European Union Bill Debate
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John Redwood
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European Union Bill
John Redwood Excerpts(13 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Clappison
Yes—and not only that, because my hon. Friend is being characteristically modest, as some of the warnings about the consequences that would flow from the treaty of Lisbon have proved right in the short time that has elapsed since its introduction. I am thinking in particular of the warnings that were given about what I regard as the unfortunate influence of the European External Action Service and the EU’s new Foreign Minister, Baroness Ashton, which has not entirely served the interests of this country.
Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
The new clause is excellent. I like the idea that Ministers would have to report that they tried to get an improvement but they lost. Is it also proposed that some of the arguments should be made available, because it would be much more interesting if we knew how badly they had lost?
Mr Clappison
My right hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Too often decisions are made behind closed doors, certainly in the Council. They are made in a remote and unaccountable way, and members of the public in this country simply do not have the information that they should have to be able to evaluate the decisions taken in their name.
During our debates on the Lisbon treaty, it was striking that time after time we had to remind members of the then Government of what they had said in the Convention about the measures that they were now putting before the House. I cannot remember whether they had opposed the establishment of the EU External Action Service and the EU Foreign Minister—I would not have blamed them if they had—but it emerged on a number of occasions in the debates in the House that Ministers had previously opposed what they were now proposing. That came to light only through the assiduous work of the then Conservative Front-Bench Members, and I pay tribute to them, as well as to colleagues such as my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood).
The new clause would remedy this problem, as the fullest possible information would be placed before the House, with the statement, so we would know exactly what had taken place, and whether the Government really agreed with what was being proposed or whether they had lost the arguments and been outvoted. In short, we would know whether we were being called upon to do something with which our democratically elected Government did not agree.
Mr Redwood
The hon. Lady is absolutely right. I can remember visiting EU Councils as a Minister and discovering that the Council of Ministers often met as a legislature. It was about to enact extremely important laws affecting all our countries, and all that the others and I said was entirely secret and did not have to be shared with the public. That is an absolute disgrace: we need much more transparency.
Ms Stuart
The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I negotiated the opt-out for the junior doctors working time directive back in 1999, and in a sense we knew on the negotiating basis all the problems that would happen in the NHS that the UK Government saw coming. We also knew that the directive would not actually hit us until about 2008-09. Now it is here, and everyone here is entitled to say, “We didn’t see it coming.” In fact, on one level we did see it coming.
It is also important for the House to consider the fact that, during the discussions on the Convention on the Future of Europe, I was in the very unusual position of being a negotiating partner at Government level, and also representing the House. Therefore, provided that I used a legal adviser from the House, I could be given the legal advice that was given to the previous Administration.
We should consider the nature and length of debates in the European Union. I deliberately chose the working time directive for junior doctors as an example, because it started in 1992 and started to have legislative impact on this country 10 years later, and only now are we beginning to find out its full effect.
We have now moved from Conservative to Labour to Conservative, and within our Government machinery—[Hon. Members: “Coalition.”] It is okay—the Liberal Democrats came sixth in Barnsley, so there is a ray of hope. Given the veil that falls between one Administration and the next, which hides the accumulated knowledge that could allow parliamentary scrutiny, there must be a mechanism that transcends individual Administrations, which would give the House access to the information that has been given to Ministers. Although new clause 1 is limited, it is nevertheless an important wedge representing that principle.
Neil Carmichael
Excellent, a beautiful place. The hon. Lady might well think that the transparency of the Commission is important—indeed, the transparency of the Council of Ministers—and I have certainly thought about this long and hard. I understand why people would wish there to be more transparency in both those organisations. After all, they make decisions that are important to us, but the new clause tackles the issue in the wrong way because it would undermine the Government’s capacity to negotiate. That is what we have to underline.
When the Government enter negotiations with other nation states about the future of Europe, they must do so with the knowledge that they may or may not enter into alliances with various Governments, and that those alliances may change during the negotiations.
Mr Redwood
I think my hon. Friend is misreading the new clause. It would mean that, when all the negotiation was done and we knew the final outcome, we would also know whether our Ministers had won or lost. What is wrong with that? How dare he be so undemocratic?
Neil Carmichael
Because it is important to bear in mind the next negotiation and not think only about the one we have just had. That is obvious, because alliances can fluctuate and relationships are important. I do not think my right hon. Friend would say the same thing about any negotiation on a treaty outside Europe, and certainly not, for example, about NATO.
