide on?

Not only have we promoted the individual to whom I have referred, but we have not challenged the decision to set up the EFSM under article 122. My fear is that while that treaty article remains in force, it could be used again, and we have gained nothing in return for making this treaty change. We heard from the Prime Minister in December at the summit that we supported the eurozone taking the action that it needed to; in return we were not to have the major, full-scale renegotiation to which my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth referred—we were simply to have one demand met: the City’s financial regulation should henceforth be decided on by unanimity, not majority. We did not get that, yet we have given way in a craven fashion, and are pushing this treaty change through the House.

Let us look at the decision, which is headed “European Council Decision of 25 March 2011 amending Article 136”. Paragraph (4) says:

“At its meeting of 16 and 17 December 2010, the European Council agreed that, as this mechanism is designed to safeguard the financial stability of the euro area as whole, Article 122(2) of the TFEU will no longer be needed for such purposes. The Heads of State or Government therefore agreed that it should not be used for such purposes.”

Surely what the decision says about the EFSM applies equally to the European financial stability facility, which was set up, albeit on a temporary basis, with an ostensible capacity of €440 million. That was designed for the eurozone and fits all the criteria, yet the EFSM was still set up. I am afraid to say that after that date, we saw use of the EFSM nodded through, by Ministers responsible to the House, with regard to Portugal. In the case of Ireland and the €22.5 billion use of the EFSM, we chose to have a bilateral loan; the arguments there may have been somewhat different. In the case of Portugal, we made no bilateral loan. We do not have the same close economic ties as we do with Ireland, yet we allowed the EFSM to be used for €26.5 billion in the case of Portugal.

We put a stop to the use of the EFSM not because of the European Council decision, but because of the actions of this House, following a debate that I secured from the Backbench Business Committee on a “stop the bail-outs” motion after the Portuguese bail-out was nodded through. Following that, I am pleased to say, the Government found some rigour, stood up for this country, and made it absolutely clear to our European partners that there could be no further use of the EFSM, for example in respect of the further Greek bail-outs. Thankfully, we still have, within that mechanism, €11.5 billion that has not been used, perhaps €2 billion of which could accrue to this country. I thank and praise the Government for their work in that area, at least, and for listening to the House and to the debate that we had. But the problem that the Government have—I raised this with the Foreign Secretary and tried to prise an answer out of the shadow Foreign Secretary on it as well—is what does the decision do in respect of article 122 and the EFSM? It seems that the Government position is, “Oh, we’re getting this great deal in return for our agreeing to the setting up of the permanent stability mechanism. The other side of the coin is that we are released from further obligation under the EFSM and there is an agreement that the EFSM will be used no further.” The Foreign Secretary told us that the decision reflects that agreement in its recitals.

The problem is that if that is the case, under the terms of the European Union Act it is not lawful to approve this in the way that we are seeking to do through legislation. The Foreign Secretary issued his statement under section 5 of the European Union Act 2011—or it may have been the Minister for Europe who did so; the version that I have is unsigned—and it states:

“Section 4(4)(b) of the Act”—

that is, the European Union Act 2011—

“provides that where an Article 48(6) decision relates to the making of a provision that applies only to Member States other than the UK, it is deemed to fall outside section 4.”

That is accepted. The statement continues:

“The Treaty change provision contained in the Article 48(6) Decision does not apply . . . to the UK.”

So what? The legislation does not refer to the treaty change provision contained in the article 48(6) decision. It refers, as the previous sentence correctly states, to section 4(4)(b) of the Act and an article 48(6) decision. If one refers to that article 48(6) decision, it has a heading relating to the stability mechanism. The Foreign Secretary told us that the decision is reflected in its recitals, and I would be interested to hear whether the Government consider that a decision includes its recitals or not.

The burden of the Foreign Secretary’s speech was the great gain for this country and the fact that the decision that we are implementing tonight would somehow get us out of the EU-wide bail-out and prevent the EFSM from being used. If that is the case, it applies to this country.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I am fascinated by my hon. Friend’s argument, which is put with great coherence but I think has one flaw—that is, if something affects the United Kingdom to the extent of zero pounds, it is essentially sophistry to say that it is affecting the United Kingdom. I think that is what my hon. Friend is saying.

