Commons Chamber

 House of Commons

Tuesday 11 December 2007

The House met at half-past Two o’clock

Prayers

[Mr. Speaker in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions

Justice

The Secretary of State was asked—

Probation Trusts (Leicestershire)

David Taylor (North-West Leicestershire) (Lab/Co-op)
1. What assessment he has made of the likely impact of the creation of probation trusts on the provision of probation services in Leicestershire.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Maria Eagle)
Leicestershire and Rutland has been in the top three performing probation areas for a number of years. It applied to be in the first wave of probation trusts starting on 1 April 2008 and was accepted. The emphasis on local delivery and local commissioning will give Leicestershire and Rutland greater flexibility to meet local needs and will enable it to strengthen its performance further.

David Taylor
“Contestability”—as two words—is a prerequisite for prominent pugilists and synchronised swimmers, but as one word, it is an unnecessary framework for the delivery of offender supervision on the evidence of its application within probation so far. Will the Minister confirm that she still opposes outsourcing by dogma and explain how imposing on probation trusts a competitive market, with its attendant secretive contract culture, will not crush the co-operation that is so vital in ensuring the success of this public service in Leicestershire and elsewhere? Is this not just a privatisation that dare not speak its name?

Maria Eagle
My hon. Friend has been consistent in his opposition throughout the passage of national offender management legislation, and he continues his reputation in the House for asking witty questions—a tough thing to do with Question 1—but I disagree with him. This is not privatisation; it is about local autonomy and flexibility within a best value setting. I can tell my hon. Friend that, as we said during the passage of the legislation, there will be no compulsion to outsource. Ministers have given guarantees about work remaining with probation trusts. I expect Leicestershire and Rutland to go from strength to strength in providing even better quality services than they have thus far.

Adult Reoffending

Mr. Gordon Marsden (Blackpool, South) (Lab)
2. What steps his Department is taking to reduce adult re-offending rates.

The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Mr. David Hanson)
The Government are committed to reducing adult reoffending and the latest figures show that it is down by 5.8 per cent. since 2000. We are now consulting on a new strategic plan to build on our success in reducing reoffending.

Mr. Marsden
This is a good time of year to be talking about the power of redemption and the Minister’s words on the progress being made are extremely encouraging. I particularly welcome some of the imaginative schemes that emerged from the preceding and the current Department—work done with young offenders via HMP Kirkham near Blackpool, and the good work done in local communities. However, does my right hon. Friend agree that when offenders get out of custody and into the outside world, access to jobs and skills will be crucial in preventing reoffending? Does he also welcome, with me—[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker
Order. A supplementary question must be brief.

Mr. Hanson
My hon. Friend is exactly right that employment is one of the keys to the prevention of reoffending. He will know that, in two test-bed regions in the west midlands and the eastern region, we are trying to link employers outside in the community with work undertaken by offenders serving sentences in prisons. It is key that we look at the skills that people need when they leave prison and try to work with employers outside to prevent reoffending. The corporate alliance is doing some sterling work to link employers with offenders and ensure rising levels of employment.

Mr. Humfrey Malins (Woking) (Con)
Seventy per cent. of the defendants whom I have to sentence are addicted to crack cocaine or heroin. They go to prison, take more drugs, come out and reoffend. Does the Minister accept that drug residential rehab beds are a much better form of treatment than prison and are, in fact, cheaper?

Mr. Hanson
The hon. Gentleman is right in the sense that a very strong drug problem is linked to offending. One of the key pathways that we need to work on is how to reduce reoffending through work on drug abuse. I am happy to look further into his suggestions. We have put many resources into the prison system, and he will know that this year some 24,500 drug users are benefiting from clinical services in prison. I want to see more done, because stopping the drug problem and helping to prevent people from going back to the drug culture when they leave prison is one of the key ways in which we can reduce reoffending.

Alan Simpson (Nottingham, South) (Lab)
One of the most successful intervention projects in my own area has taken young people with a track record of multiple car thefts and involved them instead with work on building and racing stock cars. The wheelbase motor project, at a fraction of the cost involved in keeping such young people in prison, has been able to keep them out of prison and out of reoffending. The problem it has faced, however, is access to long-term secure funding. Has the Minister been able to look at how we can take the most successful interventionist projects and give them the security of funding that the voluntary sector often lacks?

Mr. Hanson
I know that the scheme that my hon. Friend mentions is very important. Indeed, my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor has visited the scheme and supports its objectives. I am keen to look at any imaginative scheme that can help to prevent reoffending. As the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Garston (Maria Eagle), said in answer to Question 1, we are now looking into how we can involve the voluntary sector, the private sector, local government and other agencies in working with the Prison Service and the probation service to add value to our attempts to prevent reoffending. I am particularly interested to look further into the schemes that work. If possible, I will gladly visit the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, South (Alan Simpson) to see that scheme in operation next time I am in Nottingham.

Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
According to the Government’s report “Re-offending of adults”, of those who spend up to a year in prison 70 per cent. reoffend, of those who spend up to two years in prison 49 per cent. reoffend, and of those who spend more than four years in prison only 35 per cent. reoffend. Does the Minister accept that that means that the longer people spend in prison the less likely they are to reoffend, and if he does, why does he keep letting them out early?

Mr. Hanson
I cannot agree with the hon. Gentleman that we should increase the length of prison sentences for some crimes of a lower order. What we need to do is what the Government are trying to do—tackle persistent offenders, and consider how to deal with issues relating to drugs, numeracy, literacy and employment.

One of the reasons why lower-level sentences are not working is that people go through a revolving door, but that does not lead me to conclude that we should increase the length of sentences for those serving under 12 months. I take the view that we should consider what we can do to prevent the causes of crime by tackling drug problems, placing people in employment and trying to introduce some order to what are often chaotic lives.

Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)
Does the Minister accept that the factors that contribute to reoffending among women are rather different from those that contribute to reoffending among men? One of the most significant factors for women is contact with their children. Does the Minister share my disappointment that the Department’s spending plans for new prisons do not include substantial investment in small units of the kind envisaged in the Corston report, enabling women to stay closer to their children and maintain contact with their families, thus making them less likely to reoffend?

Mr. Hanson
I know that my hon. Friend takes a keen interest in this issue. I am pleased to tell her that we have accepted in principle my noble Friend Lady Corston’s recommendation on small units, and that I have asked the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Garston (Maria Eagle), together with my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General and the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Stevenage (Barbara Follett), to take work forward over the next six months dealing with how we can make Lady Corston’s wish for small custodial units a reality. We also wish to consider—this is important—what we can do to remove women from custody altogether through community-based sentences for those who commit the low-level crimes referred to by the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies).

Donations (Political Parties)

Mr. David Heathcoat-Amory (Wells) (Con)
3. What guidance his Department has published on compliance with the law governing donations to political parties.

Mr. Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con)
4. If he will issue guidance to hon. Members and other members of political parties on the law on donations to political parties.

The Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor (Mr. Jack Straw)
The law relating to donations to political parties is principally set out in part IV and schedules 6 and 7 of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. Under that Act, it is for the Electoral Commission to issue guidance on the operation of the law. That guidance is available on the commission’s website, www.electoralcommission.org.uk. I have a copy here which I should be happy to pass to the right hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Heathcoat-Amory
Would it help if, rather than contemplating more legislation, the Labour party started to observe the law that it passed itself? Can the Secretary of State explain how it is that some trade unions pay the Labour party individual affiliation fees for more than 100 per cent. of their members, and will he advise the trade unions to stop that particular abuse before the police do so?

Mr. Straw
The right hon. Gentleman answered the end of his own question towards the end of his comments. Let me make it clear that there is absolutely no evidence that the trade unions have failed to observe the law, and the requirements made of them under both trade union and electoral law legislation. There was none up to 1998, when the Neill Committee on Standards in Public Life reported. At that stage the Conservatives, in full possession of all the evidence about levels of compliance, said that they had no plans whatsoever to change the law governing trade unions, and the Neill committee said the same. During the Hayden Phillips inquiries, however, we have accepted that changes are necessary, and I accepted that when I spoke in the House last Tuesday.

The test is really for the Conservative party, however. The Conservatives said that they welcomed the publication of Hayden Phillips’s report and accepted his main recommendations: exactly those words were used by the right hon. Members for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) and for Horsham (Mr. Maude). The question now is whether they will match their promise with undertakings to meet what Hayden Phillips set out.

Mr. Dunne
I listened carefully to the Secretary of State’s answer to the question asked by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wells (Mr. Heathcoat-Amory). Is the Secretary of State seriously condoning the Soviet-style practices of trade unions, which are affiliating more members to the Labour party than they themselves have as members? Many of those members do not have the opportunity to direct where affiliation fees are paid, and many of them vote Conservative.

Mr. Straw
What I can do is congratulate the hon. Gentleman on being able to read an article by Matthew Parris in The Times last Saturday that contained the ridiculous reference to Soviet-style operations. I admire his mimicry, if nothing else. I also say to him, yet again, that when we asked the Electoral Commission whether it had any evidence of a failure to comply with the spirit and the letter of the law in respect of trade union contributions, it said that it had none. The certification officer has reported that over the past 10 years three complaints have been made, only one of which has been upheld. We accept that the law in this area needs to be brought up to date—that has come out through the inquiries by Hayden Phillips in which we have participated—but the question for the Conservative party is whether, having accepted the full gamut of what he proposed, including spending limits at local and national level, it will back fine words with support for this policy.

Andrew Mackinlay (Thurrock) (Lab)
We are talking about smoke and mirrors, and funding of political parties. Does my right hon. Friend think that we could be told how Conrad Black got his peerage? Can we be reassured that the reason was nothing so grubby as to involve money? There is no logic as to why even the Conservative party would have asked that man. He does not attend the House of Lords—he soon will not be able to do so—and was not a national of this country, so I want to know why he was preferred over and above the many thousands of Conservative party activists.

Mr. Straw
I am afraid that the Conservative party moves in a mysterious way, and it is not for me to speculate as to those reasons. In our White Paper on House of Lords reform, we committed ourselves clearly to ensuring that the same disqualification rules apply when peers have been convicted of a criminal offence as apply to Members of this House—and the sooner, the better.

Mr. Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)
Will my right hon. Friend confirm that, after the Tories introduced legislation enforcing requirements for the trade unions to hold ballots every so many years in order to take part in political donations, that money was clean at the time when Asil Nadir gave £400,000-odd to the Tory party, which never came back? Does he also agree that that trade union money was clean in 1998 when the drug baron in China gave $1 million to the Tory party for a printing press in Reading—money that was never given back? In other words, throughout this period the trade union money has been clean and the bosses’ money to the Tory party has been dirty all the time.

Mr. Straw
My hon. Friend, as ever, is entirely accurate. The simple truth is that whatever smokescreen the Conservative party now wishes to erect around the issue of trade union money, it was the Conservative party, as he, I and others in this House recall, that sought time after time during the 1980s to change those laws to make it more difficult for trade unions to make contributions to the Labour party. The Conservatives thought that the ballot system would result in trade unions eschewing association with the Labour party, but through democratic voting, it turned out that they were wrong.

Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
Does the Lord Chancellor agree that when these important laws on political donations are broken, ignorance of the law can never be an excuse? Does he further agree that it is even more ridiculous to claim that no intentional wrongdoing has taken place, as some of his party have claimed?

Mr. Straw
What I say to the hon. Gentleman, because I am a generous fellow, is that on this occasion I agree with the Leader of the Opposition. In his press conference on 3 December, he made an important reference, saying that all parties make mistakes and that all of us have done this over the years. So we know that innocent mistakes and mistakes of compliance can be made.

Jim Sheridan (Paisley and Renfrewshire, North) (Lab)
Can my right hon. Friend confirm that any proposed changes to the law on party funding will apply throughout the UK?

Mr. Straw
Almost all electoral law is reserved and therefore any changes will apply throughout the UK.

Mrs. Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)
It is utterly astounding that the Lord Chancellor talks about the Conservative party when what is in question this afternoon is, as the Prime Minister himself has said at the Dispatch Box, that the Labour party has broken the law. I wonder what the Lord Chancellor is afraid of, because it is he who is hiding behind a smokescreen. The Government make the law and then try to find every possible way to get around it or indeed to break it. Does he accept that it is the Government’s very integrity and trustworthiness that are now at stake? It is his party that has broken the law and brought our democratic process itself into disrepute. It is his party that is in power, so the question is not what we are going to do, but what he is going to do to restore the faith of the British public in our democratic system.

Mr. Straw
I like the hon. Lady and she is held in great affection by the House, but synthetic ranting will not do her much good. It was this Government who established a full-scale inquiry into party funding in 1997 when the Conservatives had refused it for years. We introduced the laws on transparency that have ensured that, when they are transgressed, those failings are exposed. As the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, East (Bridget Prentice), spelled out when she wound up last Tuesday’s debate, no one on the Labour Benches excuses for a second things that have happened inside the Labour party that we greatly regret. We have made that absolutely clear, but my responsibilities are as a member of the Government, and we are proud of the legislation that we have introduced. I hope that there will be backing for what Hayden Phillips proposes, including for changes to the present lack of transparency in respect of unincorporated associations, which include not only the Midlands Industrial Council, which funded the campaign of the shadow Minister of Justice when his constituency of Arundel is miles away from the midlands, but Marginal Magic, which funded the Conservative campaign in Ludlow at the last election.

Mr. David Winnick (Walsall, North) (Lab)
Does my right hon. Friend accept that what is required is speedy legislation in the new year in order to stop the sort of abuse by which Lord Ashcroft is trying to buy up marginal constituencies? Is not that the sort of practice that should have stopped in the 19th century and can my right hon. Friend promise us that we will not have to wait too long for such a change in the law?

Mr. Straw
There is certainly an important case for changing the law—if it is possible, although it may not prove so—as Sir Hayden Phillips recommended. I hope that we can gain all-party agreement on that, but it may not be possible. Meanwhile, there are some important questions for the Conservative party to answer in respect of the tax status of some of its major donors. All of us remember last Tuesday when, time and again, the right hon. Member for Horsham (Mr. Maude) gave a carefully crafted but indirect answer to clear questions that were posed to him.

Carter Review

Mr. Mike Hall (Weaver Vale) (Lab)
5. What steps he is taking to implement the recommendations of the Carter review of prisons.

The Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor (Mr. Jack Straw)
I set out the Government’s plans to implement the Carter review in my statement to this House on 5 December. I announced an additional 10,500 prison places to come on stream by 2014, including up to three very large “titan” prisons, as recommended by Lord Carter, and funding towards that programme of £1.2 billion capital and resource. I will also establish a judicially led working group to consider the advantages, disadvantages and feasibility of a permanent sentencing commission.

Mr. Hall
I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer. Given the Home Secretary’s short-sighted and damaging decision this week not to implement in full the findings of the police pay review, what assessment has my right hon. Friend made of the Prison Service’s ability to manage prisoners in police cells, if police officers work to rule?

Mr. Straw
I am afraid that I do not accept my hon. Friend’s description of the decisions that the Government as a whole made on public sector pay, including pay for police officers. We have great admiration for the police. We have worked very hard—I did when I was Home Secretary, and all my successors have done so—to ensure that the police are properly rewarded, and they are. That is shown in high levels of retention and very high levels of interest in recruitment to the police service. On the so-called Operation Safeguard, which concerns the use of police cells, I have had no information whatever to say that it is likely to be affected by any suggestions of the kind that my hon. Friend mentions.

Sir Nicholas Winterton (Macclesfield) (Con)
While additional prison places are clearly long overdue—I am delighted that the Government have announced that a substantial number will be constructed in the coming years—does the Lord Chancellor not accept that what the Prison Service requires is more vocational training facilities and more genuine educational facilities, so that when people come out of prison, they have been rehabilitated and are given the opportunity to apply for jobs in the real world outside, and do not resort to criminality?

Mr. Straw
I am glad that the hon. Gentleman welcomes my announcement on Carter. It builds on the 20,000 places that have been provided in the past 10 years—that is twice the rate under our predecessors. The figures include 1,400 places this calendar year and 2,300 next year. I accept what he says about the importance of expanding education and training in our Prison Service. They have improved dramatically in the past decade. More than 23,500 offenders were engaged in learning in the Prison Service this June, and spending on offender learning has almost trebled since 2001, but we can still do more, and I am glad to have the hon. Gentleman’s support on that.

Mr. Mark Todd (South Derbyshire) (Lab)
We must also address the quality of the existing provision of prison places. I do not know whether my right hon. Friend’s Department has drawn his attention to the inquest results on Martin Green, my constituent who died in Blakenhurst prison in the summer of 2002. It is perhaps revealing that the inquest took so long to arrive at a conclusion. Is my right hon. Friend prepared to meet relatives of Mr. Green to discuss the appalling lack of care that the inquest revealed? I have seen the post-mortem results, and the case has the nearest resemblance of any that I have seen to that of someone from a concentration camp—a victim of the Nazis.

Mr. Straw
I do not want to comment on that individual case, except to say to my hon. Friend that of course I will make arrangements to see the bereaved relatives. Our hearts go out to the family and friends of any prisoner who dies in such circumstances, and indeed to the staff concerned. The Prison Service has worked extremely hard better to identify prisoners who are at risk of self-harm, although it cannot be a perfect science, and to reduce considerably the number of deaths in custody.

David Howarth (Cambridge) (LD)
May I bring the Secretary of State back to the issue of the titan prisons that he announced? Will he tell the House on what Lord Carter bases his conclusion that such gigantic prisons will be more effective than smaller, local prisons? That seems to go against the evidence that the inspectorate has gained over many years. On the face of it, Lord Carter appears to suggest very large, low-staffed, panopticon-style prisons of the sort that have brought the Californian prison system to its knees.

Mr. Straw
There is absolutely no comparison between anything that happens, or will happen, in the Prison Service in England and Wales and the appalling situation faced by the Californian prison system, where hundreds of prisoners are currently packed into gymnasiums. The Californian state now spends more on the prison service than on education. I can reassure the hon. Gentleman in that respect. Lord Carter bases his proposals on cost-effectiveness, and on his view on the effectiveness of such large prisons. As to whether the prisons will be local, yes, they can be. For example, there is an urgent need for more prison accommodation in London and the south-east, particularly to the east of the great conurbation. I see no reason why a local prison cannot be provided within a very large establishment, as with three smaller ones. Finally, it is perfectly possible within the perimeters of a large establishment to operate different regimes, so that one has the benefits of scale as well as the benefits of smaller prisons and better regimes.

Mr. David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)
Despite the fact that the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, the right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr. Hanson), offered supportive words to my hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr. Malins) about drug addiction in prisons, why did drug treatment and rehabilitation barely get a mention in Lord Carter’s review or the Secretary of State’s response last week? How will the Secretary of State ensure that prisons have a purpose other than warehousing addiction to drugs and a propensity to reoffend?

Mr. Straw
The purpose of prisons has improved dramatically, as has the reality in the past decade. We do not have warehousing of prisoners. That is an easy thing for the hon. Gentleman to say, but he should go back to the situation that existed 10, 20 or 30 years ago. He should look at the riots that took place in prisons and the continual inquiries that had to take place. He should take note, too, of the fact that there has been a 997 per cent. increase in drug treatment in prisons since 1996-97, with record numbers engaged in such treatment. If he supports that, fine, but he must recognise the great work that has taken place over the past 10 years.

Rob Marris (Wolverhampton, South-West) (Lab)
If we cut reoffending we would not need to build so many prisons. May I echo the comments of the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Sir Nicholas Winterton) about prison education? Will my right hon. Friend assure me that per capita spending on education for young people in the secure estate will be, and will remain, at least at the level of per capita spending on secondary school pupils?

Mr. Straw
My hon. Friend asked me a very specific question, so I shall write to him. However, a great effort has been put into education in secure establishments for young people as well as in establishments for adults. Ultimately, the responsibility for cutting offending rests with criminals, but we can provide facilities and support, as we have done for young offenders and their families. However, offenders must make a decision—it is their responsibility, as it was their decision to get involved in crime—to get out of crime. We will help them, but they have to make that decision.

Data Protection

Mr. Andrew Mackay (Bracknell) (Con)
6. What steps he is taking to prevent the unauthorised release of personal data by his Department.

The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Mr. Michael Wills)
The Ministry of Justice has procedures and guidance governing security, information security and data protection, designed to identify and control the risk of the unauthorised release of personal data. They include ensuring that our sites are physically secure and protected from unauthorised access; ensuring that our employees are reliable through checks on their background; providing guidance to staff on general security, with separate guidance on IT security and data protection issues; and procedures for assessing IT systems. We also have systems for monitoring and checking compliance, and those policies and procedures extend to our contracted IT suppliers.

Of course, there can never be a cast-iron guarantee that human errors will not occur or that there will never be any unauthorised releases of information, so we must remain vigilant. Even before the deeply regrettable incident at Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, the Prime Minister commissioned the Walport-Thomas review under the auspices of the Ministry of Justice into the way in which personal data are used and protected in the public and private sector. In addition, we previously announced that we would amend the Data Protection Act 1998 to increase the penalty for knowingly and recklessly misusing personal data, so that those found guilty of that offence could be imprisoned for up to two years.

Mr. Mackay
The Information Commissioner has said that he should have powers to carry out spot checks in Government Departments and other bodies to ensure that they comply with data protection legislation. Does the Minister agree with Richard Thomas?

Mr. Wills
Yes, we do. We are implementing that, and giving Richard Thomas the powers.

Mr. Brian Jenkins (Tamworth) (Lab)
Will my hon. Friend give us an assurance on personal data and confirm that prisoners’ medical records are securely contained but can be regularly accessed by GPs?

Mr. Wills
The data protection rules must apply to everybody but, where necessary and with proper protections, access will be given to the appropriate people.

Mr. Henry Bellingham (North-West Norfolk) (Con)
Will the Minister of State confirm that C-NOMIS, the computer programme for the National Offender Management Service, is designed to track data on individual offenders from court into prison and thence when they are released back into the community? Is it true that Roger Hill, the Director of Probation, has announced that C-NOMIS is to be put on hold and scaled back for use in prisons alone, thus undermining its whole purpose? Is this not a case of £155 million down the drain, and yet another example of Government incompetence?

Mr. Wills
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his ingenuity in managing to ask that question during a question about data protection. The answer to his question is no, it is not true.

European Court of Human Rights

John Robertson (Glasgow, North-West) (Lab)
7. How many cases brought by prisoners under human rights legislation went to the European Court of Human Rights in the last five years.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Bridget Prentice)
The Government are not routinely informed by the court of all applications containing complaints against the United Kingdom. Therefore, no statistics are held centrally on the number of applications against the UK made by prisoners in the past five years. However, since 1 January 2003 judgments or admissibility decisions in at least 41 ECHR cases in which the applicant was a prisoner have been communicated to the United Kingdom.

John Robertson
My hon. Friend will be aware of the ruling in the House of Lords at the end of October that the 12-month rule on applications under human rights law did not apply in Scotland. Thus, £70 million in compensation may be paid to prisoners. With the recent case of a prisoner who was denied IVF treatment getting a €5,000 award from the court through the convention, does my hon. Friend think that the convention is tipped the wrong way, and that it is time we started thinking of victims and put an end to this ludicrous state of affairs?[Official Report, 18 December 2007, Vol. 469, c. 1MC.]

Bridget Prentice
My hon. Friend refers to the judgment in Somerville and others v. Scottish Ministers. The Government are disappointed by the Grand Chamber’s judgment and are studying it with great care. As he says, it has an effect on time scales for bringing actions, but clarifies the legal structure of the Scotland Act 1998. Careful consideration is required across Government here in Westminster and by Scottish Ministers.

On my hon. Friend’s general point, allegations of breaches of convention rights are dealt with by the courts, which weigh the evidence and decide the outcome according to law. If, at the end of that legal process, the outcome is such that the Government believe that a change in the law is necessary, the appropriate legislative arrangements must be made.

Mr. Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
There are 11,211 foreign national prisoners in prisons in England and Wales, making up 14 per cent. of the prison population. Is it the Human Rights Act that prevents those people from being returned to secure detention in their own countries? My understanding is that their consent is required before they are returned to their country of origin. Most people in this country would like to see them sent back, even if they did not consent.

Bridget Prentice
The hon. Gentleman needs to be brought up to date with some of the facts and figures. The Government have managed to get 100 agreements with other countries in order to have foreign national prisoners returned. The 14 per cent. that the hon.  Gentleman mentions is the second lowest percentage in the whole of western Europe. If he really wants to find where problems lie, he needs to look elsewhere.

Anne Moffat (East Lothian) (Lab)
In these cases, has there been any dialogue about the barbaric practice of handcuffing women to beds when they are in labour and giving birth?

Bridget Prentice
My hon. Friend refers to a disgraceful practice during the last Conservative Administration. I can assure her that this Government will make sure that such practices do not occur under our watch, or ever again.

Miss Anne McIntosh (Vale of York) (Con)
Can the hon. Lady advise the House of the position under the human rights legislation of a householder or a property owner who defends their property, family or possessions from a burglary and is subsequently accused of assault? Can they be given the full protection of the law?

Bridget Prentice
I know that the hon. Lady takes a considerable interest in this matter, and I believe that she introduced a private Member’s Bill on the subject some time ago. I understand her concerns, and she is quite right that such a person is entitled to full protection under the law, and would get it.

Prison Service (Lancashire)

Mr. Lindsay Hoyle (Chorley) (Lab)
8. What assessment he has made of trends in levels of recruitment into the Prison Service in Lancashire; and if he will make a statement.

The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Mr. David Hanson)
Since 2000, the average recruitment of prison officers in the north-west, including Lancashire prisons, has been 200 a year. Taking account of turnover and the provision of increased capacity, the Prison Service expects to recruit 340 new officers in the north-west by March 2009, and a new national recruitment campaign will be launched in January 2008.

Mr. Hoyle
As my right hon. Friend is aware, retention is a key issue, and the way to achieve that is through morale within the Prison Service. He may or may not be aware—I have mentioned it once before—of morale at Wymott. What can he do to ensure that morale is lifted and that the Prison Officers Association and the governor get on better working terms, so that retention is key to the prison’s future?

Mr. Hanson
As I said in last week’s debate, I shall be happy to receive any representations that my hon. Friend wishes to make so that I and the management team can address specific issues. The resignation rate among officers in Lancashire this year is just 1.3 per cent. against the national figure of 2 per cent. I shall certainly consider the issues that he raises, but there is strong stability in the Prison Service staff in Lancashire at the moment.

Youth Reoffending

Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
9. What steps he is taking to prevent young people from reoffending.

The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Mr. David Hanson)
Between 2000 and 2005, youth reoffending reduced by 2.5 per cent. The Youth Justice Board has worked with partners to improve practice to ensure that the right performance frameworks and indicators are in place, and to put in place a delivery plan to reduce reoffending still further.

Andrew Gwynne
Given what my right hon. Friend says and the real achievements of the youth offending team, the Prison Service and probation officers in Tameside and Stockport, what more can the Government do to ensure that once young people have served their punishment, they receive the support, help and intervention necessary to keep them on the straight and narrow, particularly in relation to housing and access to the employment market?

Mr. Hanson
My hon. Friend raises important points. We need to ensure that we reduce reoffending among under-18s in custody, which stands at approximately 76 per cent. We need to consider what help we can give with accommodation, and pilot projects are operational. We also need to ensure that we invest in skill development and learning, which is why I welcome the Prime Minister’s establishment of the joint unit between the Department for Children, Schools and Families and my Department to work together to manage the Youth Justice Board so that we can consider education and skill development, which are key to the prevention of further reoffending.

Mr. Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
Does the Minister agree that one way to stop young people from reoffending is to have fairness in the justice system? My constituent, Mr. Shalish Patel has been charged with a serious offence and is correctly remanded in prison, but in Birmingham, not at the local remand prisons of Bedford or Woodhill, and his family is particularly concerned—

Mr. Speaker
Order. The person concerned has been charged, so the matter is sub judice and it would be best to move on.

Sarah McCarthy-Fry (Portsmouth, North) (Lab/Co-op)
I welcome the drop in youth offending rates, but what is being done to spread examples of best practice in different parts of the country to ensure that we have a unified approach so that levels can drop still further?

Mr. Hanson
The Under-Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills, my hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr. Lammy), and I are looking carefully, through the inter-ministerial group on the prevention of reoffending, at what works, and with the Minister for Children, Young People and Families, my right hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Beverley Hughes), through the joint management of the Youth Justice Board, we are considering good practice. The YOTs do a tremendous job. I have seen examples at first hand throughout the country of where they have made real interventions in reducing crime, and I am sure that that is true in Portsmouth, where my hon. Friend has taken a great interest in preventing youth crime. I shall certainly be considering whatever good examples hon. Members can produce with a view to putting them into practice throughout the country.

Dr. Brian Iddon (Bolton, South-East) (Lab)
One of the difficulties of preparing people in prison for life outside is the constant movement of prisoners, which prevents them from completing education and drug treatment courses. Is the situation any better for young offenders than it is for the rest of prison population?

Mr. Hanson
We need to do better on the whole question of drug use and drug treatment for young people. As the hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Malins) said, one of the key drivers of youth crime is involvement with drugs, both before entry to prison or youth offending institutions and sometimes, sadly, afterwards. We need to do intensive work on the issue, and I am keen to see how we can build on that. At the moment we are examining drugs policy in young offender institutions.

Donations (Political Parties)

Bob Spink (Castle Point) (Con)
10. What recent representations he has received on compliance with the law on donations to political parties.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Bridget Prentice)
As far as I am aware, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor has received no representations on compliance with the law on donations in his capacity as Secretary of State for Justice.

Bob Spink
The Minister is a wise lady. Why does she not accept that the law must be upheld even when those breaking it claim ignorance and say that there was no intentional wrongdoing? When will she treat union donors on a par with other donors and get on with the cross-party talks?

Bridget Prentice
We have already been over that ground in some detail, both last week and earlier today. We certainly believe that the law must be upheld. I assure the hon. Gentleman that my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor has already set in train arrangements to meet the other political parties so that cross-party talks can begin again. I hope that the Conservative party will take a more positive attitude than it has during the past couple of months.

Topical Questions

Mr. Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con)
T1.  If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

The Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor (Mr. Jack Straw)
My principal responsibilities are to help protect victims and the public, to help secure a reduction in offending and reoffending better to support the delivery of justice, to promote a vigorous democracy and to create a culture of rights and responsibilities.

Mr. Dunne
Can the Secretary of State confirm reports that half those who received indeterminate sentences of imprisonment for public protection in 2005 for sexual assault or paedophile offences received a tariff of two years or less? Will he also confirm that under his proposed reform those dangerous offenders would no longer be eligible for an IPP and would be released, regardless of the risks that they posed?

Mr. Straw
As my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett), Home Secretary at the time, has confirmed and as I have noted from Hansard reports of debates in Committee, the House and the other place, when the proposals for indeterminate sentences of imprisonment for public protection went before the House, there was never any suggestion that the IPPs would be used for very short sentences. When the amendments to the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill are discussed, we will be able to debate the detail of the issue. I am determined that IPPs should remain available for serious, persistent and dangerous offenders.

I should also say that it is very rare for courts to sentence such offenders for tariffs of less than two years. It must be a matter of concern to Members on both sides of the House, as it is to sentencers and the Parole Board, that inadequacy in the drafting of the legislation has meant that in one case a tariff of 28 days was issued. That is unsatisfactory in terms of public protection. In many other cases, there have been very short tariffs as well.

Mr. Christopher Fraser (South-West Norfolk) (Con)
T2.  Since June, more than 160 offenders, including those convicted for sexual and violent crimes, have been released early from prisons in Norfolk. Why are the Government letting prison capacity rather than the crime dictate the length of sentences?

The Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor (Mr. Jack Straw)
We discussed that issue last Wednesday during the debate on the Carter report. The truth is that all parties have always accepted, albeit implicitly, that prison capacity determines to a degree the overall level of sentences. That is why even the Conservative party, in rather atavistic mood, has eschewed the idea of the Americans, who now sentence people to five times the level of imprisonment in this country.

We are seeking a more rational approach—and I thought that we had the support of the hon. Gentleman’s Front Bench—so that when proposals for changes in sentencing are made in advance, the effect on prison capacity and resources can be properly taken into account. The House and the Government can then make a good judgment about whether to provide the capacity. I should also say that we have already increased the prison population twice as fast as the Government whom the hon. Gentleman supported. An extra 20,000 places will be provided in the period to 2014.

Mr. David Kidney (Stafford) (Lab)
T3.  Has this splendidly attentive team of Ministers spotted the petition placed on the No. 10 website by my constituent, Richard Ellison, protesting that he and other magistrates must retire from service at the age of 70, irrespective of their capability in continuing to serve their constituents? Do my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench agree that in this day and age, with an EU directive on age discrimination, UK regulations on age discrimination, and the demographic changes that have taken place, it is outdated to rely on an age bar alone?

Mr. David Winnick (Walsall, North) (Lab)
Absolutely.

Mr. Kidney
We should rely on appraisals instead.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Maria Eagle)
The answer to the first part of my hon. Friend’s question is, yes, we have spotted the petition that his constituent has placed on the No. 10 website. He is right that the recent age regulations could be applied to judicial office-holders, including magistrates. We have no plans at present to raise the retirement age, despite the protestations of some of the more venerable Members behind me, but we obviously keep the matter under review.

Mr. David Heathcoat-Amory (Wells) (Con)
T4.  Is the Department aware of any prisoners who have been released early in the west country and who have offended again? If the Department or the Prison Service has released any such dangerous prisoners early, what steps are being taken to alert the local police to that possible eventuality?

The Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor (Mr. Jack Straw)
The local police are routinely informed of releases of prisoners, including those released under the end of custody licence scheme. I will write to the right hon. Gentleman with details of those who have been released in his own area of the west country. The end of custody licence scheme simply releases prisoners 18 days earlier than they would otherwise have been released, and they remain on licence during that period. Quite a number have been recalled because of the strength and efficacy of our recall arrangements.

David Taylor (North-West Leicestershire) (Lab/Co-op)
T6.  A couple of weeks ago, a report by Mind entitled “Another assault” revealed that people with mental health problems suffer shockingly high levels of crime and victimisation but are reluctant to report incidents, not least because when they do, in an overwhelming number of cases, they receive a poor service from the criminal justice system. What is being done to increase confidence in the criminal justice system on the part of those who have mental ill-health problems?

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Maria Eagle)
My hon. Friend is right that there are certain vulnerable groups who find it hard to deal with the criminal justice system when they come into contact with it. He will be aware that we have taken a lot of steps in the past few years to try to support victims of crime and to ensure that we can take them through the criminal justice system in a much more supportive environment than has necessarily been the case in the past. Certainly, victims of crime who have mental ill health would benefit from the work that is being done, but I would be the first to admit that we need to continue to work hard and do more to ensure that victims of crime who are vulnerable for whatever reason, including those who have mental ill health, are properly supported through the system, and we are determined to do that.

Nick Herbert (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)
In June, Andrew Mournian was jailed for 20 weeks for battery after attacking his partner, Amanda Murphy. He had previous convictions for violence and assault. On 18 August, having been released from jail, Mr. Mournian again attacked Mrs. Murphy, but this time he brutally murdered her. He was convicted last week. It now transpires that Mr. Mournian had been released early from prison under the Government’s end of custody licence scheme, and he killed Mrs. Murphy five days later, when he should have been behind bars. What does the Secretary of State have to say to Mrs. Murphy’s relatives about the Government’s decision to release such offenders early?

The Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor (Mr. Jack Straw)
This was a shameful murder, and as with any murder, our heart goes out to the relatives and friends of the victim. But I hope, since the hon. Gentleman wishes to make something of this terrible incident, that he will take note of what the learned judge—a senior High Court judge, Mrs. Justice Swift—said in her sentencing remarks. When sentencing Mournian to life imprisonment and ordering that he serve a minimum tariff of 14 years, she said that she did not believe that the defendant’s early release had led to Miss Murphy’s death. She went on to say that the defendant would have carried out the attack whenever he was released.

It is a huge matter of regret that this happened at all, but it is extremely difficult, given what the learned judge who heard the details of the case said—and neither the hon. Gentleman nor I have done so—to say that his early release was a contributory factor to this murder.

Nick Herbert
The Secretary of State just told the House that one of his principal duties was to ensure public safety. It will be of no consolation at all to the relatives of Mrs. Murphy to be told by anybody that she might have been murdered at some future point. The fact is that her murderer should have been behind bars at that point. He was not because the Government had failed to provide enough prison places and had released that offender on to the streets, along with, it must be said, 11,000 other offenders, including violent offenders released early—before the end of their sentence and without risk assessment. Lord Carter’s report last week said that end of custody licence—

Mr. Speaker
Order. I am always reluctant to stop a Front Bencher, but topical questions are meant to be sharp and brief. If a Front Bencher is going to come in during topical questions, there cannot be long supplementaries. A Front Bencher is the same as everybody else; it is one supplementary, and the hon. Gentleman has gone on to another matter.

Mr. Straw
On the substantive point, I have already answered the hon. Gentleman. We regret the fact that the early custody licence was necessary. On the whole, it has worked to ensure the safety of the public. Of the 11,000 offenders released on to ECL, we have been notified of only 1 per cent. having committed a further offence. That is a much lower rate of reoffending than is found among prisoners normally released.

The second thing that the hon. Gentleman has to appreciate is that these are offenders, whatever crimes they have committed, who would have been released 18 days—two and a half weeks—later. [Interruption.] It is not an excuse. Whatever points he wants to make, he has to take account of the remarks made by the learned judge in this case. She was convinced that this man would have carried out the attack whenever he was released.

Mr. Andrew Mackay (Bracknell) (Con)
T5.  The Justice Secretary will be aware that more than 2,000 of the 11,000 prisoners released early were serving time for violent offences. Should he not be reviewing the criteria so that absolutely no violent offenders at least are released early from prison?

The Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor (Mr. Jack Straw)
If I may say so, the right hon. Gentleman makes an important point. We keep the criteria under continuous review. At the moment, we judge that there are sufficient places. We shall certainly, as a first step, remove any offenders of violence from the list, and my aim is to abandon ECL altogether, once we see that there is space to abandon it safely.

Mr. Jim Cunningham (Coventry, South) (Lab)
T7.  May I ask my right hon. Friend what the reoffending rates were for Coventry and the west midlands in 1997?

The Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor (Mr. Jack Straw)
Off the top of my head—[Laughter.] I keep many figures in my head, but I am afraid to say that the reoffending rates for Coventry and the west midlands are not among them. However, I can tell my hon. Friend that reconviction rates have improved considerably and for prisoners serving over four years—[Interruption.] I do not know what the difference between reconviction and reoffending is according to the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr. Burrowes), unless he has a way by which people can be convicted without going to court. The reconviction rate has shown a 13.4 per cent. improvement for those serving sentences of four years or more.

Mr. David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)
T8.  Does not the Minister realise that there is real concern nationally about the early release scheme? He has confirmed that more than 25,000 offenders will be released every year under this scheme. How many more people are going to be subject to brutal murder or attack unless he acts on this matter?

The Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor (Mr. Jack Straw)
I have answered the burden of the hon. Gentleman’s question. We are talking about a release 18 days before those offenders would have been released in any case. My constituents may be different from his, but ours are a good cross-section of the British people. My constituents are pleased about the fact that crime has gone down by 30 per cent. in the past 10 years, which includes violent crime, while burglary has gone down by 50 per cent. That compares with the terrible record of the Administration whom the hon. Gentleman supported, under whom crime did not go down, even by 1 per cent., but doubled over 18 years.

Chris McCafferty (Calder Valley) (Lab)
T9.  Given that the Solicitor-General has said that rape is an incredibly difficult crime to prosecute, how will my right hon. Friend ensure that all parts of the criminal justice system work together to support victims and secure better rates of conviction?

The Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor (Mr. Jack Straw)
We are working hard better to improve convictions for rape. The number of offenders who have been convicted of rape has increased significantly. The proportion of those who are brought to court has gone down, however, because of the even bigger increase in the numbers being prosecuted. We are currently running a consultation on “Convicting Rapists”, which was published in the spring, which is looking at all sorts of detail in the process, including whether to allow adult victims of rape to give video-recorded evidence at trial, whether to define in law a rape complainant’s capacity to give consent to sex where drink or drugs are involved and many other matters, because we are all of the same view: we have to improve the conviction rate for this terrible crime.

Mr. Paul Burstow (Sutton and Cheam) (LD)
T10.  According to the Government’s own research,  40 older people in this country are the victims of elder abuse every hour of every day, whether that be theft or violence against the person in their own home. When will the Government act on the recommendations that the Law Commission made more than 10 years ago and put in place the necessary protections for such vulnerable adults in our society?

The Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor (Mr. Jack Straw)
The Minister of State, my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Mr. Wills), is working closely on that, better to ensure that the reports and recommendations of the Law Commission, where they enjoy a consensus throughout the Chamber and in the other place, can be more swiftly enacted than in the past. Since the Law Commission was established in the 1960s, it has done important work, but there is no question but that we need to do better at implementing its recommendations.

Children’s Plan

15:32:00

The Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families (Ed Balls)
The first ever children’s plan, which we are publishing today, follows months of consultation with parents, teachers, professionals and children and young people up and down the country.

Over the past 10 years, the lives of children have improved. School standards are up, child poverty is down, and we have many more outstanding schools and many fewer failing schools. However, following our detailed consultations, the results of which I have laid before the House, I have concluded that we need further reforms to deliver a world-class education for every child and that we must do more to prevent children from falling behind or failing to fulfil their potential because of learning difficulties, poverty or disadvantage. I have also concluded that, although there are many more opportunities for young people today than ever before, families want more help to manage the new pressures that they face: balancing work and family life; dealing with the internet and modern commercialism; and letting children play while staying safe. The children’s plan is our response.

Let me deal first with the new measures to support the learning of every child. The early years are critical; so as we raise the entitlement to free nursery care for all three and four-year-olds from 12 to 15 hours, we will allocate more than £200 million over the next three years, to ensure that young children receive the highest quality care in their early years, with at least two graduates in nurseries in the most disadvantaged areas, and to extend the offer of free nursery places to 20,000 two-year-olds in the most disadvantaged communities.

School standards are rising, but I want to accelerate the improvement. I have therefore asked Sir Jim Rose to undertake a root and branch review of the primary curriculum to create more space for teaching the basics—English and maths, and a foreign language—in all primary schools, and also to ensure all children start secondary school with the personal skills to succeed. If our making good progress trials are successful, we will implement age not stage testing nationally, which will represent the biggest reform to national curriculum assessment since its creation. To back our teachers, I am today allocating £44 million over the next three years so that all new teachers will be able to study for a masters-level qualification and to establish a new future leaders programme to bring even more talented people into teaching.

Supporting parents is central to this children’s plan. In future, every parent will have a record of their child’s development and education through the early years and into primary school. The Minister for Schools and Learners will consult parents and schools over the next few months—and legislate, if necessary—to ensure that every child has a personal tutor who stays with them as they progress through secondary school; that every parent receives up-to-date information about their child’s progress, attendance and behaviour, using real-time reporting and new technologies such as mobile phones or the internet; and that every secondary school has a parents’ council, so that parents know what they can expect, how they will be consulted and how they can express concerns and complaints.

Parents also want earlier intervention if their child falls behind. Alongside one-to-one support for reading and maths at primary school and our new every child a writer programme, I am allocating £18 million over the next three years to improve initial teacher training about special educational needs and to find new ways to identify dyslexia earlier. Following the Bercow review, Ofsted will lead a review into our special educational needs provision in 2009.

In our consultation, head teachers told us that schools needed more support from other services to tackle all barriers to learning. Today, one in 10 children have a diagnosed mental health problem, but schools repeatedly say how hard it is to get the child and adolescent mental health services—CAMHS—to engage with them early enough. So I have agreed with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health that we will launch a review of CAMHS, to investigate how it can work better with schools and to identify where early support is most needed. Our two Departments will also produce the first ever child health strategy in the spring.

We will also enhance inspection across schools and children’s services, and examine whether children’s trust arrangements need to be strengthened, including through further legislation if necessary. To improve services for parents further, and to enable better early intervention, we will publish new guidance for the building schools for the future programme, to ensure that where possible schools are designed to be co-located with other services—health, police, social care, advice and welfare services. Furthermore, because schools must be sustainable for our children, and their children, we will set a new ambition that all new schools be zero carbon by 2016.

With the reforms that I have already announced to the House to tackle failing and coasting schools, to expand the academies and trusts programme, to raise the education leaving age to 18 and to introduce new diplomas, this children’s plan will set us on course to deliver ambitious long-term goals for a world-class education for every child.

Discipline in schools is essential for raising standards. We have given teachers new powers to tackle bad behaviour, and 97 per cent. of schools are now in behaviour partnerships, co-ordinating behaviour and exclusions policy, which Sir Alan Steer recommended should include all schools by 2008. I am minded to implement that recommendation in 2008, and I am asking Sir Alan to assess progress on all his proposals and to make recommendations in the spring.

We will also strengthen the regulation of pupil referral units, improve the quality of provision and pilot a range of alternatives; that could be one role for studio schools. To break cycles of reoffending among young people, the Home Secretary and I are together allocating £66 million over the next three years to target support at the young people most at risk of getting into crime. As we prepare our youth crime action plan, we will reform the education and resettlement of young offenders and pilot the use of restorative justice from April 2008.

Our consultation reports that, while parents are clear that it is their job to bring up their families, they want more information and support to help them keep their children safe and healthy. Our children’s plan includes the provision of £167 million over the next three years to fund two new expert parenting advisers in every local authority area, expand family learning, support young carers and deliver new support for families with disabled children.

Dr. Tanya Byron is investigating the potential risks to children from harmful or inappropriate material on the internet and in video games, and will report next March. We will make proposals on young people and alcohol in the spring and investigate how the huge increase in commercial activity, advertising and marketing aimed specifically at children and young people is affecting their well-being.

I have two further announcements. In our consultation, children and young people told us that they wanted more places to play, interesting things to do outside school and recognition for their achievements. Earlier this year, my right hon. Friend the Minister for Children, Young People and Families set out our 10-year strategy for young people, with an ambition to have new youth facilities and places for young people to go to in every constituency of the country. It will be funded by proceeds from unclaimed assets and new investment from my Department.

I want us to start to transform youth services now, so, before the unclaimed assets legislation takes effect we will invest an additional £160 million over the next two years to develop high-quality youth facilities for young people, shaped by young people. That could mean 50 new state-of-the-art youth centres, 500 refurbished youth centres or more than 2,000 smaller centres, including mobile units. The funding will be available for every part of the country, and that will start in April. I urge all hon. Members to start working with young people, the voluntary sector and their local community to draw up local plans and prepare to bid for that money.

Finally, to help parents to keep their children safe while playing outside, I can also announce that we will launch a new national play strategy early next year. To make that a reality, from next April we will build 30 safe and supervised adventure play parks in disadvantaged areas. With a total investment of £225 million over the next three years we will also be able to build or upgrade more than 3,500 play areas across the country. There will be an average of 23 per local authority area and seven per constituency. That will be the largest Government investment in children’s play in our history.

With schools, children’s services, the voluntary sector and Government all playing their part and meeting their responsibilities, and with the £1 billion over the next three years we are allocating today to meet our children’s plan commitments, we can unlock the talents and promote the health and happiness of all children, and not just some; back parents as they meet their responsibilities to bring up their children; and intervene early so that no child or young person is left to fall behind. We will make our country the best place in the world for children to grow up. That is the mission of this Government and the children’s plan, which I commend to the House.

Michael Gove (Surrey Heath) (Con)
May I first welcome those aspects of the children’s plan that provide focused help for the most vulnerable in our society? We support the extension of a child care entitlement to the parents of two-year-old children in the most disadvantaged circumstances. I also commend the Secretary of State for his work on special needs and his plans to improve the provision of respite care for the families of children who are living with disabilities—a cause that is close to his heart, which he has consistently championed. It does him credit.

The Secretary of State is right that our children face a world that is full of greater opportunities and greater risks than ever before. However, the background to the children’s plan, sadly, is a world in which our children are falling behind those of other nations. Last week, we discovered that we have fallen from fourth to 14th in the international league tables for science, from seventh to 17th for reading, and from eighth to 24th for maths. How does the Secretary of State explain why we were in the top 10 for all those subjects when the children sitting the tests had the majority of their education under a Conservative Government, whereas we plummeted down the rankings, relegated to the second division, when those sitting the tests had all their education under a Labour Government? Is not every external audit of our education system a story of Labour failure? Is not it time to acknowledge the limitations of the top-down micro-management and political interference of the old Labour approach and embrace genuine reform?

Today, the Secretary of State announces a review of the primary curriculum to clear away the clutter. It sounds attractive. However, at the same time, the Department is pressing ahead with a pre-primary school curriculum, with 576 different targets for professionals, which prescribes exactly how toddlers should

“rub a rusk around the tray of a feeding chair… show delight by kicking and waving… use gloop”,

which is helpfully defined as,

“(cornflower and water in small trays) so babies can enjoy putting fingers into it and then lifting them out”.

How can the Secretary of State credibly say that he is clearing away the clutter and empowering professionals when he is sticking his fingers into everything and generating gloop on an industrial scale?

The Secretary of State says that he wants parents to be more involved in their children’s education. Does not he realise that that involves trusting, not lecturing parents? Only last week, Ministers blamed parents for our slide in the literacy league tables. Parents should read more to their children, the Department dictated. However, did not the report that showed us falling behind contain no survey of how often English parents read to their children? Ministers criticised mums and dads on the basis of no hard evidence. When it comes to delivering on reading, do not Ministers bear the primary responsibility for ensuring that every child who can is reading by the age of six? Should not we ensure a more concerted drive to hold accountable those schools that do not use tried and tested methods by holding a simple test after two years to ensure that our children are being taught properly?

The Secretary of State accepts that there are flaws in the current test regime, but will his plans for a changed regime, with children taking tests at several different stages in primary school, mean that new tests are shorter than the current key stage 2 tests? If so, how can we ensure that they are not made less rigorous? With independent research from Durham university showing that literacy levels have scarcely improved in a decade, surely we cannot afford any less rigour.

I fear that today will be remembered as a great missed opportunity for the Government. Instead of a clear picture for our children’s future, we have an underwhelming collage, with items stuck on any old how and no underlying vision. Why are there no proposals to give parents the right to take their children from a failing school and place them in a good new school? Why is there no determination to give teachers the power to impose effective discipline by excluding disruptive pupils without having teachers second-guessed by those outside the school? Why, instead of giving more schools academy-style freedoms to innovate and drive up standards, is the Secretary of State still restricting the freedoms of existing academies?

Is not it the case that, ultimately, instead of a broad and deep vision, we have a disappointingly hesitant and patchy programme, which betrays an itch to intervene but no grasp of the genuine problems? Is not it clear that, unless we learn from abroad and reform our education system to meet the challenge of global competition, we will fall further behind and the Government will fail future generations?

Ed Balls
I was disappointed that the hon. Gentleman was not as funny as normal. However, to be fair to him, behind the usual scripted gags and froth, there were some serious questions, which I shall tackle. I thank him for his support for the Bercow review and our work to strengthen the provision of SEN support for parents and children. I agree that that is a priority.

I disagree with the hon. Gentleman’s reading of the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study—PIRLS—report, which made it clear that there was a responsibility on Government, teachers and parents to ensure that all our children are reading. If he reads the report, he will realise that it is clear that the brightest children are reading less at home. We all—that includes us, as parents—bear a responsibility for getting our children to read more.

The hon. Gentleman suggested that we are plummeting down league tables and that standards are falling. I remind him that, in 1997, when the Conservatives left power, 63 per cent. of 11-year-olds achieved the key level in English and that that has now increased to 80 per cent. The figure for maths was 62 per cent. and it is now up to 77 per cent. For English and maths, the figure was 53 per cent. and it is now up to 71 per cent. The number of failing schools has fallen from above 600 to fewer than 30. This Government have delivered rising standards year on year through our reforms—reforms that we take forward and strengthen in this report, so that we can be world class. 

The hon. Gentleman asked me about our new making progress assessment. Yes, the tests will be shorter; and no, despite his accusations, there will not be dumbing down, because we are introducing the reform of an independent standards regulator to give parents, teachers and schools the confidence that standards will not fall. As for his charge that we are going backwards on reform and academies, I am accelerating the academies programme, as I say to him every time he makes that accusation. The reform of the primary curriculum in this report is a good reform that will drive up standards in our schools.

I must say to the hon. Gentleman that this is a children’s plan. He mentioned SEN, but he made no reference at all to children’s play, youth services, investing in the early years work force, parent support advisers, our CAMHS review, our changing of the guidance for the building schools for the future programme, the children’s trust, reoffending, prevention or the Byron review. He made no mention of any of those things, which was baffling. I remember, however, him writing a very important article in The Times, in which he said that

“the Conservatives are left embarrassingly mute when parents ask them just what they would do to ease the pressures of family life.”

Those were his words, and he has eloquently proved his point this afternoon.

I have received representations for other reforms. I have had a representation that we should re-impose tests, externally marked, on six-year-olds. I reject that proposal, as do parents and schools, as it would be the wrong thing to do. I have also received a representation that we should hold back for a further year children who do not make the grade in primary schools, but that was rejected in our consultation by teachers, head teachers and parents, because we do not want larger class sizes at 11. We do not want those children who do not make the grade to be held back in primary school; we want them to be helped as they move into secondary school.

I have also received representations that we should abolish appeals on exclusions as that would somehow reduce legalism, but the head teachers tell us that they want to keep the appeals as that would prevent them from being mired in the courts. I have also received representations that we should not go ahead with increasing the education leaving age to 18; I reject those representations. I have had a proposal that we should not introduce new diplomas; I reject that representation. I have also had a proposal that we should cut £4.5 billion from the building schools for the future programme, and therefore put thousands of schools at risk in 76 authorities. Once again, in my consultation on the children’s plan, I reject that representation.

In the end, Government are about three things: vision, policy and judgment. We set out our vision here; I reject the vision of a two-tier education system. I am setting out clear policies here; I reject those wheezes that fall apart under scrutiny. As for judgment, in my view, over the past six months the judgment of the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) has increasingly come into question.

Mr. Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Does my right hon. Friend agree—or does he know—that the Children, Schools and Families Committee is investigating testing and assessment, and we will be keen to look in detail at his proposals for stage not age tests? Is he also aware that our Committee, as it did in its former incarnation, has consistently pushed for us to do something about the quality of the work force in early years, in terms of both how much they are paid and how they are trained? Much of what my right hon. Friend says today is welcome, but will he give a guarantee not only that the Select Committee will be able to track the progress of the building of the new edifice of a children’s plan, but that a monitoring of staged successes is built into it?

Ed Balls
I reassure my hon. Friend, and I thank him for his leadership of the Select Committee. I look forward to appearing before it in early January to answer detailed questions on the children’s plan. I can confirm that we will report back on the children’s plan in a year’s time. In the meantime, our three expert groups will continue their work of monitoring our implementation. We will also involve parents in monitoring our progress.

The issues my hon. Friend raises on the work force are critical. The document sets out a strategy for the children’s work force and, within that, important reforms of the early years work force to increase their standing and enhance even further their professionalism so that it matches their dedication. We want more graduates coming into early years education and these proposals will take that ambition forward.

Mr. David Laws (Yeovil) (LD)
I thank the Secretary of State for early sight of his statement.

I know that it is traditional on these occasions for Opposition spokesmen to be disappointed by the contents of statements, whatever they contain, but may I genuinely say that many people inside and outside the House will be tremendously disappointed with the plan that he has put forward? After all, if we set it alongside the conclusions of the UNICEF report published earlier this year, which put Britain bottom of the league table of 21 developed countries in respect of child poverty and child well-being, today’s plan emerges as a mouse of a plan to deal with what is, frankly, a mountain of a problem. Even where new policies have been announced, they are tiny in their effect: 20,000 places for two-year-olds set against 650,000 youngsters in that cohort. What we have heard today is not, by anybody’s independent judgment, a serious 10-year plan for children, but a hotch-potch of reviews, recycled announcements from earlier Secretaries of State, one or two gimmicks and a unifying theme that is a belief only in top-down big government solutions.

Why was there no mention in the statement of what is supposed to be the biggest ambition of the entire Government—dealing with child poverty? Is it not absolutely astonishing for a Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families to give a statement to this House in which the only mention of child poverty is backward-looking, describing what has happened up to today with nothing at all about policy for the future? Does not that indicate that Martin Narey of Barnardo’s was correct to say yesterday that the Government now seem to be managing the failure to meet the 2010 target? Does it not also underline this Government’s foolishness in deciding in the pre-Budget report to allocate £3.7 billion towards the reduction of inheritance tax, set alongside the £120 million—an almost trivial amount—found for child poverty? Why has the Secretary of State with responsibility for children failed to mention anything forward looking about what used to be one of this Government’s great ambitions? Why do we continue to find that 1.5 million children—almost of half of whom are living in relative poverty—live in households that pay full council tax when the Government have been reviewing and reviewing that unfair tax for years and doing precisely nothing about it?

On the schools agenda, why on earth do we need yet another primary curriculum review? I thought that primary education was supposed to be something that the Government had fixed in their first term in office. We now find that apparently it has not been fixed and that we need another review. What is the review designed to achieve? According to the Secretary of State, it is to allow more time for literacy and numeracy studies, but we already know that 51 per cent. of time in primary schools is spent on those two subjects. Rather than have another pointless review of primary education, why does not the Secretary of State just devolve powers to schools to make those decisions? Is it really necessary for the Whitehall screwdriver to reach into every school in the country, directing schools on how to communicate with parents and even fixing the number of graduates in early years settings? How on earth can it be right for central Government to fix those policies? Why is there nothing in the statement to target extra money on pupils through a pupil premium that would target deprivation? Why is there nothing about more freedom for schools to innovate?

On the children’s services agenda, will the Secretary of State tell us whether his desire to tie in children’s services more closely with schools is going to mean a relocation of responsibility for those services—from primary care trusts and social services, which are not usually very good at interacting with schools, to the schools themselves?

This was supposed to be one of the centrepieces of the Government and their aspirations, yet it has given us an indication of why they are so far adrift, because we have had a 10-year plan for the future of children that is entirely top down, entirely unconvincing and that will not deliver the aspirations that the Government have themselves set.

Ed Balls
I believe that when parents, teachers and young people hear what the hon. Gentleman has said, they will find the idea that a £400 million investment in 3,500 play areas and youth clubs around the country is a gimmick very surprising. I think the suggestion that transformation of the life chances of 20,000 children aged two in disadvantaged areas is trivial says more about the hon. Gentleman’s values than it does about our policy. As for the idea that a curriculum review designed to introduce study of a foreign language for every child in primary school, as well as social and emotional aspects of learning—SEAL—teaching through the primary curriculum, is pointless, that too is a reflection on the hon. Gentleman’s politics rather than on our children’s plan.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the child poverty goal. I made a speech about child poverty yesterday. I will not take the time to read it out to the hon. Gentleman today, but the children’s plan makes very clear our goal that child poverty will be halved by 2010 and eradicated by 2020. I will tell the hon. Gentleman how we will do that. We will do it through the national minimum wage that his party opposed, and through the expansion of the tax credit system which he personally has persistently opposed. I will take no lectures from him on the subject of child poverty, given the way in which he has attempted to undermine a consensus in the country about progress in that regard.

As for the idea that we say nothing in the plan about freedom to innovate, the plan is all about schools’ innovating and working with children’s services to tackle all the barriers to learning. As for the idea that we say nothing about tie-in, we say that children’s trusts will take forward that agenda with help at the centre of them. As for the idea that we say nothing about extra money to deal with disadvantage, in his announcement on schools funding a few weeks ago my hon. Friend the Minister for Schools and Learning allocated more money to tackling deprivation, and we are doing the same today.

The hon. Gentleman’s comments told me more about his political positioning in the Liberal Democratic party than it did about the children’s plan. He may wish to reconsider some of those comments in the coming months.

Frank Dobson (Holborn and St. Pancras) (Lab)
Parents and children all over the country will welcome the new emphasis that my right hon. Friend is placing on the importance of children’s play. Play is important to children’s social development, and to their mental and physical health. What we need now is a further commitment to helping parents to feel secure when their children are out playing. Does my right hon. Friend accept that if we are to achieve that, he will have to work with other Departments to ensure that local, regional and national planners always bear in mind the need for somewhere for children to play safely, and for transport planners to remember that the principal cause of death among child pedestrians is being run over in the road? We need that emphasis too, and I hope that my right hon. Friend will achieve it.

Ed Balls
I thank my right hon. Friend, and praise him for the leadership that he has provided in this regard. It was his 2004 review “Getting Serious About Play” that paved the way for today’s announcements.

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to stress the importance of provision for children’s play, and that of the creation of spaces in which children can play safely. In our report and in response to the views expressed to us by parents, we have encouraged local authorities to go further in introducing 20 mph speed limits in areas where children play. We have also encouraged them to think about the way in which they design housing, not just to tackle overcrowding but to ensure that there are proper places in which children can play.

In my view we need children to be seen and heard, and we need to move away from the old-style “no ball games” culture to a world in which there are spaces for them to play. We are funding that today, but it will require leadership at local level. It will also require leadership from Members of Parliament in building coalitions in every constituency to implement the plan’s proposals.

Mr. Kenneth Clarke (Rushcliffe) (Con)
Does the Secretary of State agree that ever since the reforms that introduced the principle of testing particular age groups to national standards and then reporting the results to the public, there has been a consistent campaign against both practices by teachers’ trade unions and large parts of the educational establishment? Labour spokesmen and Ministers, however, have in principle always defended that approach.

Will the Secretary of State explain how his latest announcement of stage not age testing is not yet another serious step back in the face of all the campaigning? Surely it will make it much more difficult for parents to know whether their children have reached the standards expected of their age level, much more difficult for people to have confidence in the quality of the standards being described, and almost impossible for parents and the public to make meaningful comparisons between the performances of different schools.

Ed Balls
I know that the right hon. and learned Gentleman takes these issues seriously and studies such matters closely. He will be reassured when he studies the detail of the proposals. I have listened to people, including those from the teaching profession, who have put it to me that we should move away from collecting information that allows school-by-school comparisons of performance to be made. I reject that approach—it does not reflect the consensus in this country, including the consensus among parents. That information is essential in order to drive up standards in our schools and to ensure that we tackle schools that are coasting.

That is fully consistent with what we are talking about now—a move towards a more stage-based approach to testing. Such an approach allows children to be tested according to their ability and the level that they have reached. It allows schools to stretch the best pupils further, while ensuring that children who are falling behind are still tested at a level appropriate to them. The information can then be used to make proper comparisons.

I shall give an example in order to explain the approach. If we were to say that all children who are learning a musical instrument, the violin for example, should be tested at 11, in year 6, it would be ridiculous to say that every child would have to take the grade 5 music exam regardless of whether they had started to learn a few years before and were at grade 1 or they were a good musician and at grade 8. It makes much more sense for the music test—the tests will build on this principle—to be based on the progress that the child has made. That in no way makes it difficult for us to compare schools in terms of the attainment levels that children reach. We will ensure that, under our pilots, we test carefully so that we provide information that allows comparisons to be made both between schools and with the past. Our independent standards regulator will ensure that we do that properly.

Helen Southworth (Warrington, South) (Lab)
I thank my right hon. Friend for his welcome statement, which contains some good news for children and families. May I remind him that he has received the report and recommendations of the parliamentary hearings to safeguard the 100,000 children who run away and go missing every year? Will he respond positively to those recommendations by supporting measures to reduce radically the number of children who run away in the first place and to provide immediate safety for children who go missing?

Ed Balls
I commend my hon. Friend on the leadership that she has given on this issue. As she knows, we are working closely with the Children’s Society on these matters. In fact, we are implementing some of her proposals by including a national indicator on young runaways in the local government indicator set. That information will be important in enabling us to improve our policy delivery across the country. We are carefully studying her report, which followed her consultations. We shall discuss the details with her, and make a further announcement in due course.

Peter Bottomley (Worthing, West) (Con)
May I say to the right hon. Gentleman that if he believes his approach to child health services is the first strategy, he ought to ask for a copy of the Court health report, which I believe was published when he was 10, in 1977? He might also read with some advantage the Plowden report on primary schools, especially the research report published in 1967, the year that he was born.

I support what the Secretary of State said about stages rather than just ages—it is perfectly possible to produce age profiles from stage reports. I strongly support the idea that people can reach standards not only in music, athletics and swimming, but in maths, spelling, arithmetic and other forms of mathematics. The sooner we start saying to people that they can soak up information and knowledge, the faster we will undo the damage that I fear was done in most educational reforms made between 1955 and 1985. He should not believe that he is the first person to think that we can get standards back, and put arms around all our children.

Ed Balls
I think that I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s kind comments and I thank him for reminding me of my date of birth. I cannot admit to having read the Court report at the age of 10. Opposition Members may have been reading such reports at the age of 10, but I think that I was playing. My point was that we will produce the first ever joint report between the health service and the Department responsible for schools and children’s services on child health. That is important because it will mean that we can integrate health into our parenting and schools policy. That is welcome and, as I understand it, new, and a consequence of the innovation of our new Department.

As for the hon. Gentleman’s comments on progression, I entirely agree with his sentiments. We are seeking to implement those sentiments in the reforms that we set out today. Perhaps the importance of today for that issue is not that it is a new departure, but the commitment from Government to make it happen. That is my commitment today.

Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
I urge my right hon. Friend to reward those schools that take on the most challenging pupils, because otherwise we will not improve standards in the way that we want to in constituencies such as mine. I welcome his statement on communities becoming involved in providing facilities for local young people. Can he say how those local communities will be able to engage with that, and will he ensure that those voluntary organisations that are already engaged in such work, but are struggling to find core funding, are not overlooked when it comes to the funding that he is making available?

Ed Balls
Only yesterday, my right hon. Friend the Minister for Children, Young People and Families and I visited the excellent Cardwell primary school in Woolwich, close to my hon. Friend’s constituency. The school is in a disadvantaged community and it is implementing now the vision that we set out for schools in the plan, including ensuring that all barriers to learning, in and out of school, are addressed by the school, the parents and the local community; engaging health services and parents from the earliest years; and working closely with the voluntary sector. In our work on children’s trusts, we want to ensure that the voluntary sector is included with schools and wider services, and that we have a consistent approach across the country to tackling those issues in the way that my hon. Friend sets out. I commend the local authorities in that part of south-east London on the leadership that they are providing on this matter.

Stephen Williams (Bristol, West) (LD)
I welcome the mention of support for young carers in the Secretary of State’s statement. Young carers underachieve in education because of the enormous burdens put on them in caring for their parents, siblings or both. What is not so welcome is that that group will have to compete for the £56 million a year that has been allocated with parenting advisers for each local authority, undefined family learning and new support for families with disabled children. Will the right hon. Gentleman commit to making young carers a priority for his Department, so that that neglected group of children is given much more support to achieve their full potential?

Ed Balls
I can give the hon. Gentleman more details of the plan. If he studies those details, he will see that the plan will build on the £13 million that we have already allocated to young carers, many of whom face huge burdens and difficulties, through the family pathfinders programme. In addition, I will make available through the plan a further £3 million over the next three years so that we can do more to support young carers and ensure that their needs are properly taken into account in our wider carers strategy. We have a detailed plan, supported by specific money, and I hope that he will be reassured when he examines the details.

Hilary Armstrong (North-West Durham) (Lab)
I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement and the plan. I would like him to say a little more about work force reform, because it is important that the very best quality staff work with young children in the early years. It is important that we set an ambition to recruit teachers from the top 10 per cent. of graduates. We have already done a great deal to improve the teaching work force, but we have more to do. We also need a better quality work force looking after children in care, and in youth services. The most difficult problem, in constituencies around the country, is the recruitment of youth workers, because full employment means that many of the people who before would have been prepared to do sessional youth work are now not able to do so, and I want to see—

Mr. Speaker
Order. Hon. Members have one supplementary question.

Ed Balls
I can reassure my right hon. Friend that in the plan we are taking forward and enhancing the teach first programme. We are also introducing a teach next programme, which will encourage more excellent people from our wider community to come into teaching. As I have said, in the next three years we are investing more than £100 million in the early years work force. Our commitment is to make teaching a masters-level profession by ensuring that every new teacher studies for a masters qualification, but we will also encourage more teachers who are already in schools to study for a masters qualification. We will make that part of our continuing professional development work and will work closely with unions and heads to make it happen. I hope that when she sees the detail, she will be reassured that we are taking forward the work force agenda, so that we have more excellent people in our schools and in our early years settings.

Mr. Gary Streeter (South-West Devon) (Con)
May I commend the Secretary of State for his commitment to families with profoundly disabled children? Does the children’s plan contain extra capital funding for respite care for such families, and will he say a little more on the subject? Is the money to be ring-fenced for local authorities, and will it be distributed alongside the extra and very welcome revenue funding that he announced earlier in the year?

Ed Balls
Within the children’s plan, and on top of the £280 million that we have allocated to pay for an expansion of respite care for families with children with a disability over the next three years, we are now able to allocate £45 million in the next three years to support capital investment in new respite care facilities. That will make sure that the premises where respite care is provided are modernised and get the extra and special equipment that often makes the difference between a family being able to access respite care and them finding that—because of the absence of the right kind of hoist, for example—it is just not possible for them to take advantage of those respite care facilities. The money will not necessarily mean new facilities, but there will be investment in the extra help that those facilities need. We are also expanding the Family Fund to ensure that 16 to 18-year-olds qualify for grants. We think that 16,000 more grants could be made as a result of the announcements.

Through his work last year, the hon. Gentleman rightly put the Government on our mettle on the issue of whether we will deliver for families with disabled children. I hope that we will show him, families with disabled children, and disabled children themselves, that we are on their side. We are investing in extra support for them. When we on the Labour Benches talk about the every child matters initiative, we are talking about every disabled child, too.

Ann Coffey (Stockport) (Lab)
May I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement and his commitment to improving the quality of life of all children? I also welcome the introduction of the Children and Young Persons Bill to improve outcomes for looked-after children. Most homes for looked-after children provide very good standards of care, but I am concerned that some reach a barely adequate standard. That is evidenced by the number of children who run away. Does he agree that if we are to drive up standards in the small number of homes concerned, a strong message must be given to failing homes? It should be exactly same message that is given to failing schools: improve or face closure.

Ed Balls
The answer to my hon. Friend’s question is yes, absolutely. We expect Ofsted to be as rigorous in its inspections of children’s care homes as in its inspections of schools. We must ensure that where Ofsted highlights failures in provision, we act. One of the more general themes of the children’s plan is that we need Ofsted to inspect across schools and children’s services, in relation to the range of every child matters objectives and all the measures of well-being, including the way in which schools and children’s services work together. That includes looked-after children.

Mr. John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
Why would it be more attractive to parents if a new primary school shares a site with a police station with cells?

Ed Balls
I have read the children’s plan, but I do not remember a proposal for police stations with cells. However, the plan does include a proposal for safer schools partnerships, which involve community safety officers and police working in schools to help children be safe in their local communities. We will take that forward, and I hope that every school will belong to one of those partnerships in which the police work with schools. If the right hon. Gentleman shows me where the proposal for police cells in schools is in the plan, I will explain it to him.

Mr. Tom Clarke (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)
Given my right hon. Friend’s response to the every disabled child matters campaign, does he agree that the funding that he outlined should indeed be spent on the services relevant to the problems that exist, if only as an example to other parts of the United Kingdom?

Ed Balls
When we conducted our review of the life chances of disabled children and their families, and allocated extra money for respite care and other services, we consulted across the country. Welsh and Scottish MPs were active in those consultations. In fact, my right hon. Friend led our parliamentary consultation with my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood (Mrs. Humble). There was widespread expectation that the money would be spent not only in England but elsewhere, and that the Barnett consequentials would be spent on disabled children in other parts of the United Kingdom. That is happening in Wales but, to my knowledge, it has not happened in Scotland, where the funds have been diverted to cut council tax. I am very disappointed indeed that the needs of disabled children and their families are not a priority for the Scottish Executive.

Mr. David Curry (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)
Does the Secretary of State really believe that a nursery school is incapable of delivering the highest quality care unless it employs two graduates? Does he accept that if the English are to become less bad linguists, they must learn the grammar of the English language if they are to have a hope of learning a foreign language? Will he ensure that that comes first in primary schools?

Ed Balls
My answer to both questions is yes. Teaching grammar is an important part of literacy in primary schools, and we have allocated money for graduates in the early years setting to make sure that language and communication are an important part of early years learning. If I misunderstood the question, I apologise, but I agreed with that excellent intervention.

Dr. Ian Gibson (Norwich, North) (Lab)
In reference to his birth date, may I remind my right hon. Friend that two weeks before he was born, his father and I journeyed up from Norwich to watch Norwich City FC beat Manchester United—a match full of star-studded players—and I think that that had a big effect on his formative years? To be serious, may I ask him about special needs? I welcome the fact that he mentioned dyslexia, but what about autism and Asperger’s? Although those reviews are under way, there are problems now. Every MP has constituents who are struggling to make ends meet and deal with those problems. We cannot wait until 2010, as there is a problem now. We need more schools and teachers, and more help for struggling families.

Ed Balls
I thought that my hon. Friend was about to raise the issue of excessive drinking by young adults, which may have occurred on that train on 18 February 1967, after Norwich’s surprise victory as a member of division 3 south against Manchester United in the FA cup—one of the highlights of my pre-life, given that I was born seven days later. Why my father was at the game, rather than at home has always been a mystery to me. [Interruption.] He was with my hon. Friend.

To answer my hon. Friend, we have put substantial amounts of extra money into supporting special needs in this year’s settlement and for the next three years. I have announced reforms to try to improve the way in which we spot dyslexia in the early years of primary school, but following the Bercow review into some of those matters, the Ofsted review will give us an important opportunity to assess whether we are getting that right and whether we need to do even more in future.

Emily Thornberry (Islington, South and Finsbury) (Lab)
Is my right hon. Friend aware how grateful my constituents are that the Government went into listening mode before publishing the children’s plan, by way of reading the written submissions that a large number of my constituents made or through meetings with him and with my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, who also had meetings with Islington constituents? Of the many suggestions in the children’s plan, they will be particularly pleased to hear that there will be free nursery school education for two-year-olds.

Ed Balls
I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s role in our consultation. I know that a number of Members had consultation meetings with local parents, schools and children and made submissions to the plan. I hope that that work will carry on over the next year, because we need to do more in our local communities to put in place the play facilities and the youth facilities that are needed and to involve parents more in schools. We will ensure that we provide the materials for hon. Members to keep consulting in future.

On nursery care for two-year-olds, I agree with my hon. Friend that that is a major part of our agenda to reduce child poverty and the causes of child poverty, by making sure that from the earliest years children in disadvantaged communities get the support and learning that they need. For those 20,000 children, this will not be a gimmick, but a life-transforming experience.

Annette Brooke (Mid-Dorset and North Poole) (LD)
Given that one in 10 three and four-year-olds are not accessing their free entitlement to nursery places, and that a number of evaluations of Sure Start and children’s centres have shown that the most disadvantaged families are not necessarily being reached, alongside the 20,000 extra places that the Secretary of State announced today, what further measures will he take to make sure that the most disadvantaged are benefiting from these policies?

Ed Balls
We are addressing that issue in two ways—first, through the extra work that we are doing through Sure Start to reach out to the families that the hon. Lady describes to ensure that they take advantage of the services on offer. Sure Start has a continual obligation to keep reaching out further into those communities to find parents who need help and are not getting it. The second way is through the investment that we are making in the early years work force. More quality and more graduates in the early years is the best way to persuade parents to take up their entitlement and to do the best by their children. I hope that the measures on quality will encourage many more parents to take up the opportunities available.

Mr. Ronnie Campbell (Blyth Valley) (Lab)
I welcome the plan, which is a step in the right direction, but I am worried. In my home town, where we have the brand-new Blyth community college, the go-ahead has just been given for a brand-new academy right next door. I wonder how the college will fare, seeing that academies always get more money per pupil.

Ed Balls
To reassure my hon. Friend, academies do not get more funding per pupil compared with other schools. Academies are being taken forward as part of the building schools for the future programme. I have had a number of discussions with him on these matters, as have members of my Department, and I am happy to keep discussing these matters with him to ensure that what we do together is in the best interests of all young people in his constituency.

Several hon. Members
rose—

Mr. Speaker
Order. There are a large number of Members standing. I have allowed up till an hour, and I can go over the hour, provided that the supplementaries are sharp and that we talk not about football matches, but about education.

Barbara Keeley (Worsley) (Lab)
May I welcome the inclusion of young carers in the plan. A group of young carers from the national young carers forum attended the House last week and told the Under-Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Kevin Brennan), about all the issues that affect their education and their lives. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the expert parent advisers, plus the social care reforms announced by our right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health yesterday, will help those young people start to enjoy and be free to enjoy their childhood?

Ed Balls
I am grateful to you, Mr. Speaker, for giving us more time. That is a reflection of the importance of the plan. I will keep my answers short. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley (Barbara Keeley) on her leadership. It was her intervention last week and her persuading of my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary that ensured that the money was in the plan to support young carers over the next three years.

Mr. Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)
The House will welcome the recognition in the Secretary of State’s statement of the problems with pupil referral units. If ever there was an example of where, unfortunately, in the past 10 years the most vulnerable people have been let down, it is there. The number in those units has doubled from over 7,000 to over 15,000, yet the number getting a good GCSE is 0.4 per cent. Will the Secretary of State give us some detail about what he will do to ensure that standards rise in those units, and perhaps a little more about the pilots that he would like to see to obtain a proper replacement for them after 10 years of failure for those very vulnerable pupils?