Mr MacShane
I am grateful that the poor fish thrown into the sea will now have their flippers flipped in the House of Commons.
I want our Government and our House regularly to debate Europe, but the plain fact is that it is the decision of this Government—this coalition—not so to do. The Foreign Affairs Committee, with its coalition majority, is also abolishing its regular trip to the European Union nation that holds the presidency.
Mr Redwood
Has the right hon. Gentleman noticed that we are debating Europe all day today, and that we have had quite a lot of days on this Bill?
Mr MacShane
Yes, and I well remember the right hon. Gentleman in the even longer debates—going through the night—on the treaty of Amsterdam saying that signing it would mean the abolition of Britain. When there is a new Bill, we have debates, and we have had many debates and some good discussions on this one.
Mr Hague
The Bill does make a material difference. It does not address the whole question my hon. Friend raises, because there are many different dimensions to it, but it is an important measure. In any future negotiations about the EU, British Ministers will be in the European Council saying very clearly that, under a vast range of provisions set out in the Bill, proposals that may be put to them in the European Council would require a referendum in the UK. That does change the negotiating position in Europe and the freedom of manoeuvre of British Governments, and it means that Governments have to be very alert to that point—not just British Governments, but all the Governments of the European Union. I can tell my hon. Friend that when I explain that point to them, as I already do, it makes a considerable impact on them.
My view is that the European Union has great achievements to its name: the single market; the enlargement of its membership, which has done so much to strengthen the spread of freedom and democracy in Europe; and the effective use of European nations’ collective weight in the world, which remains of high importance to our values and interests, as we have seen on sanctions and on Iran and hope to see in response to events in north Africa.
There are great challenges for the nations of Europe, in growth and global competitiveness, where action in the European Union on widening further markets in services, energy and the digital economy could do much to help to lift our economic prospects, but all that will be ever more overshadowed if the EU’s treaties change yet again to enlarge its powers still further without popular consent. That is the point that the Bill addresses.
Mr Redwood
I am all in favour of that democratic consent, but there is about to be a very substantial strengthening of power over economic governance for euroland, and, although we will be opted out of the most severe penalty, many of us believe that the measure will have a very big impact over the years on this country. Why cannot we have a vote on that crucial new treaty?
Mr Hague
It is already very clear, from our discussions on that treaty, that it will not have the effect on the United Kingdom which my right hon. Friend fears. There is no provision for it to do so; indeed, it is very clear that it should not do so. If any change were to be made to the arrangements of the European Union which imposed significant new sanctions or obligations on the United Kingdom, then of course a referendum would arise under the provisions of the Bill. That again will have to be remembered when all such provisions and changes are discussed within the European Union in the future.
It is one of our core beliefs in this coalition Government that power should not be hoarded by Ministers and officials in Whitehall, but be shared more widely with Parliament and people. That is wholly at one with the development of modern society. People increasingly want and expect to make decisions for themselves, not to have them taken for them by the Government. This Government believe that that desire and expectation are shaping our society for the better, so we are opening up public services to more choice, giving professionals more responsibility and devolving power in the Localism Bill.
The Bill before us is driven by our belief in giving power to people. Indeed, the lack of referendums on transfers of areas of power from Britain to the EU has become glaringly illogical, given the many issues on which the previous Government did institute referendums. We have had referendums on devolution and, locally, on whether towns and cities, from London to Hartlepool, should have directly elected mayors. The logic of all those referendums is the same: they are decisions on whether to change who holds power and how that power may be used. No decision can be more eminently qualified than one that could move an area of policy from the responsibility of this House to the responsibility to the European Union.
Mr Douglas Alexander (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (Lab)
As is customary, I join the Foreign Secretary in paying generous tribute to previous speakers in today’s debate and in the debates on the Bill in Committee of the Whole House. Throughout these debates, there have been sustained contributions from a whole range of Members, and I will accept the challenge of trying to identify just a small number of them given the very many who have spoken. The hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash) and my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) have demonstrated their depth of knowledge on these complex but important issues. My right hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane) and the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin), who is not in his place this evening, have shown that rhetorical flourishes are not the domain of any one party but can be brought to opposing sides of this debate.
