European Affairs

Yes, it has. I travelled on the Eurostar from Paris last week, and I know that there are British border controls wherever people can get on a Eurostar train. On climate financing, we need to press hard for a deal in Copenhagen in December to secure the 30 per cent. reduction in emissions by 2020 that I am sure the vast majority hon. Members want to see. Several hon. Members on both sides of the House raised this issue, and I hope that they will be reassured to know that we will be pushing the Swedish presidency to ensure that we move forward on it. There can be few in the European Union who would doubt that we are the most rigorous of all the EU countries on this issue. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston raised the matter of the extra seat that we would get if the treaty of Lisbon were to be ratified by all member states. According to existing UK legislation, where that seat would go would be decided by the Electoral Commission, and we would obviously introduce any additional powers that it needed in that regard. The hon. Members for Spelthorne and for North Dorset spoke powerfully about the Council of Europe, and there is not much that I can add to their comments. However, we heard a great deal of nothing from the Conservatives about their policy on Europe. The most interesting thing of all was the charming image of the Billy-no-mates charabanc that has been touring Europe over the past couple of years. Billy got his knapsack on his back and a baseball cap on his head to protect himself from the sun. He abandoned all his influential friends who were running Germany, France and Italy. He did not bother to go on the grand tour of the big cities—oh no! He travelled not the highways but the byways to find new friends. He did not go to France, Germany or Italy. He let on board his faithful charabanc only the""fascists, outcasts and ne'er-do-wells"." Those are not my words; they are the words of Struan Stevenson, a Scottish Conservative Member of the European Parliament. It is interesting that the Conservatives are not prepared to tell us which parties will be joining them on their joyful little day out. Will they include the Polish Law and Justice party? One of its members says that homosexuals should not be allowed to teach, while another says that the affirmation of homosexuality will lead to the downfall of civilisation. The right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks and the hon. Member for Rayleigh are both sitting there smiling now, but I think that one of the reasons why they are happy to have that party alongside them is their own voting record on these matters. That applies especially to the hon. Member for Rayleigh, who has never in his life voted for a positive measure on homosexual equality in this country. There was another party that the Conservatives wanted to get on board: Alternativa Española, the new, far-right party in Spain—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Rayleigh is now saying, "Oh no we didn't", but his friend, the MEP Daniel Hannan, was certainly spending a good deal of time trying to persuade people to vote for Alternativa Espanola in Spain, even though it has several of Franco's original party members signed up to it. It also signed up to the Vienna declaration. No wonder the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) thinks that this outing by the right hon. Members for Witney (Mr. Cameron) and for Richmond, Yorks is nothing more than "head-banging". The other thing that I found a bit depressing was that we heard not Hague the wit, but Hague the vague this afternoon. Let us compare that with his great, statesmanlike pronouncement that""we would not let matters rest there".—[Official Report, 12 November 2007; Vol. 467, c. 423.]" On 29 April, he said:""We would not rule anything in or out"." We have heard that again and again this afternoon, although he could not say it with a straight face. He was smiling all the way. His great pronouncements, full of insight and clarity, also include:""We will have among our major goals the return of social and employment legislation to national control"." That sounds like the renegotiation of a treaty, despite the fact that the shadow— Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 9(3)).