European Union (Amendment) Bill

I do not want to get diverted too far down that path, but the right hon. Gentleman is not quite right. The five permanent Security Council members are in fact the original declared nuclear powers. That is where it comes from. Canada, for example—a country of which I am a citizen and for which I have a great deal of affection—was one of the victors in the second world war. It has a long and proud history of contributing to UN security forces throughout the world; indeed, it argues with some justification that it has the proudest history, in terms of proportional contributions. In fact, the Canadian losses in Afghanistan per capita are far higher than the United Kingdom's. However, Canada is not a permanent member of the UN Security Council and, as far I know, neither Mike Pearson nor anyone else ever suggested that it should be. However, as I was saying, we are in the strange and historically anomalous position of having two countries of 60 million people—the United Kingdom and France—that are permanent members of the Security Council, whereas India, which has a population of 1.1 billion or whatever it is today, is not a permanent member. Membership comes from history, and that history is being questioned, not least by countries such as India, quite understandably. If we wish the United Kingdom to remain a member of the UN Security Council, as I am sure all hon. Members would wish, we have to look at how we interact with it. The changes brought about by the treaty include reinforcing the way in which the United Kingdom, as a member of the European Union and a permanent member of the UN Security Council, interacts with the United Nations, at both the General Assembly and the Security Council level. The treaty and the changes that it would effect are helpful, in respect of preserving this country's position as a permanent member of the UN Security Council. Paragraph 2 of article 34, on page 25 of the consolidated text, says:"““Member States which are also members of the United Nations Security Council will concert and keep the other Member States and the High Representative fully informed. Member States which are members of the Security Council will, in the execution of their functions, defend the positions and the interests of the Union, without prejudice to their responsibilities under the provisions of the United Nations Charter.""When the Union has defined a position on a subject which is on the United Nations Security Council agenda, those Member States which sit on the Security Council shall request that the High Representative be invited to present the Union's position.””" I think that that strengthens the position, principally of the United Kingdom and France, although—again, I stand to be corrected—at a given time, another EU member state could be a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, so the EU, with 27 member states and a population of about 400 million people, might have three members of the Security Council, two permanent and one elected on rotation. The EU is a body of 400 million people, so it seems to me reasonable for the high representative to be invited to the UN. The member states, under the treaty, would be beholden to request that the high representative be invited to present the Union's position—again, if there were a Union common position. If there is no common position, quite properly and in the interests of our country, our position could be presented to the Security Council, of which we are a permanent member. The provisions of the treaty seem to me an each-way bet. We might be alone at the UN Security Council—there would be no change there, then, if we had never been in the Common Market and in the EU—but we might not be alone; we might have the strength of being able to say that, at the UN Security Council, we have a common foreign policy on a particular issue, which might be Darfur or whatever, and that it is supported by the UK. Perforce that common position would be supported at the UN by France, which is an EU member state. Another EU member state might also be present as a rotating member of the Security Council.