House of Commons
Wednesday 20 February 2008
The House met at half-past Eleven o’clock
Prayers
[Mr. Speaker in the Chair]
Oral Answers to Questions
Northern Ireland
The Secretary of State was asked—
Paramilitary Organisations
Independent Monitoring Commission reports provide assessments of paramilitary organisations. The most recent report indicated that dissident republicans continue to pose a real threat, while the Provisional IRA is not involved in terrorist activity. Loyalist organisations clearly need to underpin their encouraging statements with actions.
It is clear that there is still a serious paramilitary problem, as the Secretary of State acknowledges. Would he care to comment on the sad case last week of Andrew Burns, a 27-year-old, who was dragged from Strabane over the border and murdered? Does the Secretary of State have any information that he can give to the House?
I understand the sincerity with which the right hon. Gentleman makes his point in relation to the murder of Andrew Burns last week. He was a 27-year-old single man from Strabane who was shot twice in a church car park on 12 February. The murder was of course roundly condemned by all politicians, including the Deputy First Minister, who very clearly said that he gave his wholehearted support to the Garda and the Police Service of Northern Ireland in their investigation. To date, no arrests have been made, but a police investigation is under way. As soon as I can give the right hon. Gentleman details of the investigation, I will be happy to do so.
Does the Secretary of State agree that loyalist paramilitary activity is still a serious threat to our society and that the refusal of the people involved to call a ceasefire, to disarm and to disband requires immediate and full security and policing attention? What additional actions and pressures does he intend to employ, rather than the continuation of what appears to be the current laissez-faire attitude towards such organisations?
I understand the hon. Gentleman’s remarks about his concern in relation to the threat from dissident loyalists. The most recent IMC report spoke about the pace of change remaining far too slow. I believe none the less that there is a genuine desire to make progress among the communities involved. It is important that, while we are not for one moment complacent about the threat posed by some loyalist individuals, huge advances are none the less being made. It is essential to recognise that the communities that are being held in the grip of paramilitary activity need every encouragement and help that we can find to ensure that they roundly turn on those who refuse to give up the ways of the past.
Does the Secretary of State agree that the continued existence of the IRA’s so-called army council is unacceptable and that it poses a threat to the devolved institutions? Will he join me and my colleagues today in calling for its immediate disbandment?
The hon. Gentleman makes a point that is more than familiar to and shared by many people. I would go as far as to say that all hon. Members and all people want those paramilitary vestiges of the past to be expunged as soon as possible. The critical issue here, though, is cross-community confidence. It is worth reminding him, and indeed all hon. Members, of the IMC’s firm view that PIRA is committed to the political path and of the fact that the IMC has no evidence to believe that PIRA will be diverted from that path. Therefore, the critical issue that has to be addressed is one of confidence.
I believe that there is growing confidence in Northern Ireland that we are now able to move to the second stage of devolution and to devolve policing and criminal justice. The sooner that is done, the sooner we will expunge those vestiges of the past, in every form.
The Secretary of State’s predecessor introduced a scheme for conflict transformation in Northern Ireland to assist loyalist paramilitaries to move away from violence and into peaceful mode. Can he say, on the basis of any security analysis that is available to him, whether he believes that that initiative is working?
I believe that the initiatives, which include the conflict transformation initiative, have been helpful in enabling communities to get themselves out of the grip of paramilitary activity. It is important to distinguish between the individuals who are involved in paramilitary-style behaviour and the communities that are in the grip of that behaviour. The money that was found for the conflict transformation initiative was money to help the latter.
As far as we are able to assess, considerable progress is being made by communities to get out of that grip, but there remains a duty on us all to help in any way we can any community that wants to leave behind the past and those vestiges of the past in relation to paramilitary activity, enabling it to do so and to move into the shared future, and a prosperous, peaceful future too.
In view of the murder last week near Strabane, the attacks on police officers last year and the threats mentioned by the hon. Member for South Down (Mr. McGrady), will the Secretary of State confirm that it is his policy to approve all applications by the police to carry out intercepts?
The hon. Gentleman brings together a number of issues. There is an ongoing threat that we need to tackle, but we also need to understand that interception or any other sort of surveillance will always be done in compliance with the law and the oversight of the relevant commissioners.
In the light of that helpful reply, will the right hon. Gentleman guarantee that intercept evidence will be admissible in Northern Ireland courts, in accordance with the recommendations of the Chilcot review?
The hon. Gentleman is right to refer to Chilcot’s work on intercept evidence. In my view, we should try, as far as we can, to include Northern Ireland in the implementation of the Chilcot recommendations for England and Wales. I am ensuring that those involved in the Chilcot follow-up that now takes place will look at Northern Ireland and, wherever possible, include it in the proposals that are made.
The Secretary of State says that he now wants to move on to the next stage of devolution—the devolution of policing and criminal justice—and my party shares that aspiration, but does he not accept that the continuing failure of some who hold elected office in Northern Ireland to acknowledge and accept the paramilitary involvement in the murder of Paul Quinn and Robert McCartney, and the subsequent disgraceful treatment of their families, makes the realisation of that aspiration very difficult?
Making progress on the next stage of devolution will be difficult. The St. Andrews agreement lays out a way forward and includes a timetable, but, critically, it is a matter for local politicians in Northern Ireland to agree on moving forward to the next stage. There are those in Northern Ireland, however—I do not include any elected politicians—who do not want progress to be made. They are small in number; they have no support in the community; and they are, by and large, characterised by dissident republican activists and those who would be involved in criminal activity—the sort of activity that led to the brutal murder, condemned by everybody, of Paul Quinn. The choice for politicians in Northern Ireland is this: do we allow those who would be involved in crime or the sort of activity that led to the murder of Paul Quinn to determine the future of everyone in Northern Ireland? I do not think that we should. I think that we should move to the next stage and leave those who commit crime and murder to be dealt with by law and put away in prison, where they belong.
