European Affairs

Even the Liberal Democrats—dare I say it?— occasionally come up with good ideas. I know that that is a controversial statement. The Conservative party used to sit with the European People's party and the European Democrats, the biggest group in the European Parliament. The European Democrats "bit" was the Conservative "bit". It was recognised that the British Conservatives had a separate Whip. The reason for that was the fundamental difference between the British Conservatives' vision of Europe—I suppose it could be summed up by the famous slogan of my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague), "In Europe, not run by Europe"—and the majority of the rest of the European People's party, who were intent on establishing a federal united states of Europe. That system worked well to a degree. Many of us who were MEPs engaged well within the group. I was a deputy co-ordinator in the environment committee, and a member of the bureau. However, there was always a niggling doubt about whether the thrust of the group's policy was going in the direction that the majority of the people who had voted for me in Scarborough and Whitby at the last election would have wished. I was delighted when our new group was formed because it allowed us to be a good neighbour to the EPP, rather than an annoying and irritating tenant from time to time. I predict that the operations of the EPP group and the new Conservative group in the Parliament will work very well. Having been a member of the environment committee, I know that in order to secure the majorities that are needed—particularly on Second Reading, when a majority among those eligible to vote is required rather than a majority among those who turn up on the day—it is vital to get the other political groups together and, often, to forge a compromise agreement. I am sure that the new Conservative group will be the first port of call for the EPP when it wishes to get its amendments through. I often found that I had to do deals with all sorts of people—green communists, former communists, Liberal Democrats and, on many occasions, socialists—to get amendments through. The criticisms levelled at the new group are largely unfounded, and I do not believe the British Conservatives will lose influence as a result of the new arrangement. As has already been pointed out, Michael Harbour, an excellent west midlands Conservative MEP who used to work in the motor industry, will chair the internal market committee. I can think of no one more suited to advancing the work of that committee. Philip Bradbourn, another west midlands MEP, is to chair the committee for relations with Canada, and—this is more significant, in my view—Struan Stevenson is to chair the committee for relations between the European Parliament and the new Iraqi Parliament. Those are important positions of influence. Every committee also has a team of co-ordinators who dole out the reports and sort out the business. In the past, it was often frustrating when there was no Conservative, or even like-minded EPP, co-ordinator. Deals were done behind closed doors without our being involved. The new group will have a co-ordinator on every single committee, which means we will have a voice on every committee when those important reports are given out. [Interruption.] The Minister says we will not get any, but only last week Martin Callanan, a British Conservative from the north-east of England, secured the very important report on light commercial vehicles and CO2—I am sure the hon. Member for Luton, North (Kelvin Hopkins) will be interested to learn that that report has been secured by a British Conservative—which will enable him to take that legislation through the Parliament in the same way as a Westminster Minister takes legislation through this Parliament, and steer it in the right direction. I therefore strongly feel that this new group will be able to secure such important reports. Indeed, we might do particularly well in securing smaller reports. I remember that the EPP and the Socialist group would often save up their points for a bidding battle on a very big report, and the smaller groups such as the Union for Europe of the Nations and the European Democratic party would therefore pick up along the way many smaller reports, which nevertheless had a lot of influence on business and employment in the fields they addressed. Many people do not understand how the rapporteurs and co-ordinators work; when people do, they can understand just how much influence we will have. That particularly comes into play in the context of conciliations. I was a member of the EPP's conciliation group. We had meetings that went on late into the night, sometimes finishing at 4 o'clock in the morning. I remember a meeting on the waste electronics directive. We were very keen to prevent the producers of printers from making printer ink cartridges non-recyclable by putting a smart chip in them, which would mean that they could not be replaced. I and a Liberal Democrat Member, Chris Davies, threatened to walk out, make that committee inquorate and force the Environment Council to give in on that point. That is an example of a Liberal Democrat who represents a small group being able to make an important impact on the work of the Parliament. The European Parliament is not like our Parliament, where we are either batting or fielding. There, we all take turns to bat, and the new group will have some very good opportunities to do so. Bizarrely, it has also been said that President Sarkozy and Chancellor Merkel will not talk to the leader of my party if the Conservatives are not in the same group as their parties. It is interesting that they talk to the current Prime Minister of this country, even though he is in a different group that is diametrically opposed to their views. One particularly frustrating aspect of my time in that Parliament was that, in trying to cobble together deals and get vital majorities in Britain's interest, we were often working closely with officials and Ministers of the British Labour Government, but their own Members of the European Parliament refused to take the advice they were getting from Westminster. Instead, they sometimes sided with their European socialist colleagues and blew legislation out of the water. I am thinking in particular of the large combustion plants directive. We sought amendments to exempt some of the smaller coal-burning stations that operated for