Lisbon Treaty (No. 3)

It is a pleasure to follow the sincere remarks of the hon. Member for Dagenham (Jon Cruddas), just as it is to follow the outstanding speech made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wells (Mr. Heathcoat-Amory). May I also congratulate the Lord Chancellor on a vintage performance, as he drew on his years of parliamentary skill to move seamlessly from one proposition to a hopelessly irreconcilable and contradictory one? He told us that the charter was a wonderful document, and that British interests lay in being fully protected from it. He also told us that we needed the charter because the European Union had not acceded to the convention on human rights, and that, when it did, we would need the charter all the more. My right hon. Friend the Member for Wells posed an extremely apt question when he asked why we needed the charter at all. We have a sneaking suspicion that concern for human rights is only a secondary motive, and that the primary motive is for the European Union to put itself in the position of a state. Like a state, it would then have a constitution accompanied by a list of fundamental rights with itself as the guarantor of those rights for its citizens and, again like a state, it would sign up to the European convention on human rights alongside the 47 states that have already signed up to it. If that is not the European Union's motive, why is the EU framing such a sweeping statement of rights in the charter? Let us remember that the charter will be directly and legally binding for European institutions and member states when implementing Union law. That being the case, why, under chapter I of the charter, do we need to be protected against slavery, torture and execution? Opposition Members sometimes question the activities of the European institutions, but I have yet to hear anyone suggest that we need to be protected against the risk of the European Union imposing inhuman or degrading treatment on us or putting us into forced labour or servitude. The hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) told me that the Liberal Democrats were interested in the charter having full effect in this country, unconstrained by the protocol—perhaps they know something about it that we do not. Could these proposals also be a pointer towards the day when the EU seeks a more active foreign and security policy? Could the statement of rights serve as a rationale for the foreign policy initiatives that the European Union might wish to take? We need only look at the clauses on foreign and security policy to see the extent of the EU's ambitions in this direction. Could we be looking at the foundation for gradual moves in the direction of a European defence policy and of incipient policing, criminal law and anti-terrorism policies directed towards other states and based on these sweeping assertions of human rights?