I regret to have to report to the House the death of Piara Singh Khabra Esquire, Member for Ealing, Southall.

I am sure that Members on all sides of the House will join me in mourning the loss of a colleague and in extending our sympathy to the hon. Member’s family and friends.

I beg to move,

That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision for a single assessment process for disability benefits; and for connected purposes.

Disability benefits are complex and convoluted; they are not something that any rational person would want to spend a huge amount of time trying to understand unless they had to do so, but 6 million disabled people in the UK have to do just that, including up to 400,000 families with disabled children. For them, the benefit system is simultaneously a lifeline and a nightmare. I suggest to the House that it is time we did better.

I will not test Members’ patience by going into enormous detail about the complicated differences in eligibility criteria for the disability living allowance, the attendance allowance, the disabled facilities grant, the community equipment fund, the carer’s allowance, the independent living fund, the industrial injuries disablement benefit and incapacity benefit. I wondered whether the complexity of the system might be a function of the complexity of disability itself; but why, when we spend £26 billion annually on benefits for disabled people, are there so many complaints?

There are complaints from taxpayers who, despite the fact that they want their money used to support the most vulnerable people in society, constantly read stories in the media about disability benefits being claimed by people who are patently not disabled. There are also complaints from disabled people themselves, who all too often have to put up with a system that lets them down, frustrates them and humiliates them by asking them to repeat information about their disability a thousand times over, squandering money on official error, waste and fraud, and all too often failing to reach the very people it most needs to reach: those most at risk of falling into and becoming trapped in poverty.

In my research, I discovered that most unusual of things in modern politics: a relatively simple solution that does not cost any money. I will return to that later, but first let me give the House an example of the crazy complexity of the current system. A couple of weeks ago, I met a man who, a few years earlier, had been going to the shops with his daughter. He was walking along his local high street when a car careered off the road and crashed into him. He was carried some distance. Fortunately, his daughter was unharmed, although she had severe psychological trauma, but he ended up in a coma and when he came round he had an acquired brain injury. As a result, he was unable to continue with his job. Someone in that situation is eligible for up to eight different benefits. If he were to apply for them all, he would have to answer a total of 1,275 questions over 352 pages.

Let me put that in context. An A-level student doing maths, physics and chemistry has to answer 510 questions. Someone applying to do a masters in law at Harvard has to answer 54 questions. So, our welfare state, which is supposed to be the pinnacle of a civilised society, makes a man with an acquired brain injury answer more questions than our brightest A-level students or our most ambitious lawyers. That cannot be right. I wondered whether, because disabilities are complicated, we needed to ask all those questions, but in fact 80 per cent. of the questions are repeated. A third of the questions are repeated twice and a quarter are repeated four times. Think not about the waste of employing Department for Work and Pensions officials to process the same information over and over again. Think not about how that money could be put to much better use. Think instead of the man with an acquired brain injury and the signal that this sends to him about our willingness as a society to help him piece his life together. Think also of those parents who discover that they have a child with severe disabilities and the signal it sends to them that we ask them to answer more questions than if they were applying for a mortgage, a credit card or a bank account.

The most pernicious outcome of the complexity is not the frustration that it causes disabled people; it is the fact that it makes it so difficult for them to get back into the world of work. All the benefits have different rules about how much work someone is and is not allowed to do. On incapacity benefit and carer’s allowance, one can earn £87 a week. On income support, it is £20 a week. On housing benefit, after £20 a week, a person’s benefit is deducted at a marginal rate of 65 per cent. On council tax benefit, it is 20 per cent. The result is that for many disabled people the simplest and safest thing is not to work. That leads on to another problem: poverty. We know that, according to the Government’s preferred measure, child poverty is increasing. A third of parents of disabled children say that they are put off applying for the disability living allowance because of the complexity of the application form.

My Bill will not solve all those problems at a stroke, but it will transform the lives of hundreds of thousands of disabled people by requiring the Department for Work and Pensions to get its computer systems to talk to each other, so that, if a disabled person consents to it, they need only supply information about their disability once and that can be used across all the different benefit streams. Every year, the Department for Work and Pensions processes 7.2 billion questions from disability benefit applicants. Nearly 6 billion of those are repeated questions. This measure will save money in administration costs, but, more importantly, it will save huge frustration and aggravation for disabled people.

The Government do not have a good record on technology projects. However, that should not obscure the fact that technology can transform the lives of the most socially disadvantaged. Why should the IT revolution benefit only the BlackBerry generation of adults or the MySpace generation of children? Why should it not benefit disabled people as well?

We cannot remove people’s impairments, but we can remove the obstacles that the state needlessly and carelessly puts in their way that make it more difficult for them to find a job, to live independently, or to hold their family together. Only once should disabled people have to supply information about their disability, unless or until that disability changes. Only once should a family with a disabled child have to supply information about that child’s disability, unless or until that changes. Only once should that information be processed by the Department for Work and Pensions. My Bill is a modest measure. It would not get us there all in one go, but it would allow progress to be made in the right direction. For that reason, I urge the House to support it.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Jeremy Hunt, Natascha Engel, Greg Clark, Malcolm Bruce, Michael Gove, Ms Sally Keeble, Stephen Hammond, Anne Milton, Mr. Graham Stuart, Mr. Stewart Jackson, John Penrose and Mr. Paul Goodman.

Disability Benefits (Single Assessment)

Mr. Jeremy Hunt accordingly presented a Bill to make provision for a single assessment process for disability benefits; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 19 October, and to be printed [Bill 128].

I returned yesterday from the General Affairs Council. Tomorrow and on Friday, the Prime Minister and I will attend the European Council, which is the final summit of the German presidency. Discussions at the General Affairs Council were wide-ranging. In that, they reflected the pivotal role that working with and through the European Union plays in meeting the domestic and foreign policy priorities of this country. Not least of the subjects discussed was the ongoing and extremely difficult situation in the Palestinian occupied territories. I expect that the topics covered by the European Council and included in the final conclusions will be equally broad. If I may, I will return to some of them a little later.

There is no doubt that the main issue at stake at this European Council will be treaty reform. During my first pre-European Council debate in the Chamber, I recall that the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) said that he hoped that I would enjoy his speech because he feared that I would hear it on a number of occasions, since such debates tended to be attended by the same people and to have almost exactly the same content. However, this debate might be a little different.

Specifically, two years on from the rejection of the proposed constitutional treaty by Dutch and French voters, the Council must consider what treaty adjustments would help the European Union to work as effectively and efficiently as possible in the interests of its 27 member states. The report of the discussions that the German presidency produced last Thursday showed there were still significant differences among European countries about what those next steps could or should be. In the next two days, Europe’s leaders will be looking for a way to reconcile those differences.

Will the Secretary of State give way?

If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I would like to get a little further into my argument.

Those negotiations cannot be conducted in public, let alone in advance of the Council itself. I could not and will not attempt to prejudge what the outcome of those negotiations might be, but I will be as plain and unequivocal as I can about what the Government’s position going into those negotiations will be.

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me—normally I do give way, as he knows, and I will give way during my speech if he still wishes to intervene, but it would be helpful for the House if I give an indication first of where we are.

First, we want a European Union that is able to deliver and that makes a positive difference to people’s lives, but we want a European Union of sovereign nations, not a superstate. We want greater efficiency and more accountability. We want more say for national Parliaments and Governments. Above all, we want a European Union that takes action where it is needed, on issues like climate security, economic reform and energy, and leaves national Governments in charge of key areas including taxes, foreign policy, defence and the domestic economy.

