Oral Answers to Questions
Wayne David Excerpts(12 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Lidington
My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer made it quite clear at the most recent ECOFIN meeting that we would reject an EU financial transfer tax, and he was supported in his opposition by 11 other member states.
Mr Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)
Can the Minister tell us what practical actions his Government have taken to encourage our European partners to complete the single European market?
Mr Lidington
I have discussed this in the past two weeks with senior members of the Commission, and I have encouraged them to introduce measures under the Single European Act. Yesterday, in Berlin, other Ministers and I talked to our German counterparts about joint action both to deepen the single market and to reduce the cost of regulations, especially for small and medium-sized businesses.
North Africa and the Near and Middle East
Wayne David Excerpts(12 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Hague
We have done that. The Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire, in particular has been in direct contact with Ministers in Niger, and we have reminded them and other countries in the region of their international responsibilities, which they have assured us they will live up to.
The progress that Libya is making stands in stark contrast to the repression in Syria. The toll of more than 3,500 lost lives since March this year is truly appalling. The UN commission of inquiry report issued today highlights the shocking actions carried out by the Assad regime against its own civilian population, including summary executions, arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances, torture, sexual violence and the violation of children’s rights. I welcome yesterday’s unprecedented decision by the Arab League to impose sanctions on Syria and seek UN support to address the situation. The decision by Russia and China to block Security Council action on 4 October was utterly wrong and, in my view, has been confirmed as misguided by everything that has happened in Syria subsequently.
Mr Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)
What representations are the Foreign Secretary and the Government making to the Chinese and Russian Governments to ensure that they adopt a stronger position on sanctions?
Mr Hague
We have discussed that at some length, as the hon. Gentleman can imagine. The Prime Minister and I discussed it with Russian leaders, including President Medvedev, on our visit to Moscow a couple of months ago. We are in constant contact about it at the UN Security Council, as are our representatives there. I continue to believe that it would be right for the Security Council to address the issue and we will make further attempts to do so. Of course, passing any resolution will require a different attitude from Moscow.
National Referendum on the European Union
Wayne David Excerpts(12 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Nuttall
I thank my hon. Friend. I will now press on.
A staggering 84% of the current voting age population have never voted in favour of Britain’s continued membership of the EEC, never mind the European Union. Furthermore, if I were a betting man, I would wager that some of those who voted yes back in 1975 may well have since changed their minds. The Common Market has fundamentally changed in size and powers as it has been transformed into the European Union, and without the British people ever being consulted, of course.
Mr Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)
Why does the hon. Gentleman think that the Prime Minister has not stayed to listen to his speech?
Mr Nuttall
I am sure that the Prime Minister has many important duties to attend to.
Mr Alexander
First, the hon. Gentleman could have directed that question at the Foreign Secretary. Secondly, it is in the character of the EU that it is not open to the UK to say, “We will involve ourselves exclusively in economic and trade matters,” because we need to secure the support of other European partners for such changes. I accept that there is a concern among the British public in relation to Europe. My answer to that concern is not to leave Europe, but to reform it. In that way at least, I agree with Conservative Front Benchers.
Mr Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)
Let me be clear: I do not support today’s motion because I believe that it is in Britain’s national interest for us to be involved in the European Union. As has been widely acknowledged by many in this debate and elsewhere, half of Britain’s exports go to the rest of the European Union, and 3.5 million jobs in this country are dependent on our trade with our partners in the European Union. My own constituency is a former mining constituency where manufacturing is now very important. If Britain were to withdraw from the European Union, or even substantially to renegotiate its terms of membership, it would be bad economic news for the people I represent.
Andrew Percy
I am interested to hear what the hon. Gentleman says. However, the argument is not about whether we are in or out of Europe but whether we have a referendum. If he is so convinced of his argument, why is he frightened to allow the British people to express their view?
Mr David
I believe that our place is firmly inside the European Union. We had a vote in this country to join the European Union, and I see this as a natural progression.
Several Members have referred to those huge countries, Norway and Switzerland, and said that Britain could have a similar relationship with the European Union. I would make two points about that. First, neither of those countries is a major trading nation, whereas the United Kingdom is.
Mr Redwood
A very large number of jobs in China depend on exporting goods to the European Union. China is not a member of the European Union, so how do those jobs survive?
Mr David
The crucial thing is what happens to the jobs of people in this country. Many of the inward investors who come to this country from the United States of America do so because we are an integral part of the single market. If one puts in question our membership of the single market, one puts in question the economic viability of this country.
Secondly, with regard to Norway and Switzerland, let us not forget that although those countries have a good trading relationship with the European Union, the rules that it applies to them are imposed on them, whereas we are in the single market—an integral part of that market—and have a full say on the rules that apply to everyone.
The real question is not whether we support the European Union but what kind of Europe we want in future. The European Union that I want to see—as, I believe, do most people in this country—is not about uniformity and centralisation but is based on the principle of subsidiarity, whereby decisions are made as close to the people as possible. We want a European Union in which the single market—a single market that works to Britain’s national advantage—is completed. If that is to happen, it is no good our being on the sidelines moaning and groaning; we have to be there, ensuring that the European Union always works to our national benefit.
The European Union should not just be about a single market for business—it should also be a social Europe for people. The social Europe agenda is very important. Unlike the right-wing Eurosceptics, I believe that the European Union should offer something tangible for ordinary working people. Similarly, it is important for us to be concerned about the environment. Who in their right mind, these days, can believe for one moment that individual countries—medium-sized nation states—can successfully tackle the environmental problems that we face? We have to work together with other people, with other countries throughout the world, and, yes, inside the European Union.
It is also important that we address such issues as industrial policy. We must realise that we need to ensure that our small and medium-sized businesses develop over the whole of the European Union and that we need joint policies to ensure that there is maximum benefit.
Sheryll Murray
Will the hon. Gentleman tell us why he will not let the British people have a say so that they can decide that they want to support the kind of European Union that he seems to support?
Mr David
I respectfully point out that there are such things as election manifestos. The Labour party, for example, has made it clear that this is the kind of Europe we want, and the kind of Europe which, if we are in power before too long, as I think we will be, we want to help to create.
We have heard a lot about money going from the United Kingdom to the European Union. Yes, there is a relatively small membership fee, but we do not hear about the fact that £1 billion of European regional development fund money that has been allocated to the hard-pressed regions of England is not being spent because of Government public expenditure cuts. Hard-pressed regions such as Rotherham, Doncaster, Sheffield, Preston, Scarborough, Barnsley and many others are losing out on European money because of the Government’s ideology. We want to make sure that that money is put to good use. We want to make sure that we have a pragmatic approach to the European Union and do not put blinkered ideology above all else. I am afraid that many people in this debate do precisely that.
Above all, if there is to be economic rehabilitation of this country, it is absolutely imperative that we have a growth strategy not only here in the United Kingdom but in the European Union. Forty per cent. of our trade is with our eurozone partners. One of the great ironies is that our Prime Minister believes in a very strict austerity-based economic policy, so his greatest economic soulmate is Chancellor Merkel. The European Union as a whole, and the eurozone in particular, needs a growth strategy. It is no good having austerity, austerity, austerity; we also need a growth strategy that will create the kind of demand that we need for prosperity for the future.
The real debate that we face in this country is not about whether we are in the European Union or out of the European Union; it is about what kind of Europe we want to see.
Oral Answers to Questions
Wayne David Excerpts(12 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Lidington
When I was in Sarajevo last month, the issue of corruption and, in particular, the failure of judicial and police institutions came up again and again in conversations with representatives of civil society. If Bosnia and Herzegovina is to make progress towards EU membership, it is vital that these matters are fully addressed. A detailed menu of reforms is laid out in the Commission’s report published at the end of last year. We continue to urge the Governments in Sarajevo and in Banja Luka—the two entities—to make progress. In the first place, they have to form a state-level Government. Until that is in place, it is difficult to see the required progress being made.
Mr Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)
It has been 16 years since the massacre at Srebrenica. Will the Government indicate what is being done at home and abroad to make sure that young people learn about this atrocity?
Mr Lidington
My right hon. and noble Friend Baroness Warsi attended the anniversary commemorations in Srebrenica this year, and she made clear, in her public speech on behalf of the British Government and in her private conversations with civic and political leaders of the different communities, the importance of community reconciliation and of making sure that atrocities such as that of Srebrenica are not forgotten but serve as a reminder to everybody from all traditions, in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in the wider Balkans, that the horrors of the past must be put behind us and that we need to work for reconciliation for the future.
European Union Bill
Wayne David Excerpts(12 years, 10 months ago)
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Mr Lidington
As the House debated in Committee and on Report, in the Bill it is the creation of a common European defence entity that goes beyond what is defined as a common security and defence policy, which as my hon. Friend knows is very limited in scope within the treaties as they stand. If there was to be a common European defence, that would clearly have to be defined in treaty terms, but sometimes, as he would be the first to note, language that appears quite generalised in scope, once written into a treaty, provides the basis on which numerous detailed measures can then be brought forward because there has been an overall extension of competence to the EU institutions. It could—I am not saying that it always would—spell the end of an independent UK defence policy, which was one of the previous Government’s red lines during their negotiations on the Lisbon treaty.
The amendments would also remove any decision to participate in a European public prosecutor from the referendum requirement. Hon. Members will recall the sensitivity and divergence in views across Europe over the idea of a European public prosecutor who would be able to launch prosecutions in the United Kingdom and other member states in areas affecting the EU’s financial interests. When we considered this issue earlier this year it was accepted that people should be asked for their approval before any Government could agree to participate and allow cases to be prosecuted independently in the UK’s legal system.
