European Union Bill

The Bill is titled the ““European Union Bill””, and is a legislative measure by this Parliament in respect of the government of this country. It seems to me that what Denmark does is what Denmark does, and what others do, they do. There is nothing unreasonable in the new clause, other than perhaps in respect of the question reasonably raised about the definition of ““relevant””. However, I think that everyone in the debate understands the gist of this rather important new clause. We forget who we are. It was a struggle to get accountable government—that is what this is about: accountable government. It is an odd quirk of the British constitution that we seek accountability at certain levels. Some of us have been here a long time and will remember the triumph of Sir John Major over Maastricht. If I recall correctly, he came back saying that he had won ““game, set and match””. As was rightly pointed out by several Members, that is the normal formula of most leaders of EU countries, who all protest that they have secured some golden objective, the consequences of which we only find out some years later. I emphasise that the struggle for accountable government was not easily won. In fact, the House used to sit in secret, and it was a criminal offence to reveal the force and arguments that took place. We did not know, therefore, whether the man who protested he was our friend was indeed our friend, and we did not know whether the person pointed out as the enemy was indeed our enemy. To the benefit of this country, that went. An essential ingredient of our constitution, therefore, is the concept of accountability, but we cannot have accountability if we do not know how the Government act and what they say. Today's most relevant observation—I thought it was important, and I hope that the House thinks so too—was made by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg). He said that many of the decisions coming from the EU are legislative decisions. Imagine that the House sat in secret discussing legislative decisions, and that none of us could be held to account—it is rather like the coalition agreement, is it not?—for the outcome of the decisions. No one is held accountable. That would end democracy in this country as we understand it. It is a difficult enough task to hold Governments to account: time goes by, and the exigencies and pressures of other issues get rammed in. We are facing a huge constitutional change that has taken place over the past 30 years, and the decisions now made within the EU structure are profound and affect all our lives. One of the promoters of the new clause, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart), gave a very good example—the working time directive for junior doctors. It had enormous consequences, and the House would have been better placed to agitate and put pressure on Ministers who proclaimed that they were fighting for Britain all the way and were winning game, set and match. However, the consequences of that decision are now being felt throughout our national health service.