In short, we want a European Union that delivers jobs, security, growth and influence in a globalised world—a Europe that helps to equip citizens in every member state to meet the challenges of, and to thrive in, the 21st century. That is our positive vision for Europe’s future—a clear conception of an EU that we want, and that we believe this country needs.

Let no one be in doubt that the reason we place so much emphasis on taking the right decisions over the next two days is nothing to do with the blocking tactics that we have seen in previous years. It is the exact opposite. We want a strong and effective Europe, but we want one that is focused on delivering results, not building bureaucracy. So let me be clear on some of the specific issues that we are likely to have to resolve over the next two days.

We support a charter of fundamental rights that brings together existing rights found in the European convention on human rights, current EC treaties and other instruments. We support qualified majority voting to unlock decision making in those areas where it is in Britain’s interest. Despite ridiculous claims that are sometimes made that no change at all must be made, let me remind the House that it was Lady Thatcher who first gave up the veto, and that under her, qualified majority voting was extended to 12 articles, and under her successor, John Major, to 30—three zero—policy areas. I do not criticise them for those changes. They made them because they knew that sometimes it was and is in Britain’s interest to do so when, for example, change that we in the House may all believe is wanted and needed might otherwise be blocked by those who resist that change.

We are in favour of a Europe-wide response both to organised crime and to international terrorism. I imagine that that, again, is common ground across the House. In fact, more than that, we think a Europe-wide response is a vital necessity, but we are equally clear that any EU initiatives should not affect fundamental aspects of our criminal justice system, should not undermine our ability to safeguard national security, and should not weaken control of our own borders.

We believe in a common foreign and security policy that will boost our collective influence abroad, but not in a single foreign policy. It must be based on consensus, by which I mean unanimity. We would support a reform of the Commission that promoted effectiveness, efficiency and strong leadership. We would like to see the subsidiarity mechanism in the current constitutional treaty proposals strengthened. We believe it will help us to find the best balance between action at regional, national and European levels, and in so doing will better connect Europe to its citizens. We would support a full-time Chair of the European Council with the same role and powers now exercised by the Council president of the day, because we believe it could help to ensure greater coherence and consistency in the EU’s agenda.

If we are able to agree such a package at the Council it would make the EU stronger and better able to deliver on its priorities. The House should make no mistake—that would be of direct benefit to the people of the UK.

I thank the Foreign Secretary for giving way. Officials in Brussels yesterday agreed a draft intergovernmental conference mandate which says that the object of the discussions will be to seek to clarify

“the respective competences of the EU and the Member States and their delimitation”.

At Foreign Office questions the Foreign Secretary said she hoped that

“that level of detail will not be in the amending treaty.”—[Official Report, 5 June 2007; Vol. 461, c. 120.]

That was in relation to the common fisheries policy. Is she going back on that position, or has it become clear in the past few weeks that there will be that degree of delimitation in the final agreement this week?

I think that there is a misunderstanding. I hope that I heard the hon. Gentleman correctly, because I do not want to correct him if I did not, but I think that he said that officials had agreed a mandate, and that is not the case. The document produced in Brussels yesterday was the German presidency’s proposal, and that is what we will be discussing at the weekend. It has not been agreed by anybody.

I have the document in front of me and it clearly says that the word “Community” will throughout be replaced by the word “Union”, that it will be stated that the two treaties constitute the treaties on which the Union is founded and that the Union replaces and succeeds the Community.

There cannot be a much more fundamental change than that, so will the Foreign Secretary agree that, on that basis, unless the proposals are rejected, there will be a referendum on them?

I can only say—I do not say this as a criticism—that I find it absolutely inconceivable that anybody could make proposals that the hon. Gentleman would not believe required a referendum. Whether one agrees is quite another matter.

It is perfectly possible to bring in these improvements to the way in which the EU works by building on and amending existing treaties, and without engaging major questions of national sovereignty or competence.

Europe has a choice. It could agree an amending treaty—that path is proven; it has delivered on many occasions in the past. Or it could try to bundle important and necessary reforms into a wholly unnecessary constitutional cloak—that path is very far from proven; indeed, it was explicitly rejected by the people of France and the Netherlands just two summers ago.

At this same debate exactly a year ago, the Foreign Secretary said that

“the EU needed to reconnect more closely with the people of Europe.”—[Official Report, 14 June 2006; Vol. 447, c. 781.]

Other than simply imploring that that happen, what efforts has the Foreign Secretary made in recent months to ensure that the EU really does reconnect more closely with the people of Europe?

For one thing, the very strong effort made by the Government over a considerable period of time, but made with particular strength in the run-up to the spring Council, to get the EU to agree to take a position well ahead of the pack in terms of energy and climate security, is exactly the kind of thing that reconnects the EU to the people of Europe. For a start, it is so clearly an area where no nation state acting alone can be effective, yet also an area that is of real concern to people when they think about their own future and that of their children.

On the subject of reconnection, do not we in this place have to look anew at how we debate EU proposals? In particular, is there not a political case to be made for one Minister to be answerable for all the various deals being reached in Brussels and to have a question and answer session on that?

My hon. Friend makes an interesting point. However, it might be rather more difficult to achieve than it sometimes sounds. I am reminded of the debate that always takes place, particularly around issues such as the environment, about whether this, that or the other policy area should be included, because surely this crosses them all. In the end, there is no substitute for having a Government and having different people who deal with the detail of what is being agreed, because otherwise we would get into considerable difficulty.

The Foreign Secretary mentioned the principle of subsidiarity. Will she, in her negotiations, support proposals to enhance the powers and involvement of national Parliaments in European decision making?

Yes, we will look with great sympathy at the proposals that have been made, for example, by the Netherlands. Not everyone thinks that this is the right course of action, but certainly this Government very much approve of efforts to increase the role and the opportunities of national Parliaments to contribute.

Even if we accept only part of what we have read in the media in the last few days, it is clear that the Government have a fight on their hands in defending this country’s national interest in these negotiations. In those circumstances, was it not weakening our position for the Prime Minister to say that we would not be having a referendum on the results of these negotiations? Could we therefore conclude that, given that the Minister is now sketching out carefully the grounds where the Government are intent on not giving way, if they are forced to do so in the negotiations, the British people will be able to reconnect with the Government and in Europe in having a say in what happens?

I understand the logic of my right hon. Friend’s comments. If we are able to agree an amending treaty, that will be a considerable achievement. For many member states it is a source of considerable discomfort that, having ratified a proposed constitutional treaty and having explained to their electorates—and in the case of the Spanish Government having had a referendum in which they succeeded in obtaining the approval of their electorate—that this was to their advantage, they may then have to go back to their people and say that there will not be a new constitution for Europe, but that there will be, as there has been in the past, an amending treaty. That would be no easier for them than it would be for us to say that we will go ahead with a constitutional treaty even though it has once been rejected.

However, whatever the logic of discussion about any potential referendum, one can only judge whether a treaty would require a referendum when one sees its content—assuming that it is an amending treaty; nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. Secondly—I hope that my right hon. Friend will sympathise with this argument, which I feel quite strongly about—I see no reason whatever why we should have had a string of amending treaties from Conservative Governments that never attracted a referendum, no matter how much they extended, for example, qualified majority voting, but a Labour Government are somehow not allowed to do it.

