Signing away our birthright

The Hansard report on yesterday's debate begins from this link. I am quoting what I consider the main points. Mr. John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con): As the Foreign Secretary is adamant in refusing the British people a vote, why does he not give this House a vote before he signs away our birthright by signing the treaty? Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab): Will my right hon. Friend confirm for the record that, however lengthy the debate in the House may be, it is not a question of amending even a single comma but of accepting the whole treaty or nothing? Therefore, the whole concept of the House being involved in the drafting and drawing up of the treaty was not realised. We are being given a rather black-and-white choice rather late in the day. Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab): Just to clarify exactly what the Foreign Secretary said, will he tell me what would happen if a particular amendment tabled by the House went through to amend one part of the treaty? Is he basically saying that we are going to spend months and months discussing it, but that it quite honestly makes no difference whether or not anyone turns anything down because the treaty will go through? Bob Spink (Castle Point) (Con): I am grateful to the Foreign Secretary for giving way; he is being most generous. At the Council, will he raise the question of the European gendarmerie force? Will he confirm that the force is now heavily armed and can recruit personnel from any EU member or candidate country, including countries such as Turkey? Will he give an undertaking that it will never be allowed to operate on British soil? Mr. Richard Shepherd (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con): Bless the very young Foreign Secretary. However, he has not mentioned the greatest myth of all—the Labour party’s pledge to hold a referendum on the constitution. What happened to that? We still substantially have the constitution. Among all the myths that the right hon. Gentleman has found, where are the British people invited to express a view on something that is profoundly important to their future and well-being? Mr. William Hague (Richmond, Yorks) (Con) (Highlights from the Shadow Foreign Secretaries speech): Alongside all those compelling global questions, the House’s main preoccupation is, of course, the European treaty that is to be signed this weekend. This debate is traditional, but it is disappointing that the Government have offered no separate debate on the recent report of the European Scrutiny Committee, which resulted in the Committee’s exceptional decision to exercise its scrutiny reserve on a treaty and to call for a debate specifically on the document before it was signed. The response of Ministers to that request has been to ignore it. There has been a pattern in the Government’s behaviour this year of minimising parliamentary scrutiny on the issue whenever possible. In June, only days before the treaty was agreed in principle, the Foreign Secretary’s predecessor was saying that she was not aware of any negotiations, even between other countries—as if the vast document that then emerged came literally out of nowhere, handed down by some great deity of European affairs with no prior discussion with any human beings. Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab) rose— 11 Dec 2007 : Column 196 Mr. Hague: I shall give way to the Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee. Michael Connarty: I am sorry for interrupting the right hon. Gentleman’s flow, but I must correct him on an important point. The document under scrutiny was the Commission’s opinion on the intergovernmental conference, which was then added to by the Government’s White Paper on the Commission’s opinion. The reform treaty, even in draft, has never been presented to us in this House, which is disappointing. We are not scrutinising that, because we have never been given it to look at. Mr. Hague: I am sure that that is correct, because it comes from the Chairman of the Committee. It is also correct that the Committee called for a debate in this House specifically on its report before the treaty is signed. That, of course, is the point that I was seeking to make. Mr. David Heathcoat-Amory (Wells) (Con): The situation is a bit worse than my right hon. Friend described. In May, the Foreign Affairs Committee wrote a public letter to the Foreign Office stating: “The Committee regards the refusal of the FCO to provide a Minister to give oral evidence during this crucial phase of the discussions on the future of Europe as a failure of accountability to Parliament.” Is he aware of any other instance when a Select Committee of the House has reprimanded the Government in those terms? Mr. Hague: My right hon. Friend makes a good point, because that is highly unusual language from a Select Committee to the Government. It was used against the background to which I was just referring, whereby the Foreign Secretary’s predecessor said that no negotiations were taking place. Her actual words when she gave evidence to the European Scrutiny Committee on 7 June were “that nothing that you could really call negotiations have taken place”. Everyone knew that Sherpas were going around Europe and that discussions were taking place between European capitals. Richard Younger-Ross: The question put to the Foreign Secretary’s predecessor was put by me, and she was clear that no negotiations or discussions had taken place. Under pressure from the Committee it was later confirmed—this Foreign Secretary has confirmed it—that the Sherpas did meet on 24 January, 2 May and 15 May. The right hon. Lady was clearly trying to avoid any questioning about what might have been discussed at those meetings. Mr. William Cash (Stone) (Con): On that very point, would my right hon. Friend also take into account the fact that not only have these proceedings and this process been conducted in a deceitful manner, but the European Scrutiny Committee said, after we had seen the Foreign Secretary, that “we reiterate our earlier comment that the process could not have been better designed to marginalise the role of national parliaments and to curtail public debate”? In other words, the whole thing has been a charade. Mr. Hague: I was going to cite that very passage from that report. It is marvellous of my hon. Friend to provide the service of reading out parts of my speech before I have arrived at them. [Interruption.] It is also quite unusual. That is not the only example of such treatment of Parliament. On 25 June, when the former Prime Minister came back to sell the treaty in his last two days in office, he managed some remarkably selective quoting. Reading from the protocol on the charter of fundamental rights, to show—as he hoped—that there would be no effect on British law, he actually missed out the words “Title IV” from an otherwise verbatim passage, so as not to betray the fact that the Government’s clarification on the charter, whatever that may turn out to be worth, can apply in only one of the areas that it covers. The Foreign Secretary himself has set a doubtful example in such matters by refusing to list, in response to my written questions, the areas in which the constitution and the reform treaty are exactly the same—even though other authorities have been willing to do so—presumably because he does not want to concede with his own pen what is a fact: that vast tracts of the constitution have been incorporated as they stood into the reform treaty...... On the Government’s approach to frank discussion of the treaty, the Foreign Secretary and his predecessor were at fault. I shall not quote again the passage that 11 Dec 2007 : Column 198 my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) has already quoted, but I believe it to be true. Even now it is unclear just how much debate there will be in the House of this far-ranging treaty. Ministers have told the press that there will be 20 days of debate, although it would not be difficult to fill far more than that. However, they have not so far been forthcoming on the matter in the House and we look forward to hearing how many days of debate there will be. The treaty will bring about a profound change in the EU’s structures and powers, with major consequences for Britain. One way to illustrate to the House the scale of what is proposed is to look at the wide range of proposals in the treaty to which the Government were themselves opposed in recent years, and even in recent months. As recently as June this year, the Government argued that the high representative or Foreign Minister should not be able to chair the regular meetings of Foreign Ministers or take over the resources of the European Commissioner responsible for external affairs, but both of those things are to happen. ..............The ability to abolish further national vetoes without a new treaty—something that he (Denis Macshane) himself opposed—is now there in black and white. Mrs. Dunwoody: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. I do not intend to keep him long. Is he aware that we do not need any kind of change, because as we have recently seen with Galileo, it does not matter what the House of Commons thinks about particular items, if our views are to be totally ignored through the use of qualified majority voting? Mr. Hague: On the particular matter that we are discussing, unanimity is required to abolish further vetoes, and I suppose that it would be possible to build into the procedures of the House further safeguards on that. However, in respect of many other matters, what the hon. Lady says is quite right. One by one, the Government’s arguments on the treaty have been knocked down. First, they said that it was quite different from the constitution, and they made reassuring noises. The Foreign Secretary talked about the Conservative Prime Minister of Denmark. He should know that the Danish Prime Minister belongs to a party that is in the Liberal group in the European Parliament, so it is a doubtful proposition that he will persuade Conservative Members to agree with his argument, on the basis that they would be agreeing with the Liberals.