Ed Balls
I am going to strengthen regulation; I am going to put £26 million aside over the next three years to pilot alternative forms of provision, including one to see whether studio schools can play a role in this; and, subject to Sir Alan’s further recommendation, I am going to implement the Steer recommendation next year that we should go ahead and make exclusion partnerships compulsory for all schools. That is the best way to ensure that we do right by the education of pupils who are excluded—we need to continue to support them so that they can do well in the future.

Nigel Griffiths (Edinburgh, South) (Lab)
I welcome my right hon. Friend’s plan, but does he accept that healthy eating is a major contributor to the well-being of our children? Will he support my private Member’s Bill to help tackle obesity, and his ministerial colleague, the noble Baroness Royall, who said in the other place on 27 November that we need a ban on advertising high-fat, salty and sugary foods before the 9 o’clock watershed?

Ed Balls
I congratulate my hon. Friend on his leadership in highlighting the importance of healthy eating among children, and I can reassure him that, although I will need to consult my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and cannot give an indication today of the Government’s view on my hon. Friend’s Bill, we will ensure that the wider issues that he raises are taken forward in our child health strategy in the spring.

Mr. Graham Brady (Altrincham and Sale, West) (Con)
The Secretary of State knows that one of the most serious shortcomings in our schools at the moment lies in the unacceptably high number of children who move backwards between the ages of 11 and 14. Is it not the case that under his new testing proposals it will be impossible to know whether that situation is improving or getting worse in particular schools?

Ed Balls
The exact opposite is the case. Our proposals to test child by child on the basis of level, but also to expect them to move level by level, year by year, will enable us accurately to measure for each child and for the school whether children are making progress and to measure the level that they reach at any point in time. I can reassure the hon. Gentleman that on that point he is wrong. Also, I apologise for the fact that there is nothing on grammar schools in the plan.

Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)
I warmly welcome the Secretary of State’s proposal for a safe place for every child to play, but is he aware that Slough borough council, when challenged to produce a play strategy, planned to close local play areas rather than repair the dangerous and crumbling equipment in them? Will he place a duty on every local authority to ensure that there are safe play areas in every neighbourhood, and penalise those local authorities that take this opportunity to cut their local play areas?

Ed Balls
Given that this is a matter for local decision, if in the end councils of whatever political colour choose not to prioritise children, it is hard for me to intervene directly. If Slough borough council has heard the Opposition’s contribution to this, it may be rather encouraged in its view that children’s play areas are gimmicks and wheezes rather than serious policy. However, we will ensure that Ofsted inspects across all every child matters outcomes, across schools and children’s services, and I encourage my hon. Friend to lead her own campaign with local people to ensure that, through the Big Lottery Fund, she gets new centres and also that play centres are available in her constituency. I fear that she may have to rely on her own leadership if it is not forthcoming from her Liberal Democrat council.

Jeremy Wright (Rugby and Kenilworth) (Con)
I welcome the Secretary of State’s recognition that CAMHS has a capacity problem. Following the comments of the hon. Member for Eltham (Clive Efford), may I ask the Secretary of State to recognise that there is a substantial segment of services that CAMHS cannot offer children and young people with mental health problems? I am thinking particularly of those who have experienced traumatic situations, for example. Will he ensure that the review will give adequate consideration to the funding that voluntary sector organisations need to provide the services that CAMHS will be unable to provide, even post-review?

Ed Balls
The hon. Gentleman is right to highlight the important contribution that voluntary organisations make in providing support for such children. I guarantee that such issues will be considered in the review. The review is not about whether we should improve CAMHS, but about how we can do so. In my view and that of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health, the issue is not only about capacity, but about how we use the money to serve children’s needs best. We will ensure that the review is done well and then seek to implement its recommendations.

Mrs. Sharon Hodgson (Gateshead, East and Washington, West) (Lab)
I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement on the children’s plan. He will not be surprised that I wholeheartedly welcome his announcement of the £18 million over three years for teacher training specifically for special educational needs.

My right hon. Friend will be aware that my private Member’s Bill is about special educational needs; I hope that it will get a fair wind through the House. Will he consider allocating part of the £44 million, which he announced for the next three years to enable teachers to study for master-level qualifications, to teachers wishing to gain specialist qualifications in special educational needs such as dyslexia?

Ed Balls
I congratulate my hon. Friend on her leadership. We have spoken about dyslexia issues. As she will know, the money that we announced last week will not only go towards considering how we can spot dyslexia early through the every child a reader programme, but establish whether dyslexic children’s needs are best met through ECAR or specialist dyslexic help.

We are studying the detail of my hon. Friend’s Bill. It is important and I am very hopeful that we will be able to support it.

Tony Lloyd (Manchester, Central) (Lab)
My right hon. Friend will be aware that young people in inner-city areas such as mine will welcome his announcement on youth service provision. However, does he recognise that one of the things that has bedevilled youth service provision—historically, a non-statutory structure—is that it has always been easy to cut? Although I welcome the fact that big capital schemes are coming on board, it will be necessary to make sure that the revenue consequences are guaranteed and locked in for the long term.

Incidentally, it would be churlish of me to mention that Manchester United has got over the defeat in 1967.

Ed Balls
It was the highlight of Norwich City’s 100 years of history.

In taking forward our commitment to 30 adventure playgrounds for eight to 13-year-olds in disadvantaged communities, we are allocating not only capital but £5 million a year in revenue to make sure that there is money for supervision, which is important for such facilities. I agree more generally that it is important to make sure that youth services are properly funded not only in capital but in revenue terms. We are giving a lead, although a lot of the responsibility also falls to local authorities.

Kerry McCarthy (Bristol, East) (Lab)
My right hon. Friend saw first hand the success of the building schools for the future programme when he visited Bristol Brunel academy—the first BSF school in the country—with the Prime Minister in September. I welcome today’s announcement that there will be new guidance for BSF schools to ensure that, when possible, other services will be co-located with them. Will that apply only to schools currently in negotiations about BSF?

Ed Balls
We will do that where possible. I understand, from discussions that I and the Minister for Schools and Learners have had with Partnerships for Schools, that a lot more flexibility exists than local schools and authorities are aware of. We will seek to be clearer in guidance about what can be done. When it is necessary, we will do more on guidance and flexibility to allow co-location to occur. The Minister and I will be happy to discuss with my hon. Friend the detail of any scheme, although the flexibility may already be there.

Ms Dawn Butler (Brent, South) (Lab)
I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement and for the children’s plan, which is a progressive plan for young people and children. Five days ago, Richard Angell, Stephanie Peacock and I welcomed 60 young people from all over the country to talk about the new £1 rate to join the Labour party and how the Labour party could employ it to engage more with young people. Can my right hon. Friend assure me that councils will have some accountability to ensure that they consult young people on the delivery and progression of the children’s plan?

Ed Balls
I can reassure my hon. Friend that the £160 million spent on youth services through our Department and the Big Lottery Fund will be conditional not only on consultation with but on the active engagement of young people in drawing up proposals and their future management. Through her leadership in the all-party group on youth affairs, my hon. Friend has highlighted the importance of engaging young people in the design and implementation of policy, and this is a good example of an area where we will ensure that that happens case by case across the country.

Anne Snelgrove (South Swindon) (Lab)
This is an excellent plan. I particularly welcome the youth service proposals and the adventure playgrounds. Will my right hon. Friend say something about the eight-to- 13 age group, who are often neglected in this respect? What will be in it for them?

Ed Balls
I mentioned the 30 adventure playgrounds, which will be particularly for that age group. However, the more general point is that many parents are concerned about the transition from primary to secondary school, and many teachers are concerned that some children are not making as much progress as they should in the first and second years of secondary school. We aim for parental engagement in that transition and in the early years of secondary school, and we will be able to address both those issues through these proposals, plus age not stage—[Hon. Members: “Stage not age”]—thank you—stage not age testing and the making good progress pilots. That will help to support the age group that my hon. Friend mentions.

Mr. David Kidney (Stafford) (Lab)
In children’s first years of life, their main educators are usually their parents, not school teachers, and the professionals to whom those parents usually turn for support are not teachers but health visitors. Does my right hon. Friend envisage a central role for health visitors in co-ordinating those other supports for this group of parents?

Ed Balls
Health visitors and midwives are playing a central role in many areas, and we envisage their doing so in future in the implementation of this plan. It is very important to bring together education, schools, children’s services and health policy in local areas. We are expanding the family fund to support parents in supporting their children’s learning at home, including in the earliest years. We also want to ensure that co-location of services includes health services in the earliest years. When I was at Cardwell school yesterday, I met people from the PCT and midwives who were doing that for children and families in that part of south-east London. We can make this happen across the country.

 European Affairs

[Relevant documents: Thirty-fifth Report from the European Scrutiny Committee, Session 2006-07, HC 1014, on the European Union Intergovernmental Conference; and Third Report from the Committee, Session 2007-08, HC 16-iii, European Union Intergovernmental Conference.]

16:43:00

The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (David Miliband)
I beg to move,

That this House has considered the matter of European affairs.

I am pleased to open this traditional debate on European policy held before each meeting of the European Council. Before I do so, the whole House will expect me to express our shared horror at the two bomb blasts in Algeria today. The latest information is that there were two targets—a student bus and a United Nations mission. Sixty-two people are known to be dead and 13 people, whom we presume to be UN staff, are currently unaccounted for. No one has yet claimed responsibility for this terrible atrocity, but I know that the whole House will want to send deepest condolences to all those concerned and to ensure that we offer to the Government of Algeria any possible help that we can give them, both in pursuing the perpetrators of this terrible crime and in helping them to strengthen any security that they need to strengthen or to develop any security co-operation to prevent this sort of terrible outrage in future.

The meeting of the European Council this week will address some of the most pressing issues facing the European Union. It will set out a globalisation declaration and establish a reflection group on the long-term global context for European action. Leaders will also no doubt bask in the acclamation among the peoples of Europe for the benefits of the Lisbon reform treaty—[Laughter.] I was just checking that hon. Members opposite were listening.

Mr. John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
As the Foreign Secretary is adamant in refusing the British people a vote, why does he not give this House a vote before he signs away our birthright by signing the treaty?

David Miliband
As the right hon. Gentleman knows, no birthrights are being signed away, and I look forward to many debates and many votes in this House in the course of the new year, when we can debate such issues at great length.

Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody (Crewe and Nantwich) (Lab)
I am happy to have my right hon. Friend’s assurance that no birthright is being signed away. However, one or two rather fundamental points are being agreed in this treaty. Despite the fact that objection to the treaty may be regarded as a purely political ploy on the part of some Members, it might be helpful if we in the House of Commons were to register in some way that there is a great deal in it that causes great worries to many people of all parties.

David Miliband
I am happy to reassure my hon. Friend that all the details of the treaty will be carefully scrutinised. Time will be given for all opinions to be registered and for the detail to be exposed and debated. She will know, as will hon. Members opposite, that the treaty will come into force only when it has been passed by this Parliament and every other country that is party to the treaty.

Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)
Will my right hon. Friend confirm for the record that, however lengthy the debate in the House may be, it is not a question of amending even a single comma but of accepting the whole treaty or nothing? Therefore, the whole concept of the House being involved in the drafting and drawing up of the treaty was not realised. We are being given a rather black-and-white choice rather late in the day.

David Miliband
My hon. Friend will know from the exchanges we had in the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs that there are good grounds for looking again at the way in which the period between 19 and 21 June brought into sharp relief the choice faced by the Government and subsequently the House. That is the point at which the bilateral discussions that had been happening were consolidated into a single text. We have had exchanges about that in the Committee. She is right to say that the House will face the question of whether it should pass the treaty in the new year. If the House does not do so, or if the treaty is rejected elsewhere in Europe, it would not come into force.

Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab)
Just to clarify exactly what the Foreign Secretary said, will he tell me what would happen if a particular amendment tabled by the House went through to amend one part of the treaty? Is he basically saying that we are going to spend months and months discussing it, but that it quite honestly makes no difference whether or not anyone turns anything down because the treaty will go through?

David Miliband
My hon. Friend is right to say that in the end the House has to decide whether to pass the Bill. The Bill will implement the treaty, and the House certainly can amend the Bill. For example, we will have a long debate about a referendum on the treaty. An amendment on that can succeed or fail; if it succeeds, the treaty would go in front of the people for passage or not. The Bill is amendable in the same way as any other—

Mr. Austin Mitchell (Great Grimsby) (Lab)
Can we amend the treaty?

David Miliband
It is the Bill that comes before the House, and the Bill can certainly be amended.

Mr. Doug Henderson (Newcastle upon Tyne, North) (Lab)
Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the procedures being adopted by the Government in relation to the treaty are exactly the same as those adopted in the past when dealing with the important Maastricht, Amsterdam and Nice treaties, which were supported by Conservative Front Benchers? Will he comment on the fact that if amendments were made to the treaty in the 27 countries of the European Union, we would end up with complete anarchy when trying to achieve anything in Europe?

David Miliband
My hon. Friend’s intervention is telling, and so is the response from Opposition Members, because what they want is anarchy in the European Union. My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The procedure that the Government will follow will be just as with previous treaties. Previous amending treaties have tried—

Several hon. Members
rose—

David Miliband
With due respect to hon. Members, I said that I would go through the issues being discussed at the European Council and then move on to the European reform treaty. If they will permit me to do so, we can return to their questions about the treaty at the appropriate moment.

For obvious reasons, the situation in Kosovo will be at the forefront of discussion this Friday in Brussels. The responsibilities of the EU, which I discussed with Foreign Ministers in Brussels yesterday, are critical to stability in the western Balkans, and I say the whole of the western Balkans advisedly—Kosovo, Serbia and the other parts of the region together. The written ministerial statement that I laid before the House this morning sets out the Government’s approach. The origins of the problem are ancient. They date right back to the battle of Kosovo Polje in 1389. However, the immediate context is set by the terrible experience of the people of Bosnia in the mid-1990s and of Kosovo at the end of the 1990s. Then, ethnic nationalism overwhelmed the forces of moderation and humanity. This time it needs to be different. Kosovo Albanians and Serbs need to know that restraint and due process will be honoured, and extremism and violence confronted.

There has been an extensive process of mediation over the past two years, first under UN auspices, led by former President Martti Ahtisaari of Finland, and then under an EU-Russia-US umbrella for the past four months. These efforts have been unstinting. I want especially to recognise the efforts of Wolfgang Ischinger, the German ambassador to the UK and the European troika representative over the past four months. I met Ambassador Ischinger again yesterday to hear his latest views. The basic fact is that despite the effort at mediation, there remains a wide gulf between the sides which further mediation will not close; so they have to choose and so do we.

The Kosovars have to choose how they go about pressing their claims for independence, recognising that the status process provided for in UN Security Council resolution 1244 resulted in the Ahtisaari proposal for supervised independence. The signals from Pristina yesterday were encouraging. The Government there said that they would first, stay in step with the international community; secondly, work to minimise violence in Kosovo; and thirdly, honour the undertakings of the Ahtisaari plan, including for minorities.

Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)
I presume that the Foreign Secretary has met the Serbian Foreign Minister to discuss this difficult issue. Like many other young people, the current Serbian Foreign Minister fought against Milosevic and put his life at risk opposing the despot, but his position in his own country is being made extremely difficult by the great rush by the United States for an immediate solution. What assurances can the Foreign Secretary give me that the process will not be rushed?

David Miliband
I am happy to confirm to the hon. Gentleman that I have met the Serbian Foreign Minister three times, most recently yesterday. It is important to recognise that there needs to be outreach both to the Kosovars and to the Serbs—the Serbs within Kosovo and the Serbian Government. The political situation is obviously delicate, but I assure the hon. Gentleman that we are seeking to strengthen the forces of moderation on both sides. He talked about a rush to independence, but the fact that the Kosovan Government are talking about working with the international community and about a period of months, not days, speaks at least in part to the sort of care that he knows is important.

Sir Malcolm Rifkind (Kensington and Chelsea) (Con)
The right hon. Gentleman has indicated on the radio that he is now in favour of independence for Kosovo. He will know that that is very much at variance with the Government’s policy at the time of the bombing of Belgrade, when his predecessor Robin Cook said:

“we do not support independence for Kosovo…we believe that its present status must be enhanced through meaningful autonomy.”

If the Foreign Secretary is arguing that circumstances have changed over the past few years, requiring the Government to adopt a new position, will he at least acknowledge that further changes are required to the current proposals? If the borders of Serbia are not to be seen as sacrosanct, is there any reason why the current borders of Kosovo should be seen as sacrosanct? Will he give further consideration to whether the northern part of Kosovo around Mitrovica, which is dominated by a Serb population, might be left with Serbia as part of a concession that might enable moderates in Belgrade to accept the inevitable?

David Miliband
I should like to address the three or four points that the right hon. and learned Gentleman has raised. First, the French Foreign Minister and I said in September that if the mediation process could not close the gap between the sides, the Ahtisaari plan for supervised independence was on the table and should represent the basis on which to move forward. To answer the third point that the right hon. and learned Gentleman hinted at, we also said that the Ahtisaari plan should be seen as a basis. If there is a way we can add to the guarantees that are offered—to the Serbs in northern Kosovo, for example—we should look to do so within a new constitutional settlement, recognising that Serbs are to be found not only in northern Kosovo but in other parts of Kosovo as well. 

The right hon. and learned Gentleman asked me directly about partition, and I want to address that point directly. We do not support the partition of Kosovo. The mediation team has been talking to both sides over the past four months, and that suggestion has been floated. Both sides have addressed the question, but we have been clear that partition is not the way to create a viable, stable constitutional settlement in Kosovo. We do not support that proposal.

Mr. Greg Hands (Hammersmith and Fulham) (Con)
I agree with the Foreign Secretary that self-determination is key in Kosovo, but there cannot be self-determination while we reject any possible partition of Kosovo in favour of the self-determination of the Serb minority in the north. I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman two questions. First, what are his plans for the Serb enclaves further south? Secondly, what access can he guarantee for Serbs trying to reach the cultural sites, such as monasteries, that are extremely important for the Serb position?

David Miliband
The situation in Kosovo is unique, as I think the official Opposition have recognised all along. It is unique because Kosovo is the subject of the terrible tragedies of the 1990s; because it has been a UN protectorate within a country for the past eight years, since the 1999 UN Security Council resolution; and because it has been the subject of a political process that emanates directly from a UN Security Council resolution with the attributes that I have described. This unique situation circumscribes the boundaries of a new Kosovo in a very clear way. Any state needs to be viable, to be able to fend for itself and to organise itself, and I do not believe that partition would meet those criteria.

In answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question about protection for Serb minorities outside the north, I would say they need precisely the kind of security presence that the NATO KFOR force provides. There are 16,000 NATO troops there at the moment. That is in start contrast to the situation when the terrible events took place in the 1990s. He also asked a reasonable question about access to religious sites. The precise purpose of a supervised independence—I emphasise the word “supervised”—is to ensure that there is proper respect for minority rights, and that the kind of access he has described is properly organised and policed.

Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
Does the Foreign Secretary accept that there is considerable unhappiness on the Kosovar side, not least because of the long-standing obduracy by Serbians over the handing over of indicted war criminals? There are four still remaining, and Carla del Ponte—the United Nations war crimes prosecutor, who retires in a week’s time—has made it absolutely clear that she is certain that the Government in Belgrade knew exactly where two of them were two years ago. Is it not time that Belgrade did its business in this regard?

David Miliband
I strongly agree with my hon. Friend. Carla del Ponte made a presentation to the European Foreign Ministers in October. Of the 36—I think—indictees, 32 have been returned, and it is very important that the last four should be returned as well. It is also important to recognise that the Serbian Government have now put up $1 million as a reward. It is perhaps a little late in the day, but the reward is now there, and we now need to see 100 per cent. conclusion to the process, with all the indictees being returned.

Let me briefly rehearse the position that the UK Government will take over the months ahead. First, resolution 1244 provides a legal base for international activity, and the decision by NATO Foreign Ministers on Friday to confirm the presence of KFOR is vital in that regard. Secondly, the Ahtisaari proposal for supervised independence continues to provide the best basis for moving forward in the absence of agreement between the parties. Thirdly, the EU needs to take responsibility for the problem in its own backyard. Inaction means something worse than continued limbo; it means a festering problem that will become dangerous if there is no way forward. Fourthly, there needs to be a European security and defence policy mission working in close co-ordination with NATO forces. Fifthly, there needs to be the significant outreach that I have described, to the Serbs in Kosovo, to guarantee their rights, and to Serbia. That position can command consensus in the EU in the months ahead.

The second major foreign policy issue for discussion on Friday will be Iran. I hope that there is consensus across the House on that issue. Iran has every right to be a proud, respected member of the international community; it does not have a right to set off a nuclear weapons race in the middle east. Last week’s US national intelligence estimate—the NIE—judged that Iran had a nuclear weapons programme up until 2003, when it halted one aspect of it. If true, that is good.

However, the report does not answer the questions of the international community, which have been expressed in successive UN Security Council resolutions, about Iran’s activities and intentions. That is why it is so important for Iran to come clean on its past activities, including on the nature of any weaponisation programme, past or present, that would be a serious breach of the non-proliferation treaty.

The facts remain stark. Despite demands from the International Atomic Energy Agency and the UN Security Council, Iran is still pursuing an enrichment programme that has no apparent civilian application, but which could produce fissile material for a nuclear weapon. Iran is still denying the IAEA inspectors sufficient access to enable them to verify whether the nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes. The head of the IAEA, Dr. el-Baradei, whom I shall meet on 7 January, has said that the IAEA’s knowledge of Iran’s nuclear programme is actually diminishing. Dr. Solana has reported on behalf of the E3 plus 3 that his talks with Iran’s nuclear negotiator failed to produce a positive outcome. As a result, we will be pressing for further action in the UN Security Council.

At the same time it is vital that the European Council should send a clear and unambiguous message to the regime in Tehran that it has a choice. Either it can co-operate with the IAEA and comply with the demands of the UN Security Council, paving the way for a genuine transformation of its relationship with the whole international community, including the US, or it can continue on its path of confrontation, resulting in further sanctions and isolation.

Ms Gisela Stuart
Can the Foreign Secretary tell us whether, in the UK Government’s assessment, Iran already has the capacity to deliver nuclear weapons? Is it only Iran’s ability to produce them that is the problem, or do we doubt whether it has the ability to deliver, as well as whether it possesses such weapons?

David Miliband
I know that my hon. Friend has recently visited Iran, and I look forward to discussing the visit made by the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs with the Committee. As my hon. Friend suggests, there are three aspects to any nuclear weapons programme: the weaponisation—which was addressed by the NIE—the enrichment and the missile. We know that missile tests are being carried out, and I would not want to say more about our judgments on the Iranian programme in respect of its missiles.

Mr. Bernard Jenkin (North Essex) (Con)
We all know that the action that the European Council could take to which the Foreign Secretary refers is the imposition of sanctions to match the American sanctions. He is signing a treaty that elevates the prospect of a European common foreign policy yet further in the EU, but what is the possibility of getting agreement on this vital issue among the member states of the EU—least of all Germany, which seems extremely reluctant to sign up to any sanctions against Iran?

David Miliband
The prospects are reasonably good. The leaders of the EU countries will send a clear message on Friday. Of course, existing EU sanctions involve Germany. I think I am right—and if I am not, I shall be happy to write to the hon. Gentleman to correct myself—to say that EU trade with Iran in the year up until May 2007 fell by 34 per cent. That is one consequence of the sanctions regime, in which Germany is playing a part. I am happy to try to find a breakdown of countries’ contributions to that 34 per cent. reduction. I had a conversation with Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the German Foreign Minister and Vice-Chancellor, at last week’s meeting of NATO Foreign Ministers, which also took place in Brussels. From that conversation, I know that there is a strong German commitment to being part of a sanctions package.

The third important issue for the Council concerns international development, about which there is now helpful agreement across the House. Since the UN millennium summit in 2000, the world has repeatedly promised to “spare no effort” to free men, women and children from extreme poverty, but we are not moving fast enough.

The EU is the world’s biggest aid donor. If the millennium development goal targets are to be met, it needs to act as a driving force. Following his call for action in July, the Prime Minister is determined to use this and future Councils to push forward EU action to achieve the millennium development goals. We want the Commission to produce a full account of progress so far, and to make recommendations on how the EU can accelerate its efforts. If that work begins now, the EU will be able to lead the rest of the world by example.

Any strategy will be incomplete without trade and trade deals. The EU-Africa summit agreed an action plan with trade at its heart. We are working hard for a conclusion to the Doha trade round, and economic partnership agreements have an important role to play. A significant number of African countries have signed EPAs, and I hope others will follow before the end of the year, providing better access to EU markets and helping Africa trade its way out of poverty.

Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
Would the Foreign Secretary agree that much of the poverty in Africa is caused by EU trade barriers? He talks about setting an example, but would not this country be able to set a much better example if we had control over our trade policy? We could set an example to the other European countries if we had that, whereas at present we have Peter Mandelson determining our trade policy for us.

David Miliband
We know that the hon. Gentleman speaks with passion as a member of the “Better Off Out” campaign, but we would not be better off out of the EU. Indeed, we would be worse off—as would African countries, since it is Britain’s liberalising instincts in the EU that make sure that we have a progressive trade policy.

The Council will also address key issues where European and wider global issues come together.

Kate Hoey
Before the Foreign Secretary moves on to other matters, will he say whether the Council will discuss the EU-African summit, and Zimbabwe in particular? Why was the sanction lifted, allowing Mugabe to strut into Lisbon and swan around listening to one or two mild criticisms when the media were not present? He was able to laugh at this country and the other EU nations. Does he think that the Council at the very least should discuss the nonsense that was the lifting of that ban, and that all the leaders should have followed the example set by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister—that is, stayed away and called Africa’s bluff?

David Miliband
I completely understand the passion that my hon. Friend feels about the matter, and it is shared by the Government and the whole House. I am sure that we will reflect on the lessons of the EU-Africa summit. Like her, I think that the Prime Minister was right not to attend, as his absence highlighted what is happening in Zimbabwe. The extensive discussion of Zimbabwe, including the contributions made by Baroness Amos, and the extensive media coverage did not represent the political triumph that Robert Mugabe sought.

Bob Spink (Castle Point) (Con)
I am grateful to the Foreign Secretary for giving way; he is being most generous. At the Council, will he raise the question of the European gendarmerie force? Will he confirm that the force is now heavily armed and can recruit personnel from any EU member or candidate country, including countries such as Turkey? Will he give an undertaking that it will never be allowed to operate on British soil?

David Miliband
I only caught the end of the hon. Gentleman’s question, but I am happy to reassure him that a nation must give its consent before any operation can be held in it.

Mr. Ian Davidson (Glasgow, South-West) (Lab/Co-op)
On the question of economic partnership agreements, is the Minister aware that both Namibia and South Africa have refused to sign an EPA with the EU, on the grounds that the agreements are unbalanced? What action should Britain take to make sure that both countries continue to have access to European markets?

David Miliband
My hon. Friend knows that if EPAs are not signed by 1 January 2007, the current regime lapses and the benefits that countries such as Namibia and South Africa receive are lost. That is why we are pushing hard for EPAs to be signed on a fair basis, and why the Under-Secretary of State for International Development, my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West (Mr. Thomas), was with me at the European Council yesterday, discussing how to make progress with the Trade Commissioner. I shall be happy to get an update on any further developments for my hon. Friend during the debate.

Mr. Brian Binley (Northampton, South) (Con)
Will the Foreign Secretary give way?

David Miliband
I must make progress. I am sorry, but I have tried the House’s patience sufficiently—

Mr. Binley
What about the treaty?

David Miliband
We will get to the treaty soon. If the hon. Gentleman stops interrupting me, we will get there sooner.

The Council will also address key matters on which European and wider global issues come together. Britain has benefited enormously from the single market and freer international trade. The Lisbon agenda from 2000 was designed to boost momentum on that, and the Council will take stock of progress.

It is right for the EU to take a lead on climate change. The Council will take place at the same time as the conclusion of the Bali conference, and will seek to respond as appropriate to any developments.

In respect of migration, on which the UK has an opt-in to all measures, the EU needs to work with countries beyond our borders to tackle illegal migration, manage legal migration and strengthen border control.

On enlargement, the General Affairs and External Relations Council agreed yesterday to continue to pursue policies in line with its enlargement strategy. There will be an accession conference with Turkey and Croatia next week. In the case of Turkey, it will open two new chapters in the accession negotiations.

The new focus on those important matters is a stark contrast with the enduring debate at successive European Councils in the past few years on institutional reform. Two further initiatives later this week will consolidate that new forward-looking agenda.

First, the EU will adopt a “globalisation declaration”. That will make it clear that the agenda for the future is: jobs; climate change and energy; economic stability; trade; and migration and development—not institutional tinkering.

Secondly, a “reflection group” will be established to examine the long-term challenges that face the Union. One thing will be clear in the terms of reference: it is not about institutional reform.

Mr. Robert Walter (North Dorset) (Con)
I share the Foreign Secretary’s views about institutional reform, but he has not mentioned one of the disasters of the past couple of months: the failure to put together the EU force to go to Chad. If that will not be discussed, as he appears to imply, what will be the future for the European security and defence policy, given the embarrassment caused in connection with it by through European nations’ failure to stump up?

David Miliband
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point, which he has raised in the House before. Yesterday, an extensive discussion took place in the margins and round the table at the General Affairs and External Relations Council about getting the helicopters that are needed. I share the hon. Gentleman’s feelings of urgency. The links to Darfur and the position of the comprehensive peace agreement are also important. I therefore assure him that the matter is being addressed.

I said that a reflection group would be established to take a long-term look at the challenges that face the Union, and that its focus would clearly not be institutional reform. The contents of the treaty are being closely studied in the House, and I am happy to recognise the work of the European Scrutiny Committee and the Foreign Affairs Committee on the detail.

As the treaty is studied in detail, the myths are being exploded. For example, there is the myth that we will lose control of our foreign policy. That will not happen. As the European Scrutiny Committee says,

“the largely intergovernmental nature of the CFSP and ESDP will be maintained, with no significant departures from the arrangements which currently apply in the EU Treaty”.

The right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) peddles the myth that there is a hidden plot for the position of President of the European Commission to be merged with that of the new President of the European Council—

Mr. Binley
Will the Foreign Secretary give way?

David Miliband
No, the hon. Gentleman must let me finish the point; I was in the middle of a great rhetorical flourish and he interrupted me.

The right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks peddles the myth that there is hidden plot to merge the position of President of the European Commission with that of the new President of the European Council, thereby creating some sort of tsar of Europe. That is nonsense. The treaty specifically states that members of the Commission cannot have another job in the manner that the right hon. Gentleman suggests.

There is the myth that we have lost control of our criminal justice system. However, as the European Scrutiny Committee says,

“we accept that the UK retains the final right to choose”

on justice and home affairs matters. There is also the myth that we have lost control of our courts and police. However, the European Scrutiny Committee states:

“We accept that provision is made for the UK to exercise a right to ‘opt in’ in relation to measures which amend or replace existing EU measures, to measures which amend existing Title IV EC measures and to those which build upon the Schengen acquis”.

Several hon. Members
rose—

David Miliband
I am spoiled for choice, but on the ground of seniority, I must give way to the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd).

Mr. Richard Shepherd (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)
Bless the very young Foreign Secretary. However, he has not mentioned the greatest myth of all—the Labour party’s pledge to hold a referendum on the constitution. What happened to that? We still substantially have the constitution. Among all the myths that the right hon. Gentleman has found, where are the British people invited to express a view on something that is profoundly important to their future and well-being?

David Miliband
It is the constitution that has been abandoned, and it is because it has been abandoned that we are not having a referendum. The referendums in France and Holland in May 2005 led to a process, and to the constitution being “abandoned”. That is not my word; it is the word of 27 heads of Government. Today, the newly elected Conservative Prime Minister of Denmark—a country that has a more far-reaching version of the treaty than we do—said:

“The Lisbon Treaty does not transfer new powers to the EU, and is an amending treaty that is fundamentally different”—

[Interruption.] Members can laugh at the newly elected Conservative Prime Minister of Denmark, but I would have thought that they would try to learn some lessons from him. He says that it

“is an amending treaty that is fundamentally different to the Constitutional Treaty. The Government does not, therefore, find it necessary to put the Treaty to a referendum”.

[Interruption.] A Member asks from a sedentary position, “What does Giscard say?” I would have thought that the position of today’s Prime Minister of Denmark is more relevant than that of Giscard D’Estaing, who for all his distinction is very much a former President of France.

Several hon. Members
rose—

David Miliband
I shall give way to the hon. Member for Northampton, South (Mr. Binley).

Mr. Binley
I am grateful to the Foreign Secretary for giving way. I want to test his remarks about there being a myth about us losing control of foreign policy, because it seems to me that that is exactly what will happen. It is my understanding that article 19 of the treaty gives the EU high representative the right to represent the EU on the Security Council when it discusses, for instance, Zimbabwe—a subject that we have talked about before—and also that the UK’s representative cannot attend that meeting or take part in it. Can the Foreign Secretary tell me why that is not the case? Most experts tell me that it is.

David Miliband
I want the names of those “experts”, because their advice is, frankly, embarrassing. Any expert who tells us that Britain’s seat on the UN Security Council—whether it is filled by me as Foreign Secretary or by our permanent representative at the UN—is threatened by the fact that the new high representative will be able to address the Security Council is not living in the real world, because the EU is already able to address the Security Council. In fact, under the German six-month presidency in 2006, it did so eight times without any threat at all to the position of either myself, the UK vote or the UK permanent representative.

Ms Patricia Hewitt (Leicester, West) (Lab)
My right hon. Friend mentioned the contribution of the new Conservative Prime Minister of Denmark just today. Given the position of the new Danish Government, does my right hon. Friend agree that it is highly unlikely that that political party will join the Leader of the Opposition in the absurd new grouping that he proposes to create in the European Parliament?

David Miliband
My right hon. Friend makes an important point, because the truth is that the Conservative party is not just isolated in this House; it is isolated from all the other Conservative parties across Europe, which should give it pause for thought, as some of them have been decidedly more successful.

Several hon. Members
rose—

David Miliband
Because the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski) championed the milk industry when I was Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, I shall give way to him.

Daniel Kawczynski
As the right hon. Gentleman knows, that is another issue close to my heart. I understand why he has raised the issue of the Conservative Danish Prime Minister, but he is not comparing apples with apples. Denmark is a very small European country; it is not the fourth largest economy in the world, with a huge military presence. The Secretary of State must not compare Denmark with the United Kingdom; we are a far more important country and we must protect our constitution.

David Miliband
Some people would like us to have a constitution, but whether we have a constitution or not is a separate matter: there is no European constitution. The hon. Gentleman’s point about Denmark being small has no relevance at all to how important the treaty is.

Several hon. Members
rose—

David Miliband
I shall give way, for the last time, to my hon. Friend the Member for Preston (Mr. Hendrick).

Mr. Mark Hendrick (Preston) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way. Does he not find it peculiar that Opposition Members, and a few on our own side, wish to bypass the decision-making powers of this Parliament, which they were elected to make decisions in, and back-heel a decision about the European reform treaty to the general public?

David Miliband
As I pointed out when we last debated the subject, every single member of the current shadow Cabinet who was a Member in the House in 1992 fought tooth and nail against a referendum on the Maastricht treaty, which transferred far more powers than this treaty. In 1998, furthermore, the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) was warning of the dangers to our democracy from referendums—[Interruption.]

Several hon. Members
rose—

David Miliband
I have been on my feet for 38 minutes, and have tried the House’s patience long enough. We will have many more occasions for debating the issue in future—[Interruption.]

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst)
Order. It is clear that the Foreign Secretary is not giving way at this stage.

David Miliband
The reality is that the treaty gives greater voting weight not to Denmark but to the UK. The treaty reduces the size of the Commission, it ends the rotating presidency of the European Council in favour of a chair chosen by the nation states—[Interruption.] Why Opposition Members think that that is a threat to life in Britain I simply do not know. This country is stronger than that.

Several hon. Members
rose—

David Miliband
Because my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) is my hon. Friend, I will give way to her.

Ms Gisela Stuart
I have the greatest respect for the Foreign Secretary, but when he says that the greater voting weight is significant, will he also concede that as we are giving away a considerable number of decisions where qualified majority voting has been introduced, we now have a greater share of what is in fact much less and actually quite insignificant?

David Miliband
I reciprocate, in spades, my respect for the hon. Lady—[Interruption.]—I mean my hon. Friend, my dear friend, but let us go through the moves to QMV. Sixteen of the alleged changes do not apply to the UK, or apply only if we choose to opt in. Twenty offer faster decision-making where the UK wants to see better systems. Let us reflect on them: aid to disaster zones, ending protectionism in transport, protecting British business ideas, strengthening the EU’s research and innovation capability. Those are not threats to our constitutional settlement. That leaves 14 purely procedural changes: for example, the operating rules for the judicial appointments panel, how we appoint members of the European Economic and Social Committee, or how we adjust the rules for technical implementation in committees. [Interruption.] They are not shaking their heads, but nodding—not nodding off, I hasten to add. We will have plenty of time to discuss these issues in future.

I was saying that for the first time there is a formal role for national parliaments in the work of the EU. Above all, the European Union will, through this treaty, put to bed institutional restructuring in favour of working to deliver on the priorities of the people of Europe. It is right that we shall look at these matters in detail in the new year. It is right that my hon. Friend the Minister for Europe should spend an awful lot of time answering detailed questions, and that I should do that as well, as we go through the details of the Bill. It is right to check all the finer points, but it is also right to expose the central choice—[Interruption.]

Richard Younger-Ross (Teignbridge) (LD)
rose—

David Miliband
No. Should we engage and be influential, or disengage and be marginalised? On the Government side of the House, we are absolutely clear about the right choice.

This week, the European Council will be dealing with the realities, not the myths, facing our countries. From Kosovo to climate change, from economic reform to Iran, the European Union faces important choices. The Government will be playing a leading role in those debates, and the Prime Minister will report back to the House on Monday on the progress made.

17:23:00

Mr. William Hague (Richmond, Yorks) (Con)
I begin by joining the Foreign Secretary in condemning the bomb attacks in Algeria that we have heard about in recent hours. I also echo what he said about our thoughts being with those who have lost their lives or been injured in those attacks. It may be too early to know who caused them, but the manner and choice of the targets seem to be compatible with the north African branch of al-Qaeda. We will no doubt know more in due course, but I hope that the Foreign Secretary will keep the House informed, particularly about any British citizens who may have been caught up in the events.

I also support what the right hon. Gentleman said about Iran and the importance of discussing it at this weekend’s Council meeting. There is a need for increased European pressure on Iran over its continuing defiance of UN Security Council resolutions and its enrichment of uranium. Britain and France have called for a stronger European approach and tighter sanctions. That summit is surely an opportunity to try to secure agreement on that.