I am grateful for that answer, but two wrongs do not make a right. Again, I am anxious about how strong our negotiating hand is. Is the Foreign Secretary saying that if in these key areas we are not successful in negotiating, at the end of the day the Government will think of vetoing?

I have already said that it is not inevitable that there will be an agreement this weekend. I very much hope that there will be, because if there can be an agreement that we can accept, Europe can put the issue behind us. I share the view, probably held across the House, that nothing more distances the peoples of Europe from the institutions of the EU than wrangling about legal texts and the division of powers.

rose—

I am blessed with a plethora of requests. I give way to the hon. Member for Louth and Horncastle (Sir Peter Tapsell).

Will the Foreign Secretary bear in mind in all these negotiations that the great majority of our people do not wish to see any extension of EU powers over this country, but rather a major repatriation of powers that we have surrendered to the EU to this sovereign Parliament?

I simply say that I always view these exchanges on this matter with some irony, since I am well aware of the many, many Opposition Members who campaigned vigorously for a yes vote in 1975 when I campaigned for a no vote. All I can say is, “Don’t come crying to me.”

rose—

If hon. Members will forgive me, I will continue a little further with my speech.

Will the Foreign Secretary give way?

All right then.

I welcome the Foreign Secretary’s indication that foreign policy must be unanimous. Will she be equally clear that the Government would reject the amalgamation of the roles of external relations commissioner and external relations high representative, and say emphatically that we would oppose the creation of an EU diplomatic service?

I will not confirm that, because there is a great deal to be said for a more efficient means of operation. We will do everything that we can to ensure that it is made clear that the common foreign and security policy is an intergovernmental policy and that we retain the rights and powers that we believe that we should have.

rose—

I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman for old times’ sake.

The Foreign Secretary has stated that she campaigned against ratification in 1975. I was only three years old at the time, so I was unable to vote against it. Millions of people in this country under the age of 40 have never had a say over changes to our relationship with Europe. Surely the time has come to consult the British people—people of my generation—on whether we are prepared to hand over any more powers to the European Union.

It was only because of a Labour Government that anyone had a chance to vote. The Conservative party took Britain into the European Community and, despite having said that that would not be done without the consent of either a general election or a referendum, no such commitment was honoured. Perhaps we are seeing double standards here.

It should have come as no surprise to anyone—nevertheless, it was apparently a surprise to some—that the United Kingdom is strongly in favour of an amending treaty, not a constitutional treaty. Indeed, I think the General Affairs Council as a whole has at least tacitly agreed that that is the only course that we can follow. The type of amending treaty to which the United Kingdom would agree should be no different in style or importance of content from those brought to this House by previous Governments, including previous Conservative Governments.

In the past, such treaties have never been subject to a national referendum. Indeed, the only national referendum that we have ever had in this country occurred after the decision to join the European Community in 1972. An amending treaty of the sort that I have described would not involve a decision on anything like the scale of the decision in 1972, which the British people endorsed in 1975. Let me be absolutely blunt with the House and with the country: the UK will not agree to a treaty in Brussels that we judge would require a referendum in this country.

It is worth repeating that any treaty that results from this European Council and any subsequent intergovernmental conference would, of course, be laid before Parliament, where it would be subject to extensive examination and debate. It could not be ratified until any necessary amendments to the European Communities Act 1972 had been passed by this House.

On one point, I suspect that the shadow Foreign Secretary and I agree—it will not be sufficient simply to change the title of the document. An amending treaty must be different from the constitutional treaty that preceded it in content, in form and in purpose.

The European Union as a whole must acknowledge, as this Government have done, that the reality on the ground has changed. We accepted the constitutional treaty, and we were prepared—indeed we were preparing—to recommend it to the British people. We thought it was, on balance, a good deal for Britain—incidentally, so did many of our European partners, in many cases with considerable frustration and regret. However, the treaty was rejected by the voters of France and the Netherlands, two founder members of the European Union, which not only changed things, but changed them dramatically.

The people of those countries had spoken, and the leaders of Europe had to take heed. So we embarked on a so-called “period of reflection”. During that time, we deliberately shifted the focus of the European Union back on to those things that we judge matter most to our citizens, not least through the informal summit at Hampton Court held during the UK presidency. We made it clear that our priority was not internal institutional wrangling, but the challenges of globalisation—climate change, energy security, jobs and growth. It would serve Europe very ill indeed if now, two years down the line, we acted as if we had simply not listened, as if the period of reflection counted for nothing and as if we wanted simply to turn the clock back to before summer 2005.

My right hon. Friend is making admirable efforts to distinguish what is on the table now from the treaty, but the reality is that Chancellor Merkel, Mr. Barroso and others are determined to get through what they had before either piecemeal or all in one go. My right hon. Friend is making the case strongly, but is it accepted in Europe and is this not just a way to manoeuvre ourselves past the possibility of a referendum?

This is not a matter of manoeuvring. In the conversation on Sunday night among the General Affairs Council, it was clear that for a large number of member states that have ratified the constitutional treaty the notion of abandoning that treaty and instead having an amending treaty of the kind that we and others have suggested is extremely painful and difficult. Indeed, that idea has been resisted until this present time. We must all recognise what is required, if we are to reach an agreement over this weekend.

If there is an agreement such that the Government feel able to say after the weekend that there will no longer be a need for a referendum, may I take it that that position will be made explicitly clear to the House next week? If so, will the Government, in view of the importance of parliamentary and public engagement on those matters, set out how Parliament will be involved in any process towards an intergovernmental conference under the Portuguese presidency, particularly if that might be held during the recess or shortly after the House resumes in the autumn?

My hon. Friend has made an important point, and I will certainly take heed of his concerns. I was about to send a note to the shadow Foreign Secretary and others who are particularly concerned stating that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister will make a statement on Monday. I will not be here, because I have an engagement in the United States that I am unable to change. I assure my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford, South (Mike Gapes) that my right hon. Friend is aware of his questions.

The Foreign Secretary is making a powerful and important speech. May I ask her a specific question? When she said that the Government will not accept any new treaty that would require a referendum in this country, did she include in that any new treaty that provides opt-outs for the United Kingdom but that ensures that many of the aspects of the original constitution are still in place for the rest of the European Union?

The balance of treaty proposals is a judgment that we can make only at the weekend, when we will see the proposed amendments to the ideas advanced by the German presidency. As the right hon. and learned Gentleman knows, we can only make that judgment at that point.

If it comes down to deal or no deal at this European Council, the UK Government are clear, as I said on record in Brussels on Monday, that no deal might be better than buying any old pig in a poke.

I am pleased to hear what my right hon. Friend has said about the possibility of no deal. Does she agree that if other countries choose to put the revised treaty to their people in a referendum after a deal is done, the British people should also have that opportunity?

No, I do not accept that. Apart from anything else—my hon. Friend may not be aware of this—the Irish Government have a constitutional requirement to have a referendum, so there is no question but that there will be at least one referendum. Whether there will be more than one is entirely another matter.

As I said a little earlier, this Council meeting will also acknowledge the wider achievements of the German presidency: things that Europe’s citizens will actually see and feel. Those include an agreement to open up Europe’s energy market and make it more competitive, action to cut mobile phone charges, and sharing information between police forces to tackle cross-border crime. And, of course, at the last European Council in spring, we saw Europe at its best. The EU took a vital step not only in leading the global response to one of the greatest threats that we face—climate change—but in so doing beginning the process of creating the world’s first low-carbon and energy- efficient economy. If we make that transition successfully, it will mean that Europe, and the UK, will have a competitive economic advantage for perhaps a generation to come. Similarly, the EU has recently agreed the services directive, which is set to add £2.5 billion, and up to 135,000 jobs, to the UK’s economy.

