Europe, Human Rights and Keeping People Safe at Home and Abroad

Peter Grant Excerpts

Tuesday 24th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

I want to use the time available to present a positive case for these islands remaining within the European Union and to dispel some of the myths on which the Brexit case has been built. We hear regularly, and have heard again today, the fantasy about laws being passed by unelected bureaucrats. That is a bit ironic in a Parliament that is home to the second-biggest unelected, undemocratic legislative body in the whole world. It is also completely untrue. The European Commission is unelected, but it has no powers whatsoever to pass legislation. Any legislation proposed by the Commission must be approved by the European Parliament, which is at least as democratic as this Parliament because it is elected on a proportional system, so there cannot be a majority in the European Parliament without a majority vote by the people of Europe. Legislation also has to be agreed by Council meetings at which a UK Minister is always entitled to be present and to have a say equal to that of our 27 partners.

These myths are allowed to gain currency only because UK citizens are among the worst, if not the worst, informed in the whole of Europe about what the European Union is actually about. That is a matter of deep shame for this and previous Governments, as well as an indictment of those in the media who claim to inform us about these important issues. Why are Council meetings, in particular, so shrouded in secrecy? It is because UK Ministers choose to make them so. In just three months—the first three months of 2016—the European Scrutiny Committee, of which I am a member, published no fewer than 37 different findings that were intensely critical of the Government’s treatment of the Committee. Words like “cursory”, “unsatisfactory” and “unacceptable” were used time and again. At the close of the last parliamentary Session, there were 13 important European documents that the Scrutiny Committee had asked be debated either on the Floor of the House or in Committee, but the Government had chosen not to find time. Four of those documents had been waiting since before the general election last year. They were important enough to require debate by Members, but the Government had chosen not to allow that debate.

We talk about a lack of scrutiny and a lack of transparency in the European Union and its institutions, but I do not think the fault lies with Europe. I think it lies squarely with the UK Government and Ministers. Perhaps if the Government were elected on a more representative and proportional basis, and if we reformed the way in which Parliament is able to hold the Government properly to account, many of these myths would not have currency and we would not face the possibility of cutting ourselves out of a Europe that should be a force for the most progressive social justice programme anywhere on the planet.