European Union Bill

Debate between William Cash and Martin Caton

Wednesday 26th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

I rise to support my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris) in the arguments that he has adduced. Since the Maastricht treaty, I have been gravely concerned about the operation of co-decision, and that is the best part of 20 years ago. The bottom line is that the situation has become increasingly difficult and unacceptable. The European Parliament, which is not a real Parliament at all—I see the Minister sighing. He cannot understand that the difference in the manner in which the European Parliament is elected, the difference in its procedures, the extent to which it holds Ministers to account, the intrusion of the process of proportional representation and the manner in which that operates, and many other aspects of the institutional difficulties and the democratic deficit that exists in the EU, are all part and parcel of the necessity to retain control in the hands of the national Parliaments. Unfortunately, for all the reasons given by my hon. Friend, for these specific matters there is an extension of this strange creature which used to be called co-decision, but which now, in typical Eurospeak, has become the ordinary legislative procedure. It is not ordinary at all, it is quite extraordinary, and it is not a legislative procedure in the sense in which we are legislating in this House.

[The Temporary Chairman (Martin Caton)]

Order. May I ask which amendment the hon. Gentleman is speaking to?

[Mr Cash]

I am speaking about the general principle relating to the question of co-decision in the context of the amendments—

[The Temporary Chairman]

Order. The hon. Gentleman knows that when we are dealing with amendments, we deal with the amendments, not with general principles. If he could come on to the amendments in the group, I would be grateful.

[Mr Cash]

I am dealing specifically with amendment 24, moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry, and supporting his arguments. My amendments are, in general terms, supportable in accordance with the arguments I have set out, and I have no further comments to make on them at the moment.

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[Mr Cash]

That is exactly the point. The combined effect of the amendments that we are discussing is directly related to what the hon. Gentleman says and to what my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry said. It is about time that the Committee understood that the importance of these debates is not being reflected by the votes or by the Government’s attitude. So far, they are not accepting any of the amendments. The European Scrutiny Committee has produced a report, and most of the amendments arise from it, including the ones we are discussing. My hon. Friend is a member of that Committee, and other members of the Committee are here as well. The net result is that we are not discussing the amendments properly.

[The Temporary Chairman]

Order. The hon. Gentleman seems to be talking about clause 9, but we are talking about two specific amendments to clause 7.

[Mr Cash]

I am happy to endorse the view that has been expressed. I wanted to make a general point, and that is really all I need to say at this stage.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Temporary Chair (Martin Caton)]

The hon. Gentleman is supposed to be making an intervention, not a speech.

[Mr Cash]

There is an obligation to answer this point.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Temporary Chair (Martin Caton)]

That brings us to the debate on clause 7 stand part. If I am reading the feeling of the Committee correctly, I shall allow this to be a fairly wide debate, obviating the need for further stand part debates on the later clauses. If we all understand that, I shall show considerable laxity.

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

[Mr Cash]

I shall discuss my earlier point about EU accession to the ECHR in the context of the broad view that you, Mr Caton, have taken about the necessity to get some of these issues out in the open. I shall also refer to the document that I cited in my intervention on the Minister, because we discussed it in the European Scrutiny Committee today. The document is a Council decision, the object of which is to authorise the European Commission to start negotiations with the Council of Europe on the EU’s accession to the European convention on human rights. Our Committee reached the stage of a first report.