European Union Bill

Debate between Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston and Ben Gummer

Tuesday 8th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Ben Gummer]

My right hon. Friend has expressed that with much greater concision than I have managed, and embarrassed me in the process.

There is so much concision in the new clause that it is difficult to understand precisely what the proposers are getting at. It says that the papers relating to the negotiations should be released

“during negotiation of the treaty or decision.”

One of the proposers, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart), related the negotiation of the European working time directive and the fact that it took from 1992 to 1999 to make that decision. At which point during that long negotiation would the papers relating to it be released to the House? If released after the negotiation had been concluded in 1999, would they have helped to understand the Government’s position in 1992?

[Ms Gisela Stuart]

The release of the papers would indeed have helped. The subsequent interpretation of the working time directive and the detail of how it should operate by the Court of Justice would have made it clear that none of the Governments involved in the original negotiations had intended certain interpretations to be made. That would have strengthened the House’s hand in saying, “No, that’s not what was intended, even by our Ministers.”

[Ben Gummer]

The hon. Lady has clarified that beautifully. It argues for wider consideration of such issues in the kind of structure anticipated by my hon. Friends and the process in Finland that she described.

There is a broader transparency that the House enjoys, which is to put to the electorate a manifesto at the time of elections. In the past 10 years a party has put forward a manifesto proposing a referendum on the European constitution, lately called the Lisbon treaty, yet that referendum was never granted. The purpose of this Bill is to ensure that such mendacity cannot be repeated. I therefore propose that the new clause be advanced at a later stage and on a wider basis, but I support the broader purposes of the Bill.