Treaty of Lisbon (No. 5)

Indeed, but there are still questions for the Conservatives to answer. I want to raise a couple of issues about future capabilities, and about the ability of the treaty to achieve certain things. I have some concerns in that regard. When the Foreign Affairs Committee took evidence, one idea that emerged was to acknowledge that foreign policy was now in a separate pillar, that we recognised the intergovernmental nature of the arrangements and that there were certain provisions for movement towards qualified majority voting. For quite a few of us, however, the provisions stretch to the limit what I find just about acceptable. We were promised votes in the House on any further changes, but I do not think that single votes will be sufficient. We all know how any Government can just whip through a single vote. I hope that the Government will make a commitment to introducing primary legislation, as a safeguard, should there be any further movement towards QMV in foreign, security and defence policy. That brings me to my next issue, which is parliamentary oversight. Let us take as an example the external action service. I again refer hon. Members to the Foreign Affairs Committee's report, in which we list a number of questions that have so far gone unanswered. Where is the accountability for the further movements? Will there be parliamentary oversight of those movements? I suspect that there will be European parliamentary oversight, because there is an increased movement towards the European Parliament exercising such oversight, but not oversight by national Parliaments. We need to be careful about what is being done in our name, and to take part in shaping these changes at the time, rather than responding to them afterwards. This thing is currently called the external action service. It does not have a very catchy name, and before long it will be called what was intended to begin with—the European Union's diplomatic service—just as the high representative will in time be called the Foreign Minister. To anyone who says that that is scaremongering, I would say that I recall sitting here in 1997 when we created a Scottish Parliament and it was made quite clear that there would be a ““Scottish Executive””, not a ““Scottish Government””. But what happened when the right hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) came to power in Scotland? The first thing he did was unscrew the plaques of the Queen from any Scottish buildings and he then started referring to himself as the Scottish Government. It did not take long for the BBC also to refer in its news to the Scottish Government. Language is important, so when a name does not sit easily, we should be careful that it does not become certain other things. Another aspect of the treaty provisions that worries me tremendously is that we are creating more opportunities for power, but very few opportunities for added responsibility. A number of earlier speakers picked up that theme in relation to defence. We commit ourselves to peacekeeping and military police training, which are very important, but what is singularly lacking—the problem seems to be getting worse—is combat troops. Who within the EU is providing the combat troops? There is no increased commitment in the EU to provide them. I recall a wonderful moment during a European Convention when an Austrian MEP got up to say that he did not give countries who provide soldiers the right to determine how they should be deployed, in response to which I got up to say, ““Precisely those who provide the soldiers have the right to determine how they are deployed.”” We need to be much clearer about how those ambitions can be fulfilled. My key point, however, in respect of those positions, is how Parliament relates to them; there must be no move to qualified majority voting without primary legislation. We also need to look into our own procedures for scrutinising the expansion of some of these activities.