European Union Bill
Debate between Denis MacShane and Richard Shepherd(13 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Shepherd
I am reluctant to, but as the travails of the right hon. Gentleman are so explicit, I will.
Mr MacShane
The working time decision was taken in 1994. I experienced two constituency cases involving horrible deaths because of overworked doctors who were obliged to do long hours at the weekend who, to put it crudely, made slight mistakes with a zero, so I welcomed that decision. However, those provisions were there from 1994. They could have been put into operation and introduced slowly, but we pretended that that was not going to happen. The decision was made, but nothing was secret.
Mr Shepherd
I have just heard another inaccuracy from the right hon. Gentleman, just as previously he was corrected on a matter of fact regarding the invitation of those not in the eurozone to be present at meetings affecting what are profound matters. I shall therefore take with slight caution some of the arguments that he has advanced.
I should declare an interest: I am a parliamentary vice-chairman of the Campaign for Freedom of Information. What is noticeable is that Europe is notoriously remiss in this area. It is proclaimed that work is being done on freedom of information, yet in many ways the bureaucracy in Europe is one of the most secretive organisations of them all.
Mr Shepherd
This is the record on Europe that most of us will recall; it is not the fantasy of some, who see Europe as an object of almost theological insistence.
Mr Shepherd
No, I will not give way. The right hon. Gentleman spent nearly 30 minutes repeating the—
Mr Shepherd
Indeed, and I took an intervention from the right hon. Gentleman, if he remembers. However, I have listened to the argument, and it is the same argument that he makes most of the time. Although repetition does inform one, it sometimes becomes like a woodpecker on the brain. [Interruption.] No, no, I am going to be fair. This is an important new clause. Our constitutional arrangements require Ministers to be accountable to this House, and the new clause would give us a better understanding of what is happening to our future and our constitutional arrangements.
The European Union set up a body—indeed, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston sat on it—to bring the citizens of Europe closer to the institutions and nature of the European Union. I have watched, as have all Members of this House, the disengagement of those citizens—certainly in this country, but also in many others, right across Europe—which is becoming very severe indeed. We have only to look at Ireland, which has done everything that was required of it and is now in an horrendous state, so I do not need the right hon. Gentleman, the former Minister for Europe, to say that this is wonderful. It is not; we expect accountable Government.
European Union Bill
Debate between Denis MacShane and Richard Shepherd(13 years, 4 months ago)
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Mr MacShane
I am tempted to say—though, thank goodness, oral amendments are not allowed in Committee of the whole House—that the increase in MEPs at the heart of this part of the Bill could be allocated to representatives from national Parliaments at some future date. I am just stretching the limits of order—[Interruption.] I am about to sit down, Mr Hoyle. I am inviting the Minister to open a debate about how to make the European Parliament more representative and more reflective of the national will in the different countries that constitute the EU. That might require a small treaty change, but not, I am sure, a significant one, so we would not need to initiate the referendum provisions.
We often knock the European Parliament because of expenses or costs or decisions it has taken that we do not like, which is frankly rather childish. What we need is a more serious debate about making the European Parliament more effective, more efficient and more representative—leaving aside those who want to abolish it or to withdraw completely from it. I invite the Minister to engage with that debate, although he may well hope that once proceedings on the Bill are concluded there will be no more debate about the EU on his side of the House for the next few years.
Mr Richard Shepherd (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)
Does the right hon. Gentleman not give any weight to what the German constitutional court said in respect of democracy—that it lies not in the institutions of the European Union or its Parliament, but in those of the national state?
Mr MacShane
The Verfassungsgericht in Germany, of course, sees the German people—das Volk—as the sovereign, and distinguishes clearly between the Bundestag and the Bundesrat. It allocates powers on a subsidiary basis—