So Europe as it now stands can deliver and is delivering. It would not be in crisis—it would not be paralysed—if no agreement on institutional reform were reached.

If the European Union is working so well in the way that the Foreign Secretary describes, why do we need an amending treaty or any extension of majority voting?

The right hon. Gentleman has perfect timing, if I may say so. We on the Labour Benches are absolutely clear that we want such an agreement because it would mean that Europe could deliver even better and more efficiently. It would not be a crisis if we were unable to secure an amending treaty, but it would be an opportunity missed.

Will the Foreign Secretary give way?

I will, but for the last time.

If Europe is working as well as the Foreign Secretary says, what harm could be done by putting the whole issue of whether we wish to retain our status as a member of the European Union to the British people in a referendum?

I do not intend to get involved in yet another wrangle about whether Britain should leave the European Union, but I notice that the Conservatives are, as ever, perhaps not entirely of one mind on the matter.

When this Government came to power in 1997, we inherited from the Conservative party an acrimonious and stagnant relationship with our European Union partners in which Britain had mostly been represented by, at best, an empty chair, with our voice not even being heard. The rest of the European Union viewed us with a mixture of confusion and frustration. The result was that we had little or no influence in the European Union and could not lead the European debate in the directions that we wanted. The attitude that the Conservatives had then, which some clearly still hold, was not only an abdication of responsibility, and with it influence, but was based on a circular argument. So sure were they that Europe was a bad thing and that the UK could never achieve anything in the European Union that they very rarely did. That was, and is, a self-fulfilling prophecy that did immense damage to our national interest.

Under this Government, the position is very different.

Will the Foreign Secretary give way?

If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I must get on.

Last week, the French Minister for Europe, Jean-Pierre Jouyet, told Le Figaro:

“I want France to be at the centre of thinking in Brussels, which is currently dominated by the British and Germans”.

Can anyone in this House imagine such an opinion being aired in Paris when the Conservatives ran this country’s European policy?

Will the Foreign Secretary give way?

I will not do so any more.

Positive engagement leads to positive action: the biggest reform of the common agricultural policy for 50 years; reform, after 40 years, of the sugar regime; and, for the first time ever, a budget whereby similar-sized economies such as France and Italy are making payments on a par with our own, which, despite all Margaret Thatcher’s talk of rebates and hand-bagging, is something that the Conservatives never came even close to achieving. We have, for the first time, European security and defence policy missions beyond Europe’s borders. We have, as I said, bold action on climate security and energy security. Through the Hampton Court agenda, we have brought a new focus on reinvigorating the European economy and on investment in the future. Just last year, UK exports to continental Europe were up by 24 per cent. to £150 billion.

Over the next two days, the European Union has the opportunity to agree improvements that will make it work even better. If it takes that opportunity, Europe will be stronger and more effective. That would be good for this country and for the people of this country. This Government have always recognised that a strong UK in a strong Europe is the only way in which to face the challenges of the next decade and the next century. It is for exactly that—a strong UK in a strong Europe—that the Prime Minister and I will argue in Brussels.

I have, as ever, listened with care to the words of the Foreign Secretary. The part of her speech when she reminded us that she was opposed to British membership of Europe in 1975, and that we should not therefore come crying to her about its faults, was said with some feeling, by contrast with the other parts of the speech, which were perhaps drafted in the Foreign Office and gave the rest of us a lecture about being more positive in our attitudes to engagement with the European Union.

No doubt there are some areas of agreement between what the Foreign Secretary said and the case that I want to put to the House. Nevertheless, as she acknowledged at the beginning of her speech, matters have now moved on sufficiently in European affairs that we have all had to prepare a new speech for this occasion. Very important things may be about to happen in the European Union over the next few days. Tomorrow, the European Union’s Heads of State and Government meet to try to negotiate a treaty of fundamental importance to the EU’s future. The European constitution, which was emphatically and rightly rejected by French and Dutch voters two years ago, is in many substantial senses being revived. That constitution was, as the Belgian Prime Minister put it at the time, the “capstone” of a “federal…state”. The German Europe Minister of the time said that it was the

“birth certificate of the United States of Europe”.

If the Government accept parts of that constitution under another guise, let us be clear that they risk taking another significant step away from what the European Union ought to be—a community of nations working together intimately for mutual benefit—and towards the integrated state that some in Europe honestly wish for, but that has never been the desired goal of the people of Britain.

The Government’s response to the efforts of other Governments to revive the constitution has been, in our view, truly extraordinary. As French and German leaders have proclaimed their views and sherpas have rushed round EU capitals, our Government have spent a great deal of time denying that any negotiations have been taking place. That has demonstrated neither forethought nor leadership. After the constitution’s rejection there was, understandably—the Foreign Secretary referred to it—a pause for reflection. There has since been a debate about Europe’s future to which the Government have made no notable contribution over the past two years.

I believe that this will go down in history as one of the great wasted opportunities for Britain to set the terms of debate on Europe’s future. The federalists had seen their great achievement—a constitution for Europe, to which this Government agreed—rejected by the voters. It was clear that the goal of ever closer political union was out of tune with what many of the peoples of Europe wanted. That was the time for British leadership to push for the only model of European Union that can work for all of Europe in the long term—a flexible, open Europe. It was time to look again at some failing policies.

Today’s Europe is ready, in large parts and for the first time, to listen to that alternative vision. Enlargement has profoundly changed the dynamics of the European Union. Countries such as the Czech Republic and Poland do not want ever closer political union; they have been calling for a different direction. In the Netherlands, political leaders have reflected deeply on the referendum result and the relationship between the European Union and the nation state. Yet instead of taking the lead, the Government have buried their head in the sand for most of the past two years. On Sunday, the Foreign Secretary said on the BBC that she now finds the prospect of the summit “nerve-wracking”—not something to strike terror into other countries’ negotiators, I am afraid. This should have been a time for a confident British Government to give a lead to those who question the need for a new treaty.

I thought that the right hon. Gentleman would expand on exactly what constitutes an open Europe before moving to personal attacks. I respect the right hon. Gentleman’s views and he knows that I like his writing, too. Are you saying that you wish to repudiate the Single European Act and Mrs. Thatcher’s work in Europe? Is that what you mean by going back?

Order. I am not saying anything. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman means the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague).

No, I do not repudiate the Single European Act. I do not make personal attacks on the Foreign Secretary; I merely make personal teasers now and again, simply to pick up on her comments from time to time. I am not one for personal attacks.

I emphasise to the hon. Gentleman that there is a strong case—which I have set out in lengthy speeches; I am happy to send him copies—for a more open and flexible model of the European Union, which allows some powers to come back to the nation states of Europe and some powers to pass down from the European Union to the nation states. The Czech Government are asking for that in proposing their flexibility clause. There is a different model and this country should be its champion.

Will the right hon. Gentleman clarify the Conservative party’s position on fisheries? It has done a flip-flop on its policy on that subject in the past 12 months. Is it in favour of withdrawing from the common fisheries policy? That was the position just over a year ago.

