European Union Bill

I shall be brief. I think the hon. Gentleman has a bit of a nerve. It was actually the Government whom he supported and served who agreed to the treaty that collapsed the third pillar, which communitised justice and home affairs, bringing those areas of policy under European Court of Justice jurisdiction when previously they had been intergovernmental. As we debated last week, we have as a Government announced that we shall be discussing with the scrutiny Committees and others the ways in which we can strengthen parliamentary scrutiny over justice and home affairs and give greater accountability of the Government to Parliament for those decisions. We have said publicly, on the record, that the decision that must be made by 2014 on whether to opt out of or remain party to the pre-Lisbon corpus of justice and home affairs measures will be subject to a debate and to a vote in each House of Parliament. The previous Government made no provision for such an arrangement. They were content for the 2014 decision, which the hon. Gentleman now describes as of great magnitude, to be subject simply to the normal scrutiny provisions and for the Committee to determine whether to call it in for debate. I note that, despite all the hon. Gentleman's strictures about there being no need for this Bill, he did not suggest that a hypothetical future Labour Government would seek to repeal the legislation. He knows the penalty that would accrue to any political party that tried to deny the people the democratic rights that they are being given under the Bill.