I also hope—like the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey)—that European leaders will reflect on what happened last weekend in relation to Zimbabwe and Robert Mugabe’s attendance at the European Union-African Union summit. It did the European Union no good at all, and has done nothing to lessen the desperate plight of the people of Zimbabwe. I hope, too, that the long list of foreign affairs—global affairs—that need to be discussed this week will include the never-ending tragedy of the people of Darfur. The Prime Minister and the President of France have attached great importance to major progress there, but progress is not materialising on the scale that was hoped for earlier this year, and new momentum is required.

There is also the situation in the Balkans, to which the Foreign Secretary referred in some detail both in his speech and in his written statement to the House today. Tension is again high in the area. The Foreign Secretary has indicated, rightly in my view, that Britain will recognise an independent Kosovo, but I hope he will also ensure that any future recognition of Kosovo’s independence by our Government will be based on a commitment by the Kosovo-Albanian leadership to implement all relevant provisions of the Ahtisaari plan—he now indicates his assent to that—particularly the provisions relating to the status of ethnic minorities in Kosovo.

Daniel Kawczynski
My right hon. Friend mentioned Darfur. When I visited the province last week, we were informed by the United Nations peacekeeping forces that they had not been paid since August. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is vital for the European Union to try to ensure that payment is made as quickly as possible?

Mr. Hague
It may well be necessary to raise that issue, and I suspect that the United Nations and the African Union will need to address it, but I think that the prospective size of the peacekeeping force is of greater concern. It was meant to be 26,000-strong, but nothing like that number have come forward so far.

Let me return for a moment to the subject of the western Balkans. In his written statement today, the Foreign Secretary said

“There is a compelling strategic case for enlargement”

of the EU

“to the Western Balkans”.

I agree with that, but I hope—this relates to the point raised by the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant)—that the Foreign Secretary will agree with the outgoing war crimes prosecutor, Carla del Ponte, who stated yesterday in her final report that Serbia’s full co-operation with The Hague tribunal, which means the arrest and transfer of Mladic, should be a condition in the EU pre-accession and accession process.

As for the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which could be affected by developments in Kosovo, we have called for elements of NATO’s operational reserve force to be sent to Bosnia as a preventive measure against any spill-over or challenge to the Dayton peace accords. I hope the Government will agree with us that beyond that initial step of shoring it up during these testing times, Bosnia will need international support for much longer, and that the office of the high representative in Sarajevo should not be closed before Bosnia is safely on the path of EU candidacy.

Mike Gapes (Ilford, South) (Lab/Co-op)
Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that now that there has at last been agreement about the policing reform in Bosnia, it is important for everyone to try to minimise attempts to unravel the Dayton process, and for there to be as much stability as possible during this difficult time?

Mr. Hague
Indeed. I believe that guiding our thoughts on Bosnia and Kosovo should be an absolute determination not to allow the unravelling of what was agreed at Dayton. There can be no going back to what happened in the Balkans in the 1990s. A measure of firmness is required on the part of European nations, and I hope that that will continue.

Alongside all those compelling global questions, the House’s main preoccupation is, of course, the European treaty that is to be signed this weekend. This debate is traditional, but it is disappointing that the Government have offered no separate debate on the recent report of the European Scrutiny Committee, which resulted in the Committee’s exceptional decision to exercise its scrutiny reserve on a treaty and to call for a debate specifically on the document before it was signed. The response of Ministers to that request has been to ignore it.

There has been a pattern in the Government’s behaviour this year of minimising parliamentary scrutiny on the issue whenever possible. In June, only days before the treaty was agreed in principle, the Foreign Secretary’s predecessor was saying that she was not aware of any negotiations, even between other countries—as if the vast document that then emerged came literally out of nowhere, handed down by some great deity of European affairs with no prior discussion with any human beings.

Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)
rose—

Mr. Hague
I shall give way to the Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee.

Michael Connarty
I am sorry for interrupting the right hon. Gentleman’s flow, but I must correct him on an important point. The document under scrutiny was the Commission’s opinion on the intergovernmental conference, which was then added to by the Government’s White Paper on the Commission’s opinion. The reform treaty, even in draft, has never been presented to us in this House, which is disappointing. We are not scrutinising that, because we have never been given it to look at.

Mr. Hague
I am sure that that is correct, because it comes from the Chairman of the Committee. It is also correct that the Committee called for a debate in this House specifically on its report before the treaty is signed. That, of course, is the point that I was seeking to make.

Mr. David Heathcoat-Amory (Wells) (Con)
The situation is a bit worse than my right hon. Friend described. In May, the Foreign Affairs Committee wrote a public letter to the Foreign Office stating:

“The Committee regards the refusal of the FCO to provide a Minister to give oral evidence during this crucial phase of the discussions on the future of Europe as a failure of accountability to Parliament.”

Is he aware of any other instance when a Select Committee of the House has reprimanded the Government in those terms?

Mr. Hague
My right hon. Friend makes a good point, because that is highly unusual language from a Select Committee to the Government. It was used against the background to which I was just referring, whereby the Foreign Secretary’s predecessor said that no negotiations were taking place. Her actual words when she gave evidence to the European Scrutiny Committee on 7 June were

“that nothing that you could really call negotiations have taken place”.

Everyone knew that Sherpas were going around Europe and that discussions were taking place between European capitals.

Richard Younger-Ross
The question put to the Foreign Secretary’s predecessor was put by me, and she was clear that no negotiations or discussions had taken place. Under pressure from the Committee it was later confirmed—this Foreign Secretary has confirmed it—that the Sherpas did meet on 24 January, 2 May and 15 May. The right hon. Lady was clearly trying to avoid any questioning about what might have been discussed at those meetings.

Mr. Hague
Far be it for us to think that the Foreign Secretary’s predecessor was trying to avoid questioning about what was going on at those meetings. There are only two possible explanations: either she was trying to avoid questioning or she was not aware that the meetings were taking place. I suspect that the former is correct.

Mr. Jenkin
I might be able to help my right hon. Friend on this point. It might have been quite truthful for the previous Foreign Secretary to have told the House that no negotiations were taking place because the document that emerged has almost entirely the same effect as the one that we are told has been abandoned. So, no negotiations needed to take place because the Government just agreed to everything as it was before.

Mr. Hague
There is a large element of truth in what my hon. Friend says. The sad truth is that the Government agreed to nearly everything that was there before, although negotiations were also taking place. I want to make the point that they were trying to prevent some of the things that have now been encapsulated in the treaty.

Mr. William Cash (Stone) (Con)
On that very point, would my right hon. Friend also take into account the fact that not only have these proceedings and this process been conducted in a deceitful manner, but the European Scrutiny Committee said, after we had seen the Foreign Secretary, that

“we reiterate our earlier comment that the process could not have been better designed to marginalise the role of national parliaments and to curtail public debate”?

In other words, the whole thing has been a charade.

Mr. Hague
I was going to cite that very passage from that report. It is marvellous of my hon. Friend to provide the service of reading out parts of my speech before I have arrived at them. [Interruption.] It is also quite unusual.

That is not the only example of such treatment of Parliament. On 25 June, when the former Prime Minister came back to sell the treaty in his last two days in office, he managed some remarkably selective quoting. Reading from the protocol on the charter of fundamental rights, to show—as he hoped—that there would be no effect on British law, he actually missed out the words “Title IV” from an otherwise verbatim passage, so as not to betray the fact that the Government’s clarification on the charter, whatever that may turn out to be worth, can apply in only one of the areas that it covers.

The Foreign Secretary himself has set a doubtful example in such matters by refusing to list, in response to my written questions, the areas in which the constitution and the reform treaty are exactly the same—even though other authorities have been willing to do so—presumably because he does not want to concede with his own pen what is a fact: that vast tracts of the constitution have been incorporated as they stood into the reform treaty.

The Foreign Secretary is not wrong about everything. He said on BBC “Question Time” on 8 February:

“I predict that when I come back on this programme…people will be saying, ‘Wouldn’t it be great to have that Blair back because we can’t stand Gordon Brown?’”

That does make him one of the most far-sighted forecasters in British politics in 2007. The Prime Minister has just spent days dithering over whether to go to the signing ceremony in Lisbon, finally arriving at the bold move of attending the signing but not the photograph. It is no wonder that the Foreign Secretary formed that early opinion of the Prime Minister.

On the Government’s approach to frank discussion of the treaty, the Foreign Secretary and his predecessor were at fault. I shall not quote again the passage that my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) has already quoted, but I believe it to be true. Even now it is unclear just how much debate there will be in the House of this far-ranging treaty. Ministers have told the press that there will be 20 days of debate, although it would not be difficult to fill far more than that. However, they have not so far been forthcoming on the matter in the House and we look forward to hearing how many days of debate there will be.

The treaty will bring about a profound change in the EU’s structures and powers, with major consequences for Britain. One way to illustrate to the House the scale of what is proposed is to look at the wide range of proposals in the treaty to which the Government were themselves opposed in recent years, and even in recent months. As recently as June this year, the Government argued that the high representative or Foreign Minister should not be able to chair the regular meetings of Foreign Ministers or take over the resources of the European Commissioner responsible for external affairs, but both of those things are to happen.

Philip Davies
Does my right hon. Friend agree that if the Government have negotiated such a marvellous deal they have nothing to fear from putting it to a referendum of the British people? Is not the only conclusion that can be drawn that they think either that the public are far too thick to decide such matters for themselves or that the Government would be caught with their trousers down?

Mr. Hague
Well, let me put it in a different way. The Government dare not put the treaty to a referendum of the people because they are not confident of the arguments that they have marshalled in favour of it.

The ability of the high representative or Foreign Minister to speak for the whole EU at the UN Security Council was emphatically opposed by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the Government’s representative on the European convention when it started its deliberations. He tried to water down the provision to the Foreign Minister being able only to request to speak for the Union, but the original proposal is in the treaty.

The self-amending nature of the treaty was also opposed by the Government, with the White Paper in 2003 firmly opposing any further moves to qualified majority voting without a fresh treaty. But today, the ability to abolish further national vetoes without a new treaty is there in black and white.

Mr. Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab)
Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that it was Margaret Thatcher in 1984 who first called for the European Community to develop an integrated foreign policy? She took the lead in that, and in the Single European Act in 1986 she also supported the idea of self-amendment when supported by unanimity. Why does the right hon. Gentleman sound like a ranting Labour Europhobe of the 1980s?

Mr. Hague
Actually I was repeating, more or less word for word, what the right hon. Gentleman said in the Standing Committee on the Intergovernmental Conference. He said:

“We think that a self-amending constitutional treaty does not make a lot of sense”.

Mr. MacShane
As the right hon. Gentleman knows, some of us are becoming more Thatcherite as the years pass; he is becoming less so.

Mr. Hague
Well, what a revelation! I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman concedes the point. When he was Minister for Europe, he said:

“It may help the Committee”—

that is, the Standing Committee—

“to know that, when I discussed the matter with my French opposite number, she thought that the so-called passerelle clause would need amendment before it would be acceptable to France.”—[Official Report, Standing Committee on the Intergovernmental Conference, 20 October 2003; c. 20.]

That was the right hon. Gentleman, rather than Thatcherites of the 1980s, stating his opposition. If he would like to intervene in an equally helpful way at any other point in my speech, he is most welcome to do so. The ability to abolish further national vetoes without a new treaty—something that he himself opposed—is now there in black and white.

Ms Gisela Stuart
I thoroughly agree with the right hon. Gentleman: the passerelle clause was bad and unacceptable. However, may I have his view on a different proposal? What if the British Government said no to a further extension of qualified majority voting unless prior primary legislation came before the House? Would Conservative Members support that?

Mr. Hague
The issue very much requires that kind of commitment. The Government said that they would hold a parliamentary vote, but they have not said that primary legislation will be required. Of course, the hon. Lady must understand that we are opposed to the treaty, and we call for a referendum, but if the Government are in any way trying to mitigate what they have signed up to, they should at minimum be offering full legislation, and not simply a parliamentary vote. We could go on with the list of all the things that the Government opposed, but to which they have now agreed.

Mr. Jenkin
rose—

Mrs. Dunwoody
rose—

Mr. Hague
I must proceed, but first I will give way to the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody); I have already given way to my hon. Friend the Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin).

Mrs. Dunwoody
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. I do not intend to keep him long. Is he aware that we do not need any kind of change, because as we have recently seen with Galileo, it does not matter what the House of Commons thinks about particular items, if our views are to be totally ignored through the use of qualified majority voting?

Mr. Hague
On the particular matter that we are discussing, unanimity is required to abolish further vetoes, and I suppose that it would be possible to build into the procedures of the House further safeguards on that. However, in respect of many other matters, what the hon. Lady says is quite right.

The Government opposed many proposals: the election of the Commission President by the European Parliament, the setting-up of a European public prosecutor without a right of veto over it, the enshrining of competition policy as an exclusive competence of the EU, the definition given to employment, public health, transport networks and consumer protection as shared competences, the articles on the EU’s power to co-ordinate employment and economic policies, the establishment of QMV on proposals made by the EU Foreign Minister, the references to a common defence policy, and the definition of policy on foreign direct investment as an exclusive competence of the EU. All those measures are in the treaty that the Government are about to sign, but all of them were opposed by the Government.

Angus Robertson (Moray) (SNP)
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Hague
Yes, but then I really must get on with the rest of my speech.

Angus Robertson
The right hon. Gentleman has been very generous. He talked about enshrining policy areas as exclusive competences. Among them is the common fisheries policy. Can he think of a single positive reason why that change should take place, and does he agree that it is bad for Scotland, and that it effectively precludes the likes of Norway and Iceland ever joining the European Union?

Mr. Hague
The fisheries policy has been a catastrophe in many ways. It has been an environmental and economic catastrophe for this country and many others. It would greatly extend my speech if I were to go into more detail on it today, but criticisms of it are well founded.

Above all, the Government were adamant in 2000 that no European Court of Justice jurisdiction over justice and home affairs could be accepted; they said that it would

“raise sensitive issues relating to national sovereignty”,

yet now they maintain that all those things, which they opposed, can be signed away without any damaging impact on national sovereignty. That is even before we come to what Ministers say are their red lines. It is clear that they spent so much time retreating over so many lines in the sand that they can no longer even remember where or what they were.

One by one, the Government’s arguments on the treaty have been knocked down. First, they said that it was quite different from the constitution, and they made reassuring noises. The Foreign Secretary talked about the Conservative Prime Minister of Denmark. He should know that the Danish Prime Minister belongs to a party that is in the Liberal group in the European Parliament, so it is a doubtful proposition that he will persuade Conservative Members to agree with his argument, on the basis that they would be agreeing with the Liberals.

Secondly, the Government said that the treaty is different from the constitution, because

“the constitutional concept…has been abandoned”.

The European Scrutiny Committee pointed out in an earlier report that it considered that

“references to abandoning a ‘constitutional concept’…are…likely to be misleading in so far as they might suggest the Reform Treaty is of lesser significance than the Constitutional Treaty.”

Yesterday, another of the Government’s arguments—that we desperately a need a new treaty to avoid institutional standstill after EU enlargement—was knocked down by yet another study, this time by the London School of Economics, which found that

“the ‘business as usual’ picture in the EU is more convincing than the ‘gridlock’ picture as regards practice in and output from the EU institutions since May 2004.”

The truth about the treaty is that it is not actually necessary. The Government have therefore been forced to say that it does not pose a problem, because all their negotiating objectives have been reached.

Mr. Hendrick 
rose—

Mr. Hague
I will not give way for the moment.

In addition, the Government argue that Britain has a bespoke version of the treaty, because of the so-called red lines.

Mr. Hendrick
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Hague
No, I have given way a lot. I wish to advance the rest of my argument before allowing other hon. Members to speak.

On each of those so-called red lines, the European Scrutiny Committee’s latest report is persuasive and damaging to the Government’s case.

Mr. Hendrick
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Hague
I think that I have made the position clear. I do not say things and not mean them.

The Committee found that control of tax and social security was never seriously threatened, confirming our view that the whole purpose of that red line was just a bit of spin. On foreign policy, it found that the treaty

“extensively modifies the existing EU Treaty provisions on CFSP and adds almost all of the proposals in the Constitutional Treaty,”

as well as

“an ever increasing degree of convergence of Member States’ actions.”

The Government’s declaration on foreign policy has already been exposed as legally meaningless, and the Committee has confirmed that the EU’s powers in foreign policy will be expanded. Given that expert witnesses have confirmed to the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs that the only changes in foreign policy between the EU constitution and the treaty are a change in job title for the EU Foreign Minister and the existence of a new declaration that is not legally binding, that red line is thoroughly discredited.

Ministers’ claims that they won an opt-out from the charter have been dropped, to be followed by an admission that it is merely a clarification of how the charter would apply to Britain and that the charter will be legally binding. The European Scrutiny Committee said:

“It…seems doubtful to us that the Protocol has the effect that the courts of this country will not be bound by interpretations of measures of Union law given by the ECJ and based on the Charter.”

Mr. Hendrick
rose—

Mr. Hague
If the hon. Gentleman behaves, I will give him a chance to intervene towards the end of my contribution. [Interruption.] We will make a deal.

In other words, the charter can be circumvented. Once again, another Government red line is exposed as more cosmetic than effective. On justice and home affairs, the Committee reiterates the important point that

“the powers of the Commission and the ECJ are considerably increased when matters move from the Third Pillar to the First”. 

It gives more details and, doubtless, other hon. Members will deal with that subject at greater length. In the interests of time, I will desist from doing so, but it is a fundamental point. It was one of the most important features of the original Constitution that criminal and civil justice and policing would no longer be intergovernmental matters, and the red line does not change that effect in any way. The Foreign Secretary will be aware of the Committee’s stringent criticisms of the Government’s failure to ensure that, unlike Denmark, our position vis-à-vis existing agreed measures is secure. The Committee concludes that

“under the system to be established by the Reform Treaty, a Member State will lose the ability finally to determine its own law”

on justice and home affairs—

“to the extent that measures are adopted at Union level”.

These conclusions must be taken seriously. They come from a Committee that has a majority of the governing party in the House. Each of the Government’s red lines is in turn exposed as weak or worthless. The last of Ministers’ arguments that the treaty is significantly different from the EU constitution has been demolished.

In any other field of policy, it would be thought perverse to hand more responsibilities to a body that cannot properly manage those that it already possesses, yet that is what Ministers propose to do. This is the 13th year that the Court of Auditors has refused to sign off the EU’s accounts. Year after year, the European Union fails to look after taxpayers’ money to the standard that taxpayers have every right to expect. It is time Ministers took more action over that than they have in recent years.

The abolition of national vetoes—69 by one account, and 50 by the Government’s latest tally—is another important issue. It is astonishing that Ministers are so blithe about it when they are even now fighting a desperate rearguard action on the temporary workers directive, whose red tape would, according to the CBI, endanger 250,000 jobs. The Government are finding it very hard to keep a blocking minority together, but they need a blocking minority only because this area is an EU competence and subject to qualified majority voting, both of which are a direct consequence of the abandonment of our opt-out from the social chapter in 1997.

On the single market, the reform treaty—in this context, surely an ironic name—is not just a step back from the current treaties, but even a step back from the constitution as it was drafted. The EU has some great achievements to its name. Enlargement is one, and the success of its competition laws is another. But by allowing the French Government to downgrade, for the first time, undistorted competition in the internal market from one of the EU’s chief objectives to a mere protocol must be one of the most remarkable examples of a British Government being asleep on the job at a summit since we joined the European Union.

As a report by the Centre for European Policy Studies, which is hardly a Eurosceptic outfit, states,

“far from being a minor technical adjustment . . . the excision of the competition principle from the front of the Treaty is likely to have a number of damaging consequences for EC competition law. There is a real danger that in future EC competition law will be cribbed, crabbed and confined.”

That is not a proud achievement by the British Government.

I give way to the hon. Member for Preston (Mr. Hendrick).

Mr. Hendrick
I thank the shadow Foreign Secretary for giving way. He has given 101 reasons why he is opposed to the treaty. After the treaty is passed by the House and another place—[Interruption.] Is the right hon. Gentleman saying that if or when the treaty is passed by this place and another place, and in the strange circumstances in which he might one day be Foreign Secretary, he would hold a referendum on a treaty already passed by the House?

Mr. Hague
I know that Labour Members are showing ever-increasing interest in what happens under a Conservative Government. After the past couple of months, that is not surprising. It has become a far greater likelihood. The background to our approach is what I set out last month, and I will not go further than that today. The hon. Gentleman is asking me to anticipate the Conservative manifesto at the next election. He will find out about that in due course.

Not just Britain’s but the whole European Union’s economic competitiveness will suffer as a result of the incompetent handling of the negotiations about competition policy.

Mr. Davidson
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Hague
I will, because I am worried about what the hon. Gentleman’s Whips may have done to him.

Mr. Davidson
I am grateful. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that there is an inconsistency in the Conservative position? They were opposed to a referendum on Maastricht, and now they are in favour of a referendum on Lisbon. Does he agree that that inconsistency is mirrored by my own party, which was in favour of a referendum on Maastricht and is now against one on Lisbon? Is it not the case that the only consistency is that whichever party is in government is afraid of the voice of the people, that only a few brave souls like myself have been consistently in favour of a referendum, and that on this issue the Government do not have even a single leg to stand on?

Mr. Hague
We all wish to congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his bravery and on being wiser and more consistent than almost anyone else in the House. That is to be lauded, but the consistency that is required is that when a party solemnly promises a referendum to the people in a general election campaign, and then wins that general election, it should honour the promise to hold a referendum.

Mr. Shepherd
Will my right hon. Friend give way?

Mr. Hague
I must conclude my speech. I have been speaking for more than half an hour. I want to deal with one point that the Foreign Secretary made, and then conclude my remarks.

The Foreign Secretary referred to the possibility— he thought it was a dark plot of some kind—[Interruption.]—he thought that I thought it was a dark plot—that the positions of President of the Council and President of the Commission might be combined. As he knows from my recent letter to him, the Government’s White Paper on the IGC of July stated that the posts of President of the European Commission and the new post of President of the European Council could not be held by the same person.

The post of the new EU President of the Council is bad enough. Instead of nation states taking it in turns to chair meetings, a single, central powerful figure would be in charge of the EU’s agenda. The danger if that were combined with presidency of the Commission is obvious.

The Foreign Secretary wrote back to my recent letter to claim that the article forbidding members of the Commission holding any other occupation would prevent such an outcome. He did not use that exact word in the debate today, but the wording is that they cannot hold another occupation, but of course an occupation is not the same as an office. The Secretary of State for Defence holds another office, but he does not hold another occupation.

It should be noted that the High Representative or Foreign Minister of the Union will be a member of the Commission, so saying that the treaty precludes members of the Commission from holding any other office in the European Union does not seem to hold water. However, if the Foreign Secretary wishes to give the House the categoric view for the future that that is impossible under the treaty, we will be grateful to receive that assurance.

David Miliband
rose—

Mr. Hague
If the right hon. Gentleman wishes to tell the House that it is impossible for that to happen, we will welcome that assurance.

David Miliband
As I said in my speech and in my reply to the right hon. Gentleman, which sadly did not get as much coverage as his original letter to me, despite my request to him to give it such publicity, article 213—the number may be changed—is categorical that the two posts cannot be combined. A man or woman holding a post in the Commission cannot have another post.

Mr. Hague
What the treaty says is that they cannot hold another occupation. The Foreign Secretary did not quite give the reassurance that I asked for. When I have discussed the matter with Foreign Ministers of some other European nations, their interpretation is not the one that he has given.

David Miliband
Which ones?

Mr. Hague
I do not want to dampen their relations with the Foreign Secretary by revealing their names.

It is worth remembering that no one in the House has any democratic mandate from the British people to agree to the treaty. All three main parties stood on manifestos promising the British people a referendum on the constitution. No one’s manifesto said that there would be a referendum on the EU constitution, but if another country voted no in their referendum the British referendum would be scrapped, the Constitution would be given a new name and a few tweaks, and the treaty would be shoved through without the British people being given any say on it at all. But that is the extraordinary thing that Ministers are proposing.

The whole story of the treaty has been of the Government’s failure of leadership, in Europe and in Britain. If Ministers are to be believed, they never wanted the constitution or the treaty. They were defeated time and again in the negotiations. Of the 275 amendments that the Government tried to make to the original constitution text, only 27 were accepted. Now they have accepted a treaty that practically the whole of Europe agrees is only cosmetically different from the constitution, and which they dare not put to the British people.

Everyone knows what the Government are up to. No one seriously believes that the treaty is significantly different from the constitution. Some, like the constitution’s chief draftsman, about whom the Foreign Secretary was rather dismissive earlier, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, cannot stop pointing that out. After the October summit he told European newspapers that

“the difference ... is one of approach, rather than content”.

Last month he told the BBC that

“you wouldn’t be honest to tell the British voters the substance of the text has changed— because the substance has not changed”.

He has written with satisfaction in his blog that the constitution’s

“essential points ... reappear word for word in the new project. Not a comma has changed!”

Everyone knows what is really going on. No impartial commentator thinks that the Government are up to anything other than a cynical and calculated manoeuvre to avoid holding a referendum. Ministers have neither the courage to fight an election, nor the courage and honour to keep their own promise of a referendum. Once again they are happy to treat the people of this country like fools, and the British people deserve better than that. Trust and confidence in the Government are draining away. There remains one notable way for the Prime Minister to repair some of the damage—to honour his promise of a referendum. We will see if he has the courage to admit that he was wrong, act like a statesman and give the British people the chance to have the say that we all promised them.

18:00:00

Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)
In one way I am disappointed that we are having another general debate on European affairs and not being given a full debate on the reform treaty. I believe that there is a technical term for this—it is not one that I knew before I came to Parliament—and that is “frit”. The Government are frit to have a debate on the issue that really is at this moment at the heart of Europe. We have a term for it in Scotland, which the Minister for Europe will recognise, and that is “feart”. I cannot understand why the Government are in that position: it is clear that a reform treaty debate would have allowed the Government and people such as myself who have looked at the treaty to talk about its contents and structure, but again to argue on the front foot for a European treaty that takes us where that treaty will take us. We could agree on what the treaty will do, and still debate whether it is a good or a bad thing. But in the context of a general debate on European affairs, it becomes somewhat lost.

However, at least we are having a debate on European affairs, and I make no apology to the House for raising an issue that is not the reform treaty as my first point today. We should have debates such as this on general matters going to the European Council, but we should also have had a formal debate, as the Lords were brave enough to do on the reform treaty.

The issue that I wish to raise first is the working time directive and the temporary agency workers directive, which will be reported to the European Council as a failure. This was a chance for the working people of Europe to see advances in their terms and conditions of employment and for protection to be brought in for the poorest and most exploited workers in Europe. In my analysis as a Labour party member, the UK Government are found wanting on the working time directive. We did not want the abolition of the opt-out after three years, as originally proposed, and we did not want to have an absolute cap on the working week of 55 hours, but negotiations broke down in 2006. The matter came back to the Portuguese presidency on 5 December with the proposal that there be no expiry date for the opt-out, which would have been beneficial to the Government and possibly to the Opposition, who have not been to the fore defending workers’ rights either when they were in government or in opposition. But there would be an absolute cap on the working week of 60 hours, which is a long week for anyone to work, but is a regular working period for many in the poorest sections of our community, in the hospitality industry and elsewhere in Britain. So there was no agreement on that, and that is disappointing.

With regard to the temporary agency workers directive, the Lisbon agenda said that there would be freedom and liberalisation of the markets and in the private sector, and there would also be liberalisation of labour markets. We have exploited that and used it to our advantage, and we have low unemployment because of it. The problem, however, is that people who work in agencies, not just under gangmasters but for any agency, find that they do not have the same terms and conditions of employment as people working alongside them. The worst example is in the telecoms industry, where members of the union of which I am the secretary in the House—although not a member of because I took that interest on from my predecessor who was a postman—tells me that people from agencies working alongside its members in call centres have not had a pay rise in five years, whereas those who work on a proper contract with an employer, whether it be an agency, BT or other call centre organisations, have regularly negotiated wage rises and all the other benefits that come with that.

There was a proposal that we should bring the measure in for everyone, and we have seen the negative effect of not doing so. We have seen people coming by invitation, particularly from the A8 countries, to join our work force, and being offered agency work status, and then British workers being told that if they wished to work in a certain place of employment they would be made redundant but could then join the agency under the same terms and conditions of employment as those people coming into the country, without the benefits of organised trade unions. Winston Churchill said that without the minimum wage bad employers undermine good employers, and the worst employers undermine the bad employers. That is what is happening in this country at the moment because we do not have the temporary agency workers directive.

Mr. Cash
Does the hon. Gentleman know that today, in the case of the International Transport Workers Federation, the European Court of Justice has made a ruling which it is said extends or moves into the right to strike? Does he not recognise that that is one of the contentious issues within the charter of fundamental rights, and it demonstrates everything that we have said in the European Scrutiny Committee report, namely that the charter of fundamental rights cannot be guarantee in relation to the ECJ?

Michael Connarty
I will come back to the charter of fundamental rights, because there are lessons there for the trade union movement. I will also have some comments to make that may be read by senior members of the trade unions who appear not to be listening to any other avenue through which I have spoken to them about the charter of fundamental rights, despite my long history of trade union membership, and some leadership positions in trade unions in Scotland.

The temporary agency workers directive would have required employers to give agency workers equal treatment and created a framework for the use of temporary workers that would be conducive to job creation and contribute to the development of flexible working. That is what the Lisbon agenda said about the need for such a directive.

The great problem was how long it would take for the EU Governments to implement the directive. The derogation asked for by the UK Government was five years. The UK also wanted one of the longest periods for a sunrise clause. Temporary agency workers would have to work for 12 months before they had these rights. Other proposals, including that of the Portuguese Government, whose people have been exploited on entering the EU, were for six weeks.

Instead of a compromise on those two directives, which were taken together, both being for the good of workers, no agreement could be reached. I believe that there was a blocking minority of the UK, Germany, the Netherlands and Ireland—all countries on the plus side of employment—the ones with booming economies whose people do not have to travel outside their own countries for employment. That was a great disappointment to me. The TUC said:

“This is a bad day for working people throughout Europe.”

I will come back later to why I think the TUC’s decision on the treaty, particularly based upon its analysis of the charter of fundamental rights, was also a bad day for working people throughout Europe.

I do not speak today as the Chair of the European Scrutiny Committee; I hope to take a wider view. Of the EU reform treaty Bill referred to in the Queen’s Speech, it has been said that Parliament would have full opportunity to scrutinise the treaty in detail—not yet, it would appear, but that was the promise—that the treaty would move the European debate on from inward-looking institutional questions to focus on real issues that actually matter to the people who live in the member states, and that the treaty would set in place a series of sensible institutional changes to help make the EU of 27 member states work more effectively.

The treaty will do a number of those things. It was important to get an institutional change that allowed us to move from pre-Nice to post-Nice to the position where we had 27 Members. That is encapsulated in the treaty; it is fundamental, and I do not think that anyone would disagree about it. Whether it had to be contained in this treaty is probably a major issue. Will it move us to the point where we will focus on real issues?

Every week the European Scrutiny Committee deals with matters that the Minister for Europe is discussing with his colleagues, and matters that other Ministers—Transport Ministers and Environment Ministers—are discussing with their colleagues. Every week we produce a hard-bound report of all the briefs that we consider, although I am sorry to say that those reports do not get much attention. Sometimes we send them for debate; we are trying to sort out the structure for the European Standing Committees so that the debates are back on the agendas of the private sector and civil society of this country. Just last week I spoke to a group of business people through the Industry and Parliament Trust. They said, “We no longer know who to write to. We no longer know who is on the Committees or who we should send our briefs to, because of the collapse of the scrutiny process.”

The problem with the treaty is that it will be a festering sore until the Government lance the boil. They could have started that process with a debate on the reform treaty. We could have got beyond the institutional structures and argued, as I may later, that having some of the changes opposed by the Opposition, such as qualified majority voting on different areas, and accepting that the European Court of Justice and the Commission will be given final jurisdiction over the implementation of European laws, will have the benefit of those laws being implemented throughout Europe—not being denied by any part of Europe, but being available to all our businesses and citizens and all citizens of Europe when they come to this country. However, we will never get beyond certain issues because the Government appear to be hiding among a maze of red lines and superstructures that they have constructed above them. That is a great disappointment.

Mrs. Dunwoody
If my hon. Friend’s Committee had the power to table an amendment to the papers that it considered and to have that voted on to get a resolution capable of being referred to the Floor of the House, that would solve a great many problems—not only from his point of view, but in respect of monitoring what happens in our name in the European Union.

Michael Connarty
I cannot think of a stronger advocate for more powers for the Committee. At the moment, the Government and their Ministers just see us as a bit of an annoyance. We have been crawling all over them and doing our job properly and that can sometimes be tedious. Someone said to me recently, “I’m fed up with writing you letters.” I should say that it was said jovially, but underneath it there was a bit of truth. We do not apologise for that or anything that enhances scrutiny. I shall come later to questions of how to deal with the opting-in process; that must be discussed on the Floor of the House if the process is to have any credibility.

Let us look at the Lisbon treaty from the perspective of the European Parliament’s Constitutional Affairs Committee’s report on it. First, there was the statement made at the conference on the future of Europe that I attended last week: let us accept the fact that 95 per cent. of European laws and decisions will be made under the European co-decision making process. That will give the European Parliament a say and the power to amend in 95 per cent. of cases. That is a fundamental, massive change, and I might argue positively for it. The one thing that used to worry me about Europe was that it involved a Commission and a group of bureaucrats and that there was no democratic say. The Parliament had the right to speak but no right to change, amend and have any power. If the conference statement is a good thing, it should be argued for.

The European Parliament report says that the Treaty of Lisbon is a

“substantial improvement on the existing treaties”

and that it will provide

“a stable and lasting framework”

for the work of the EU. The report endorses the treaty and expresses the hope that all member states will ratify it. It states that the treaty will provide more democratic accountability, including greater scrutiny powers for the European Parliament, and that Council meetings will be in public, the new budgetary process will require Council and European Parliament approval, and that future revision of the treaties will be carried out by a convention. That means, of course, that the passerelle clause will be used in a number of cases. All Governments would have to agree unanimously to pass over to qualified majority voting areas of policy that do not use it at the moment.

The report also mentions more rights and clarity for citizens—for example, through the European institutions being bound by the charter of fundamental rights and the European Union acceding to the European convention on human rights. The latter point is important; the EU would suddenly become controlled by the convention. The EU itself has not been, although Governments have. The report also introduces the idea of a European citizens initiative; I heard that debated at length last Monday and Tuesday but still do not know what it means. How would citizens get together so pressurise that great bureaucracy? Last week, I also heard statements again and again—including from the rapporteur Richard Corbett, of the Party of European Socialists, and a member of the Labour party. He did not think that the yellow and orange cards would be workable; he said that they would never be used, and many echoed that in last week’s debate. So according to European parliamentarians, those supposedly great powers given to the national Parliaments would never be triggered. That worries me greatly.

Ms Gisela Stuart
Does my hon. Friend accept that the citizens initiative, which as he rightly says is completely unworkable and gives rights to citizens that we do not even give to Parliament, was introduced so that some countries could avoid the need for a referendum? It could be said that the people had a direct voice, even if it did not amount to anything.

Michael Connarty
The dialogue was interesting. Some members, particularly people from the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe—and particularly Mr. Duff, who chaired and steered the sitting every way, as long as it was his way—said that the national Parliaments should focus on telling the European Parliament what they thought, and that it would then try to tell the Commission and the Council. I do not think that that is the role of national Parliaments, which should focus on making their Governments go to the Council and agree the right thing.

We have arrived at a new place, which may be interesting, although I am not sure how it will work.

Mr. Davidson
May I seek clarification? If in future 95 per cent. of legislation that comes through Brussels will be consulted on with the European Parliament, what percentage of that legislation will be consulted on with this Parliament?

Michael Connarty
That will depend on the Government’s attitude to the role of Parliament. When the Government go to the Council, the European Scrutiny Committee is involved, and European Standing Committees can be involved if they can get the interest of Members of Parliament. However, at the moment I do not think there is a mechanism for Parliament to tell the Government what to do. My hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) made exactly that point: if resolutions could be tabled and voted on, we might feel that matters of substance were being debated in the House and its Committees.

Mr. Davidson
The answer is no then, is it?

Michael Connarty
The fluidity of the British constitution is such that what appears to be a system of persuasion and cajoling can be more effective than the concept of mandating. Governments find ways to get round the mandate; we have seen that on a number of occasions in those rigid forums.

Mandating is attractive to people when they are out of office. I cannot imagine having a telephone conversation with a Minister of another party asking me, “Is it all right if we agree this?” It is difficult enough to get the ear of my own party; getting the ear of an opposing party might be even more difficult.

Let me add the final analysis of the European Parliament report. It said that there would be greater effectiveness in law making and that the number of areas subject to qualified majority voting would be increased. It is clear about that. It said that having a two and a half year standing President would give more coherence, and I agree. It said that there would be a reduction in the number of Commission members; I hope that everyone would agree with that. It also said that the EU would be able to act as one in external relations and that the pillar structure would be abandoned. That abandonment leads to some of our deep concerns about civil and criminal justice.

I turn now to the fundamental issues. I hope that people will read what we have said in our reports. As I believe that we have shown in the annex to our 35th report, every provision of the constitutional treaty, apart from the flags, mottos and anthems, is to be found in the reform treaty. We think that they are fundamentally the same, and the Government have not produced a table to contradict our position.

The next issue is that of opting in and additional votes. The concept of the opt-in that we have is an odd trap that the Government have set for themselves. When I asked the previous Prime Minister at the Liaison Committee what the four red lines were, and what we would have to do so that we did not have to have a referendum, he referred to the protection of the UK’s labour and social legislation and so on, but he used the words

“the control of the UK’s civil and criminal legal system”—

the common-law system of police and judicial processes. The White Paper responding to the Commission’s report on the intergovernmental conference changed that to:

“Protection of the UK’s common law system and the police and judicial process”.

It is much more difficult to protect than to control. If we are controlling, all we need to do is to say, “We’ve got control of it; we’ll give it up tomorrow, or the day after.” If we are protecting, we are saying that we do not give it up—that we do not move away from the position that we have at the moment whereby we have opted in, as the Foreign Secretary said in evidence to us, to 70 or 80 areas. We still have final jurisdiction over how the system is applied in the British courts. It is not controlled by the final jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice and the Commission, which can take infraction against any country that does not apply ECJ decisions.

In the annex to our third report of Session 2007-08—wonderful things, these annexes—we list all the areas that we have already opted into that we were not in originally but we have gradually opted into, but only on condition that our courts will finally judge how they will be applied. We are told in article 10 of protocol 10 that over five years there are 70 or 80 areas—I do not know whether they will all be put together in a bundle—where we will have to make a decision whether to give up the right of the British courts to judge these matters, and opt into them when they are changed into what is now called the Community method—qualified majority voting.

