Energy Prices
Debate between Michael Connarty and Lindsay Hoyle(10 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. Perhaps I can help here. Because of the interventions, I shall have to reduce the time limit for speeches, and one of the first to be affected will be the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk.
Michael Connarty
Nevertheless, the point that I am about to make is very relevant. The hon. Gentleman has been a Member of the European Parliament. The European Union has restricted roaming charges and other charges that have been used excessively by telecoms companies. It is saying that that does not work. Is that not exactly what the hon. Gentleman is attacking in the context of energy prices?
Fairness and Inequality
Debate between Michael Connarty and Lindsay Hoyle(10 years, 9 months ago)
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Michael Connarty
I would be quite willing to brief the hon. Gentleman later about the technicalities of why the vote was not called on that particular night.
The hon. Gentleman is talking about a sociological analysis, but some people have moved on since then and done a socialist analysis. When society is divided into those who support capital and those who support labour, what happens is that the forces of those who have the power in the land—the landed classes—join with the merchant class to support capital, and they have succeeded in increasing the value of capital by driving down the cost of labour. That is why we have the inequality we have, and that is the structure of the society we—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. It is very good to have a lecture, but not during an intervention. If the hon. Gentleman wants to catch my eye later, I am sure he will be able to do so and give me a lecture then.
Financial Transaction Tax and Economic and Monetary Union
Debate between Michael Connarty and Lindsay Hoyle(11 years, 5 months ago)
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Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)
That was a specific point, but I want to say that it is not only Members of the right hon. Gentleman’s party who have serious questions about primacy. On the European Scrutiny Committee, there is a cross-party problem in particular with the President of the EU’s report “Towards a Genuine Economic and Monetary Union”, which talks about contracts written by the EU—by the Commission—that will be binding on the countries that sign them, and that will then have penalties if they do not carry them out, taking power away from those countries. There is also the question of what happens then with the impact—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. Mr Connarty, you were late coming in, so then to make such a long intervention is not good for the Chair either, especially as you will want to speak, as will a lot of other hon. Members. Short interventions are required.
European Union (Croatian Accession and Irish Protocol) Bill
Debate between Michael Connarty and Lindsay Hoyle(12 years ago)
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Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
As my hon. Friend will know, I have been a strong pro-European all my political life, but I am very worried that yet another country is coming in from eastern Europe without a great democratic tradition. Hungary seems to be breaking every rule of a modern democracy, yet the European Union does nothing about it. I am getting more concerned about—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. The hon. Gentleman has only just walked in and the usual courtesy is to listen to a little bit of the debate before intervening. We also need shorter interventions. I call Michael Connarty—it is up to you whether you answer.
Michael Connarty
I understand the emotions that are running among those who have been pro-EU in their —[Interruption.]
Mr Deputy Speaker
Order. The hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) should know better than to challenge the Chair. It is not my fault that he may have been somewhere else in the House. If his preference is to be on a Committee rather than here, that is his choice, but he should not expect to walk in and intervene in that way.
Mr Deputy Speaker
What I have said is that it is discourteous to other Members of this House not to have listened a little bit to debate, but instead to walk in and intervene straight away. That is my ruling.
Michael Connarty
I repeat: I understand that people who have been supportive of the EU process over many years are now expressing great concerns. Those concerns have been expressed in the European Parliament, and they are certainly expressed at great length in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, on the basis of human rights, as some of the issues in Hungary are a challenge in that respect. The question for us today is not what the EU should do about Hungary, however, but what we should do in relation to Croatia’s application to join the European Union.
As hon. Members know, I work on behalf of this Parliament as a member of the Labour delegation in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. In fact, I work in the committee on culture, science, education and media, which is chaired by Mr Gvozden—I believe that is the correct pronunciation—Flego, who is a professor from Croatia. He is very dedicated to human rights; in fact, a number of his colleagues are leading the way in challenging their Government to come up to the standards we require in the European Union and to support the application. The problem—the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) alluded to this—is that this treaty is one of the ones that, when the Government introduced the European Union Act 2011 and said that they would renegotiate the terms and relationship with the EU in this Parliament, was listed as not requiring a referendum because it is an accession treaty. That is a great pity, because the accession treaty not only allows Croatia to enter, but allows protocols to be added to the Lisbon treaty—that is, to amend it.
It is a great regret for many people in this country that we did not take the Lisbon treaty to a referendum, as we would have had to do if it were a constitutional treaty. Hon. Members will recall that when I chaired the European Scrutiny Committee and we reported on this matter, we came to the conclusion that the Lisbon treaty was not much different from the constitution, apart from a few flags, bunting and anthems. Really, it maybe should have been decided then whether a referendum was required. It will always be a great point of contention with the British people—and, I think people in this Chamber—that we did not get that clarified at the time.
Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Just for the record, it was a Conservative amendment that the Labour party supported.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
As the hon. Gentleman well knows, that is not a point of order. The other thing is that we are getting distracted from what is before us. Rather than being tempted into discussing the decisions of a previous House many years ago, let us get back to Croatia and Ireland.
Michael Connarty
The point has been made that there should be a wider mandate in deciding whether the treaty should go through. It should not just rest with this House. As you have said, Mr Deputy Speaker, that has been decided before, but the Bill contains provisions on the Irish protocol, which, as has been pointed out, provides only a clarification. It is the same protocol that the UK got in the original Lisbon treaty, but as was pointed out in many debates and in many legal opinions that we received in the Committee, all it stated was what was already in existence—that every country has the right to its own Bank and that no country will lose any rights that it already has because of the Lisbon treaty coming into force.
The protocol did not change anything, but if the Irish people require that reassurance, that is fine. However, it does trigger a change in the Lisbon treaty, and a change in a major treaty should, in reality, be required to be put to the British people—if, as has been pointed out, we are also to get the credibility of the Irish people. They may not do things they like; indeed, I remember when the Irish delegation came to tell us that because Ireland was a small country—one of my colleagues, the leader of the Scottish National party, was at the meeting when they said this—it had to do what Europe wanted, whereas the UK was a big country that could argue its corner much more strongly. The protocol will make no difference to the situation in Ireland, but it is in the Bill and it changes the treaty.
Michael Connarty
Having read the opinion—it has been given in writing, I think, to the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs—on the question of Scotland’s accession, has the hon. Gentleman read the other 13 submissions that contradict Mr Avery and do not take the same position, to say—
Mr Deputy Speaker
Order. I know that Mr Robertson wants to get back on to the subject, and that no hon. Member wants to distract him. He is not a man who is easily distracted.