Europe
Richard Drax Excerpts(11 years, 9 months ago)
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Alison McGovern
I am tempted to give way but I will make some progress before I do.
Let us not forget the real issues. As I said, what matters to my constituents at the moment is the fact that our local authority has been cut to the bone and we are losing hundreds and hundreds of jobs. We are worried about employment and having a well-functioning economy on Merseyside where people have the money in their pockets to afford the prices in the shops. That is what people are really concerned about.
Because my time is limited and I have only four minutes left, I want to focus on a particular problem in Europe that I would have hoped we could all try to work together to deal with. This is timely, I hope, because yesterday a report by the Work Foundation demonstrated not only that youth unemployment is a significant problem on the continent of Europe but that the UK’s unemployment is higher than the European average, third only to Greece and Spain, and that we have youth unemployment that is higher than the OECD average. In yesterday’s Treasury questions, I asked how the Government planned to tackle the fact that their own predictions from the Department for Work and Pensions demonstrate that they have increased by 31,000 the number of young people to whom we will be paying jobseeker’s allowance by the end of this Parliament. We have the wrong economic plans. This problem cuts across the whole continent of Europe, and we ought to work together with our European partners to try to solve it. Considering this question helps to enlighten the debate about what we should do in Europe.
We need to focus on two things in the light of this problem. First, we need to rebalance the economy of Europe.
Alison McGovern
Briefly, if the hon. Gentleman wants to answer the question of what the Government should do about Europe.
Richard Drax
Just as a matter of observation, when talking about losing jobs and all the things the hon. Lady is mentioning, is it not the case that many more millions of people are out of work in Europe because this whole European federalism dream—we can call it what we like—is going horribly wrong? It is not just a UK matter; it is about what we are trying to live with, and we just cannot do it.
Alison McGovern
To help the hon. Gentleman, let me point out that what went horribly wrong was that the financial services industry invested in complicated products that it told us would help to manage risk, but it turned out that they made the risks worse. That sparked a financial crisis, and that has led to the problems that I have been describing.
We need a rebalancing of our European economy, and we need to think about how we can address the significant problem of inequality that is being created. In a recent Mansion House speech, the Chancellor of the Exchequer said that he was not in favour of a stimulus because it would lead to leakage in relation to imports. An EU-wide plan therefore makes sense, because we are part of a trading bloc and we should be working together to improve our shared economy. My right hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr Denham), who is sadly no longer in his place, mentioned state aid rules to rebalance areas of the economy that use high technology. It makes sense to work with our European colleagues on rebalancing.
Some commentators have advanced the idea of a youth contract whereby we could use unused structural funds for a European youth guarantee. I would argue that in order to tackle youth unemployment we need to learn the lessons of the projects proposed by the best of our town halls in the UK and the best countries around the world that have used active labour markets to tackle these problems. If there are funds available in Europe, we should work together with colleagues to get them to the heart of the problem.
Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)
In the 1970s I was chairman of the north-west London “Get Britain Out” campaign. I remember chairing a rally addressed on the one hand by local Labour MPs and Ken Gill, the general secretary of TASS—the Technical, Administrative and Supervisory Section—and a leading member of the Communist party on the party, and Enoch Powell on the other. I believed that position in good faith and I worked hard for it. I was disappointed by the outcome, but I soon came to recognise that I was wrong, just as I came to recognise that continuing to fight yesterday’s battles was wrong. We took a long time in the Labour party to recognise that. Indeed, when Labour members first went into the European Parliament, the Spanish socialists nicknamed them “Los Japonistos”, after the soldiers who emerged from the jungles in Guam 40 years after the war was over asking, “Is the war continuing?”
