Treaty of Lisbon (No. 5)

I do not think it would have been necessary to pass this treaty for the Council of Ministers to be able to discuss the situation in Iraq. I suspect that the Council did not discuss Iraq because it would have been too difficult for its members to reach any agreement on it. I recommend that the Council take the advice of the Labour party's illustrious former Foreign Secretaries and concentrate on reaching practical agreement rather than on changing the rules. In fact, the present Foreign Secretary has said that the EU's actions on climate change have done more to show the relevance of the EU than any amount of institutional tinkering. I agree with him on that as well, and indeed the Opposition are in full agreement with that view. There is probably near unanimity in the House about it, so it is even less defensible that the Government, from the Prime Minister down, instead of standing up in the negotiations for their well founded preference for practical delivery over increasing the EU's powers through institutional change, should have rolled over and agreed to the profound changes and increases in the EU's powers that we are discussing today. That is why there was complete agreement in this country when the Government said that they had a ““red line”” and that there must be no intrusion into Britain's right to an independent foreign policy. The fact that Ministers have secured a ““declaration”” attached to the treaty that makes clear our rights in foreign policy shows both the importance that they attach to foreign policy and their belief that the treaty intrudes in that area. It as a pity, to say the least, that the legal adviser to the European Scrutiny Committee should consider the existence of that declaration, as opposed to a protocol, to be legally meaningless, but it is instructive that Ministers felt that a declaration had to be made. It is an illustration of the consensus that has existed in the House for many years that almost every provision in the treaty that concerns foreign policy has been opposed by Ministers at one time or another. It is now the Foreign Secretary's job to put a positive gloss on everything that his predecessors opposed in the Government's name. He now says that they were asking ““searching questions””—a phrase that recurred throughout his speech this afternoon—so let us look at some of the ““searching questions”” that they asked. In the first place, the Government were opposed to the EU Foreign Minister or high representative also being a member of the European Commission. As the former Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for Blackburn, who is now the Secretary of State for Justice, said:"““We would have preferred to have explicit separation of those two posts.””" That is a bit more than a question, although perhaps not very searching. At the same time, Ministers were trenchantly opposed to the idea that the proposals made by the EU Foreign Minister should be agreed by QMV. In December 2003, when he was still Foreign Secretary, the present Secretary of State for Justice also said:"““QMV on proposals made by the Union's Minister for Foreign Affairs is simply unacceptable””." Is ““simply unacceptable”” the tone of a searching question? I do not know what things are like in the former Foreign Secretary's house, but when my wife tells me that something is ““simply unacceptable”” it is not a searching question but something much more emphatic. The right hon. Gentleman also said:"““We made it clear that common foreign and security policy is an inter-governmental matter, and must be established unanimously.””" Yet that ““searching question”” was cast aside. The article to which he was objecting is in the treaty, and it was in the constitution. The difficulty with it is obvious, as is the reason that the Government opposed it. The Council could unanimously ask the EU Foreign Minister to present a proposal, with Britain's agreement; but if the proposal was unsatisfactory to the British Foreign Secretary, the EU Foreign Minister would then find that that unsatisfactory proposal was subject to QMV. The Government evidently shared our fears about that, but they capitulated. The Government capitulated again over the creation of the European diplomatic service, or external action service. When that service was proposed, the then Minister for Europe, the right hon. Member for Rotherham, said in a written answer:"““We believe that it remains for EU member states to organise their respective bilateral diplomatic services at the national level.””—[Official Report, 23 January 2003; Vol. 398, c. 226W.]" I am delighted that the right hon. Gentleman is present to be reminded of his version of a ““searching question””. It clearly stated the Government's policy that they were not in favour of a European external action service.