That is a worry that the Government have never clarified. How will it be done? Will some Minister send an explanatory memorandum to our Committee buried in lots of other EMs from the Council, with possibly a debate—or 70 or 80 debates—in a European Standing Committee, or will the Government simply go and agree it and then tell us, “Sorry, we’ve done it—we’ve probably broken the scrutiny reserve but we can’t do anything about it because it’s all signed up to now”? I have to say that that does not happen as much now as it used to—the Government are getting better about it.

It is a real worry for us that that process has not been clarified. I asked the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary, but we did not get a clear response. Will it be included in the EU reform treaty Bill so that we can decide in Parliament what the procedure would be? The Government are duty bound to give us that right. Every time they want to give up protecting the civil and criminal justice system, as they put it, they must present it to this House. Sometimes I might say that I would like to stay in an area that we have opted into—for example, the European arrest warrant, which worked very well when we got back, within three or four days, one of the people who perpetrated the 7 July bombing.

We have got such people back because we did not have to go through the old process of looking for people to repatriate them to their own countries. That was a very good thing. In that case, we could argue that we should stay in and take the consequences. ECJ jurisdiction will apply, and if anyone breaks that, the Commission will decide to take infraction against them. On other issues, we might decide that we want them to remain within the jurisdiction of the British courts. As we showed, that is also a consequence of articles 62 to 69, which are all new areas that we can choose to opt into. That also applies to every amendment. There have been amendments to previous agreements, and we have had the right to choose whether to opt into them. There are consequences if we do not opt into them—mainly that we have to walk away from the agreement altogether.

Richard Younger-Ross
rose—

Michael Connarty
I am going to finish this point before I take an intervention.

The Danish Prime Minister decided that it was all right for Denmark because Denmark does not have that problem—it is secured. Our third report of the 2007-08 Session shows that the Danish had an agreement whereby if they decided that they did not want to opt in, they would remain with the status quo; the issue would still be under the jurisdiction of the Danish courts and they would not have to walk away. They had an agreement whereby they could keep what they had or choose the new arrangement. We could not understand why our Government did not get the same agreement, and we said so in our report. We are a much bigger country than Denmark, so why did we not have the leverage to say, “We’ll keep what we have, and if we like what you offer we’ll opt into that”? I cannot understand that at all; I have never been able to explain it to myself or to my Committee.

Richard Younger-Ross
The hon. Gentleman is an excellent Chairman of the Committee—I hope that my saying that does not ruin his progress—and he is making some excellent points. Is part of the problem the fact that Ministers do not wish to come to this House for decisions to be made, because they wish to make decisions in smoke-filled rooms so that they can trade off a policy that they wish to see go through against other policies? Did not the former Minister for Europe go as far as saying on the record that they were even prepared to agree to proposals with a questionable legal basis if they could get something that they wanted in return?

Michael Connarty
That is a factual statement. The previous Minister for Europe, who is now our Chief Whip, has said that that is how deals are done. I do not know whether other Members who were in previous negotiations accepted that that was how Europe works—that sometimes people give in to something that they are not quite happy with on the basis that they are storing up good will for something coming down the line. That is on the record in one of our evidence sessions, and it was a revelation to me.

The Committee cannot understand why, when the text finally came out following the process of negotiations, it contained the word “shall”. It said that under article 8, Parliament “shall” participate in institutions of the European Union. We objected to that and asked why the Government did not negotiate to put in the word “may”. They said that the French word, “contribuant”, means that the action is ongoing, but we talked to French Members, who said, “No, that means, ‘You will contribute’”. We understand that France took a strong position on this. They did not want to take out the word “shall” and put in the word “may”. The wording now is that Parliaments “contribute to” or “participate in”. The legal judgment of our officials is that that will be used by the ECJ to say that the Commission, if it wishes to in future, can take infraction against any Parliament that refuses to participate in any part of the EU’s institutions. That is a very negative aspect. We expressed that view to the Government and suggested that they seek that amendment, but they did not secure it. On Monday, I asked President Barroso why we should not insert the word “may”, and he gave the same interpretation as the Portuguese Foreign Minister—that the article imposes no obligation on national Parliaments and is purely declaratory in nature. If that is the case, why not put in “may”?

I apologise for going on for so long, but I want to turn to one final matter before I conclude. When we did not get the agency workers directive, the TUC said that it was a bad day for workers throughout Europe. It was also a bad day when the TUC concluded that the charter of fundamental rights would not be applicable because of the Government’s assertion that it was tied up in the agreements, opt-outs and red lines, so working people would not be able to gain in their terms and conditions of employment or in any other matters related to the charter.

I think that the TUC did everyone a great disservice there. I have to ask people in the great unions, such as Tony Woodley of the Transport and General Workers Union or Derek Simpson of Amicus—both sections of Unite, the union of which I am a member—or Mr. Kenny of the GMB, why they did not realise that if they campaigned against the treaty and called for a referendum that led to its defeat, it would be denied to 26 other countries, whose working people and civil society wanted the charter of fundamental rights. I cannot understand a movement of working class solidarity that uses such a technique, and says, “If I can’t have it, I’m taking their ball and going off the park, and you can’t play.”

Kate Hoey
I accept what my hon. Friend says, and I understand the thrust of his arguments. However, would he not agree that, just as the Labour party could have argued for the social chapter even if it was not going to sign up to Maastricht, a country retaining control of what it wants to do could bring in such legislation without having to do so through the mechanisms of the bureaucracy of the European Union, if it needed to?

Michael Connarty
Possibly, because I am not a Eurosceptic. I voted yes in the original referendum on Europe. I had more insight than the Minister for Europe who did not vote. [Interruption.] He was too young. On his behalf, and on behalf of future generations, I voted yes, because I believed—and still believe—that the European project brings more for the people of this country, alongside the other peoples of Europe than it loses. I have absolutely no doubt about that, and I cannot understand a labour and trade union movement so churlish that it spitefully decides it will turn its back on solidarity across Europe because it wants a scrap with the Government,. That was a great disservice to the people, partly because the unions in question did not wait for our report.

The report points out that the charter of fundamental rights will be used again and again—I presume that Conservative Members do not like that—by civil society and by working people. They will use other things, such as the agency workers directive—when we get it—and the fully implemented working time directive. The charter will be used alongside those directives to challenge any Government, including this one, or any future Government, who deny people the same rights across Europe.

We are clear in our analysis. The Government have said that this is not an opt-out from the charter of fundamental rights. I hope that the trade unions will realise the great benefits to be gained and will campaign in support of the implementation of the treaty. Even though I have differences of opinion about implementation and about the impact of each section of the red lines, I have no doubt that the treaty should go through the parliamentary process. It is a difficult treaty. It has 150 clauses and it will have a deep and fundamental impact on the people of Britain. We are elected to represent those people, and it is our job to ratify it. I hope that the Government bring forward a full Bill so that we can argue, line by line, for the implementation of the treaty.

18:33:00

Mark Hunter (Cheadle) (LD)
First of all, I associate myself with the remarks made by the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs at the start of proceedings with regard to the tragedy in Algeria earlier today. Although details are still emerging, it is obvious that it was a very bad incident, and as the right hon. Gentleman said, our thoughts must be with everyone—the families and friends of all those who were killed or injured.

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak from the Front Bench in this debate on European affairs, but the House should be aware that my party’s shadow Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (Mr. Moore), has written to the Foreign Secretary and the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) to explain his absence from his usual place today.

As a proud advocate of internationalism and the European Union, I believe that the UK’s role in the EU is vital in securing a stable and successful future for our country and for our prosperity. Self-evidently, we face a world in which more and more challenges have an international dimension. Climate change, terrorism and the international drug trade are just a few of the major international issues that affect the everyday lives of people in the UK. To resolve such problems requires co-operation between nations, and that must be our watchword for the future.

The European Union plays a critical role in combating those evils, as well as in improving the lives of many of our constituents. Unlike some hon. Members, who seem to be avoiding the issue of Europe like the plague at the moment, and others who are unashamed in their hostility toward anything European, I speak for a party that is proudly internationalist and pro-European.

Ms Gisela Stuart
Given that the hon. Gentleman is so proudly internationalist and so proud of his party, is he trying to tell me that all his MPs, including those in the south-east, completely agree with their MEPs, such as Andrew Duff?

Mark Hunter
I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. If she will allow me to get into my stride a bit more, she will have a much better idea of precisely the point I am trying to make.

Mr. Davidson
As I understand it, the hon. Gentleman is telling us that the Liberal party is supportive of the European Union. Well, hold the front page. May I ask him what the Liberals’ position is on the question of a referendum? As I understand it, they do not like the idea of a referendum on the constitution or the treaty; they want one on something entirely different. If that idea falls, however, and there is a motion before the House on the question of a referendum on the constitution, or the constitutional treaty, what will the position of the Liberal Democrats be?

Mark Hunter
I welcome that further intervention, but if the hon. Gentleman is a bit patient and allows me to get to it, he will understand exactly what position I advocate.

Mr. Davidson
Tell me now. I like losing the will to live.

Mark Hunter
The hon. Gentleman—[Interruption.]

Madam Deputy Speaker (Sylvia Heal)
Order. Mr. Mark Hunter.

Mark Hunter
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

As I was saying, I am keen to take a moment or two to look at some of the benefits the EU has brought to Britain over the years. Let us not forget that UK membership of the EU has given us the opportunity to co-operate on tackling cross-border crime, helped to provide strong economic growth and prosperity, helped to make our air cleaner, offered a co-ordinated approach to providing aid to the developing world, helped to make our beaches and rivers cleaner and provided regional development funds for deprived areas in the UK.

That does not mean that we claim the EU is perfect. We are certainly not blind to its faults; we simply believe that we are better off in than out. All too often, the positive benefits that the EU has delivered go unmentioned by politicians and unnoticed by the public. For too long, the Eurosceptics have controlled the agenda on Europe. Those of us in this House who are pro-European, whether present today or not, need to reassert our arguments and make the positive case for Europe. In that context, the recent relaunch of the European Movement under the presidency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Mr. Kennedy) is a very good thing indeed.

With the accession of Bulgaria and Romania, the EU now has 27 member states, and we can all agree that the institutional arrangements derived from its original six members cannot function properly in such a union, which will no doubt have more members in the future. Although I do not intend to spend too long on this issue, because I am sure that it will be discussed at great length in January and I hope to be part of that debate—reshuffle aside—I want to say a few words about the institutional changes proposed in the EU reform treaty.

I have no doubt that the proposals in the reform treaty will make the EU a more effective and efficient institution. The reduction in the number of commissioners and reform of the EU presidency will make co-ordination on a variety of policies both quicker and more decisive, improving the EU’s standing and power in the international arena.

Mr. Shepherd
We know that the hon. Gentleman’s party is actively and devotedly supportive of the European Union. Indeed, it said so in its 2005 manifesto:

“We are therefore clear in our support for the constitution, which we believe is in Britain’s interest”.

He therefore need not spend too long on that; however, the manifesto continued:

“but ratification must be subject to a referendum of the British people.”

Now can we hear his answer?

Mark Hunter
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. If he will be patient for a tiny bit longer, I am about to come to that part of my speech. It may not be convenient to him or other hon. Members who have intervened that I should keep to the order in which I wish to present the arguments, but I will not be deflected—either by that hon. Gentleman or any other.

The reform treaty also achieves what we have wanted for a long time: to make the EU more accountable to UK citizens, through the involvement of national Parliaments and their ability to object to EU policies on the basis of subsidiarity. The EU’s policies will be fully discussed and scrutinised in Parliament, which I hope we would all agree is a welcome development for the UK. That said, we on the Liberal Democrat Benches will, as we have indicated previously, seek to table an amendment to the Bill when it is put before Parliament next year calling for a referendum, albeit not on the dry, technical detail of the treaty, but on the real issue, namely whether it is a good idea for the UK to stay in Europe or not. In or out—it is time that we sort it out.

Mr. Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)
Will the hon. Gentleman tell us what has changed between the general election, when it was pertinent to have a referendum on this “technical issue”, and now, when it is not?

Mark Hunter
I am delighted to answer the hon. Gentleman’s question. I will mention just three things that have gone from the constitutional treaty. The first is the constitutional concept. The European Council has stated that the constitutional concept has been “abandoned” and that, rather than replacing previous treaties, the reform treaty will amend previous treaties, principally the treaties establishing the European Community and the European Union. That is the first thing that is different.

The second thing that is different is that there will be no symbols of the European Union. There will be no article in the amended treaty mentioning—[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman asked a question, but does not seem prepared to listen to the answer. There will be

“no article in the amended Treaties mentioning the symbols of the EU such as the flag, the anthem or the motto.”

That is the second thing that is different, off the top of my head. The third thing that is different—I will move on after this—is that there is no explicit mention of the primacy of EU law. At UK insistence, mention of the primacy of EU law will be relegated to a declaration noting the case law of the European Court of Justice. That will, in effect, recognise that the principle has been upheld.

Mr. Hague
Does the hon. Gentleman therefore agree with the former leader of his MEPs, Mr. Chris Davies, who wrote on 6 August:

“The EU Constitutional Treaty is dead. The EU Reform Treaty is very much alive. I think we should be honest in admitting that the difference between the two is minimal”?

Mark Hunter
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention. The answer to his question is no.

If we are to be honest with ourselves and the public, whether we are in or out is what the debate is really all about. In fact, we have already received some support from the blue side of the argument for our in/out referendum proposal. Iain Dale, the blogger extraordinaire and Conservative party activist, has advised the Leader of the Opposition on The Daily Telegraph’s website to steal the Lib Dems’ policy on the issue, arguing that it would

“settle the issue once and for all”.

I am happy that at least one prominent Conservative has come to a sensible conclusion on the matter. I have no doubt that others will follow in time.

I assure the House that if and when such a referendum is called, we on the Liberal Democrat Benches will be the first on the streets, pounding the pavements to explain to our constituents not only why Europe is good for the future of the UK, but why it is necessary if we are not to become a marginalised irrelevance on the international stage.

Mr. David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)
For those of us who remain a bit confused about exactly where the Lib Dems stand on the issue, will the hon. Gentleman state categorically that the Lib Dem policy is now not to have a referendum on the treaty—that they may want referendums on all sorts of other things, but they do not want a referendum on the treaty?

Mark Hunter
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I am not quite sure what he is referring to when he says that we want referendums on many other things, but I have articulated our position as clear as clear could be. When the Bill comes before Parliament in the early part of next year, we will table an amendment to call for a referendum on what we believe is the central question: whether we stay in Europe or whether we come out. No amount of flannelling from Opposition Members who want the Liberal Democrats to take a different view will change our position, which has been set out many times by my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable) and other spokesmen. We are all well aware of the position.

Mr. Hands
Will the hon. Gentleman answer the question asked by the hon. Member for Strood—

Mr. Drew
Stroud!

Mr. Hands
I apologise—I have done it again. Will the hon. Gentleman answer the question that the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) asked—whether it is the Liberal Democrats’ policy definitely to reject a referendum on the treaty? It is quite possible to have a view on an in/out referendum, but one can also have a view on the treaty. Will the hon. Gentleman state categorically whether the Liberal Democrats are now against it?

Mark Hunter
I do not know how many times I can say this in words of one syllable that hon. Members can understand. The Liberal Democrats’ position is that we will table an amendment to seek a referendum on the central question of whether we stay in Europe or not.

Richard Younger-Ross
Is the question not whether the other parties will support the Liberal Democrats’ amendment? If we were to have that referendum on whether we should be in or out, I am certain that our party would vote 100 per cent. for staying in and that the other parties would vote every which way.

Mark Hunter
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention—

Mr. Davidson
rose—

Mr. Simon Burns (West Chelmsford) (Con)
rose—

Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. The hon. Gentleman is replying to an intervention.

Mark Hunter
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. As ever, it is a helpful one. He is absolutely right that when the debate comes to that issue, hon. Members in other parties will have to take a view on the central question, which we are putting forward: do we want to stay in Europe or do we want to come out?

Several hon. Members
rose—

Mark Hunter
I need to move on; there are a lot of other issues—

Mr. Burns
rose—

Kate Hoey
rose—

Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. The hon. Gentleman has made it clear that he is not giving way at this moment.

Mark Hunter
I would be very happy to spend the entirety of my speech on that one subject, but this European affairs debate allows us the opportunity to talk on many other subjects that are important, and I intend to do that.

The forthcoming summit will, I am sure, be a busy one, with the EU foreign policy high on the agenda. I am also certain that the issue of Kosovo will again be discussed, and rightly so. It is now eight years since NATO intervened there, and the “transitional” arrangements are beginning to look more permanent than they should. The Kosovars promise that they will eventually declare independence unilaterally—indeed, much earlier than next May. That is a clear indication of the tension in that region, which will not stay buried for too long. The EU needs to pre-empt a new crisis and act now.

Mr. Burns
Can the hon. Gentleman clear up one issue that is confusing the House, with a straight yes or no answer? When the legislation comes before the House, if there is an amendment to call a referendum on the constitutional treaty, will the Liberal Democrats vote yes or no, or abstain?

Mark Hunter
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but he is not going to distract me from the issue that I am talking about, which is Kosovo—[Interruption.] I am sorry if Conservative Members do not think that Kosovo is worth the attention of the House. I beg to differ; I think that it is, and I intend to proceed with my remarks on the subject.

In our opinion, the only solution to the crisis in Kosovo is the supervised independence plan proposed by Martti Ahtisaari. His proposal envisages that the EU will play an oversight role while Kosovo develops the institutions and stable economy that it needs to enable full independence. We welcome today’s written statement from the Foreign Secretary on his desire for rapid discussions on a new Security Council resolution before the end of the year. His statement also recognises the slim prospects of securing a deal, however. If Russia remains the sole obstacle to achieving a new resolution at the Security Council, the EU and the US must swiftly take the lead in recognising Kosovo under the terms of the Ahtisaari plan.

This issue cannot be circumvented or ignored for much longer. We believe that Kosovo should eventually obtain its independence, but it must do so peacefully and under EU supervision. The Ahtisaari plan would facilitate that, and the EU should do all that it can to ensure that it is adopted as soon as possible. We have known that this day was coming for some time, and the EU must now come to a common position if it is to remain a credible player in the process. I hope that the Government will do all that they can to ensure that they get an EU agreement on this issue during the summit.

I am pleased to see that the European Union initialled a stabilisation and association agreement with Bosnia and Herzegovina last Wednesday. I was also pleased to note the almost instantaneous injection of stability that that brought to the country. These are indeed positive developments. The promise of EU accession for the western Balkan countries is, as ever, an inspiring one. Just last week, I met Government representatives from Bosnia and Herzegovina who impressed on me in the strongest language the importance of the possibility of EU membership and the positive effect that such membership would bring. The former high representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, my friend and colleague the noble Lord Ashdown, has rightly said that the prospect of joining Europe and NATO is the glue that holds the Balkan states on the path to reform. While I would not suggest that they would immediately revert to conflict if we took that glue away, they would certainly retreat into dissolution and the black hole of lawlessness. Sadly, recent events in Bosnia and Herzegovina have proved that to be all too true.

Mr. Davidson
I am still unclear about the hon. Gentleman’s party’s position on the issue of a referendum. As I understand it, the Liberal Democrats wish to have a referendum on the in or out question. If the proposal for such a referendum were successfully passed by the House, I would have no difficulty in saying that I would campaign for Britain to remain in the European Union. However, that need not preclude the holding of a referendum on the European reform treaty. It is entirely possible for lots of people to adopt my position—namely, to support Britain’s remaining in the EU while voting against the reform treaty. Where do the Liberals stand on the question of the treaty? Whether they win or lose on the in or out question, what is their position on the reform treaty? Surely we can have honesty from the Liberals on that question—

Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. I think that the hon. Member for Cheadle (Mark Hunter) has understood the question.

Mark Hunter
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I also thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but I believe that I was talking about Bosnia when he rose to his feet.

To help countries such as Bosnia along the road to greater institutional, economic, political and social stability—[Interruption.]

Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. There are far too many individual conversations going on in the Chamber.

Mark Hunter
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

To help countries such as Bosnia along the road to greater institutional, economic, political and social stability, the EU must be prepared not only to offer the prospect of EU accession to those countries but to be proactive in helping them to fulfil the accession criteria. It is no longer enough for us to sit on the sidelines watching and waiting for them to catch up with us. While we must ensure that the accession criteria are stringent and are fulfilled, we must also be prepared to devote real time and resources to the process. Widening EU membership will not only bring peace and security to eastern Europe; it will also be beneficial to the UK, create greater prosperity for the region as a whole and allow greater co-operation on key issues such as combating organised crime and illegal immigration.

The EU also has a key role to play in co-ordinating defence and foreign policy. I hope that, during the summit, time will be given to a discussion on the situation in the middle east and, in particular, on what role the EU can play in the wake of the Annapolis conference and how it can help the parties involved to reach a conclusion before the end of 2008. The process will not be easy, and I am sure that there will be moments when negotiations will stall. However, it is the only hope for the region. It is also essential that the EU explore ways to ensure that the aid to the region really does reach the innocent civilians who need it, both in the west bank and in Gaza.

Similarly, I hope that there will be a discussion on how the EU can improve its collective impact in Afghanistan. EU member states play a critical role in strengthening governance, delivering aid and, in some cases, fighting to improve security in Afghanistan as part of the NATO ISAF mission. Too often, however, effectiveness is hampered by poor co-ordination and caveats on military engagement. I am sure that the Secretary of State will agree with us that a stable, peaceful and secure Afghanistan is in the European as well as the British interest.

We welcome the fact that the Secretary of State turned his attention to EU defence capabilities in his recent speech at Bruges. The Liberal Democrats have long called for a European defence review to assess the military needs and capabilities of European nations. I shall be interested to know whether he will be advocating this agenda at the forthcoming summit.

The EU also plays a crucial function in providing aid and trade to the developing world. Africa and most of the European Union agree that decisions about the future of the EU-Africa relationship need to be Africa-centred. It would be folly to imagine that we should be imposing solutions on Africa from our positions of post-colonial comfort, and I hope that the change in direction that the EU-Africa summit was meant to bring will be borne out in practice. However, we must not lose sight of the fact that, when brutal dictators such as Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe wilfully mistreat and abuse their own people on such a massive scale, we have a right and a duty to speak out. That is why we urged the Portuguese not to invite him to the EU-Africa summit, and why we supported the Prime Minister’s position of boycotting the summit once it became clear that Mugabe would attend in person.

During the summit, discussions will take place on the economic partnership agreements. Along with many others, we have real concerns about the practicalities of those agreements and about their effect on the developing economies in Africa. We fully support proposals to remove restrictions on goods and services coming into the EU from Africa. Indeed, allowing greater trade from African countries and businesses will undoubtedly do more to change the trajectory of development than a generation of aid hand-outs. However, Africa nations must be allowed reasonably to protect themselves against the influx of imports from the EU countries, which is likely to have a devastating effect on the least developed economies over a short period. The conditions imposed in the agreements cannot solely be for the benefit of western and European countries.

The worst scenario would be that no conclusion were reached before the World Trade Organisation deadline of 31 December. The result of that would be an increase in tariffs and severe damage to the fledgling economies of Africa. I therefore hope that the Secretary of State will agree that discussion of these issues needs to be a top priority for the forthcoming summit. The EU has a responsibility as a global power to do all that it can to work with the developing world and to help those countries to achieve their full potential.

The EU has a vital role to play in our society, in our nation, in our continent and throughout the world. Together, we have greater strength and influence on the international stage than we could ever have apart. Co-operation and cross-border issues have proved to be beneficial for the citizens of all EU member states and all benefit from EU policies in a variety of areas. We need to carry on working to ensure that the EU is doing what is right and is doing it well. Only by playing a central role in shaping the future of the EU can the UK ensure that that is the case. Now that the discussions about the future structure have been progressed and are being dealt with nationally, the upcoming summit will give the UK the opportunity to set the agenda for EU policies for the future, so that the EU can continue to be an active player on the international stage and maintain a strong economic presence for the benefit of all EU member states.

19:00:00

Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)
It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Cheadle (Mark Hunter). I should like to pursue one point that he raised.

I find the idea of calling for a referendum on the question of being in or out of the EU rather curious. It is like having a general election, but on the question whether we should have a Government or not. It is perfectly honourable to say, “I wish to have a Government, but not this one. I would like a different one.” That is what the democratic process is all about. If a referendum on the question of being in or out should ever be put to the people, I could just about envisage a scenario in which two questions were posed and people were asked whether they wanted the treaty or not. To deny them that opportunity causes a real difficulty.

This debate is always held among the same group of people. If anybody ventures to Germany between Christmas and New Year, they discover that a short British comedy film with Freddie Frinton called “Dinner for One” is shown—the Germans think that the whole of Britain watches it. It portrays a situation that repeats—every year, the same people say the same thing. That is what EU debates tend to be like, with the same people trying to say something different.

The problem is that the EU does not fall along party lines and, as political parties, we all hate divisions within parties. Parties do not like to talk about the EU in case it opens up divisions within them.

Mrs. Dunwoody
My hon. Friend is being rather unkind about Freddie Frinton, who was not only a well-known seaside artist but had a long career in which he played precisely the same act for at least 45 years, to my certain knowledge, with great success. We should be grateful that at least Germany acknowledges the superb quality of UK variety artists.

Ms Stuart
I have never been so pleased to be corrected by an hon. Friend as on this occasion.

Mrs. Dunwoody
Please thank me for my intervention!

Ms Stuart
I am deeply grateful to my hon. Friend.

Let me return to the EU.

Kelvin Hopkins (Luton, North) (Lab)
Just to be serious for a brief moment, my hon. Friend was right to say that we want a choice. Does she not think that we, as parliamentarians, could propose some serious practical alternatives for Europe—not for this Europe, but for a much better Europe?

Ms Stuart
Indeed. Let me return to the treaty. I ask the House to bear with me for a few moments, because one problem with most of these debates is that we do not pick up one issue and think it through logically to its conclusion. We tend to switch from institutions to policies and to make one case by using the other argument.

I want to remind everybody of the difference between EFTA, the European Free Trade Association, and the EEC, the European Economic Community. EFTA was a free trading area—something for which I think the Conservatives still hanker. The EEC, as it then was, introduced the freedom of movement of labour, which was very important, because the minute that people are moved between countries, the mechanisms are created that will eventually lead to deeper political integration.

The original institutions of the then EEC—the legal mechanisms of directives, the European Court of Justice, which had a mandate for achieving deeper political integration, judicial interventions or qualified majority voting, which came in later—have led to an EU with a range of tools, all of which were designed in one way or another to further political integration. The argument about the use of QMV, for example, is always, “We cannot hold up progress by allowing Malta to stop us.” I am afraid that if we are to have a union of nation states, there will be issues on which one member can say no. The minute we remove that right, we become federal states. If that is what people want, that is fine. I am one of those few people who are utterly agnostic about that because, having spent half my life in a federal state, I do not mind what people want, I just think that they need to know what they are getting, and it is no good pretending otherwise.

The UK likes QMV occasionally, but I want to draw attention to something very different, because not only was the movement of labour significant, but there was another tool—the internal market. Although the rest of Europe, by and large, always prayed the internal market in aid of deeper political integration and was little concerned with whether it was fulfilled or not, Britain always liked the internal market as an end in itself rather than a tool. We were therefore much more focused on that notion, but those are the type of tools that the Germans put on the negotiating table that cause us a problem.

The next problem is the time span during which things happen. The working time directive began to be debated in the early 1990s, but did not start to cause us political problems in this country until 18 years later when we realised that allowing the training of junior doctors to comply with the directive meant that many of our increased number of doctors were used up. As for the voters, they could no longer hold anybody responsible because they had all gone from office. People said, “The pass has been sold.”

At this point, I want to consider something that is currently on the table. When I became a Health Minister in 1999, one of the first things that I had to do was to go to Europe—I was the foreigner on the team, so they said, “She can do abroad.” There was a Health Ministers’ lunch, at which we all got together. A junior official came up and said, “There’s a case which you may want to raise over lunch. It does not really bother anybody apart from us, but the Dutch are sympathetic to us.” The case was called Kohll v. Decker and it related to a Luxembourg national who went to Germany for dental treatment, and it was asked whether that was part of the internal market.

I remember that the position taken at that lunch was quite eccentric. Only the Dutch Health Minister, who had been around for a long time, realised that there might be a problem, but the case was seen as a peculiarly British obsession. At that stage, we were waiting for another court ruling on the costs related to that case. To argue that, three or four court rulings down the road, we would have a problem with running the national health service, because we were the only country whose health system was completely funded by taxation and based on residency, with no controls—unlike other countries—was seen as the product of an eccentric lawyer’s imagination running wild. It was argued that I did not have to worry because health was not an EU competence. Health is now becoming an EU competence, albeit only on the public health side.

This is not a debate on the EU health directive or the court cases, but we had a succession of court cases that ended with a British case in 2006, where the ECJ pushed it to the limit and applied the internal market as a mechanism to allow people to travel from one country to another and claim health expenses without prior authorisation. We reached the point where Ministers were saying, “Thus far and no further. We now want a political input.”

That political input is now in a draft EU directive on health, to be published, I understand, on 19 December— politically, an extremely active date. I know exactly what will happen. We will get the directive and will be told not to be paranoid, as it is all perfectly all right. An early-day motion has been tabled that states that the logical conclusion of that directive is that it will undermine the way in which we run the NHS. What is so sad is that almost the only mechanism open to Members to raise that issue is an early-day motion. If we are honest, we all know the political significance of early-day motions. We might as well spray graffiti outside Big Ben—it would probably have more effect, because at least the cameras would catch it.

If we pass the treaty, whatever it is called, we will create a situation in which, step by step, over the past 30 years—through legislation, court intervention or QMV—we will have completely recalibrated the presumption of who is in charge of legislation. This House is no longer in charge of all our legislation, so we must now find the areas in which we remain supreme. It can be argued that even matters to do with defence and foreign affairs can be circumvented. Over the decades, and step by step, the presumption as to where legislative power lies has moved away from this place. The problem with health legislation, for instance, is even worse, because that is something that we have devolved to Scotland and Wales. The result is that this House has become even less relevant.

The British people may well be entirely content with that, but it is something that they need to think about. We need to explain what has happened, and that is why this debate is so important.

Three things need to happen when the treaty is considered. First, given that the passerelle clause in its present state is not sufficient, the Government must make a clear commitment to bring in primary legislation, and not just to allow the House to have a vote, before there is any further erosion of our legislative power as a result of QMV. Secondly, the political parties must stop playing silly games about matters such as the new health directive—which incidentally looks suspiciously like the Tory policy on patients’ rights—and be more open about what they believe.

Thirdly, and most fundamentally, all three main political parties promised in their election manifestos that the treaty was so significant that the British people needed to be asked their opinion. If Labour, as the governing party, is so confident that the treaty represents a good deal for Britain, we should have the courage to ask the people about it, as well as subjecting it to 20-odd days debate in this House.

Michael Connarty
Does my hon. Friend accept that the call for a referendum is to a certain extent emotional and simplistic? She will have read most of the documents on the reform treaty, although she may not have seen the final draft, and I am sure that she has read with interest the reports from the European Scrutiny Committee. Does she agree that any referendum would not be on the reform treaty but would refer to populist and emotional matters such as straight bananas and immigrants stealing our jobs? Does she really want to reduce such an important matter to a travesty like that?

Ms Stuart
I agree that there are dangers associated with referendums. Some countries have banned them, for very good reasons, but two points are worth making. First, in mature democracies, referendums are part of the democratic process. Secondly, when people in Wales and Scotland voted in referendums in the way that we wanted, I did not hear anyone on this side of the House say, “They voted on devolution but they did not know what it was about.” The Labour party has used referendums more than any other, and I must repeat that we promised one on the treaty in our election manifesto. Therefore, there must have been a time when we thought that holding one was the right thing to do.

As I said at the very start of my speech, our relationship with the EU is a constitutional matter. Opinions about it do not fall comfortably along party lines, so I do not entirely agree that it is an issue that can be decided as part of a general election. The fact that the previous Conservative Government did not offer a referendum on Maastricht—in fairness, they never said that they would—only strengthens the case that I am making.

Thirty years have passed since 1975 when, as I remind my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty), the Labour Government under Harold Wilson gave the country a referendum on European Community membership. Given what I said earlier about the shift in the presumption about where power lies and the changes in how this place deals with European affairs, I think that it is appropriate that we ask the people of this country for their opinion.

19:14:00

Mr. William Cash (Stone) (Con)
I am glad to follow the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart), for the very good reason that I share her conclusions about the necessity for a referendum. It is not unknown that I was very much in favour of a referendum on the Maastricht treaty. If we had had one, we would not be debating this matter now, as I am sure that we would have secured a no vote.

Mr. Davidson
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Cash
In a moment. Intriguingly, the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty), the Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee, said that he voted yes in 1975. I presume that he was pleased with the outcome of that vote, as it confirmed our membership of what we now call the EU. At least the then Labour Government offered that referendum, whereas most of the present Government’s arguments against holding one now are completely absurd. I do not understand why the Government today cannot retain their stated position of 1975.

Mr. Davidson
The hon. Gentleman was in favour of a referendum in 1975, and so was I. May I draw to his attention the fact that the Liberals were also in favour of a referendum at that time? In contrast, we do not really know what they think now. They may be waiting for a reshuffle or something. Does he anticipate that the time will come when the Liberals will be able to decide whether they are in favour of a referendum on this matter?

Mr. Cash
I have the gravest doubts as to whether the Liberal party has any clear idea about where it is going with any policy, but an important point about the in or out question is being overlooked: that the proposed treaty is in fact a merger, through binding mandate, of all the treaties on the European Community and the European Union. It is also substantially equivalent to the original constitutional treaty, and that combination means that any referendum on a yes or no question would effectively come down to asking whether or not the British people wanted all those treaties. That is as close as I can get to asking whether we should be in or out, and I believe that some people may be underestimating the extent to which any referendum on the reform treaty would turn out to be one on all the treaties, as a whole.

Kelvin Hopkins
Like the hon. Gentleman, I am in favour of a referendum. If one were to be held, it would be very popular and might well result in a no vote. Does he believe that many citizens in the rest of Europe might be very grateful to have a chance to think again about a treaty that has been imposed on them by their leaders?

Mr. Cash
I do, especially given what happened with the referendums in France and the Netherlands, and before those in Ireland and Denmark. We could have a referendum on this treaty, or on its ratification; I do not mind, and my motion on that subject has received strong support from members of my party. As I said earlier—and my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) suggested the same thing—I agree with the report from the European Scrutiny Committee stating that Parliament has been bypassed in a deceitful manner. That process was quite intentional, and our cross-examination of the Foreign Secretary has given us a more than sound reason for holding a post-ratification referendum.

We were taken into the EU in 1972 on what has turned out to be a misleading basis. In the same way, this treaty has brought together all existing treaties and now presents us with a similar problem. That is a not a proper way for this Parliament to behave. In my opinion, the Government’s approach has been dishonest and lacking in integrity. The most recent opinion poll was conducted in the past few days by Global Vision, and it found that 82 per cent. of people would like there to be movement towards an association of nation states through renegotiation—something that I have long advocated. If those negotiations failed because the other member states simply refused to accept them, the question of whether to withdraw from the European Union would arise.

The Prime Minister alleged the other day that I had said we must withdraw from the European Union. I have never said that that is my explicit objective. However, I believe that we have passed thresholds. In my opinion, we did that on Maastricht and then on Nice and Amsterdam. I tabled hundreds of amendments to all those treaties. Indeed, on the European Union constitutional treaty, I think that I managed to reach 400. However, the bottom line is that we should have a referendum, as the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston said. I echo others’ comments that we must preserve the right to legislate in this House for the electorate who elected us to represent them.

The matter is simple; it is about simple democracy and simple freedom. As the Chairman of the Select Committee said, it is inconceivable that we should be confronted with ambiguity about whether we, as a national, sovereign Parliament, which has developed democracy over the past 400 years and passed it on to much of the rest of the world, could possibly face the legal obligation that is enforceable by infraction proceedings. I demand to know why the Government have not made the wording crystal clear so that there could be no question of a legal obligation on this Parliament. That raises the question of what lies at the heart of the European Communities Act 1972. Sections 2 and 3, on which everything else depends, state that we must obey all European laws that are passed in the Council of Ministers and that we must comply with all European Court decisions. That is the root of the authority, and what we must tackle during the series of debates in January.

Our debates will be about the right of the British Parliament, when necessary—I believe that it has already become necessary—to demand an endorsement of our supremacy. That remains the key issue; our entire democracy depends on it. People fought and died for it over the centuries and especially in the past 60 or so years. We are considering matters that are far deeper than what the Foreign Secretary described as navel gazing about institutional matters. Our debate is about fundamental questions on which the British people have a right to have their say.

Curiously, a referendum would enhance, not diminish, Parliament’s authority because referendums cannot be held without an Act of Parliament or a provision in a measure to effect them. There are moments when—with some humility, I hope—Members of Parliament do not presume to know what the people of this country should do when they are confronted with a life-changing impact on their daily lives.

It is almost impossible to think of a single subject, including tax—for a variety of technical and legal reasons that I do not need to discuss—that is not affected by the juggernaut and the labyrinth of the European system that the European Court of Justice can enforce. That applies to the question of a constitutional relationship between us and Europe because of a case called Frankovich. The constitutional position of the European Court of Justice is that we are under an obligation to give effect to whatever emerges from the European Union, whether it affects our constitution or not. The remedy therefore lies with us:

“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,

But in ourselves, that we are underlings.”

Have we not the humility to hand decisions back to the people for their determination? I believe that it is our right and duty to do that. We should also acknowledge the sheer impact of the morass of legislation, which I have observed for the past 23 years since I first served on the European Scrutiny Committee. It has been an interesting experience. I watched the whole process and, yes, fought aspects of it. In my own mind, I am not anti-European. It is pro-European to be pro-democracy. I believe that so-called anti-Europeans often present the best arguments to prevent this country from losing its right to govern itself.

Kelvin Hopkins
I hope that the hon. Gentleman agrees that it is important to distinguish between Europe and the European Union. We are all pro-European but we disagree with the construct called the European Union.

Mr. Cash
I could not agree more. The hon. Gentleman’s comments go back to my earlier point about the second world war. We fought for freedom and for Europe. That was right. In doing that, we prevented this country from being taken over by a dreadful tyranny.

Let us consider the charter of fundamental rights. It does not simply comprise a few isolated legal points that can be produced by the odd lawyer from university. It is about the way in which people will be expected to live in future. It affects every aspect of human life. After intense analysis of the position and listening to the Foreign Secretary and the legal adviser, who discussed the issue with us, the European Scrutiny Committee concluded:

“We express doubts on the effectiveness of the Protocol on the Charter of Fundamental Rights and do not consider that it guarantees that the Charter can have no effect on the law of the United Kingdom when it is combined with consideration of the implementation of Union law.”

In other words, we do not buy the argument that the Government have effectively excluded us from invasions by the European Court of Justice of our legal system in respect of matters that arise under the charter. That is a profound criticism and a profound indictment of the Government’s position.

