European Union (Amendment) Bill

I am glad to have the opportunity to start the debate. It has already been covered to some extent by our discussions on the general principles. We now have the opportunity to consider the specific questions through amendments. Of course, that is what we should really have been doing all afternoon, but that battle has now been conceded as far as the Government are concerned. The meeting in Laeken in December 2001 said, among many other things, that the question at issue was:"““A better division and definition of competence in the European Union””." The reality is that these arrangements are extending competence, despite what we heard from the Deputy Leader of the House in her winding-up speech, when she seemed to be suggesting that the treaty was simply a repetition of existing competences. That is not the case. I accuse the Government of a form of appeasement in relation to such questions. Despite their objections to those arrangements, which were expressed in the Convention and on a number of occasions, they have allowed the European Union to go ahead after all. In reference to the right hon. Member for Neath (Mr. Hain), I suggested in an intervention on my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) that we needed a list of the provisions. I asked the Minister to give me a list of those matters where the European Union was being given new powers and to demonstrate the extent to which areas were left to our national Parliament and our voters. That is the key question. Of course, he could not answer it; he gave me a few examples, such as defence and foreign policy. However, in terms of the range of matters that are being taken over by the European Union under the treaty and the accumulated functions that have been generated by the secret negotiations, we in this Parliament are increasingly like the smile on the face of the Cheshire cat. Bit by bit, we are vanishing into a vacuum that is being enlarged by the EU. The EU is centralising, and I believe that the effect of that, curiously and ironically, will be increased tensions in the EU. That is exactly the opposite of what it is seeking to achieve. It will claim that it is trying to introduce greater harmonisation, greater peace and greater stability as a result of the consolidating functions. I firmly believe that what is happening will generate more tension and less harmony as the member states jostle, through the general elections in their respective countries, to try to maintain the respect of their voters and their electorate, who will demand things that they cannot be given. The one thing that the treaty does by centralising and by increasing the exclusive and shared competences is diminish the room within which the respective national Parliaments can legislate. The voters will come up against their Parliament's inability to respond to their wishes—the Parliaments will simply have to turn around and say, ““We cannot legislate in this field because it has been handed over to the European Union, which, as we know, is remote, bureaucratic and undemocratic.”” When that happens, the tensions in the member states will tend to increase. With the potential for problems with running the economy, an increasing possibility of higher unemployment, the failure of the Lisbon agenda and the difficulties of matching people's aspirations—which is inconsistent with the Laeken declaration's words about being closer to the citizen—a vacuum is being created. No one seems to realise that in the pursuit of those abstract ideologies, the seeds of the destruction of the EU are being sown. The people will not stand for it when things go wrong. Another problem is that because the acquis is set in concrete and cannot really be amended except through a formula such as that which I shall develop tomorrow in relation to new clauses 8 and 9, which I understand have been selected, there is no way in which the powers can be repatriated unless individual member states are prepared to take unilateral action and to get it right after proper negotiation. I do not believe in unilateral action without discussion or negotiation. The parliamentary channel is the only place where these matters are being discussed. I know that as I speak, what I am saying is going out live on the parliamentary channel.