We have always guarded jealously—rightly, I think—the principle that decisions on whether to prosecute any individual or corporate entity should be taken by the designated independent prosecutors. To give those powers to some new European body that could come in and state whether a prosecution would or would not take place, irrespective of what the Crown Prosecution Service, the Director of Public Prosecutions or Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs said about a particular case, would be a very serious shift of power and competence away from this country to Brussels. It would be right for the British people to be asked to assent to that before a Government were allowed to ratify such a decision.
Before I move on from the Lords amendments to clause 6, I should like to express my amazement that, when the House of Lords voted for an amendment to remove from the referendum lock a decision to end the requirement for unanimity in agreement to the EU’s multi-annual financial frameworks, the official Opposition voted in favour of that proposal. I hope that the hon. Member for Caerphilly will explain on the record where the Opposition now stand on the matter. Everyone in the House, whatever their views on the EU, knows that in the next couple of years a key issue facing every Government in the EU and all the Brussels institutions is the negotiation on the new MFF which will effectively set budgetary decisions and ceilings for the next five or seven years in the EU’s life and development. It is vital that that remains subject to unanimity and that the British Government, whoever is in office, continue to have a right of veto.
Mr Lidington
The hon. Gentleman is nodding, so he must explain why members of his party—not just Labour Back Benchers but official spokesmen in the House of Lords—trooped through the Lobby to say that they wanted to scrap the British veto and allow the fate, for example, of the UK’s rebate to be subject not to consensus but to qualified majority voting. That would be the impact of the measure. The hon. Gentleman is saying that he would remove from the referendum lock a decision to switch from unanimity to QMV on that matter.
Mr Lidington
My hon. Friend makes a good point. The Opposition need to own up to where they are coming from. If the hon. Member for Caerphilly wants to intervene and say that his Front-Bench colleagues in the House of Lords had gone rogue and he was unable to control them, that he was sorry and he did not really mean it, a plea for forgiveness might be entertained. But if he really supports the proposal to remove decisions on the MFF from the referendum lock, he should say so clearly to the House, because the Labour party did not say that when the Bill was debated in the House of Commons.
Mr David
I will make a deal with the Minister. I am more than happy to explain the Labour party’s decision when I speak to the Lords amendments, but will he explain to the House the comments of Members of the other place such as Lord Brittan, or the actions of Lord Heseltine, both of whom expressed complete disagreement with fundamental aspects of the Bill?
Mr Lidington
I have huge respect for Lord Brittan, Lord Heseltine and those senior Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords who have devoted their political lives to support for European integration—they have a consistent and honourable point of view on this. I do not agree with them. There is a key difference—and the hon. Gentleman may wish to challenge me—between the way in which Lords Brittan and Heseltine spoke and voted and the way in which his colleagues did so. My noble Friends gave distinguished service in government, but many years ago, and they are no longer ministerial spokesmen. The hon. Gentleman must explain why the Labour party’s official spokesmen in the House of Lords spoke and voted in the Lobby for an amendment that he appears very unwilling to support.
Mr Lidington
My hon. Friend is inviting me to comment on the subject matter of the third group of amendments. I hope that he will forgive me if I delay commenting in that fashion until we reach those amendments.
This Bill places Parliament at the heart of every decision to be considered. Each decision will need parliamentary approval, whether by Act or by resolution. The sunset clause would take that power away from Parliament, and until such time as part 1 was revived, none of the controls in part 1—not just the referendum lock but none of them—would apply. Some colleagues in the other place claim that the Government are binding future Governments and not themselves. However, we have already said that we will use the Bill to ratify the current treaty change on the eurozone stability mechanism, and we will also use it to consider the treaty change required for Croatia’s accession. Once the legislation is enacted, this Government, too, will be bound by it.
There is another reason why a sunset clause is unnecessary. The previous Government set up a system of post-legislative scrutiny under which the Government of the day are required to publish a memorandum to Parliament on the operation of each Act of Parliament up to five years after the commencement of that Act. This is examined by relevant parliamentary Committees, which can decide whether to conduct a detailed examination of that legislation. I am happy to put on record that we think that this is a good idea and that a future Government must publish a full report on how this Bill has been used within five years of its becoming law. That will result in the clarity and the reflection that colleagues in the other place seek, but without arbitrarily depriving the British people of their say.
The case for this Bill is simple: it is to give the British people the chance to have their rightful say over future changes to the EU treaties, whether through formal revision or use of the passerelles that transfer competence or power from this country to the EU. The Bill does not substitute the British people for Parliament, for Parliament will continue to have a central and strengthened role in approving such key decisions, but it provides a vital opportunity to address the disconnection that has developed over the years between the British people and the decisions taken in their name by Parliament and Government. This group of Lords amendments would not help us to achieve these goals—indeed, they would seriously jeopardise our chances of doing so—and that is why I hope that this House will disagree with them.
Mr David
I would like to comment briefly on Lords amendments 3 and 5 regarding the 40% threshold and on Lords amendments 6 to 13 regarding the number of referendums. I will then focus on Lords amendment 15 regarding the so-called sunset-sunrise clause.
Some people in both Houses say that a reasonable turnout in referendums is necessary to ensure a demonstrable degree of legitimacy. That argument was advanced during the alternative vote referendum debate, but it has weaknesses. We have already heard that there is a certain perverse incentive to encourage a lower turnout than might usually be the case, and that is a fair point. It is important to remember that there has been a threshold of 40% on only one occasion—the devolution referendums for Wales and Scotland in 1979. Wales rejected the then Government’s devolution proposals by a majority of four to one, while in Scotland there was a turnout of less than 40% but a narrow majority in favour of the proposals. The result in Scotland brought this question to the fore: when is a win not a win? That is a real dilemma, and it is one of the reasons that many Labour Members have reservations about the use of the 40% threshold.
Reference was made to my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant). I should point out that Rhondda is in south Wales and Ronda, as it was pronounced by the Minister for Europe, is in Spain. My hon. Friend tells me that, although he speaks Spanish, he represents to the best of his ability the constituency in south Wales.
Amendments 6 to 13 would reduce the number of theoretically possible topics for referendums from more than 50 to three: the single currency, the creation of a single EU integrated military force, and border controls and the Schengen protocols. As Labour Members argued consistently on Second Reading and in Committee, there is an overwhelming argument for referendums to be held if ever a British Government wanted this country to join the single currency, which is extremely unlikely, and when there is a proposal for a major constitutional change. In Committee, we proposed an amendment for a Joint Committee of both Houses to examine whether a proposed treaty change was a significant constitutional change. Unfortunately, that proposal was not successful in this House, and nor did it gain sufficient support in the other place. However, that remains our position. Of course, Members in the other place are entitled to their views, but we have reservations about the proposal that referendums should be confined to these three subject areas, and it is important to put on the record that my comments set out the Labour party’s position.
That brings me to the sunset-sunrise clause. In the other place, Lord Kerr, the distinguished former head of the diplomatic service, put forward three arguments for such a clause, one of which related to foreign policy. He argued with conviction that were the provision enacted, other European Governments could freeze Britain out of the debate through enhanced co-operation or by acting outside the treaties altogether. That might happen, he said, when a British negotiator in Brussels is unable to agree to something
“because his Government back home will tell him, ‘Don’t be silly. That would trigger a referendum.’”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 15 June 2011; Vol. 728, c. 810.]
He argued that a regular assessment and decision at the start of a new Parliament on whether such a system was working would be a reasonable measure to adopt. That is worthy of consideration.
Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
A Government would say that only if they did not think that they could win such a referendum, so how can it be right for his lordship to put the case that the British people, if they were minded to vote against such a thing, should have their role entirely negated? That seems to be the essence of the argument, and surely that is wrong.
Mr David
That is not entirely fair. When Lord Kerr presented his argument, he suggested that referendums could be triggered on what are universally considered as fairly technical, minor matters. It is a hypothetical situation. Nevertheless, it is important to recognise that in the minutiae of negotiations, we negotiate effectively for the United Kingdom only when we do not have it in the back of our minds that there might be hurdles to be overcome at a later stage.
The other two arguments used in the other place were essentially constitutional. It was argued that the referendums envisaged in the Bill are essentially post-legislative. In other words, once the Government have negotiated a treaty change and Parliament has agreed to it, a referendum will be held. As the referendum is post-legislative, it is a lock. The electorate will have to decide whether to overrule the Government and Parliament of the day. Holding referendums post-legislatively in that way questions Parliament’s traditional role. Such a change should therefore be subject to constant review and reaffirmation or otherwise. That constitutional argument is worthy of consideration.
By far the most important and powerful argument concerns the principle that a Parliament cannot bind its successor. That is a vital principle of our parliamentary democracy. In the evidence taken by the European Scrutiny Committee, which is ably chaired by the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash), a number of expert witnesses explained the importance of that principle. Michael Dougan, the dean of the Liverpool law school and a professor of European law at the university of Liverpool, concluded his evidence by saying:
“If there is a real concern about the doctrine of Parliamentary sovereignty that needs to be addressed during the passage of this Bill, it surely consists in an attempt by the Government to persuade the current Parliament to bind its successors in a manner which runs counter to accepted understandings of our constitutional order.”
That is a pretty powerful statement.
Kelvin Hopkins
Even though legislation can in a sense bind our successors, our successors can introduce legislation to annul previous legislation. There is a difference between the automatic disappearance of legislation at an election and an Opposition party coming into government with the commitment to reverse legislation. That is still possible, so our successors will not be bound absolutely.
