2014 JHA Opt-out Decision

Debate between Martin Horwood and John Redwood

Monday 15th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)]

If the right hon. Gentleman is challenging the fundamental idea of an international arrest warrant operating among the 28 member states, is my maths correct that he would have to replace it with 784 bilateral extradition treaties, and that is just on one of these justice and home affairs measures?

[Mr Redwood]

My maths tells me that there are far fewer countries in the European Union than in the rest of the world, and we manage to have pretty good arrangements with the rest of the world. I have every confidence in the ability of the current and future Home Secretaries to restore our bilateral arrangements with the other 27 members of the European Union just as surely as we have bilateral arrangements with most of the other 200 countries in the world. The hon. Gentleman will remember that there was a time before this country was in the European Union, and certainly before we were in this current set of criminal justice arrangements, when we had perfectly good working relationships. I am sure that he and I would have liked them to be improved—one can always improve and make progress—but he should not be so defeatist about the ability of our Ministers and civil servants to defend Britain’s interests and come up with a good answer.

European Union (Referendum) Bill

Debate between Martin Horwood and John Redwood

Friday 5th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Martin Horwood]

I am very grateful, Mr Deputy Speaker. The chances of the Conservative party getting as far as 2017 without changing its policy again are pretty slim. Let me reinforce that point. Only 19 months ago, the Prime Minister said:

“That, for me, in a parliamentary democracy, is the right use of a referendum. However, as we are not signing a treaty, I think that the whole issue of a referendum does not arise.”

He continued by saying that

“there is a role for referendums in a parliamentary democracy, but that comes at the moment when a Government or a Parliament proposes to give up power, rather than at other times.”—[Official Report, 12 December 2011; Vol. 537, c. 535-549.]

That is precisely the Liberal Democrat position and has been for some time.

We are not going to oppose this Bill, but we are not content to support it because there is a long list of problems with it. Legislation already in force—the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000—is supposed to lay down the procedure under which we hold referendums and, for example, the role of the Electoral Commission in helping to determine the question. This Bill is pre-empting any decision by the Electoral Commission and it does not even appear to comply or be consistent with the 2000 Act. I do not know whether the draftsmen had forgotten that that Act existed.

Then there is the question of the franchise, which has also been referred to—

[Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Martin Horwood]

I do not think I had better. I am really looking forward to seeing the variety of different Conservative positions being expounded in the remainder of the debate, and if I give way to everybody—[Interruption.] Somebody is telling me to keep it short, and I think that the best way to do that is not to give way on every point.

The Bill also needs to deal with a problem relating to the franchise. Some 1.4 million British citizens reside elsewhere than in the UK, but according to the terms of the Bill the referendum will be based on the Westminster franchise. As far as I can tell, that has only about 19,000 registered overseas voters, so more than 1 million Britons, whose lives will be fundamentally affected by this change—they are British passport holders resident in other parts of the EU—will be disfranchised in this referendum. By this formula, the Bill will give votes to Cypriot and Maltese citizens living in this country, because under the Westminster franchise Commonwealth citizens have the vote, but it will not give the vote to French, Italian or German citizens. So there are a lot of inconsistencies, and this issue has not been debated at all so far.

The House of Commons Library briefing also raised the question of whether or not the Bill is even legally binding. Even the hon. Member for Stockton South (James Wharton) has conceded that this parliamentary vote would not bind its successor Parliament and further parliamentary votes, probably on secondary legislation, would be required to give effect to the referendum in any case.

Energy Bill

Debate between Martin Horwood and John Redwood

Tuesday 4th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Redwood]

I remind the House that I have declared in the register that I offer advice on global economies to an investment business and an industrial business.

I oppose the amendments in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (Mr Yeo) and others, and I do so primarily because it is high time that this House heard a voice for the consumer of energy. I am extremely worried about energy prices. The Labour Government did some good work, highlighting the serious problem that they called fuel poverty. They rightly identified the fact that at the time of their Government many people in our country found it difficult to pay the energy bills because they were already high. In recent years—the end of the Labour period and now under the coalition—those bills have gone up considerably further.

People facing fuel poverty have also had the great problem that in recent years we have had a succession of particularly cold and bitter winters, with heavy snowfalls and ice, and a series of rather cold and damp summers. Although I will not go into the arguments about how we can measure rising temperatures and how much global warming we are actually experiencing, the cruel fact of life for people facing rising energy bills is that they need to use more energy because it is so cold and they need to keep warm. We even had snow and frost in May this year in England, at the very time that energy prices were being put up, partly by market forces and partly by a deliberate act of policy by the Europeans to try to make energy dearer to put people off using it. We need to take on board the fact that there is a serious problem of people affording the heating bills.