I also echo the Foreign Secretary in paying generous tribute to both Front-Bench teams, both of whom have been well briefed for these debates, as the immense red folder opposite powerfully attests. Alas, for the time being it is the only thing on that side of the Chamber that is red, with the possible exception of the Deputy Leader of the House’s socks, but I hope that that will change in time.
On the Third Reading of Bills, it is customary to thank the departmental officials who have toiled in support of their ministerial masters. Some in the Foreign Office deal with great affairs of state, while some see service in troubled lands. A chosen few are dispatched to represent our country to our firm allies in the great capitals of the world. The seven officials who have been obliged to work full-time on this particular piece of legislation therefore deserve our heartfelt sympathy and support.
Not everything in the Bill is bad, although nothing in it is particularly good. It has been described variously as a piece of “legislative PR”, a “show Bill”, a “missed opportunity”, as having clauses that are “entirely bogus”, and of involving “contemplating our navels”. Those remarks, of course, all came from Conservative Members, apparently in support of their Government’s proposals. The measures in part 2 to ensure that Britain is fully represented in the European Parliament are of course necessary, as are some of the changes to the way in which this House scrutinises European decisions, such as those in clauses 9 and 10. There is growing consensus in almost all member states of the European Union that national Parliaments need to play a bigger role in scrutinising its decisions.
During the Foreign Secretary’s first period of trying to appease Conservative Eurosceptics, he tried to move the euro debate off referendums and into the mainstream of a general election campaign. As I am sure he will recollect, this Bill comes 3,572 days after he told us that there were just 12 days left to save the pound. He does not yet seem to have learned his lesson. The Conservative party has called for a referendum on every treaty since it was last in office. Its last manifesto pledged to repatriate the European competences contained in those treaties back to the United Kingdom. Now Ministers appear content with the situation as it stands and offer this 18-clause Bill instead.
The principle of having a codified set of rules on when a referendum should take place on major issues, as is attempted in schedule 1, is reasonable enough, even if it seems somewhat extraneous. We will see how far such a power is applied in practice. For all the talk of legislative and referendum locks, which we have heard again from the Foreign Secretary this evening, the Bill cannot get away from the simple fact that each successive Parliament in the United Kingdom is sovereign. If a new treaty is signed or a new distribution of powers is decided on, Ministers will have to bring a Bill before Parliament, just as before. At that point, it would be straightforward for them to amend part 1 of this Bill and remove any of the requirements. They could also legislate for a referendum, or choose a new constitutional innovation that we cannot foresee. It will be for the Parliament of the day to make that decision. Rather than a legislative lock, the Bill actually seems to be the constitutional application of the latest theory much-loved by the Prime Minister: the nudge theory. I suppose that for Government Members, it is worth a little more than the cast-iron guarantee that the Prime Minister offered before the election.
Mr Redwood
On reflection, does the right hon. Gentleman think that it would have been better if the British public had had a vote on Nice, Amsterdam or Lisbon, because they might have felt a bit happier about the European Union if they had been properly consulted?
Mr Alexander
I find myself in sympathy with the Conservative position at the times of those treaties. The Conservatives were not convinced by the case for a referendum, and neither was I. It rather reflects the changing disposition of those on the Conservative Front Bench that, as I recollect, the Foreign Secretary was a fierce advocate of the avoidance of a referendum on the Maastricht treaty. At least on that, we are at one.
The real guard is the precedent established by political consensus that, for example, no party will join the euro without a referendum. No party pledged to ratify the proposed European constitution without a referendum. There was no consensus on Lisbon. Labour and Liberal Democrat Members did not believe that a referendum was needed, but Conservative Members did, and the Conservative leader did until he suddenly realised that he might be in government in just over a year’s time and did not fancy spending the first two years as Prime Minister obsessing over European renegotiations.
Mr Cash
I am fascinated by the line that the Opposition are taking. I am not impressed, if I may say so, by the line being taken by the coalition Government. It is difficult to resist the idea that a referendum is necessary in certain circumstances, so I rather anticipate that there will not a Division this evening, since the Bill is associated with what is really no more than the unlikely event of a referendum being called in respect of any of the provisions contained in it. The circumstances and the facts that we have had the opportunity to examine in the course of proceedings on the Bill, and indeed the trend, as I said in my earlier speech, of the UK being drawn in to the legal framework of a two-tier Europe but actually being neutered at the same time, increase the necessity of a proper referendum—an in-or-out referendum—so that the British people can decide whether they want to be Europeanised or absorbed, like ectoplasm, into the strange new world being created, over which we have increasingly little influence, let alone control.
