Oral Answers to Questions

Nick de Bois Excerpts

Tuesday 29th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

Yes, this is a very important issue. I shall be leading the UK’s delegation to Bonn next week, and we will underline that point in the make-up of our ministerial team, in everything that we say about the importance of human rights in Afghanistan, and in reiterating what I have said before—that a sustainable peace in Afghanistan will not be achieved without the extensive and wholehearted commitment of the women of Afghanistan.

[Nick de Bois (Enfield North) (Con)]

During the UK’s presidency of the Council of Europe, will the Foreign Secretary make arrangements for himself and the Prime Minister to visit the island of Cyprus, particularly at this crucial time in the talks?

[Mr Hague]

Clearly, we are heavily committed during our presidency of the Council of Europe, but my hon. Friend can be sure that we will visit Cyprus, because in the second half of next year it will hold the presidency of the European Union. We will be there, and I shall, of course, attend the regular meetings of Foreign Ministers that take place in whichever country holds the presidency. The answer to his question, therefore, is yes.

Human Rights on the Indian Subcontinent

Nick de Bois Excerpts

Thursday 15th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Scott]

I obviously accept what my hon. Friend says; equally, however, we saw on our TV screens only recently that people in Libya said one thing when they were interviewed at first and something quite separate a few weeks later.

[Nick de Bois (Enfield North) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is very generous in giving way. I have listened to the recent exchanges, but does he not agree that the most important thing that should come out of today’s debate is the need not to lose sight of justice for all?

[Mr Scott]

I totally agree and reiterate that there must be justice for all. I would never say that there should not be.

In the short time left to me—that is, in this debate, not beyond that—I would like to raise a number of issues. I have said in the past that, when the conflict ended, a number of babies and children below the age of 12 were not accounted for. I have asked the Sri Lankan high commission to share with me what happened to those babies and young children. To this day I have not received an answer. I will continue to follow that up, but I would also ask the Minister to look into the matter, just as I have asked our high commissioner in Colombo.

We are also getting sad reports of what are called “grease devils”. These are men who attack people after applying grease to their bodies so as not to be captured by the authorities. They then run into military camps or police stations, having attacked their victims—normally women—in their homes. I am not casting any aspersions against anyone as to who they might be, but I would like to see the practice stopped and the perpetrators caught. I would also like to ask what has happened to the elderly and disabled people who were left behind at the end of the conflict, on 18 May 2009, because they are still unaccounted for.

I have here a list of various things I could run through, but I shall not do that because of the time. What I want to say, to everyone in the House, is that we have a duty. We have a duty to represent not only our constituents, but those who have no voice, wherever they are in the world. We have a duty to stand up for innocent people, whether they be Tamil or Sinhalese, and to get justice.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nick de Bois Excerpts

Tuesday 19th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

It is certainly urgent that those negotiations take place and, as I stressed a few minutes ago, the current discussions in the Quartet are aimed at bringing that about. While reserving our position on recognition, as I also explained earlier, it is certainly my view that a truly viable Palestinian state, able to conduct its own affairs and in control of its own territory, requires successful negotiation with Israel and will come about only by agreement.

[Nick de Bois (Enfield North) (Con)]

T4. Nearly 2,000 people remain missing in Cyprus as a result of the conflicts in 1963 and 1974. This affects Greek and Turkish Cypriots across the island. The Committee on Missing Persons in Cyprus has made progress, but does the Minister agree that an increased commitment and speedier resolution of this tragic issue would constitute a significant confidence-builder towards a final settlement for the island?

[The Minister for Europe (Mr David Lidington)]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. I visited the headquarters of the Committee on Missing Persons and its laboratory while I was in Cyprus a few weeks ago, and I was impressed by the work that it is doing to discover the fate of those missing people, both Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot. That is morally right, because it helps the affected families to come to terms with what has happened to their loved ones, but, as my hon. Friend has said, it is also a good measure for building confidence between two communities that, sadly, have become separated by the events of recent decades.

Missing Persons (Cyprus)

Nick de Bois Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mike Freer]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. The Committee on Missing Persons, which the EU generously funds—that is why its effectiveness should be a matter of grave concern for our Foreign Office—investigates the cases of both Turkish and Greek Cypriots who are missing. It makes no distinction between the two, and it is important to put that on record.

