Treaty of Lisbon (No. 2)

A lot of very worrying negotiations are going on, particularly as they affect Lithuania and Poland. They are therefore European Union matters in which we have an interest. That was one of the most helpful interventions my hon. Friend has ever made, because it confirmed my point that these are European Union matters rather than national matters. He is, of course, an expert on the treaty, but he does not always understand what he has said. Article 176A is crucial. Paragraph 1(a) states that the Union should aim to"““ensure the functioning of the energy market””." All four sub-paragraphs require the Commission to have strong powers, and if this treaty enforces the powers of the Commission, that is a very good thing. My hon. Friend raised the problems of the French and German desire to discourage unbundling. I shall quote the Financial Times from Monday, in which the energy Commissioner stated:"““Our main priority is that customers can choose and have an active role in the market. That will bring prices down. If you do not like your supplier you should be able to change.””" Bravo. A good Conservative like me believes strongly in an effective and powerful Commission, reinforced by the European Court of Justice, and including energy policy. Article 176 expresses the desire to"““ensure security of energy supply in the Union””." That is touched on in the points that I have just made. In an earlier intervention in the speech by the right hon. Member for Leicester, West (Ms Hewitt) I commented on the energy charter treaty that the Russians have signed and which has recently received much attention. I hope that the Minister will have another look at that treaty, because it raises considerable concerns about energy supply and the role of the Russians, especially Gazprom. They have signed the treaty, and that requires reciprocal arrangements, including investment and other characteristics of the energy market. As the treaty is in existence, we should hold the Russians to account and perhaps ask whether it would be right for them to be given easy entrance into the World Trade Organisation before starting to honour the treaties that they have signed. I draw the Minister's attention to early-day motion 798, in my name. If we are to achieve the aim of ensuring the security of energy supply in the European Union, we have to take collective action. Article 176 also states that Union policy will"““promote energy efficiency and energy saving and the development of new and renewable forms of energy””." We have had those discussions and I do not need to say more about that. It is clear that each nation will have a variety of choices in how it achieves that, and that is enshrined in the treaty as a national interest. We have to ensure that we meet our environmental objectives, and also diversify into reliable energy sources. I am all in favour of renewable energy, but I am not entirely certain that it will provide reliability of supply. I hope that the Minister will be challenged on that in the Select Committee, which is admirably led by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Peter Luff). The article also says that EU energy policy will"““promote the interconnection of energy networks””." That is an important issue for the EU, because if there were a problem, the Union would have to intervene. Pipelines will be a cause of increasing concern. The threat to pipelines and supply touches on another useful clarification in the treaty, about the common foreign and security policy. That is not only an external issue—for example, but not uniquely, with Russia—but a domestic or even, one might say, a European homeland security issue. In a recent Government announcement, this country has already made it clear that companies will have to pay for the military to secure the gas outlets within the United Kingdom. That does not surprise me. Indeed, we will have to go further, and there will be more obligations. Security of gas and oil supply through pipelines in the European Union is a British national interest. If a pipeline somewhere else is blown up, it is a problem for us if it is part of our supply. Who protects Norway? We forget that the Russians are also encroaching around the Arctic circle, and any threat to Norwegian supply would be a grave problem for us. This debate, which is narrowly focused on energy, indicates just how important it is for this country to start to think positively about the role of the European Union. We cannot influence such matters on our own. We cannot afford breast-beating declarations that Britain is best, or that we must look after our national interest, as if that were a zero-sum game that excluded everybody else. We are in this together, and we are in a much more insecure world. We start increasingly from the position of a lack of control over sufficient energy supplies for ourselves. We are becoming a net importer, which increases the insecurity. I hope that the Minister will pick up some of those points and talk positively about the benefits of the Lisbon treaty. If he is not positive about them, no wonder the public at large are confused. The treaty is a good thing for the United Kingdom. Let us cut through the cant and understand that if we play the game properly, we can have disproportionate influence. Many other countries in the EU are looking to us for that leadership.