Mr Cash
Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the question of fettering a future Parliament is secondary these days, unfortunately, to the fact that the Supreme Court could, as the European Scrutiny Committee examined in its evidence and report on this Bill, assert that it has ultimate authority in certain circumstances? That is the mischief that we must ensure does not happen under any circumstances. We will come on to debate clause 18 and the Government’s proposals, which open that door in an alarming fashion.
Mr David
Like the Minister, I do not want to stray into that debate. One thing that has been clear from this whole debate, including on Second and Third Reading, is the real threat to this institution comes from judicial activism. That threat does not come so much from the European Union as from our own judiciary. We must be mindful of that.
Another expert witness who gave evidence to the hon. Gentleman’s Committee was Vernon Bogdanor, a research professor at King’s college London and a former tutor of the Prime Minister. He said that
“the purpose of the bill must be to prevent a future government from supporting such an amendment or transfer without a referendum. The bill seeks, in other words, to bind a future government. That seems to me inconsistent with the declaratory proposition that Parliament is sovereign.”
That is an extremely powerful statement. We must consider the full impact of this legislation.
Charlie Elphicke
The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful case for Parliaments not binding their successors. The logic of his argument is surely that at the start of each Parliament, this country’s membership of the European Union and the legislation on the European Union should be reconfirmed.
Mr David
No, I do not think that that is the case. One thing that has come across clearly in the debates in this House is the sovereignty of Parliament. We are talking about the sovereignty of Parliament in a dualist system, but Parliament nevertheless has the right to determine what legislation has primacy over the people of this country. The ultimate decision rests with this country.
Ian Swales
The sovereignty of Parliament is obviously absolutely key. If we passed the sunset clause, sovereignty would in effect pass to the next Government, not the next Parliament. As the hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) said, a future Parliament has the power to change this legislation. The sunset clause would pass that power to the Government, not to Parliament.
Mr David
I very much hope that in this Parliament that will not be the case. I have taken heart from the rebellious comments and actions of the hon. Gentleman. I very much hope that Parliament will assert itself through the course of this Parliament and that his concerns will prove to be mistaken.
I hope that most Members of this House would uphold the time-honoured doctrine, despite the qualifications that have been expressed, of one Parliament being unable to bind its successor. I hope that Members do not question that. We should never seek to dictate in one Parliament what should happen in the next. I concede that, strictly speaking, the European Union Bill does not bind future Parliaments because, as has been said, those future Parliaments could modify the legislation. Nevertheless, at the very least, the Bill questions that principle and strongly goes against its spirit. I say that because the heart of the Bill will effectively come into operation during the next Parliament.
In the other place, Lord Howell said from the Government Front Bench that the Bill will be “operative” in this Parliament. He cited the Government’s commitment to bring forward an Act of Parliament on the European stability mechanism, the so-called bail-out mechanism, and its inclusion in the treaty. The Minister has just said that an Act of Parliament will be brought forward if Croatia accedes to the European Union. The Government have said consistently that they will not agree to any transfer of sovereignty to Brussels during this Parliament. That is an important qualification. There will therefore be no need to hold a referendum. Of course, we may see a significant transfer if the Government decide to opt in to the European Court of Justice opt-in provisions. The Government are illogically against holding a referendum if they decide to opt in. That reinforces the point that the main intention behind the Bill is to influence future Governments and Parliaments. What happens during this Parliament under the Bill will be relatively small beer. We are talking about a piece of legislation that will have a direct influence on the Governments and Parliaments of the future, after the next election. That is the fundamental point. Despite the qualifications that have to be expressed for the argument to hold up, that is an important and telling point.
Mark Reckless
Is not the key point about the Bill that it makes provision for referendums at some potential future date on various aspects of our relationship with the EU? What the British people really want is a referendum now on our membership or otherwise of the EU.
Mr David
It is important that we recognise that the British people have a voice, which is why we have been clear that it is important that referendums are held on major constitutional issues and the issue of a single currency. It is important that the British people are engaged in the debate about Europe in a way that they have not been for a good time. However, the way to do that is through constructive and rational debate. There is nothing wrong with having referendums on big, important issues, but we are firmly against having referendums on paper clips and minutiae.
Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)
Does the hon. Gentleman regret the fact, then, than when in government Labour did not give the British people a referendum on the Lisbon treaty?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. We are talking about amendments from the Lords on constitutional issues. I am sure, Mr David, that you were going to come to the Dispatch Box and focus on exactly those issues.
Mr David
I will restrain myself, Madam Deputy Speaker, and follow your strictures.
I shall refocus on the idea of a sunset-sunrise clause. It is all the more important that these sensible proposals from the other place be given due consideration because, as has been said, never before has a Bill been deliberately designed to influence future Parliaments. I am sure that good parliamentarians would not want to undermine or even question the doctrine of free-standing Parliaments, which is why I hope the House will support Lords amendment 15. An affirmative resolution at the start of each Parliament would both ensure the legitimacy of this Parliament in making a decision and reaffirm the doctrine that one Parliament cannot bind its successor.
Charlie Elphicke
I take the hon. Gentleman’s point about an affirmative resolution, but nevertheless, that resolution would depend upon the action of the Executive. Proposed subsection (2) in the Lords amendment states that
“the Secretary of State may by order provide”
that the provision continues, so it would be entirely up to the Government. I put it to him that his point is therefore not a good one.
Mr David
With due respect, I think it is a good one. Purely in terms of procedure, as the Government have conceded, there needs to be an assessment of how this innovative constitutional legislation works in practice. That is a good idea, and I welcome the Minister’s concession on it. However, the logical extension of that is an affirmative resolution at the start of the next Parliament. If the Bill is working well, that resolution should be agreed to. If it is not, there should be an opportunity to reconsider. I therefore hope that the House will look favourably upon Lords amendment 15. It is modest, sensible and pragmatic, and above all else it reflects the principles of parliamentary sovereignty to which we all adhere.
Mr Jenkin
But that applies to a great deal of legislation. I do not understand the distinction that the hon. Gentleman is attempting to make. Actually, what the Bill will do is restrict the ability of Governments to give away power and to reach decisions in the EU and present them to Parliament as faits accomplis without reference to the people. That seems to me a thoroughly good and democratic thing.
The hon. Gentleman has given the game away this evening about the future direction of the Labour party’s policy. What he has told the House tonight is that he is quite happy for aspects of the Bill to go through, but he is not happy for its provisions to apply to a future Labour Government. He does not want a future Labour Government to have their hands tied by the necessity of referendums before they give away more powers. He wants to go back to the system to which my hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom) referred—of signing up to treaties, promising referendums on them and then ratting on those promises. That was the record of the Labour Government.
I regard all these Lords amendments as completely unacceptable. Whatever shortcomings the Bill has—I am afraid there are many, because it is limited in scope—the amendments are designed to pull the guts out of this democratising measure. The vote threshold proposed in Lords amendment 3 is not a recognisable one but a perverse one. It does not suggest that unless the number of votes reaches a certain level, a decision cannot be taken. It suggests that if the votes do not reach a certain level, the Government and Parliament can carry on as they like. I thought the whole point of a threshold was to test whether there was a measure of consent for a particular constitutional change. The threshold in the amendment is not about testing whether there is a measure of consent but is more about testing whether there is a measure of resistance, or whether there is apathy.
Unfortunately, the people who have largely guided European policy in this country for the past 20, 30 or 40 years have got away with what they have done largely by relying on people’s apathy and ignorance. The proposed threshold is designed to create an incentive for a Government who wish to transfer more powers to the EU to maintain high levels of apathy and ignorance. I am reminded of my late noble Friend Lord Whitelaw, who during the 1975 referendum accused the right hon. Anthony Wedgwood Benn of going around the country stirring up apathy. The amendment is a charter for going around the country and doing just that. It is completely unjustified and should be given very short shrift.
Lords amendments 6 to 13, to clause 6, are simply designed to rip the guts out of the Bill. My right hon. Friend the Minister for Europe very properly went through some of the things that Governments in future would be able to do without a referendum if the amendments were not disagreed to. Under the amendments, Governments could, without a referendum, give up the veto over foreign policy and over almost anything else under article 48(7). The amendments would allow the UK to join the public prosecutor and to extend the role of the public prosecutor to any serious crime with a cross-border dimension. We should think about what that means for the criminal justice system of this country. The amendments would allow Governments, without a referendum, to give up the veto over labour laws, taxes and planning, and the multi-annual financial framework and spending of the EU. The Opposition should shed no crocodile tears over how much the EU is spending if they are prepared to give up that veto without proper consent.
The amendments would remove the veto from all the enhanced co-operation procedures, which would enable what is effectively majority voting to come into effect in a whole lot of areas. Clearly, that is an anti-democratic provision. If there is one thing that ardent advocates of the EU should have learned, it is that that structure lacks popular consent. It legislates without popular consent. If there is one thing that true Europeans should want it is that we reconnect the decisions on how powers are exercised with popular democratic consent. The Bill goes some way towards doing that.
The sunrise provision is simply the last gasp of a past generation who are trying to neuter what is today called Euroscepticism. The support of the hon. Member for Caerphilly for Lords amendment 15 gives the lie to the idea that the new Labour party, under its new leader, is flirting with Euroscepticism. It is not. It has no intention of following through. It might pretend to be, and to sound, sceptical, and it might even start talking of an in-out referendum, inviting one or two of my more radical hon. Friends to fall into the trap of thinking that that is the way out, when it probably is not. However, the fact is that we need a Government who are prepared to negotiate vigorously, and to do so with the extra leverage and strengthened hand that the requirement for a referendum gives them.
