European Union (Amendment) Bill

In the last vote, the Conservative party voted. We abstained on the previous vote, but then a commitment to vote on that subject was not part of our election manifesto. That is a point that the hon. Gentleman might wish to bear in mind when we come to the referendum debate tomorrow. If the treaty were truly the end of a period of institutional change, as the Government have asserted and as the Minister asserted when he wound up the last debate, there would be no need to build into it the ready means to accomplish further change at any time. Although the Government have given the assurance provided for in clause 6 that the agreement of the British Government to the use of such powers will require the explicit approval of a motion in each House of Parliament, it is our contention that the seriousness and scale of what could happen if the ratchet clauses are exercised merits far more thorough parliamentary scrutiny at the time. Let us take the briefest of looks at what might happen under those clauses. They involve, for instance, changing the general rule on the determination of the common and foreign security policy from unanimity—the Government have been at pains to stress their attachment to that procedure throughout the debates—to qualified majority voting. The implications of ever agreeing to do that would be colossal, as I think Ministers would be among the first to admit. It would mean that the independence of EU member states in foreign policy would effectively be at an end. No doubt Ministers would argue that, because of the declaration on foreign policy, our ability to conduct our own foreign policy had not been affected, but the fact that that declaration is wholly compatible with the abolition of national vetoes proves how well the European Scrutiny Committee was advised when it was told that the declaration was meaningless.