Why did I change my mind? I remember an excellent German-Jewish friend who had lost his family in the camps saying to me, “Jack, I’m not the greatest fan of the common market,” as it then was, “but we’ve had a continent at peace for a generation, unlike that which took my family from me.” I remember a very honourable Macmillanite Conservative in the 1980s—in the days when there were such people, before, in the immortal words of Julian Critchley, the “garagistes” took over the Conservative party—saying, “Jack, I’m proud of my country, but we can only be strong in a modern, bi-polar world,” as it was then, “if we are at the heart of the European Union, with its great traditions of Christian democracy and social democracy.”
The reason I changed my mind was also, yes, the rolling forward of the social dimension in the 1980s, when Jacques Delors—Frère Jacques, as we came to call him—came to address the TUC. However, it was also because of my experience in the real world of work, dealing with hard-headed business people—enlightened in their approach—who rightly argued that we needed a single market with common standards, at the heart of which was a social dimension that reflected a belief in the simple truth that how we treat workers is crucial to the quality of the service they provide and what they produce.
Richard Drax
Why do we need to be a member of a federalist state to treat our workers properly? Why cannot we pass those laws ourselves? Indeed, we have.
Jack Dromey
I am coming to that point in a moment.
On the argument that I have just deployed, I remember the chairman of the company then known as British Aerospace saying that we needed a single market, but that as a company and as a continent we could not succeed in the world on the basis of a race to the bottom. That brings me to my first concern, which is the hidden agenda that lies behind the Prime Minister’s argument. There was a tantalising glimpse of that last week when, extraordinarily, he seemed to suggest that we should return to the days when a junior doctor could work 100 hours a week. Repatriation is the cry, but the reality behind that is rolling back a generation of progress on workers’ rights and taking us back to the 1980s, an era I remember well.
Let me give the House an example, which relates to the acquired rights directive. The directive was legislated on at European Union level in 1978, and introduced here, reluctantly, by a Conservative Government in 1982. However, that Government did not extend it to cover 6 million public servants. What we saw was the most appalling Dutch auction, involving cut-throat competition as workers were transferred and suffered cuts to their pay, their holiday entitlement, their sickness entitlement and, often, their pension arrangements as well. I remember a particular example that I dealt with early on involving the Moreton-in-Marsh fire service training college, where 130 women caterers and housekeepers had seen dramatic cuts to their terms and conditions of employment. The only humorous side to that otherwise sad story was the fact that the managing director of the company concerned—Grand Metropolitan catering—was none other than a Mr Dick Turpin.
Two things happened at that time. First, in 1991, I took the case of the Eastbourne dustmen to the European Court of Justice, and we won. It was ruled that the British Government had acted unlawfully in denying protection on transfer from the public to the private sector. Secondly, employers themselves began to speak out. I remember Martin O’Halloran of ISS, the then chair of the CBI, saying that it was madness—that employers did not want a market based on a race to the bottom, and that they wanted a market in which we competed on quality and productivity, characterised by fair treatment and fair competition.
Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)
You have cut me down to size before I have even started, Mr Speaker, but I will comply with your ruling.
I want to speak in defence of agriculture in the EU and the dangers for our farmers, food producers, manufacturers and the UK economy that would arise from pulling out or from the prevarication we might see over the next few years. People do not often speak in defence of agriculture in the EU, but my discussions with farmers show that they have been universally in favour of staying in—and not because of CAP reform or subsidies, although I shall return to those issues in a moment.
The first issue is the clear benefit that being in the European Union brings to consumers. Our high food standards, animal welfare, food protection, food safety and so on—despite the recent issues that bubble along—are a direct result of our being in the EU and working across it to the highest standards. Examples include the beef hormone ban, comprehensive food labelling—although we can do more on that, a cross-Europe approach has been an enormous help to our farmers and food producers—and limits on the pesticide residue that can be left in our food.
I mentioned the higher welfare standards and one example is the ban on battery hens, which came at an enormous cost to our farmers. Despite their fears that they might be disadvantaged when we entered into the ban across Europe on 1 January last year, the demand for eggs from producers who met the highest standards meant that for a short period there was a premium on their eggs. We need to sing this out loud: our farmers provide the highest standards of animal welfare and food safety standards of which consumers can be proud. It is a question not just of domestic supply but of exports.