Mr Jenkin
I know that my hon. Friend does not advocate an in-out referendum, but the general direction of the EU certainly merits a referendum at some stage. I still flirt with the idea that we should have a referendum on the proposed treaty amendment. My right hon. Friend the Minister for Europe adverted to the fact that four fifths of the British public think that we should have a referendum on any treaty amendment. That seemed to be the substance of the Government’s original commitment, which has been hedged in the Bill.
Perish the thought that I am straying from my support for the Government on the Lords amendments—I would rather stay where I am—but I would finally wish to remark that the authors of the Lords amendments have a track record of their own. The introducers of the amendments are not minor figures. The amendment on the threshold was introduced by Lord Williamson of Horton—he who was secretary-general of the Commission during the passage of the Maastricht treaty; he who was the secretary-general who pushed through the social action programme, which negated any effective UK Government opt-out from the social chapter; and he who was one of the architects of economic and monetary union, which is now collapsing around our ears.
In Lords amendment 8 to clause 6, which incidentally completely fails to define, as my right hon. Friend the Minister for Europe said,
“a single, integrated military force”,
Lord Williamson is pretending that we should have a referendum on defence matters. However, I would just pose this question: does NATO constitute
“a single, integrated military force”?
I would submit that it probably does not. We could therefore form a NATO-style command structure in the EU, which successive Governments have set their face against, and pass such powers into the treaties of the EU, without a referendum. I hardly think that the British people would vote for that.
The noble Lord Hannay, former permanent secretary at the Foreign Office and former chief negotiator for the UK in the EU—an illustrious and distinguished person—is also an author of the Lords amendments. Do not mistake me: I have great admiration for the ability and sincerity of those people, but I just advert to their track record of advocating policy on the EU. Lord Hannay said quite recently that the single currency would be quite a good thing for the UK, as did Lord Kerr of Kinlochard. As recently as 26 May 2009, the latter delivered a lecture in Edinburgh on monetary union, in which he lamented that we were not trying to join the single currency.
I raise those points not to stray from the substance of the debate, but just to question whether the people who proposed the Lords amendments should not stop trying to get Britain further into the EU, and start apologising for the appalling judgment and advice that they have given to successive Governments. Their advice has put this country into a perilous economic position—because of the state of the EU and the euro—but they have also advised successive Governments to hand over more and more powers. I would not usually criticise civil servants in public, but they are now taking part in the political process having advised successive Governments to hand over more and more powers, as a result of which Governments have been in an ever-weaker position from which to defend our national interests.
The Bill is a small step towards starting to redress the balance in the relationship between the overweening power of the EU and the people in this country governed by the laws it makes.
Mr David
I like the hon. Gentleman as he likes me. However, although we might have disagreements with distinguished ex-civil servants, it is important to place on record that all the individuals he has mentioned have been great public servants and took the lead from the Government of the day.
Mr Lidington
I make two points to my hon. Friend. First, the only reason the Supreme Court has power to adjudicate here on European Union matters is because Parliament has provided for directly effective and directly applicable EU law to have effect in the United Kingdom legal order by virtue of passing statutes that give European law that direct effect and application here. Secondly, as I think my hon. Friend knows—he is being a bit mischievous—he is trying to tempt me again on to a much broader issue, which is the important philosophical question of whether ultimate legislative supremacy lies with Parliament or whether parliamentary sovereignty is a construct of the common law controlled by judges. Speaking as an elected parliamentarian, I am quite clear and argue quite naturally that Parliament as the elected limb of body politic must have the ultimate say, but in making that case we are entering into a philosophical debate that goes way beyond the parameters of the European Union Bill, let alone Lords amendment 14.
Let me return to the Lords amendment. I am mindful of the arguments advanced by Lord Mackay of Clashfern and his supporters in the House of Lords, and I greatly appreciate their legal expertise. We considered Lord Mackay’s arguments very carefully both before the debate in the other place and following the Lords acceptance of the amendment. I sought further legal advice on this point, and the Government’s view remains that although the European Communities Act 1972 is indeed the principal means by which directly effective or directly applicable EU law takes effect in the UK, a number of other Acts of Parliament also give effect to EU law independently of the 1972 Act. For example, provisions of the Scotland Act 1998, of the Government of Wales Act 2006 and of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 put Ministers from the devolved Administrations under an obligation to act in accordance with EU law. Some of those settlements define EU obligations in a manner similar to the language used in section 2(1) of the 1972 Act—but, significantly, they do so not by reference to that Act.
The Government are therefore concerned that, were this House to agree with the Lords amendment as it stands, it could create the risk that the courts interpret this clause as restricting the ability of legislation other than the 1972 Act to incorporate directly applicable or directly effective EU law into UK law. That, in turn, could ultimately mean that clause 18 could be interpreted as being more than declaratory, which would rather undermine what we are trying to do with this Bill. This would not, in our view, reflect the law accurately, and so we seek to disagree with the Lords amendment as currently framed.
In that sense, I agree entirely with the arguments put forward by my hon. Friends the Members for Stone (Mr Cash) and for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr Shepherd), but I also recognise Lord Mackay’s point that the 1972 Act is the primary conduit for directly effective and directly applicable EU law to take effect in the United Kingdom. In recognition of this concern, the Government propose a change of wording to the Lords amendment that would retain the reference to the European Communities Act 1972 but, importantly, also refer to the existence of other Acts of Parliament that also give effect to EU law.
Mr David
I understand the right hon. Gentleman’s point and I have sympathy with his argument. Crucial to the argument, it seems to me, are the words
“by virtue of an Act of Parliament”.
What is the difference between putting those words at the end rather than at the start of the clause, where they were initially?
Mr Lidington
I decided to include the words on the basis of the best legal advice available to me across Government at the time. When preparing the Bill for introduction into this House, I examined the wording and the question of whether a reference to the 1972 Act alone would be appropriate. I was given very clear legal advice that, because of the other statutes that make reference to the application of EU law, a simple reference to the 1972 legislation would not suffice. That explains the original wording of the Bill that came before the House of Commons.
What we have sought to do in framing our amendments to the Lords amendment is to recognise the view that the other place took that clause 18 should incorporate language that recognises the particular importance of the 1972 legislation. We see no reason why we should not amend the clause to make a specific reference to the 1972 Act so long as the clause also makes reference to those other Acts that give effect to EU law. This reflects the Government’s consistent position that other Acts of Parliament— independently of the European Communities Act 1972—might also allow for the incorporation of directly effective and directly applicable EU law into the UK legal order.
Mr Lidington
We believe that the original drafting met the tests that we had set to implement our policy of having a declaratory clause. What we are trying to do is to express through Government amendments the point made in the House of Lords that the 1972 legislation is of particular importance, while preserving the point of principle that we believe was incorporated in the original language as debated by the House of Commons.
Mr Lidington
I want to make some progress.
It is not only the devolution legislation that mentions European Union law. The Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986, the Chiropractors Act 1994 and the Competition Act 1998 are further examples of legislation that allows European Union law to have direct effect in this country. Section 9A of the Company Directors Disqualification Act requires the United Kingdom to make a disqualification order against a person in certain circumstances, including circumstances in which an undertaking commits a breach of competition law under either article 81 or article 82 of the EC treaty—now articles 101 and 102 of the treaty on the functioning of the European Union. That Act refers directly to the treaty provisions without referring to the 1972 Act.
The amendment accepted by the other place removed the reference that makes it explicit that only by virtue of such Acts does directly effective and directly applicable EU law take effect in this country. Removing that reference leaves open the possibility of arguments that directly effective and directly applicable EU law could enter our law by other means, thus undermining the rationale behind the clause. The amendments that the Government propose seek to restore that important qualification, and to remove any doubt about whether directly effective or applicable EU law could enter United Kingdom law by other means.
Mr Cash
I have no problem in acknowledging someone’s powerful views on constitutional questions. For example, I remember during the Maastricht proceedings that the noble Lord was quite clear on the question of whether the Maastricht treaty took us further and deeper into the integration process. He argued that it did not make any difference in principle because the 1972 Act already conceded that there had been a change in the constitutional position and, to all intents and purposes, there was, thus, no real change in the substance of the issue. That is not to accuse anybody; it is merely to recognise that they have a constitutional viewpoint and to recognise how they really regard the encroachments on our sovereignty, which were evident in the Jackson case, in the evidence that the Committee received from many distinguished witnesses and in the fact that the Government’s previous explanatory notes led us into a situation where we criticised the Government and they withdrew the offensive words, precisely for the reasons that I am presenting.
The reality is that we have caught out the Government on their wording and they have now acquiesced in other wording which opens the door to statutory interpretation by the Supreme Court. That is the kernel of this matter. Whether or not my right hon. Friend the Minister really likes the way in which I have expressed this is neither here nor there. The real question, on which I challenge him, is this: does he deny that the wording in the Government’s amendment, in response to the Lords amendment, imports the opportunity for the Supreme Court to apply statutory interpretation and, thereby, to create a situation that could be best avoided, as set out by Lord Howe of Aberavon, our European Scrutiny Committee and the evidence that we received from so many people, by having no clause at all, rather than the current clause 18?
The Minister knows that I feel very strongly about the fact that we promised in our manifesto a sovereignty Act, and that was the consequence of discussions at the very highest level with the leadership. We knew that that was put into the manifesto as a direct response to the promises that were made. The bottom line is that we were given a second-rate provision that is unnecessary and that has since been criticised by the European Scrutiny Committee and eminent constitutional experts, including Lord Howe of Aberavon, and what the Government are introducing merely acquiesces to a degree in what Lord Mackay of Clashfern has proposed. That simply is not good enough and the Government should withdraw the proposed clause while they have the opportunity to do so. It is for those reasons that I shall be voting against it.