This is, fundamentally, about a democratic deficit. I do not believe that the Bill will make any substantial difference to the landscape to which I referred in my previous remarks to the Foreign Secretary. A strategic mistake is being made in respect of Europe. Europe is failing. There is incredibly high unemployment in other member states: Spain’s youth unemployment, for example, is 43%. Very serious damage is being done by burdens on business—50% of all our economic regulation comes from the EU—and there is a failure to provide oxygen for the small business community in this country. The Bill does not, in my opinion, make any difference to those matters.
We have faced for some time now an economic crisis in Europe, but none of the measures—including the 2020 strategy, which will be no more successful than the Lisbon agenda, which had to be abandoned—will make any substantial difference to the mistakes and distortions associated with the European Union as it now is which continue to affect the United Kingdom. We need to renegotiate the treaties, and the Bill will not change that fact.
At the beginning of our debates on the Bill, the European Scrutiny Committee proposed to have a proper investigation into it. I am sorry that the Foreign Secretary did not feel that he could attend, but I am glad that the Minister for Europe came to see us, albeit somewhat late in the day. The Committee gave careful consideration to the Bill, but it is not evident that the Government paid very much attention to what has been described in many quarters as one of the best Scrutiny Committee reports produced in recent years. I am afraid that they have substantially ducked the issue.
I shall address a number of the points as they cropped up. Much play was made of the idea that the Bill would reaffirm the sovereignty of the United Kingdom Parliament, but when I tabled a motion to that effect the entire Conservative party, with some honourable exceptions, voted against it, which struck me as somewhat bizarre and extremely dangerous.
The European Scrutiny Committee report, which took evidence from many of this country’s pre-eminent constitutional experts, came to certain very clear conclusions. First, we noted:
“Clause 18 did not address the competing primacies of EU and national law”,
which is a matter of grave concern, and that on the evidence we received, clause 18 was “not needed”. We also concluded, on the evidence that we received, that
“If Parliament wills it may legislate to override the European Communities Act 1972 or the EU Treaties by repealing them, amending them or any provisions in them, or by clearly and expressly legislating inconsistently with them in respect of EU legislation or generally.”
That is a very important statement from the European Scrutiny Committee, because for many years it was asserted that, owing to the nature of the European Communities Act and the treaties on which it is based, with their amendments and their additions, it would not be possible for Parliament to legislate “notwithstanding the European Communities Act”. There was a movement towards the assumption—it was a dangerous habit of thinking and attitude of mind—that somehow we were locked into a situation that would never allow the United Kingdom to reassert its sovereignty in respect of European legislation.
For reasons that I have given, including the burdens on businesses, which are costing about 4% of gross domestic product, and the fact that since 1999 as much as £128 billion—it might be more now—has been lost to the British economy through over-regulation, we have to deal with these questions. That is the flipside of the idea of having a referendum on any further transfer of competences or powers. We have to deal with the existing European Union, not any future EU or any future extension of powers or competences. That is something for the future; we have to deal with the EU as it is now, and it is doing great damage, in many respects, to the UK’s national interests.
Mr Redwood
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who as always is doing a great job on this issue. Will he agree that the legislation would be much more convincing if the very huge transfers of power now taking place—the power to regulate all our financial and banking services, the power in criminal justice and, soon, economic governance powers—were to be the subject of a referendum as a result of the Bill?
Mr Cash
Indeed, it would. For example, the fact that the City of London and its jurisdiction has legally been transferred to the EU is an indictment of the trends in the wrong direction. The landscape is changing in the wrong direction. With respect to the Foreign Secretary, the Prime Minister and other Ministers, I say that these matters need to be very carefully reviewed. All is not lost; the Bill is now going off to the House of Lords, and as I said earlier this evening, I hope that over the next few months serious consideration will be given to the impact of the European proposals on the competitiveness package, and the encroachments of European economic governance. I hope that these matters will be tackled. We need to ensure that we not only deal with future referendums, which we have been told will not happen until the next Parliament anyway—that is some years away—but tackle the crisis and the danger that we should be addressing now.