Richard Drax
We discussed eggs and their production in the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and it might interest the hon. Gentleman to learn that very few other countries met any of the requirements, at great cost to our producers.
Huw Irranca-Davies
I do not want to contradict the hon. Gentleman, but, to my surprise, the response of the EU on 1 January last year was a quite dramatic intervention: in Spain and elsewhere, immediate action was taken against suppliers who were not compliant, to the extent of closing down hatcheries and egg producers. My regular meetings with the British Egg Industry Council suggest that that has not been nearly as worrisome to its members as they thought it might be, and has, in fact, been to their advantage. The long-term advantage in the sector lies in having not just a level playing field, but in meeting the higher standards that consumers expect. Consumers are demanding more of food production.
The common agricultural policy is undergoing changes at the moment, but the rural development pillar has been directly beneficial to many hard-pressed rural communities throughout the UK by rewarding the delivery of biodiversity and good environmental outcomes as well as innovation and competitiveness in farming and food production, and supporting areas such as Wales and Scotland where there are natural environmental constraints.
Another benefit is found in European food protection labelling, such as protected designations of origin, protected geographical indications and traditional specialities guaranteed. We in the UK need to speak up proudly about how many of our foodstuffs, produced in every part of the UK, fall within one of those designations and because of that, have value added and command a premium price. It is interesting that, just within cheeses, we now have more than one speciality cheese for every single day of the year. That is the result of the European approach of recognising the very best in local and speciality foods. Examples include Welsh lamb, Stilton cheese, Scotch beef, traditional farm fresh turkey and traditionally farmed Gloucestershire Old Spots pork.
We should also look at what the EU does across its member states in agricultural scientific research. For example, this country is holding its breath over the spread of the Schmallenberg virus, but it is at EU level that the research is being done into how we can counter it in the seven or so member states affected. The UK specifically has €400,000 to carry out scientific studies designed to gather further information, and is working with farmers to deliver a joined-up approach to research and to provide advice to farmers and the farming community.
Access to the single market is also vital. My hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds) spoke about this. Yes, if we were outside the EU, we could still negotiate access, but there are difficulties with that. First, there is the time it would take and the complexity of negotiating access for a range of different products; and secondly, as farmers and the NFU tell me, we would have to comply with the standards that were determined without our having any input into making those rules. It would be like playing a game but having no say in the rules—just being told what to do. That is surely not to our advantage and it is the reason why the farming community are adamant that they want to be in the EU, playing and leading.
CAP reform is a continuous process. This week, the European Parliament voted on a proposal that, although it has some good parts, is in many respects extremely retrograde, not least re-coupling payments to production rather than to added value through environmental gains and so on. That links back to the old problem, albeit not on the same scale, of wine lakes and butter mountains, and it is wrong headed. None the less, I believe that our farmers want us to be in there, at the front, arguing loudly as a progressive member of the EU. My one concern in all this is that Government’s overall approach in the past couple of years of shaking a big stick on every possible occasion, and their present position that we will carry a bit of a threat here just in case we need to use it, have an impact not only on the tone of the negotiations but on their outcome. Having one of the leading Eurosceptics in the Cabinet taking those negotiations forward may be a disaster.
Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)
It is a privilege to follow the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck). I do not agree with her views, but that is probably why we are on opposite sides of the Chamber.
I suspect that it will surprise a few Members in this place when I say that I love Europe. I love the languages, the culture, the history, the open roads, the mountains, the rivers, the wine—
Richard Drax
Indeed, the women. However, I do not want to be ruled by Europe.
Why do we not admire the diversity of this great European space rather like a family? I am a father of four. I am not offering any advice on how to be a father —it would be far beyond me to do that. However, I have noted from my experience and that of my friends that if you let your children go, they come home, but if you cudgel them over the head and say, “Do this job, do that course,” they say, “Goodbye,” and you lose them. Why can we not do the same with Europe? One rule simply does not fit all. The evidence is there to be seen.