Mr David
This long debate, which has taken place over a number of months, has almost come full circle. I recall that we began our deliberations with the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash) and others saying that what had been originally promised was a sovereignty Act but what was proposed was a truncated, boiled-down and diluted version of their intention in the form of a solitary clause—clause 18. Whichever permutation of clause 18 one looks at, be it what was originally suggested by the Government, the Lords amendment or the Government amendment to the Lords amendment, one finds that it is basically a declaratory statement. It does not take us back or forward; it is a pious declaration, a statement of fact and a statement of the legal position at the moment. Therefore, it does not do any harm and, in fact, it could possibly be useful.
There has been a modest change of emphasis in Government amendment (b) to the Lords amendment, and it is a sensible one. The words “by virtue of an Act of Parliament” were omitted from the Lords amendment and we were concerned that the emphasis was being placed solely on the 1972 Act. Although we recognise that that is the most important piece of legislation regarding the primacy of European law, other items of legislation are involved here. I was particularly pleased that the Minister referred to the legislation on the devolved institutions, as that is important in ensuring that we take a comprehensive approach. Therefore, the Government have put forward a modest improvement to what was suggested by the Lords. I recognise that they have gone some way towards accommodating what the Lords have said and I welcome that, which is why we will be supporting the Government amendment.
Mr Cash
Is the hon. Gentleman actually saying that he agrees with the Government’s proposal, notwithstanding what has been said by the European Scrutiny Committee, Lord Howe of Aberavon and all the other people I have mentioned, and notwithstanding the most powerful legal advice that has been submitted, which suggests that this is a very unwise and dangerous move, for the reasons that I have set out?
Mr David
With all due respect, I say to the hon. Gentleman that I have read in great detail all the evidence that was given to the European Scrutiny Committee and I think that his summation of it is his interpretation of the evidence given. Most of the witnesses to the European Scrutiny Committee said, as I have said, that clause 18 is a statement of fact and that it does not take us forward or back. Therefore, we should not get hot under the collar about it.
Mr Jenkin
I do not wish to detain the House for more than a few minutes. I had not intended to take part in this debate, as I took part extensively in the debate on clause 18 in Committee and I thought that we had covered all the issues then. I had become reconciled to accepting the clause as the Government had drafted it and I came to today’s debate expecting my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash) to make a technical argument, but one that would not necessarily excite me—of course I was wrong. The hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr David) says that the clause does not take us back and it does not take us forward, but he has missed the fundamental point about the revised drafting of the clause. I am not a lawyer—I am an amateur lawyer—but ever since we started discussing this clause earlier this year, I have had the sinking feeling that we are in very deep water and that we are potentially creating completely unnecessary problems for this House and for Parliament. I say that because the sovereignty of Parliament is axiomatic; it is self-evident and it is a historical fact.
We do not need to legislate in any way to maintain the sovereignty of Parliament. There would have been some virtue in a declaratory Act with the legal effect of returning powers to the United Kingdom from the European Union to redress our relationship so that we had the ability to negotiate, but this clause, which has erroneously been nicknamed the “sovereignty” clause but is no such thing, does not even attempt to do that. In fact, it does not even refer to the word “sovereignty”.
The clause puts in statute issues that are contested by the European Union legal structures in a context that means that the Supreme Court might have to interpret them. We know that some justices of our Supreme Court question the very notion of the sovereignty of Parliament as I have described it and think it is a matter of common law rather than of history and fact. I believe they are wrong and that Parliament will always be able to prove them wrong by legislating, as statute law always overrides common law.
Mr Jenkin
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for drawing the House’s attention to that conversation. We are potentially engaged in the early skirmishes of a dispute between Parliament and the judiciary about which has supremacy. By legislating on this issue, which touches on the sovereignty of the Queen in Parliament, we are tempting the justices of the Supreme Court to begin toying with those concepts. They have already done so in some of their ancillary statements to cases—I forget the right word for such statements. We know that they are tempted in that direction and putting this clause into statute, as the evidence received by the European Scrutiny Committee showed, could be the red rag to the bull, providing meat for the justices of the Supreme Court to chew on.
Mr Jenkin
I am just coming to the hon. Gentleman’s point.
I was minded to accept that we had done such a thing before I heard my hon. Friend the Member for Stone speak, but he has described how the situation might have been made worse than it would have been under the previous drafting of the clause. He referred to section 20 of the Interpretation Act 1978, which, if I understand it correctly, already stipulates that when an Act is referred to in an Act of Parliament that Act is deemed not to be constantly updated by subsequent amendments. The Act referred to in an Act of Parliament stands as it stood at the time of enactment and by specifying the European Communities Act 1972 in this clause we are opening up the possibility that at some stage in the future the 1972 Act will be amended but this clause will not apply to the amended Act or to the amendments to the Act, but only to the Act as it stands now. Should there be a dispute between the Supreme Court and Parliament about the sovereignty issues that touch on our relationship with the European Union, the question would be left open with more ambiguity rather than less.
Mr Lidington
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr David) and my hon. Friends the Members for Stone (Mr Cash) and for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) for their participation in the debate and I shall be brief in my response. I want to deal with the point of principle as well as the important point of detail about the interaction between this clause, the Government amendment and the Interpretation Act 1978.
Mr David
Before the Minister goes on, may I cast his mind back to the trenchant criticism from the European Scrutiny Committee about the explanatory notes that accompanied the Bill and, in particular, those on clause 18? I seem to recall the Minister giving the House a commitment that the explanatory notes would be examined and, if necessary, redrafted. Has that redrafting occurred and will there be further redrafting in the context of his amendment tonight?
Mr Lidington
The explanatory notes were changed when they were reprinted before the Bill was introduced in the House of Lords, just as I gave the House an undertaking that they would be. We amended the notes to make it clear that the references to common law in the relevant section were meant in contradistinction to statute law and that we were not commenting, as a Government and in either the Bill or the notes, on the important but much broader philosophical debate about the origins of parliamentary sovereignty.
Let me deal first with the point of general principle to which my hon. Friend the Member for Stone, in particular, referred. It has always been the Government’s position that clause 18 is declaratory of the existing state of our law in making it clear that European Union law has direct effect and application in this country for one reason and one reason only: namely, Parliament has given it that effect through primary legislation. I differ from my hon. Friend in that I continue to believe that it is valuable for us to have this declaratory clause on the statute book to serve as a clear expression of Parliament’s will and as an abiding point of reference for the courts if they are invited in future to consider again the sort of arguments that have previously been brought before them, most notably by the prosecution in the metric martyrs case, to the effect that European law has acquired over time an autonomous authority of its own that does not derive from Acts of Parliament.
Oral Answers to Questions
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Mr Hague
Yes, absolutely—it is extremely important to tackle those things to maintain the European perspective of the western Balkans countries. That is why in Croatian accession negotiations chapter 23 is of such importance. That will be true of all those states, and they should heed my hon. Friend’s words.
Mr Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)
Does the Secretary of State believe that Croatia’s membership of the EU would act as an effective catalyst for other states? Will he offer a time scale on that?
Mr Hague
We hope that Croatia’s membership will encourage other states, although we also hope that they will draw the lesson that it is important to meet the conditions of EU membership. That is vital if the accession process is to have credibility in future. We are now in the closing stages of the negotiations on EU accession, and the Commission has made a positive recommendation. The matter will be discussed at the European Council next week; it would be premature for me to discuss dates ahead of that.
UK and Georgia
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Mr Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab)
It is a great pleasure to serve under you, Mr Betts.
I declare an interest as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Georgia. I have just returned from Georgia’s European week, which I attended with my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) and the shadow Europe Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Mr David). Other friends in the Georgia group, from other parties, were in the country earlier this year.
It is also a pleasure and honour to have the Chairman of the Georgian Parliament, Mr David Bakradze, with us. He has already met Mr Speaker, and we will be meeting the Foreign Secretary this afternoon.
I have a series of questions to put to the Minister, and I hope that he will write to me if he cannot deal with them in his speech.
Ninety years ago, Georgia was a peaceful, social democratic nation, which had escaped the clutches of imperial Russia. Schools, trade unions, co-operatives and votes for women were all established on the Black sea, but that was intolerable to that son of Georgia Mr Stalin, who sent in the Russian army to crush the spirit of freedom and to re-colonise Georgia.
Fast forward eight decades, and Russia looked unhappily on the rose revolution in Georgia, just as it looked unhappily on the orange revolution in Ukraine and on efforts in the other Baltic nations once occupied as Russian colonies to establish their freedom fully. In 2008, matters came to a head with the invasion of Georgia by Russian land, sea and air forces. The tiny Georgian forces fought valiantly and actually shot down a number of Russian aircraft.
However, having occupied large swathes of Georgian territory, Russia did not seek a repeat of 1921. One reason was the courage of the then Leader of the Opposition, now the Prime Minister, who flew to Georgia in August 2008 with other European leaders to show personal solidarity. At the time, the Prime Minister told the “Today” programme:
“One of the most important things we continue to do is stand by Georgia, give Georgia support—support in terms of rebuilding the infrastructure that’s been smashed and broken, support in saying ‘You will be welcome as members of the EU and NATO.’”
I believe that the Prime Minister was speaking for the broad mass of the British people in 2008, when he referred on the BBC to the
“alternative of appeasing Russia and saying, ‘All right then, Ukraine, Georgia, the Baltic states, these are your backyard, you can do what you like there and we’ll just turn a blind eye’. I think that would make our world far less stable, far less secure. Russia has to understand that she has lost an empire, just as we lost an empire. You have to come to terms with that and it does take time.”
