European Union (Amendment) Bill

No, I must proceed, in fairness to the rest of the House, at least for a little while. It is surprising that Ministers continue to repeat that line, when the European Scrutiny Committee told them in its report:"““we do not consider that references to abandoning a 'constitutional concept'…are helpful and consider that they are even likely to be misleading in so far as they might suggest the Reform Treaty is of lesser significance than the Constitutional Treaty.””" As Giscard d'Estaing, who has already been quoted, put it in June,"““public opinion will be led to adopt, without knowing it, the proposals that we dare not present to them 'directly'.””" He went on to say:"““all the earlier proposals will be in the new text, but will be hidden and disguised in some way.””" Perhaps the most disarmingly honest description of what had happened came in that same month from the Belgian Foreign Minister, who said:"““The aim of the Constitutional treaty was to be more readable; the aim of this treaty is to be unreadable…The Constitution aimed to be clear, whereas this treaty had to be unclear. It is a success.””" Dishonest as the process has been, other European Governments have at least been honest about the outcome. Not so the Government of the United Kingdom, who have persisted in the argument that the treaty is fundamentally different from the constitution. How could an impartial observer assess whether they are fundamentally different or substantially the same? The obvious way is to read the articles of the reform treaty and compare them to those of the constitution—a process undertaken by both the European Scrutiny Committee and the pressure group Open Europe. Both studies demonstrate that the vast majority of the provisions of the constitution are replicated, often word for word, in the reform treaty. According to one count, 240 of the 250 provisions of the constitution are repeated and restored. All along, the Government have been unwilling to be frank with Parliament about the process and the outcome. Ministers maintained until the middle of June that"““nothing that you could really call negotiations have taken place””," even though we now know that the negotiating Sherpas met on 24 January, 2 May and 15 May. Perhaps the Foreign Office officials who went along were just there as tourists. For all the effect they had on the outcome, they might as well have been. The criticism levelled at the Government's handling of Parliament has been exceptional. The Foreign Affairs Committee found that the 2007 intergovernmental conference mandate was agreed with little scope for UK public or parliamentary debate and engagement. That sets an unfortunate precedent, and is damaging to the credibility of the institutional reform process. The European Scrutiny Committee—we are talking about Committees with a Labour majority—reported that the"““process could not have been better designed to marginalise the role of national parliaments and to curtail public debate.””" The story of the Government in the evolution of the treaty has been one of dissembling and deceit. They set out deliberately to break a firm election promise, denied Parliament and the public information about negotiations that were taking place, and refused to publish information that would help Parliament to come to an informed decision.