Asked by: David Nuttall (Conservative - Bury North)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, which EU treaty articles would need to be amended or deleted in order to allow the UK not to be bound by the current or future EU social and employment legislation or rulings of the European Court of Justice in the same area.
Answered by David Lidington
EU social and employment provisions are based on a number of treaty articles and are also contained in areas of secondary legislation made under the treaties. For example, Article 21 TFEU promotes the free movement of persons. Article 45 provides for the free movement of workers. Article 46 provides for secondary legislation to bring this about. And Article 48 provides for secondary measures in the field of social security including the payment of benefits to persons resident in the Member States. Regulation 883/2004 sets rules on Social Security Coordination, while the Residence Directive 2004/38/EC sets out measures on the right of citizens of the Union and their family members to move and reside freely within the Union. The number of articles or pieces of secondary legislation needing review would depend on the nature of any changes a Member State sought to achieve. The Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr Cameron), has been clear that there are four areas where the UK is seeking change: sovereignty, economic governance, competitiveness and immigration. The Prime Minister is confident that, with goodwill and understanding, he can and will succeed in negotiating to reform the EU and Britain's relationship within it. As he has said, if he succeeds he will campaign to keep the UK in a reformed European Union.
Asked by: David Nuttall (Conservative - Bury North)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, further to the Conclusions of the European Council of 25 and 26 June 2015 paragraph 14 relating to the UK's EU renegotiation programme, what technical work the Council plans to undertake before it reports back in December; what the (a) composition and (b) mandate of the working group is; and whether it is planned that national parliaments will be able to contribute to the work of that group.
Answered by David Lidington
Following agreement at the June European Council, discussions on the UK's renegotiation have begun. These discussions should be led by substance, not schedule, and we expect the technical discussions to take several months. The Government will keep Parliament informed.
Asked by: David Nuttall (Conservative - Bury North)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, which pieces of EU legislation adopted in each of the last five years met the conditions to be subject to qualified majority voting in the Council of the EU or the European Council.
Answered by David Lidington
The information requested is publicly available on the website of the Council of Ministers where the voting rules for each piece of legislation can be found. This includes the legislation, the voting rules and how Member States voted. These records go back to 1999.
Asked by: David Nuttall (Conservative - Bury North)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what discussions he has had with his EU counterparts about amending article 122 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union to ensure that it cannot be used as a legal basis for Eurozone bailouts.
Answered by David Lidington
As part of our wider discussions on reform, the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my right hon.Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr Hammond), and I have raised our concerns over economic governance with our counterparts, including the need to ensure that countries outside the Eurozone are not held liable for issues within it.
Asked by: David Nuttall (Conservative - Bury North)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, how many times the procedure provided for in Council Decision 2009/857/EC on the implementation of Article 16(4) of the Treaty on European Union has been invoked in each of the years since that Decision entered force; what the concerns of the member states that invoked the procedure were in each such case; and how those concerns were met in the final decision taken in each such case.
Answered by David Lidington
The purpose of Council Decision 2009/857/EC on the implementation of Article 16(4) of the Treaty on European Union is to allow Member States that are close to but do not constitute a blocking minority to request that the Council defer adoption of a measure for a period of time to allow for further discussions with a view to resolving the concerns that they have raised. It came into effect with the introduction of the changed system of calculating a Qualified Majority on 1 November 2014. Although the Government does not keep data on this provision, to the best of our knowledge it has not been invoked.
Asked by: David Nuttall (Conservative - Bury North)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what information his Department holds on how many European Court of Justice cases have cited the words Ever Closer Union from the preamble to the EU Treaties and Article 1 of the Treaty on European Union in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by David Lidington
Twenty three judgments, opinions or orders of the Court of Justice and the General Court have contained references to “ever closer union” since 2005.