European Union Bill

I originally intended to speak in support of the comments made earlier in the debate by my Gloucestershire neighbour, the hon. Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael), but I found myself in a surprising degree of agreement with the hon. Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke), who gave a learned analysis of the implications of the new clause, as opposed to its intent. As described by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) and others, the intention is to create more transparency and openness—that is obviously a good thing, which we would all support—but somewhere in the drafting of the new clause it has become a little confused, or perhaps awkward, in the attempt to bring it within the scope of the Bill. The effect of the new clause would be to reveal a great deal of documentation, but after the decision had been taken. The decision to which the statement under clause 5 related would have already happened. Although much of the documentation would be relevant in the sense that it related to that decision, it might not prove to be very pertinent to the decision. Much of it might be advice, even legal advice, that was ultimately rejected. So it would not have materially affected the decision under consideration. What really mattered would be the outcome, and the proposals that the British Government were putting to Parliament and, perhaps even in a referendum, to the people of this country. We could discuss that without the benefit of all the paperwork that had been discarded earlier in the process. The second problem with the new clause is that a lot of what the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston said was about trying to add transparency to the process at European level—to the Commission's decision-making processes and the debate in the Council of Ministers. The hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) compared that to the former secrecy of debates in this Chamber, but the new clause would not reveal the debate that took place at European level. It would reveal only the background paperwork, which would be rather like getting a House of Commons briefing, but with no copy of Hansard to follow. The new clause would not bring great openness or transparency to European processes. The only transparency that it would provide would be on the British negotiating position. Then we would start to have a problem, because although that would be revealed after the event, the nature of the advice, especially the legal advice, could have profound implications for future negotiations. If we revealed all that documentation, that would clearly impact on the position of British Ministers in subsequent negotiations. It would almost certainly impact on the advice, especially legal advice, that officials felt able to give to Ministers, because they would know that it was not private advice, but would become public in due course. Clearly, that would put British Ministers at a disadvantage relative to other Ministers in the European Council. It would undermine the British interest and thereby achieve, presumably, the reverse of what the new clause intends. It would, in a real sense, send British Ministers naked into the Council of Ministers. In some cases, that is a very sobering thought indeed.