European Union (Amendment) Act 2008

Peter Bone Excerpts

Wednesday 16th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

Surely the key point about this debate is that we have a veto, and that gives us a lever? Most people in this country feel that EU integration has already gone far too far. Is it not the case that the Minister’s refusal to use that lever can only mean that our relationship with the EU will, sooner or later, have to be resolved through an in/out referendum?

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Lidington]

I will reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless), but first I give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone).

[Mr Bone]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way; he is being exceptionally generous, as always. Will some European countries use a referendum to ratify a change to a treaty?

[Mr Lidington]

It is obviously for those countries and their legal and constitutional systems to say how they will go about ratification, but when the proposal was discussed at General Affairs and External Relations Council meetings, at which I represented the United Kingdom, there was great concern among the member states that have provision for referendums in their constitutional arrangements to ensure that the agreed wording was such that it made it possible for them to ratify without triggering a referendum. I can remember Ministers from a couple of countries making those points very firmly. The president of the European Council, the Commission and the German Government who, it is no secret, had been promoting the need for a treaty change, accepted that. The language that we have is narrow in its scope and provides only for provisions affecting the countries that have the euro as their currency. It is for Ireland, the Netherlands and other countries to decide whether they need a referendum. My understanding is that those Governments think that that is not required.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr MacShane]

I thought the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) made an important intervention earlier this week about the Saudi invasion and occupation of Bahrain, but that is another point. I am sorry, but the hon. Member for Stone has put his finger on a very profound point, although I would not use the term “appeasement”.

I have affection for the Minister for Europe, who was like Horatio defending the bridge, fighting all by himself “for the ashes of his fathers and the temples of his Gods”, as the Tuscan hordes—the Eurosceptic hordes—bore down on him and tried to thrust him to one side in order to bring to bear their vision of what Britain should be like. This is a very serious development. The Government have used article 48(6) of the treaty of the European Union—the famous passerelle clause, which was not meant to be used.

We are agreed that part of the problem is connected with the budget freeze, about which the Minister spoke so passionately and proudly, but in exchange the President of France is going to get an absolute block on any common agricultural policy reform. Right hon. and hon. Members should have no illusions about that; if any part of Europe is frozen, it all tends to start freezing. In the agreed statement, although the new mechanism applies only to eurozone or euro-using members, it fully engages Britain. As the key statement we are debating tonight states:

“The Heads of State or Government of the euro area”—

that is not us—

“and the EU institutions have made it clear… that they stand ready to do whatever is required to ensure the stability of the euro area as a whole. The euro is and will remain a central part of European integration. In particular, the Heads called for determined action in the following areas”,

which were specified. The Heads of the European institutions speak for us. That means the President of the European Council. We appointed him, as we appointed the President of the European Parliament. Our MEPs elected him. I am afraid that this is not simply a matter solely and exclusively for the eurozone. Frankly, this might be a comfort blanket that my dear friend Horatio is trying to throw over the noisy bedsteads of the Tuscans behind him, but the fact is that this will commit Britain to take part in decisions that involve us as a nation.

When I said in a debate last week that the Prime Minister, after discussing the Libyan crisis on Friday, would be asked to leave the room, the hon. Member for Stone intervened, as some Members might remember, and read out a press release saying that the British Prime Minister would take part in these decisions on the architecture of economic governance of Europe as a whole. The hon. Member for Stone might care to recall that, last Friday, as soon as the Libyan discussions were over—they ended, frankly, in nothing, with bits of paper being waved around—the serious decisions of the European Council started and lasted all through Friday afternoon, Friday evening and Saturday. The Irish Prime Minister, the new one of the newly elected Government, went home, not achieving what the Irish people had voted for, but we were absent. This is what the Deputy Prime Minister rightly calls the “empty chair” policy of the present Government, which greatly worries me.

We will pass this legislation tonight, but I accept what the hon. Member for Stone said—this is a matter of high importance. I worry that we are slowly isolating ourselves from the main thrust of decision making in Europe. I think the Minister is putting up a firm defence. The Prime Minister, however, at Prime Minister’s Questions last week, dismissed the intervention of the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone)—I do not mean that unkindly, as I thought it was one of the nicest interventions ever. The hon. Gentleman appealed to the Prime Minister for an in-or-out referendum, but the Prime Minister effectively said on behalf of the British nation state that we are not leaving and that we are not going to a have a referendum, as we are part of Europe.

[Mr Bone]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr MacShane]

I have quoted the hon. Gentleman, so I suppose I should.

[Mr Bone]

I would like to correct the record. The Prime Minister gave his view on how he would vote in an in/out referendum, but he did not rule out either way whether we would have a referendum. He left that entirely open.

[Mr MacShane]

Yes, and I am going to win the lottery on Saturday! I think the Prime Minister was very clear that we are not going to have an in-or-out referendum and that we are staying in the EU. If we are to stay in the EU, it is better to work co-operatively and effectively in it. Unfortunately, the Government do not accept the consequences of their full membership of the EU. They are pretending—here we find that dear Horatio has been waving a wooden sword—that the measure before us somehow excludes Britain from future responsibilities. It does not; it will not: the European Union issue will go on and on for the rest of this Parliament.