European Union (Amendment) Bill

There are three reasons why the clause should not be allowed to stand part of the Bill. The first relates to the importance of the clause. My right hon. and hon. Friends have demonstrated that it will have a more substantive impact than first meets the eye. In many respects, the impact may be indirect, but Conservative Members have spelled out at length why the consequences will be quite substantial. I accept, however, that the clause is manifestly less important than many of the clauses that relate to issues that that the House has not debated at all. We spent a whole day debating carbon trading, but only six words of the existing European Union treaties were being changed. Now we have just a part of today to debate this particular clause, which has a multiple of that number of words and probably far greater ramifications. The clause is also manifestly less important than all the treaty provisions relating to immigration, border controls and asylum, which we have not debated at all. We should not let this clause stand part unless and until we have debated at length, properly and fully those other issues, under other clauses, which have so far passed undebated, and which the Minister intends shall not be debated at all. Precisely because this issue is less important than others, we should not let it get on to the statute book until those more important issues are debated, or we are given a promise that they will be debated. Secondly, the clause should not stand part because of its opacity. At the very least, it is difficult to understand what it is about and what its impact will be. That is not just because it is necessarily difficult and complex, but because it and the whole structure of the treaty and the Bill are deliberately opaque. Our European partners decided to make the treaty opaque because it had to look different from the constitution, which had been rejected by the electors in France and Holland. Therefore, they deliberately opted for a procedure that would make it difficult for ordinary people, on immediate perusal of such clauses, to understand what is going on. That made it possible for them to say that the treaty is different from the constitution. Under the law of this country and other countries in Europe, there were two possible routes to implement the constitution. The first was to say, ““Let us sweep away the existing treaties and replace them with the constitution, incorporating all the powers of the existing treaties plus several others.”” That was the original approach adopted—clear-cut and obvious. It was so obvious to the people of France and Holland that they decided that they did not want it, and rejected it. The Government then went along with their partners, who said, in terms, ““Let us achieve the same result through an opaque approach. Instead of saying that we will replace the existing laws with the constitution, let us change the existing treaties clause by clause, bit by bit and word by word until we arrive at a form of words that is exactly equivalent to the constitution.”” The Government have adopted that route. That is the reason for clause 3, and the pages and pages of changes that it will enact, through its annexes or appendixes.