[Nick de Bois (Enfield North) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. This issue affects families right across the island. Does he not think that with the right level of commitment and a speedy resolution, massive confidence-building measures could be delivered for the future?

[Mike Freer]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. This is not specifically about the politics of the negotiations over the reunification of Cyprus. Both sides in that negotiation are looking to build confidence. There could be no better confidence-building measure than the return of the remains of the 1,500 missing people or information on what happened to them.

European Union Bill

Nick de Bois Excerpts

Wednesday 26th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Nick de Bois (Enfield North) (Con)]

How does the hon. Gentleman reconcile his statements about our having a referendum, when lots of negotiations have gone on while many countries have had referendums?

[Chris Bryant]

Referendums in different countries operate in different ways. I think that I have heard the Minister say on a couple of occasions both here and elsewhere that there was never a referendum that supported the Lisbon treaty. That is completely untrue, as the Spaniards were the first to hold a referendum and it had an 83% or 84% yes vote, so he is wrong about that.

I think I have made my argument on Strasbourg.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Dominic Raab (Esher and Walton) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Evans, for calling me to speak in this debate on clause 9, which is one of the Bill’s key provisions. The treatment of justice and home affairs merits close scrutiny in the Bill. The EU is increasingly seeking to broaden and deepen its authority in this important area. We need only to consider the inception of the Stockholm programme, to which the previous Government signed up, on policing, justice, asylum and borders. It is also illustrated—if further illustration were needed—by the 13% budget increase for this policy area in this year’s EU budget, which is higher than that for any other area. That is a sign of the ambition in Brussels to move bit by bit towards a pan-European legal system, at odds with our distinct history and tradition of justice reflected in the common law, our safeguards for personal freedom and our adversarial court system.

[Nick de Bois]

My hon. Friend has touched on a matter of great importance. I welcome the safeguards. It seems to me that justice in other countries is very different from justice in ours, principally on the basis of mutual recognition that many things are the same. It concerns me that we must keep as divorced as possible from the system in France, for example. Even a former French Justice Minister said, “The assumption here is that one is innocent until one is proven guilty, but in reality, with our magistrates courts, it is the other way around.” That will be difficult to reconcile and we must have very strong safeguards.

[Mr Raab]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention and I agree entirely with him. We can already see an example of that in the European arrest warrant. We have jumped in and we are now reviewing its domestic implementation and the potential for the international instrument. The presumption of innocence is just one area, as my hon. Friend has suggested, where we have a fundamental difference of legal cultures. I do not think that either party should show that any disrespect.

Brussels certainly has ambitions in that area and with those ambitions in mind I want to point out that there are disappointingly few decisions on JHA policy in the Bill for which, although there is no referendum requirement, parliamentary approval is required before the Government take a decision to opt in. For example, as I understand it the decision to opt into the European investigation order would not have required Parliament’s approval under the Bill despite its ramifications for operational policing and the lack of safeguards for innocent British citizens. Immigration and asylum policy is also left out despite the fact that the EU is currently proposing far-reaching changes in that very important area.

I would be the first to accept that the British people cannot have a referendum on every item of JHA policy, but why cannot their elected representatives have a say on every opt-in to ensure proper democratic scrutiny? I am very encouraged by the Minister’s written statement, which I have looked at closely and which effectively endorsed the principle of a parliamentary vote on JHA opt-ins. That is an important step forward and, as other Members have made clear, it is extremely welcome. As the statement made clear, such a provision would depend first on the discretion of the European Scrutiny Committee and its Chair to call a debate and table a motion. That is fine with the current Committee and Chair, but—if we can possibly imagine this—if it were one day to have a less meticulous Chair or more integrationist members, that check might be diluted. Secondly, the provision would depend on the discretion of Ministers about whether to make Government time available.

It would strengthen the Bill considerably if the arrangements to which the Minister agrees in principle could be spelt out in practice in legislation. I know many Members would welcome such a step.

There is an even more important issue to consider than the individual opt-ins. Britain has to decide by June 2014 whether to accept European Court of Justice jurisdiction over police and justice measures that predate the Lisbon treaty or, alternatively, to opt out altogether. After that date, the full body of pre-Lisbon legislation will come under the control of the Luxembourg Court, so this decision has enormous constitutional implications for our criminal justice system. It represents a unique opportunity for this country either to regain control of our justice agenda or, if we so decide—let us not rule out this option—fully to embrace a pan-European model. I am clear in my own mind that we should preserve our distinct justice system which is famous the world over. It guarantees our personal freedoms and defines the British sense of fair play.