This is doubly damaging in an economy that is experiencing a fragile and modest recovery and needs a faster recovery. Energy is taking too much of the family budget. At the very time when we want people to have more money to spend on other things to create demand and jobs around the economy generally, a large chunk is being taken up by those rising energy bills, both because of price and because of the need to burn more as a result of the climate conditions outside. We also see that there is an additional problem, which my right hon. Friend the Minister referred to at the end of his speech: British business now faces considerably higher costs for the energy it needs to use than competitor businesses in America or throughout much of Asia. It should be a grave worry to everyone in the House who is concerned about jobs and about the creation of more industrial activity in Britain that we are deliberately creating very high priced energy in this country, which is a major impediment to industrial development.

I welcome the Chancellor’s statement some time ago that he wished to see the “march of the makers”. I welcome the idea that we need to build up stronger and bigger industry to go alongside the successful job creation that we have had in financial and professional services and related areas. It would be good for our economy to have a more diverse and flourishing structure. We have some very good industrial businesses, but we do not have enough of them and the sector is not as large as I think any major party in the House would like to see.

So if we are all serious about wishing to have an industrial strategy that works, and if we are serious about wanting to create a climate in which business can flourish and more industrial jobs can be created, surely we must tackle one of the main costs that business faces—the cost of energy. The Government are well aware of the problem and have responded to lobbying by high energy-using industries, such as steel, glass and ceramics, where energy is a massive part of the total cost because extreme heat is applied for the transformation of the materials in the process. The Government are providing some kind of subsidy to those heavy energy users in a desperate attempt to prevent some of those factories and process plants closing, but even with the subsidy the production costs are much higher in Britain than in America, China or other parts of Asia, so we are still at risk of losing more of that business by closure, and we are certainly at risk of not attracting the new investment in those types of industry that we might like as part of our industrial strategy.

The Government also need to understand that it is not just transformational processes such as steel or glass production that have an energy cost problem; it is more or less any kind of industry with an automated plant. If we wish to be competitive in a western country against countries in Asia which have relatively low labour costs, we need to automate. We need to have a very high degree of machine power so that all the mundane jobs can be done by intelligent machinery to keep costs under control. But we lose the advantage of being able to automate and use high technology if the cost of the energy to drive the machinery is so uncompetitive. We will soon lose the advantage as well because a country such as China is industrialising not only very rapidly, but with the application of far more technology and labour-saving equipment going into its factories. So we have a double problem in that such countries are automating and they have much cheaper energy.

I urge the Government to take our problem of energy prices extremely seriously. American energy prices are typically a third lower than United Kingdom energy prices, so if energy is 10% or 20% of the cost of the given process and the given industry, we can see immediately that there is a 3% or 6% cost advantage just from the energy bill, which in very competitive world markets can be an important distinction. When we look at the success that America is now having in building her recovery longer and faster than the European countries, it is clear that part of that success comes from the accent placed on cheap energy. The United States of America has not put through legislation similar to the legislation passed in 2008 by the Labour Government—legislation that I did not feel able to support at the time because I thought it would be damaging to prosperity and would put up our energy bills too much—and we see that America is also reaping the benefit of the shale revolution. I hope that the words of the Prime Minister and the Energy Minister will result in action, because the United Kingdom has an opportunity with shale as well, but America not only has found the shale and is keen on the shale, but is now extracting such large quantities of shale gas that it has much, much cheaper gas prices than the United Kingdom, of benefit to consumers and American industry.

We should be aware of the fact that when countries assembled to try to take on the Kyoto work of carbon targets, it was noticeable that only the European countries were left in the game. Even Japan, which had obviously been the host to the original Kyoto proposals, was no longer willing to sign up to such targets.

[Martin Horwood]

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware, though, that as part of the United Nations framework convention on climate change process, China has accepted carbon intensity targets for its economy?

[Mr Redwood]

China is allowed to have a totally different approach to carbon targets because it is a growing economy. I have a great deal of sympathy with its need, but China is not being asked to cut its carbon emissions in the way that the United Kingdom is being asked to cut emissions. When the Kyoto process was last looked at to try to get much tougher targets across the world, the only countries that were still prepared to be in the game were the European countries, so the European economy as a whole on the continent is saddled with dangerously high prices and restricted ability to generate power in different ways, and the United Kingdom has the particularly virulent strain of this disease because of the House’s passion to legislate for dearer energy.

European Council

Debate between Martin Horwood and John Redwood

Thursday 26th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)]

First, I congratulate the Backbench Business Committee on selecting this topic for debate, although on this occasion I agree with the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash) that it might have been better to debate this issue in Government time as it is critical for this country.

