On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. On 16 May, a Health Minister informed the House that Hertfordshire would be served by two primary care trusts, as part of the shake-up of PCTs. However, I fear that both I and the Minister have been misled by the East of England strategic health authority, which has written to me today to say that

“the two PCT Boards should be served by one management team and one Chief Executive.”

To all intents and purposes, that sounds like one PCT in everything but name. How can I best alert the Minister to that slipperiness and obfuscation, so that he can deal with it?

I advise the hon. Gentleman to apply for an Adjournment debate. It sounds like an excellent subject.

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In a written answer that I received from the Home Office last Friday, it was revealed that 23 life prisoners—who had been released on licence and who therefore should have been supervised by the Home Office—had gone on the run. That is a clear indication that this Government do not enforce life sentences properly. Today, it has emerged that the Prime Minister told The Sun newspaper, outside the House, that he backs its excellent campaign that life should mean life. However, no Home Office Minister has come to the House to explain—

Order. One thing that the hon. Gentleman must not do is draw the Speaker into the argument. That is the last thing he wants to do.

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I submitted a named day question to the Home Secretary on 26 April concerning the very important issue of foreign prisoner releases from Peterborough prison in my constituency. Six weeks later, I have yet to receive a substantive answer. I seek your guidance on what I believe to be the shoddy treatment of a Back Bencher attempting to fulfil his duty in holding the Executive to account.

I think that the Leader of the House might be able to help the House on this point.

An earlier point of order on this subject was raised about 10 days ago by the hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash). I took it up, and I assure the House that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is very concerned about the backlog in answering parliamentary questions and is working with his ministerial team to ensure that it is dealt with as quickly as possible. However, I must tell the House that the number of parliamentary questions that the Home Office receives has shot up in recent weeks. That is understandable, given the public concern, but although it is important that hon. Members’ questions are answered in a timely way, the House will know that it is also important that they are answered accurately and comprehensively. I assure you, Mr. Speaker, and the House, that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and all his Ministers are fully seized of the issue.

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. During Prime Minister’s questions, you quite rightly admonished a Labour Member who was sitting in the Gangway for shouting at the Leader of the Opposition. Am I not right in thinking that the Gangway is not technically part of the Chamber, and that there was thus an added abuse of the House? Will you take steps to ensure that the abuse of the Gangway is discontinued?

As far as I am concerned, the Gangway is part of the House, and if there is disorder there I will cause it to cease, which is how I handled the situation.

We have too many MPs.

We have too many MPs talking—that is the problem. Hon. Members cannot speak from the Gangway. I dealt with the matter and it is finished.

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In the light of your advice to my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), may we request that a Home Office Minister come to the House to make a statement about life prisoners being released and absconding?

The hon. Gentleman is a new Member, so I will try to help by explaining what happens. A request for an urgent question can be made to the Speaker every morning, but I give no guarantee that the request will be agreed to.

I beg to move,

That leave be given to bring in a Bill to provide for the holding of referendums about methods of election to the House of Commons and to local authorities; to enable a specified number of electors to require the holding of such a referendum; to require the Electoral Commission to establish a Citizens’ Assembly to perform functions in relation to referendums; to provide for the adoption by a local authority of a different method of election; and for connected purposes.

The Bill responds to widespread concern about public confidence in, and the legitimacy of, our democratic processes. It is presented in the context of declining participation in national and local elections, and growing concern about disengagement and alienation from the political process, especially among young people.

In brief, the Bill proposes the mechanism of a referendum to decide on the merits of different voting systems for both parliamentary and municipal elections. For general elections, the mechanism for that would be a petition containing the signatures of at least 5 per cent. of the relevant electorate. For local elections, the mechanism would be either 5 per cent. of the relevant electorate, or a simple resolution of the local authority. In both cases, the question in the referendum would provide a simple choice between the election system in force and one of the five alternative systems specified in the Bill. The decision on which of the alternatives should be included in the question for a national referendum would be the responsibility of the Electoral Commission after it had taken the advice of a citizens assembly, which would comprise a randomly selected group of individual electors. The assembly would have the prime function of considering and reporting on the merits of the different systems.

As we approach the 175th anniversary of the Great Reform Act of 1832, our democracy is in need of further great reform. Although I recognise that the voting system is only one aspect of our democratic machinery, it nevertheless has a crucial influence on the general perception of the credibility of government at all levels. It can affect the willingness of people to participate in elections and to put themselves forward for elections. It is vital that the public have confidence that all their votes can help to make a difference and that those who stand for election broadly reflect the composition of the population as a whole.

I stress that the Bill does not simply reopen the debate about majoritarian and proportional systems of voting, and nor is it designed simply to introduce proportional representation by the back door. As the promoter of the Bill, it is my view that no single electoral system is perfect. Different systems have different strengths and weaknesses, so a healthy democracy needs a mix of systems to provide the right blend of checks and balances.

The Bill expresses no preference as between different voting systems. Its only purpose is to ensure that the voices of ordinary citizens are heard, and that they have power to choose directly the means by which they elect their representatives. However, the Bill does require that the advocates of different voting systems state their case positively and win their argument, rather than maintaining the status quo through inertia or misinformation. Although the Bill expresses no preference between different systems, the mechanism of the referendum would require the advocates of all systems actively to engage ordinary people in the merits of their case.

The basic statistics on the level of democratic participation in the United Kingdom are not encouraging. The 2005 general election delivered a Government with a healthy majority of 66, built on the votes of a mere 35 per cent. of the electorate—the lowest share of the vote for any governing party since 1918. With a turnout of only 61 per cent., the 35 per cent. share of the vote delivered 55 per cent. of the seats, but with the active support of barely one in five of the total of those eligible to vote. Of the world’s democracies, only Turkey has a majority Government elected with a lower share of the vote. In the European Union, only the coalition Governments of Estonia and Lithuania were elected with a lower share of the vote. The turnout in last year’s general election was the second lowest since 1918, and with the exception of elections in the five former Soviet bloc countries, last year’s general election had the lowest turnout of all recent parliamentary elections in the European Union.

I do not argue that the current electoral system is solely responsible for those depressing statistics. However, we can no longer ignore the long-term consequences of the declining enthusiasm for the ballot box. With the exception of France, Britain is the only country in the EU to use first past the post for parliamentary elections, and almost all the world’s most recently established democracies have opted for a system with a strong proportional element. The House has notably chosen to avoid the use of pure first past the post in the voting systems for the devolved assemblies.

That brings me to the question of local democracy. There will be those who say that by allowing for the possibility of different electoral systems in neighbouring local authorities, the Bill would cause confusion and introduce further complexity—but we have already accepted the principle of variability in local democratic procedures. The Greater London assembly, for example, has an electoral system different from that for individual London boroughs, and local authorities that have adopted the system of directly elected mayors have already adopted systems of political accountability different from those of authorities that have retained a leader and cabinet system. The Bill provides for exactly the same mechanism—a petition bearing the signatures of at least 5 per cent. of the electorate—as the House has already agreed for the establishment of directly elected mayors.