We want great change in the European Union’s fishing policies because the CFP has been a disaster environmentally and economically. We have ruled nothing out in the way in which we achieve those changes. We will have more to say about that in future.

I agree with some of the right hon. Gentleman’s ideas on the way to create a reformed European Union. When did his party leader last discuss them with Mrs Merkel?

My right hon. Friend will have discussed them when he met Mrs Merkel during the leadership election. I discussed them with her when I met her in Berlin last year. My right hon. Friend discussed those plans with other European leaders such as Mr. Sarkozy, who has since become the President of France. There is no shortage of discussion between the Conservative party and European leaders. Indeed, those discussions moved Mr. Sarkozy to send a good wishes message to the Conservative party conference last year. The hon. Lady need not worry about such matters.

I agree with my right hon. Friend that the Government have had their heads in the sand. That is especially true in recent weeks, when according to the diary of the Bundesregierung website, Mrs Merkel held one-to-one meetings with the Polish leader—on 15 May—the French leader, the Danish leader and the Swedish leader, and also had discussions with Ireland, Belgium, Italy, Hungary, Lithuania and so on. Meanwhile, our Prime Minister has been on a legacy tour and failed to stand up for Britain’s interests when he was most needed in the past six weeks.

My hon. Friend makes the fair point that the farewell tour has distracted the Prime Minister.

Let me make two points. First, extensive conversations have taken place on the telephone—which exists—between the German Chancellor and my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. Secondly, the right hon. Gentleman might have noticed that the Prime Minister attended the G8 meeting.

Now we know that conversations have taken place, but they are distinct from negotiations in the Foreign Secretary’s world. Earlier, she said that discussions had taken place about the future of the constitution, and now she says that there have been conversations. That sounds suspiciously like negotiations, which she denies, to the rest of us.

My right hon. Friend refers to conversations and discussions, but we require action. It was noticeable that the Foreign Secretary was unable to give an example of what she has done during her tenure and Great Britain’s presidency. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Government could have achieved the introduction of a common European gas market, which would have helped control gas prices in the UK, especially given that Russia has an increasing influence over prices?

That is another thing that people may seek. I do not claim that the Government have achieved nothing. Under the German presidency, with our Government’s encouragement, an important achievement, to which the Foreign Secretary referred, was made at the European summit a few months ago on climate change. However, on constitutional change and the run-up to the summit, the Government have not made the case for an alternative vision of the future of Europe.

rose—

The debate is becoming a Conservative party Question Time, which is premature, although it will be necessary in future. I shall therefore give way only once or twice again.

The thrust of the right hon. Gentleman’s critique of the Government is rightly the proper use of British influence. If, in due course, he found himself occupying the post of Foreign Secretary and exercising powers and authority on behalf of a future British Government, his early days would be dominated by his leader’s wish to withdraw from the European People’s party and cast the new amorphous and intriguing group that might emerge from the British Conservatives in the European context. Will he give us a wee update on how he is getting on with that interesting scenario?

Speaking of amorphous groupings, I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman is one of the Liberal Democrats who is looking to be in the Cabinet next week. That grouping would be very amorphous. Perhaps his interest in how a Foreign Secretary should behave is partly motivated by those negotiations.

For the record, given that we are both former leaders, I am delighted to say that answering such questions is now well above my pay grade, as it is above the right hon. Gentleman’s.

I see. The right hon. Gentleman’s successor as party leader might agree to his joining the Cabinet. That is especially interesting. The Conservative party’s commitment to forming a new group in the European Parliament with our Czech colleagues in 2009 is categorical. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will show even more interest in it at that time.

The shadow Foreign Secretary has made much of an open Europe policy, which devolves power downwards. Does he accept that there are instances when power should be centred in Europe and that the way to build a new Europe is on an agenda such as climate change, on which there is agreement in Europe that sovereignty sometimes needs to be given to a greater authority? That is the way to build a new Europe—on an agenda of genuine issues rather than the theoretical basis with which the bureaucrats endlessly confront us.

I largely agree with the right hon. Gentleman. Climate change should form an important part of building a genuine European agenda. However, he should not believe that that means that more power should be located in the European Union. The Foreign Secretary told the European Scrutiny Committee last week that everything on climate change

“can all be done, is being done and has been done within existing treaties.”

That is the way to proceed. Institutional change is not required.

I am much encouraged to hear my right hon. Friend say that we want some repatriation of powers, which is crucial. However, that poses the question of how we can achieve that, because we also want to achieve economic competitiveness. If we could not achieve our objectives through negotiation with other member states by tackling the problem through invading the acquis, will he reconfirm the party’s vote last year on the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill, in this House and in this House of Lords, to override the European Communities Act 1972 when necessary and require the judiciary to obey the latest inconsistent Act of the Westminster Parliament?

In that vote, we simply recognised what we understand as the constitutional position, which the Prime Minister restated last week: that the House has ultimate sovereignty. However, it is not necessary to expand on that further today.

The Government are again faced with substantial parts of the constitution, which they privately but forlornly hoped would go away if they said nothing about it. The German presidency’s approach was spelled out in the questionnaire that it sent to European capitals a few weeks ago. It referred to preserving the substance of the constitution while making the necessary presentational changes. Such an approach is a profound mistake. I think that the Foreign Secretary believes that it is a mistake. As the Laeken declaration in December 2001 recognised, the crucial question is how the EU can be brought closer to its peoples. There can be no surer way of worsening the democratic deficit and disconnection between EU institutions and peoples than ignoring the verdict of the voters.

There are those who say that the EU is a project pushed forward by a political elite who do not care what ordinary people want because they think they know better, so what better way to confirm that argument than by saying that if the people democratically reject the EU constitution, we will just bring it back with a few presentational tweaks? If people do not feel ownership over the EU, they will steadily turn against it, which would not be in Britain’s or Europe’s interest. Further political integration must have the people’s permission. In our view, political integration has already gone too far. Either way, however, it should be for the British people to decide.

The Prime Minister appeared to recognise that when he agreed that there should be a referendum on the EU constitution. He famously discovered his reverse gear—we all watched him doing it in the House in April 2004—by saying, “Let battle be joined”. With the zeal of a convert, he gave cast-iron assurances that the British people would have their say. During the general election campaign, he told The Sun:

“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, he told The Sun, was “a Government promise”. He went even further by saying:

“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.”

The Government have absolutely no democratic mandate to bring in parts of the constitution without a referendum of the British people. That is why, if there is a new treaty that transfers competences from Britain to the EU by bringing back parts of the constitution, we are clear that there must be referendum. That must apply whether the transfer of competence is handed over on day one of the new treaty or whether a ratchet effect is initiated that will see power shift to the EU as decisions and judgments are made over the years.

Did the Maastricht treaty transfer competences to Brussels?

It most certainly did, and I shall make three points here. First, the Minister is clearly trying to make a point about consistency. He will recall that Labour MPs voted for a referendum on that occasion, so the argument about consistency can be made either way. Secondly, I remind the Minister that the most important thing in the treaty was the provision to join the euro if the Government wished it in the future—and on that, the Government of the time offered a referendum. Thirdly, I put it to the right hon. Gentleman that the situation is different now from what it was 15 years ago because the arguments have changed and the peoples of this and other countries have moved on in their belief that political integration has now gone far enough. That is why further political integration requires their democratic consent.