Beyond the technical niceties of the Bill, something bigger is at stake—from habeas corpus to the presumption of innocence, which my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois) mentioned, or to free speech, which is poorly protected in France and seems to be disappearing in Hungary but is still cherished in Britain. These abstract legal concepts define our citizenship, our identity, our culture and ultimately our way of life. I respect the fact that others may disagree on this; some may wish to argue the merits of the Napoleonic legacy or the pros and cons of the continental civil law tradition, while others may claim that a pan-European amalgam might just get the best of both worlds. That is fair enough, and those are perfectly respectable positions, but what is not acceptable is for that kind of decision on a matter of that kind of magnitude to be quietly nodded through without the formal debate and approval of the House. I welcome the policy commitment in last week’s written ministerial statement, but we need a commitment that the decision to opt in en bloc will be subject to parliamentary approval and not just a debate, and it would be relatively easy to do that in the Bill.

To conclude, I support the aims of the Bill and much of its content. It has the potential, at least, to transform the country’s relationship with Europe and to restore some transparency and legitimacy to the much-shrouded decision making in Brussels.

--- Later in debate ---

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

My hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash) is much concerned about Members from all parts of the House being under the control of the Whips. For my part, I would like to say how much I agree with—

[Nick de Bois]

With the Whips.

[Charlie Elphicke]

With the Prime Minister. In particular, I agree with his speech on 4 November 2009, in which he said:

“We must be sure that the measures included in the Lisbon Treaty will not bring creeping control over our criminal justice system by EU judges. We will want to prevent EU judges gaining steadily greater control over our criminal justice system by negotiating an arrangement which would protect it. That will mean limiting the European Court of Justice’s jurisdiction over criminal law to its pre-Lisbon level, and ensuring that only British authorities can initiate criminal investigations in Britain.”

I would like to put on the record how much I agree with that position, and how much I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab). Why are we discussing further opt-ins in this Committee, when we should be considering how to recapture a sense of control and our national way of life in relation to the criminal justice system?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Lidington]

I do not want to be distracted from the subject matter of the debate—clause 9 and the amendments—so the best thing is for me to tell my hon. Friend that I will either write to him or ask my hon. Friend the Minister for Immigration to do so in response to the point that he raises.

May I summarise the Government’s case in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Stone? There have been many criticisms of the current criminal mutual legal assistance system; it is said that it is fragmented, confusing and subject to delays. In some cases, it takes many months to obtain vital evidence, and when the UK has been the requesting state, that has had a detrimental effect on UK investigations and trials. The EIO seeks to address those problems by simplifying the MLA system among EU member states and introducing strict deadlines for the execution of requests.

It is true that had we not opted into the EIO, we would still have been able to operate MLA with other EU countries, but we would have been in a tiny minority of EU countries not using the EIO. Owing to that, and because deadlines would not apply to UK MLA requests, it is likely that those requests would be given a lower priority than those of other states, and that our prosecutors would have experienced longer delays. Given that 75% of the UK’s MLA traffic is with other EU countries, the practical impact on UK cases would have been significant.

If my hon. Friend wishes to pursue the matter further, I suggest that he first looks at the letter which the Home Secretary wrote to the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie) on 3 August 2010, and which she has deposited in the Library. The letter details a number of specific cases in which the current arrangements were proven to be inadequate. In one case, evidence that was not returned prior to the conclusion of the trial may have led to the suspect being exonerated. Her judgment and the Government’s judgment is that had we not opted in, it is likely that there would be more such cases.

[Nick de Bois]

My right hon. Friend is well aware of my long-term interest in matters pertaining to the European arrest warrant and the EIO. By that explanation, he has demonstrated the importance of, and the need for, the EAW and the EIO. I hope he will reassure us that the Bill gives the House the chance to debate and pass judgment such things, and to facilitate decisions on opting in or out.

[Mr Lidington]

My answer to that is on two fronts. The EAW is, of course, a pre-Lisbon, pillar three arrangement. It was not subject to post-Lisbon scrutiny, let alone to the detailed scrutiny and discussions with Committees and other representatives of Parliament that the Government are proposing. On the European investigation order, I can give comfort to my hon. Friend. It is the Government’s view that the decision to opt in to the order is one of the matters that would not only have attracted significant parliamentary interest, but which would also have raised questions of political and legal importance that would fully justify a full debate in Government time. With that debate would obviously come the opportunity of a parliamentary vote.