I do not argue that the system of elected mayors has brought about an immediate transformation of local government, although I think that there are many examples of very successful elected mayors, but I do say that if the House has already agreed that it is acceptable for neighbouring local authorities to have different systems of political accountability, it must follow that it is equally acceptable for them to have different electoral systems. Similarly, if the House has accepted the use of the referendum as an appropriate means of enabling voters to choose the structure of their council’s political leadership, it must follow that a referendum is an equally appropriate means of enabling voters to determine how their local political leaders should be elected.

That brings me to the heart of the Bill. By devolving power over such decisions away from the political caucus to the individual citizen, and away from the Westminster village to the real villages, towns and cities of the United Kingdom in which 60 million people live, the Bill would help to reinvigorate a debate about the nature of political representation that has been dormant for far too long.

The Bill requires the Electoral Commission to establish a citizens assembly—a randomly selected group of citizens who would take on the task of considering in some detail the merits of different voting systems, and then making recommendations to the Electoral Commission on the forming of the question in the referendum. By engaging the public in such a process, we would open up the debate much more directly than would be the case if the arguments were restricted to the more conventional forms of parliamentary procedures and progressed through the use of national commissions of inquiry composed entirely of the great and the good.

As the Bill expresses no preference for any single electoral system but simply requires that people should be able to choose directly the system under which they wish to be governed, it paves the way for a great national debate, or an extensive series of local debates, about the future of our democracy, in which ordinary people would be fully involved. Of course, it should also be possible for those on either side of the debate on electoral reform, together with those who are genuinely undecided or who support hybrid systems, to support the Bill.

To conclude, the Bill proposes the use of a referendum to consider alternative systems of voting for local and parliamentary elections. It requires the signatures of at least 5 per cent. of the relevant electorate to trigger the referendum. The referendum question would offer a simple choice between the current system and one alternative.

The Bill is supported by a number of well established organisations, which have come together as the electoral choice steering committee. Its members include the Labour Campaign for Electoral Reform, Charter88, the New Politics Network and the Electoral Reform Society. I am grateful to the electoral choice steering committee for its assistance in promoting the Bill. Whatever the Bill’s future, the issue of electoral choice will return again and again until the argument for a referendum is finally won. I commend the Bill to the House.

As far as I can see, this Bill would implement a hitherto forgotten part of the Government’s 1997 programme. It is important to start by looking back at why the proposal for a referendum on electoral reform was included. It is because in the run-up to the 1997 general election, the Prime Minister did not think that he would win sufficient seats in the House to form a majority. He therefore did a deal with the then leader of the Liberal Democrats, Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon, which provided for the Prime Minister to introduce a referendum if Lord Ashdown’s party supported the proposal.

However, what the Prime Minister did not say at the time—although I am sure that it what he would have said—is that it is one thing to bring in a referendum, and another to ensure that it is carried with the support of the Labour party. It is my belief that Labour Back Benchers and many Labour voters up and down the country, in common with many on the Conservative Benches, would have voted against such a referendum, and Lord Ashdown would have been stymied. The Prime Minister was quite content with that, so when he had a majority, he did not introduce legislation of this kind.

Why is the hon. Member for Bury, North (Mr. Chaytor) now introducing this Bill? Is it because he and his hon. Friends believe something that they did not believe seven or eight years ago? Is it because they believe something that they have been unable to implement over the lifetime of two and a half Labour Governments? Is it because they believe that in a year or two they will no longer command a majority in the House, and are grasping at whatever straw is available to amend or fiddle the electoral system to their advantage, as some of their colleagues have done before? Why are Labour Back Benchers becoming interested in electoral reform again?

The hon. Gentleman says—and I believe him—that he is concerned about declining levels of participation in our democracy. I do not believe that those declining levels can be remedied by structural fiddling of this kind. What is wrong with our democracy is not whether people turn out when they have the opportunity to do so, but the incapacity of Members on both sides of the House to engage the electors sufficiently to make them believe that voting can make a difference. What matters is not how one votes, but whether one can vote for a party that will make a difference. It is fair to acknowledge that at the last election, the public did not believe that the Conservative party could form a majority, so in many parts of the country they saw no point in turning out to support us. On the other hand, they saw no point in turning out in elections to defend the Labour party either, because in many constituencies the Labour party was unassailable.

It is not structural change that will engage people in politics, but the belief that by such engagement they can change the country for the better. I am confident that by the time we get to the next general election, the belief that voting can change the country for the better will be much wider. The hon. Member for Bury, North complains about the lowest turnout in the western world, but the current electoral system did not lead to that, and when a real choice is put before the British people and an opportunity presented to vote for change, the turnout will certainly be high enough.

The hon. Gentlemen says that democracy is in need of greater reform, and I agree with him. I agree that we need greater accountability, but I must say that I have not seen that introduced as a result of the Government’s changes in local government. Instead of a system of committees, we now have a system of elective dictatorship—but I did not see the hon. Gentleman vote against that. I agree with referendums and I think that they are a good idea, but I do not see why they should be confined to votes on issues that the Government and their supporters believe people should be allowed to vote on. People should be entitled to choose which issues to vote on for themselves. Perhaps they should have an opportunity to bring forward propositions of their own—[Interruption.] Yes, propositions to protect grammar schools, or propositions on sentencing, capital punishment and other issues that really engage with this country’s electors.

The hon. Member for Bury, North suggested bringing forward five alternative systems of voting, which are specified in the Bill, but we are not to give people the opportunity to choose a system of democracy for themselves. Rather, they are to be handed down a system of democracy from the very place that the hon. Gentleman describes as the Westminster village, from which he says he is going to take away these powers.

The hon. Gentleman says that people will be able to adopt a system of democracy appropriate to their area, but I must tell him, in all candour, that politicians in those areas would—as the Government did in their Bills for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland—adopt the electoral system that they believed would lead to the outcome that they desired. That, I am afraid, will be the consequence of introducing a range of different electoral systems in different countries. The proportional system in Northern Ireland has merely spread power to the extremities in politics, rather than give a greater voice to the men of good sense and moderation, like ourselves, in the middle. I cannot see how introducing a system—either by the front door or by the back door—that allows politicians to pick and choose the electoral system that will keep them in power can be good for democracy.

Finally, the hon. Gentleman suggested giving greater responsibility to the Electoral Commission—as if it did not have enough to do already. For example, it is examining the boundary review system to ensure that we do not start with unfair boundaries and end up with unfair boundaries. As if the Electoral Commission could not be doing more to look into votes for members of the armed forces, or as if it did not have enough to worry about in respect of impersonation and postal votes! The Electoral Commission consumes a huge amount of money and it does not require additional responsibilities, but instead should focus on its current responsibilities.

The hon. Gentleman is convinced that his Bill will take power away from the Westminster village into towns and villages up and down the country. I wish that that were true. He believes that ordinary people in their pubs and clubs spend their time discussing the electoral system by which their local authorities are elected—but he must live in a world very different from that of the Isle of Wight. In my constituency, very little time is spent discussing the electoral system. The Bill will not give power to ordinary citizens. It is an adventure playground for political anoraks, and I urge the House to reject it.

rose—

Two contributions are allowed: the promoter of the Bill and one Member who opposes it. That is enough. We then take a vote.