I trust that the House will not mind me mentioning that today I published a new note—perhaps I might even call it a pamphlet—entitled “Saving the British economy for the British people”. It sets out the history of the stabilisation mechanism and how it has drawn us into a dangerous situation regarding bail-outs. However, I will not go down that route now, because I want to return to what the European Scrutiny Committee said about the Bill. We concluded that
“if the legislative supremacy of Parliament is under threat, it is from judicial”
supremacy. That is the problem. It is a British constitutional problem, not only one of the assertions of the European Court of Justice; it is an internal domestic constitutional question, as Professor Tomkins made clear in his superb evidence. We said that:
“we attach weight to the warnings expressed by Professor Tomkins if the Government maintains clause 18 in the EU Bill.”
He spoke of the Bill overall as going
“out of its way to invite litigation”.
That is precisely the direction in which we do not want things to go. We need to be certain that the sovereignty of Parliament is a matter for Parliament and the people, not the judiciary or the Supreme Court, particularly in the light of the trend shown in assertions by the likes of Lord Steyn, Lady Hale and Lord Hope of Craighead, all of which we looked at in detail in the evidence that we received and the judgments reached when we concluded our review of that evidence.
Furthermore, we concluded:
“Clause 18 is not a sovereignty clause in the manner claimed by the Government, and the whole premise on which it has been included in the Bill is, in our view, exaggerated.”
We were also concerned about the manner in which the explanatory notes had been devised. We debated the matter at length, concluding:
“The Explanatory Notes present as fact what the evidence we have received tells us is disputed, viewed from any perspective.”
In other words, we were deeply dissatisfied with the way in which the explanatory notes dwelt on the idea of the common law principle. Indeed, I moved an amendment to clause 18 in an attempt to remove it from the framework of judicial interpretation, but that amendment too was defeated by the Government. In fact, I would say—I say this with respect to the Foreign Secretary and my right hon. Friend the Minister for Europe—that despite the soft words that the Foreign Secretary offered at the beginning of this debate, he knows well enough that we will not be put off or seduced by any flattery; we are interested in the arguments and the facts.
The European Scrutiny Committee analysed this Bill and found it wanting in many different ways. The other thing to say about clause 18 is this:
“The real point is whether a government can, in law, make it difficult for a future Parliament to amend or repeal the legislation it has passed”—
in a word, the point that the shadow Foreign Secretary made just now. We concluded firmly that
“in our view it cannot. Our conclusion therefore is straightforward—that an Act of Parliament applies until it is repealed.”
Sovereignty is not an arcane, theoretical or abstract question; it is, as I said in opening the inquiry, about the vast array of activities and functions that have been conferred on the authority of the European Union by the Lisbon treaty—a treaty that was passed by the previous Government but has since been adopted by our Government, despite the fact that we opposed its passage through the House tooth and nail when in opposition—and how they affect the daily lives of the people and businesses of this country in such a wide variety of ways, making it essential that we reassert the right of Parliament to override those provisions if they are deemed not to be in our national interest.
There is no presumption that merely because of the European Communities Act 1972 we have to accept as a matter of compulsion whatever is served up to us by the European Union. If it is not in our national interest, we must repudiate it. I see the Minister for Europe shaking his head. He knows that this is an important question, but he disagrees with me on it. I do not hold that against him; I simply say that he is wrong. There are those who will continue to argue that there is no way in which we can override European legislation, but no way will those of us who take the view that we do change our minds. We put the national interest first, and if what is being done under European Union proposals is not in the national interest, we will have to override it.
There are many aspects of the Bill, including the whole problem of the creation of a two-tier Europe and the extent to which a referendum is being denied to us under clause 4, that will cause grave difficulties for us over the next few months as we deal with the question of the eurozone and the countries that are not part of it. I regard this as a matter on which we will be judged as time goes on. On the exceptions, including clause 4, that preclude a referendum on matters that will dramatically affect the United Kingdom—such as a two-tier Europe or an accession treaty—the Committee concluded:
“the exceptions…have been drafted to allow the Government to support certain EU policies, such as strengthening of the eurozone, including through harmonisation of economic, fiscal and social measures if necessary…or enlargement, without triggering the referendum lock.”