Secondly, the Government said that the treaty is different from the constitution, because

“the constitutional concept...has been abandoned”.

The European Scrutiny Committee pointed out in an earlier report that it considered that

“references to abandoning a ‘constitutional concept’...are...likely to be misleading in so far as they might suggest the Reform Treaty is of lesser significance than the Constitutional Treaty.”

11 Dec 2007 : Column 201

Yesterday, another of the Government’s arguments—that we desperately a need a new treaty to avoid institutional standstill after EU enlargement—was knocked down by yet another study, this time by the London School of Economics, which found that

“the ‘business as usual’ picture in the EU is more convincing than the ‘gridlock’ picture as regards practice in and output from the EU institutions since May 2004.”

The truth about the treaty is that it is not actually necessary. The Government have therefore been forced to say that it does not pose a problem, because all their negotiating objectives have been reached......

It was one of the most important features of the original Constitution that criminal and civil justice and policing would no longer be intergovernmental matters, and the red line does not change that effect in any way. The Foreign Secretary will be aware of the Committee’s stringent criticisms of the Government’s failure to ensure that, unlike Denmark, our position vis-� -vis existing agreed measures is secure. The Committee concludes that “under the system to be established by the Reform Treaty, a Member State will lose the ability finally to determine its own law” on justice and home affairs— “to the extent that measures are adopted at Union level”. These conclusions must be taken seriously. They come from a Committee that has a majority of the governing party in the House. Each of the Government’s red lines is in turn exposed as weak or worthless. The last of Ministers’ arguments that the treaty is significantly different from the EU constitution has been demolished. In any other field of policy, it would be thought perverse to hand more responsibilities to a body that cannot properly manage those that it already possesses, yet that is what Ministers propose to do. This is the 13th year that the Court of Auditors has refused to sign off the EU’s accounts. Year after year, the European Union fails to look after taxpayers’ money to the standard that taxpayers have every right to expect. It is time Ministers took more action over that than they have in recent years. The abolition of national vetoes—69 by one account, and 50 by the Government’s latest tally—is another important issue. It is astonishing that Ministers are so blithe about it when they are even now fighting a desperate rearguard action on the temporary workers directive, whose red tape would, according to the CBI, endanger 250,000 jobs. The Government are finding it very hard to keep a blocking minority together, but they need a blocking minority only because this area is an EU competence and subject to qualified majority voting, both of which are a direct consequence of the abandonment of our opt-out from the social chapter in 1997.