I am not sure whether, during the remainder of this Parliament, I shall again quote at such length and with such agreement the words of the Prime Minister, but he was right then, and his comments remain right today. Will the Minister repeat the Prime Minister’s words, and confirm that the Government’s view is still that the presence of Russian troops and the de facto annexation of the territory of a sovereign UN member state—Georgia—is not acceptable?
The Prime Minister will be aware that two small countries, which were no doubt offered suitable inducements, have offered to recognise the occupied Georgian territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. One is Nicaragua, which is currently seeking to negotiate an EU association agreement. Will the Government make it clear to our good friend, Baroness Ashton, that the UK will veto any such association agreement while Nicaragua maintains its recognition of the illegally occupied sovereign territory of Georgia? Might is not right, and the fate and future of both South Ossetia and Abkhazia require careful handling and a new approach. It cannot be right, and does not serve the interests of the people who live there or the hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons, notably from Abkhazia, who are keen to return home, to maintain the fiction that these are independent states.
There will soon be elections in both Russia and Georgia. On past visits, the Georgian President, Mikhail Saakashvili, told me that he would not seek to stay in office or imitate Mr Putin, who seems to alternate between being President and Prime Minister of Russia in the time-honoured way of pre-1989 Russian rule. I hope that Mr Saakashvili maintains that principled decision, because one of the curses of the post-Soviet political space is the failure to understand the need to have what the French call alternance—a change of Government and a change of leader. The desire of leaders to stay in power for ever debilitates all democratic politics.
There is a genuine problem with the lack of coherent opposition in Georgia. Many are opposed to Mr Saakashvili, but even the most diehard of his opponents would find it hard to disagree that the opposition spends as much time in opposition to itself as to Mr Saakashvili. It seeks short cuts to power, such as staging street protests with windy claims that Mr Saakashvili will be ousted.
Last year, I was in Georgia when the opposition created a tent city around the Parliament, and stopped Georgian MPs attending to their parliamentary business. I listened to the speeches then, just as I saw with hon. Friends the demonstrations last week. I gently pointed out that it is a denial of democracy to try to prevent elected parliamentarians from attending their Assembly, Congress or Parliament. The demonstrations 10 days ago turned nasty when a handful of opposition militants covered their faces in cagoules—we might call them balaclavas—which are the symbol of the extreme right throughout Europe’s political history, and used sticks to attack people and the police. The police certainly overreacted and tragically there were deaths, just as there was a death at the London G8 demonstration three years ago.
The Minister for Europe rightly called for an investigation, and there must be no effort to brush what happened under the carpet, but equally the message must be that deliberate provocation aimed at inducing an overreaction with a view to destabilising the country is the antithesis of democratic European politics. I should be grateful if the Minister will write to me with details of the serious allegations that the people who were arrested in Georgia, some of whom were carrying explosives, were apparently sent on the order of forces outside the country to plant small bombs as part of a deliberate strategy to create tension and destabilisation in Georgia.
Mr Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)
My right hon. Friend referred to the demonstration in Tbilisi some 10 days ago, and to elements of the demonstration who were intent on causing trouble. Will he confirm what I saw there: individuals with sticks, weapons and balaclavas who were clearly intent on making trouble rather than having a peaceful demonstration?
Mr MacShane
My hon. Friend is right. He never misses a good demonstration if there is one to witness or take part in, and his witness statement is an important correction to the view that the violence came only from the state security services, even if in my judgment—I have spent too much of my life at too many demonstrations—there was an overreaction by the state authorities.
A strategy of deliberate tension will not help the people of Georgia, who need bread and roses, jobs and freedom, and the patient establishment of democratic norms and values. This morning, Mr Speaker did his opposite number, the Chairman of the Georgian Parliament, the honour of receiving him, and I hope that the Minister will tell the House today that the Minister for Europe plans to visit Georgia shortly. We must not forget the sacrifice of Georgian troops standing side by side with our own in Afghanistan. Five have paid the ultimate sacrifice, and I am glad that the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, the hon. Member for Aldershot, has recently paid a visit. As we approach the third anniversary of the Russian invasion and the Prime Minister’s solidarity trip to Georgia, I hope that he will go there again soon. Will the Minister say something about the plans that the Foreign Office might have for a ministerial visit?
Georgia is a loyal friend at the United Nations, and when I met President Saakashvili 10 days ago, I urged him to recognise Kosovo because, for understandable if mistaken parallels, Tbilisi is on the same wavelength as Moscow, not its Euro-Atlantic friends. It would be an important diplomatic step for Georgia to line up with this country, and the bulk of the European Union and the world’s democracies, by offering diplomatic recognition to Kosovo.
Mr Saakashvili has insisted that Georgia will never be the first to use force in the event of further military aggression or pressure from Russia. He has said that he is willing to meet President Putin and Prime Minister Medvedev in any place and at any time to negotiate a settlement. Will the Minister assure us that when the Prime Minister goes to Moscow in September, he will urge the Russian leadership to meet Mr Saakashvili and negotiate on a Government to Government basis, instead of continuing with the highly ad hominem abuse that Moscow directs towards the Georgian leader in a manner that demeans the honour and dignity of a great nation such as Russia?
Will the Minister speak to coalition Members of Parliament who serve on the Council of Europe? Many members of the Council were shocked to find that Conservative MPs sit in the same group as Kremlin-controlled Russian MPs, and thus failed to support moves to hold Russia to account for its invasion and occupation of Georgia. As the Minister is a Liberal Democrat, perhaps he will have a word with one or two—at least one—of his Liberal Democrat colleagues at the Council of Europe who take a similar position and seem keen to get into bed with Russia.
Will the Minister confirm that the installation of S300 missiles in Abkhazia is in violation of the ceasefire agreement that was signed with President Sarkozy on behalf of the European Union in August 2008? Will he confirm that the EU, the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, and other international monitors, are denied full access to Russian occupied territories in Georgia, in violation of the Sarkozy-Medvedev agreement? I have seen the new internal line of occupation and European division deep in Georgian sovereign territory. How sad to look through sandbagged bunkers over barbed wire, at Russian soldiers under a Russian flag glaring down their gunsights at me. Surely that is not the Europe in which we wish to live two decades after Soviet communist tyranny came to an end.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr Jeremy Browne)
Thank you, Mr Betts, for the opportunity to conclude this short but important debate; it is a privilege to serve under your chairmanship.
I congratulate the right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane) on introducing the topic with his customary panache and considerable wisdom; it is an important opportunity for hon. Members to consider our relationship with Georgia. We all benefit from the right hon. Gentleman’s long-held interest and active approach towards Georgia, and I am pleased to join him in welcoming the Speaker of the Georgian Parliament to this short debate. I am also pleased that the Speaker of the Georgian Parliament has had the opportunity during his time in London to meet the Speaker of our Parliament, and that he will meet the Foreign Secretary this afternoon.
Georgia matters to Britain, and its stability, democracy and prosperity are important. The Government are keen to build on our excellent bilateral relationship and help Georgia to become a leading example of a country that has made a successful transition to democracy and an open market economy. Georgia is a key energy transit route and provides a corridor from central Asia to Europe, which importantly bypasses Russia. That makes Georgia an important partner and offers good prospects for United Kingdom trade and investment. The right hon. Gentleman also touched on existing economic opportunities, and the Government are alert to those opportunities and are working to develop them.
Since the rose revolution, President Saakashvili’s Government have embarked on an ambitious reform programme that combines modernised law enforcement bodies, market liberalisation and the building of democratic institutions. Georgia has made a great deal of progress in a relatively short period of time.
Mr Browne
I have not had the same opportunity as the hon. Gentleman to see those matters at first hand, but I am delighted that he feels that important progress has been made. Such progress is a key trait of a country that is increasingly embracing those values to which we in Britain attach importance.
BBC World Service
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Mr Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)
We have had a short but truly excellent debate this afternoon. The hon. Member for Croydon South (Richard Ottaway) began the debate by speaking powerfully as Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee. He reinforced and explained extremely well the main conclusions of his Committee’s report, which is first rate. He summarised the main concerns that Members have expressed today and in previous discussions and interventions in the House. He has put a significant question mark over the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s financial calculations regarding the World Service.
We then heard a contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes), who reiterated what the Chair of his Committee had said and stressed the fact that the World Service is seen as a jewel in the crown. We heard from the hon. Member for Poole (Mr Syms), who gave a number of practical examples of how the dissemination of objective information can help the development of democracy in a truly practical way. Similarly, we heard from the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood), who reinforced the case put by other Members and made it clear where his party stood on the matter. Finally, we heard from the hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy), who spoke with great insight about the importance of the World Service and referred to his experience in east Africa. It is only by understanding such concrete examples that we can really appreciate the value of the World Service.
As well as expressing concern about the short wave BBC China Mandarin service, which broadcasts in a country where democracy is in short supply, I would like to focus briefly on two areas. First, it was initially announced that the BBC Hindi short wave service was to close in March 2011. However, the Government announced a partial reprieve in March with the continuation of an hour of current affairs broadcasting, pending commercial funding being found. This concerns me greatly. We all know that India has enormous economic potential, and the Government are rightly strengthening their bilateral relations with that country. It is all the more worrying, I suggest, that the sword of Damocles still hangs over the BBC Hindi short wave service. That should not be the case.
The other huge concern I have relates to BBC Arabic. The events in north Africa and the middle east over the past few months have been truly momentous, and the process of change continues apace. It is therefore extremely worrying that the World Service has announced 60 job losses in its Arabic service. Surely the World Service should, if anything, be providing more resources to BBC Arabic, rather than less. I fully appreciate that many of the plans were drawn up before the incredible events of the past few months, but that is all the more reason for the Government to accept that reality and revisit the whole programme.
