European Union Bill

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary on his speech this evening, and on his robust reaffirmation of parliamentary sovereignty and national democracy, which was very welcome to those of us on this side of the House, at least. I also thank him for the interest that he has taken in parliamentary scrutiny of opt-in decisions in the important areas of freedom, security and justice, and the attempt by the European Union to seize for itself the power to fashion our criminal law in this country. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Minister for Europe on the way in which he has taken the trouble to respond to all these debates. He has done so patiently and thoroughly, and shown great expertise. He has had a considerable amount of research behind him, and I think that the whole House is grateful to him for the exemplary way in which he has taken the Bill through the Committee of the whole House. I also congratulate the hon. Members for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) and for Caerphilly (Mr David) on their contributions to these debates, which have been very good humoured, and very effective in their own way. I congratulate, too, the shadow Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Mr Alexander), on his speech this evening and for the foresight that he apparently possesses. He seems to have an ability to see into the future. Little did we know when we began our Second Reading debate on 7 December—or before that, when we promised these measures in our manifesto—that the right hon. Gentleman would have foreseen the problems in the middle east before anyone else did. He also deserves to win some sort of prize for stringing together unrelated issues in order to exploit them for maximum political advantage. That bodes well for his career in opposition, if not for the credibility of his policies or particularly for the credibility of his party's position on Europe. Let me sound a note of caution to my hon. Friends. On one or two occasions and again this evening, some have suggested that the Bill and the referendum locks will stop all transfer of power to Europe. That is not the case, so we need to continue to be vigilant about the transfers of power to Europe that can take place notwithstanding this Bill. The Bill requires a referendum for a transfer of competence to Europe and in certain other specified instances, as well as for a movement from unanimity to qualified majority voting. However, my right hon. and hon. Friends will be aware that in a succession of treaties from Britain's first membership of Europe onwards—including particularly the important treaties of Maastricht and Lisbon—we have already transferred a whole list of competences to the EU. That includes not just exclusive competences where only the EU can act, but shared competences where if the EU chooses to act it can extinguish national competence in the same area and in supported competences. As I say, the list is very long and it is backed by the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, which has shown its ingenuity in extending that jurisdiction, and by the appetite for power of the European Commission. Each time the EU chooses to act, to exercise power in respect of one of those many areas of important competences that it already possesses and to make policy, it extinguishes our ability to make policy at a national level in this Parliament. Each time it chooses to make law, to bring in a regulation or to put in place a directive for states to interpret, it is putting in place a law that takes precedence over our national law—and the European Court of Justice will see to it that in any case of conflict, European law takes precedence over our national law. Notwithstanding the Bill's provisions, there is considerable scope for the European Union and its institutions to take more power from this House, from our country and from our electors. We can already see important examples coming along. I thus urge my right hon. and hon. Friends to express the same degree of determination to ensure national self-determination and parliamentary sovereignty when we get to the occasions that we know lie before us in the not-too-distant—in fact, the immediate—future, particularly in respect of freedom, security and justice, where we have already agreed to certain opt-ins for one or two important provisions. We know that the EU has a big programme in these areas and that many more of them are coming along. I gently remind my right hon. and hon. Friends that we promised in our manifesto that we would seek to repatriate powers to this country and certainly not give additional powers to the EU. The valuable opt-out that we enjoy should be mentioned. It was a red line for the previous Labour Government, although created under pressure from Conservative Members, so we need to be very careful as a party that we go no further than Tony Blair and the previous Labour Government were prepared to go in providing the EU with an opportunity to make the criminal law of this country. I believe that criminal law belongs to a nation state: individual electors should be able to have their democratic say about it, as should their Members of Parliament. I urge my right hon. Friends to be equally vigilant in the important area of economic governance. We know that there is an agenda and we will look very carefully at it in the future. We have seen reports in the press—apparently well-founded reports—that the European Union is, through the exercise of its trade policy, seeking to interfere with our immigration policy through the granting of visas as part of trade negotiations. That too would constitute a transfer of power to the European Union. The ability to determine who should be admitted to this country as an economic immigrant does not belong to the European Union; it belongs to a nation state. We should make that determination, in accordance with our needs and with the promises we have made to the electorate on the important subject of immigration. I take heart from what has been said this evening by my right hon. Friends the Ministers about that and about the many other issues that will no doubt go to the European Union. We know that the EU, particularly the Commission, is a beast that is hungry for power and is never satisfied, or at least has not been satisfied so far in its history. Each time we have placed a safeguard in the way to save ourselves from it, the EU has found a way around that safeguard and dismantled it. Let us hope that things will be different in this instance, but I say to my right hon. Friends that they must be robust in the face of the EU's demands. As well as the provisions in the Bill, we need Foreign Secretaries and other Ministers who will go to Europe, be prepared to say no and stand up for our national interests—and our supreme national interest is to preserve the ability to decide our own futures and preserve the sovereignty of our Parliament, which has been fought over, has taken so many years to establish, and is so grounded in our history. I urge my right hon. Friends to do that and I believe that they will, for I have great confidence in them. Certainly, if they do, they will find solid support among Government Members who will back them every inch of the way when they go to Europe and say that this country is not prepared to abandon its opt-out and choose to opt in, is not prepared to submit itself voluntarily to economic governance by the European Union, and is not prepared to abdicate from its proud democracy and grant further powers to the European Union. I said that my right hon. Friends would have the support at least of Government Members, but they should also bear in mind that the patience and credulity of the British public have been tested to breaking point by the European Union. People in this country are aware of the promises that have been made about the transfer of power to Europe, and if they find that yet more power has been transferred to the European Union, their patience will be tested beyond that breaking point. The grave disillusionment that they undeniably feel with the EU, which expresses itself in so many ways—for example, in their disenchantment with its lack of accountability—will then extend to the politicians and leaders who are perceived to have given away yet more powers to it. However, I am confident that that will not arise. Let me say in particular to my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary—to whom the country owes a great debt of gratitude for the principled stand that he has taken over the euro and many other issues—that he will have the full support of Government Members if he complements the Bill's provisions by going to Europe and seeing through the robust words that he has uttered this evening. He will deserve all our support if he does that, as I am sure that he will.