European Affairs

The House will not be surprised to know that I do not know the full CV of the civil servant Jonathan Faull, but the issue—at least, this seems to concern other Conservative Members—is surely whether the British interest will be heard. Clearly, Jonathan Faull is a British civil servant. The other reason why I think people are getting a little bit overheated over Michel Barnier is that one person does not decide the laws in Europe. The Commission itself contains checks and balances—Commissioners have to agree before directives are put forward. The directives then have to go through the Council and the Parliament. With the co-decision process and with Brits chairing the two key parliamentary committees, I think we can be relatively reassured. If people are in any doubt about the power of the Parliament, I refer them to the draft directive on hedge funds—the alternative investment fund management directive—which has understandably caused a lot of consternation. The draft directive went to the European Parliament, and the economic and monetary affairs committee, which is chaired by a Liberal Democrat MEP, commissioned, and in recent weeks published, a damning report on it, saying that the impact assessment that the Commission put forward was unacceptable. My colleague Sharon Bowles is leading the fight to ensure that the directive is not passed in its current form. That is the way we do business in this House, and the way people in the European Parliament do business—giving proper scrutiny to draft legislation. I again implore people not simply to listen to some of the British press when they are screeching, but to look at the actual facts. There are checks and balances, and they are working. I shall conclude my remarks on that issue by talking about Michel Barnier. I do not think it does the British interest any service if we dismiss someone who actually has quite a good track record, just because he is French; that really would be extremely narrow-minded. I think that we ought to be getting used to French politicians, particularly President Sarkozy, grandstanding, and we should look at the reality of what happens afterwards, which amounts to much less than the rhetoric that sometimes comes out of the Elysée palace. I am not saying that we should not be on our guard, but there are checks and balances in the system that prevent one person from railroading legislation that would undermine our interests.