UK Parliament / Open data

European Union (Amendment) Bill

Debate on bills and Committee of the Whole House (HC) on Wednesday, 27 February 2008, in the House of Commons.
European Union (Amendment) Bill. Committee stage eighth day. Clause 2 debated and amendment negatived on division (156 votes to 350). Clause 2 agreed to on division (342 votes to 156). Debated with New Clauses 5, 8, 9.
Type
Parliamentary proceeding
Reference
472 c1164-206 
Session
2007-08
Department
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
Legislative stage
Committee stage
Procedure
New clauses
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
Related items
European Union (Amendment) Bill. (Explanatory note Bill 48-EN published).
Monday, 17 December 2007
Bills
House of Commons
Proceeding contributions
Dominic Grieve | 472 c1165 (Link to this contribution) I shall enlighten the Minister about the French text. I have referred already to article 8C and to a...
David Howarth | 472 c1165 (Link to this contribution) C'est exactement la même chose.

Show all contributions (98)
Dominic Grieve | 472 c1164-5 (Link to this contribution) The amendment raises an important issue in respect of the textual interpretation of what the Europea...
Chair of Committees of the Whole House | 472 c1164 (Link to this contribution) With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: New clause 5—Government opinion on adheren...
Dominic Grieve | 472 c1167 (Link to this contribution) My hon. Friend is correct. At the end of the day, the question is who is master in interpreting the ...
Dominic Grieve | 472 c1166 (Link to this contribution) I take the hon. Gentleman's point, but does that not highlight precisely the difficulty of the textu...
William Cash | 472 c1166-7 (Link to this contribution) In ““Alice Through the Looking Glass””, Lewis Carroll writes:"““'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty s...
Dominic Grieve | 472 c1165-6 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Member for Cambridge (David Howarth) says, ““C'est exactement la même chose””, but I am afr...
David Howarth | 472 c1166 (Link to this contribution) I agree with the hon. and learned Gentleman's point about textual analysis because the debate is abo...
Dominic Grieve | 472 c1164 (Link to this contribution) I beg to move amendment No. 13, page 1, line 12, after 'excluding', insert—
Dominic Grieve | 472 c1171 (Link to this contribution) It would remove it, but only in so far as anything in the treaty sought to impose an obligation on t...
Rob Marris | 472 c1171 (Link to this contribution) Perhaps I can assist the hon. and learned Gentleman. I might be reading this differently from him, b...
Dominic Grieve | 472 c1171 (Link to this contribution) My hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight the fact that there is Court authority in precisely ...
Michael Connarty | 472 c1169 (Link to this contribution) If the hon. and learned Gentleman had read the Hansard record of yesterday's debates or had been in ...
Dominic Grieve | 472 c1169 (Link to this contribution) My right hon. Friend will recollect that in the crime and justice day debate I expressed the view th...
David Heathcoat-Amory | 472 c1169 (Link to this contribution) My hon. and learned Friend outlines a highly plausible situation in which the ECJ has to arbitrate o...
Dominic Grieve | 472 c1170 (Link to this contribution) As a lawyer, I have always tried to look for possible pitfalls and to find sensible ways of skirting...
Patricia Hewitt | 472 c1170 (Link to this contribution) I am grateful to the hon. and learned Gentleman for giving way for a second time on this point; it i...
Dominic Grieve | 472 c1169-70 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. I certainly was not seeking to suggest that the institu...
Dominic Grieve | 472 c1168 (Link to this contribution) When not one Member but two start talking about making heavy weather, I begin to think that I am pro...
Denis MacShane | 472 c1168 (Link to this contribution) : Possibly not. I think that the hon. and learned Gentleman is making extraordinarily heavy weather...
Dominic Grieve | 472 c1169 (Link to this contribution) I entirely agree with my hon. Friend, and what he says pre-empts my next point. Ultimately, this tre...
William Cash | 472 c1168-9 (Link to this contribution) Will my hon. and learned Friend re-emphasise the point that interpretation of these words will be pe...
Dominic Grieve | 472 c1167 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Gentleman is right. Although unfortunately I could not be present in the Chamber yesterday,...
David Heath | 472 c1167 (Link to this contribution) The hon. and learned Gentleman is right to say that there is inconsistency between articles 61A, 61B...
Dominic Grieve | 472 c1167-8 (Link to this contribution) I am sorry to disappoint the right hon. Lady by disagreeing with her. As she will see, article 9 has...
Patricia Hewitt | 472 c1167 (Link to this contribution) I think the hon. and learned Gentleman is wrong about this and is making very heavy weather of it. N...
David Howarth | 472 c1168 (Link to this contribution) That is not parliamentary language!