Mr Hague's conclusion:

It is worth remembering that no one in the House has any democratic mandate from the British people to agree to the treaty. All three main parties stood on manifestos promising the British people a referendum on the constitution. No one’s manifesto said that there would be a referendum on the EU constitution, but if another country voted no in their referendum the British referendum would be scrapped, the Constitution would be given a new name and a few tweaks, and the treaty would be shoved through without the British people being given any say on it at all. But that is the extraordinary thing that Ministers are proposing. The whole story of the treaty has been of the Government’s failure of leadership, in Europe and in Britain. If Ministers are to be believed, they never wanted the constitution or the treaty. They were defeated time and again in the negotiations. Of the 275 amendments that the Government tried to make to the original constitution text, only 27 were accepted. Now they have accepted a treaty that practically the whole of Europe agrees is only cosmetically different from the constitution, and which they dare not put to the British people. Everyone knows what the Government are up to. No one seriously believes that the treaty is significantly different from the constitution. Some, like the constitution’s chief draftsman, about whom the Foreign Secretary was rather dismissive earlier, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, cannot stop pointing that out. After the October summit he told European newspapers that “the difference ... is one of approach, rather than content”. Last month he told the BBC that “you wouldn’t be honest to tell the British voters the substance of the text has changed— because the substance has not changed”. He has written with satisfaction in his blog that the constitution’s “essential points ... reappear word for word in the new project. Not a comma has changed!” Everyone knows what is really going on. No impartial commentator thinks that the Government are up to anything other than a cynical and calculated manoeuvre to avoid holding a referendum. Ministers have neither the courage to fight an election, nor the courage and honour to keep their own promise of a referendum. Once again they are happy to treat the people of this country like fools, and the British people deserve better than that. Trust and confidence in the Government are draining away. There remains one notable way for the Prime Minister to repair some of the damage—to honour his promise of a referendum. We will see if he has the courage to admit that he was wrong, act like a statesman and give the British people the chance to have the say that we all promised them.

Extracts from the speech of the Labour Chairman of the Commons EU Scrutiny Committee

Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab): In one way I am disappointed that we are having another general debate on European affairs and not being given a full debate on the reform treaty. I believe that there is a technical term for this—it is not one that I knew before I came to Parliament—and that is “frit”. The Government are frit to have a debate on the issue 11 Dec 2007 : Column 206 that really is at this moment at the heart of Europe. We have a term for it in Scotland, which the Minister for Europe will recognise, and that is “feart”. I cannot understand why the Government are in that position: it is clear that a reform treaty debate would have allowed the Government and people such as myself who have looked at the treaty to talk about its contents and structure, but again to argue on the front foot for a European treaty that takes us where that treaty will take us. We could agree on what the treaty will do, and still debate whether it is a good or a bad thing. But in the context of a general debate on European affairs, it becomes somewhat lost. However, at least we are having a debate on European affairs, and I make no apology to the House for raising an issue that is not the reform treaty as my first point today. We should have debates such as this on general matters going to the European Council, but we should also have had a formal debate, as the Lords were brave enough to do on the reform treaty.....

Just last week I spoke to a group of business people through the Industry and Parliament Trust. They said, “We no longer know who to write to. We no longer know who is on the Committees or who we should send our briefs to, because of the collapse of the scrutiny process.” The problem with the treaty is that it will be a festering sore until the Government lance the boil. They could have started that process with a debate on the reform treaty.....

However, we will never get beyond certain issues because the Government appear to be hiding among a maze of red lines and superstructures that they have constructed above them. That is a great disappointment. Mrs. Dunwoody: If my hon. Friend’s Committee had the power to table an amendment to the papers that it considered and to have that voted on to get a resolution capable of being referred to the Floor of the House, that would solve a great many problems—not only from his point of view, but in respect of monitoring what happens in our name in the European Union. 11 Dec 2007 : Column 209 Michael Connarty: I cannot think of a stronger advocate for more powers for the Committee. At the moment, the Government and their Ministers just see us as a bit of an annoyance. We have been crawling all over them and doing our job properly and that can sometimes be tedious. Someone said to me recently, “I’m fed up with writing you letters.” I should say that it was said jovially, but underneath it there was a bit of truth. We do not apologise for that or anything that enhances scrutiny. I shall come later to questions of to deal with the opting-in process; that must be discussed on the Floor of the House if the process is to have any credibility.