I warmly congratulate the Prime Minister on his speech. It is perhaps rare for me to say that, but I really do. He is a man of courage, standing up for our country, which is what we are all here to do. My battle cry during the election campaign was, “We want our country back.” That is not being a pessimistic, down-at-heart little Englander. It is being optimistic. It is looking to the future and doing what is best for our country. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) said so eloquently, this debate is about democracy and freedom. I am delighted that we are at last talking about this bogeyman—this elephant in the room—that nobody has discussed until now. The fact that the Prime Minister has at last said that we will have a referendum in 2017 allows us to speak our minds.
From the Opposition Benches we heard words such as “uncertainty” and “clarity”, but we do not have certainty and clarity now, because Europe as we know it is dead; it is finished. I am sure all hon. Members are familiar with the “Dead Parrot” sketch from Monty Python. As it stands and as it is being progressed, the parrot—Europe—is dead. It is finished. For 17 years the doctor—the accountant—has injected all this medicine into the poor EU parrot: “Wake up, wake up!” Yet there it lies saying, “No. I am a corrupt dead parrot; I am a finished parrot.” The evidence is there to see. Opposition Members are shaking their heads—yes, the nightmare Member for South Dorset is standing up for his country. I am proud to be in the Chamber and to speak in this way, and I have 46 seconds left to speak up for my constituents and my country—our country.
As my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham said, this place has lost so much power. We were put here to stand up for our constituents and they say that they are worried about the way Europe is going. It is time to look at the issue and at whether we can renegotiate the powers. Again, we are asked, “What powers?” I say all powers—repatriate the lot so that this House becomes a sovereign Parliament once again and all hon. Members do the job that we were sent here to do.
Treaty on Stability, Co-ordination and Governance
Richard Drax Excerpts(12 years, 9 months ago)
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Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend not accept that all of us in this country want to trade with Europe? There is no question about that. There is no “little island” mentality. We want to be part of, and trade with, Europe; we just do not want to be told what to do by Europe, and we want our own currency. It is not a matter of “little Britain”. We do not want to get out; we want to trade with Europe—that is it.
Mr Buckland
I do not disagree. My hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom) made a powerful point about variable geometry; we should use Europe in our national interests, and work with it where appropriate. My hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) is absolutely right about trade and the single market, which was, let us face it, a British invention. Lord Cockfield did a huge amount of work to make sure that that aspiration became a reality, and my hon. Friend is right to emphasise the issue. As for not being told what to do, again he makes a fair point. I do not accept that, at any stage, the British Government, or the people of this country, should be put in a position in which they end up doing something against their will. That is why I supported the Bill on European referendums, now the European Union Act 2011, why I agree with the mechanism that the Government proposed, and why I was happy to speak in support of that Bill on Second Reading and at other stages.
To come back to the reality of the debate about Europe, we are talking about real jobs. We should be talking about trade, widening the single market, the digital economy and the energy market—all things that form the subject matter of a very helpful letter, signed by the Prime Minister and 11 other Heads of Government on 20 February, which set out a plan for growth. That should be at the core of negotiations at the European Council. That should be the agenda, because that is the agenda that is relevant to my constituents and the wider country. It would be wholly ridiculous for me, an elected representative of Swindon, to say to my Honda workers, “What we need is more arcane debate about the legality of Europe,” when what they want to hear is debate and discussion about how we can grow the economies of Europe and expand the growth agenda. That is what I call on Ministers to do.
Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash) for securing the debate. He stands up for everything in which I and a lot of Members on both sides of the House believe.
I simply do not understand why we all look at this huge abyss, this black hole, this legal and financial federalist nightmare, yet go on pouring billions of euros into it in the hope that it will somehow recover. It will not. The political elite in the entire eurozone are betraying the very people they say they represent.