In addition to these concerns, I would like to give an example of how the World Service impacts in a positive way on one country in particular. Earlier this week I was in Serbia. I was there with the Labour party and the Westminster Foundation for Democracy. I undertook the political reconnaissance as part of an ongoing assessment of how democratic debate in that country can best be assisted. Serbia has made good progress over the past few years, but there is still much to be done. One of the crucial elements that has helped Serbia’s march to democracy, as a number of people made very clear to me, is the BBC World Service. It is no exaggeration to say that there is not a single democrat in Serbia who does not acknowledge the important role of the World Service. Equally, there is universal disappointment that Serbia is one of those countries that will lose World Service coverage.
One of the people I spoke to earlier this week was Sasa Mirkovic, the managing director of the radio and television company B92. He explained to me how the World Service has been a source of objective information, inspiration and hope to a whole generation in Serbia, and he deeply regretted the end of its broadcasting in Serbia, because, as he said to me, democracy in that country needs to be encouraged and continually reinforced.
What is true of Serbia is true of many other parts of the world. The Opposition have very real concerns about the Government’s plans, and this afternoon Members have underlined the conclusions of the Foreign Affairs Committee’s excellent report. As well as the loss of crucial influence in key countries and regions throughout the world, the cuts will mean a diminution in Britain’s global influence. There will be a drop of 30 million people—from 180 million to 150 million—in the service’s global audience, and such a cut is quite unprecedented.
There has to be an ongoing assessment of how finite resources can be best used, but such a reduction in grant-in-aid will greatly undermine the service and send a negative message around the globe—that Britain no longer sees high quality, objective and honest reporting as being particularly important. I hope that nothing is further from the truth.
In the order of things, the BBC World Service is a mere drop in the ocean of public expenditure, but the money invested in the service is a sound investment—an investment that effectively promotes the universal values of which all Members are justifiably proud.
I therefore ask the Government to think again, to take heed of what our friends throughout the world are saying to us, to recognise the worth of the World Service and not to engage in this false economy. I urge the Government to accept the motion before us, and, if they are inclined to accept it and agree to a review, I suggest that that review takes place as quickly as possible, and as a matter of urgency.
Mr Lidington
The hon. Gentleman, perhaps uncharacteristically, is choosing to overlook the fact that the FCO is responsible for well over 100 operations in different countries overseas and that in those circumstances the requirements of currency operations and IT add up to quite a considerable overhead. I welcome the public commitment of the World Service to a significant reduction in its administrative costs, and I am sure that the House looks forward to seeing how it proposes to deliver that.
Mr Lidington
I will give way to the hon. Gentleman, and then I will make progress, because I want to be fair to the many hon. Members who want to take part in the next debate.
Mr David
I hear what the Minister says, and of course we all want to see efficiency savings and economies. However, it is important to bear in mind that the cost of producing a message or sending out a programme is lower in the BBC World Service than in any other international broadcaster.
Mr Lidington
It is certainly important to bear such things in mind, but many parts of the public sector in this country can point to how their best practice matches that in other parts of the world. Nevertheless, the financial state in which this country finds itself as a consequence of the inheritance bequeathed to us by the Government of whom the hon. Gentleman was a member is so grave that we have no alternative but to ask every part of our public services, no matter how well and efficiently they perform, to drive those efficiencies further.
My hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South, and indeed the report, criticised the Government’s decision to reduce the budget of the World Service by 16% and argued that it was disproportionate. To set the matter in context, as the House knows the Government inherited a massive fiscal deficit when they came to power. We made it clear from the start that it would be the Government’s overriding priority to take swift and effective action to reduce that deficit. Every member of the Government has always made it clear that rebalancing the nation’s finances will not be without pain and that every taxpayer-funded organisations will have to play its part, as will the private sector. Frankly, if as a country we fail to deal with the overriding challenge of our deficit, all our hopes, whether for prosperity, improved public services or enhanced international influence for the United Kingdom, will come to naught.
The World Service was asked to reduce its budget by 16%. The Foreign Affairs Committee has argued that that is disproportionate. I say candidly, but politely, to my hon. Friend that I disagree with that verdict. At the beginning of the previous comprehensive spending round in 2007-08, the World Service budget was 13% of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office budget. By the end of 2014-15, its budget will be 14.4% of the FCO budget. The proportion of its budget at the end of this Government’s tenure will therefore be slightly higher than it was before. To respond to the particular case put to me by my hon. Friend, in 2007-08 the World Service received £222 million, and in 2013-14 it will again receive £222 million. However, the FCO budget will fall from £1.7 billion in 2007-08 to £1.55 billion in 2013-14. It is those figures that lie behind the percentages that I quoted.
Oral Answers to Questions
Wayne David Excerpts(13 years ago)
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Mr Lidington
My hon. Friend talks about the EEAS’s role in consular representation. Of course, under the treaties, that competence is given explicitly to member states rather than to European institutions, but it is quite right that the EEAS should, in line with the treaties, support the work of EU member states, especially by signposting EU nationals who are unrepresented to embassies or high commissions of another member state where they can obtain representation.
Mr Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)
During the ratification of the Lisbon treaty, the right hon. Gentleman was opposed to the European External Action Service. Does he agree that recent experience in north Africa and elsewhere in the world demonstrates the need for positive co-operation with our European partners?
Mr Lidington
Neither I nor my party has ever quibbled with the idea that there should be effective European co-operation between member states. The test of whether the External Action Service is effective will be, in large measure, whether the High Representative and her staff can work effectively with member states’ Foreign Ministers, because only when member states reach a genuine common position does the High Representative have a mandate to act.
European Union (Amendment) Act 2008
Wayne David Excerpts(13 years, 1 month ago)
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Mr Lidington
I hope that I can give my hon. Friend the reassurance he seeks. First, I will make a bit of progress and describe how the provisions in the European Union Bill will bite on this measure and any future measures that are modelled on it.
Mr Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)
A very important question has just been asked by a Back Bencher and the Minister has made no attempt to respond to it. Would it not be technically possible to have the new procedures introduced by the European Union Bill as well as the current procedures? One is post and the other is pre.
Mr Lidington
I had better invite the hon. Gentleman to read the Hansard record of the debates on the European Union Bill in which he took part—both in Committee and on Report. If he does read them, he will see that the Government introduced an amendment precisely to make explicit the requirement for this proposed treaty change to be subject to more rigorous parliamentary scrutiny than would have been permitted if the current statutory procedures under the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 had been allowed to stand and to suffice. I hope that he was not asleep when we debated that amendment. If he examines Hansard, he will find that we have covered that point in some detail.
The previous Government left the country with a system of control that was grossly inadequate. Section 6 of the European Union (Amendment) Act 2008 requires that when a draft decision under the simplified revision procedure—under article 48(6) of the treaty on European Union—is proposed, a Minister must introduce a motion and have it passed by both Houses without amendment before the Prime Minister can signal his agreement to its adoption at a subsequent European Council. That is the point in the decision-making process that we have reached tonight.
There is an option, under the 2008 Act, for the Government of the day to insert a disapplication provision into this type of motion. Such a provision would enable the Government to agree to subsequent amendments to the draft decision to amend the treaty without having to come back to the House for approval. The options were put before me by my officials and I was absolutely clear from the moment I read the papers that to introduce a disapplication provision of that kind would be completely unacceptable and would give Parliament absurdly little control over such an important matter. For that reason, there is no such provision in the motion.
Let me make it clear: if the House approves the motion, it is authorising the Prime Minister to agree to this draft decision—this text alone—at the European Council. Should there be any suggestion of amending the draft decision at the European Council—there is no such suggestion from any quarter at present—the Prime Minister could not legally agree to it at the European Council without first coming back to this House and the other place for additional approval after a further debate. The draft decision that is referred to in the motion will be the version that is agreed at the Council and there can be no other version of the treaty change without the further approval of the House in a debate such as this.
The European Scrutiny Committee has rightly assessed the draft decision as politically important and has recommended it for debate on the Floor of the House. We are scrutinising the draft decision, as the Committee has requested, and debating whether the Prime Minister may signal his support for its adoption at the Council on 24 and 25 March.
Mr Lidington
We inherited from our predecessors a legislative measure that was brought in under an existing competence and treaty base and that was, from that time, legally binding. My hon. Friend will understand that I am not going to be drawn into speculating about the position of other individual member states. My understanding, on the basis of the most recent information that I have, is that no other member state has been asking the EU authorities for additional financial help.
As the Prime Minister has made clear many times in this House, securing a tight and disciplined budget for the future is the highest priority for the European Union. At the last European Council meeting, Britain led an alliance of member states to unprecedented success in limiting the 2011 EU budget increase to 2.91%—a very marked improvement on our predecessors’ performance in the previous year. Crucially, in moving forwards, working alongside key partners such as France, Germany, Netherlands and Finland, we are committed to a real-terms freeze in the EU budget in the new perspective, which we expect to run from 2014 to 2020, and we have written collectively to the President of the European Commission setting out our position.
Mr Lidington
That is no secret. It is a matter of public record that we would have preferred a complete freeze on the 2011 budget, and we voted for that in the Council of Ministers. I regret that we were one country short of achieving the blocking minority. [Interruption.] That kind of protest from the shadow Minister is rank double standards. The Labour Government not only conceded increases in the annual budget that went way ahead of anything like 2.91% but, even more significantly, negotiated an agreement on the current multi-annual financial framework in which they agreed to give up a significant slice of this country’s hard-won rebate from the EU budget in return for no more than a half-promise of a review of agricultural policy, and they did not even manage to get that at the end of the day. We know that they were dysfunctional. According to the memoirs of the then Prime Minister’s chief of staff, the Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer could so little stand the sight of one another that they refused even to share the figures that they were using in parallel negotiations about an EU budget, the settlement of which was absolutely central to the interests of the United Kingdom. Having let down this country so badly in the past, it ill behoves the Labour spokesman to come and lecture us this evening.
