Lisbon Treaty (No.1)

If I fail to give way to my hon. Friend, it is only because I have been admonished about the time I have available, but I will answer some of the points he raised. The truth is, of course, that we have to learn this the hard way. I negotiated in the European Union probably for longer than any other Minister—certainly almost as long because of my long involvement with agriculture and the environment, both of which were greatly subject to decisions in the EU. I have to say that I always found it harder to get one's way when debating and negotiating under the veto than when one was negotiating in circumstances where everyone else knew that if they steamrollered you, you could do the same to them. Indeed, the collegiate and consensual nature of the EU was such that I can honestly say that on no occasion during all those years of negotiations did Britain fail to secure what was in its national interest. Of course it meant hard work; of course it meant getting on with one's neighbours; of course it needed give and take—but in the end, if our country and the others knew what was essential for their national interests, it was possible to achieve it. I do not therefore have the worries that my right hon. Friend the Member for Wells seems to have. I do not have them because I believe that this treaty is a necessary step to enable me better to guard the liberties of the people I represent. It is necessary to remind ourselves that modern transport, the ability to move money across exchanges, and our present circumstances, in which even the poorest can get on an aeroplane as long as they can pay the tax and fly throughout Europe, represent major changes. These are very different times from when people moved about much less freely, so we need to find a system that works more effectively and meets current circumstances. Here I am critical of the Government, because I am not at all sure that they negotiated these matters properly, partly because they asked for things that they did not need and did so in a rather hectoring manner. I can think of other Prime Ministers who adopted the same strategy and I am not sure that they always got as much as they could have got if they had behaved differently. Indeed, we have secured opt-outs on some matters, but we might have been able to influence them better if we had not chosen that route. That is what concerns me when I hear the opposition to the proposals before us. We need these changes to defend our citizens, but others also need the changes to defend their citizens. I find it difficult to accept that the British are always in the right. Let me give the House a simple example. We have resisted the right of European fisheries inspectors to inspect without notice, which has made it almost impossible for them to do their job. It would be hugely to the advantage of many nations if careful consideration of the activities of the Spanish—and, I fear, some of the British—fleets were available so that we could start a sensible fisheries policy. There is nothing wrong with a common fisheries policy; it is just that the policy is wrong. We have never really been able to achieve sufficient commonness to be able to have a policy that would enable us to deal with conservation. The same applies here. Let me deal with what my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison) said about what he calls the penalty. The European Union needs Britain to achieve sensible decisions that benefit the whole of the EU, so if our failure to join our neighbours sensibly proves to be a direct cost to them, and if we make it expensive for them because we render inoperative that which was to the benefit of the whole community, it is a price that we may well feel we should pay, yet it is not a fine or a penalty but a cost. Either it is paid by those who have not incurred it or it is paid by those who decide that it should be incurred. I hope that we will not be in that position, but I do not find it unreasonable for others to ask us to agree to such a position.