We are going to have tears over this. We have, unfortunately, already had riots in Greece: God forbid that we have riots in this country one day when the people wake up to realise that we have been, dare I say it, disingenuous—I will not say untruthful because I am not allowed to use that word in this House—to our electorate. We have to be truthful, and we have to base our politics on common sense and the law. I want us to have jobs, growth, wealth and mobility, but we will not get them under the current EU federalist state. We must renegotiate and start talking. I urge those on the Front Bench, please, for our party and our country, to say at the meeting, “Enough is enough: let’s sit down and find a more common-sense approach for the future.”
National Referendum on the European Union
Richard Drax Excerpts(13 years, 1 month ago)
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Michael Connarty
I do not have time to give way, as I have given way twice and I know how the system works.
It is clearly important that we consider what the European Union is about. There are things to give up, such as our obsession with not wanting people in Europe to have the same rights when they are on trial. We are opposing translation rights and the right to legal representation—this Government are opposing them at the moment. How can anyone justify that? Europe has to be a better place to live. If it was not for the social chapter—
Michael Connarty
The hon. Gentleman knows the rules. I have given way often enough and I have had my extra two minutes.
We need to think about Delors and what happened when the package for the social chapter came in. It protected the people I represent from Thatcherism in its worst aspects; it was a chance to rebalance Europe and bring about a social Europe. So much has been said about that. I respect the hon. Member for Gravesham (Mr Holloway), who decided to resign as a Parliamentary Private Secretary, as it is right that people should be able to put their principles before someone’s attempt to give them a little bag-carrying job. I am not sure that he would be resigning quite as quickly if he was a Minister. The problem is that no Ministers have been saying that they will resign their ministerial position over this matter.
The Liberal Democrats say that they would vote for a referendum only on a fundamental shift, but there has been a fundamental shift. It has been away from voting Liberal, and their voting with the Government will damage them. I am sorry about that, but the Liberals did say that they would do something. The European Union still protects the three red lines: defence, tax and foreign policy. What we need to do in this place is give more power to the Backbench Business Committee and the European Scrutiny Committee to stop the Government voting things through in the Council, which they do at the moment.
Mr Carswell
I shall try to do so over the next three minutes, and I am grateful for that thoughtful and erudite intervention.
This is a matter of principle: is it right, in principle, to put the question of EU membership to a popular vote? Too many people in Westminster—in SW1—try to second-guess how the voters may vote in a referendum and then work backwards to decide whether or not they favour a referendum. Instead we should start from the principle: is it right for the people to decide? Yes it is, and I believe that this issue qualifies for a referendum. The issue is of massive constitutional significance, it divides all three parties and it cannot be adequately settled in a general election.
Referendums can no longer be dismissed, as they have been for many years, as somehow alien to the British tradition. We have had dozens of referendums since 1997, including a national referendum on the alternative vote.
Richard Drax
Does my hon. Friend accept that the reason why we are having more and more referendums is that the people who put us here simply do not trust us?
Kris Hopkins
As I said in response to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), if there is such support for the matter, we should campaign to ensure that it is part of our party’s next election manifesto.
Should we compromise on financial stability, growth and maintaining low interest rates for the sake of losing our ability to negotiate reform, and to negotiate to bring powers back to this country? If we compromise now, we will have a lame duck Government for a couple of years while the world watches, knowing that we will have a referendum that might compromise that position. We have the best hand in a generation, and we should play it to full effect.
This is the wrong motion at the wrong time for this country. This is Great Britain, and we do not run away when Europe gets into trouble. In fact, we have a reputation for sorting out those poor fellows. It is in Britain’s interest to be at the table.
Kris Hopkins
No.
The global economy is changing rapidly, and the focus of power is moving east. We need to be able to use all the opportunities, including through the European Union, to participate in that growth of wealth. Some hon. Members have said today that it would not be democratic if the 100,000 votes do not win the day, but I have an opinion and other hon. Members have a different one. That is democracy, and I will vote against the motion.