short periods at peak demand. The advice from the British people in Brussels—the United Kingdom Permanent Representation—and from British Ministers was that we should get those amendments through to protect our coal mining industry and those coal stations in case of peak demand. However, Labour MEPs combined with colleagues in the European Socialist group to undermine those amendments and prevent that from happening. As we warned at the time, that has contributed to some of the energy supply problems we now face in this country. Many of the new Members of the European Parliament from newer states such as the Czech Republic and Poland very much share our view that we should have a Europe of independent member states. That may be because they have experience of being dominated by another capital—Moscow—and do not want quickly to exchange that for another situation where domination, albeit more benign, can be imposed from Brussels. Whatever happened to subsidiarity? Perhaps the Minister will address that in his winding-up speech. I remember that, when I first arrived in the European Parliament, subsidiarity was the buzz word. The fashionable topics were devolving power down to member states and only making decisions at the European level if that was absolutely necessary. In the new treaty, however, things are going in the opposite direction, which is a great concern. I am very proud that Polish and Czech members from mainstream parties in their countries have joined us in our group. Some of the criticisms that have been levelled at my colleagues—especially Michael Kaminski, whom I have known for six or seven years—are absolutely unfounded and I hope they will not be repeated in this Chamber. A lot has been said about the waste involved in Europe and the fact that its budget has not been signed off for 14 consecutive years. I speak as a farmer who has received common agricultural policy aid, but the CAP has distorted markets and, in particular, third-world access to them. How can anyone justify spending €1 billion of taxpayers' money every year subsidising tobacco production in southern European states? Much of this tobacco is of such low quality that it cannot be consumed in the European Union and has to be exported to third-world countries, where, obviously, it contributes to health problems. How can that situation be justified? How can the Strasbourg Parliament be justified? It is outrageous. I recall the frustrations of having to pack my stuff into those tin boxes—we always missed out the important file that we should have taken—and of trying to work there; the expense of travelling there, and of transporting all the officials there and putting them up in hotels; and the difficulties of working there. One way to make progress would be to prevent the continuation of the Strasbourg fiasco. I shall discuss two European institutions that I have not even heard mentioned in this Chamber in the nearly five years that I have been a Member: the Committee of the Regions; and the European Economic and Social Committee—ECOSOC. Now that the European Parliament has come of age—now that we have co-decision on fisheries and more co-decision is coming into the Parliament—what justification can there be for the duplication that ECOSOC and the Committee of the Regions represents? When I was in the European Parliament, I discovered, by accident, that a report I was handling on motorcycle emissions was also being discussed in the Committee of the Regions. I do not know what happened to the results of those deliberations—they certainly were not communicated to the Parliament. They might have been communicated to the Council, but I never heard Ministers or officials referring to the concerns that had been expressed in the Committee of the Regions. That is bad enough, but then there is the cost to consider. The Committee of the Regions has a brand new building—it might be four or five years old—on rue Belliard in Brussels. I managed to find the accounts for ECOSOC, from which I discovered that its annual budget is €120 million. The Committee does not give money out to people to do things; it is a purely bureaucratic organisation that discusses matters and duplicates the work of the European Parliament. May I make a suggestion that the Minister might like to adopt if he gets the opportunity to see how these Committees can be reviewed? We got this suggestion through the environment committee in the European Parliament, but it foundered at the plenary session. We said, "If member states are so keen for the Committee of the Regions and ECOSOC to continue to do their work, why don't they pick up the bill for the subsistence and travel costs of the members from their own countries?" Why not have such costs justified at the Dispatch Box in this House when the Budget is considered? I suspect that if we had to put our hands in our own pockets, rather than just relying on the European budget, we would look more closely at the work of these committees and ask whether we really need them. I suspect that we would ask whether they are now superfluous because the European Parliament has developed from a talking shop to a real legislature, and the two committees are still mired in that talking shop situation. I hope the Minister will think about this matter, and if my hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh (Mr. Francois) becomes the Minister for Europe, perhaps he will think about how we can save some money and restore some common sense. People are perhaps disenchanted with Britain's membership of the European Union now. I am enthusiastic that Britain should remain a member, but I am disappointed that people did not get an opportunity to vote on the Lisbon treaty. Such a vote was promised by all three parties at the previous election. There is no point in having a referendum now; there is no point in closing the stable door after the horse has bolted. Nobody should be in any doubt as to who is responsible here—it is the Prime Minister of this country, who denied people the referendum we thought Tony Blair had promised us. Europe should be more democratic and closer to the people. By signing up to the Lisbon treaty, the Government have moved in the opposite direction. They must be aware of that, as they were punished at the European elections with the lowest share of the vote ever achieved by the Labour party in a national election. I believe that they will be punished again at the next general election.