Question put, pursuant to Standing Order No. 23 (Motions for leave to bring in Bills and nomination of Select Committees at commencement of public business):—

Tomorrow and on Friday, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and I will represent the United Kingdom at the European Council in Brussels. We expect discussions to focus on the constitutional treaty, enlargement and Hampton Court follow-up, as well, of course, as current world problems. This afternoon, the House has its customary opportunity to debate the Government’s priorities.

It is now a year since two founding member states of the European Union, France and the Netherlands, rejected the draft treaty establishing a constitution for Europe. Out of those two decisions and the intense debate that they provoked came a very clear message: the European Union needed to reconnect more closely with the people of Europe. They were wary of a European Union that seemed to set its own direction with minimal reference to what they actually wanted out of it, or what was relevant to and would improve their daily lives. That may be an unjust perception, but it was clearly a strong one. Citizens were looking for an effective Europe: one that helped member states to overcome problems together and by so doing brought concrete benefits to their citizens on the things that mattered to them—in short, a Europe that was part of the solution, not part of the problem. That is the kind of Europe towards which this Government are working.

Let me emphasise one point. An effective Europe is exactly that. I do not mean automatically less Europe, whatever that means. I do not mean a weaker Europe and I certainly do not mean a Europe in which the British Government fail seriously to engage, and in consequence fail to advance or defend Britain’s interests. This Government believe, as I do, that the best interests of the British people are served by this country being a strong member of a confident, effective, outward-looking European Union—one that delivers security and prosperity to its citizens. We are committed to working with our European partners to achieve that.

On that point, I have to say to the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) that it is far from clear to me that withdrawal from one of the major political groupings in the European Union will be of assistance in fighting Britain’s corner. I should say at once that I have every sympathy for him in the predicament in which he finds himself. When he was leader of the Conservative party, he sensibly chose to keep his party within the European People’s party. Now he has been lumbered with a foolish pledge made by his leader in a moment of desperation during the recent leadership contest, and I understand that he has been forced to meet some pretty unsavoury characters in his attempts to cobble together a new coalition. Indeed, one of his own MEPs called them

“a pretty unappealing ragbag of fringe politicians”.

From the point of view of the British public, it is a sorry state of affairs when the man who notably led clarion calls to save the pound and to prevent Britain from becoming a foreign land is now regarded as a moderate in his party on these issues.

Tomorrow’s is the first European Council that I shall attend, but it is only the latest development in a process of sustained engagement with the Union’s institutions. In negotiations both within Europe and at international level, I have seen just how great a difference our engagement in and with the EU can make. We want and need to be an influential part of that effective European Union. Many of the challenges we face as a country can be met only if we work together with our European partners.

The right hon. Lady started by saying that the discussions over the next two days would be about, among other things, the constitutional treaty. If my memory serves me correctly, when the constitutional treaty was signed, we were told that if it did not pass within two years, it would fall. What is the position now?

I do not recall hearing that, but no doubt my right hon. Friend the Minister for Europe will deal with that when he winds up the debate.

Let me give one classic example of problems that, by their very nature, transcend national boundaries: environmental issues, not least climate change. Many of the substantial environmental improvements that we in the UK have seen in recent years—cleaner air and cleaner water—have been driven by regulation agreed at EU level and can be said to be “due” to the EU. There can be little doubt that climate change, the greatest long-term threat facing the world, is a trans-boundary problem. Climate change will have a direct impact on the lives of people in this country and across the EU, and people across Europe are demanding that their Governments take action. However, neither the UK nor any other member state can hope to succeed through unilateral action. Carbon emissions anywhere affect the climate everywhere, and international consensus and action within and beyond the borders of the EU are imperative.

It is because, under the present Government, the UK’s voice is recognised and respected within Europe that we have been at the forefront of European Union efforts to tackle climate change. Those efforts have led to concerted action among the 25 member states to reduce their own carbon emissions. There is still much more to do, but what we have already achieved would have been unthinkable if we had needed to rely solely on a network of bilateral agreements.

As my right hon. Friend has pointed out, many EU countries have implemented measures to combat climate change, often to the detriment of their domestic industries. By far the two greatest contributors to global warming and climate change are the United States of America and China. Does she envisage the EU taking a much more robust position to persuade those two countries to reduce their emissions?

We have always taken a forward-looking and robust position on climate change. The whole House will recall the tremendous efforts made by the Prime Minister last year, particularly during our G8 presidency, to create an atmosphere in which the US could agree to do as they did in Montreal and take forward the discussions—something that it had been resisting until then. Similarly, my hon. Friend will recall that, as well as the G8, we invited to Gleneagles what are known as the “plus five” countries—five major energy users now and in the future and consequently five countries that may have substantial emissions—and that we successfully drew them into the discussions. Both the United States and China are participants in the Gleneagles follow-up dialogue, of which the next meeting will be held in Mexico this autumn.

Does not the Foreign Secretary destroy her own argument when she talks about the G8 and the “plus five” countries? It has nothing to do with the EU.

No. The G8 is a grouping in which the United States is a participant and China was invited to the meeting. However, one of the reasons why we were able to get that agreement at the G8 is the strength of the ties between the European members of that body.

indicated dissent.

It is no good the hon. Gentleman shaking his head—to disagree with that is to fly in the face of the facts.

Beyond the EU, it is as a negotiating group that we have a much stronger voice on the international stage. In five years of climate change negotiations, culminating in Montreal, I have seen it demonstrated time and again that the EU as a group plays a pivotal role in brokering agreement. We could not play that role or reach agreements such as the one reached in Montreal if Europe did not speak with a single voice.

The forthcoming European Council should adopt the EU’s revised sustainable development strategy. For the first time, we shall have a single, coherent and, I hope, accessible strategy that brings together all the Community’s internal and external objectives in that field. Two of the seven objectives within that strategy relate to climate change and clean energy. On climate change in particular, we want the European Council to make a clear statement on the need for a global consensus on the scale of the action that must be taken if we are to avoid dangerous climate change, including a long-term stabilisation goal and a truly global debate. That debate cannot only be between Governments; it must include business, investors, non-governmental organisations and consumers.

The Foreign Secretary mentioned business interests. Does she accept that it is open to the United Kingdom Parliament to legislate on its own terms unilaterally if negotiations fail on removing unnecessary burdens on business that emanate from the EU and to require the judiciary to give effect to that latest inconsistent, clearly set out legislation, so that we can remove those burdens ourselves?

I do not think that the hon. Gentleman was listening other than to the thread of the ideas that he has honourably pursued for a long time. I pointed out that a huge proportion—I have never worked out a precise figure—of the environmental improvements that have been made in this country in recent years and which are rightly welcomed on both sides of the House have come directly as a result of European regulations, which I know he hates. He refers to burdens on business, but some of the changes that are beneficial to the public, not least in terms of the impact on their health, are regarded by some people in the business community as burdens because they regard all regulation as a burden. One of the reasons why the Government made better regulation a theme of our EU presidency is that there is such a thing as beneficial regulation—even, dare I say, if it comes from Europe.

rose—

I shall not give way again to the hon. Gentleman, at least not for the time being, although I do not rule it out for ever.

On energy, the European Council will discuss the external aspects of EU energy policy as agreed by the spring European Council, with a view to maintaining the momentum of the work and giving a clear mandate to the Finnish presidency to develop it further. We shall continue to press for external aspects of energy policy to be reflected fully in the Commission’s strategic energy review, which is due in spring 2007.