Nick Boles
I thank my hon. Friend, but that was not my point. My point on timing is simply this: we need the promise—or, indeed, the threat—of that referendum to persuade our European partners to give us some of what we want in that negotiation.
European Union (Amendment) Act 2008
Richard Drax Excerpts(13 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Lidington
My hon. Friend, uncharacteristically, underestimates the influence of our right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. When we look at how he has managed to assemble and lead a coalition of countries committed to greater budgetary discipline—something that would not have happened without his initiative—and when we look at the work that he is leading at a European level on the need for growth, competitiveness and deregulation, we can see that the influence of the Prime Minister and of the United Kingdom is being felt. I would encourage—
Mr Lidington
I am not giving way further.
I would encourage my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough to visit more EU member countries and talk to representatives of their Governments, and I think he will find that our right hon. Friend has in 10 brief months attained considerable respect and a high standing among the partner countries with which he deals and negotiates.
Let me turn to the proposed treaty change and how it came about. It originates from the need for a permanent mechanism to be established by the member states of the euro area to safeguard the financial stability of the euro area as a whole. As the House knows, in May last year the EU established two emergency instruments to respond to financial crises—the European financial stability facility and the European financial stability mechanism. Many hon. Members have expressed their unhappiness at the EFSM arrangements, to which, because of a decision taken in the dying days of the previous Government, this country is a party. That unhappiness is wholly shared by this Government. It is yet another mess that we have inherited and must seek to clean up.
Against that backdrop and the continued uncertainty in the financial markets, the members of the European Council agreed last December to amend article 136 of the treaty on the functioning of the European Union to provide that member states of the eurozone may establish a permanent stability mechanism. That will provide a necessary means for dealing with cases that pose a risk to the financial stability of the euro area as a whole, something that is important to us given the extent of our trade and other economic connections with the eurozone even though we are outside it and intend to remain so.
The proposed amendment contained in the draft decision adds the following paragraph to article 136:
“The Member States whose currency is the euro may establish a stability mechanism to be activated if indispensable to safeguard the stability of the euro area as a whole. The granting of any required financial assistance under the mechanism will be made subject to strict conditionality.”
By providing for eurozone members to establish a permanent mechanism, the European Council is making absolutely clear the responsibilities of all members of the euro area to each other and to the overall stability of the euro area. The proposed new paragraph will be added to treaty provisions that apply—I stress this point—only to member states whose currency is the euro. It does not apply to non-euro area member states and cannot confer any obligations upon them. We believe that financial problems within the euro area should be resolved primarily by euro area members.
The details of how the ESM will operate are being discussed in Brussels. In accordance with the conclusions of the December European Council, member states whose currency is not the euro can be involved on a voluntary basis in finalising work on what will be an intergovernmental arrangement to set up the ESM under the authority given by this proposed amendment to the treaties. My hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury is responsible for overseeing UK input to those discussions.
I want to stress that while we are involved on a voluntary basis in the design of the mechanism—it is in our interests to be so—we cannot and will not be part of the mechanism. In fact, we could not be part of the ESM unless the UK first joined the euro area, and as the whole House is already aware, the Government have declared their intention not to join or to prepare to join the euro. Furthermore, under the terms of the European Union Bill, if any future Government were so foolish as to wish to do so, they could join only with parliamentary approval by Act of Parliament and the consent of the British people in a referendum.
European Union Bill
Richard Drax Excerpts(13 years, 8 months ago)
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Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)
It is a privilege to follow my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland). I, too, pay tribute to the Minister for Europe; if the debates have confirmed only one thing in my mind, it is that he and I are poles apart. For me and many of my constituents, it has been sad to watch a once-proud sovereign nation hand over more and more powers to Europe. This federal beast grows bigger by the day, and those it does not seduce it consumes. I have a warning for our party at the ballot box: unless we take a tough stance on Europe, we will pay dearly at the next general election.