While I am on the theme of congratulations, let me congratulate Sharon Bowles, MEP, on her recent re-election as chair of the economic and monetary affairs committee of the European Parliament. She was once voted one of the top 10 economic regulators in the world and she has presided over innovations such as the attempt to introduce regulation on bankers’ bonuses that would prevent someone like Fred the Shred from ever again walking away with a huge bonus from a failing bank. For that alone she deserves congratulation and I am pleased to see her retaining her place as one of the most influential Liberal Democrats in Europe.

I repeat my earlier congratulations to the Deputy Prime Minister on convening the European Liberal leaders forum on issues relating specifically to this debate in London on 9 January. The forum agreed a programme of reform and competitiveness for Europe that would probably unite Conservative and Liberal Democrat Members of this House at least. That is a good example of how to build alliances across Europe and engage with Europe in a proactive way.

It is good to see Britain at the table for the summit. Clearly, there is the main summit, which is supposed to be focusing on prosperity and growth, but there is also the rather important sideshow of the 26 making further progress towards the fiscal compact, which is critical for Britain, and I am very pleased that the Government have made sure that Britain is an active participant in the process, albeit with observer status. I know that Ministers have been active behind the scenes getting Britain involved in the process and making sure, for instance, that the fiscal compact treaty does not spill over into areas outside its proper remit, such as the construction of the single market. As Liberal Democrats have pointed out, that is one of the risks of our relatively isolated situation in Europe.

[Mr Redwood]

Does the hon. Gentleman think that at this point the power to fine Greece and then fining her would cut the Greek deficit?

[Martin Horwood]

I shall not be drawn into that. Critically, it is for the eurozone countries to address the crisis in the eurozone. The right hon. Gentleman highlights the important point that just by drawing up a treaty the eurozone countries do not solve some of the rather fundamental problems in the eurozone. In fact, the situation in Greece is becoming increasingly serious and it needs to be urgently addressed—that is even more the case now than in recent months.

The importance of the main business of the summit must not be neglected. Britain’s re-engagement in European affairs is critical and it must be pushed forward. There have already been some successes. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills helped to create the like-minded growth group, which has pushed forward ideas such as lifting onerous accounting rules from the smallest businesses in this country. I think the group has helped to create a shift in Commission attitudes on the smallest businesses to the point where it has committed to review all existing EU legislation to look for other opportunities to lift onerous regulation from such businesses and to screen new legislation to see whether, wherever possible, the smallest businesses can be excluded. That is exactly the kind of agenda we should be pushing in Europe.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

I rise to support the Prime Minister. I think he had no alternative but to say no to a very unsatisfactory deal and to a totally inappropriate proposed measure at that Council. Nor do I think he has lost Britain influence by doing it; I think he has won Britain influence by doing it. We learned subsequently that several non-euro member states could not go along with the draft any more than the United Kingdom could. We also learned subsequently that France, Germany and others are now beating a path to the United Kingdom Foreign Office door, trying to get us back on board, trying to woo us because we had the courage to say no.

We meet today because we wish to influence our Government in what they are doing at yet another important European summit. The European Central Bank has bought the Europeans a little time by printing and lending unprecedented sums of money to a very weak European banking system, but those meeting would be wise to understand that that has only bought a little time; it has not solved the underlying problem. Indeed, there are two underlying problems. There is the inability of the southern countries to compete with Germany at the fixed exchange rate within the euro, making them poor and giving them large balance of payments deficits which they have trouble financing; and there is the big problem of the southern states’ debt getting ever bigger. As their economies are malfunctioning, because so many people are out of work and because they cannot price themselves back into jobs, their debts and deficits go on soaring, and now in three cases member states of the euro area cannot finance those deficits in the normal way and have to be on life support from the EU and the IMF.

[Martin Horwood]

On the subject of the right hon. Gentleman’s support for the Prime Minister, will he join me in welcoming the Prime Minister’s remarks this morning in Davos, when he said,

“Let me be clear. To those who think that not signing the treaty means Britain is somehow walking away from Europe let me tell you, nothing could be further from the truth”?

[Mr Redwood]

Of course the Prime Minister is right that we are in the European Union and all the time we remain in it we have to use our membership as best we can to protect the interests of the British people.

The main purpose of the summit must be to try to deliver greater prosperity and some growth and some hope to the peoples of Europe, because their hope has been depressed and their prosperity is being destroyed by a system that cannot conceivably work. The euro area is now locked into a system of mutually assured deflation, a mad policy, and the more those countries’ economies decline, the more the deficits go up, the more they have to cut. They cannot get themselves out by monetary means, in the way that the United Kingdom and the United States can, by creating more money in their system, and they cannot get out by having a competitive exchange rate.