[Mark Reckless]

My position and my analysis of the situation is that article 122(2) of the treaty has not been changed. There is nothing to stop another EFSM being set up. The Government’s position, as I understand it, is that the decision that we are ratifying tonight not only sets up the permanent stability mechanism, but releases this country from further potential liability under article 122. To the extent that that proposition is correct, it does affect this country, and what the Foreign Secretary states with reference to section 4 does not apply.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

To the extent that it affects this country, surely it is a negative effect—the UK will not in future be liable, rather than any liability or obligation being created for the United Kingdom. I accept that we are arguing about angels on a pin-head, but I do not think that on the understanding of the 2011 Act, that can be deemed as affecting the United Kingdom.

[Mark Reckless]

What the Foreign Secretary has chosen to do in making his statement under section 5 of the EU Act is to rely on section 4(4)(b). That is the basis on which he came to the House, and clause 1(3) states that the section 4 provisions mean that we do not need a referendum. However, the statement—officially put by the Foreign Secretary or the Minister for Europe—refers to section 4(4)(b) of the Act and an article 48(6) decision. That is then elided, with the next sentence continuing that the treaty change provision contains this article 48(6) decision. That seems to imply that while the article 48(6) decision would allow this not to apply to the UK, actually, if one looks at the 48(6) decision, according to the Government and according to the recital, it prevents article 122 from being used in the future as it has been in the past.

Therefore the reliance on section 4(4)(b) would not be valid, so either, as I say, we are getting nothing in return for agreeing to the treaty change, or article 122(2) will no longer be able to be used to make the UK liable for bail-outs, in which case the Government’s statement as to why we are not having a referendum and why section 4 does not apply is incorrect, and we are acting unlawfully.

Defamation Bill

Debate between Mark Reckless and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Tuesday 12th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend makes the point that the Bill takes away the presumption in favour of juries, which is fair enough. I would put that presumption back. I would trust juries to make the decision, because they are better at doing so than judges, and because a jury decision is more just. The presumption in favour of a jury is less likely to leave one under the hammer of the establishment if one falls on the wrong side of it. It is true that establishment views are sometimes hard to break through, and judges are establishment creatures, so I would always trust juries against judges.

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

My hon. Friend makes a compelling argument for retaining the presumption in favour of a jury trial for libel. Will he go further and support the re-establishment of juries in the criminal proceedings at which the previous Government chipped away, and in the broad range of civil matters in which jury trial is no longer available?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I am in absolute agreement with my hon. Friend. Those who attack juries often take a grand view of people in public life. They think that people who are in office of some kind, or who have a seal from the Crown, are grand fellows who know everything. I think we should trust the people—a sound Conservative party slogan from the 1930s. When brought together randomly, the people make better decisions—after all, they sent hon. Members here—than the most learned judges in the land.

Any attack on juries is a part of the continual chipping away at one of the great protectors of our ancient liberties. We might believe that this attack does not matter because all our liberties are not under attack nowadays, but our liberties are always under attack. It is in the nature of Governments and judges to get more power for themselves and to suck it out from the people to whom it rightly belongs. Members of the House, representing the Commons of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland—although in this instance, we are discussing only English and Welsh law—should always be on the lookout for any attack on the rights of the people.

The cost of jury trials, which was mentioned, is part of the mishmash of saying such trials are less convenient. If jury trials are expensive, we should ask: “Is justice worth paying for, or should we penny-pinch?” Of all the things the state pays for, law and order, defence of the realm and justice are the three bulwarks on which our rights depend.

I want to criticise a couple of little points in the Bill—they are less important than the jury system, but few things are as important—the first of which is the protection of academics unless they are malicious. When one of my hon. Friends said earlier that academics are not malicious, I laughed inwardly, because academics have a reputation for having some of the most spiteful battles of any profession in history when they disagree. We should be careful in saying that academics are frightfully lovey-dovey—even people in the acting community are probably quite tough with one another behind the scenes. We should not make the assumption that academics should be protected against the requirement to tell the truth just because they are academics. If what a person says is wrong, and if it defames somebody and damages their livelihood, whether they are a regius professor or a tabloid journalist ought not to make any difference.