Labour promised us a referendum on the Lisbon treaty and reneged on that promise. We have inherited a thoroughly unsatisfactory situation which we hope the Bill will somehow mitigate. I welcome the opportunity to call a referendum on any proposed EU treaty or treaty change that transfers more powers to the EU, but I have grave reservations about whether those measures will prove effective.
It is important to remind the House that five new powers have already been transferred: a European Action Service has been created; the European arrest warrant has been extended; EU regulations have been imposed on the City; EU oversight on our national budget has been agreed to; and our contribution to the EU budget has been increased, despite our objection. As I understand it, the Bill would not have prevented any of those transfers of power.
Even the significant clause 18 is under siege from various legal interpretations. Some highly respected Members of this House do not believe that it will safeguard our sovereignty, and I agree with them. I pay particular tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash) for all the work he does to stand up for the national interest. It is not a bit of fish or meat for the Eurosceptics, as the Opposition claim. The truth is that it is done in the national interest.
Every day there is further evidence of Europe’s creeping influence on our laws, liberties and livelihoods. This week alone, anti-discrimination legislation has been interpreted in the most extraordinary way by the European Court of Justice, which has ruled that insurance companies may no longer differentiate between men and women. In calculating pension annuities, the Court has decreed that payouts must be the same, despite evidence that women live longer—I think I understand why. Similarly, women will face higher driver insurance premiums, although statistics prove that they are involved in fewer accidents than men. Both rulings are imposed on us by a foreign court and by judges who are unaccountable and unelected. Surely it is time for this country to stand up for itself.
If any referendum should be held, it should be the one that we were promised. We all know what the outcome would be. Then, and only then, would the lion that once was this country roar again. Once more, we would be in charge of our economy, our laws, our rights, our borders and immigration, to name but a few matters. I shall be voting with the Government tonight if the Bill is pressed to a vote, because it is better than nothing. I remain deeply sceptical that it is nothing more than a fig leaf, but frankly, a fig leaf is perhaps better than running around, vulnerable, in the buff.
Libya and the Middle East
Richard Drax Excerpts(13 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Hague
We do not take sides in Yemeni politics. We of course want a close and friendly relationship with the state of Yemen. We support the Government of Yemen in carrying out necessary reforms. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, when I visited Yemen a few weeks ago, I called on its President to deliver a detailed development and poverty reduction plan, and to combat international terrorism within Yemen effectively. Those are the necessary priorities for Yemen. I also called on him to be generous to opposition parties in charting the way forward constitutionally for Yemen, and asked opposition parties to be generous to him in finding an agreed way forward. We are still engaged in that process, including through delivering the aid to Yemen that the right hon. Gentleman highlighted in his question. It is the Foreign Office’s responsibility to give up-to-date travel advice to reflect the difficult situation in that country. The situation has deteriorated in recent days, which is why we have changed the travel advice.
Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)
If we have no aircraft carriers, which are needed to implement a no-fly zone, from which base would rescue helicopters for downed pilots fly?
Mr Hague
That will be the subject of the contingency planning that we are talking about. Clearly, there are many military bases along the south of NATO. I have referred to the need for clear support from the region if we are to implement a no-fly zone. That has to be borne in mind in answering my hon. Friend’s question.
European Union Bill
Richard Drax Excerpts(13 years, 11 months ago)
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Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)
How interesting that the poor old mouse has taken such a lot of stick tonight. Several hon. Members have used the expression “mouse of a Bill.” It is a mouse that the EU cat will play with, mutilate and consume. I have heard the words, “judicial reviews,” “written constitution,” “competences,” “vetoes,” “referendums,” “advocate-generals,” and “ratchets.” That is the language of the bureaucrat. The bureaucrat loves this. Such legislation employs the bureaucrat and gives them lots of money on the gravy train in Europe.