European Union Bill

Nick de Bois Excerpts

Monday 24th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clappison]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that point. The long and short of it is that the Bill provides that unless the significance condition is met and it is decided that a transfer of power is not significant enough to warrant a referendum—some transfers of power will not be significant enough, whereas others will be—there will not be a referendum. As the Bill stands, the Minister alone will decide whether that condition has been met and this House of Commons will not have the chance for a separate vote, before an Act of Parliament, on whether a referendum should be held. Even if someone were lucky enough to find the time and all the rest of it to table an amendment on this during the consideration of a Bill, it is unlikely such an amendment will succeed if this is not contemplated in this Bill. The Minister would simply say, “The Government of the day decided that there were certain occasions when a referendum would be required and this was the procedure for dealing with a referendum in these cases. It was decided that a Minister’s opinion was the test of significance or not, so this does not apply.” I do not see such an amendment being a successful avenue or a good defence to which to turn.

My amendment would provide an important safeguard, which is in addition to there being an Act. I welcome the provision for an Act, because that is a good thing. To be fair, an Act of Parliament is not required in these circumstances at the moment, because the transfers of power under the simplified revision procedure are simply subject to the resolution of both Houses. The Bill’s proposals are therefore a step forward, but we could do so much better. If we do not make the change that I am proposing, we will be leaving a big gap.

[Nick de Bois (Enfield North) (Con)]

I am very attracted to amendment 11, but I am struggling to understand one thing. It has been debated, but perhaps my hon. Friend can give me some clarity on it. He rightly says that an Act of Parliament will be required, but a Bill that is whipped will surely get through. Why does he believe that his amendment will be any more successful here?

[Mr Clappison]

For the same reason that placing something in a Bill is a stronger defence—it has stronger legislative authority—than leaving it to chance in the future. My amendment is a safeguard in addition to the Act of Parliament that will be required, and including in the Bill requirements on a referendum would make things legislatively stronger.

We come back to the question outlined by my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin), “Why put any of these requirements in the Bill and why provide these 44 situations where a referendum is required, given that each time we have an Act of Parliament for a treaty change, as we would have to have, we could simply do the same thing then?” That argument is being run in certain quarters, but it makes a mockery of the whole Bill. I do not want to be too unkind to those who promote that argument, but I merely say that it was fully ventilated during the European Scrutiny Committee’s deliberations and it was dismissed, and not only in one report. We produced a majority and a minority report, which disagreed on almost everything but agreed that a change needed to be made on the significance test. When one understands the two spectrums of opinion in the European Scrutiny Committee, one can see the measure of achievement in uniting the two.

European Union Bill

Nick de Bois Excerpts

Tuesday 7th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mark Hendrick]

I thank my hon. Friend, but in my opening remarks I referred to the opinions of some Members on my side of the House, and of course she is among them. I do not think that the mainstream of the Labour party is particularly against referendums. We offered a referendum on the euro should the five tests for entry into the single European currency have been met, and we offered a referendum on the European constitution, which, as Members know, was dropped because of the referendums in France and Holland. A new treaty came forward, for which we had committed to no referendum, which was why there was no referendum on the Lisbon treaty.

The Bill is not about democracy or a referendum. For many Conservative Members it is not about any future competences of the European Union; it is about getting out of the European Union altogether. I am sure that it was introduced to try to satisfy some of the Conservative Eurosceptics, but as we have seen from today’s debate, it goes nowhere near far enough to do that.

[Nick de Bois (Enfield North) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman consider that one of the main reasons why the Bill is before the House is that his party failed to deliver on its promise to provide a referendum on the Lisbon treaty?

[Mark Hendrick]

No, we failed to provide a referendum on the European constitution. As Members know, the constitution fell because of referendums in France and Holland. What came afterwards was a constitutional treaty, namely the Lisbon treaty, on which no referendum was ever promised.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nick de Bois (Enfield North) (Con)]

I am privileged to follow my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg), who does justice to the House, as he does justice to the sentiments that he expressed and the cause to which he spoke. That makes it harder for me to follow him. I realise that that is usually a challenge for Members, but I will do my best.