The report also introduces the idea of a European citizens initiative; I heard that debated at length last Monday and Tuesday but still do not know what it means. How would citizens get together so pressurise that great bureaucracy? Last week, I also heard statements again and again—including from the rapporteur Richard Corbett, of the Party of European Socialists, and a member of the Labour party. He did not think that the yellow and orange cards would be workable; he said that they would never be used, and many echoed that in last week’s debate. So according to European 11 Dec 2007 : Column 210 parliamentarians, those supposedly great powers given to the national Parliaments would never be triggered. That worries me greatly. Ms Gisela Stuart: Does my hon. Friend accept that the citizens initiative, which as he rightly says is completely unworkable and gives rights to citizens that we do not even give to Parliament, was introduced so that some countries could avoid the need for a referendum? It could be said that the people had a direct voice, even if it did not amount to anything. Michael Connarty: The dialogue was interesting. Some members, particularly people from the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe—and particularly Mr. Duff, who chaired and steered the sitting every way, as long as it was his way—said that the national Parliaments should focus on telling the European Parliament what they thought, and that it would then try to tell the Commission and the Council. I do not think that that is the role of national Parliaments, which should focus on making their Governments go to the Council and agree the right thing. We have arrived at a new place, which may be interesting, although I am not sure how it will work.

Mr. Davidson: May I seek clarification? If in future 95 per cent. of legislation that comes through Brussels will be consulted on with the European Parliament, what percentage of that legislation will be consulted on with this Parliament? Michael Connarty: That will depend on the Government’s attitude to the role of Parliament. When the Government go to the Council, the European Scrutiny Committee is involved, and European Standing Committees can be involved if they can get the interest of Members of Parliament. However, at the moment I do not think there is a mechanism for Parliament to tell the Government what to do. My hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) made exactly that point: if resolutions could be tabled and voted on, we might feel that matters of substance were being debated in the House and its Committees. Mr. Davidson: The answer is no then, is it?.............

Michael Connarty:I turn now to the fundamental issues. I hope that people will read what we have said in our reports. As I believe that we have shown in the annex to our 35th report, every provision of the constitutional treaty, apart from the flags, mottos and anthems, is to be found in the reform treaty. We think that they are fundamentally the same, and the Government have not produced a table to contradict our position....

Our third report of the 2007-08 Session shows that the Danish had an agreement whereby if they decided that they did not want to opt in, they would remain with the status quo; the issue would still be under the jurisdiction of the Danish courts and they would not have to walk away. They had an agreement whereby they could keep what they had or choose the new arrangement. We could not understand why our Government did not get the same agreement, and we said so in our report. We are a much bigger country than Denmark, so why did we not have the leverage to say, “We’ll keep what we have, and if we like what you offer we’ll opt into that”? I cannot understand that at all; I have never been able to explain it to myself or to my Committee. Richard Younger-Ross: The hon. Gentleman is an excellent Chairman of the Committee—I hope that my saying that does not ruin his progress—and he is making some excellent points. Is part of the problem the fact that Ministers do not wish to come to this House for decisions to be made, because they wish to make decisions in smoke-filled rooms so that they can trade off a policy that they wish to see go through against other policies? Did not the former Minister for Europe go as far as saying on the record that they were 11 Dec 2007 : Column 213 even prepared to agree to proposals with a questionable legal basis if they could get something that they wanted in return? Michael Connarty: That is a factual statement. The previous Minister for Europe, who is now our Chief Whip, has said that that is how deals are done. I do not know whether other Members who were in previous negotiations accepted that that was how Europe works—that sometimes people give in to something that they are not quite happy with on the basis that they are storing up good will for something coming down the line. That is on the record in one of our evidence sessions, and it was a revelation to me. The Committee cannot understand why, when the text finally came out following the process of negotiations, it contained the word “shall”. It said that under article 8, Parliament “shall” participate in institutions of the European Union. We objected to that and asked why the Government did not negotiate to put in the word “may”. They said that the French word, “contribuant”, means that the action is ongoing, but we talked to French Members, who said, “No, that means, ‘You will contribute’”. We understand that France took a strong position on this. They did not want to take out the word “shall” and put in the word “may”. The wording now is that Parliaments shall “contribute to” or “participate in”. The legal judgment of our officials is that that will be used by the ECJ to say that the Commission, if it wishes to in future, can take infraction against any Parliament that refuses to participate in any part of the EU’s institutions. That is a very negative aspect. We expressed that view to the Government and suggested that they seek that amendment, but they did not secure it. On Monday, I asked President Barroso why we should not insert the word “may”, and he gave the same interpretation as the Portuguese Foreign Minister—that the article imposes no obligation on national Parliaments and is purely declaratory in nature. If that is the case, why not put in “may”?

To be continued