Should this House not approve the motion unamended, I have to say to my hon. Friends that the consequences could be serious and damaging for Britain. The Prime Minster would not be able to signal support for the draft decision in March, and since the decision cannot be adopted without unanimity, it would fall. That would mean, for example, that this country would remain, for the indefinite future, indirectly liable for eurozone bail-outs through the EFSM since there would be no ESM to replace it.
Mr Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)
There is no doubt that it is in Britain’s national interest to do everything we can to ensure that the eurozone is stable and prosperous. It was therefore right for the European financial stabilisation mechanism, the EFSM, and the European financial stabilisation facility, the EFSF, to be created last May. In those extraordinary and dangerous circumstances, it was necessary to take swift action. More than 40% of Britain’s exports go to the eurozone. If this country is to secure a strong economic recovery, exports to the eurozone must play a vital role.
Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
I thank the shadow Minister for giving way. I wonder if he is correct. The history of economic crises shows that the countries that devalue and default first are often the first to recover. By sticking with the euro, Europe has therefore made a mistake and lengthened the period of distress for Ireland, Spain, Portugal and the other economies.
Mr David
It is for other European Union member states to decide whether they wish to be part of the eurozone, and there is no doubting their commitment to it.
When the dust had settled after the fraught days in May 2010, moves were made to establish a more permanent stabilisation mechanism, facilitated by a treaty change to provide a stronger legal base. That mechanism will come into force after 2013 and will replace the EFSM and the EFSF.
I find the procedure before us rather strange, to say the least. When or if the European Union Bill, which is currently in the other place, reaches the statute book, there will be a change to the relevant constitutional procedure, as the Minister explained, and the procedure that we are using this evening will no longer apply. Instead, we will have what is essentially a post-decision procedure. Treaty changes will require a statement to be laid before Parliament on whether the decision falls within clause 4 of that Bill. I understand that the treaty change to establish the European stabilisation mechanism would not fall within clause 4, so would not trigger a referendum. However, it would require an Act of Parliament. The Government have said on at least three occasions, and have confirmed this evening, that they would seek the support of the House, using the procedures of the European Union Bill, by introducing primary legislation. As the Financial Secretary to the Treasury said:
“The mechanism is not a transfer of power from Westminster to Brussels, so it does not require a referendum, but it will require primary legislation, which will be introduced in due course.”—[Official Report, European Committee B, 1 February 2011; c. 12.]
Given that commitment, I wondered why the Government were putting forward this motion at this time. The reason, of course, lies in section 6 of the European Union (Amendment) Act 2008, which requires that when a decision under article 48(6) of the treaty on European Union is proposed, a Minister must introduce a motion and have it passed by both Houses of Parliament without amendment. That must happen before the Prime Minister can give his agreement to the adoption of a draft decision at the European Council. In other words, for the Prime Minister to be able to give Britain’s support to this draft proposal at the European Council meeting at the end of next week, it is necessary to secure the approval of Parliament.
I want to make a point about procedure. I welcome what the Minister said earlier on this matter, and I hope that the Prime Minister will adhere to that if there is even the smallest change to the proposed amendment. I hope that that is truly a cast-iron commitment.
Mr Jenkin
Is the hon. Gentleman saying that the European Union Bill will set aside the procedure set out in the 2008 Act, and that there will no longer be a requirement to bring draft Council decisions before this House before they are made? I think that he should invite the Minister to intervene on him to clarify whether that is the case.
Mr David
I would indeed welcome clarification on that subject. Indeed, I intervened on the Minister earlier and received no clarification. It is my understanding that the new procedure will supersede the procedure that we are using this evening, and that the procedure will be post-decision rather than pre-decision. I invite the Minister to clarify that.
Mr Lidington
I am happy to provide clarification. The present decision is unique, in that it is being handled under the 2008 arrangements but will also become subject to the arrangements in the European Union Bill—assuming that it becomes law. The Bill, which we debated for seven days, will extinguish the 2008 arrangements, but it will ensure that after the adoption of the decision, in order for ratification to take place, the text agreed by Heads of State and Government at their final adoption meeting must go through all stages of primary legislation in both Houses.
Mr David
I thank the Minister for that clarification, but although there might be extensive post-decision debate, after the implementation of the Bill we will no longer be in a position effectively to give the Prime Minister a mandate. That is a step backwards and a negation of democracy.
Matthew Hancock (West Suffolk) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman has just said that he believes it is an error not to have a mandate, but did the previous Government have a mandate when they signed up to the EFSM after losing an election?
Mr Lidington
The idea that the new system that will be introduced in the Bill is somehow weaker than the current one is laughable. An Act of Parliament is a much tougher form of scrutiny and accountability than a single vote before the initial decision is taken. Under the 2008 Act there would be no need for primary legislation before ratification took place. Furthermore, in extinguishing the 2008 provisions the Bill will extinguish the possibility of a disapplication procedure, which exists under the 2008 Act and would allow the Government of the day, by means of a motion such as the one before us this evening, to decide that its Head of Government could agree a change to a text without ever coming back to Parliament to give it a further opportunity to comment.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I thank the shadow Minister for giving way a second time. It is very generous of him.
Tonight’s debate came about initially because of a suggestion by the European Scrutiny Committee, which could continue to recommend draft decisions for debate in the House before the Prime Minister went off to negotiate, and then we could have a Bill later. I do not really think we have lost anything.
Mr Lidington
What my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) said is absolutely true.
Mr David
I am glad that for once there is unanimity on the Conservative Benches.
I have two concerns that I should like to dwell upon related to the broader situation in which we find ourselves. The first is the fact that the countries of the eurozone have apparently established a new decision-making structure. The reasons they have done that are perfectly understandable, but it is worrying that the Government do not acknowledge that decisions taken by the eurozone countries could have profound implications for the UK. Take, for example, the issue of the single market. The development and completion of the market is of critical importance to Britain, but we have to be aware that there could be a temptation for the eurozone countries to see the single market in eurozone terms only.
In fairness, the conclusions of the Heads of State and Government of the euro area summit last week state that the new pact for competitiveness and convergence will respect the integrity of the single market in the euro area and the EU as a whole, and the involvement of the European Commission in the work of the euro area group should be a safeguard.
Mr Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)
Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that eurozone members propose to break up the single market, which is established by treaty of all member states, and to impose borders, restrictions or differences between the rules that apply in eurozone countries and those that apply in the rest of the single market? If he is not, his point falls.
Mr David
I am not making that point at all, and with respect, the right hon. Gentleman has not listened carefully to what I said. The statement issued by eurozone countries makes it clear that they will acknowledge, respect and uphold the integrity of the single market. I am simply making the point that the development of the single European market is a key issue. It should be one of Britain’s priorities—it would be, if we had a proactive Government—to ensure that the single market continues to develop. My concern is that in future the eurozone countries, which are perhaps more tight-knit than the rest of the EU, could be tempted to extend the single market provision among themselves rather than applying it to other member states.
Matthew Hancock
Is the hon. Gentleman therefore suggesting that the Labour party position is that the UK should be a part of the European stability mechanism, and therefore tied into bailing out eurozone countries, or does he agree with the Government’s proposal that the European stability mechanism should be for eurozone countries only?
Mr David
If the hon. Gentleman bears with me, I will tell him what I propose.
One sure way to prevent the single market from developing in a way that does not work to Britain’s advantage is for Britain to be involved in the current discussions. It is important for us to have an appropriate involvement in eurozone summits. I understand that countries such as Poland and Sweden, and even the Czech Republic, which has absolutely no intention of ever joining the single currency, have already indicated that they wish to be involved in those discussions. In contrast, Britain has made it clear—so I am told—that it does not want to be involved in any way whatever. I suggest that that is potentially harmful to Britain’s national interest, and therefore urge the Government not to close the door on our eurozone partners.
The second issue is another important and profound one. I have reservations about the economic and political assumptions that underpin this treaty change and the ESM. Let me be clear that the eurozone countries are correct in agreeing a permanent crisis mechanism. To that extent the treaty change is understandable, but my concern is that the ESM is part of a wider economic approach that is completely insufficient to address Europe’s deep-seated economic problems. Austerity, rapid economic retrenchment policies and fiscal consolidation will not of themselves create the kind of growth that the eurozone desperately needs. If all EU countries cut back at the same time, growth is likely to be sluggish at best. The hardest hit countries could find themselves facing stagnation, or even another recession. The risk is low economic growth and high long-term unemployment, with the poorest member states being hit hardest.
Of course, Europe has a 2020 strategy, which is supposed to be a 10-year strategy for jobs and
“smart, sustainable and inclusive growth”.
The stated aim of the strategy is to help Europe to deliver structural reforms and to recover from the crisis. However, although it is full of good intentions, the strategy plays second fiddle to Council and the Commission plans for deep economic retrenchment. It is clear that throughout most of Europe economic recovery is far from strong, and there is little evidence that private sector job growth will be fast enough to compensate for the huge number of jobs lost in the public sector. My concern is that the political and economic philosophy underpinning the treaty change and the ESM will make economic recovery in the eurozone both fragile and uncertain. As I said at the beginning of my speech, that is not in Britain’s best national interests.
These are important and serious reservations, and I hope that our concerns will be listened to carefully. Europe, including Britain, needs a coherent, well-thought-out growth strategy. Without that, the treaty change will fail to deliver the stability and prosperity that we all want.