The reality is that we will need a referendum if the creation of a two-tier Europe affects the United Kingdom in the way that we anticipate. If we are so affected, and we are put at a grave disadvantage, the responsibility will lie with the Government for refusing to allow a referendum. We are not only moving towards a situation in which the creation of a new kind of Europe is in prospect; we are on the brink of it. That landscape will not be an attractive one unless we move down the route of an association of nation states. The Foreign Secretary knows perfectly well that the arrangements in the Bill do not deal with the present. They deal only with the future, but we are confronted as I speak with the present danger of a European system that does not serve our national interest. We must meet that challenge, and meet it now.
Mr Redwood
I, like my right hon. and hon. Friends, welcome the two aims of this legislation. The first, to hold a referendum on any future transfer of power, is vital to try to secure some democratic legitimacy for what might happen next. The second, to assert that this House and Parliament in general is sovereign, even over European law, is excellent, but I hope that Ministers will take away from this debate the great sense of unease among many colleagues, who feel that the Bill does not deliver what Ministers say it intends to.
As my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) just said, we face a large transfer of powers in all sorts of areas at the moment—in criminal justice, in City and business regulation, in the External Action Service and, soon, in economic governance. Any one of those areas would deserve a referendum, but the whole lot together would make a good package for testing out the Government’s new enthusiasm for democracy and the debating skills of the Opposition, who say that that is exactly what the British public want. What is stopping them, other than fear and the belief that, perhaps, the British public would not vote for such measures after all?
I am also worried about the assertion of the parliamentary sovereignty clause. My hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash) has probed and tested it, and there are legal dangers on the route that we are now taking. Sovereignty is something that we have for a period if we are prepared to use it, but it is also possible to let it slip away or to lose it, and we cannot make this Parliament sovereign by a single clause in a piece of legislation. It means nothing. This Parliament will be sovereign again only if it wishes to be; this Parliament will be sovereign again only if it has some political will; this Parliament will be sovereign again only on the day it says to the European Union, “We disagree with you on this. You will not give us what we want by negotiation, so we are going to legislate for ourselves.” Ministers should not pretend that this Bill has resolved the problem.
Let us take the issue of fish. I have heard Ministers, from all parties that have been in government, say to the House that they, like me, thoroughly disagree with the discard policy, think that it is wrong and intend to negotiate a better answer. No better answer has been negotiated. We gave the European Union 20 years’ warning. Why do we not simply legislate now to take ourselves out of the common fisheries policy and show that this Parliament is sovereign and works in the interests of the British people and a great British industry.
Mr Redwood
That’s great; I am very glad that I have the support, from a sedentary position, of Labour’s Back Benchers.
If this Parliament is never prepared to legislate against the views and wishes of the European Union, people will rightly conclude that the European Union is now sovereign. I mentioned in earlier debates on this legislation that the Crown remained sovereign for a long time in our country, and that Parliament whittled its powers away. There is no precise date on which people all agree that the Crown ceased to be sovereign and that Parliament replaced it, but the situation illustrates that, if we make too many concessions, make too many mistakes and grant too many powers on lease, one day we will not be able to get those powers back. The Crown discovered that it had given away too many powers and lost too many battles, and perhaps power finally resolved to Parliament on the day when they murdered—or killed—the King. That was a fairly definitive act, but it took place after a long series of battles and struggles when power had been ebbing away from the monarchy—and the monarchy was invited back.
I want no such violence in resolving the issue with the European Union, but I do want some political strength and some political substance. Surely, the European Union now does so many things that rile the British people that we should take matters into our own hands.
As my right hon. Friends on the Front Bench will always want to be diplomatic and to negotiate, I give them this final thought in the few minutes that I am allowed. The Germans, for their own reasons, think that they need a treaty change to accommodate the bail-out activities and the huge increase in economic governance powers that they intend to take over the other member states of euroland. They need our signature on that, even though we are not a member state of euroland.
I do not believe for one moment that we will be exempted from many of the requirements for information and common policy formation and negotiated solutions, even if we are opted out for the time being from the power of the fine. We will be dragged into the situation. I wish the Government would not only say, “We have no intention of being dragged into it and seek clearer language,” but to confirm that, say, “As proof of good faith, we want economic powers back.” The latest language from the Government suggests that we are going to keep control over the main elements of our taxation system, not our taxation system as a whole—a red line that the previous Government always said that they had attempted to preserve. We can see the drift in economic powers and economic governance.
The British Government must stand up for British interests. They will have no better chance than the new treaty that is about to be negotiated—so please, Government, use it, don’t lose it.