European Union Bill

Debate between Priti Patel and Martin Horwood

Tuesday 1st February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

I would not rule out anything, to be honest. As I started by saying, the new clause is designed to generate more openness and transparency in the transfer of powers and, ultimately, the amount of say that the EU has over us in this country. Right hon. and hon. Members, as well as the public, could therefore review the report, audit the EU and further hold decision makers to account, so I would welcome the opportunity not only to discuss but to vote and to have full-blown transparency.

The new clause is necessary because the monitoring of EU policies and the transfer of powers is not as effective as it should be. I pay tribute to the European Scrutiny Committee for its tremendous work. Unfortunately, the Chair of that Committee is not here this afternoon. It should be of concern to the legislature that such information is not always readily available and that important qualitative and quantitative data on the EU are not easily accessible.

[Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)]

I am slightly surprised. Given the evidence of the past three weeks, is my hon. Friend really suggesting that even the slightest scintilla of power moving from this country to the European level will not be noticed by the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash) or the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) or all her other hon. Friends? They seem to be on to these things like terriers most of the time.

[Priti Patel]

And quite rightly so. Of course, we have a House full of assiduous Members and the European Scrutiny Committee has been very effective, but I am talking about an annual report and more openness and transparency.

By asking a range of parliamentary questions of 10 Departments, I received information stating that at least 79 current EU directives were pending transposition into UK law at a total cost in excess of £20 billion, and that is just one example. Of course, assiduous Members will ask many other questions and do a lot more fact finding to identify and uncover other transfers, too.

There is no reason why such information should not be published regularly, and Ministers must endeavour in future to be more transparent and accountable. It is therefore important in going forward with the Bill that information on the costs, benefits and powers exercised by the EU is available and accessible, as that greater transparency and opportunity to hold Government policy to account over the EU would, in my view, be most welcomed by the British public.

The new clause would go somewhat further than just making more transparent the EU, the Government’s policies on the EU and transfers of power, because it effectively asks the Government in their annual report to publish details of plans to repatriate the powers and competences from the EU that they believe should be held by this country. As drafted, the Bill will establish a referendum lock and safeguards against further significant transfers of power, which I have consistently supported and welcome, but it does not cover the approach that should be taken to repatriate powers to this country that the EU currently holds that are not in our national interests and on which the public expect us to act.

We have heard about many opinion polls in these Committee proceedings, but I shall refer to another one. An opinion poll conducted four years ago, before the previous Government handed over even more power under the Lisbon treaty, found that 58% of the British people believed that the EU should have less power and that more decisions should—surprise, surprise—be taken nationally and locally, and that 68% of people thought, quite frankly, that the EU did not represent ordinary people in our country.

Across a diverse range of policies, the public and parliamentarians of all parties can point to powers that the EU should not have, and that the British people believe should be brought back to our country, for a range of democratic reasons as well as on cost grounds. They include policies on access to our territorial waters, which we debated last week when discussing fisheries, as well as on justice and home affairs.

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[Priti Patel]

Absolutely not! I believe that the Conservative party has very much embraced the views of the party that I represented back then. I have been campaigning for a referendum for more than 15 years, and the Conservative Government are now proposing it.

I was talking about the powers that have been handed over to the European Union. The European arrest warrant has been the subject of a great deal of debate in the House, and social and employment policies have cost the UK more than £38 billion. We have heard mention of the working time directive, as well as of waste in regional policies, economic controls and financial services, not to mention the endless regulations that burden our businesses, the £1 billion that the EU is seeking to fine the UK and the £50 billion, which I mentioned during questions today, that the UK is set to hand over as a net contribution over the next few years to 2016.

[Martin Horwood]

Many of us think that the European arrest warrant is a useful and positive counter-terrorism measure. Would it not be better to take what would presumably be an annual debate on the hon. Lady’s proposed report and broaden it out into a debate on the work of the European Union or the Commission’s work programme as a whole? That would subject the whole programme of the European Union to scrutiny in this place, and allow those of us who have a more positive view of the EU to put our case as well.

[Priti Patel]

I suggest that timetabling the required number of hours and days for such a debate could be quite challenging, because it would have to cover a vast number of issues.

In my view, the British people deserve to know what their Government are planning to do, not only about the powers that the EU seeks to exercise but about those that it currently uses and—dare I say it—abuses, according to some in this House. Like all Conservative Members, I stood on a manifesto that clearly stated:

“The steady and unaccountable intrusion of the European Union into almost every aspect of our lives has gone too far.”

Following the ratification of the Lisbon treaty, we made a commitment not to let matters rest, and to negotiate the return to Britain of criminal justice powers and the opt-outs of the charter of fundamental rights and of social and employment legislation. The new clause would give the Government and the Prime Minister an annual opportunity to update the House on the actions being taken to deliver that, and to bring genuine openness and transparency to these proceedings.

Forty years ago, when we entered what was then known as the European Economic Community, few could have predicted with any accuracy how deeply integrated and ingrained the EU has now become. Had we known that at the time, I am sure that this Bill would have been even more robust than it is.