We want our country back. That is what we want. We do not want to say goodbye to Europe; we want to trade with Europe. I like Europe. I like the French, the Germans, the Italians; they have so much to offer us. However, we should not be ruled and regulated by Europe, particularly by the unelected Commission. If we want to be more committed to Europe in the sense that Labour Members wish—to be in Europe, to trade with Europe—it needs to become more democratically accountable. That is why, at first glance, the Bill ticks all the boxes. What could be more democratic than to ask our nation to vote on new EU initiatives? As my hon. Friend the Member for Clacton (Mr Carswell) pointed out—his expression has been used twice tonight—the problem is that the legislation is all smoke and mirrors.
As we have heard, we are being asked to approve a Bill that includes a referendum lock and that sets out to ensure that no future transfer of power to Brussels will take place without the approval of people in this country. That is an admirable aim that we promised in our manifesto, when we undertook to repatriate powers from the EU. The Bill does not do that. Labour—most of you—betrayed this country. You promised us a referendum on the Lisbon treaty. You promised us—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. The hon. Gentleman must not place burdens on the Chair that do not exist. Will he desist from using the word “you” when making accusations about other people’s behaviour?
Richard Drax
I apologise. I am happy to retract that statement.
To our Government’s credit, they have attempted to prevent the ratchet clauses with the referendum lock. That is a seemingly elegant solution that, as I said, will give power back to the people. However, if we look at the Bill more closely, we will see that there is plenty of wriggle room. I, for one—there are obviously many others—am unhappy with that. The lock is entirely bogus. A referendum will be triggered only if Ministers believe what their civil servants tell them and agree that the subject is significant. If they do not consider it to be significant, there will be no referendum and the matter will become law.
In areas where primary legislation is required but that are not considered significant enough to put to the people, we are asked to take the matter on trust. We are asked to trust that our masters will ensure that no further powers are transferred away from the UK during the next Parliament. This would be easier to swallow had we not already allowed the EU to roll us on our backs on five occasions in the past six months. We have had the European External Action Service. What action—to take our money? We have had the European arrest warrant. I have a constituent, Michael Turner, who has been in jail in Hungary for 115 days with no charge. His crime, allegedly, is that he left creditors owing about £18,000 when his business closed in 2002. There has been an endless pursuit by the Hungarian authorities to find an offence with which to charge him and a colleague. The investigation was dropped because they could not find enough evidence to get him, and now they are mounting another one—but there is still no charge. Then we had EU regulation over the City, EU oversight over our national budgets agreed to, and finally, our contribution to the EU budget increased despite our objections. May I ask what happens when we really do roll over?
The truth is that not a single one of those transfers of power would have been halted as a result of the referendum lock proposed today. Nor are the accession agreements affected, so new countries joining can do so, as the right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane) said, without the EU asking our citizens. I can see why they would not be asked. We already have 27 countries in the EU and hundreds of thousands of people are able to move freely within it. That was practicable when the EU was a smaller organisation, but it is not practicable any more.
There are constitutional questions hanging over this legislation that have tested far greater legal minds than mine. Suffice it to say that one five-line passage—clause 18—does not enshrine our sovereignty adequately. Professor Adam Tomkins has said that the Bill
“goes out of its way to invite litigation”.
His main concern is that it does not establish which of the two competing legal systems now operating in this country has supremacy: English law or EU law. He says that taken to its conclusion, ministerial decisions could be challenged in the courts. We have seen enough of that already, with our courts and judges overruled by European judges.
Our independence was hard-won over hundreds of years, yet we are seeing it trickle away as we are increasingly subjugated by unaccountable, unelected bureaucrats. A torrent of legislation threatens to submerge our identity. No fewer than 3,000 new laws passed in this Parliament last year were related in some way to the EU, and you can bet that none of them would have triggered a referendum. We have been giving away our right to govern ourselves, and we must take it back. Toothless legislation that gives the impression of protecting our sovereignty while doing nothing of the sort will simply hide the rot a little longer.
When I was elected, many of my constituents made it clear that the power-grabbing EU was one of their primary concerns. I would be serving them badly if I were to pretend that this Bill would do anything concrete to protect the country they love. I will not be supporting the Bill.