I was one Member who voted against the Maastricht treaty and who wanted a referendum. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that it might help Labour Members who want a referendum if any changes are made to give more powers to Europe if he admitted that sometimes the Conservative party as well as the Labour party can get it wrong? Perhaps the Conservatives were wrong not to allow a referendum on the Maastricht treaty.

I readily admit that politicians of all parties get things wrong, but I would have to give longer thought to the particular question of whether we were wrong about Maastricht. As I said, however, the consistency argument can be levelled against the Minister for Europe, but the hon. Lady has made her point.

The Government’s position on whether there should be a referendum is more than a little unclear, and the Foreign Secretary has just added a twist to it in her speech. Perhaps the Minister for Europe will be able to expand on it when he winds up the debate. The Prime Minister has said that there will not be a referendum on the treaty. The Foreign Secretary said a few days ago—despite having stood on a manifesto promising a referendum—that she preferred a model of Government without referendums. I believe that she said yesterday to the Select Committee that we would be able to tell on Monday whether it would be necessary to have a referendum, but today she has said that the Government will not agree to anything that requires a referendum in their judgment, which means, of course, that it will not be necessary to work anything out on Monday. There are several contradictory statements there.

The Chancellor has said that we will have to wait and see and the Minister for Europe, who is now being touted as the Chancellor’s close ally—I have to tell him, however, that the Chancellor has about 330 close allies on the Government Benches at the moment, all hoping for what the right hon. Gentleman is hoping for next Thursday afternoon, namely, a telephone call with encouraging news—says that it will all depend on the final package. What is the Government’s view? Will they keep or break their promise? Will they let the British people decide or will they try to ignore them?

While they are at it—again, the Minister could deal with this in his winding-up speech—can someone in the Government clear up another intriguing point in their position? Both the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary have made much of the fact that the new treaty will not have the “characteristics of a constitution”, but what are those characteristics? The Government have persistently refused to say what those characteristics are. It is wholly illogical to claim that a treaty does not require a referendum because it fails to pass the test of characteristics, and then be totally unable to say what that test is. That is wholly of a piece with the Government’s utterly confused and disjointed approach to this matter.

The Government have had eight different policies in the past seven years. In 2000, the Prime Minister explained:

“It is perhaps easier for the British than for others to recognise that a constitutional debate must not necessarily end with a single, legally binding document called a Constitution”.

In 2002, he said that

“we do need a proper Constitution for Europe”.

By 2003, the current Northern Ireland Secretary was saying it was just a “tidying-up exercise”, and not important enough for a referendum. Later that year, the Prime Minister said that holding a referendum would be

“a gross and irresponsible betrayal of the true British national interest”—

in other words, it was too important to hold a referendum on this issue. Despite that, he was soon in favour of exactly such a referendum to resolve “once and for all” where Britain stood in Europe. It was “time to decide” what was “our destiny”, so we should let “the issue be put”.

Yet that vital statement of mission and purpose went the way of every previous statement on this subject. It was as if Nelson had said:

“England expects every man to do his duty”—

but then said, “On second thoughts, perhaps not, as we might do this in a few years’ time or forget it altogether”. Now, the Prime Minister says, having agreed to the constitution then, that we do not need a constitution after all and that we must “listen to the people”, which apparently means not asking them what they think. We now find that the constitution, which he had described as a “success for Britain” needs four “major changes”, without which Britain will veto the new treaty, although there is no explanation of why these red lines were apparently not a problem when the whole thing was negotiated the first time round.

The Government have had so many positions that they are now recycling the old ones. On Sunday, the Foreign Secretary told the BBC that the whole business was intended to “tidy up the rule book”, taking us back to the position of the Northern Ireland Secretary four years ago. That is the consistency, vision and backbone of a jellyfish. That is what we have had from the Government in recent years.

rose—

As the Prime Minister’s former chief economic adviser said the last time the constitution was on the table:

“The Government never saw the discussions on the Constitution as an opportunity to stand back and think clearly about the appropriate political and economic framework to sustain the EU… the Government’s response was tactical rather than strategic”—

and nothing has changed since.

rose—

I really must proceed, but I may give way one or two more times later. It is already becoming a long speech.

Instead of accountability, we have had desperate secrecy. Never before have I known three chairmen of Select Committees, all from the governing party, express such strongly and similarly worded frustration over the Government’s behaviour. The Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee has called it “non-transparency”. The Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee has had to write to the Foreign Secretary to complain of the

“failure of accountability to Parliament”.

The Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee has pointed out that the Government have refused to say what position, if any, they have on the vital issue of whether criminal justice should be moved from the intergovernmental third pillar to full Community competence.

Indeed, when the Foreign Secretary told the European Scrutiny Committee last week that

“nothing that you could really call negotiations has taken place”,

we could not work out whether she had been kept so utterly out of the loop by the Prime Minister that she simply did not know what was going on, or whether she had a completely different understanding of the word “negotiate” from the rest of us. That very day, the French President told reporters how he and the Prime Minister had agreed the basis of a new treaty and the German Foreign Minister informed MEPs in Brussels how near to a conclusion he had brought the talks. Was that position reached without the Foreign Office being involved in any negotiation of any kind? That is an alarming thought, if it is true.

When the Prime Minister set out his so-called red lines on Monday, it was the first time that Parliament or the British public had heard what the Government’s view was. Indeed, it must have come as quite a surprise to the Foreign Secretary, who told the European Scrutiny Committee that nothing was going on at all, and that in any case

“the less I say about what we might in principle accept and what we might not, the more I preserve the maximum amount of negotiating space to resist anything that I think is not in Britain’s national interest”.

The Prime Minister took a different view on Monday. His remarks deserve serious scrutiny, because what he did not mention was more significant than what he did. He said nothing about the proposed permanent EU President, nothing about a single legal personality for the EU, nothing about the proposed primacy of EU law over our laws, and nothing about the hugely important points buried in the small print of the original constitution. He said that there would be no qualified majority voting on any provision that

“can have a big say in our own tax and benefits system”.

So would qualified majority voting that had a small say be all right? Will the Minister enlighten us on that when he winds up the debate?

The Prime Minister said that he would not agree to anything that

“displaces the role of British foreign policy”.

So why not put the case earlier that the Foreign Secretary, evidently uncomfortably, had to put to Foreign Ministers a few nights ago? She put the case against qualified majority voting and against an EU Foreign Minister having a diplomatic service in the European Union. The Prime Minister also said that he would not accept a treaty that allowed the charter of fundamental rights to change UK law. But would it be acceptable to give the charter legal standing so that it could change EU law, which would ultimately affect this country? He said that he would not agree to give up our ability to control our common law and judicial and police systems. Does that mean that the veto over criminal justice will be kept and that, crucially, criminal justice will remain in the intergovernmental third pillar?

It has taken weeks, while other Governments have staked out positions, proposed new articles and campaigned for their views, for our Government to set out their so-called red lines, four days before the summit itself. Those red lines turn out not only to be red herrings but, on examination, to prove to be so carefully phrased by the Prime Minister that he could sign up to an EU treaty that transferred substantial powers to the EU and enacted much of the constitution and yet not breach his four red lines. The Prime Minister could give the charter of fundamental rights legal standing, move criminal law to Community control, and agree to a Foreign Minister in all but name with an EU external action service and European embassies, a permanent President of the Council, a common asylum policy, widespread extension of qualified majority voting elsewhere and a broadening of EU competence over employment policy—and still say that his red lines had not been breached. Those so-called red lines in the sand are but chaff thrown up to con the British public that the Government want simply to defend the British national interest, when their central priority is to avoid holding a referendum at all costs.