European Union Bill

Debate between Martin Horwood and John Redwood

Tuesday 11th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Redwood]

Indeed; the hon. Gentleman makes a powerful point. I, too, would like us to opt out of the common fisheries policy. I would like us to elect a Government in this country who had the necessary majority to go off to Brussels and say, “It is now the settled will of this Parliament that we want different arrangements for fishing, and if you will not grant them through the European Union arrangements, we would like to negotiate our exit from the common fisheries policy.” That is exactly the kind of renegotiation that many of my hon. Friends were elected to achieve, and, had we had a majority, we would have wanted our Government to do something like that. There are a number of other policy areas, some of which are more politically contentious across the Floor of the House, where we think we can make better decisions here than are being made in our name by the European Union.

If such renegotiations could be achieved, we would clearly have reasserted, or asserted, the sovereignty of our Parliament. If, however, they can never be achieved, it is difficult to see how Parliament could still be sovereign. If we are saying that nothing can ever be changed once it has been agreed under the various procedures in Brussels—including the many measures that the British Government did not want or on which they were outvoted—we cannot say that we are sovereign any longer. We would then be in a relationship with the European Union that would fall short of our preserving parliamentary sovereignty.

Tonight we are discussing a narrower, but crucial, legal issue that has been well highlighted by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash) and the European Scrutiny Committee, whose perception is first class in informing the debate. I do not need to repeat all those arguments. Suffice it to say that I support the important amendments proposed by my hon. Friend. As I understand it, we have a Government who say that they wish to do all they can to reassure people in this country that we are and intend to remain sovereign. They do not wish to pick a fight with Brussels, and we are not asking them to do so tonight. They say, however, that should a disagreement arise in future that cannot be resolved through the usual channels, it will be settled here. I am very much in favour of that; it seems to me to be a wholly admirable and sensible place to take the debate. If that is the intention, it proves that Parliament is still sovereign.

We are arguing only about the words used to carry out that intention. It is one of those rare magic moments when the Conservative party is completely united on its intentions. The Government’s intention to reassert parliamentary sovereignty warms the cockles of Conservative Members’ hearts. It is wonderful to know that in another debate we can have a referendum when anything important happens. There may be some arguments about what is important, but we welcome the spirit. Again, we are at one with our Government.

When eminent lawyers and colleagues who have studied this matter at much greater length than I have say to the House that they have studied it carefully, that they have what sound like moderate and sensible words that basically repeat the Government’s policy and that it would be helpful if those words were written into the legislation, my feeling is—unless the Minister has a very powerful speech coming up—what is wrong with that? If the Minister wants to reassert parliamentary sovereignty, why cannot we just say that in the Bill? It is exactly what my hon. Friend says —it does not seem difficult, so will the Minister please humour us on this occasion?

The fact remains that if we succeeded in amending the Bill in this way, we would not be truly sovereign in future unless we had the will and determination to shape our own destinies, should the need arise. I hope we can do it by agreement. Any sensible person wishes to do it by agreement, given how far we are in this thing with our European partners and what a mess they are in.

[Martin Horwood]

The right hon. Gentleman makes an eloquent case. He and I might disagree on whether we want to withdraw from the common fisheries policy, but would he have seen any constitutional bar to that taking place had a Conservative majority Government taken office? Surely, if this was in the manifesto, he must have believed that it was possible to achieve it under the present constitutional arrangements.

[Mr Redwood]

Withdrawal from the common fisheries policy was not in the manifesto, although it might have been in the personal manifestos of some of my right hon. and hon. Friends. I gave it as an example because I believe it has a great deal of cross-party support. Most people think the common fisheries policy is extremely badly run and is not in the interests of the fish or the fishermen. Casting all those dead fish back into the sea is not my idea of conservation and it does not bring cheap fish to the fish market either, so it does not seem to be good news.

Successive Governments have always said that they quite agree with those of us who make such points, but they have never managed to negotiate a better deal. Would it not be wonderful if the Government said, “If we cannot negotiate a better deal next year, we will use British parliamentary sovereignty to pull out of the CFP”? I would like to do that and I do not think it would be tantamount to leaving the European Union. It would be pretty cross, but it would probably do a deal with us because it would be more embarrassing to have a sovereign Parliament taking unilateral legislative action than to do a deal. I hope the EU would do a deal; it would be sensible for it to do so.

If we are not prepared at some point to assert our power, we lose our sovereignty. Just as the Crown lost its sovereignty, became the Crown in Parliament and eventually lost practically all its real powers, so this Parliament is losing its powers. If it goes on losing them, without sensible provision being made of the kind proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone and without at some point standing up for a better deal for Britain, this Parliament, too, will no longer be sovereign.