Denis MacShane | 472 c1168 (Link to this contribution) The hon. and learned Gentleman once asked me for a good translation of the word ““racaille””, used b...
Dominic Grieve | 472 c1173 (Link to this contribution) My hon. Friend is right. His memory and knowledge of these matters goes back a long way. It is corre...
William Cash | 472 c1173 (Link to this contribution) My hon. and learned Friend might care to refer to the ruling by the former Speaker, Baroness Boothro...
Michael Connarty | 472 c1173-4 (Link to this contribution) The record of the European Scrutiny Committee makes it clear that we were exercised by this challeng...
Dominic Grieve | 472 c1172-3 (Link to this contribution) I agree entirely. I have no doubt that if the Minister wishes to provide an argument to show why my ...
David Heathcoat-Amory | 472 c1172 (Link to this contribution) My hon. and learned Friend has already quoted from article 9 of the protocol on national Parliaments...
Michael Connarty | 472 c1175 (Link to this contribution) I think that the hon. Gentleman is misinterpreting it. The answer to that was given by my right hon....
Lord Lilley | 472 c1175 (Link to this contribution) Surely the issue is not what the hon. Gentleman thinks, what the Government think or whether the Gov...
Michael Connarty | 472 c1175-6 (Link to this contribution) On the question of the role of the European Court of Justice and any Cabinet's interpretation of wha...
James Clappison | 472 c1176 (Link to this contribution) I know that the hon. Gentleman cares deeply about the issue, but does it not remain the case, as my ...
Michael Connarty | 472 c1176 (Link to this contribution) The Committee did say that, and I quoted part of that report yesterday. The point is that the obliga...
David Howarth | 472 c1176 (Link to this contribution) It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty)....
David Howarth | 472 c1177 (Link to this contribution) I understand the hon. Gentleman's concerns, but if he reads article 8C all the way through he will s...
David Howarth | 472 c1179 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Gentleman will presumably quote cases such as McCarthys Ltd. v. Smith, in which Lord Dennin...
William Cash | 472 c1179 (Link to this contribution) This exchange is a useful introduction to the whole question. It does not necessarily follow that re...
David Howarth | 472 c1179 (Link to this contribution) I see what the hon. Gentleman is saying, but we are bound by our own Act; we have decided that that ...
William Cash | 472 c1178-9 (Link to this contribution) I respect the hon. Gentleman, who is a distinguished lawyer from Cambridge university. The problem i...
William Cash | 472 c1178 (Link to this contribution) As an immediate response, I give as a sort of example something said on the Floor of the House. In t...
David Howarth | 472 c1177-8 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Gentleman says that, but there will always be a problem of that sort with human languages a...
William Cash | 472 c1179 (Link to this contribution) Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that in the Factortame case, for example, Lord Bridge clearly stated...
David Howarth | 472 c1179 (Link to this contribution) I agree with the hon. Gentleman to this extent: it is our doing that we are in this club. While we a...
Patricia Hewitt | 472 c1181 (Link to this contribution) It is a great pleasure to follow the very thoughtful and interesting contribution of the hon. Member...
David Howarth | 472 c1181 (Link to this contribution) The hon. and learned Gentleman is probably right about that. The circumstances in which that would a...
Patricia Hewitt | 472 c1181-2 (Link to this contribution) I regret to say that I will not be racing to support the amendment, although perhaps we should wait ...
Dominic Grieve | 472 c1181 (Link to this contribution) The right hon. Lady needs to address the history of the text, which I touched on, and the curious di...
Richard Shepherd | 472 c1180 (Link to this contribution) We are touching on deep thoughts within our constitutional understanding of these matters. The quest...
David Howarth | 472 c1180 (Link to this contribution) I suppose that one response to the hon. and learned Gentleman is that we can attempt to breach our t...
Dominic Grieve | 472 c1180-1 (Link to this contribution) Gently teasing the debate back in the direction of the amendments, the only instances in which it ha...
David Howarth | 472 c1180 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Gentleman describes what is possibly the ultimate constitutional nightmare. It is a nightma...
Richard Shepherd | 472 c1182-3 (Link to this contribution) We are talking about something that is central to our constitutional history and our constitution, y...
Patricia Hewitt | 472 c1183 (Link to this contribution) I have great respect for the hon. Gentleman, as I think he knows, but the supremacy of European Unio...
David Heathcoat-Amory | 472 c1188 (Link to this contribution) I think it follows from what the hon. Gentleman has said that if we pass the Bill and ratify the tre...
David Howarth | 472 c1188 (Link to this contribution) Let me clarify what I said. I was responding to the hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash), who described ...
David Heathcoat-Amory | 472 c1187 (Link to this contribution) I am glad the hon. Gentleman concedes that that can be done. In his speech he outlined a different s...
