European Union (Amendment) Bill

I begin my response to this group of amendments by briefly making a point about timing. We have debated important issues such as competences and marine biological resources. Unfortunately, however, yet again, because of the Government's business motion, we shall not touch on three other groups of important amendments on the operation of the institutions, on the European Union constitutional and treaty revision issues and on legislative and decision making procedures. Yet again, the Government's business motion has hampered the line-by-line scrutiny of the treaty that we were promised in lieu of a referendum. That needs to be put on the record again tonight. I was amazed to hear the hon. Member for Preston (Mr. Hendrick), who is no longer with us, citing the treaty's relationship with the UK abatement as an argument for the treaty. Let me remind the House that, as a result of the Government's miraculous negotiating skills on the abatement—the rebate—they gave away £7 billion of British taxpayers' money and got absolutely nothing in return. If that is one of the strongest arguments in favour of the Lisbon treaty, it is no wonder that the public overwhelmingly want a vote on it. I shall now turn to the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr. Cash), whom I congratulate on being selected to lead the group tonight. He started by speaking to amendment No. 82, which seeks to remove replacement article 3A. He knows that I have a slight reservation about the proposal, because it would also remove article 3A(2), which relates to national security. In fairness, he touched on that point in his speech. I have a slight reservation about that, but I am much more comfortable about my hon. Friend's amendment No. 121, which seeks to strike out from the treaty the innovations brought into the categories and areas of Union competence. The amendment would improve the treaty by striking out the innovations to the list of the EU's areas of exclusive competence—in other words, the areas in which the EU alone is allowed to legislate—as well as to the list of shared competences, or areas in which the EU, in effect, has first refusal to legislate. The list of exclusive competences has been extended to include areas that would damage the UK's ability to legislate, such as competition policy—the subject of an earlier debate—and marine biological resources, under the common fisheries policy. That is the subject of specific amendments that I shall refer to briefly in a moment. Amendment No. 121 would also improve the treaty by striking out from the list of shared competences additions that were opposed by the Government, such as space, trans-European networks and consumer protection. It would also affect fundamentally the nature of the way in which the shared competences are listed in the treaty. It was the Government themselves, in their arguments on the Convention, who made this obvious observation:"““Shared competences should be a residual category. They should therefore not be listed explicitly. To have an 'indicative list' of some shared competences is the worst of both worlds.””" They were the views of Her Majesty's Government, and we agree with them. To list the categories in this way is, as the Government recognised, bad enough, but as they recognised equally correctly, the way they have been set out is not a restatement of the current position but an enlargement of the EU's powers. Amendment No. 121 would also strike out new article 2A, which attempts to set out the rules for the way in which competences are decided. On that point, the right hon. Member for Neath (Mr. Hain) said in the European Convention, when he was the Minister for Europe:"““This is an attempt to codify the existing case law and illustrates that to do so may result in oversimplification. So best left for case law. All the caveats that would be required to make this accurate would also make it far too complex for a constitution””." The caveats that were asked for were not given, yet the rules were not taken out of the constitution and have reappeared in the Lisbon treaty as a result. That is another example of the Government's triumphant negotiating position with regard to Lisbon. I should like to say a few words on amendment No. 186, also proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone. The amendment is designed to remove a new replacement article 308, which gives the EU the power to legislate in the following way:"““If action by the Union should prove necessary, within the framework of the policies defined in the Treaties to attain one of the objectives set out in the Treaties, and the Treaties have not provided the necessary powers, the Council, acting unanimously on a proposal from the Commission and after obtaining the consent of the European parliament, shall adopt the appropriate measures””." That wording gives rise to an important question, which I know my hon. Friend the Member for Stone will appreciate: who decides whether the action should prove necessary? At best, this wording is, like much of the treaty, ambiguous; at worst, the provision could give the EU a mechanism for legislating outwith the normal channels of legislation. It should not therefore have a place in the treaty.