European Union (Amendment) Bill

I regret to say that I will not be racing to support the amendment, although perhaps we should wait and see what my hon. Friend the Minister has to say on the subject. I am not sure about racing to support new clause 5, but the right hon. Member for Wells (Mr. Heathcoat-Amory) might be surprised to learn that I find myself in great sympathy with it. Given the interesting debate that we had yesterday about how Parliament could strengthen its scrutiny proposals by fulfilling the important function of looking at proposals for legislation that come from the European Commission and making a judgment as to whether they are compatible with the principle of subsidiarity, it would be useful for the appropriate Secretary of State to give his or her view to Parliament—not to insist—to help it form its view on whether the Commission was in fact respecting subsidiarity in coming forward with particular proposals. There is a parallel between what the right hon. Gentleman seeks to achieve in new clause 5 and what the Human Rights Act 1998 does. When a Secretary of State brings forward a Bill to the House, he or she has to certify that it is compatible with the provisions of the Human Rights Act. As I know from my experience as a Minister, that is an important responsibility and it requires Ministers to take advice, satisfy themselves personally that a Bill is indeed in compliance with the Human Rights Act, and if it is not, to make the necessary changes before it comes before Parliament or explain to Parliament why the Government seek to legislate despite the Human Rights Act. Although the parallel is not exact, new clause 5 would be helpful. My hon. Friend the Deputy Leader of the House, who recently made proposals on how we could strengthen the House's scrutiny provisions, might want to consider what the right hon. Gentleman seeks to achieve in new clause 5 and take it on board as part of the package of proposals that she recently announced. I would be grateful if my hon. Friend the Minister could comment on new clause 5 and my suggestion in particular. Finally and briefly, I do not pretend to follow all the sophisticated arguments with which the hon. Member for Cambridge explained his opposition to new clause 9. My opposition to it is rather simple. What the hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) seems to be doing—I assume this to be the purpose of new clause 9—is trying to reverse the supremacy of European law on matters that fall within the European legal order by reasserting, on all matters, the supremacy of Parliament. As I argued yesterday, the European Union is precisely an institution within which we, the member states, pool sovereignty on certain issues because we believe that to be the best way of achieving our common objectives. To that extent, the sovereignty of Parliament is indeed somewhat reduced, because we have accepted the supremacy of European law, which we, through the Government and the Council of Ministers, have a large part in shaping. In that respect, we have accepted that European law is supreme.