Does the right hon. Lady think that it would aid public understanding if the law-making process in the Council of Ministers was opened up to the public? That was Government policy until very recently—indeed, the right hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire, South (Mr. Alexander), when he was Minister for Europe, wrote that it remained the UK objective

“to push for all of the Council’s legislative business to be opened up to the public”.

Yesterday in the Foreign Affairs Committee, the Foreign Secretary said that that is no longer her position. Will she explain why she has resiled from the commitment to openness, transparency and public understanding?

I agree that it would be beneficial if the legislative process were opened up to a greater degree. That is precisely why the Government made that proposal, which we stand by. However, I said to the right hon. Gentleman yesterday that I thought that he had misunderstood the remarks that my right hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire, South (Mr. Alexander) made. My right hon. Friend was talking about all legislative business or items of legislative business and not necessarily every single aspect of the process. I shall return to the point.

Returning to an earlier point about emissions, the aim cannot be to stifle China’s economic development. Instead, Europe should assist China to develop methods of carbon capture, and we should adopt such a strategy in this country, as well.

My hon. Friend is right. He may know that, during our presidency last year, we presided over the EU-China summit and reached an agreement with China that the UK, through the EU, would help to pilot a clean-coal power station. China, India and the United States have substantial coal reserves that they are bound to use, particularly as development is the highest priority for China and India. There can be few more beneficial things both for development and for the cause of climate change than developing the capacity for clean-coal power

As I said at the beginning of my speech, we expect discussions at the Council on the constitutional treaty, enlargement and the Hampton Court follow-up. Since the rejection of the constitutional treaty last summer, Europe has been in a period of reflection. Throughout that time, the United Kingdom’s position has been consistent and clear. An effective Europe should focus on the things that matter to its citizens: creating jobs, cutting crime, tackling terrorism and protecting the environment. Those are the questions that face the European Union, and we strongly believe that the answer will not be found in more institutional wrangling which, to the outside observer, is at best opaque and at worst self-indulgent.

May I welcome the right hon. Lady to her post as Foreign Secretary? In Helsinki last week, members of the Select Committee on European Scrutiny were told by the incoming Finnish presidency that, during the period of reflection, it would seriously consider invoking the passerelle clause on justice and home affairs issues. That would be a radical development, so would the UK Government support it?

We would want to look carefully at the implications, but I will return to that in a few moments.

In his speech last June to the European Parliament, the Prime Minister set out the challenge for European leaders. That was the agenda we took forward, and which Europe agreed, at the informal summit at Hampton Court. It is the direction in which we will urge our European partners to continue at tomorrow’s council. In his statement to the House on 31 January 2006, my right hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire, South said that the Hampton Court informal summit had already entered the European Union lexicon. I understand, however, that in French the Hampton Court agenda is known as “L’Europe des Projets”. Whatever the language, the tune is the same. It points to detailed, concrete work on matters such as improving European universities, increasing support for research and development, and finding a common European energy policy. We want the European Council to make a strong and clear statement in its conclusions that maintains the agenda’s momentum and profile and reaffirms the commitment of the whole of Europe to follow it.

My right hon. Friend has not touched on the important collective role that the European Union plays in negotiations in the World Trade Organisation. Does she believe, like me, that Europe’s position in that body is not facilitated by the protectionist stance that has emerged in some EU states and by our historical commitment to agricultural protectionism and intervention?

Both within Europe and outside, there are worrying signs of the growth of protectionism. I entirely share my hon. Friend’s view that that is harmful to the UK and to the world community, so it must be resisted in agriculture and in other fields. He may know that on Monday, the General Affairs and External Relations Council considered a report by the Trade Commissioner, who said that the world community accepts that there is scope for each group to move its position. They must do so if we are to achieve a Doha round agreement. He clearly does not despair of the prospects for such an agreement, and we all hope that he is right.

The Commission’s communication, “A Citizens’ Agenda”, which was published in May, suggests that it, too, has understood the message that building an effective Europe is key to Europe’s future. Europe is effective when it can make decisions that make it easier for the EU to tackle problems that have an impact on people’s lives. The hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson) asked me about the field of justice and home affairs.

I should like to leave a thought about the period of reflection with the Foreign Secretary. We have all seen the poster that says, “Sometimes I sits and thinks and sometimes I just sits.” I am not entirely sure what the British Government are doing, but there comes a time when one just looks stupid doing so.

Many people are indeed sitting and thinking. Our French colleagues have made suggestions and proposals about how we should proceed, but my hon. Friend will accept that there are disparate views in the European Union on the subject.

I am not accusing my right hon. Friend of sitting on the issue, which is difficult and complex. If we accept that there is still a period of reflection—[Interruption.] I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, South-West (Mr. Davidson) is needed in the agriculture debate. Given that the EU has 25 members, and may have 27 members next year, we can move forward in some areas without the need for legislation, as that would help the transparency and efficiency of the EU. If we work with our colleagues on, for example, science and the proposed university, we could advance the agenda without the need for a constitution.

As he often does, my hon. Friend has put his finger on the issue. People are considering whether steps can be taken on the basis of the existing treaties without the need for the legal basis of a new treaty to make Europe more effective.

I am grateful that the matter has been raised. Is the Minister saying that the constitution has not been approved, but European leaders and the Government intend to implement bits of it anyway under existing rules? Does that not give the lie to the statement that was constantly made when the constitution was under consideration—that only by accepting everything in the constitution could we make progress on anything?

Perhaps my hon. Friend followed those debates more closely than I did before I took up my responsibilities but, with respect, I do not remember anyone making that point. There is a world of difference between trying to find a way to take forward bits of the constitution in the original package and considering measures that do not rely on a new treaty and legal basis. Inevitably, because the constitution drew together different strands and ideas that were discussed at the time, some issues in the constitutional treaty do not require a new legal basis, so it would be open to the European Union to consider them on the basis of existing treaties. A decision has not been made or even discussed about whether or not Europe should embark on the process. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) asked, quite reasonably, whether any thinking is taking place. It is, but we are not at the stage of making proposals, let alone decisions.

May I welcome the Foreign Secretary to this collection of Euro-obsessives who regularly gather together, doling out anoraks before we begin? I am sure that she will be enlightened by the end of the day. On a serious note, there are some areas in which treaty change is necessary. If Croatia joined the European Union, for instance, the voting strengths of council members would have to be redrawn, and the number of MEPs would have to be changed. That would require treaty change, but could it be achieved through accession treaties?

My hon. Friend invites me stray into territory which, with respect, I do not intend to tread today. We are rather a long way from the accession of Croatia and the legal issues that that raises. The subject is not likely to arise in that form at this week’s European Council.

The hon. Member for Moray asked me about problems in the field of justice and home affairs, such as cross-border crime, drug trafficking and people trafficking. It is precisely because some justice and home affairs issues are of their nature pan-European that we are prepared to keep an open mind on any potential proposals for changing the way we take some of the decisions in this area. The ideas that have been put forward in the European Commission’s “Citizens’ Agenda” paper on the so-called passerelle are complex. They deserve serious consideration and thought, and that is what we will give them. We do not intend to indulge in scaremongering about loss of veto or about introducing the constitutional treaty by the back door, neither of which is true.

