European Union (Amendment) Bill

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Wells (Mr. Heathcoat-Amory) has already introduced his amendments ably and in some detail, I will be relatively brief, not least so that we can preserve time for the main debate on the ratchet clause. Amendment No. 48 would require a Minister to seek parliamentary approval before voting in the European Council for a proposal that would transfer further powers to the European Union. The amendment has much to recommend it, not least because it would have prevented the Government from signing the Lisbon treaty without first seeking input from Parliament. The need to put the right of parliamentary consultation before signing important EU documents on a statutory footing is strongly borne out by the case of the Lisbon treaty. The procedure of the European Scrutiny reserve already exists. If the Prime Minister had obeyed that convention, we would have been spared the bizarre spectacle of the Prime Minister's belated signing of the treaty in Lisbon without first even consulting Parliament about his authority to sign it. However, as is often the case, the Prime Minister did not obey the scrutiny reserve. The European Scrutiny Committee specifically said that there should be a Commons debate before the Prime Minister signed the treaty. There was no such debate. Conservative Members have already proposed putting the scrutiny reserve on a statutory footing, which would require Ministers to consult Parliament before signing important documents, while preserving their ability to negotiate more generally. I would like to say a few words about amendment No. 47. It would prevent a Minister from voting to transfer further powers to the EU or from allowing, by abstaining, further powers to be given up on a piecemeal basis. Unfortunately, clause 6 has, like most other provisions, survived intact from the wreckage of the original constitution. Clause 6 will, for the first time, make a European treaty self-amendable on a major scale. It flies in the face of the Prime Minister's contention that the treaty marks the end of EU institutional change. By amending clause 6 so that a Minister cannot vote to transfer powers through the ““ratchet”” process, the amendment would remove one of the most worrisome aspects of the treaty without, in the process, wrecking the Bill. It will compel Ministers who wish to transfer powers to the EU to do so by the current method of a full treaty followed by an Act of Parliament. It therefore deserves our support. Amendment No. 18 is similar in design to Amendment No. 47, so I do not need to reprise the argument but, on balance, the draftsmanship of my right hon. Friend the Member for Wells is slightly superior to ours, so I am minded to support amendment No. 47. I should like to say a few words about amendments Nos. 42 to 46 and 49. Clause 6(1) includes a list of methods whereby the Government could vote to transfer further powers to the EU without Parliament's consent. At first glance, it looks like an exhaustive list. However, it did not escape the notice of my eagle-eyed right hon. Friend the Member for Wells that the Government have missed several important instances in which further powers can be transferred to the EU by a Minister without a vote in Parliament. Those include and would be addressed by: amendments Nos. 42 and 43 regarding aspects of criminal justice, found in articles 82(2)(d) and 83; amendment No. 44 regarding the adoption of the European public prosecutor under the process of enhanced co-operation; amendment No. 45 concerning the European public prosecutor; amendment No. 46, which concerns the establishment of a European common defence; and amendment No. 49, which includes the opt-ins for the justice and home affairs proposals in the treaty. Given the many years that the Government have had to plan the Bill, working back from the original constitution, it seems incredible that they have still omitted those important powers from clause 6, which should have been set out in the Bill and which should, in our view, be subject to Acts of Parliament. All the amendments that I have listed would therefore improve the Bill without wrecking it. Let me briefly say a few words about the amendments that the hon. Member for Hemsworth (Jon Trickett) has tabled. I am afraid that I cannot follow him entirely, but I can understand why he made his case and conveyed a considerable sense of frustration, which came across as genuine. The Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee also made the point that when he met COSAC—in effect, the liaison committee of other European scrutiny committees around Europe—he discovered that a number of people in other countries had realised that their postal services were under threat, too, and that they were beginning to worry. If those people come to the United Kingdom, they will find that members of the Cabinet have realised that their post offices are under threat, too. Now they have started to campaign against that in their constituencies, despite being members of the Government who approved the closure proposals in the first place. Our European partners might look at what is happening in the United Kingdom and feel slightly under-whelmed to see senior members of our Government who think it fine to approve a programme in principle, but who oppose it locally in their constituencies, while being happy to see post offices close elsewhere, including in a number of my right hon. and hon. Friends' constituencies. Having got that off my chest, I shall conclude. Amendment No. 47 would seek to prevent the use of the passerelles without wrecking the Bill and would therefore remove one of its more worrisome aspects. If I understand the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson) correctly, unless the Minister comes up with something incredible, she and her Liberal colleagues are likely to follow us into the Division Lobby, if we follow my right hon. Friend the Member for Wells on amendment No. 47. I therefore urge my right hon. Friend to press amendment No. 47, as we would be happy to support him, for the reasons that I have outlined to the House.