Michael Connarty
Leaving aside the indictment of the Government’s position, does the hon. Gentleman concur that the TUC was wrong to oppose the treaty on the ground that the Government’s red lines barred the charter of fundamental rights from doing the things that he suggests? That conclusion led the TUC to oppose the treaty.

Mr. Cash
The trade union position has been somewhat variable. As I said to the hon. Gentleman earlier, a European Court of Justice decision has come out today, which, I am informed, extends the right to strike. That should make the Government apprehensive. If the court is already saying that, how much will it say about the charter of fundamental rights as and when it comes up for interpretation?

There is only one answer, which goes back to my point about intrinsic sovereignty. That is not a theoretical abstract; we are dealing with a decision about whether we legislate properly on behalf of the people whom we represent. The answer is simple: it is my “notwithstanding formula”. If we include in our own legislation the words “notwithstanding the European Communities Act 1972” as a prelude to legislation that emanates from the European Union when we enact it in this place, that would require the judiciary to obey the latest, inconsistent, expressly stated measure from Westminster. They have no option. I think that we have reached that point, and I think specifically—although I would take this on a far more general footing—with regard to the Government claiming that they do not want the charter to apply to this country in the legally binding way I have described, the fact that, according to the ESC, they cannot guarantee that leaves them with only one option: to apply the “notwithstanding formula” in their proposals for the Bill to make certain that it does not apply. I am deeply disappointed and disturbed by the clap-trap put forward by the Foreign Secretary in the Government’s replies to the ESC report, because they know that that was not only a threadbare but a non-existent argument. This is a serious issue because the charter extends into so many areas of our national life.

I said at the beginning of my speech that I think this treaty is more important than Maastricht. Why do I believe that? I believe it because although Maastricht was about the shift to European government—that is why I opposed the treaty, causing some pain and concern to some, or most, of my colleagues—since then there has been an accumulation of other functions, which have been all-pervasive in that they have gone into almost every other field. Members might or might not know about the so-called doctrine of the occupied field. I do not wish to explain it in detail other than to say that according to that doctrine if the EU has been granted competence in a particular field, a country could not legislate in its own Parliament. Furthermore, with the self-amending text point, which has already been discussed, the reality is that neither can it have any referendums in respect of those areas; a national Government would not be in a position to say that they were able to go to the people because they would have already made the textual changes internally within the framework of existing competences. Huge issues arise in relation to the treaty, which need to be not only carefully considered, but rejected.

The Prime Minister has been talking about the governance of Britain and the fact that he thinks treaties should be approved by Parliament. This debate should have been on a substantive motion. The hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk, Chairman of the ESC, made that point. Although the debate is taking place on the Floor of the House, it should also be subject to a vote. Not many Members are here but there are a variety of reasons for that, and I think the Government stand condemned by virtue of their failure to have a proper debate on a substantive motion before the treaty is signed.

There have been deceitful circumstances, and also obscure and opaque circumstances, as we discovered from our cross-examination; some of them have not been entirely resolved even today. At some point between about 15 and 23 June—I cannot be exact—things were going on. The German presidency produced papers; it bounced people, and papers emerged. There are also question marks over whether there was more discussion than was being disclosed. I simply make this point: against that background, it is fundamental to the integrity of this House that we make certain that the Government are forced into a position in which during the course of the debates that take place next year, not only do we have a referendum—that is entirely justified in the interests of the British people—but they are made to explain how it was that the poisoned chalice of the reform treaty was passed by the former Prime Minister within what appears to have been a period of approximately just one week before he gave up office and the new Prime Minister came in. I cannot believe that the new Prime Minister did not know exactly what he was taking on. Therefore, in the light of what I saw when I watched the former Prime Minister in “The Blair Years” on television, I was bound to conclude that in fact the incoming Prime Minister in part took on his job on an understanding that he would not disrupt the smooth passage of that poisoned chalice which he received from the outgoing Prime Minister. I think that that is the real reason we are not being given a referendum; I cannot prove it, but I believe it is the case.

Some issues are so important to our constituents that we have to step up to the plate. I believe that this debate should have been on a substantive motion and that it should be subjected to a vote, simply as a protest and in defiance of the way in which the Government have behaved in betraying the British people and giving them a treaty they have no business inflicting on them.

19:35:00

Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab)
It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash), and I agree that the debate should have been on a substantive motion. However, it does not help that Members of his party are, I think, on only a one-line Whip. I am not sure what that tells us, but I too am disappointed by it. 

I spent a little time over the weekend reading through the Third Reading debate on the Maastricht Bill—or Maastricht treaty, as it became. It is interesting to note how many of the Members involved in that debate are also involved in today’s debate. The major parties now occupy Benches on the opposite sides of the House from those that they occupied then, but looking through some of the points made in that earlier debate revealed that when it comes to treaties such as this one, Governments of different political persuasions seem to take similar positions; it appears that when Oppositions get into government and go to Europe, something happens to them.

My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) spoke about her experiences as a Minister in Europe. I too went to Europe as a Minister—to the justice and home affairs section—when I had a year in the Home Office as a Minister. We clearly saw there how everything that happens in Europe is built on deals and stitch-ups and people saying, “You give me that, and I’ll give you that.” The current Secretary of State for Justice was Home Secretary at the time, and even though he wielded a tough bat in the justice and home affairs area there were still times when, having gone there absolutely determined that we were not going to give an inch, word would come through after a while that the powers that be back at home in Downing street wanted something changed, because if we gave in on that, we might get something else somewhere else. I am elected to Parliament to represent my constituents, and I do not think that we should be involved in such deals, which ultimately end up in a kind of compromise whereby sometimes we get the worst of all possible worlds.

I am particularly sorry about the current situation, as my party had a manifesto commitment that they would put the treaty to the vote, and I personally put that in my election address. I am clear that I will not be breaking any promises that I made in the election. I will still do whatever I can to urge my Government to change their view on this issue. A commitment was given, and despite all the words that have been said, if the Minister is honest—I know he is an honest Minister—although he will not say so here and now, he will know deep down, as we all do, that this constitutional treaty, as I think it should still be called, is almost entirely the same document as the one that was rejected by the French and the Dutch, and the one that we offered a referendum on such a short time ago.

Mr. John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
The transactional relationship that the hon. Lady describes in European dealings is, of course, a feature of intergovernmental relationships too, but does she agree that the difference is that, because of the EU’s supranational reality and further ambitions, those transactions are not accountable to this House and are therefore entirely detached from the will of the British people?

Kate Hoey
I think that that is the case. The reality is that absolutely nothing going on within the European Union is transparent. We need only look into the situation with the accounts. Is it not absolutely shocking that, 13 years on, no one has signed off the EU accounts? Where else would that be allowed to happen? If that were a company the directors would be up on charges, and even the smallest voluntary organisation has to have its accounts monitored, yet the reform treaty does nothing about that, and will make no change to it.

All the millions of pounds that this country puts into the EU are often subject to the sort of fraudulent behaviour or misappropriation of money that we all know goes on. Why should my constituents in Vauxhall, many of them very poor indeed, pay their taxes towards the EU fund without knowing at the end of the process exactly where their money has gone, especially when they know how little of it comes back to them or to this country? I sometimes open events where the European Union plaque is displayed—some insist on putting it up at every little project, even when only a very small amount of money is involved—and people are always grovelling around to say nice things about the EU. They thank the EU for their money, but they should not be thanking the EU: it is our money coming back—and there is a lot less of it than we jolly well put in! I find the whole situation with fraud and the accounts quite disgraceful. It may be nothing to do with the treaty, but if we sign it, things will certainly get a lot worse.

Daniel Kawczynski
Does the hon. Lady agree with me that in respect of the EU rebate, which the Government have abandoned—20 per cent. of it has been lost, which is equivalent to about £10 billion—all that money is pouring into eastern Europe, some of which they cannot spend quickly enough, while at the same time our own Government are borrowing £40 billion just to balance the books this year alone?

Kate Hoey
The hon. Gentleman knows that this was quite fully debated just a couple of weeks ago. The Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee says that the amount is £7 billion, so perhaps we could work out the difference between £7 billion and £10 billion—still a huge amount of money.

The Government have tried to argue that because the red lines were maintained, this is not a constitutional issue, so all the opt-ins and opt-outs that we have negotiated will prevent any further erosion of our powers to Brussels. The reality and the fact is—again, we all know it, but some people, including the Government, do not like to admit it—that the vast bureaucracy in Brussels is a self-perpetuating system, which will continue to take powers from us, whatever we do, wherever and whenever it can. It wants to push for more, and the only way in which it will be constrained is by allowing democratically elected parliaments, and then the people themselves, to vote.

The constitution was stopped—initially by the referendums in France and the Netherlands—only when people stopped it. Remember—the votes came through and everyone in the European Commission said, “The people of France and the Netherlands have sent us a message. We’re going too fast. The people do not like this, that or the other.” They said that they would reflect and come back with a more acceptable treaty. What did they actually do? They went away—there was a long period of silence; negotiations may have been going on, but certainly no one in this Chamber was involved—and came back with a very similar constitution.

Given that the Government and all three political parties promised a referendum, reneging on it now will, in my view, deeply damage the relationship between the public and Parliament, and between the public and the Government. It is not good enough for a manifesto commitment to be just discarded like that. I was amazed that the hon. Member for Cheadle (Mark Hunter), who speaks for the Liberal Democrats, could not answer this simple question: if an amendment calling for a referendum were passed here, what would the Liberal Democrats do? [Interruption.] I see the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Willie Rennie)—presumably a new Liberal Democrat Front-Bench spokesman—in his place, so perhaps he can answer that question. I will not push him, though, because there is talk of a reshuffle and he might be involved in it. It does seem absolutely amazing that the day before the Prime Minister is going to sign the treaty, without a photograph—[Interruption]—or not. It is amazing that the Liberal Democrats still cannot tell us what they would do if there were an amendment calling for a referendum.

Kelvin Hopkins
I am astonished that the Liberal Democrat party, supposedly the most Euro-enthusiastic of all, has no Members in their places apart from the one Front-Bench spokesman. Where are they?

Kate Hoey
I had noticed that, too. Perhaps they have no Whip on at all today. The Conservatives have only a one-line Whip, while we have a three-line Whip, but I suspect that some of my colleagues have decided that there is not going to be a vote.

Mr. Davidson
As I understand the Liberal Democrat position, they do not know what kind of Whip they are on. I sought that information from their spokesman and the answer came back that he did not know. That clearly demonstrates the decisiveness with which the Liberals are approaching these European matters.

Kate Hoey
I will not rub salt into the wounds of the Liberal Democrats—[Hon. Members: “Go on.”]—but they have to be accountable, particularly in the many marginal seats where the public will be very interested in this issue. I know from my own constituency, as I am sure will many other Members, that it is of real importance to the average member of the public. Many people are concerned about the European Union, as they have seen it encroaching, encroaching and encroaching on their lives, yet since 1975 they have had no opportunity to say what they think. I can put down the Government’s reticence about having a referendum only to the fact that they know, deep down, that the chances are that the European constitution would be defeated in any such referendum. If they are so proud of it and think it such a great deal, there is no reason why they should not have that referendum.

Michael Connarty
My hon. Friend knows that I respect her stands—they tend to be principled stands—on a number of issues. Given her inability, however, to enter into the detail of the treaty and her tendency to keep wandering around the outside of it, we need to remember that it has 150 clauses. Reducing that complexity to a simplistic referendum run in the press—mainly the Murdoch press, owned by an Australian with an American involvement, although I believe that Murdoch is handing it over to his son now—would not be helpful. Any such campaign would be run on the basis of anti-European bitterness, and would have more to do with Murdoch’s interest in the United States than anything to do with the European Union. Surely the detail—of the European arrest warrant, for example—should be debated in this Chamber line by line, not given over to some simplistic referendum campaign. I cannot understand why people adopt that sort of argument.

Kate Hoey
I thank my hon. Friend for that contribution, and I agree that the detail should be debated in this Chamber. It should have been debated long before we actually have to sign it, which is tomorrow. Following on from that, because this is a constitutional issue that deeply affects how we as a Parliament can influence legislation that will affect every one of our constituents—and because we promised a referendum, as did all the parties—this should be going out to the people in a referendum. Why are we afraid of that?

Mr. Drew
Not only did we make a clear statement in our manifesto at the last election, but ours is the party that fought for a referendum on Maastricht. Some of us who may not have been in this place at that time would have liked a referendum on Maastricht, as we could have rejected it. As Opposition Members said earlier, we would not be in the current mess if we had rejected Maastricht.

Kate Hoey
I entirely agree. I was here, and I voted against the Maastricht treaty. My party had told me to abstain. I was telephoned by the then leader of the party, the late right hon. John Smith, who told me that I would be sacked from my post as—I think—citizens charter and equality spokesman; some may remember the citizens charter, way back. So I know all about Maastricht, and my hon. Friend is absolutely right.

We hear all the time from the Opposition Front Bench about the Opposition not having a referendum on Maastricht. The difference is that the Opposition did not promise a referendum on Maastricht, whereas we did. I believe that the whole treaty is no different really, and that therefore we still need the referendum.

Mr. Shepherd
The Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee, the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty), introduced the concept that we, as a people, were perhaps too dumb to address the issues in a constitutional treaty of this nature. “Why should that be entrusted to the people, when we are the specialists?” he seemed to be asking. But let us think back. We have had 34 years of the divinity of the European Union, and all its wondrous works are on display for the poor dumb public to appreciate. It does not take a Murdoch press to tell the British people what to do; the demand for a referendum springs from a democratic instinct that something is profoundly wrong. Perhaps the hon. Lady could remind her colleague that this is still a democracy, and that in the end we believe in the people.

Kate Hoey
I pay great tribute to the hon. Gentleman, who I know cares passionately about democracy. I personally feel confident that the public whom I represent are clever enough, and understand enough, to make a decision on the referendum without having to listen to any of the media, because I happen to believe in the overwhelming interest that they have in it. I believe that we should trust their ability to listen to the arguments.

I have not gone into the detail, because many other Members have gone into great detail. In fact, I do not care how much detail we go into on this European treaty, because the detail into which I have gone, and the amount that I have read, has convinced me—and has, I think, already convinced the country—that it is more or less the same treaty on which we were promised a referendum last time.

I am proud to be a Eurosceptic. I do not consider that “Eurosceptic ” should be used as a term of abuse, although some people, including certain of my colleagues, may want to use it in that sense. I mean that I am sceptical, cynical and realistic about what goes on in the European Union. I am not anti-Europe and I am not anti any European country, notwithstanding the argument that is now pushed, by the Government, in particular, whenever a Member raises a single query or makes a single point about the huge bureaucracy and the huge costs of the European Union. We do not need a referendum on whether we should be in or out. What we do need is a detailed, independent cost-benefit analysis. We need to know whether what we are getting lives up to all the promises that have been made.

As I have said, I am proud to be a Eurosceptic, and I will continue to be a Eurosceptic. I hope that, even at this late stage, we will see action from the Government and the Prime Minister, who so bravely took the lead on Zimbabwe. I was very pleased that the Prime Minister did not go to the summit, and disappointed that the Council will not discuss the issue this week. I hope and believe that the Council will live to regret what it did in allowing Mugabe to go to Lisbon.

I do not want to digress, however. I am proud to be a Eurosceptic, and I will ensure that, as far as possible, my party sticks to what it agreed—and that means that we need a referendum.

19:54:00

Mr. Richard Shepherd (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)
As the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) observed, there is a sameness about these debates. We go over common ground—but it is the very ground on which this Parliament is built, and the very ground on which we live. It is about ourselves again, this debate: that is all that it has ever been about.

Germany must do what Germany must do, as France must do what France must do. But in this debate, in these proposals, now over 34 years old, in the strong drift towards the creation—or attempted creation—of a federal state, the same question nags away. Who governs? To whom is this Parliament accountable? It is not accountable, surely, to a Commission in Brussels. It is not accountable to institutions formed by others. It is accountable to the people who sent us here.

There was a joy, in that at the last election all three parties promised that the people should be invited—no, not invited, but should be given the right, which we would express by law—to take part in a referendum on this treaty. I do not think that we need deal with the Liberal Democrats’ position, which remains as curious as ever, and my own party’s position will come under more intense scrutiny as the weeks go by, but Labour’s 2005 election manifesto promised this:

“We will put it”—

the European Union constitution—

“to the British people in a referendum and campaign whole-heartedly for a ‘Yes’ vote”.

That was the undertaking given by the Labour party—the Labour Government, in fact—and the then Prime Minister made it clear not only that the British people would have their say on the EU constitution, but that if the constitution were rejected he would not sign up to what was simply an amended version. At the time he said:

“We don’t know what is going to happen in France, but we will have a referendum on the constitution in any event—and that is a government promise”.

He went on to say:

“what you can’t do is have a situation where you get a rejection of the treaty and then you just bring it back with a few amendments and say we will have another go”.

But is that not exactly what is happening now? That is the deceit.

I have no intention of going into why paragraphs and so on are replications of the other constitution. What I want to talk about is the central trust. This House is at the lowest ebb of my lifetime. People’s contempt for our institutions and our Parliament is at a level that I have never perceived before. Why? Because we are not trustworthy. That is the truth. People do not believe what we say. How could one believe the Foreign Secretary after his embarrassing performance today?

Fortunately, the Foreign Secretary has a more mobile, expressionful face, and more mobile, expressionful actions and gestures than any Minister I have ever seen. He is like the itchy schoolboy—the clever itchy schoolboy. I toyed in my mind with whether this was a new Bevin. Was this Ernie? No, this was no Ernie; this was his master’s voice, although I was not sure whether I was hearing the gramophone or the dog that used to sit by the gramophone.

The truth is that this was a poor, poor performance. Every time the Foreign Secretary heard an argument that contradicted the line that was to be taken, his face played out the drama. But an interesting theme developed. Slowly there came that Ceausescu moment when he realised that not everyone bought the line that he was sending out. This is not a convenient House when your own colleagues start pulling apart some of the detail.

And that wretched European Scrutiny Committee! Whose job was that? Do you know, they actually had the impertinence to suggest that there should be a block on the necessity for a debate? Why, no; we were going to talk about much important things—much more important things—things that we cannot do anything about. That is the essence of the Foreign Office now: “We’re going to deal with Darfur with a European initiative. We’re going to deal with Zimbabwe with a European initiative.” No one believes a word of it. It is posture. That is what we saw today on two legs: outrageous posture.

Mr. Cash
Outrageous.

Mr. Shepherd
It is outrageous, because of the profound promises made by all three parties, but most of all because of the party of government’s promise that the people would have a referendum. Our youngest Foreign Secretary thinks that it is such nonsense. He can grin away, and he can spoon down the medicine from my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague), our Front Bench spokesman, to try to brush this aside, but in truth we can talk to each other out there. The people who sent us to this place hear things and understand what has happened. They understand that those who promised things do not keep their promises.

The election addresses or manifestos of most Labour Members of Parliament will have contained the fact that they personally were committed to a referendum. Each one of them will stand in front of an electorate: it is not so far off. I may think that two and a half years is a millennium away, but it will come round faster than anyone thinks. They will stand in front of an electorate and the awkward little man or woman whom they did not deign to hear or did not want to know about, except to get them through the previous election, will say, “But didn’t you promise me a referendum?”

That is why we are in a crisis. The integrity of what we do and say represents the profoundest trust in British politics. People have to believe us when we say that it is necessary to go to war. They have to believe us; otherwise we are nothing. That is what we and the Government are betraying. I cannot conceive how the Prime Minister could have got into this position, but the cult of spin is so deep now in our political processes that they believe—we believe—that we can say anything to justify almost any position that is subsequently taken. I have finished my contribution to this debate, because it is about one thing. This House and every Member in it has a duty to hold their own party and this Government to the undertaking given freely and openly to the British people in the quest for high office.

20:02:00

Mr. Austin Mitchell (Great Grimsby) (Lab)
I agree with every word said by the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd). As Paul Simon might have put it, today has been a day of miracles and wonders. We heard the revelation from my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey) about how her job as shadow spokesman on the citizens charter was threatened. I can announce that my job as Opposition spokesman on the cones hotline was threatened at the same time.

We heard the outstanding contribution from the Liberal Front-Bench team. The Liberal Democrat spokesman, the hon. Member for Cheadle (Mark Hunter), brilliantly deployed the strongest and most effective arguments for bringing back the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell) that I have heard, and ended up by saying that we should have a referendum on the referendum that the Labour party had in 1945. Why not go further back? Why not have a referendum on the treaty of Versailles? That would be about as useful in the present situation. What are the Liberals proposing to have a referendum on? Would it be a referendum on Europe as it will be following this constitution? Would it be a referendum on Europe without that constitution? That is the crucial issue. They will have to hold a referendum on the constitution at some stage, otherwise their approach makes no sense.

Most exciting of all was the revelation from my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary, whom of course I strongly support, that next year we shall be facing 20 days of total futility. That is the promise that he has held out to us. We shall be discussing a constitution, which is called a treaty—the constitution that dares not speak its name—for 20 days, but we cannot make a single change to it. We cannot put in a full stop or a comma, and we cannot do anything about abhorrent apostrophes. I am already looking at holiday brochures and wondering whether the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association is having any decent trips that I can go on to get away from that discussion. The most futile exercise that we have had in this House will be fascinating.

Kelvin Hopkins
I agree with my hon. Friend. It is rather like having marriage guidance after one has been divorced.

Mr. Mitchell
I thank my hon. Friend for putting it so effectively. It was said by some Labour Members that when the Conservatives were in power they did not hold a referendum on Maastricht. It does not matter two hoots whether they held a referendum on that, because it is dead and gone. The question is what to do now. If we are saying that the Labour party has been so strongly converted to the policies of Margaret Thatcher that we are going to do exactly as she did on all issues, I shall shortly be resigning from the Front-Bench job that I have not got.

What is the use of discussing something that we cannot change? It is important to amend this constitution, because it will be our constitution if it is passed—it will say what we can and cannot do, and it will take powers away from this place. It is thus important that we are able to have our say on it. It will make us part of a larger entity—a larger state—and it will close the door on that. That is what it is about. If we cannot change that and if we cannot put it to the people, we are futile and useless. As the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills said, we cannot change it even one teeny-weeny bit, and that makes us look silly, futile and useless. It shows contempt for the people who elected us, because they elected us to do a job. They elected us to use certain powers that they gave us, but those powers are being taken away and we cannot say yea or nay on the matter.

It is clear that the people do not want this treaty/constitution. The polls that I have seen indicate that about 81 per cent. of people want a referendum on the constitution—over Europe as a whole, 70 per cent. or so want a referendum. Why cannot they have one? Why cannot our people have one? We cannot say that a vote on a three-line Whip, in which Members who are doubtful about the whole proposition will rally behind the party line, is a substitute for, or an alternative to, a referendum—it just is not. There should be a free vote in any event, but that is particularly the case when there is to be no referendum. We are in this situation because of the way in which the European Union works.

Mr. Drew
On the three-line Whip, I have been encouraged to come along to make enthusiastic statements in support of the need not to have a referendum because the overwhelming case for the new treaty is such that we do not need one. Am I somewhat bemused about why I am in this place today? I am at least a little confused, so can my hon. Friend help me?

Mr. Mitchell
Confusion abounds, as my hon. Friend says. I came along all fired up, having limbered up courageously all weekend thinking that I would take the brave step of voting against my Government, only to find that we are not going to have a vote at all. Everybody has been fired up with different expectations—intellectual clarity was the last expectation of all.

We are in this mess because of the way in which Europe works. It is a construction of the European elite—they know better than the people what the people want, so they are going to give it to them. They feel that they are justified in building the ever-closer superstate by lies, half-truths and manipulation— by any technique available—dragging Governments behind them, however reluctantly. They exclude the people from the process, because in these matters the people’s views are dangerous. People might actually oppose something, negate something or vote against something that the European elite want. I am afraid that in a democracy that is the risk that they have to take, but it means that there has been a crab-like progress towards the superstate.

I visualise Europe as a kind of great amorphous blancmange edging slowly towards the superstate, overruling and engulfing anything that stands in its way. The treaty/constitution is a major step towards the superstate—it is the topping-out ceremony of that superstate. We should have a quiz in schools and for the public. What does one call an entity that has an army, a defence policy, a foreign policy, an economic policy, a currency, a president, a public prosecutor, a Bill of Rights, an immigration policy and a trade policy?

Mr. Drew
A federal state!

Mr. Mitchell
Exactly. We are being asked to enter a federal state whose policies we cannot control and to which we are forced to hand over powers. We have to do as the majority in that federal state decides. It is a state to which we are subordinate. That is what the treaty creates.

We should cast our minds over all those successful common policies that have evolved in Europe over the years. As I come from Grimsby, I think primarily of the common fisheries policy. What a success that has been for conservation, fish stocks and the development of a healthy fishing industry, especially in this country. What a success the common agricultural policy has been. How inexpensive, how wonderful, how marvellous it is, and what great benefits it has brought in putting up food prices for the family of four by £20 to £30 a week more than if bought on world markets. What a successful policy economic and monetary union has been. It has turned Europe into the high unemployment, low growth black spot of the whole western world because of its deflationary effect. That has been made worse by the rise of the euro.

We are told that we need this reform treaty—not this constitutional treaty, because we are not allowed to say that—to make Europe more efficient. What is wrong with the way it is working now? The London School of Economics tells us that Europe is working perfectly well and does not need these reforms. What is so disastrous about the—

Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)
I am trying to understand my hon. Friend’s position. I came to the debate today thinking that we might have the chance to introduce some amendments to the treaty. If it is not amended, I might be persuaded to vote for a referendum, but my hon. Friend seems to suggest that it is not worth amending, because the EU project as a whole is such anathema to his politics. He appears to be more interested in a referendum on the whole principle of the EU. Is he in favour of trying to amend the treaty, as I am, and then, if we fail to amend it, of talking about a referendum? Or does he want a referendum, come what may?

Mr. Mitchell
If that is the message that my hon. Friend has received from my speech, I have been speaking to no purpose for the last 10 minutes. He clearly has not understood a word of it. I shall use less elegant language in future so that my message gets across. I want to be able to alter the treaty, but I want to submit it to the British people to get their opinion on it, because that is the all-important opinion. It is the powers of this Parliament that we are surrendering—

Michael Connarty
Am I correct in thinking that, given the opportunity, my hon. Friend would want to pull out from the 1972 treaty? He appears to be taking a similar position to the most extreme Eurosceptics who want to renegotiate our membership of the European Union, or the common market, as it was called in its earlier years.

Mr. Mitchell
I am not saying that either. My hon. Friend seems to think that the people are not qualified to make a decision on this issue, because their minds would be seduced by Rupert Murdoch. I am sorry that he has such a low estimate of the intellectual ability of the people of this country. A referendum is the only way to decide it. We do not have the right to hand over these powers. We hold them on behalf of the people and it is not our responsibility to hand them over to Europe. This treaty would hand those powers over and that is a decision that only the people can take.

Jon Trickett
My hon. Friend’s position is unravelling slightly. If a series of amendments were to be agreed by the House, which is not inconceivable, is it not possible that a proposal may emerge that is so diluted that it is not worth putting in a referendum? The logic of trying to amend the legislation is to bring it to such a point that it no longer changes the constitutional nature of the UK and its relationship to the European Union. At that point, a referendum is not needed. My hon. Friend suggests that he wants a referendum come what may.

Mr. Mitchell
I want a referendum because I promised a referendum in my election literature. The party promised a referendum on the constitution. This document is effectively the constitution. Some 96 per cent. of this document is the same as the constitution. The European Scrutiny Committee agrees with that. Angela Merkel says that it is the same as the constitution. So does Bertie Ahern. Who is right? Are they right, or is our Foreign Secretary right when he says that there is a fundamental difference? He did not tell us what the difference was, but he said that there was a fundamental difference.

If the House succeeded in amending the treaty, it might become more acceptable, but my hon. Friend the Member for Hemsworth (Jon Trickett) should put that to the Government, not to me.

Kelvin Hopkins
My hon. Friend the Member for Hemsworth (Jon Trickett) suggests that we can amend the treaty, but we cannot. We either accept it or reject it. The Government can negotiate opt-outs, but they cannot amend the treaty. To suggest that we can is illusory. The people of Britain want a choice on whether to support this treaty. If it is defeated, we would revert to the status quo, although that is too far in my book.

Mr. Mitchell
I thank my hon. Friend for saving the situation. I am surprised that my hon. Friend the Member for Hemsworth does not want to modify the proposals from the Government in any way. That is a good position for a loyalist, but I did not realise that it was his.

Jon Trickett
My hon. Friend provokes me. My position is that the legislation is unacceptable as it is and, if it is unamended, we should attempt to secure a referendum. However, my first objective—it should be the first objective of us all—is to try to produce acceptable legislation. I realise that that gives the Government a problem, but it is not a problem for Back Benchers. My position is to seek amendments and, if we fail, to attempt to secure a referendum.

Mr. Mitchell
After saying that, my hon. Friend accuses me of being confused. Has he thought of joining the Liberal Democrats in their mess on this issue?

The truth is that our previous Prime Minister was naively enthusiastic about Europe and thought that, as a great persuader, he could persuade the people to accept the constitution, which he wanted. The present Prime Minister is more sceptical about the whole business—good on him—and regards it as a nuisance. It is something that he has to put up with, which is how the previous Prime Minister regarded Parliament. The present Prime Minister wonders why he should waste his authority on fighting a battle in Europe that he will lose because the majority will be against him and then on putting it to the British people in a referendum that he knows he will also lose. That is how people decide whether to have a referendum—they ask, “Will I win or will I lose?” The Government know that they will lose, so they are not having a referendum, but that displays an intellectual contempt for the British people.

Mr. Shepherd
It is more dire than that. The Government pledged to have a referendum. They have not so much reneged on that as completely changed their policy. They are denying the position that they held yesterday, and that is the greatest betrayal.

Mr. Mitchell
In politics, we all stand on our heads from time to time. I came into a party in the 1970s that was sceptical about Europe. In the 1980s, the party was totally hostile to Europe and said that it wanted to come out of it in the 1983 manifesto. The party then grew warmer towards Europe, and under the previous Prime Minister it was positively enthusiastic about Europe. I have remained true and consistent. My view is, “Thus far and no further.” We are talking about powers that belong to the British people, which can be surrendered only by the British people.

I will not go on about it, but I have other criticisms of Europe, too. It has to be said that it is a major economic drag on this country. We do not receive the benefits that everybody claims we do. It must cost; membership costs. After 2013, contributions will go up to £20 billion gross, and £6 billion net—a doubling of the net contribution. That is a burden on our gross domestic product. It is a burden of about 0.5 per cent. on growth, and growth is cumulative. Had we had that 0.5 per cent. in the past 10 years of economic growth, in which the average was 2.5 per cent., we would have had 3 per cent. growth, and we would have been a much more powerful economy. We did not have it; is that a price worth paying?

Michael Connarty
Will my hon. Friend give way?

Mr. Mitchell
I will not take another intervention; I provoke people too much. I love my hon. Friend, but I say “Thus far and no further” to him and to Europe. It is right to ask ourselves whether the price is worth paying—I do not think that it is—but that is not the issue right now. We need to co-operate with other states, but we can do that through multilateral negotiations. We do not need to finance gleaming palaces, a pretend Parliament, the Parliament’s huge carbon footprint, which extends from Brussels to Strasbourg, and all the other paraphernalia. We should reach deals with other countries, one by one.

Michael Connarty
Will my hon. Friend give way?

Mr. Mitchell
Oh, all right.

Michael Connarty
I am grateful to my hon. Friend; I knew that I could persuade him to give way. I respect his position, because he has held it for a long time and it is precious to him, but does he really believe that the European Union that we joined should have remained as it was, and should not have developed to allow the former Soviet Union countries to join and develop their economies? I have had the benefit of travelling to all those countries, both pre-accession and since they became members of the European Union. Portugal, Spain and Greece were poor countries, compared to us. Is it not right that we should spread that prosperity, or should we just hang on to our own little bit of wealth and power?

Mr. Mitchell
The main aim of the Government and MPs of this country is to make this country richer and more powerful. If we become richer and more powerful, we can decide whom we help and support, and to whom we give aid. The country should go where we want it to go, rather than where it is compelled to go by the European Union. I am not opposed to helping the newly emerging states; I am just saying that there are other ways of doing it than by financing a huge bureaucracy in Brussels. I am not negating the case for aid, and I do not negate the aim of helping those countries. I said that I wanted multinational co-operation on those issues. However, we have to ask ourselves whether what is proposed is the best way of achieving that, and whether our aim is furthered in any way by the treaty that has been foisted on Parliament and the British people, although it should not have been.

20:23:00

Mr. David Heathcoat-Amory (Wells) (Con)
I am in the happy position of agreeing with most of the preceding speakers, certainly on the great question of the referendum. In particular, I agree with what my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) said: political trust between the electors and the elected hangs by a thread, and grave damage will be done if all the political parties break the promise, so freely and so recently made, to consult the people on the question of the so-called European reform treaty. It is, of course, not a reform treaty; it was never seriously intended to reform the European Union institutions. It was intended to strengthen them. I also agree with the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell), who has just concluded: we are considering not simply a European constitution, but a constitution for this country, because it defines and alters the powers of the House and, by extension, the powers of the people whom we represent.

When powers are transferred away from the House, not just our democracy, but the fundamental powers of the people, are degraded. Our democracy is not being replaced in any sense by a European democracy. There is no such thing as a supranational democracy, and it certainly does not exist in Europe. People have no sense of involvement in, or ownership of, the decisions made in their name in Brussels, and that is dangerous, particularly as issues such as criminal justice are now being involved. People assent to laws under which they may be imprisoned or fined if, in every sense, they are their laws, if they have a real and immediate opportunity to vote for or against them, and if they can talk to and consult the people who pass them. All that is absent in the European Union, and it will get worse, not better, if the treaty is passed.

In two days’ time, the Prime Minister will assent to the treaty. If he has the courage, he will sign it itself; if he lacks the courage, he will get someone else to do it for him. It is a disgrace that the motion before the House is

“That this House has considered the matter of European affairs”,

whatever that means. We ought to be debating a substantive motion. The truth is that we have not considered the matters in any real detail. The only opportunities that the Select Committees have had has been when it is all too late, and when the decisions have all been made.

To rewind a little, in January this year, two Sherpas were appointed by the Government. Well, they used to be called Sherpas, because they were there before a summit. I think that they are now called “focal points”, in the modern jargon. One was from the Foreign Office, and one was a minder from 10 Downing street. They were appointed to help the German presidency to draw up a successor to the European constitution. We know that the British Government did not like the constitutional treaty.

The hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) and I spent nearly a year and a half of our lives in Brussels, working on the Convention on the Future of Europe and negotiating the constitution. I sat one seat away from the right hon. Member for Neath (Mr. Hain), who was representing the Government. An unfortunate, rather bemused but charming Romanian sat between us and kept us apart, but I watched the Government representative. He tabled scores, perhaps hundreds, of amendments on behalf of the British Government, only a handful of which were ever accepted. That is on the record, and we know from that that the British Government did not like the European constitution and much of what was in it, although they accepted and signed it. However, it failed; it was turned down by the electorate of France and Holland. They are now colluding in bringing it back.

Throughout the first half of this year, the Sherpas or focal points discussed matters with the German presidency, in order to revive the substance of the treaty while altering the terminology—those were the instructions given to member states. The Select Committees concerned tried to get information from the relevant Ministers. In an earlier intervention, I quoted from a public letter that the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs had sent, reprimanding the Foreign Office for

“a failure of accountability to Parliament.”

That is a pretty serious charge. The European Scrutiny Committee, whose distinguished Chairman spoke earlier in the debate, said:

“The Committee feels that despite repeated enquiries, they have encountered significant difficulty in securing any information from the Government on the proposals under consideration or any indication of what it favours and opposes.”

That is an outrage. For six months we were completely unable to get at what was happening in the negotiations in our name. Much worse was to follow. On 19 June, the German presidency produced a draft text of the revived treaty. Two days later, it was agreed at the European Council summit in Brussels. The Council agreed the text politically, and since then there have been no substantive amendments. It has become a little bit worse for the United Kingdom, but essentially the matter was all over at that Council meeting. For those crucial two days between 19 and 21 June, a text was available. It went around Whitehall, although we do not know to what extent. We have asked the Government which Departments were consulted, but they have not told us. The House was completely excluded, as were the public, so the only time that we ever saw a text was after it was agreed.

The European Council itself is a secretive organisation: minutes are not published, so we do not know who said what, what negotiations took place or what the British Government’s position was. Conclusions are published, which did not just agree the German presidency’s text but, remarkably—and I think that this is unprecedented—said:

“The present mandate will provide the exclusive basis and framework for the work of the IGC”.

The Council did not only agree the treaty but told the subsequent intergovernmental conference to take it forward on an exclusive basis. No changes were therefore possible, as the treaty was agreed in totality.

That 48-hour window is important, because it was the only opportunity for the House to break into the magic circle that negotiated and discussed the matters in secret before presenting a fait accompli to the Council. No public involvement was possible at all, which makes a mockery of all the promises and rhetoric about public involvement and building a people’s Europe. It even contradicts what the June European Council said:

“The European Council emphasises the crucial importance of reinforcing communication with the European citizens, providing full and comprehensive information on the European Union and involving them in a permanent dialogue.”

How can we involve people in permanent dialogue if we do not tell them what is going on? Even their elected representatives in Parliament were completely unable to crack that secret circle and find out what was happening.

Ms Gisela Stuart
It is easy to be critical of the Government—and I agree with much of the right hon. Gentleman’s criticism—but the House must be extremely critical of itself. He will recall the Special Standing Committee that was set up during the Convention. It had a potential membership of over 1,000, because any Member of the Commons or the other place could attend. For 18 months, we struggled even to attain a quorum of 12 people, so the House needs to be very critical of the way in which it engages with matters European.

Mr. Heathcoat-Amory
The hon. Lady makes a fair point, but she would accept that, although the Convention on the Future of Europe produced a terrible outcome, it took place in public. People could come along and find out what was happening. I agree that we must improve our scrutiny of procedures. It is extraordinary that the European Scrutiny Committee, of which I am a member, should meet in secret. We must ventilate the whole system and let light in.

The hon. Lady would agree that there is a valid charge of hypocrisy to be made against the European Council, which proclaims the desirability—indeed it said that it is essential—of bringing the public along, consulting them and explaining what is happening, only to conduct all the discussions in secret. Now, it is all too late: the European Scrutiny Committee and the Foreign Affairs Committee are conducting inquiries, or have already done so—the ESC has produced two very good reports—but essentially we are auditing something that has already happened. The Government persisted with their crime. An English text was not available for nearly a month and a half after the June summit concluded and the House had gone into recess. Remarkably, there is still no consolidated version of the text. There is only a confusing document with cross-references, which is completely inaccessible to the public.