Co-operation in this field can be vital. For instance, it was the European arrest warrant, which was agreed two years ago, that helped to ensure the speedy return to the United Kingdom of one of the suspects following the events of 21 July. In this area, as so often, it is solving the problems that matters more than gesture politics or grandstanding.

Similarly, I do not believe in gesture politics when it comes to transparency. I am sorry to see that my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz), who asked me about transparency, is not in his place. There is no doubt that opening up every aspect of Council deliberations, as is being proposed, may give a veneer of greater democracy and efficiency, but having spent seven of the past nine years in Councils which legislate, my firm belief is that it would simply mean backroom deals done away from the cameras, an EU that is less—rather than more—open, and potentially less effective as well, which would certainly be disadvantageous.

The right hon. Lady spoke about terrorism and about the need for the European Union to be effective. Given that the Government of Burma are guilty of state terrorism and massive human rights abuses, including rape as a weapon of war, compulsory relocation, the use of child soldiers and the use of human minesweepers, does she agree that this is a scandalous state of affairs, and that it is time that the French stopped putting the pursuit of filthy lucre before democratic values, and that we got a decent and robust common policy that might bring about change in that benighted country?

I hear what the hon. Gentleman says. There is no doubt that there is a terrible situation in Burma, and that it is incumbent on us all to do everything we can to put pressure on the Burmese Government. However, the subject is unlikely to come up at this weekend’s Council, although no doubt there will be occasions to pursue it in the future. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that whenever there are, I will endeavour to do so.

Have a word with Chirac in the margins.

On the status of the constitutional treaty—

Order. I am sorry to interrupt the right hon. Lady. May I say to the hon. Member for Buckingham (John Bercow) that I still live in hope that we will get his interventions down to a more compact form, but when he tries to supplement them from a sedentary position, that is going a little too far?

Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

On the status of the constitutional treaty, we do not believe that now is the time for the European Council to take a definitive decision. There was a clear consensus last June that a period of reflection was needed. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston asked me about that. The ongoing national debates on the future of Europe show that there is no clear consensus on the constitutional treaty. It seems to us that the European Council should respect that diversity of opinion and agree to extend the period of reflection.

With regard to enlargement, this European Council was due to take a decision on whether Bulgaria and Romania should accede to the Union in 2007 as scheduled or whether to delay accession until 2008. The Commission has now recommended deferring that decision until October, given its concerns about the readiness of both countries. There will be a report from the Commission in October. However, we expect that the topic of enlargement may still be raised at the European Council. Here, as in the debate on the future of Europe, the United Kingdom’s position has always been very clear, and I am pleased to acknowledge that it has received full support from both sides of the House.

There is no better example of how the European Union can bring tangible benefits to its citizens than through successive waves of enlargement. Those benefits have been most obvious in the countries acceding. They have gained both greater economic growth and greater political stability. That was true back in the 1980s when countries such as Spain and Greece emerged from dictatorship, and it was true in 2003 when the 10 new member states stepped out from the shadow of communist totalitarianism.

Existing member states have benefited too. Our peace and security have been enhanced by that spreading stability and by the spreading of the rule of law to an ever-wider circle of neighbours. As we have seen from the most recent wave of enlargement, it has opened up new markets and given us access to much needed skilled labour. Any enlargement has to be managed carefully. It must take into account a number of factors, including the ability of the European Union to absorb new member states, as the European Council acknowledged at Copenhagen in 1993.

Will my right hon. Friend draw the attention of her colleagues to the success that the United Kingdom has had in taking a more open approach to new members joining the European Union and the migration of labour that has been achieved with that, very much to the benefit of this country’s economy, by contrast with performance elsewhere?

My hon. Friend is right. I am not carrying all the details in my head at this moment, but he may like to know that a number of member states are reconsidering the decision that they made, and there may be another four or five that will open up to varying degrees to further movement of members of the work force.

While the capacity to absorb new member states must be considered, the accession negotiation process must be implemented rigorously and all candidates must meet EU standards, but the European Union should not use either of these perfectly valid concerns as a pretext to renege on existing commitments on enlargement, and it would be quite wrong for any changes to the EU’s policy to rule out the possibility of future, further enlargements.

I have spoken about the need for an effective European Union. That is just as true outside Europe’s borders as within them. The European Council will discuss a paper from Commission President Barroso on greater coherence on the EU’s external policies. It will contain proposals to improve internal Commission co-ordination, to develop co-operation between member states, the Commission, the high representative and the Council, and to enhance the visibility and accountability of the European Union’s external actions.

On specific aspects of external relations, we expect discussion of the middle east to take place. I will be discussing the peace process with my colleagues over dinner on Thursday night. I know that many Members of the House have a particular interest in that area and intend to use this debate as an opportunity to discuss some of the pressing problems in that region.

Are the foreign relations problems under discussion likely to include the situation in Uzbekistan, given the fact that the EU arms embargo and visa bans are both set to expire in October? Surely the time is right now to discuss their extension, which would be widely welcomed.

The hon. Gentleman raises an interesting point. I do not anticipate that the issues of Uzbekistan are likely to be on the European Council agenda. As he will have observed, it is a fairly full agenda, but I am sure those issues will be on the agenda of the General Affairs Council before the next European Council meeting takes place.

rose—

rose—

I had better give way to the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

My right hon. Friend mentioned the discussions on the middle east. Can she give us an indication whether the temporary implementation mechanism for assistance to the Palestinian people is likely to make any significant progress in the next few days, given the acute political crisis, the crisis of violence and the humanitarian needs of the people in Palestine?

My hon. Friend’s timing is, as ever, impeccable. I was about to turn to exactly that issue. I very much hope that those discussions will make progress over the next few days. As he and the House will know, the Commission is leading the development of the temporary international mechanism to help support the basic needs of the Palestinian people, and the UK is working with the Commission to try and get the mechanism set up urgently. My hon. Friend and the House will appreciate that there is a great deal of technical work to do, to make sure that the mechanism is accountable and transparent so that we can all know exactly where the money is going. As a result, the details of what it will support and how it will work are still under discussion. When that has been finalised, I will of course report on these matters to the House.

I understand the constraints of this weekend’s agenda. Given that the Minister used the words “accountability” and “transparency”, what is wrong with public excoriation of EU member states which prop up regimes that abuse human rights? What is wrong with that tactic?

If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I do not intend at this stage to enter into a theoretical discussion about the circumstances in which member states may or may not criticise each other’s courses of action, especially as I am almost at the end of my speech and conscious of how many other hon. Members wish to speak. I simply say to him that he has made a very important point about the position in Burma and he knows that the Government share his concern for that unhappy country.

Iran will be probably be a main topic of the Council discussions. The Council is also likely, so far as we can judge, to hear a report on how discussions with the Iranian Government are taking place, and it will be conscious of the importance of achieving success in that arena.

