Inter-Parliamentary Scrutiny (EU Foreign, Defence and Security Policy)

James Clappison Excerpts

Thursday 10th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Richard Ottaway]

I just took the view that a free vote was not appropriate. It was a simple subjective judgment; it was as straightforward as that.

The key objective of the report and of the motion before the House today is to ensure that the WEU Assembly has a successor. We want scrutiny of intergovernmental activity to continue with national Parliaments in the lead. I say to the House, however, that if national Parliaments do not get their act together, there is a risk that inter-parliamentary scrutiny will wither and that the European Parliament will, by default, take over the main role in this field. There is therefore a responsibility on national Parliaments in this respect.

[Mr James Clappison (Hertsmere) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making an important point. Does he agree that, like it or not, there is going to be much more to scrutinise, owing to the provisions of the treaty of Lisbon, the advent of the European External Action Service and the new clause in the Lisbon treaty that provides for additional measures in the field of common European defence?

[Richard Ottaway]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I shall allude obliquely to the point that he has made. While he was making his intervention, I had the opportunity to consider further the intervention of my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope). I can inform him that I decided that the report should remain silent, rather than making any recommendation on whipping.

The point that I was about to make is that we want co-operation with the European Parliament, and, in our proposals, it would be a full member of the proposed conference. Like it or not, the Lisbon treaty has made the European Parliament a more powerful actor in certain areas of EU external relations. Whatever our views on the European Parliament, it would be in everyone’s interests for national Parliaments and the European Parliament to work together in this context, but—and it is an important “but”—decision making in the common foreign and security policy remains intergovernmental, and inter-parliamentary scrutiny of that decision making must reflect that. That is the basis of the proposal put forward in the report. National Parliaments would remain clearly in the lead, with the Parliaments of the rotating EU Council presidency countries chairing the proposed conference and taking organisational responsibilities.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr MacShane]

I accept that fully and it is true of all inter-parliamentary oversight committees. We are, willy-nilly, increasingly having to discuss how, collectively, at European level, we express our common foreign policy goals when we decide what they are. Yesterday, the Prime Minister slapped down the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) when he called for an in/out EU referendum. The Prime Minister said, “We are staying in the EU and that is it.” I am glad that he said that after five years of encouraging the hopes of Eurosceptics, but if it is the case, this House has to work out how best to take part in debates and decisions on what Europe is going to do—we cannot wish it away.

I am not criticising the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee or the officials who have worked on this report, because it is probably the best they could manage of a bad job, but it is exactly a reflection of our House’s inability to network and create alternative sources of democratic parliamentary legitimacy and oversight for what is done at European level.

[Mr Clappison]

rose—

[Mr MacShane]

I am trying to finish my remarks, but I shall give way one last time.

[Mr Clappison]

I am listening with great interest to the right hon. Gentleman. I agree with his analysis that more decisions are being taken at European level. Does he think that that process enjoys the democratic consent of the British people?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Robert Walter (North Dorset) (Con)]

May I start by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Richard Ottaway) and the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs for the work that they have done on this subject? As hon. Members will gather in a moment, I do not entirely agree with their conclusions, which are very similar to the work of Lord Roper and his Select Committee on the European Union in the House of Lords. May I also express a slight concern that a number of my colleagues who are members of the WEU Assembly, representing this Parliament, might have been here had it not been for the fact that we had only 48 hours’ notice? I and my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) were involved in other meetings and have had to return to take part in this debate. Let us move on, however.

I shall briefly give the background. In December 2009, I was telephoned by the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), the then Minister for Europe, who told me that he wanted to save €2.3 million, which was the United Kingdom’s contribution to the WEU—to the whole organisation, not just the Assembly. The Assembly’s cost to the United Kingdom was considerably less than that. The UK was therefore seeking to renounce the Brussels treaty.

[Mr Clappison]

Cost is a very important factor and we all need to consider carefully the costs of what we do. Has my hon. Friend seen the reports that the European External Action Service and the High Representative are taking on additional public relations consultants at a cost of €10 billion? Has my hon. Friend done any maths to see whether the cost to which he has just referred might be much less than the cost of some additional spin doctors for the EEAS?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Walter]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I do not want to become too legalistic, but I will refer to a number of principles that I and colleagues have laid down that suggest we should have a much stronger inter-parliamentary standing conference. The principles on which we based that suggestion are all entirely consistent with the Lisbon treaty, which I know my hon. Friend and others were not enthusiasts for; none the less it is where we are.

