European Union (Amendment) Bill

I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman has highlighted that, because I am coming to it. I am following the Foreign Affairs Committee's analysis of the treaty provisions. The process that I just described comes under the simplified revision procedure, and it is a different way of introducing QMV to the non-defence parts of the common foreign and security policy. As I described, it includes the safeguard of a form of negative resolution procedure. The procedure that he has just described is a third way of moving from unanimity to QMV in non-defence areas of the CFSP. If he will hear me out, he may try to put me right at the end. The CFSP already contains QMV. I know that the hon. Gentleman has a bit of difficulty with this, but if he were to read that article 31, he would see that it describes the process. Paragraph 2 of that article in the consolidated treaty states:"““By derogation from the provisions of paragraph 1, the Council shall act by qualified majority””." It then sets out four different circumstances in which the Council will act by QMV. If the treaty says that it is talking about QMV, I do not have to make the point. As he correctly pointed out, it is subject to a safeguard in a later provision in the paragraph, which states:"““If a member of the Council declares that, for vital and stated reasons of national policy, it intends to oppose the adoption of a decision to be taken by qualified majority, a vote shall not be taken.””" It may interest the hon. Gentleman to know that the same safeguard appears in the treaty of Nice, except that the Lisbon treaty's safeguard is weaker. The treaty of Nice refers to this process being able to be undertaken by a member state if it has an objection because there is an ““important”” reason of national policy. The threshold for the exercise of the emergency brake rises in the Lisbon treaty, because the reason needs to be a ““vital”” one. I suggest to the hon. Gentleman that that is a further incremental change to make the emergency brake more difficult to use and a signal that there will be more qualified majority voting in future. The same is the case for the separate provision contained in article 31.3, which states:"““The European Council may unanimously adopt a decision stipulating that the Council shall act by qualified majority in cases other than those referred to in paragraph 2.””" That provision is not subject to the negative resolution procedure that I have described: it is a straightforward vote by the European Council to move to qualified majority voting. Therefore, under the provisions of the treaty there are two ways of getting from unanimity to qualified majority voting on issues that are not defence, common security and foreign policy matters.