European Union Bill

What is simple is that the concept of parliamentary sovereignty requires some explanation, and Jeffrey Goldsworthy does that. The question is not merely about parliamentary sovereignty; it is also about the manner in which the courts apply themselves to that doctrine. That is where the mischief lies and that is what my amendments would deal with. I should like to respond to the Government's reply, published only yesterday, to the European Scrutiny Committee. The Government say that they have never claimed that parliamentary sovereignty is under threat from EU law, but a problem remains for them. The evidence to the Committee was that that could well change in future, given current judicial trends; that is exactly what we were told. The Government claim that disapplying EU law, an issue that has just been raised, would have unacceptable consequences—with infraction proceedings, and so on. But I make the point clearly that according to the evidence that we received, not only are several countries already in breach of EU law—France's deportation of Roma immigrants, for example; no action was taken—but there is non-compliance on a massive scale. We know all about that, with the stability and growth pact. There has also been the more recent failure to comply even with EU law itself in respect of the financial stability mechanism. Anybody with two brains to rub together would know that article 122 could not possibly justify—[Interruption.] Well, ““Two Brains”” could. No one could justify the use of article 122 for the purposes of that mechanism. If in the national interest, Parliament decides to do so, that is that. We obey EU law only in so far as it is a matter of statute and continues to be regarded as a matter of national interest. As to the background of all this, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made several speeches before the general election that clearly demonstrated that we would no longer allow Britain's laws to"““be decided by unaccountable judges.””" He said that their role was to interpret not to make law and that the sovereignty of Parliament needed to be safeguarded not only from the EU but from current trends in judicial thinking. We were promised last year:"““you can be assured that you have a Conservative prime minister who will act in the national interest. And putting your country first is about the most important Conservative value there is.””" The Prime Minister also said:"““The Conservative Party has always been a party that puts the national interest first.””" I absolutely and entirely agree. By the way, it was Disraeli who said that the Conservative party was a national party or it was nothing; I agree with that, too. The tragedy is that the coalition and the Liberal Democrat influence in the formulation—and subsequent discussions, I suspect—of clause 18 and the Bill as a whole have gone a long way towards undermining the commitment to putting the national interest first. I fear that, far from working together in the national interest—and it is not just on this one clause—we are now witnessing policies that in relation to matters as important as the sovereignty of Parliament are actually working against the national interest. That could be remedied very simply by dealing with the omissions, dangers, ambiguities and hazards that the clause throws up and by accepting my simple and modest amendments. My challenge is this: will hon. Members vote down an amendment that says:"““The sovereignty of the United Kingdom Parliament in relation to EU law is hereby reaffirmed””?" We all know that it is not possible to constrain the judiciary in relation to EU law except by using clear words. Those are lacking in clause 18, and I have substituted words that have the appropriate effect.