Another thing I would like to keep—I will be accused of being old fashioned for this—is the Slander of Women Act 1891, which protects the reputation of ladies. I cannot see any reason for getting rid of it. It is rather a shame to make our law so dry and drab that we have no elegant ornaments on it to protect the reputations of those who deserve a higher degree of protection than we gentlemen.

Ultimately, there is a battle between defamation and free speech. Our newspapers, much maligned though they have been in recent months, and possibly over the last couple of years, are the most fabulous protector of our freedoms and liberties because they are so rude—because they do spy on politicians; because they do publish stories that we do not like. They embarrass us; they make us look foolish—sometimes even corrupt. That embarrassment and shame have made British public life the most honest of any country in the world. We should always protect that freedom of speech from the forces of law or the forces of Leveson—it does not really matter which: freedom of speech is very precious. But if newspapers misuse that freedom of speech, let them be punished in the defamation courts. Let them be fined and have a penalty to pay, along with the costs of a jury, because that is what has given us such a good and well balanced system—a system that ensures our liberties, but compensates those who are defamed.

European Union Bill

Debate between Mark Reckless and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Tuesday 1st February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mark Reckless]

I am saying that the principle of an in/out referendum is important. The Liberal Democrat position, as I understand it, is that the British people should decide whether we stay in the EU with Lisbon, or whether we leave. Let us have that referendum.

The most important point in respect of the Bill is that Ministers seem not to have noticed that the world has moved on. A Bill that would have been perfectly satisfactory in 1992 at the time of Maastricht is now, after 19 years of further transfers of powers to the EU, utterly inadequate for its task. My constituents are not especially concerned about referendums on technical transfers of power five or six years—at the earliest—down the road; they want to vote on our membership of the EU, and they want to do so now.

Ministers have made a serious mistake in thinking that the Bill will somehow buy off dissent, or that my constituents will believe it really changes the EU situation. My constituents believe that the transfer of powers to the EU has already gone much too far. The only thing that can deal with that situation is an in/out vote, so that we can re-establish our independence as a nation.

I am more surprised about the political error that Ministers are making in thinking that the Bill is sufficient. They do not consider what they leave themselves open to if the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) flips position, as I believe he might. We have debated the Liberal Democrats’ position, but Conservatives cannot assume that we will always be on the popular side of the argument relative to the pro-European Labour party. There are very few Labour Members in the Chamber, but what defines the Labour party in respect of Europe is not that it is pro-European but that it does not feel that strongly about Europe relative to other issues.

My friend over the water whom I mentioned says that there is a first rule of politics. He says that, essentially, all parties in government are pro-European, and only Opposition parties become genuinely Eurosceptic. What will happen if in two or three years, the right hon. Member for Doncaster North flips position and says, “The Labour party is pro-European and we want to put that case, but it is for the British people to decide.” Where will that leave the Conservatives? Will the Minister accept that the principle of the in/out referendum is now overpowering? Will he allow the British people their choice?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

New clause 11 is extremely interesting and worth looking at with care, because it comes out of a mix of genius and anger. The genius of it is that it has succeeded in initiating a debate on the question of an in/out referendum, which is clearly not the purpose of the Bill. I know that deft parliamentary draftsmanship was required to have such a proposal selected for debate, and I am full of admiration for that and for the genius that is generally the attribute of my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), who is a great parliamentarian. Every time one listens to him, one is inspired by the thought that people care about the powers of this House and of the people who send us here.

The proposal is also, however, the product of anger—a righteous anger that the British people have seen their powers given away, but been denied the opportunity to decide whether that ought to have happened. Whether that was done by the Single European Act, or by the Maastricht, Lisbon, Nice or Amsterdam treaties, does not really matter. The British people were not properly consulted, and many of them are upset about that.

Unfortunately, that combination of genius and anger leads to a proposal that makes no sense, which is why—reluctantly—I oppose it. The difficulties are manifold, but the main problem is that it proposes that one thing leads to another automatically, without any consideration of the first thing. My hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) made the very obvious point that we cannot have it both ways. Under the new clause, we could decide by referendum not to transfer powers, and then follow that up with a vote to stay in altogether. If we vote to stay in altogether, surely we would be signing up to everything with gusto, but that is the last thing we would want to do if we had recently objected to a treaty that gave more powers to the EU. Therefore, if we vote to stay in, we could contradict a no vote that we had just achieved.