At the time, we had a weak Foreign Secretary and a Foreign Office that was consistently overridden and excluded by No. 10. Someone in the Government or in the Cabinet should have tried to bring the lofty rhetoric about a people’s Europe into line with what was really happening. There is another doleful consequence. Relieved of the obligation of having to explain themselves to a Parliament or to a people, the Government acceded to a text that was, and remains, completely incomprehensible. Secretive and incomprehensible behaviour is the EU’s besetting sin, and instead of curing that disease, we have reinforced it.

As for the text that was produced, it is clear from today’s debate that the reform treaty—or the Lisbon treaty, as it is to be called—is not the son of the constitutional treaty but its twin, and probably its identical twin. If anyone is in the slightest doubt, I refer them to the table in the first of the two reports by the European Scrutiny Committee, which helpfully sets out all the articles in the constitutional treaty and all the articles in the reform treaty so that a comparison can be made. The Government were asked to do that, but they refused, so a Committee of the House undertook that laborious but important process. Anyone looking at that table would conclude that the reform treaty is almost identical to the constitutional treaty or, in the words of the report, “equivalent”.

There are a few differences, for instance, on symbols. The hon. Member for Cheadle (Mark Hunter), in his truly dire contribution, advanced the proposition that it was a completely different treaty, because the symbols had been removed. He is right to the extent that the articles that mandate the stars on the flag and the anthem have been removed. However, they have been in use for 20 years, and they will not stop being used just because they are not in the Lisbon treaty.

Also, I am glad to say, 9 May is no longer to be the day on which happy European citizens are all to be on the streets thanking everybody for how lucky they are to be in the European Union. That has been dropped. Is it seriously the position of the Liberal Democrats that the dropping of the symbols in a treaty is such an epic event as to mean that we need not have a referendum on it now?

As the text is identical, the only real difference is that the structure has changed. It is only in that sense that the constitutional concept is abandoned. The constitutional treaty unified the two main European treaties into a single text. The Lisbon treaty does not do so. Only in that respect can we say that the constitutional concept is abandoned. So when the Prime Minister repeats that phrase from the conclusions of the European Council, and the Liberal Democrat spokesman did it to try and strengthen his case, they are referring only to the form—the packaging—of the treaty. In substance and legal effect, the treaties are virtually the same.

We are concerned about legal effect. The transfer of powers upwards from the House to the EU, the vast extension of majority voting, and the fact that EU goes into new areas such as criminal justice and a great deal further in foreign affairs and security—all that is the same. There are a few name changes. The Europe Minister is to be called High Representative. People impressed by names and cap badges will think that the treaty is different, but in substance, it is the same. The referendum promise that was made by the previous Prime Minister is as valid now as when he made it.

There are a few more fantasies around. The Foreign Secretary said that national Parliaments would benefit from the treaty. That is completely untrue. National Parliaments suffer from the transfer of powers to the EU that I have described. The scrutiny powers will go. When the High Representative is conducting foreign policy on our behalf, how can the House or its Select Committees scrutinise that foreign policy? Our powers are going, and that calls into question our very democracy. What will be the point of having elections, when the people elected to the House do not control matters such as criminal justice, asylum policy or immigration policy?

The “Why vote?” question becomes virtually unanswerable. The Government are anxious to get people to vote. The Mayor of London thinks that we should all have lottery tickets instead of ballot papers to try and persuade everybody to vote. People will lose interest, not just in the House, but in general elections themselves if the issues that they are being called on to decide are decided, after a general election, not in the House but in another jurisdiction, in the European Union, over which they have only the most vestigial control.

There is a pretence that our loss of powers is somehow offset by new abilities to question EU measures on grounds of subsidiarity. That is an illusion. We can already object to measures on grounds of subsidiarity—our Select Committees do that—and the European Commission can go on ignoring our objections, as they will be able to do under the new treaty. It is a total sham to suppose that the House has its powers strengthened in any way.

The only remaining fig leaf is the red lines, on which the Government are increasingly trying to rely. They are supposed to salvage some powers of self-government, but the European Scrutiny Committee reports show how very flimsy these are. I shall not go into the details to show how the red lines are vulnerable. Those are available in the reports, and hon. Members should read them.

I shall make the general point that if and when the treaty is ratified and takes effect, lined up against the Government on the question will be most other member states, the European Commission and the European Parliament, all of which strongly disapprove of the red lines. They do not like them, they will try and undermine them, they will try and erode their legal powers, and they will have an ally—the European Court of Justice. That court will be the arbiter and there is no appeal against it. The European Court is protective of European Union power.

That was illustrated recently in an interesting case about a man called Tillack, who was a journalist working for Stern magazine. He reported on European Union corruption—not a difficult thing to do, given how widespread it is. Great offence was taken by OLAF, which, unbelievably, is the anti-fraud office reporting to the European Commission. It resented the work done by the journalist, so it reported him to the Belgian police and asked them to raid his home and office in order to try to get at his sources. That was done and they took away his papers and his computer, which they refused to give back. Eventually, the European convention on human rights was invoked and the Strasbourg Court found for the journalist, compensated him financially and awarded him costs.

What is significant is that the European Court of Justice, which looked into the matter earlier, did absolutely nothing to support the rights of the journalist. It found against him because it has a vocation to support the powers and privileges of the EU. That is reinforced by the new treaty. Again, I am staggered that the Government did not mind about that. Article 9 of the new treaty says:

“The institutions shall practise mutual sincere co-operation”,

and it lists the institutions. They include the European Council, the European Parliament, the European Commission and the European Court of Justice. So, in future, when another Member State or the Commission tries to undermine our red lines, we will be up against a Court that is enjoined by treaty law to practise sincere mutual co-operation with an institution that is trying to undermine our powers. It is not an independent body in that sense and the Government never raised any objections.

The whole process of so-called reform started in December 2001 with the Laeken declaration when Heads of Government meeting at Laeken realised that the game was up for the old Europe. People were rejecting it in referendums, turnout in European Parliament elections was declining and there was a general feeling of malaise. So it instructed Europe to democratise and it set up the Convention on the Future of Europe with a mission to simplify and bring Europe “closer to its citizens”—that was the phrase used.

I have mentioned how I and the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston had the honour to represent the House in those negotiations, and they failed. They produced a constitution that was turned down. I predicted that and it came as no surprise to me. But we have now resurrected the same legal powers and given the outcome another name, and it deserves to be rejected again. The instructions given to the process in the Laeken declaration were not just ignored, they were contradicted. We have not simplified, we have made matters more complicated. We have not made Europe democratic, we have made it less democratic. We have not brought it closer to the citizens, we have taken decisions further from the citizens. More powers are taken away from the citizens and their national Parliaments and are to be decided further away in the EU over more areas of policy.

The only way to resolve this is by referendum. With respect to some of the remarks made—indeed by the Chairman of my Committee—this is not simply a policy matter. I am against government by referendum. I am glad that I do not live in Switzerland. I would spend my time going down to the polling station to vote on everything and I do not believe in that. We have a representative democracy. So policy matters are fought out in Parliament. But the rules of that Parliament, and the framework in which this process takes place, must be set not by politicians but by the people. We are talking here about the rules of the game; about the powers of that Parliament. It is about who takes the decisions. Who are those people accountable to? Are they elected? Can they be removed? These are constitutional matters. They cannot be decided by Parliaments but by the people in a referendum.

20:49:00

Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
Several hon. Members have already referred to the fact that debates on these issues get a bit samey and that we have been rehearsing some of the same arguments for years. It is beginning to feel a little like an episode of “Dad’s Army”, and we have some of the same characters. We certainly have hon. Members who say, “We’re doomed, Captain Mainwaring, we’re doomed!” One of them, my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, South-West (Mr. Davidson), is sitting beside me today, because he cannot climb up to the seats at the back. The hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd), who has just left the Chamber, is also in that category.

The hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) qualifies as Jonesey, who always said, “They don’t like it up ’em!” Wilson, of course, never wanted to upset anyone, always tried to be nice to everybody and could never make a decision—he, obviously, is represented by the Liberal Democrats. Then there was the flash Essex bloke who was always trying to sell an argument in a bit of a dodgy way; he is represented by the hon. Member for Rayleigh (Mr. Francois), from whom we shall hear later.

Mr. Mark Francois (Rayleigh) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman mentioned that Wilson never wanted to upset anybody. That is why in 1975 Wilson offered people a referendum.

Chris Bryant
That is good; the hon. Gentleman is very flash, as I pointed out.

We also have our own Pike, the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski), from whom I am sure we are about to hear. Most importantly, we should note the fact that for the first time Captain Mainwaring, the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke), is not here.

Mr. Austin Mitchell
My hon. Friend is using television images. The image for the 20 days of futility next year will be “I’m an MP, get me out of here!” There will be commentary from Ant and Dec, who will say, “We’ve just eaten another load of eurotucker—and vomited!”

Chris Bryant
My hon. Friend, who I think has family in the television industry, has just applied to be on “I’m a celebrity, get me out of here!” Although he has a bit of the Christopher Biggins about him, I am not sure he would win.

Daniel Kawczynski
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Chris Bryant
I am happy to give way to the very friendly hon. Gentleman.

Daniel Kawczynski
The hon. Gentleman has compared me to Pike from “Dad’s Army”. May I suggest that he is like the warden, who was always toeing the party line?

Chris Bryant
In actual fact, the warden was always trying to make sure that Captain Mainwaring did not get his way. Perhaps I am the verger, rather than the warden—but I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention.

Having started well in this debate, I move on to the elections in the Russian Federation. They show some very disturbing trends in Russian politics. As all the observers who have commented closely on Russia in recent years have pointed out, although the elections might have reflected the views of the Russian people, they were in no sense fair and free. Throughout the election period, 80 per cent. of the airtime on television and radio was devoted to the Government line. Every single independent television and radio station has been closed down by the Government, always for spurious reasons.

Journalists, particularly those critical of the regime, have been murdered in large numbers. One can imagine the row that there would be if a single journalist critical of the Government in this country had been murdered. The fact that there have been many such murders in Russia, without a single person having been brought to justice, is a sign of the repression of the media there. There is not only direct but indirect repression—there is an air of bullying around the Russian media. Free elections cannot take place without free media; they cannot be held without a pluralist media environment, and that does not exist in Russia at the moment.

Political parties in Russia have also been repressed. One of the requirements that Putin introduced was that a new party had to have 50,000 members before it could be started. The Liberal Democrats may not get 50,000 people voting in their elections this week, so they should look at what is happening in Russia and be fearful.

On top of that, the Government introduced a new law that increased the threshold that parties had to cross in order to gain seats in the lower house of the Duma from 5 to 7 per cent., thereby again limiting the power of smaller parties to be represented there. Non-governmental organisations have been repressed, including independent organisations such as Amnesty International, the British Council and others that were not founded originally in Russia by Russians, as well as Russian organisations themselves. That is very dangerous for civil society in Russia.

One interesting aspect that has not been much commented on is the fact that if a party secures a certain percentage of the vote in the election, it is forced afterwards to pay for the airtime that it had during the pre-election period. For instance, the Democratic Party of Russia secured only 0.13 per cent. of the vote in the elections and yet will now have to pay $6.1 million. As it is a very small party, that will almost certainly make it go bust in the next few weeks. Likewise, the Russian Social Justice party got 0.22 per cent. of the vote and will now have to pay $8.2 million. 

For British interests, perhaps one of the most worrying factors of the elections was that Andrei Lugovoi was elected on the Liberal Democratic party list—not this country’s Liberal Democrat party but the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia. That gives him yet further immunity from prosecution, which makes it even more difficult for the British Government to secure justice for the family of Alexander Litvinenko. It seems entirely possible that he will now be made Deputy Speaker in the Russian Duma. That would be a gross insult not only to that family living in this country but to justice in this country.

The results showed that the United Russia party—Mr. Putin’s party—secured 64.3 per cent. of the vote. On top of that, the Liberal Democratic party, which is allied to the Kremlin, got 8.14 per cent. of the vote and A Just Russia, another Kremlin-aligned party, secured 7.74 per cent. of the vote. How do we know that those parties are aligned with the Kremlin? We know because they have already declared that they will support whoever Mr. Putin supports to be president in next year’s presidential elections. In other words, more than 80 per cent. of the vote and more than 80 per cent. of the seats for the 450-seat Duma have basically gone to one conglomerated party—the presidential party. That is worrying.

On a subsidiary point, if the Russian Federation can get away with having only 450 Members of Parliament, perhaps we, as a much smaller country, should begin to consider whether 650 Members of Parliament is too many and we should reduce our numbers—certainly the number of Members in the second Chamber. [Interruption.] I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, South-West would like that to be abolished.

In the past couple of days, we have heard yet more worrying news. Having said last year that he would not anoint anybody as his successor but would leave it to the people of Russia and his party to decide who the candidate should be, Mr. Putin has decided that Dmitry Medvedev should be the candidate, thereby almost certainly securing the election for him. On top of that, we heard today that Mr. Medvedev has anointed Mr. Putin as the new Prime Minister. That example of Kremlin musical chairs is nothing other than despotic, and we should be worried about it. It might be that all this does not matter, but I believe that it does.

Daniel Kawczynski
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is very worrying how our ambassador in Moscow is being treated in being hounded repeatedly by the Nashi group, which is linked to Mr. Putin’s United Russia party?

Chris Bryant
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. The British Council has also been severely harassed over the past year, including by visits to its offices, making it impossible for it to secure new leases, and a whole series of things affecting even the teaching of the English language in Russia. That is to be deplored.

All this also matters for the people of Russia for the simple reason that every piece of work done on human rights there shows the growing use of torture throughout elements of the criminal justice system. Amnesty International’s report last year made it clear that torture was endemic throughout the whole of Russia, despite the fact that the Russian Federation’s constitution prohibits its use. It is also clear that there is a culture of violence in the police service and the security services, which means that many new entrants to those services have to go through acts of humiliation that inculcate yet further the process of violence.

The freedom of association and the freedom of peaceful assembly have both been undermined this year by changes in the law brought in by President Putin. It is disturbing to see that some of the techniques that we thought had disappeared with the Soviet regime are now coming back.

David Wright (Telford) (Lab)
Has my hon. Friend noted that Russia has started to deploy aircraft over the North sea again? That has resulted in the RAF having to fly missions to intercept them, which is a worrying trend. He mentioned the tactics of the former Soviet Union; is it not time that Russia came clean about why it is doing that?

Chris Bryant
As ever, my hon. Friend makes an important and telling point. Indeed, I am particularly worried about Russia’s suspension of its membership of the treaty on conventional armed forces in Europe, which was the cornerstone of the end of the cold war. It is absolutely vital that Russia returns to that.

I believe that the Russian Federation is now using, on a fairly systematic basis, enforced psychiatric treatment as a means of repression, much as the Soviet Union did. Indeed, sometimes it is using the very scientists who did it in the past. For instance, last year, Nikolai Skachkov, who protested against police brutality and official corruption in the Omsk region of Siberia, was ordered to undergo a psychiatric evaluation because investigators said they suspected he was suffering—this is a direct quote—from an “acute sense of justice”. He subsequently spent six months in a closed psychiatric facility with a diagnosis of paranoia. An independent evaluation that was subsequently undertaken—not by the state psychiatric services—concluded that he was completely and utterly healthy. Indeed, I would suggest that an acute sense of justice is a sign of sanity, not insanity.

In addition, there has been a significant rise in the number of racist and xenophobic attacks in the Russian Federation, and threatening attitudes have been adopted by the Government towards neighbouring countries, most notably Ukraine, Georgia and Estonia. I believe, and I worry, that Russia under President Putin—however he rearranges the chairs in which all the various members of his inner Cabinet are sitting—is steadily, inexorably, ineluctably and quite determinedly becoming a totalitarian state, and we shall regret it if we do not say so clearly.

Having made those remarks about Russia, I would like to move on to issues relating to the European Union and how they impact on British policy. There are two countervailing pressures in European politics at the moment. On the one hand, there is a push towards greater segregation, and I am conscious of that as a Welsh Member of Parliament. There are those in Wales who want to see further moves to greater devolution, or indeed, separation, and that is true of some people in Scotland. It is also seen in many parts of Europe. Sometimes there is a strong local, regional or national urge for segregation and separation, which can be accompanied by quite aggressive forms of xenophobia. We have seen that in many countries in Europe in recent years. Sometimes there are specific attacks on migrants or, more indirectly, on the whole concept of inward migration.

Sometimes there are two specific ideological accompaniments to that belief in further segregation. One is a kind of Manichaeism, dividing the world into good and evil—we being the good, they being the evil. The other is a wholly partisan understanding of history. In a casual way, that sometimes plays itself out when it comes to voting in the Eurovision song contest, where people feel able to vote only for the countries whose views most closely resemble their view of the world.

As I said, there is a growing tendency towards segregation, but there is also a significant trend towards greater integration. One only has to walk down any high street in Europe to see the path towards economic integration, because there will be Zara and a branch of The Body Shop. Many of the elements of the economic future that everybody can enjoy are shared throughout the European Union. One of the results of the single European currency is that most countries that share the euro now have almost identical prices for large numbers of goods. The economic move towards integration across Europe is quite acute and often led by consumers.

Mr. Drew
There are still some of us who think that the euro has not been an unalloyed success. Indeed, many parts of Europe have faced economic depression because of the problems associated with it. Thankfully we stayed out and we have not faced those problems, so I wonder whether my hon. Friend is still in favour of joining the euro.

Chris Bryant
My hon. Friend knows that I am an ardent supporter of the euro. Whether I think we should join today, tomorrow, next week or in the next couple of months is quite another matter. For many countries in Europe, the situation is not quite as he suggested. For instance, the economic problems that Germany experienced, with high levels of unemployment, were far more to do with the integration of east and west than they were to do with German’s membership of the euro. Spain has enjoyed an economic resurgence over the past few years, thanks in no small measure to its membership of the euro.

There are other respects in which we can see a move towards integration. For instance, I do not believe that a single European country now believes it will go to war on its own. That is certainly true of this country—we will never go to war on our own, unless there is an exceptional occurrence. That is quite a change from anything that has happened in the past. [Interruption.] I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, South-West has a bad leg and is perhaps unable to get to his feet, but if he wants to make a sedentary comment—[Interruption.] No, he does not; good. The final reason for the growing trend towards integration is the effect of economies such as those of India and China, which are pushing us towards integration so that we survive economically.

Those pressures play themselves out in different ways. In Spain, there is a drive towards integration, because of the passionate support in Spain for further integration in Europe, and at the same time a drive towards devolution and separatism, in Catalonia, Galicia, the Basque country and elsewhere. In Belgium, the position is exactly the same. Belgium is passionately supportive of its membership of the European Union and proud to have many of its institutions in Brussels, yet is currently unable to form a Government because of the separatism between the French-speaking and Flemish-speaking communities.

In Serbia, the situation is exactly the same. Some 70 per cent. of Serbians want Serbia to be a member of the European Union, but Serbian nationalism is as ardent as it ever has been. However, it would be wholly wrong to suggest that EU membership for Serbia should be used as a bargaining chip in the negotiations on Kosovan independence. Even more importantly, we should not say that the four indicted war criminals—as opposed to others who have been accused of war crimes—should be used as a bargaining chip. It is essential that Serbia should surrender them to the United Nations war crimes tribunal so that they can see justice.

I want briefly to consider the position advanced by the shadow Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague). As I understand it, his neo-conservative position on Europe tries to bridge those two strands in European thinking by focusing primarily on the need for a referendum. I have known the right hon. Gentleman for a long time. We were at university together and I even went to his 21st birthday party—that was a thing to recall. He has been a passionate and influential member of the Conservative party since he was 16, or however old he was when he gave that famous speech to Mrs. Thatcher. Despite his current position, I never remember him militating for a referendum on the Single European Act or offering to tender his resignation if no referendum was called on the Maastricht treaty; yet now a referendum is convenient for him, so he proclaims it.

Another interesting part of the right hon. Gentleman’s policy, and that of his leader, is the desire to repatriate the social chapter and the ability to form employment and social legislation. In March this year, the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) said:

“it will be a top priority for the next Conservative Government to restore social and employment legislation to national control.”

On television, the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks said:

“The powers we particularly want back are over social and employment laws because we have seen many of those affecting the laws of this country, the employment laws of this country, the European countries trying to impose their social model, as it is called, on Britain. That is what we have to change. That, of course, may be quite a lengthy process.”

He was told:

“Well, you’d be a lone voice because no other country would want to do that.”

I would say that that was a fair point from whoever was interviewing the right hon. Gentleman, who then replied:

“We might start out as a lone voice but actually there are many other countries, particularly in the east and centre of Europe, who increasingly share our perspectives.”

The truth, however, is that not a single country in either the east or the centre of Europe shares that perspective. Not a single one has signed up to the suggestion that there should be a renegotiation of the existing treaties, let alone of the new treaty that is to come before us in the new year. Not a single party in any other country in Europe has suggested that that should happen. What the right hon. Gentleman is saying is that he believes that a British Government should, by definition, be a lone voice crying in the wilderness in Europe. I put it to him that that is a recipe for disaster and for isolationism in Britain. It might be a neo-conservative view, but it would be wholly impractical, wholly impracticable, and absolutely wrong for this country. If the Conservatives were to form a Government—that is a very big “if”—and to make a unilateral declaration of independence in that way, the courts would immediately want to take a view on what Britain was doing to its legislation. That would result in gross instability for British businesses just when they did not need it.

The Tory position is wholly incompetent in this regard. Hon. Members often say that they hate the common agricultural policy. I hate many elements of the CAP and the way in which it is framed, and I would like to see it further reformed, but let us never forget that if there were no CAP, there would be a French agricultural policy, a Portuguese one, a Spanish one, a German one, a Greek one—

Mr. Austin Mitchell
And a British one.

Chris Bryant
And possibly a British one. All of them would do far more damage to Africa and other countries around the world. Furthermore, hon. Members often say that they dislike the fact that the European Union has been unable to sign off its books every year, yet they know full well that the area where there is most fraud is not the spending of the Commission but the spending of the member states. They are the same people who refuse to allow the Commission the power to insist on seeing the books of the member states so that that fraud can be tackled. Sometimes there is hypocrisy in the argument.

I am not a neo-conservative in any shape or form. I am an internationalist. I believe that enlightened patriotism means locking in the countries so that they can never go to war with one other, so that they cannot undercut one another on costs or on health and safety legislation, so that they can share their power and, yes, their prosperity, so that they can tackle international crime, climate change and human and drug trafficking, and so that they can better ensure the security of their people. Isolationism is not true patriotism. Our membership of the European Union is vital to Britain’s economic and social interests.

21:13:00

Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)
I shall have to curtail my speech somewhat, because of the length of the speeches made by certain Members who have spoken before me.

I should like to mention the EU-Africa conference, about which there has not been a great deal of discussion this evening. Twenty-six of the 27 EU leaders attended the conference. The only one who was missing was, of course, our own Prime Minister. I should like to congratulate the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, on her stance. She attended the conference and used the opportunity to berate Mugabe and to highlight the anger that we Europeans feel towards him about what he is doing to his own country. It is a difficult situation, of course, because no one would want to shake the hand of Mugabe. Nevertheless, the conference was extremely important. Issues of immigration, aid, security, climate change and trade were all discussed.

I am a little concerned about the total focus on Mugabe. Having just returned from Darfur, where I saw the extraordinary suffering of the people of that region, and having met the President of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir, I believe that there are people in Africa who are just as bad as Mugabe, if not worse. Mugabe is awful, but he must not be allowed to stop important countries such as Great Britain from attending major international conferences. After all, billions of pounds of British taxpayers’ money goes in aid to Africa, and it is vital for us to take part in those talks.

It is the first time that we have had such a conference in seven years. I know that I am in a tiny minority, because all three political parties have backed the Prime Minister’s not going to the conference. I, however, must take the opportunity to speak out against it. I want to explain why. I feel passionately about the Helsinki agreement, which represented the first steps in the liberation of the eastern European countries. The great politicians of the west engaged for the first time with the dictators and oppressors of eastern Europe. It must have been difficult for Harold Wilson and his colleagues to meet people like Ceausescu, Brezhnev and other oppressors and dictators, but it was an important first step in securing freedom for that region. News of the discussions and the west’s determination to get better human rights for the people of eastern Europe filtered through to those people on the BBC world news and through other media. I, for one, believe that the Prime Minister should have attended the conference, and I regret that he did not.

My second brief point, because I want to ensure that my two colleagues get a chance to speak, is on Kosovo. I met the Foreign Secretary of Serbia a few weeks ago and he impressed me greatly. He was one of the many young political activists who fought against the brutal dictatorship of Milosevic. Like many others, he put his life on the line because of his determination to fight that dictator and oppressor. Who can forget the terrible struggles of 2000, when we saw on television the courage of those people who fought the oppression and brutality of Milosevic? Of course, someone like the Serbian Foreign Minister, who is a democrat and a decent, honourable man—

The Minister for Europe (Mr. Jim Murphy)
indicated assent.

Daniel Kawczynski
I am glad that the Minister nods in agreement. The Serbian Foreign Minister, obviously, is under a great deal of pressure from the Serbian people. The prospect of losing 12 per cent. of their sovereign territory will whip up many people in his country into deep frustration and concern. I hope that the Minister will meet the Serbian Foreign Minister over the coming days and weeks to discuss the issue.

We must never forget that Serbia has already suffered over Kosovo. It led to the war—where many people were killed—to sanctions against Serbia and to the bombing of Belgrade. I remember my first ever political demonstration in 1999, outside No. 10 Downing street with my Serbian friends. We campaigned through the night against the bombing of Belgrade, which I thought was terrible.

Finally, Cyprus, as the Minister will know, is against a forced decision on Kosovo. That would be seen as setting a threatening precedent in the EU whereby certain issues could be immediately imposed and fixed. To my knowledge, the Cyprus issue has gone on for at least 30 years. It is a difficult problem, but the Americans, and others, are not trying to force a resolution. Therefore, I believe that we must be more patient with Serbia, and not force a decision this month.

21:19:00

Mr. Douglas Carswell (Harwich) (Con)
So it goes on—once again, this House is debating the European question: which powers should be exercised at EU level and which should rest with member states? Once again, the political class argues about the handover of democratic decision making to remote functionaries.

The UK Government promised that the further transfer of powers to EU institutions would require a referendum, and so did half a dozen other EU Governments. Where people were asked—in France and Holland—they overwhelmingly voted against that. Despite the best efforts of the entire political establishment, the French and the Dutch overwhelmingly rejected the view of their masters. I venture that, had the people of Britain been asked, they too would have shouted an unmistakeable “No!”

Yet the political class gathering in Lisbon has simply overruled the people. Across Europe, democracy’s veto has been counter-vetoed by the technocratic elite. Now we in the UK, like others in Europe, can only watch as those in the political class go ahead. We are powerless as they make the same net transfer of power under the reform treaty that they wanted to make under the original constitution.

When Hugo Chavez lost his recent referendum in Venezuela, at least he had the good grace to accept the outcome. In Europe, when the political bosses lose referendums they simply carry on. The Government talk about providing leadership in Europe, and I wish they would. Half a dozen EU Governments have reneged on promises to give their people referendums. If this Government wanted to give leadership, they would lead the way in offering people a referendum. In doing so, they would force other member states to allow their people a say. In allowing people a direct say, the Government would demonstrate that policy in Europe is not the preserve of the professional diplomatic elite, but the property of all the peoples of Europe.

In a few days’ time, the European diplomatic corps will meet to sign the constitutional treaty. Their gathering, remote and exclusive, is a perfect symbol of what is wrong with the EU. Unaccountable and detached officials meet to make the decisions, but the people are kept safely away behind the barriers.

Our Prime Minister will stay away from the photo summit, and that too is a telling illustration of our relationship with Europe. We sulk, we are petulant, but ultimately, we are submissive. Nothing better illustrates what is wrong with our relationship with Europe: for all the petulance and grandstanding, in the end we go along with what has been decided.

Those of us who have campaigned long and hard for a referendum may well find that our wish, and the wishes of the British people, are simply ignored. The failure of the political establishment to allow a referendum will ultimately mean that the European project remains the project of the elite. It will be the preserve of the technocrat, the diplomat and the official, not of the people. Without a referendum, the EU project will lack democratic legitimacy, and without that legitimacy, it will not thrive. The question is, will it survive?

In conclusion, the failure to give us a referendum on this treaty denies it legitimacy. Political power held by institutions without democratic legitimacy do not stand for long. They lack stability, and are vulnerable. As communist Yugoslavia, apartheid South Africa and Soviet Russia all discovered, political institutions that lack democratic legitimacy ultimately fall apart.

One day, the people of Europe will challenge the EU’s institutions directly. The days of deference to the diplomat and the technocrat, and to Foreign Office and the EU officials, will come to an end. On that day, EU institutions will find themselves without legitimacy—but less legitimacy for the EU is not necessarily bad. Indeed, the worse things get, the better they may one day be.

21:24:00

Mr. Greg Hands (Hammersmith and Fulham) (Con)
At the beginning of the debate, the bomb that exploded in Algeria was mentioned. I want to comment on EU relations with Algeria, which I visited last year. It is a country of enormous tragedy. It does not face starvation, drought, flooding or other natural disasters, but it desperately needs our help. We cannot rely purely on France to engage with Algeria. We in Britain need to do much more.

On the way to Algeria, I was struck by the fact that nobody was travelling economy to get there. That is a troubling phenomenon, because it means that no one is voluntarily going to that country. Business class was packed with people involved in oil, diplomacy and so on. Algeria is one of the few countries in the world that does not even have a guidebook. There is no “Lonely Planet” guide to Algeria, nor is there one to Iraq and one or two other countries. The position in Algeria is troubling, and I believe that we should be engaged with it.

I wanted to discuss the EU treaty, but it has dominated the debate. Despite the long speech of the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty), some of the dangerous sanctions that the new treaty puts on national Parliaments have not been properly drawn out. Our Parliament will have a duty to contribute actively to the good functioning of the Union. Nobody can predict accurately what that will mean in practice, but criticism by elected representatives in our Parliament of the European Commission and its decisions might be out of order. National Parliaments, unlike the European Parliament, were not creations of the treaties, and our rights do not depend on them. The new treaty proposes for the first time that national Parliaments be subservient to the Union.

I had an interesting exchange with the Foreign Secretary at an evidence-taking sitting of the European Scrutiny Committee. I was amazed that he did not know the original French wording of the treaty and its provisions about national Parliaments. It was surprising, given that he said that he wanted to change it, that he did not know the original words. The treaty states that

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

However, the French original makes it clear that national Parliaments should contribute—and have a duty to contribute—to the functioning of the Union. The treaty also provides that national Parliaments must “see to it” that subsidiarity is respected.

Our report of 27 November, which did not get so much publicity, states that the phrase,

“National Parliaments contribute to the good functioning of the Union”,

is one from which an obligation can be inferred. The Committee report continued:

“Given its constitutional significance, we emphasise that this is not an area in which any ambiguity is tolerable and we shall look to the Government to ensure that its original undertakings are met in any new text.”

The Government have not fulfilled that undertaking—but I should be delighted to hear otherwise from the Minister for Europe in his winding-up speech.

A few weeks ago, the European Scrutiny Committee made interesting visits to two former Yugoslav republics of approximately the same size. I refer to the size deliberately, and also to the fact that they are completely or largely landlocked. They are the republics of Slovenia and Macedonia. The contrast is incredible. Slovenia is doing well. I had last visited Ljubljana in August 1991, when there was graffiti saying, “Slovenia will rise again”. It was shortly after the Jugoslovenska narodna armija—JNA—had trashed most of the city. Slovenia has risen again, and is doing incredibly well. It recently overtook Portugal and Greece and it is about to overtake Spain.

The other landlocked former Yugoslav republic of approximately 2 million people is Macedonia, which is not doing as well. It has an excellent Prime Minister, Nikola Gruevski. We also met the Deputy Minister for European Affairs, Gabriela Konevska-Trajkovska. They are impressive people, who are taking their country slowly but surely in the right direction. I believe that things will get done there.

I have mentioned two former Yugoslav republics of 2 million people that are both doing pretty well in different ways and can stand on their own two feet, because there is a third part of the former Yugoslavia, which also has a population of 2 million and is landlocked and mountainous: Kosovo. There is no reason why Kosovo could not go it alone. I believe that it can. It has far bigger problems than Slovenia or even Macedonia, but if we believe in self-determination, we must have some principles when we approach foreign policy. If a country of that size can go it alone, we should support it.

There are some problems in terms of guaranteeing access for Serbs, and concerning the Serbian enclaves that are left—which have been dangerously ignored by our Government and by other European Governments. We must engage a lot more there. There should, perhaps, be a plebiscite for the Serbs living in the north of the country so that they can determine their own future. We also need to guarantee access for the Serbian people to the cultural sites that they find of such value to their culture, and, as I have said, we must do something significant about the Serbian enclaves. If we can do those three things, I cannot see any real reason why we should oppose Kosovan independence. I look forward to seeing that day.

21:30:00

Mr. Mark Francois (Rayleigh) (Con)
It is a pleasure to sum up for Her Majesty’s Opposition this often lively debate. We heard good speeches from my right hon. Friend the Member for Wells (Mr. Heathcoat-Amory) and my hon. Friends the Members for Stone (Mr. Cash), for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd), for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski), for Harwich (Mr. Carswell) and for Hammersmith and Fulham (Mr. Hands). I shall, if I may, come to the Labour contributions a little later.

From the Opposition Benches, may I reiterate our condolences to the families of those who have been bereaved by the terrible tragedy in Algeria? I will go as far as to say that I suspect I speak for the whole House in expressing our sympathy.

Members of all parties will appreciate that we face a potentially serious situation in the Balkans. Several Members have touched on that. As the shadow Foreign Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague), said only yesterday:

“While Kosovo is entitled to have its status resolved, this must be done in a way that avoids damaging repercussions for Bosnia-Herzegovina, for Macedonia and the region.”

The Ahtisaari plan represents a fair and sensible way forward. It is the result of careful and exhaustive discussions with all sides, and we must hope it can be brought peacefully to fruition in the months ahead.

Although we have touched on several themes this evening, the issue that has dominated the debate has been the revived EU constitution. That document has presented the Prime Minister with a considerable dilemma. He could have stood up for Britain’s interests and vetoed the treaty, but instead he lacked the courage to do so and decided to go along with it. However, in order to avoid the crystal-clear manifesto commitment to hold a referendum on the constitution, he has forced his entire Government to go through the charade of pretending that the two documents are different, when everyone can plainly see that they are effectively the same. So let us nail this crucial point once and for all. Ministers are fond of quoting the sentence from the intergovernmental conference mandate which states:

“The constitutional concept…is abandoned”.

However, they very rarely read out the exact following sentence, which might be characterised in the current context as the missing sentence, and which states:

“As far as the content of the amendments to the existing Treaties is concerned, the innovations resulting from the 2004 IGC will be integrated into the TEU”—

the treaty on the European Union—

“and the Treaty on the Functioning of the Union, as specified in this mandate.”

In other words, the constitution is effectively revived wholesale with just a few minor exceptions, which the mandate subsequently points out.

Other EU leaders have accepted that point almost without argument. Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern said that the two documents are 90 per cent. the same. The Spanish Foreign Minister said that they are 98 per cent. the same. The Spanish Prime Minister, perhaps seeking to outdo his Foreign Secretary—I am pleased that our Foreign Secretary has just now returned to the Chamber, as being outdone by the Prime Minister is something he is not entirely unfamiliar with—said that they are 99 per cent. the same. Valery Giscard D’Estaing, who chaired the convention on the original constitution and about whom the Foreign Secretary was rather dismissive, says:

“lift the lid and look in the toolbox and all the same innovative tools are there.”

In fact, Giscard has been berating EU leaders for their lack of courage in explaining to their people what is really going on. He summed up his frustration in Le Monde back in June in the following words:

“the public are being led, without knowing it, to adopt the proposals we dare not put to them directly.”

That is an extremely succinct exposition of this Government’s position with regard to the people of Britain.

Not only has the Government’s line been exposed as patently false by EU leaders abroad; the Prime Minister’s argument has been betrayed by allies back home. Digby Jones—or Lord Jones of Birmingham, as we must learn to call him—let the cat out of the bag when he said:

“This is a con to call this a Treaty. It’s not, it’s exactly the same, it is a constitution.”

Shortly after that, the Government promoted him, but it is difficult to blame Lord Jones when even the Prime Minister cannot keep to the script himself. After an Anglo-Irish summit with Bertie Ahern in July, when asked at a press conference what had been discussed that morning the Prime Minister replied that they had been discussing the EU constitution and how they could take it forward over the next few months.

Then, after months of detailed examination of the two texts, the Labour-led European Scrutiny Committee, whose Chairman made a good and detailed speech this evening, and which must be commended for its vigilance in these matters, concluded that the two documents were “substantially equivalent” and that to argue otherwise would be “misleading”.

The Economist, which is not exactly known for its Euroscepticism, concluded that trying to sustain the Government’s position was “a farce”. Is it any wonder, then, that a poll in yesterday’s Daily Mail reported—[Interruption.] This was a Global Vision poll in the Daily Mail—[Interruption.] Labour Members may laugh, but what matters is not where it was published, but what the poll said—and the poll reported that almost three quarters of the British people want a referendum and that only 9 per cent. of the public believe that the two documents are different. Before any other Labour Members mock, they should remember the tremendous amount of time that the Prime Minister has spent sidling up to the editor of the Daily Mail. I have some good news for the Government, however. Although only 9 per cent. of the people believe that the two documents are different, that is actually up from a previous poll of a month ago when only 6 per cent. of the people believed that. Perhaps by the end of the process, if the Government work really hard, they might be able to sneak into double figures.

Daniel Kawczynski
I am not sure whether my hon. Friend intends to come to this point later in his speech, but does he agree with me how baffling it has been to listen to the Liberal Democrats in this debate, in the sense that they want a referendum on whether we should be members of the EU, but they are not prepared to say whether they want a referendum on this constitution?

Mr. Francois
I have some sympathy with my hon. Friend, as it is often baffling to listen to Liberal Democrats as a point of principle. However, I have to say that their spokesman, who I admit was filling in this evening, was extremely unclear about what the Liberal Democrat position would be in the event of a referendum amendment to next year’s Bill. That was not missed on these Benches.

Mr. Davidson
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Francois
I will, but if the hon. Gentleman is going to ask me what the Liberal Democrat position is, he is wasting his time.

Mr. Davidson
I just wanted to say that I hope that Conservative Back Benchers will not seek in any way to take advantage of the innocence and naivety of the Liberal Democrats in not having a position on this matter. It would be absolutely outrageous if the Tories campaigned in Liberal Democrat constituencies, calling on voters to ask the Liberal Democrats what their opinions were.

Mr. Francois
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I believe that he intervened at least five times, if I counted correctly, on the Liberal Democrat spokesman; he persisted, in the words of Peter Mandelson, in “punching the bruise”. We will most certainly hold every Liberal Democrat MP to account in their constituencies for how they vote, as indeed we will hold every Labour MP to account in their constituencies for how they vote.