The EU needs to continue to play an active role in all these matters. Returning to the middle east peace process and the issues surrounding it, the Prime Minister, the Chancellor and I met Prime Minister Olmert on Monday and Tuesday and discussed with him how to take the peace process forward. We have no wish to go down any path other than that of a negotiated settlement, and we agreed with Prime Minister Olmert that that should be our primary objective. However, the process has to advance, and if it proves impossible to proceed on that basis, which we all must hope does not happen, then other ways will need to be considered. Let me be clear that, as our Prime Minister himself set out, not least in his press conference, it is our task in the international community, the UK, the EU and the broader Quartet to do everything that we can to ensure that there is the best possible chance for a negotiated settlement.

Both cases—Iran and the middle east peace process—are striking examples of how joint European action can make a real difference to peace and stability beyond Europe’s borders, and in so doing enhance security and stability within those borders.

Much of what this Government and the people of this country want to achieve can be achieved only by working with and through the European Union.

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

I would have given way earlier but I am on my final sentence, so the hon. Gentleman will have to forgive me.

It is for that reason that we will continue to press for the European Union to be as effective as possible in tackling the challenges that face our citizens and in delivering the real benefits that they expect; and we will continue to play an effective role on behalf of Britain’s goals and to maintain our influence in the European Union.

I begin by welcoming the Foreign Secretary to her first full-scale debate in the House as Foreign Secretary, although we have had a chance to congratulate her before. Let me say on behalf of all Members in all parties that we wish her well in her post, because many of the matters that she has to deal with, such as the middle eastern issues that she mentioned and the difficulties with Iran, go far beyond party politics and the scope of this debate. There will be many crises during which we will all look to her to act in the national interest, and I wish her well in doing so.

In her role, the Foreign Secretary will be able to look forward to the traditional six-monthly debates before European Council meetings. She will notice that it is also traditional for the same Members to attend them and make a speech that is 95 per cent. the same as the one that they made on the previous occasion. I will try to break out of that a little bit this time, as no doubt will other hon. Members. It is very important that we have such debates before European Council meetings, but it leads one to reflect that there may be additional ways whereby parliamentary scrutiny of Government policy at European Councils could be improved. I hope that the Government will want to consider those in future.

The Foreign Secretary has already discussed European matters at a Select Committee meeting yesterday, after which the press referred to her ability to say a great deal without saying very much—probably an essential attribute of a Foreign Secretary. It was noted in the press that when she was asked whether European issues required Cabinet representation in their own right, she uttered an immediate and abrupt no—a very straightforward answer. That perhaps helps to explain the oddity of the fact that the Minister for Europe gave a speech about Europe at the Centre for European Reform just three hours ago, before the commencement of this debate. His objective, so far as one can discover, was to restart the debate in this country about the European Union. I say, “so far as one can discover”, because even two hours ago the Foreign Office website was not immune from the wave of public apathy that greeted his speech, so I have not yet been able to examine it in detail.

Once again the Government are talking about restarting the debate on the European Union. Only two years ago, the Prime Minister stood at the Dispatch Box and said of Europe:

“Let the issue be put and let the battle be joined.”—[Official Report, 20 April 2004; Vol. 420, c. 157.]

Since then, he has made hardly any speeches about Europe and has tried to resist debating it at all, apart from one other speech at the European Parliament that I will come to in a moment.

On restarting the European debate, people living in fishing communities around the country have been interested to learn that the Conservative party, which shamefully took us into the common fisheries policy, has now reneged on its policy to withdraw from it and is content to stay within it. Is that part of the new Tory approach in Scotland—vote Tory and get a Labour Government?

I am not aware of any such approach. The common fisheries policy has failed economically and environmentally; we are very clear about that, as is the hon. Gentleman. We have long sought more local and national control in fisheries policy and agricultural policies. In our policy review, we will want to look closely at ways of achieving policies that encourage sustainable fishing, do not place excessive burdens on taxpayers, and enrich and protect the environment. We have not come to any conclusion about that, but we will of course do so before the next general election. Other parties should be engaged in that process instead of being content not to try to change such a failing policy.

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

If the hon. Gentleman will allow me, I should like to develop my opening remarks a little.

It is rather a shame that the former Leader of the House, who is now Minister for Europe, chose to restart the debate on Europe somewhere else—neither in our debate nor sufficiently in advance of it that hon. Members have had a chance to digest and analyse his speech. If that is revealing, the content, so far as it is possible to discern it, was a little more so. He said—I agree with him about this—that people in Britain have come to associate Europe with “obscure constitutional arrangements”. He also refused to rule out the revival of the European constitution. I must warn him that in doing so, he is taking a different path from the former Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw), who has pretty much said in this House that the European constitution is dead. In fact, the last time that he was asked about it by my hon. Friends on the Front Bench, he said:

“it is difficult to argue that the constitution is not dead.”—[Official Report, 10 January 2006; Vol. 441, c. 147.]

He went on to say that it is in “in limbo”. Whatever theological contortions that may have led him into, it is apparent to all that one cannot be in limbo without being dead. While he did not like to put it bluntly, his message was pretty clear. The deeply flawed constitution—a centralising, integrationist treaty whose time has truly passed—could not be revived, as the Dutch Foreign Minister has stated categorically. It is a pity that Ministers do not have the courage to say that bluntly.

On a theological matter, I should like to point out to the right hon. Gentleman that limbo was mostly reserved for those who had never been born.

I will not take too many lessons on morality from someone who thought that auctioning off the Hutton report was a good idea.

rose—

Oh, go on then, let us fit in the former Minister for Europe as well.

Is the aggression that the right hon. Gentleman is unfairly directing at my right hon. Friend the Minister for Europe partly due to the fact that on reshuffle day he issued a press release condemning the creation of a Department of European Affairs that was never actually created?

I think that the Minister thought that it was going to be created, which was one of the reasons why he accepted the job. Yes, there was certainly some confusion among the Opposition as to what was going on, but that was nothing compared with the confusion in No. 10. I am sorry if the hon. Gentleman thinks that this is aggression—it is merely good-natured advice to the Minister for Europe, to whom I bear no malice whatsoever. However, it is well known that he was offered a job and that, a couple of hours later, No. 10 had to ring up and explain that it was an entirely different job. That is doubtless because the Foreign Secretary asserted herself in no uncertain terms and I do not blame her for that.

Before the Minister for Europe says anything more about reviving the European constitution or refusing to rule it out, does not he realise the extent of the relief in the Government and the barely concealed sense of heaven-sent reprieve in 10 Downing street and the Foreign Office when the constitution was defeated in the referendums in France and the Netherlands? Does he believe that, if the constitution were put back on the rails and won approval elsewhere and the Government had to hold a referendum in this country, the Prime Minister or the Chancellor would think that that was a good idea? He has just experienced one downward move in his ministerial career—I say that in the continuing spirit of friendly advice—and if he comes back with the European constitution alive and kicking, he will be junior Under-Secretary for paperclips in no time.

I probably share some of the right hon. Gentleman’s concerns about the constitution. However, in fairness to my right hon. Friend, recent press reports show that Italy, France, Germany and Austria have all spoken about the revival of the constitution. Indeed, the Belgian Prime Minister said that 15 states have already ratified and that, when we get to four fifths, the matter should be referred back to the European Council. The decision about reviving the constitution could well be out of my right hon. Friend’s hands.