The Foreign Secretary gave the game away when she said that any treaty that, in the Government’s judgment, required a referendum would not be signed. The idea is that the great leader will go forward on behalf of the British public, and that we do not have to worry because he would not sign anything—would he?—that would require the people to trouble themselves with casting their vote. That is a patronising attitude towards the electorate and a breach of the Government’s election promise.

As the right hon. Gentleman has been making a point about the importance of clarity, will he tell the House whether his party would seek any changes to the present framework in Europe and, in particular, whether it would seek a referendum on the proposal made by the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh) that we should reconsider our membership of the European Union?

No, I do not agree with that and will not be proposing a referendum on that subject, either now or at the next general election. We have put forward our preferred model for the development of the European Union—the right hon. Gentleman will be added to the list of Members to whom I must send my seminal speeches on these subjects—and I could go on about it at even greater length than I have been doing. However, the immediate issue at hand is what will happen tomorrow and on Friday at the summit.

If we had a Government with a clear vision for a modern Europe, the negotiations at the summit would present not only challenges but opportunities. The Foreign Secretary has mentioned one or two of the relevant points. The Dutch Government have proposed giving national Parliaments the right to block legislation that breaches the principle of subsidiarity. For far too long, and to the deep frustration of many on both sides of this House, this important principle has had no proper enforcement mechanism. The Dutch proposal at least attempts to provide it with an effective one and we urge the Government to support it, and not just to treat it with sympathy, as the Foreign Secretary said a little while ago.

The Czech Government have proposed a flexibility clause that would allow member states to return powers to national control where appropriate. For far too long, the EU has been a one-way ratchet, taking powers from member states but unable to return them. We hope that the Government will support the Czechs on that imaginative proposal. Perhaps they should have put forward the proposal with the Czechs and campaigned for it across Europe.

The Government declare themselves neutral on the question of voting weights, but I am not sure that Ministers have entirely thought the German proposal through. In particular, the new system, with its exact correspondence between population and voting weight, will make it harder to admit large but poor countries into the European Union. Indeed, some suspect that it was devised with that purpose in mind. Given the fundamental importance of the goal of Turkish membership of the EU, that area needs to be considered very carefully indeed.

However, the biggest omission of all by the Government is that they have missed the opportunity to say what I suspect the Foreign Secretary believes, namely, that we do not need a new treaty for Europe’s countries to act together. It is simply not true that a Europe of 27 is not working with the old rules. As the Foreign Secretary has admitted, the EU is coping perfectly well without new rules.

Yes, the Prime Minister should go to the summit saying that no deal is better than a bad deal—but he should also have been saying for a long time that the time for political integration is over, and that the time to look outwards to the great challenges of global warming, global poverty and globalised competition must begin. The EU’s focus should be on practical issues that matter—a point made earlier by the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field)—such as success in the world trade round, going further with the single market and improving the emissions trading scheme to create long-term incentives for business to invest in green technology. Those should be the priorities and we do not need a treaty to accomplish them, as the Foreign Secretary has made clear several times.

The Prime Minister should point out those facts to some of his colleagues. He should be advising other leaders to respond to the unhappiness in their own countries, rather than choosing to ignore it in his own. He should be saying that Britain does not support a revived constitution. If he did these things, and if he had done them over the past two years, he would at last, in Europe, have something that he could call a legacy.

rose—

Order. I must remind the House that Mr. Speaker has placed a 12-minute limit on Back-Bench speeches, and that that operates from now.

I should like to say to the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) that if he wishes to send me any of his writings, he should not send me anything that I can read in Hansard, because I have already read those, and I am not convinced that he is not still just playing the game. If he were ever to become Foreign Secretary, he might take a more positive view of the need for an amending treaty—or a number of amending treaties—to allow Europe to continue to advance.

The right hon. Gentleman talked about the backbone of a jellyfish, and about the need for the Government to be responsive and reflective. As the Chair of the European Scrutiny Committee, I believe that we have made remarkable strides in the past two years. Perhaps there was not a dialogue or a conversation, but there was certainly one-way traffic from those of us who did not think that the convention would bring in a proposal for a constitution, which was unnecessary, and that what should have been proposed was an amending treaty. That would have taken on the recommendation in the Laeken proposals to get closer to the people of Europe.

I would like to see the introduction of a red card. Such a card would be held not by the Government using the Whip, but by Parliament, where we could have a free vote on whether to demand that something be taken back by the Commission. There is now talk of an orange card being added to the yellow card. Anything better than a white card will suit me. The role of Parliaments should be strengthened with regard to the decisions that should be taken at this level under subsidiarity. I do not mind whether that involves repatriation on an item-by-item basis or a method of preventing the Commission from creeping—a term I use often—even further along with its proposals.

I am concerned that those who are demanding a referendum are not really debating the constitution proposals, but are trying to portray the European Union, as it currently stands, as a malevolent force. I do not see the European Union as a malevolent force, and I am sure that the shadow Foreign Secretary does not, although some of his Back-Bench colleagues might. I see it as a positive arrangement. It does need amendment, and he is wrong to think that an amending treaty is unnecessary. It is clear that the Commission is too large, and that the proposal to bring a series of presidencies into one consistent presidency title and process works. Recently, we went to Germany and then Portugal to see the informal troika arrangement. Rather than distinct changes from presidency to presidency, a consistent synergy and purposefulness can be achieved from one presidency to the next over five presidencies. The proposal is similar to that whereby the European Parliament renews its officers after a two-and-a-half-year term.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

I will not take interventions at the moment.

We need to consider seriously whether we would accept an amending treaty if the constitution is not introduced.

I agree that those who spend time in either the European Parliament or the European Commission have a tendency to go native. Perhaps those who get tied up in European Council meetings also move increasingly close to the Commission’s view. We must find a way of countering that, and the concept of a stronger card than a yellow card would deal with that. Clearly people went native on the convention, which was taken over by Giscard d’Estaing and other powerful figures and members of the Commission. They produced a treaty for a constitution, which was not what we thought they were setting out to produce. That has since been repudiated by the members of the convention from this Parliament—both the member representing the Opposition, who signed up to an amended treaty, and the member representing the Labour Benches. Questions have also been raised about whether the then Minister for Europe has doubts about what he signed up for. I could not necessarily be accused of undergoing that process, either at the time or afterwards. Last week, in a speech on the future of Europe, I said:

“The UK”—

both Parliament and people—

“will not be lectured, hectored or bullied”

into signing a treaty detrimental to the people of the UK.

We should pause to consider some facts. Many people outside do not necessarily understand the matter being discussed, and they are confused by the language that we use. People might want to read a good note in the Library about the concept of treaties. There is only really one treaty—the treaty of Rome. Every other treaty has merely amended the treaty of Rome. Even the treaty of Amsterdam—which changed all the numbering of the original treaty of Rome—and the Maastricht treaty were amending treaties. The treaty proposed by the convention, however, would have been different. It would have been a new treaty, because it collapsed all other treaties and proposed a constitution. People reacted against that more than anything else.

Even the shadow Foreign Secretary talked about EU law, but my understanding is that there is no EU law; there is EC—European Community—law. All the directives and regulations are EC directives, not EU directives. If the hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash)—he has left the Chamber quickly, probably to attend my Committee—is correct that the EC is to be changed to the EU, that would be a significant and fundamental matter, which I have not heard addressed by those on our Front Bench or anyone with whom I have debated the issue over the past couple of years. I would like that to be clarified.

