European Union (Amendment) Bill

It is a pleasure, for once during our proceedings, to agree almost entirely with what the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) said. Like the hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash), I agreed with much of what the right hon. Gentleman said. The amendments are incredibly important, because they go to the heart of the democratic accountability of decision making. Unlike the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks and many of his hon. Friends, I believe that the European Union allows for a lot of accountability through the European Parliament and the scrutiny of the Council of Ministers—once this House has taken decisions in the proper way through a proper primary legislative process. That is fundamental, and if anything, the right hon. Gentleman underplayed his points. Many of the policy areas contained in the passerelles referred to in clause 6 go way beyond the treaties of Lisbon, Nice or Amsterdam. They are exceedingly significant. The idea that we might have qualified majority voting on common and foreign security policy is exceedingly serious. The idea that such a change could happen through a mere motion in the House is extraordinary. Moreover, the idea that the control of budgets through the multi-annual financial framework, which the right hon. Gentleman described in some detail, could move from unanimity to qualified majority voting through a mere motion of both Houses is absurd. The House does an appalling job on finances already. When I was a member of my party's shadow Treasury team, I often used to say that I would love it if we had parliamentary sovereignty over the way in which the Executive spend money. Indeed, I wrote a pamphlet in 2000 entitled, ““Making MPs Work for Our Money””. In that pamphlet—it is a cure for insomnia, I readily accept—I point out that the last time the House voted against an expenditure request from the Executive of the day was in 1919. Since 1919, every expenditure request from the British Executive, whatever party has been in control, has been nodded through. This Parliament, this House of Commons, has given up control of expenditure by the Executive of the day, and we should reform that process. I was delighted to sit on the Procedure Committee, which was excellently chaired by the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Sir Nicholas Winterton), when we made those points about financial scrutiny. If the House is already so poor on this matter, we should not allow the small, remaining powers that we have, which are more related to the European Union's budget than that of the UK Government—that is how ridiculous this situation has got—to move to qualified majority voting at the European level without an Act of Parliament. Given that Parliament is so weak on such financial affairs already, it would be a mistake to give up those powers without the controls proposed, particularly in amendment No. 20. I am glad to hear that the right hon. Gentleman wants that to be the amendment that we divide on. I often have to read the right hon. Gentleman's speeches; I am sure that I have read more of his speeches than he has of mine because he has a rather illustrious—[Interruption.] I am sure that they have more jokes. I read a speech that he made at the last Conservative party conference in which he said clearly that there should not be any further European treaties without a referendum being held first. If I am misquoting or in any way misrepresenting him, I hope that he will intervene. As I understand it, his position is that there should be a referendum on any European treaty in the future.