The hon. Gentleman is right to draw attention to efforts to revive the constitution in other parts of Europe—including, bizarrely, some countries where the people have rejected it, for example, France. That is all the more reason for our Government to make their position clear and speak out. This country would not be alone in rejecting the constitution in a referendum. Indeed, if the Governments of some of the countries that approved it had had the courage to put it to their people, it would have been rejected.

Is not it the case that, since the referendums in those countries where the constitution was rejected, support for it has plummeted further?

Yes, the hon. Gentleman is right. That happens because there is a growing public and political sense in Europe that the combination of the vast enlargement of the European Union, the pace of globalisation and the rejection of the constitution require new ideas about the future of Europe that are different from the failed orthodoxies of the past 20 years. I should like the Government to move on to those new ideas.

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

I have taken many interventions and I have not finished with the Minister’s speech yet. To revert to what we gathered of it, he said—

We have not heard from the Minister yet.

Why did not the Minister give the speech in the debate rather than outside the House? I am the bearer of news of his speech and am thus doing the House a service, but it should not be necessary for me to do that.

The Minister said that the debate in Europe should be about globalisation, the developing world and environmental concerns. So it should. During the British presidency last year, where were all the proposals on globalisation, the developing world and environmental concerns? With the Lisbon agenda stalled, where were the new proposals from Her Majesty’s Government in their presidency to drive forward the European response to globalisation?

Many discussions took place about globalisation and how it could be tackled. However, the right hon. Gentleman also mentioned development. Has he forgotten the Commission for Africa and all the commitments that were made at Gleneagles?

Of course I have not forgotten. We agree about much of that. However, when the Government caved in on common agricultural policy reform and agreed to a reduction of £7 billion in the British rebate with no guarantee of reform, where was the concern for developing countries which the Minister claims is at the forefront of the Government’s mind?

That is the trouble with what we have gleaned so far of the Minister’s speech. It represents the identification of vague priorities after a major opportunity has been lost. It conveys no sense of energy or vision in tackling those priorities, or of being prepared to stand up and say that the defeat of the constitution, the vast enlargement of the EU and the pace of globalisation require a change in the way in which Europe develops. The speech has all the hallmarks of Ministers sitting in a room, saying, “We will be accused of saying nothing in the debate, so let’s say something just before it, even if it amounts to very little.”

People throughout Europe have unfortunately become cynical about British ministerial pronouncements that are trumpeted and followed by little of the action for which they call. In the Prime Minister’s other recent speech about Europe—his speech to the European Parliament last year at the beginning of the British presidency—he said:

“The people are blowing the trumpets round the city walls.”

That caused some alarm among Members of the European Parliament, who thought that a crowd had formed outside for the first time in their experience. He continued:

“They are wanting our leadership. It is time we gave it to them.”

One can imagine the Prime Minister with the crowd outside: “What do we want?” “Leadership!” “When do we want it?” “After an indefinite period of reflection.” That is the position that we have reached and it is time for the Government to give clearer leadership in Europe than they have shown so far.

I am always grateful for career advice from the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) and I acknowledge that we are both in reduced circumstances these days. However, when he gave Conservative Members of the European Parliament advice as party leader, he advised them to remain allied to the group of the European People’s party in the European Parliament. What has changed since then?

On careers, I go down and up but the right hon. Gentleman goes down and down.

The Minister criticises us for trying to form a new group in the European Parliament and people ask, “Why do you want to talk to people in Poland and be allied with them?” Yet, only on Monday, the right hon. Gentleman said:

“Poland and the UK are old friends in the new Europe and links between the two countries have never been stronger.”

What on earth is wrong with political parties in this country aiming to forge closer links with other countries and political parties in Europe with which they agree?

I am listening carefully to the right hon. Gentleman’s characteristically witty speech. Perhaps the answer to his question is that it depends on what those other parties stand for. I stand with him in wishing for closer alignment with Poland but surely parties’ ideology and commitments must be examined, too.

The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the need for fresh ideas. Although he always delivers wit and sometimes considerable acerbic grit in his speeches, I have not yet heard any substance. His remarks on the common fisheries policy suggest that we will not have any in his speech today.

If I could get on without so many interventions—

So it is my hon. Friend’s fault.

Yes, it is the fault of the hon. Member for South Derbyshire (Mr. Todd)—[Interruption.] I am glad that he takes responsibility for it.

I want to ask several specific questions about the forthcoming summit. The Foreign Secretary referred to aid to Palestinian people and specifically answered the question about that. I hope that the Minister can enlarge on that in his winding-up speech, because the Quartet agreed more than a month ago that urgent delivery of aid to Palestinians was necessary and instructed the EU to take the lead on a temporary international mechanism. When I was in the occupied territories only a few weeks ago, I got the impression that the need was urgent, that the Palestinian economy is contracting more sharply than might have been expected and that that is likely to cause great hardship. Reports have emerged that the United States has rejected the European proposal. Is it true that the United States has asked the EU to go back to the drawing board? What is the state of the preparations for establishing the temporary international mechanism? Will the Foreign Secretary take steps—her speech implied that she would—to resolve the matter at this week’s summit? Will the Minister tell us more about the mechanism and when it is likely to be in place?

Secondly, may I press Ministers further on the transparency issue, which the Foreign Secretary addressed briefly in her opening speech? One item to be discussed at the summit is greater transparency at meetings of the Council of the European Union. We have long supported an end to closed meetings of the Council, for reasons that the European Scrutiny Committee set out in the relevant report. First, national Parliaments and electorates cannot hold Ministers to account if it is not clear how they have acted in the Council. Secondly, it is easy for Governments to blame Brussels for decisions that they might themselves have agreed to in closed meetings. Thirdly, closed meetings can result in deals that no Government fully accountable to their own Parliament would have agreed to. Lastly, the arrangement makes a large part of the EU’s business invisible to the citizen.

I hope that I can clarify this matter for the right hon. Gentleman because this is an issue on which there might be some misunderstanding. What we proposed—and what was accepted—in our presidency was that legislative proposals, especially those that involved co-decision and perhaps others, should be open to much greater scrutiny than hitherto, and that the initial sets of proposals should be open to public scrutiny and on public view, as should votes, explanations of votes and so on. We proposed a great deal more transparency than we have now. However, what has been proposed in these Council conclusions is to take a significant—to my mind—step further and to say that every bit of deliberation on such detailed negotiations should be in the public domain.

I would draw an analogy with the way in which we conduct ourselves in this place. Of course the decisions that are reached, what they mean, the extent to which they are considered to be an advantage, and how they can be defended are all in the public domain. However, the detailed deliberations of the parties, for example, on how they come to their views are not in the public domain and are never likely to be.

I am not sure that the analogy with this place is to the Foreign Secretary’s advantage on this issue. The deliberations of Parliament are fully open to the public—not just the decisions reached. And the Council of Ministers is now, in effect, a legislative body. In fact, the Council of the European Union and North Korea’s Supreme People’s Assembly are now the world’s only legislatures that meet in secret. Those of us who are fond of our 18th century history will remember that, in the 1770s, the case was still being put in this House that its proceedings could not possibly be reported in public because Members would not be able to speak frankly and would be open to influence by the public. That is what people in this country thought more than 200 years ago. Now the same case is being made, as I understand it, by the Foreign Secretary in the Council of Ministers.