Article 12 of the Lisbon treaty states:

“National Parliaments contribute actively to the good functioning of the Union.”

Article 10 of protocol states:

“A conference”—

which my hon. Friend has just referred to—

“of Parliamentary Committees for Union affairs may…organise interparliamentary conferences on specific topics, in particular to debate matters of common foreign and security policy, including common security and defence policy.”

The most important words in the treaty are in declaration 14, which states:

“The Conference also notes that the provisions covering the Common Foreign and Security Policy do not…increase the role of the European Parliament.”

In fact, the European Parliament has therefore no new competence as a result of the Lisbon treaty, but if we read the Parliament’s documents we find that it assumes that it does have that new role. Even if it does not, it is jolly well going to grab it and take it, because national Parliaments are doing nothing about it. That is why we need a strong functioning body. Madam Deputy Speaker, I know that you do not propose to call my amendment, but the spirit of my proposal was that we should have a much stronger body than that which the Foreign Affairs Committee proposes.

We propose a standing conference of inter-parliamentary representatives, which would carry on the work of the European Security and Defence Assembly, the Assembly of the Western European Union, enabling us to have effective inter-parliamentary scrutiny that would embrace at least the ground that it covered and include the five non-EU European NATO members, who provide considerable support to the work of the European Union and, collectively, to European defence.

We believe that that inter-parliamentary standing conference could be based in Brussels. It could have been based in Paris, but the Minister tells us that we are going to sell the building, so it cannot. The conference’s prime role would be to engage on European foreign affairs and defence issues with the Council of the European Union, its supporting and executive agencies, member Governments and Parliaments as appropriate. Recommendations and opinions would be made, but they would not necessarily bind national Parliaments.

The Council of the European Union, and especially the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, would make regular reports to that standing conference.

[Mr Clappison]

My hon. Friend has made some very powerful points throughout his speech, and the last two have been the most powerful of all. Is there not a danger that, if there is no such body as he describes, there will be a gap into which the European Parliament will be unable to resist the temptation to move?

[Mr Walter]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, because the alternative, which is before us today, is a body that would meet for one-and-a-half days every six months. The security and defence sub-committee of the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee meets approximately every fortnight, and it has a large secretariat and research staff working for it. It will easily work its way in to provide such scrutiny and, because it is located in Brussels, summon the High Representative or the director-general of the EU military staff, who until recently was a British general and who has now been, I am pleased to say, promoted to the office of Black Rod in the other place. That alternative would be an absolute negation of what we believe to be parliamentary scrutiny, in that the European Parliament would take on that role.

Before I sit down, I want to deal with the question of funding, because that is the one argument against our having such a standing conference, which would have a small secretariat and perhaps two committees as opposed to the existing Assembly’s six. Staff at the existing Assembly have worked out the following figure in detail, however, and the feeling is that we could run an entire inter-parliamentary body, based in Brussels with a small specialist secretariat, for about €1.5 million. That would mean, spread out among the 27 member states, that the contribution of the United Kingdom would probably be about €100,000 at the most. Let me tell the House that in the 2011 Budget, this Parliament’s contribution to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly—of which I have no criticism—was €465,845, and that was just towards its administration. The contribution to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe for this current year is €267,035. The contribution towards our proposed standing conference—a body to scrutinise areas of activity where our armed forces are putting their lives at risk—would have been barely €100,000, or considerably less than £100,000. I therefore do not believe that cost should be the determining factor in this.

We should have a strong inter-parliamentary conference that involves Members of national Parliaments who have an interest in defence matters, drawn from our national foreign affairs and defence committees, among others. None of the members of the current Assembly, bar two or three, are members of their national committees, but that does not mean that they do not have expertise in these areas. The acknowledged need for continued inter-parliamentary scrutiny of common security and defence policy involving the 27 member states, plus the five non-EU members, is beyond question. As the Foreign Affairs Committee has indicated, there are different ways of approaching this question, but we need a much stronger framework within which to work.