What made the constitutional treaty a constitution were the fundamental points addressed by the Prime Minister. It is irritating that we have not been able to have an open dialogue during the period of reflection of the past couple of years. At the Liaison Committee, the Prime Minister made clear what he believed those points were. I am sorry that the shadow Foreign Secretary did not think that that changed the nature of what is proposed from Europe. Those with whom I have debated the issue in the European Parliament, COSAC meetings and future of Europe debates are certainly of the opinion that if the four points referred to by the Prime Minister are taken out, it will not be the constitution that they voted for. They do not want us to take those points out, but they should be taken out.

The Prime Minister made the position clear:

“What it does not need is a Constitutional Treaty or a treaty with the characteristics of a constitution, to put it in the words that the Dutch have used.”

He continued:

“First, we will not accept a treaty that allows the Charter of Fundamental Rights to change UK law in any way.”

Other countries want that and have spoken strongly in favour of it. If UK law is not affected, we should not stand in the way of those countries, because, as I think the shadow Foreign Secretary was saying, other countries have the right to make their decisions independently and to sign up to them.

The Prime Minister went on:

“Secondly, we will not agree to something which displaces the role of British foreign policy and our foreign minister.”

It is wrong to hold out as a threat the idea that those doing peacekeeping on behalf of the EU in, I think, 16 countries, should not be supported by some kind of bureaucracy that allows them to continue such fundamental work. That should not replace ours, or our seat at the UN, and the Prime Minister has made it clear that he would not allow that to happen.

The Prime Minister continued:

“Thirdly, we will not agree to give up our ability to control our common law and judicial and police system.”

That means that justice and home affairs, as recommended by the Home Affairs Committee, should not be transferred from the third to the first pillar, and should not therefore become subject to qualified majority voting. That is fundamental.

The Prime Minister went on:

“Fourthly, we will not agree to anything that moves to Qualified Majority Voting, something that can have a big say in our own tax and benefit system”.

In other words, we still have the veto. He made the position clear:

“we must have the right…to determine it by unanimity.”

Those four fundamental changes have been the result not just of the comments made by Opposition Members but by members of the European Scrutiny Committee, the Foreign Affairs Committee and like-minded people across the Chamber. I hope that that will change fundamentally the outcome of the Council meeting. If so, we will be talking not about a new constitution but about another amending treaty to the original treaty of Rome, which does not do any of the threatening things that the shadow Foreign Secretary has suggested. If he were in the Government and negotiating, at any time in the future, with his European counterparts, I am sure that he would agree with most of the common-sense proposals left in the original treaty. Some of them could be stripped out, and some of them, especially proposals relating to the power of parliaments, as opposed to the power of Executives, could be strengthened; I would certainly support that.

The institutional changes might founder on the Polish problem. When Poland signed up to the treaty of Nice, it was given a great deal, whereby it would have 27 votes, and Germany would have 29. Of course it signed up to that. It was rather strange that the convention then brought forward a proposal that would give Germany twice as many votes as Poland. How can one ask a country to enter a new system, and then change the voting balance? A wondrous system has been suggested whereby the number of votes a country has should be based on the square root of its population. Actually, it is quite simple: if Germany had nine votes, the UK would have eight votes, and Poland would have five and a half—alternatively, those countries would have 18, 16 and 11 votes respectively.

We need to deal with those institutional matters to get a solution. Agreement should not founder, however, on the myth that if the four fundamental parts of the amending treaty are taken out, a referendum will be required. I do not like referendums; they are not a sensible part of the system of government of this country. We have a liberal press, who would run the referendum according to what they thought the conditions were. With the best will in the world, even people like me, who are Euro-anoraks, could not make people understand the complexities of what we were voting on. It would be an emotional vote.

I hope that people will stop all this posturing, and wish the Prime Minister well in the coming Council. I hope that he will get an amending treaty that will safeguard Britain’s position, and I shall certainly support him in that.

Our debates on European affairs are among the most reliable features of the parliamentary calendar—reliable in that they turn up on schedule twice a year, and reliable in the predictable way in which they unfold—and that comforting familiarity has been on display in the Chamber again today.

With a few topical flourishes, today’s debate so far has been almost a rerun of the many debates on Europe that littered the period before and after the constitutional treaty finally appeared on the scene in 2004. It has been characterised by precious little being given away by the Secretary of State, save hints at red lines that have been well trailed in the media, and precious little being held back by the shadow Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague), who demanded that pretty well anything resembling a treaty—let alone a constitution—should merit a referendum. The hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty) made a characteristically robust speech.

I make no apologies for entering into the spirit of the afternoon by going over some old ground myself. However, as we have also observed today, there are topics other than the amending treaty that deserve some of our attention, and I hope to touch on one or two of them later.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the treaty of Rome. Whatever our thoughts about the future, we ought at the very least to reflect on that, and on what has been achieved in the intervening time. In the course of the expansion of the European Union from six to 27 member states, communist and fascist states have been transformed, and the risks of war within Europe have been largely put behind us. Democratic values and institutions have been the priorities for many countries striving to join the European Union, and those values have become entrenched once the countries have joined. Similarly, their prosperity has increased many times as they have become embedded in Europe’s trading system and economy of nearly 500 million people.

Over the last five decades Europe has learnt to work as a whole, and to tackle problems that are beyond the control of individual countries. In an era of globalisation, climate change and international terrorism, the requirement for countries to work together has not dimmed. Britain has been a beneficiary of that co-operation, not least in dealing with terrorism. We should remember that one of the suspects involved in the failed attempts to bomb the London Underground two years ago was extradited from Italy within days of his arrest in Rome. Such a fast-track process has only been made possible by co-operation in justice and home affairs. It is just one example of the importance of being part of the European Union. Rather than displaying the ambiguity of some in the Labour party or the barely concealed antipathy of many Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats’ approach recognises the importance of the European Union and the importance of the United Kingdom’s playing a full part in it.

The hon. Gentleman spoke of new European member states putting aside some of their communist and fascist past, but does he not agree that in countries such as Italy, Austria and Poland, proportional representation has allowed political views of that kind to rear their ugly heads again?

I do not wish to be distracted into a debate on voting systems, tempting as that might be. The point is that by embracing those countries within the European Union, we have strengthened their democratic traditions and the values that underpin their Governments and way of life in this modern era.

It is now some two years since the French and Dutch referendum votes cast Europe into what was politely termed its “period of reflection”. The Liberal Democrats welcome the German presidency’s efforts to leave behind that period of doubt and uncertainty, particularly as the recent accession of Romania and Bulgaria has only emphasised the inadequacy of the current institutional arrangements. However, we need to move beyond the current navel-gazing: the time has come for the Union to refocus on the real tests in Europe and abroad. Globally, the EU’s combined political and financial clout should be used to tackle global problems, not least in furthering international development as a force for good in the fight against poverty.

The hon. Gentleman suggested that the European Union could do better in the world as a collective than as a group of individual states. Surely that does not apply to aid, in respect of which Britain, for example, does a much better job than the European Union. Is there not a case for saying that although some of the very strong countries such as Germany, France, Italy, Britain and many others could work as a loose collective if they needed to, individually they can do tremendous work in the world, and indeed may be held back by the restrictive nature of the European Union?