David Howarth | 472 c1187 (Link to this contribution) The obvious answer is that we are supreme because we can free ourselves from all those obligations s...
Rob Marris | 472 c1191 (Link to this contribution) I stoutly refuse to accept the hon. Gentleman's intellectual construct that power is a zero-sum game...
William Cash | 472 c1189-91 (Link to this contribution) Indeed. I made that very point yesterday in the debate on competences. This attempt to press everyon...
Adam Afriyie | 472 c1189 (Link to this contribution) My hon. Friend is making a clear and eloquent case. He has cited Edmund Burke, and it seems to me th...
David Heathcoat-Amory | 472 c1183-7 (Link to this contribution) I rise as a non-lawyer to trespass on a series of legal minefields. I recall the line in one of Shak...
William Cash | 472 c1191-2 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Gentleman can say what he likes. I am setting out the argument as I want to present it. If ...
William Cash | 472 c1193 (Link to this contribution) That is very interesting. It is as well in a debate of such importance to put such matters on the re...
Bernard Jenkin | 472 c1192-3 (Link to this contribution) I merely add that the great man's last utterance on the subject was contained in a letter to the cha...
Richard Shepherd | 472 c1193-4 (Link to this contribution) I would like to have heard the Minister's reply earlier to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for...
Jim Murphy | 472 c1195 (Link to this contribution) I am delighted to have the opportunity to respond to this evening's debate at the end of six hours o...
Richard Shepherd | 472 c1194-5 (Link to this contribution) No; I simply do not have the time. The hon. Gentleman should take it up with his party's Whip. It is...
Martin Horwood | 472 c1195 (Link to this contribution) I am interested to hear the Minister make light of the issue. I share the frustration felt by many M...
William Cash | 472 c1192 (Link to this contribution) The answer to the hon. Gentleman is simply this: the kind of Europe that he describes is not the kin...
Michael Connarty | 472 c1192 (Link to this contribution) I have had the pleasure of reading the shadow Foreign Secretary's biography of William Pitt. I studi...
David Heath | 472 c1174-5 (Link to this contribution) May I put to the hon. Gentleman an alternative construction, which I have not heard mentioned, that ...
Michael Connarty | 472 c1174 (Link to this contribution) That is a helpful intervention. I have every confidence, because I do not only speak in this Chamber...
Dominic Grieve | 472 c1174 (Link to this contribution) I have read the hon. Gentleman's intervention yesterday. I was rather struck that the Minister did n...
Jim Murphy | 472 c1196 (Link to this contribution) I am contending that no obligation is intended. As I said, the legal experts group has come to that ...
Dominic Grieve | 472 c1197 (Link to this contribution) There appears to be a contradiction in the Minister's position. Earlier, he told us that the context...
Peter Bone | 472 c1196 (Link to this contribution) Is the Minister contending that the translation is incorrect and that a different word should be use...
Dominic Grieve | 472 c1198 (Link to this contribution) I do not have time to give way, I am afraid. If the Government wish to be constructive, here is an ...
Jim Murphy | 472 c1197 (Link to this contribution) Unfortunately, I cannot. I turn to new clause 9. The hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) has asserted ...
Dominic Grieve | 472 c1198 (Link to this contribution) I echo the Minister in regretting that we have not had the chance to consider the competencies and c...
Jim Murphy | 472 c1197 (Link to this contribution) That is not the case at all. The European Scrutiny Committee, ably led by my hon. Friend the Member ...
David Howarth | 472 c1178 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Gentleman is right to point to the problem, put simply, being about whether anyone could ob...
William Cash | 472 c1188-9 (Link to this contribution) I wish to begin by drawing an historical comparison with an analogous time when people decided what ...
William Cash | 472 c1170-1 (Link to this contribution) My hon. and learned Friend might remember the seminal case of Costa v. ENEL. If I may, I will quote ...
Dominic Grieve | 472 c1171-2 (Link to this contribution) The right hon. Lady nods; perhaps there is a slight difference of opinion between her and the hon. M...
William Cash | 472 c1177 (Link to this contribution) I fear that I have to disagree with the hon. Gentleman. The significance of the words that we have b...
Dominic Grieve | 472 c1180 (Link to this contribution) I agree with the hon. Gentleman's broad premise, but it seems to me that there is a degree of flexib...
Jim Murphy | 472 c1195-6 (Link to this contribution) I know that the hon. Gentleman came along to participate in debate on amendment No. 151, but he has ...
Subjects
Constitutions
EU law
European Union
European communities
EU integration
Referendums
Sovereignty
Treaties
Treaty on European Union
UK membership of EU
Legislation
European Communities Act 1972
European Union (Amendment) Bill 2007-08
Bill of Rights 1689
Link
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