European Union (Amendment) Bill

I am delighted to hear that, but my hon. Friend has to be a bit careful here because subsidiarity is a theological concept, which was actually created or invented by the Jesuits. I was educated by the Jesuits, so I know all about this—[Interruption.] The principle regarding theology and hierarchy was exactly as my hon. Friend suggested. The whole object of the exercise was to demonstrate that whereas people should be allowed to lead their own lives in their own fashion at a certain level, they had to obey the highest level of the highest hierarchy, which is, of course, the Vatican from where the Pope speaks ex cathedra. It will not surprise anyone if I make an immediate analogy: just as subsidiarity leads to centralisation of decisions ex cathedra from the Vatican in the theological sense, so it will lead ex cathedra to what is decided by the European Court of Justice and the European Union. That is what it is all about. Article 61 C concerns the implementation of new measures to evaluate policies in areas of freedom, security and justice. Again, it requires the application of those provisions by qualified majority voting, and again it refers to member states being required"““in collaboration with the Commission””" —that wonderful word ““collaboration””, with its resonances of the 1940s—to"““conduct objective and””" —so-called—"““impartial evaluation of the implementation of the Union policies””." In relation to justice, article 61G states that the Council will"““ensure administrative cooperation between…Member States””" on police and judicial co-operation measures. That is another provision which, although I have not time to go into it in detail, raises serious points of objection. As for fighting cross-border crime, a European Union security committee will be set up to co-ordinate—that famous word—national police, customs and civil protection authorities. Apparently, it is proposed that the committee should focus on internal security. I regard that as, potentially, an extremely dangerous co-ordinating operation in the context of internal security and, no doubt, surveillance and all the other powers that will be involved. As I said in an intervention yesterday, one of the things that worry me is that in the space of one or two lines in the treaty, we are legislating to require the people of this country to implement the law under sections 2 and 3 of the European Communities Act 1972, thus creating through a few lines and truncated proceedings the equivalent of many Bills which would normally undergo all their procedures in both Houses of Parliament. That is utterly outrageous. Member states will be expected to surrender legislative initiative on border checks, asylum and immigration and judicial co-operation in civil matters.