I believe that the Government have comprehensively lost the argument on the point that the two documents are different, but still they peddle the same sorry line to the public, the press and to their own Back Benchers, because they know that the Prime Minister’s intransigence leaves them with absolutely no choice.

Under pressure, the Government fall back on their much vaunted red lines, which are largely red herrings designed principally to distract attention from what is really being given up without a referendum. However, the European Scrutiny Committee in two very detailed reports picked apart the Government’s red lines. The Labour Chairman of the Committee, the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty) told the BBC “Today” programme that the red lines would, in his words, “leak like a sieve”.

In fact, the Government have been in constant retreat on what is really at stake with this document. On 18 June, the former Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for Derby, South (Margaret Beckett), stated that the reform treaty would just

“tidy up the rule book of the European Union”.

A week later, she admitted that

“There are some power transfers”.

By July, the new Minister for Europe was arguing that we should not

“sign up to any treaty that transferred in any significant way, any UK sovereignty”.

By October, his mantra had become

“the reform treaty will not transfer power away from the UK on issues of fundamental importance to our sovereignty.”

That is a massive change in public position: from a tidying-up exercise to a rearguard action to protect fundamental sovereignty, in only four months.

But there have been further retreats. The red line concerning the charter of fundamental rights is just one example. After the June summit, the former Prime Minister assured us that we had an opt-out from the charter. The following day he was contradicted by the Swedish Prime Minister, who insisted that the United Kingdom did not have an opt-out, only a clarification. On 31 July, after a month of considerable confusion in the Government ranks, the Minister for Europe conceded in a letter to the European Scrutiny Committee that

“The UK specific protocol which the UK secured is not an ‘opt out’ from the Charter. Rather, the protocol clarifies the effect that the Charter will have in the UK.”

We have a clear pattern of confident assertion followed by internal confusion in the face of detailed examination followed by retreat, and we suspect that that pattern will be continued when we debate the ratification Bill in detail next year.

I expect the Minister for Europe to get to his feet in a few moments and tell us that the constitutional concept has been abandoned, and that there is therefore nothing to worry about. Perhaps he will also tell us that there is excellent data security at HM Revenue and Customs, that there is plenty of room in our prisons, and that the former Prime Minister and the current Prime Minister have always been best mates. All that would be about as honest as the Government’s position on the reform treaty.

The Labour party’s manifesto at the 2005 general election was very clear about the EU constitution. It said:

“We will put it to the British people in a referendum and campaign whole-heartedly for a ‘Yes’ vote”.

Given that clear pledge, the Government’s position is now dishonourable at best. Ministers are being not so much economical with the truth as positively parsimonious with it.

The Government continue to tell us that the two documents are different when they know full well—the Foreign Secretary knows, the Minister for Europe knows, other Ministers know—that they are effectively the same. Even the Prime Minister has admitted as much, in a memorable Freudian slip—and that from a Prime Minister who stated that one of his key objectives was to restore “trust” in politics, which, as he told the BBC specifically, included honouring Labour’s 2005 election manifesto. That same Prime Minister is now doing precisely the opposite, and treating the British people like fools along the way. The Prime Minister once famously told his predecessor “There is nothing you could say to me now that I could possibly believe.” The risk that he faces is that if he continues on this course, much the same will eventually be said of him.

I remind Ministers that three quarters of the British people want a referendum. Most of the national press want a referendum. The trade unions want a referendum: indeed, they voted for it by a margin of nine to one at the TUC conference. Many Labour MPs privately concede that there should be a referendum, and some of them have had the moral courage to voice their concerns in the Chamber today. Included on that roll of honour are the hon. Members for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart), for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey), for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell), for Stroud (Mr. Drew), for Glasgow, South-West (Mr. Davidson), for Luton, North (Kelvin Hopkins) and for Hemsworth (Jon Trickett). There are others in the Labour party who have not yet spoken out, but we believe that they are there, and their contribution could eventually be decisive.

The Government are clearly losing the argument on the EU constitution. The emperor has no clothes. All the parties promised the people who sent us to this House a referendum on the EU constitution. We say, let the promise be kept and let the people decide.

21:44:00

The Minister for Europe (Mr. Jim Murphy)
I am delighted to have the opportunity to respond to this evening’s debate. Before I do so, I wish to update the House on the matter that has concerned us all this evening—the terrorist attacks in Algeria. It is important to inform the House that al-Qaeda North Africa is claiming responsibility, according to a number of press agencies. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office website has been updated to take account of today’s tragic, grotesque and brutal murders. I encourage all those who are considering travelling to Algeria, for whatever purpose, to take account of the information on that website. The whole House will rightly appreciate that the Foreign Secretary has written to the Secretary-General of the United Nations regarding this dreadful loss of life, which potentially includes some UN staff.

A huge number of contributions were made to this evening’s debate. In addition to those from the Front Benches, we heard a contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty), who is no longer in his place—uncharacteristically, because he takes his role as Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee very seriously. We also heard a contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart), who has taken a great deal of care and interest in these issues for longer than she and I would care to remember.

I felt like a priest on occasions this evening as I listened to the confessions of my hon. Friends the Members for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey) and for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) about their careers being thwarted as a consequence of their experience of, and attitudes to, Europe. My hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall talked about being threatened with losing her job as a shadow Minister for the citizens charter—

Kate Hoey
No, I lost it.

Mr. Murphy
My hon. Friend was not just threatened; she actually lost her job. I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby joked, in a humorous speech, about potentially or actually losing his job as a shadow Minister for the cones hotline. Europe is blamed for many travesties, but those are two new heinous crimes. Never have so many cones died for a false purpose and never have so many charter mark ambitions been unfulfilled, as we have heard this evening.

My hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby spoke about his desire to travel during the detailed discussion on the Lisbon treaty Bill. If he is unsuccessful in that, may I recommend some travel brochures for him to consider?

Kelvin Hopkins
Was my hon. Friend hinting that if one shows enthusiasm for the European Union, one might be promoted to the Front Bench?

Mr. Murphy
All I say to my hon. Friend is that over the next few weeks and months one will not be allowed to travel anywhere.

I think that those on both sides of the House would accept that the contribution by my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) was the most humorous, and possibly one of the most thoughtful, particularly on the issue of Russia. A number of interventions were made by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, South-West (Mr. Davidson)—my very good friend—despite his current physical condition. On behalf of everyone in the Government, may I say that I hope that it is nothing trivial? He informs me that he fell, but an investigation is taking place into whether he was pushed.

Mr. Andrew Robathan (Blaby) (Con)
Ask the Whips.

Mr. Murphy
I was my hon. Friend’s Whip in the past, so I know what happened.

A number of thoughtful contributions were made by Opposition Back Benchers, and not only on the Lisbon treaty. The hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) was passionate, but he was, on occasion, unnecessarily and gratuitously personally offensive. That is a choice for him, because he must design his own debating style.

The right hon. Member for Wells (Mr. Heathcoat-Amory) was fair in his point about the need to find additional ways to scrutinise European legislation. As I have said before, I had the fantastic opportunity to serve on European Standing Committees A, B and C for 18 months, and there has to be a more effective way to scrutinise. It is not for the Government to design the process, but based on my experience of scrutinising European legislation, I think that there must be a better way.

We also heard from the hon. Members for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski), for Harwich (Mr. Carswell) and for Hammersmith and Fulham (Mr. Hands), who spoke about a European neighbourhood policy. The hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham spoke about his views on Zimbabwe, which are held dearly, although occupants of all three Front Benches disagree strongly with his view on engagement with that country.

My hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda spoke with great clarity about the dynamic in Russian politics today, the fact that the democratic space there has shrunk and the opportunities for civic society and the freedom of the media have been curtailed in a way that many of us would have thought unimaginable a few years ago. We all celebrated the remarkable changes in Russia with the collapse of communism, but the trends that my hon. Friend mentioned are worrying, especially when one considers how important Russia is on issues of energy, international terrorism and non-proliferation. It is significant that we should do as much as we can in our relationship with Russia through the European Union, because 27 voices—albeit with different accents and at times in different languages—can be much more effective than one lone voice.

Mr. Francois
The Minister will know that the Opposition have given the Government strong support in the Litvinenko case. Can he reassure the House that the Government will continue to press the Russians on that important matter?

Mr. Murphy
I put on record the thanks of the Government for that strong cross-party support. It is an important aspect of our debates that, while retaining ferocious disagreement about several issues, we are at one on the strategic issues of national interest in respect of Russia. We will of course continue to press on the matter that the hon. Gentleman raises.

Kosovo was mentioned by several right hon. and hon. Members. In the past, the international community has had good intentions on Kosovo, but that will not be enough in the next few weeks and months. When we reflect on what happened in the 1990s, we must say, “Never again.” In the autumn of 1993, the European Council was debating how to send aid to Bosnia, and how to distribute it for the brutal Balkan winter. By the time Europe had agreed to a package of measures, the snow had melted in Sarajevo and spring had arrived. That should never be repeated in international diplomacy.

Several other important issues are debated at European Councils and we need to work on them multilaterally and bilaterally with our European colleagues. Not least of those are the millennium development goals, climate change and our relationship with Iran, which the Foreign Secretary mentioned. However, I shall spend the limited time available to me on some of the comments on the Lisbon treaty.

As has often been the case in discussions on the issue, opposition to the treaty was fired by an anger about proposals that do not even appear in it. Perhaps that is just the nature of debate on European matters. I simply do not believe that the changes being proposed on foreign policy or the proposals for a high representative are the threat that is claimed. Those who oppose the changes paint

“a picture of this foreign policy monster, this fearful creature somehow stripping away all our power in foreign policy”,

but I regard the changes

“as amplifying our potential influence.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 5 December 2007; Vol. 696, c. 1752.]

Those are not my words, but those of the right hon. Lord Howe, the former Conservative Foreign Secretary, speaking in another place just this week. He appreciates that the proposed changes help the United Kingdom.

Opposition Members suggested that our seat at the United Nations was in some way under threat as a consequence of the proposals in the reform treaty. It is ludicrous, and politically and intellectually incoherent, to draw that conclusion, even from the least charitable reading of the reform treaty.

Mr. Davidson
While my hon. Friend is on the subject of political and intellectual incoherence, may I ask him about the Liberals and their position? While I believe that the Minister is wrong, at least I recognise that he has an opinion. There are three Liberals present; how many opinions does he think that they have among them on whether there should be a referendum on the constitution?

Mr. Murphy
In the time available to me, that is not an issue in which I can get involved in great detail. The Liberal Democrats will continue to speak for themselves on the subject. Earlier, I had the opportunity to listen to the speech of their Front Bencher, the hon. Member for Cheadle (Mark Hunter).

On the high representative, the point that I wish to make is that the modest changes to current procedures are a sensible improvement. A Conservative Back Bencher—I think that it was one of the Better Off Out gang—suggested that we would no longer be able to speak at the United Nations; our seat would be under threat. That ignores all recent history. As the Foreign Secretary said, during the German presidency of the EU, we spoke on eight separate occasions on which the EU representative also spoke. We also spoke at the UN during the Portuguese presidency. Javier Solana spoke at the UN on five separate occasions since 2002, and the UK spoke on each and every one of those occasions. It is important that there be a European Union effort, and that we exert our energy and influence on the international stage. Being able to speak at the United Nations is an important part of that, whether it be on Kosovo, Zimbabwe, Burma, the millennium development goals or other matters. The Conservative Opposition often seem to will the end—a more vocal, effective European policy on foreign issues—but strongly oppose the means.

On the points raised about the abandonment of the previous constitution, the hon. Member for Rayleigh (Mr. Francois) rightly predicted that I would again announce this evening that the constitutional approach has been abandoned—indeed, he might have written this part of my speech. All 27 member states have agreed that the constitutional approach has been abandoned, as have many others. The ODS party, in government in the Czech Republic—the lone voice that the Conservative party claim as an ally in the European Union—has said that there is no constitution anymore. That is the Conservatives’ one voice of friendship in the European Union. The French Secretary of State has said so. The Conservative President of the European Parliament, Hans-Gert Pöttering, has said so. The Danish Prime Minister, José Manuel Barroso, Lord Brittan, the Dutch Prime Minister, the Dutch Council of State, eminent professors of European law, the Italian Interior Minister, the Portuguese Prime Minister, the chairman of BP and many others have added their voice to the clear statement by all 27 Governments that the constitutional approach has been abandoned.

On the specific deal that the UK has, all countries have moved away from the previous constitution, but the UK has moved further away than any other member state. Again, that view is supported by José Manuel Barroso, who has said:

“It is clearly different, the arrangement for Britain, than the arrangement for all the other countries.”

Giscard d’Estaing said:

“As to the balance sheet of the changes, it mainly favours Great Britain, which will enjoy a special status”.

The President of the European Parliament has said—

Mr. Cash
rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.

Question, That the Question be now put, put and agreed to.

Question put accordingly:—

Division 26
11/12/2007 21:59:00
The House divided:
Ayes: 276
Noes: 17
Question accordingly agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the matter of European Affairs.

SECTION 5 OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES (AMENDMENT) ACT 1993

Ordered,

That this House takes note with approval of the Government’s assessment as set out in the Pre-Budget Report 2007 for the purposes of section 5 of the European Communities (Amendment) Act 1993.—[Liz Blackman.]

DELEGATED LEGISLATION

Home Information Packs

Ordered,

That the Home Information Pack (Amendment) Regulations 2007 (S.I., 2007, No. 3301), dated 22nd November 2007, be referred to a Delegated Legislation Committee.—[Liz Blackman.]

Madam Deputy Speaker (Sylvia Heal)
I will put together motions 4 to 6.

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118(6) (Delegated Legislation Committees),

European Communities

That the draft European Communities (Definition of Treaties) (Agreement on Enlargement of the European Economic Area) Order 2007, which was laid before this House on 15th November, be approved.

Immigration

That the draft Immigration and Nationality (Fees) (Amendment) Order 2007, which was laid before this House on 21st November, be approved.

Employment Agencies, Etc.

That the draft Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses (Amendment) Regulations 2007, which were laid before this House on 28th November, be approved.—[Liz Blackman.]

Question agreed to.

Petitions

Post Office Closures (Wirral)

22:13:00

Ben Chapman (Wirral, South) (Lab)
I present a petition on behalf of more than 4,000 residents of Lower Heswall who signed it to mark their concern about the possible closure of their local post office. This is a well-used, important facility and an important element of a vibrant village community. The signatories hope that it will be allowed to continue to play its vital community role. The petition is from Mr. Brian Kewley, postmaster, and the customers of Lower Heswall post office.

The petition declares

that the proposal to close the Post Office will have a disproportionate impact on the community it serves due to the large proportion of elderly people who rely on the service, the nearest alternative…being up a steep hill which presents problems for many of the customers, and the extent to which other traders in the Village rely on people coming to the Post Office.

The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform to review urgently, with the Post Office, the policy of branch closures with a view to maintaining a Post Office service in the Village of Lower Heswall.

And the Petitioners remain, etc.

Following is the full text of the petition:

[The Petition of Mr Brian Kewley, Postmaster and the customers of Lower Heswall Post Office, Wirral,

Declares that the proposal to close the Post Office will have a disproportionate impact on the community it serves due to the large proportion of elderly people who rely on the service, the nearest alternative Post Office which has little parking availability and is served by an infrequent bus service, being up a steep hill which presents problems for many of the customers, and the extent to which other traders in the Village rely on people coming to the Post Office.

The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform to review urgently, with the Post Office, the policy of branch closures with a view to maintaining a Post Office service in the Village of Lower Heswall.

And the Petitioners remain, etc.]

[P000059]

Family Courts (Reform)

22:14:00

Mr. Dai Davies (Blaenau Gwent) (Ind)
The petition states:

The Petition of Sally Ann Cooke,

Declares that Sally Ann Cooke has been imprisoned wrongly in the UK as a result of advice from the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (CAFCASS). That CAFCASS prevented her obtaining access to Justice. That CAFCASS obtained a Court Order which allowed her only 3 hours contact each year. In 2006, she obtained only 2 hours contact with her daughter. CAFCASS advised that she was in need of “psychological therapy”. This "medically unfit" allegation has now been disproven by specialist medical examination.

CAFCASS prevented her moving her daughters' medical records at the threat of having her daughter put into care.

CAFCASS did commence care proceedings, which weren't supported by Social Services. CAFCASS requested that her place at School be kept open, which the Education Authority refused, as she'd moved out of the area.

The Petitioner wishes to have the case reviewed in open court to enable her to prove that she is a fit and able mother and have reasonable contact with her daughter.

The Petitioner therefore requests that the House of Commons urges the Government to legislate to create greater transparency in the Family Courts to prevent such miscarriages of justice in the future.

And the Petitioners remain, etc.

[P000072]

Post Office Closures (Northamptonshire)

22:16:00

Mr. Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
I stood in the rain for more than an hour with 200 protesters in support of Little Harrowden post office, and it gives me great pleasure to present this petition. The petition states:

The Humble Petition of the residents of Little Harrowden, Great Harrowden, Orlingbury, Pytchley and surrounding areas,

Sheweth

That we oppose the closure of our Post Office in Little Harrowden. Such a closure would cause an immense amount of hardship, especially for elderly, disabled and other vulnerable groups. It would lead to the closure of the only shop in the village and would require the numerous customers of Little Harrowden Post Office to travel more than two miles along a major road with no footpath to the nearest alternative Post Office.

Wherefore your Petitioners pray that your Honourable House urges the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform to halt the closure of Little Harrowden Post Office.

And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray, &c.

[P000079]

Post Office Closures (Brighton)

22:17:00

David Lepper (Brighton, Pavilion) (Lab/Co-op)
I present the third petition in one week against the proposed closure of another post office in my constituency. The petition is in the name of Mr. Keith Day and is signed by 1,556 residents and people working in businesses in the area. The petition states:

The Petition of those affected by the closure of the Elm Grove Post Office in Brighton,

Declares that they believe that the Post Office provides an invaluable and local service to local residents, many of them older people and young families who need the many essential services provided by the Post Office close at hand. If the Government truly believes in building sustainable communities, it will withdraw this and other Post Office closure proposals.

The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform to make representations to the Post Office Ltd. to withdraw its closure proposals for the Post Office at Elm Grove, Brighton, which plays such an important part in the life of the local community.

And the Petitioners remain, etc.

[P000078]

School Funding (Shropshire)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Liz Blackman.]

22:18:00

Mr. Owen Paterson (North Shropshire) (Con)
Madam Deputy Speaker, I should like to begin by thanking Mr. Speaker and you for granting me this debate. Since I was first elected in 1997, I have attempted to bring to the Government’s attention the problems and costs of delivering public services in a thinly populated rural county. Shropshire is one of the largest inland counties, but with 289,000 inhabitants it is one of the least populated areas of the United Kingdom. It has some of Britain’s most stunning scenery, but the long distances between its small towns and villages make the delivery of public services costly and difficult.

Despite the geographical challenges, Shropshire county council is to be congratulated on being one of the best performing counties in England; it is judged to be a four-star council. It is one of only two children’s services authorities to have consistently received top grades against all headings under Ofsted’s annual performance assessment process.

Shropshire has 141 primary schools, 22 secondary schools and two special schools. In 2007, Shropshire performed ahead of the national average on all 11 indicators for seven-year-olds. The pattern of results in Shropshire has largely mirrored or exceeded national changes. This year, we again secured top grades against the five every child matters outcomes. Shropshire’s performance has remained ahead of the national average for 11-year-olds in English, mathematics and science. Its performance has also remained ahead of the national average on eight of the nine available indicators for 14-year-olds and has moved further ahead in the key level 5-plus indicator in English and mathematics. For 16-year-olds, the indications are that the results for GCSE or equivalent are likely to be the best ever recorded in the county. All results of the seven available indicators have improved over the 2006 county figures, and they have moved further ahead of the equivalent national figures in six of the seven indicators. Shropshire is ranked either first or second on all the main indicators. Attendance in Shropshire continues to be over the national average, and Shropshire’s permanent exclusion rates remain low in comparison with other authorities in the west midlands.

That splendid track record is all the more remarkable when one considers that Shropshire is the second lowest funded of all 34 England upper-tier authorities. Shropshire’s guaranteed unit of funding per pupil for 2007-08 is £3,551. Based on 39,218 pupils as at January 2007, that delivers £139.3 million in dedicated schools grant to Shropshire. All-England average funding is £3,888 per pupil, leaving Shropshire with £337 less per pupil. If Shropshire received the funding of an average local authority, there would be £13.23 million more to spend on Shropshire’s children.

Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. Coleham primary school in Shrewsbury receives, on average, £711 less per pupil than the national average. That equates to a deficit of £300,000 for just one school. The headmistress has asked to meet the Minister to discuss how on earth she will cope with that massive deficit.

Mr. Paterson
I am most grateful to my hon. Friend and neighbour for that support, but I am afraid to have to tell him that the position is going to get worse, because in 2010-11 the gap increases to £385, leaving Shropshire’s children £15.1 million behind.

Let me address this particularly to the Minister: I am not calling for a single penny more in taxation to be levied for education. Shropshire’s hard-working taxpayers are already taxed quite enough. My criticism is of the formula that distributes so much less taxpayers’ money back to Shropshire per pupil from Whitehall. The City of London receives £7,089 per pupil and Tower Hamlets receives £6,028, as against Shropshire’s £3,551. Perhaps a direct comparison would be with Ealing, which, with an almost identical number of pupils—39,250—receives £4,634 per pupil but in a much less sparse area. If Shropshire’s children received Ealing’s funding per pupil, they would have an incredible £42,486,428 extra. I repeat that I do not want a penny extra to be raised in tax, but I would like the Minister to explain how these extraordinary disparities come about. Does he believe that it is fair that a child in the City of London should receive back from general taxation twice what a child in Shropshire receives?

Mr. Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con)
Following on from my hon. Friend’s excellent point, the comprehensive spending review has just locked in funding per pupil for the next three years. In Shropshire and other rural authorities in the neighbouring area, we are now locked into well below average settlements because the Government have decided to abandon the previous formula, which was at least transparent and based on deprivation indices and others. That has been swept aside, and for the period of the CSR they are looking solely at increases based on percentages. That means that authorities at the bottom of the league table, such as Shropshire, which is sixth from bottom—[Interruption]—and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh) says, Lincolnshire, will now be locked into that disparity, which will widen over the next few years.

Mr. Paterson
My hon. Friend makes a very good point, and I am most grateful to him for coming with me to see the county council. I think that we have been there three times in the past three weeks. But again, the position is worse than he said.

Shropshire’s excellent education system is facing a major crisis that is wholly avoidable. Shropshire county council is predicting significant demographic change. There is a rising population with a relatively higher concentration of older people, and there is currently a decrease in the number of children under five, and in primary education. According to the county council’s figures, there will be 3,400 fewer pupils on the roll from 2001 to 2012. There are currently 2,500 unfilled primary school places, which will rise to 5,450 by 2012. That is predicted to lead to a cumulative shortfall of £3.8 million by 2010-11.

The council is proposing to debate a paper on reorganising primary schools in Shropshire on Friday 14 December. My hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Mr. Dunne) and I have discussed that, and my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) saw the council only last Thursday. I have great sympathy for the position of the council, which faces the dilemma of receiving less from central taxation than the vast majority of other authorities, while trying to deliver high-quality education in the face of current falling rolls.

However, the fall in primary school numbers is hard to understand in the light of the extensive new building that has occurred in Shropshire recently, and the dramatic increases planned for future years. It is also worth noting that live births in Shropshire bottomed out in 2001, at 2,628, rising to 2,767 in 2005. Another factor that should be borne in mind is that women are choosing to have children later, so nationally, fertility rates for women aged 30 to 34 rose from 78.2 births per 1,000 women in 1986 to 104.6 per 1,000 in 2006. Current research suggests that the trend towards later maternity is strongest among women with better educational qualifications, with some postponing child rearing to pursue their careers. That could well be the case in Shropshire, where there has been an unprecedented increase in mid-range housing with an average age of occupants that conforms more with higher birth trends, which may, therefore, fuel an unexpected surge in the school-age population.

Another factor that is almost impossible for the council to estimate is the increase in population owing due to the Government’s abject loss of control of immigration. The most graphic example of that was the Government’s prediction, when Poland acceded to the EU, of 13,000 Polish immigrants working in this country, whereas the actual figure was well over 600,000. Ironically, 13,000 babies have been born to Polish women in this country since EU accession. Population estimates assume inward migration contributing nearly 6 million to the projected rise of 7.2 million in the UK’s population between 2004 and 2031—equivalent to six cities the size of Birmingham over the 27-year period.

Poles have always been welcome in my constituency thanks to a significant Polish community in Penley, just over the Welsh border, who stayed on after the second world war because, tragically, it was too dangerous for them to return to socialist Poland. Vans with names dominated by consonants are common in the area. Following Poland’s accession to the EU, a significant population of Polish people has built up in nearby Wrexham and Crewe. Road signs near Whitchurch written in Polish attracted national attention earlier this year.

Advantage West Midlands commissioned the university of Warwick to write a paper on the economic impact of migrant workers in the west midlands, which reported in November 2007. It said:

“The West Midlands Migrant Worker Survey revealed that for a substantial proportion of migrant workers initial plans about length of stay in the UK had changed. On balance, the tendency was for migrant workers in the sample to decide to stay longer than first anticipated…The presence of children will also increase the demand for school places.”

I hope that that shows that it really is impossible for the county council to plan ahead with complete accuracy given the totally inadequate quality of Government data in this area.

I hope, however, that the Minister recognises that the current system of education works well. That situation is very much due to the number of small schools that provide local education and parental choice. Having visited every school in my constituency in recent years, I can confirm that competition among schools guarantees higher standards as schools strive to satisfy parents, knowing that those parents often have an alternative so long as they possess a car.

Last Thursday, I visited Childs Ercall Church of England primary school, whose future is up for review because it fails existing criteria on pupil numbers established by the last Lib Dem-Labour council. First, the governors and the chairman of the parish council disputed the predicted numbers and were confident that given new housing they would achieve the current minimum numbers required, but they stressed that the village of 237 houses has only a village hall, a church, a working men’s club and no other public facilities. David James, the chairman of the parish council, has said:

“Facilities are being bled out of the countryside and that is a thoroughly bad development.”

Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making a compelling case. He is absolutely right to underline the fact that migration within the European Union and immigration from outside the EU is having an impact on Shropshire. In fact, 36 per cent. of the housing growth in Shropshire over the next 10 years will be as a result of those factors. I do not believe that my area will be affected by any reorganisation of schools, for which I am grateful, but Shropshire has been short-changed for too long. I endorse and fully support my hon. Friend in saying that this must end.

Mr. Paterson
I am most grateful for my hon. Friend’s support. I know that we can count on him in future discussions.

The school buildings at Childs Ercall are currently used for out-of-hours activities, including a breakfast club, a computer club and other community enterprises. That is entirely in line with stated Government policy. The building schools for the future programme website states:

“Schools are no longer just about what goes on in the classroom during school hours. The modern vision of extended schools sees schools as assets at the heart of the community, which everyone can use and benefit from…Building Schools for the Future…provides an opportunity to be innovative in the ways schools work and to explore new ways in which they can involve the local community, adults, families and local business partners”.

Ironically for Childs Ercall, the website even lists breakfast and after-school clubs as aims of the initiative. However, the building schools for the future programme, which was talked up by the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families in his statement this afternoon, is not due to arrive in Shropshire until 2013. Could the Minister consider bringing Shropshire’s schedule forward within the existing budget?

The Secretary of State said today that his consultation had revealed that “children and young people told us that they wanted more places to play” and “interesting things to do outside school”, and that the Minister for Children, Young People and Families had set out a strategy promising “places for young people to go to in every constituency of the country…funded by proceeds from unclaimed assets and new investment from my Department.” Do Shropshire’s school facilities qualify?

Mr. Dunne
I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for allowing me to intervene again. What he is saying is important. The Secretary of State made much of consulting parents this afternoon—[Interruption.] I am pleased to see him entering the Chamber. He made much of consulting parents on being given more information about their child’s progress. What the parents of the children in 20 primary schools in Shropshire threatened with closure care about is ensuring that they have a school in their local village for their children to attend, rather than having them bussed into a town or village miles away. It is schools that those parents want, not play areas.

Mr. Paterson
I am most grateful to my hon. Friend. Happily, the Secretary of State has just turned up, so perhaps the Minister can confer and give us a clear reply.

Successive Ministers have promised to defend rural schools. At the time of the countryside march in February 1998, when he was the Minister responsible for school standards, the right hon. Member for North Tyneside (Mr. Byers) said:

“When a school closes a village loses a vital focus…setting a spiral of decline. This is what we want to stop.”

In May 2000, the current Home Secretary, who was then the Minister responsible for schools, said:

“Rural schools are often the lifeblood of local communities. I know there are difficult decisions that local authorities have to take but in the case of village schools, we were right to put the village before the planner.”

The chairman of governors of Adderley Church of England primary school, alarmed at the proposed reorganisation of Shropshire primary schools, has also told me that the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Jonathan Shaw), said on “The Westminster Hour” on 4 November that the Government have a policy to keep rural schools open.

I have also had approaches from Maesbury primary school and Selattyn Church of England primary school, which are indicative of the huge confusion and disruption that will be caused to Shropshire’s primary schools if a reorganisation leads to the closure of a number of schools. The proposals will be deeply unpopular with parents and grandparents, as well as being most upsetting for staff and, above all, the children involved. Councillor Keith Barrow has put down a motion to Oswestry borough council, while Councillor Gerald Dakin has laid a similar motion before North Shropshire district council. This is all so unnecessary. We would not even be discussing the issue tonight if Shropshire received a fraction more of the central funds from the taxpayer that are awarded to other authorities.

Given the unreliability of current population data, particularly on immigration, now is no time to close schools that take decades to establish and build a reputation. They may even have to be reopened or, worse, new schools may have to be built, at great public expense, to cope with an influx of new pupils.

I repeat that I am not asking for a single penny more to be levied from the British taxpayer. I am simply asking for a proportion of taxpayers’ funds to be returned to the county of Shropshire in order to make a bitter and costly closure programme unnecessary. The Government have established the primary capital programme for improving existing schools. Could this be brought forward? Finally, would the Minister agree to meet me, with other Shropshire colleagues and representatives from the council, to find a solution to our modest requests? Unless a solution is found, irrevocable damage could be done to Shropshire’s exceptional system of primary education, with an inevitable further impact on the county’s isolated rural communities.

22:35:00

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families (Kevin Brennan)
I congratulate the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Paterson) on securing this debate. I welcome this early opportunity to bring the issue of school funding to the House following the recent announcement of the revenue and capital settlements for the next three years. I would first like to congratulate the teachers and pupils in the hon. Member’s constituency, and in the whole of Shropshire, on their continuing hard work and achievements. He referred to some of those achievements in his speech.

This year, 82 per cent. of Shropshire pupils aged 14 reached the required standard in English, and 79 per cent. did so in mathematics. That is 2 percentage points above the national average in each subject. Meanwhile, the number of 15-year-olds in Shropshire achieving five higher GCSE passes or the equivalent continues to be well above the national average. In all subjects, including English and maths, young people in Shropshire achieved 5 percentage points above the national average at GCSE last year.

Let me turn now to school funding. It is important to remember that all local authorities have seen substantial increases in funding under this Government, and that is the context in which we should consider this evening’s debate. Total revenue funding per pupil for education in Shropshire went up by £1,120 in real terms between 1997 and 2005. That is an increase in real terms of 38 per cent. From 2006, we introduced the dedicated schools grant and a two-year school funding settlement. This gave Shropshire increases in core funding for schools of 6.6 per cent. per pupil last year, compared with their spending the year before, and a further 6.4 per cent. per pupil this year. What has the increased investment bought? Since 1999, Shropshire schools have been able to employ 160 more teachers and 820 more support staff.

Spending on school buildings has also increased dramatically. Ten years ago, the allocation for Shropshire was £5.1 million. For the years 2005-06 to 2007-08, we have allocated £37.4 million of capital to Shropshire council and its schools. This includes more than £7 million of targeted capital funding, following the council’s successful bids for support for two major capital projects.

Mark Pritchard
Will the Minister give way?

Kevin Brennan
If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I will not give way, because this is a conversation between the hon. Member for North Shropshire and me, and we agreed that the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) would intervene in the first part of the debate.

Looking ahead, we have just announced the first ever three-year school revenue funding settlement, enabling local authorities and schools to plan ahead with greater certainty. The settlement allows for continued real-terms growth in school funding over the next three years, although at a more modest rate than in recent years. Across the country, total school revenue funding will rise from £36.5 billion this year to £41.9 billion in 2010—an average year-on-year increase of 2 per cent. in real terms.

This settlement allows us to target money on our priorities. Those include making available by 2010 £912 million to support the extension of a personalised offer to all pupils, including those with special educational needs, and £315 million to help to improve the rate at which children progress, ensuring that all children can meet their potential, and that those who are behind expectations, or are falling behind, get back on track. We will also make available £340 million by 2010 to support the extension of the entitlement to free nursery education for three and four-year-olds from twelve and a half to 15 hours, and £490 million by 2010-11 to support the development of extended services in our schools.

In addition, Shropshire will get an increase in its dedicated school grant of 13 per cent. per pupil over the next three years. That is just below the national average of 13.1 per cent. per pupil. So by 2010, Shropshire’s guaranteed funding per pupil through the dedicated school grant will be £4,013, up £462 per pupil on this year.

I understand the concerns expressed by the hon. Member for North Shropshire about funding for schools in Shropshire, especially when compared with the funding that other areas receive. I am sure that other hon. Members—including my hon. Friend the Minister for Schools and Learners, who is in his place for this debate and who has a constituency in the rural county of Dorset—will recognise the challenges that we face.

First, though, I should like to explain the reasons behind the differences in funding in different areas of the country. We need to ensure that we have an appropriate balance between basic funding and funding that recognises the different needs of each area. As the hon. Member for North Shropshire noted, some parts of the country—especially London and the other conurbations, such as Birmingham, that have inner-city areas—receive additional funding. That is because it costs schools more to recruit and retain teachers and other members of staff in those areas.

Other areas, including Shropshire, receive additional funding because, as the hon. Member for North Shropshire mentioned, they are sparsely populated and have many small rural primary schools that are more expensive to run. However, the main reason for differences in the level of funding that we provide to different local authorities is the emphasis that we place on targeting funding on disadvantaged pupils. Such pupils are likely to need extra support if they are to have an equal chance to succeed.

There have been improvements in attainment at all levels of education in recent years. Schools in the most disadvantaged areas have improved most of all, but there is still a major gap between the outcomes for children from disadvantaged backgrounds and for other pupils. In 2007, 36 per cent. of young people receiving free school meals achieved five good GCSE passes, compared with 63 per cent. of their peers. Closing that gap is critical to our aim of promoting a fair, prosperous and inclusive society, so we believe that it is right and just to invest our resources where they will make the most difference.

Shropshire has significantly fewer pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds than many other areas, and that is reflected in the level of school funding that the authority receives. Next year, 7.3 per cent. of Shropshire’s funding through the dedicated schools grant will be for disadvantaged pupils, compared with 12.1 per cent. nationally. For the first time, however, money for pockets of deprivation is being included in this funding. An extra £300,000 pounds is included for Shropshire next year, targeted on schools that have high numbers of pupils from deprived neighbourhoods compared with the rest of the county. I am sure that the hon. Member for North Shropshire will talk to his colleagues on the county council to make certain that that funding gets through to the pupils in those deprived areas.

The school funding arrangements for the next three years consolidate the current arrangements that followed the introduction of the dedicated schools grant two years ago, but we need to ensure that we have a funding system fit for the challenges and priorities of the next decade. The hon. Member for North Shropshire has raised some important questions about that.

In January, my Department will launch a major review of the distribution of the dedicated schools grant. We will want to hear from everyone who is interested in school funding, as we work with our partners to shape proposals for the school funding system from 2011. A full consultation will start in autumn 2009, and the funding of schools in rural areas will be one of the issues that we shall want to explore as part of the review.

Mr. Paterson
As the Under-Secretary wants to consult, will he agree to meet me and colleagues from the House and the county council to discuss the matter?

Kevin Brennan
I can confirm that my hon. Friend the Minister for Schools and Learners has already agreed to meet the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues. I have read the letter that the hon. Member for Ludlow (Mr. Dunne) sent to the Secretary of State, and as I said, my hon. Friend the schools Minister has agreed to meet him.

In the coming years, we want to work with local authorities and schools to ensure that we are getting the best possible outcomes for pupils from the revenue and capital resources that we put into schools. The hon. Member for North Shropshire has described the challenges facing the council in Shropshire and its schools as a result of rapidly falling pupil numbers. I stress again that my hon. Friend the Minister for Schools and Learners will be pleased to meet the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues.

Local authorities are responsible for balancing the supply of places in their area to ensure that schools serve the needs of their local communities and provide good quality education in the most cost-effective way. However, surplus places can represent poor use of resources, which can often be used more effectively to support schools in raising standards. With current surpluses in Shropshire as a whole, it must be right that the authority has considered a reduction in surplus places as part of its planning strategy.

I know that local schools are important in rural communities, and we accept that in order to let young children attend a school closer to home, there may have to be more empty places in schools in rural areas than in those in urban areas. Our guidance to decision makers makes it clear that that must be taken into account, and that the presumption against closing rural schools continues. However, even in a rural authority there may be a case for redeploying resources that are tied up in surplus places, to provide a richer educational experience for all young people in a more efficient system. Let me deal with our plans for capital funding. We are investing £21.9 billion in schools nationally over the next three years. That is a sevenfold increase since 1996. For 2008-10, we have allocated £57.3 million for capital investment to Shropshire and its schools to improve their buildings and facilities. That includes £3 million through the new primary capital programme in 2009 and a further £5.4 million in 2010. We aim to renew at least half of all primary school buildings in the country under the programme in the next 14 years.

The hon. Gentleman asked about the building schools for the future programme, which aims to renew all secondary schools in England in 15 waves of investment, which started in 2005-06. The hon. Gentleman may wish to discuss with his hon. Friends plans to dig into and cut from the plans for the future in the case of Shropshire. Because of the late prioritisation, Shropshire is getting money up front. It has been allocated £20.5 million now to renew its neediest school, the William Brooke school in Much Wenlock.

In the meantime, the authority and its schools continue to receive substantial amounts of capital each year to address their priority needs. Allocations of funding to the authority reflect the fact that it has not benefited from modernising schools through building schools for the future.

Our plans for revenue and capital investment in schools provide for continued growth over the next three years, building on the substantial increases of the last decade. I know that the hon. Gentleman shares my ambition for continually improving outcomes for all our pupils for the taxpayer’s considerable investment. I am sure that he will want to raise some of the points with which I have had not time to deal in his meeting with my hon. Friend the Minister for Schools and Learners in the near future.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at thirteen minutes to Eleven o’clock.