I echo my hon. Friend’s sentiment and I will support the Bill because I regard it as the first serious attempt to stop the erosion of power from Westminster to Brussels. I say “serious” because it is legislation before the House, and I say “attempt” because I recognise that it does not go as far as I and other Members might like. EU interference has dogged us for many years. We as a sovereign nation have been bled dry of powers, which has increased the frustration of the public with an institution that is so remote yet so influential on their lives.

I support the attempt to introduce a referendum lock. For too long, the people have been sidelined as dodgy deals are done and negotiated across Europe, stealing our sovereignty. How? It has been done through treaties such as Lisbon, Amsterdam and Nice. The previous Government handed over so many of our powers during the past 13 years. When the former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, said that he wanted to be at the heart of Europe, he was not kidding. He effected one of the most powerful transplants ever of so much power to Europe from Britain. We all sensed the betrayal that the British people felt as a result of the Lisbon treaty.

The Bill moves to give Parliament more say over Europe. The Government will have the opportunity to pass primary legislation before we have more self-amending clauses. There is good stuff in the Bill. As for sovereignty and clause 18, I know that there are many learned Members in the House and I dare not question their judgment, but when lawyers say to me that something is enshrined in common law, I am immediately concerned that common law and precedent mean that it could change over time. I have no problem with an attempt to establish clause 18, but I acknowledge, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash) said, that it carries some risk with lawyers in the future.

My main concern is that the Bill may be seen as the end of a process, rather than as the beginning of a process to ensure that the present or any future Government cannot continue to transfer powers to the EU. My hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) spoke eloquently of wiggle room. There is wiggle room in the Bill, and that is not good because we are attempting not just to pass a Bill, but to rebuild trust between the British people and the Government by challenging the transfer of powers in our relationship with Europe.

The existence of wiggle room raises the question of who decides what is material and what is not. Ministers clearly have the right to determine what constitutes a transfer of powers, and mechanisms spelled out in the Bill make it clear in many cases what constitutes a transfer of powers, but it is the little grey areas of wiggle room that are, in effect, a Trojan horse that can be exploited and undermine the genuine attempts of the Bill to protect any transfer of power.

I tried to apply a test. Had the Bill been in place when the European arrest warrant was introduced, would we have had a referendum on a significant directive from Europe? I attempted to find out. I am grateful to the Minister’s staff, who spent some time briefing me on the Bill. I raised the question, but I have to say that I am still confused—not because of their lack of effort, but because of the potential greyness surrounding the issue.

What is more illustrative of our sovereignty than the fact that the courts in an individual’s own land cannot protect him, but could lead him to be extradited merely by ticking boxes in a process and undermining the right of a British court to pass judgment on him?

The Minister knows that, until recently, one of my constituents, Andrew Symeou, languished in jail for many months after being subjected to a European arrest warrant, and the Minister is kindly trying to make representations to the Greek Government to assist him. The family keenly await any outcome, and I thank him for that. But my constituent would believe that the sovereign power of his country had not served him well by agreeing to transfer those powers outside the jurisdiction of our courts and to Europe. I think he would say that his Government had not protected him.

Will the Minister look closely at the wiggle room in the Bill and see how we can reconcile the conflicts that no doubt will lead to other issues over transfer of power? Yes, of course, issues can come to Committee, to scrutiny and to Parliament, but ultimately a Government can get their way, and however much we may protest, a Government may get a motion through and the people will not have had their say in a referendum on a transfer of powers.

I sympathise with my hon. Friend the Member for Clacton (Mr Carswell) when he suggests that we may be shutting the gate after the horse has bolted, but on balance that would not be a reason to oppose the Bill, because it marks a massive step forward for Britain and her relationship with Europe. It is a confidence-building measure for the British people in their relationship with what can only be described as an empire-building EU, and it is an important marker in the sand for this coalition Government to rebuild trust with the British people. We must not breach that trust.

Decisions have been remote from the British people. Yes, Parliament does have more say. I accept that the Bill only draws a line under the past, but it still leaves the future somewhat grey. It could be tightened further, and that is in the interests of constructive engagement, which I hope we will have the chance to debate at length in Committee, but I have no hesitation in supporting it, and I believe that my constituents will also seek to take advantage of engaging in future European debate if they have the opportunity to have their voice heard should the Bill be enacted.