European Union (Amendment) Bill

We heard quite a number of contributions from my right hon. and hon. Friends, but I hope that they will forgive me if, for the sake of time, I do not comment on every speech. I must say that I was particularly struck by the passionate—that is the appropriate word—contribution of my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith). He spoke very forcefully on these matters and I see the Minister nodding in agreement. My hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Mr. Gale) also spoke passionately about the threat posed by clause 3. My hon. Friend the Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin) was not to be outdone by the fact that the defence amendments had not been debated. In my view, he kept just on the right side of order, Mrs. Heal, introducing a number of concerns through that methodology. We have thus heard quite a few speeches explaining why clause 3 should not stand part of the Bill. At the risk of really dropping him in it, I must also refer to the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty), the Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee. The reason for doing so is that he asked a very important question of the Minister, when he pressed him on whether we could be fined under the treaty in certain circumstances. In a sense, he gave the Minister an excuse for not answering that question tonight, because he said that it was a complicated matter that officials were looking into, so it might not be possible to produce an immediate answer. I hope that, for the sake of the hon. Gentleman’s career, the Government Whip took notice of that point. However, the Government have had months to prepare for debates on that subject. They have been negotiating through the European Convention for years, so they should by now be able to tell us definitively whether or not we could be fined and under what circumstances a fine would apply. I press the Minister to answer that question tonight, because we are not prepared to accept the get-out that he was given by the Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee. We would like to have that question, so helpfully raised by the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk, answered. With that, I hope that I have not completely wrecked the hon. Gentleman’s further advancement! If I may say so, Mrs. Heal, the Government’s argument on clause 3 basically boiled down to ““Trust us””. The provisions are technical and tidying, we were told, so there is nothing to worry about. In a sense, that has been the Government’s argument all the way through our debate on the treaty—that it is a tidying and amending treaty, in respect of which there is really nothing to worry about. Well, there are three reasons for not taking their word for it. First, the Government said, ““Trust us, and you can have a referendum””, but they broke that commitment. Secondly, they said that the House of Commons could have 20 days to debate the provisions in detail, but they broke that commitment. Thirdly, they promised line-by-line scrutiny of the treaty, but they broke that commitment, too. When we debated climate change, we spent the best part of a day on it, yet as my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison) said, only six words in the treaty related to that subject and no new powers whatever were proposed that were not already provided for in the existing treaty base. It is a sign of how bad the Government’s argument was that day that the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, who moved the Government’s motion, attempted to argue that—