Treaty of Lisbon (No. 7)

The interesting thing about the speech that the hon. Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin) just made is that he highlighted an aspect of the discussion that is in danger of being lost. When people want to take over power, they do not just change the institutions and the voting patterns; they extend the work of those who are in control of the Secretariat and, over and above that, look for other reasons to extend their power. In many ways, the institutions of the EC are not so much confrontational as made up of oozing material that gently finds its way into the cracks. What we should do is very simple: follow the money. Politicians, particularly those of us in democracies, are always wise to follow the money. Where is it going? How is it being used? What is its purpose? Over the past 10 years, there has been a clear and material programme of removing powers, particularly in transport, from the House of Commons to European institutions. Let us not think that we are talking about something unimportant. The annual budget in 2008 for major transport policy areas, projects and agencies is £22 million for the European Aviation Safety Agency, which we never felt the need for before, £33 million for the European Maritime Safety Agency and £7.91 million for transport safety. The list goes on, and includes the ubiquitous Galileo, which we are told is not needed by a European institution; indeed, we certainly must not have Galileo, because—heaven help us—we might have a defence use for it in a European army. Nevertheless, we must continue to follow its development, which includes a programme of £670 million in the next year and a supervisory authority costing another £7.9 million, which contribute to a total budget of £803.82 billion. Why is that important? It is important because, no matter which aspect of transport we consider, we see how European regulations are increasingly taking over control. We find that we have packages in railways, for example. We have four packages in railways—we are launching forth on the fifth—although the contents of the first package have not been put into operation. We see the movement in European aviation from British institutions, whether they are for checking the safety of aircraft in the air or the training of engineers in the aviation industry, to European institutions. We also see the changes in the ““grands projets”” such as Galileo, which are taking many hundreds of thousands of pounds from our transport budgets. Let us be quite clear: if we contribute at the rate of 17 per cent. of that budget, on the basis of transport alone, we are giving up the right practically to fulfil a whole list of projects that are desperately needed in the United Kingdom. However, we are constantly told that we should not be arguing about that, because we influence such matters only through joint co-operation. What we are debating today is, in a sense, a done deal. We are talking about powers that have already been leached away and powers that will continue to be leached away. When we talk about national Parliaments, we should accept that if we in the House are not very careful, we will give up even more powers to those who will take decisions not on the political grounds that are acceptable to our electorate, but on the grounds of a spurious European general interest. When someone enters politics, the first important concept that they come across is the concept of ““them””. Whether a person starts at the council, county or Government level, ““they”” are of concern to their constituents. ““They”” take the decisions, ““they”” are responsible and ““they”” are spending our money. Every elected member of a body has to take account of that concept and explain not only who ““they”” are, but when ““they”” are ““we””. The difficulty with the Bill is that ““they”” are not ““we””. ““They”” are not elected and not representative, and ““they”” are creating a highly complex set of machinery that is moving further and further away from elected representatives and basic national Parliaments. The result, in all circumstances, will be disastrous for the future of the United Kingdom.