European Union Bill

During the period that the hon. Gentleman's party was in office, we tried informal consultations, formal consultations and many other forms of consultation, and we did not get very far. To be fair to Ministers, this clause is a step forward and improves on the position that they inherited. I am trying to go just a little further than that, because this is such an important issue. I seem to remember that we were told that the opt-out on justice, freedom and security was one of the differences between the defunct constitutional treaty and the treaty of Lisbon—that the UK had an opt-out. That was given as one reason why we did not require a referendum. I also seem to recollect—I will be corrected if I am wrong—that justice and home affairs were described as one of the then Government's ““red lines”” when they were negotiating the treaty of Lisbon. The former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, said that he was not prepared to cross those red lines. The opt-out was one of those red lines, so if the present Government opt in to those areas, we will have crossed those red lines. That illustrates how important the issue is. However, I give credit to my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench, because they are taking it very seriously indeed. They have made a lot of progress, but we are not talking about something over which, like it or not, the European Union has competence, because it does not. That is the important point. We have opted out. We can sit back. We do not need to do anything as far as those matters are concerned. We are not in a position, which we would be in if we had not opted out—that is, if we had ordinary membership and were involved in ordinary participation—where we could be outvoted on qualified majority voting; nor, if something was subject to unanimity, would we face being in the possibly invidious position of being the only ones objecting to it, thereby holding up all the other members and preventing them from doing something that they wanted to do. Those considerations do not arise. We have opted out of those matters, and there is no pressure on us to opt in to them. Opting in would be a voluntary decision on our part, and would mean choosing to submit ourselves to the institutions of the European Union—the Community method and the jurisdiction of the European Court—and to abnegate self-government for this country on those matters.