European Union Bill

It is a great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel), who, as usual, made a powerful speech and, of course, mentioned the colossal amount of money that we give to the European Union for redistribution. In other words, it is rather like foreign aid, except perhaps that it is not used for the best purpose. Under the last five years of the Labour Government, £19.8 billion net was given to the European Union. Unfortunately, under the first five years of the coalition Government, the figure will be twice that amount, and she made a powerful point. Earlier today, I visited Lancaster House for international women's day and the launch of the fund for groups that want to help the victims of human trafficking. It was brought to my attention by Maria Grazia Giammarinaro, who is a United Nations special representative and co-ordinator for combating trafficking in human beings, that such things do not stop at the European Union; they go much further and cross borders. When we started to debate the Bill many weeks ago, my hopes were raised that we would discuss much wider issues than we got round to discussing. Tonight, of course, we have heard a lot of powerful speeches. I must praise our Front-Bench team. Obviously, whenever I listen to the Foreign Secretary, I am always convinced by his arguments, even when he is totally wrong. Again, I was convinced tonight. When the shadow Secretary of State spoke, he absolutely convinced me that the Government were totally correct. The shadow Secretary of State did not say—I should have liked to intervene to ask him—whether, when the Bill becomes law and if Labour Members ever came to power again, they would actually honour it. Of course, we are now talking about fixed-term Parliaments, so it is quite possible that Labour Members will be sitting on the Government Benches without a general election, but the right hon. Gentleman did not answer and avoided saying whether they would support the referendum lock. Obviously, my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash) has for years led the battle for sense in the European Union. Now that he is Chair of the European Scrutiny Committee, we seem to be getting a lot more European business in the House. That is to be wholly welcomed, at least by myself. He told us about his pamphlet, which, I understand, is for sale in all good bookshops, but he did not tell us one thing: how many euros it costs. As usual, my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr Clappison) made the most powerful of speeches with which I agreed entirely. That brings me on to the Minister for Europe, who has been in his usual great humour and on top of everything. He has been an absolutely wonderful No. 2, but it is obvious that when the reshuffle comes, perhaps on 6 May, he will be promoted to a Cabinet role. The obvious answer for the new Minister for Europe is my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere. May I put in that bid? The hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins), who spoke from the Opposition Benches, was wonderful. He made his normal pro-European speech, which was against the EU. It is a great shame that all the Members on that side of the House do not share his views. Recently, I was in Portugal on human trafficking business. I learned a lot about the EU there and was able to discuss the European Union Bill with the person sat next to me at dinner, who was a communist. I found that the Portuguese Communist party and I have a lot in common—we both want to come out of the EU.