So strong has been the case for transparency that we have had cross-party consensus on the matter in this country. The leaders of all the British parties in the European Parliament signed a declaration to that effect and the Government put forward a paper during their presidency proposing to make Council meetings and business more open. Those proposals contained two options. The European Council agreed to partial openness, which is what the Foreign Secretary has just referred to. However, the then Minister for Europe, now the Secretary of State for Scotland, the right hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire, South (Mr. Alexander), then wrote to the European Scrutiny Committee to assure it that the British objective

“remains to push for all of the Council’s legislative business to be opened up to the public”,

although the more ambitious option favoured by the UK would have required a change to the Council’s procedures. However, it seems that the Foreign Secretary has now thrown a spanner in the works by saying that there would be too much openness, so we might have to keep some of the same old secrecy.

May I ask the right hon. Gentleman to clarify something? If he is in favour of greater openness and transparency, and of the ability for people to understand what is being decided—I am sure that he has been in meetings where just throwing open the doors would not create understanding—would he, if there were ever a Conservative Government again, support the notion of a Europe Minister at Cabinet level to explain all the decisions made at Brussels level that have domestic policy implications?

I would support the Minister for Europe setting out his policy for Europe in this House rather than elsewhere. I cannot say that that would involve having a Minister at Cabinet level; I think that the Foreign Secretary and I agree on that issue. Those matters should be the responsibility of the Foreign Secretary in Cabinet. However, I do believe that this House’s procedures for scrutinising European Council proceedings and European legislation need many improvements, and that such improvements would be part of making the workings of the European Union more accountable to the people of this country.

My question to Ministers on this matter is the same as that of the French Government, who are reported to have asked

“how can you not be in favour”

of more transparency? The Labour manifesto of 1997 said:

“Unnecessary secrecy in government leads to arrogance in government and defective policy decisions.”

We need Government U-turns on Europe, but this is not one of them.

I am conscious of the time, so I shall miss out some of the subjects that I was going to raise—[Hon. Members: “The substance!”] Hon. Members are so generous with their interventions.

Enlargement is an issue that we also need to address in the debate. This week has marked the opening of the first chapter of accession talks with Turkey. We strongly welcome that, and I offer my congratulations to the Government on the strong and consistent stance that they have taken in favour of Turkey’s membership. We should be proud of the fact that there is cross-party consensus in this country on this wider enlargement. Will the Minister confirm, however, that no member state can ultimately join the EU if it does not recognise another or give its vessels access to its ports and airspace? This is an area of extreme delicacy, but does he not agree that it is vital that we do not leave the Cypriot problem frozen while accession negotiations proceed, because in the end neither process can succeed without the other?

Does the Minister also agree that enlargement cannot stop with Turkey? The Foreign Secretary touched on this in her opening remarks. We want our European neighbourhood to be stable, democratic, rich and peaceful. We know that offering EU membership is the best incentive to persuade countries to make the hard political decisions that mark the road to that end. We also know the likely cost of refusing entry to the EU. In the Balkans and Ukraine, it would be nationalism, populism, corruption and criminality. So will the Minister join us in pledging that, while their accession might take many years, the western Balkans, Ukraine and Belarus have every right, in the long term, to join the EU, should they wish to do so?

The summit is important in many other ways, as the Foreign Secretary has made clear. It comes a year after the rejection of the constitution. We have had the period of reflection, which has now been extended for another year. The constitution is a subject that has not been sufficiently debated in this country, yet it is of profound importance. Some people in Europe want it brought back, while others want it left on the shelf while being implemented through the back door. Perhaps we should recognise that the peoples of Europe do not want this kind of integration, respect their verdict and look again at what the EU should be doing.

The summit’s draft conclusions say that the European Council has carried out a first assessment of the period of reflection based on information provided by the member states. I presume that, in Britain’s case, that means that the Government have passed on our advice—or someone else’s—because they have had nothing to say about that period until this morning. They now have another chance, and I hope that they will take the opportunity to make several things clear, not least on justice and home affairs.

In the context of the flexible, open Europe to which my right hon. Friend has referred in a recent speech, and of the regaining of national control of social and employment legislation, does he agree that it would be highly desirable for the Government to spell out that all this thrashing around in an attempt to bring a constitution in through the back door would best be resolved simply by stating that we would like an association of nation states, preserving the ability of those countries to govern themselves and ensuring that the democracy that we all want can be achieved in this House and elsewhere in Europe?

I actually think that this thrashing around, as my hon. Friend describes it, can best be dealt with by the Government taking a clear stand on some of the issues coming up at the summit and subsequently. I want to mention a couple of those issues before I give other hon. Members a chance to take part in the debate.

On justice and home affairs, the Government should reflect that Governments who do nothing have things done to them. That is indeed what is happening now, most seriously in the context of the EU’s powers over justice and home affairs. Tomorrow’s summit will consider the Commission’s proposal to move policing and judicial co-operation, under the remit of the Commission, the European Parliament and the European Court of Justice, from third to first pillar, and to abolish national vetoes. Not only would that be a profound increase in the European Union’s power and a diminution of national sovereignty in an area where voters demand national accountability, but it would implement part of the constitution through the back door, which the Government promised that they would not allow.

The Foreign Secretary might recall that shortly before the Labour party came into government nine years ago, it explicitly promised that it would keep this area under intergovernmental supervision. It is therefore extraordinary that the Government refused to come out against that proposal in a recent written answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale, West (Mr. Brady). The Foreign Secretary has again refused to come out against it today. When the Minister for Europe winds up, will he tell us what the position is? Would not that move be a clear breach of the Government’s promises?

One would have thought that the Government would learn the danger of accepting qualified majority voting from their experience with the recent directive on the free movement of EU citizens and their families, the decision on which was moved from unanimity to QMV by the Nice treaty. We warned the Government against that at the time. They expressed opposition to parts of that directive because they said that it would make it hard to deport EU citizens or members of their families who were not conducive to the public good. They were outvoted, however, and we all know how that contributed to the current mess over foreign criminals. Why are the Government now ready to allow an expansion of the EU’s power in this area, when recent history tells us that it will lead to them presiding helplessly over some new fiasco in the future, with their hands almost certainly tied by European law?

We are facing the usual EU fault in this area: rather than concentrating on practical measures that will be of real use and that will preserve our liberties, for which the Minister has been calling, it is still engaged in a desperate search for “more Europe”. Thus the recent European evidence warrant dispenses with the crucial safeguard of dual criminality, but the proposal for the harmonisation of criminal proceedings applies to an ill-defined list of crimes and fails to tackle urgent issues of terrorism and national security. Nor did the Commission consult member states where there are cross-border issues or real concerns.

It is not only in justice and home affairs—

My right hon. Friend has been talking about the importance of preserving liberties. On the principle that dictators make bad business partners, would he care to say something about the folly of lifting the embargo on the sale of arms to China?

I might not put it in exactly the terms that my hon. Friend uses, but yes, it would be a mistake to lift the arms embargo on China. That is a long-held position of the United States, and that is what my party and my predecessors as shadow Foreign Secretary have stated. I agree with the purpose of my hon. Friend’s intervention.

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?