Economic Prospects
The prospects for the economy in Northern Ireland are extremely good as a result of the peace process and stage 1 of the St Andrews agreement. I am sure that the completion of stage 2 will send a strong signal to attract further additional investment to Northern Ireland.
Sir David Varney’s recently published review of tax policy in Northern Ireland highlighted the challenges facing local businesses. What discussions have the Government had with the relevant Northern Ireland Minister on assisting small business to grow and on sustaining that growth, thereby reducing dependency on the public sector for employment?
By and large, those are now matters for the devolved Assembly, the Executive and the Finance Minister and his colleagues in Northern Ireland. However, I say to the hon. Lady that if we look at the economy in Northern Ireland today, we see that unemployment has halved, the growth rate is the second highest in the UK, exports have increased and Belfast today attracts more inward investment than any city in the UK other than London. The Assembly and the Executive are taking enormous strides to attract inward investment, and the Government’s policy is to do all that we can to assist them in future.
My right hon. Friend has outlined the record of the booming economy in Northern Ireland. What specific measures are being taken to ensure that the new-found prosperity in the north is reaching the poorest communities by removing barriers relating to transport and affordable child care, for example, and by upgrading skills?
Many of those issues are now matters for the Assembly and the devolved Departments, and they must make their own decisions about the allocation of money. I commend the budget and the work being done by the Finance Minister in Northern Ireland to ensure that the settlements that are being produced are fair for every Department and that they recognise the need for the prosperity in Northern Ireland to be shared by everyone in all communities and not just by the few.
I and my colleagues in the Northern Ireland Executive have put growing the economy at the centre of the programme for government, and we are putting investment into that objective. We acknowledge the role that the Secretary of State and his colleagues have played in regard to the forthcoming investment conference in May. In relation to fiscal and other tax changes and reforms, does he agree that the Treasury and others could do more to help Northern Ireland, given its unique position in sharing a land border with the Irish Republic, our strongest competitor for foreign direct investment? Does he accept that more could be done to put Northern Ireland on a level playing field in that regard?
I am sure that there is always more that could be done by any of us, in any field of public life. In relation to investment in Northern Ireland, the hon. Gentleman has spearheaded the preparations for the investment conference that is to be held in May, in which my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, and the Government in America, continue to take a close interest. I believe that it will be a very successful conference, and that will be in no small part due to the work of the hon. Gentleman.
In regard to what more we can do, we stand ready to help in every way that we can, but we must recognise that the public sector in Northern Ireland represents more than 70 per cent. of the economy, and bringing those areas into the private sector—as well as the relevant areas remaining in the public sector—will present enormous potential for economic growth.
Prisoners
The regimes available to long-term and life-sentenced prisoners in Northern Ireland include education, skills training and offender behaviour programmes. These prisoners are subject to detailed risk assessments, which inform their resettlement or life sentence plan.
Does the Minister agree that a good quality resettlement programme will not only improve the mental ability of prisoners while they are in prison but cut reoffending? The Northern Ireland Affairs Committee’s first report makes it clear, however, that there are shortages of such provision in prisons such as Maghaberry. Would it not make sense to address such shortages, in order to cut recidivism and to reduce the crime rate overall?
I warmly welcome the report from the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, which was produced after extensive research and many visits to the prisons in Northern Ireland. We are putting the investment in. I announced before Christmas that an additional 400 prison places would be built over the next two years, and we are also putting more investment into the kind of offender behaviour programmes to which the hon. Gentleman refers. He is right: when a prisoner has his or her liberty taken away, that is the punishment, but our responsibility—and that of the Prison Service—is to ensure that they are rehabilitated and that they have the skills and education necessary to enable them to come out of prison and lead normal, law-abiding lives.
Will my hon. Friend say a little more about how the reintegration of released long-term prisoners can play a part in building a new, more inclusive society, and in finally drawing a line under ancient hostilities?
Indeed. It is important that everyone plays their part in building a more cohesive Northern Ireland, not least those who have been subjected to prison sentences. Every prisoner who has been subjected to a long-term or a life sentence is thoroughly assessed some three years before they are released to determine the appropriate plan for them. For some, release by the tariff date set by the judge will not be possible; for others, it will. In every case, however, we must ensure that people have skills, a job and a home to live in, so that they can build and maintain family relationships. All those things are vital for the individual offender, but also for the wider community.
There is great concern in Northern Ireland not only about long-term prisoners but about the number of people who are held for a short term in jail as a result of the non-payment of fines. Given that only 1 per cent. of those who have been brought to court for fuel smuggling ever finish up in jail, and that fine defaulters are regularly put in jail, will the Minister tell us what plans he has to ensure that organised criminals get hefty jail sentences, and to deal with the issue of the fine defaulters who are taking up space in our prisons?
The hon. Gentleman makes a very important point, reflecting some of the recommendations and findings of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, of which he is a member. Urgent and radical action is being taken to ensure that we rebalance the criminal justice system in Northern Ireland to make sure that the dangerous offender spends longer in prison while those who commit less serious offences are dealt with in the community.
The hon. Gentleman raised the issue of fine defaults. It is outrageous that 30 per cent. of all admissions to prison last year in Northern Ireland were for defaults on fines, the majority of which were small fines of just a few hundred pounds. We have to find alternatives in the community to ensure that those people pay back. As to oil fraud and fuel smuggling, I had a meeting yesterday with the Organised Crime Task Force, and I gave officials one month to come back with an action plan to deal with the problem and make sure that the law is properly enforced.
The Minister mentioned that 30 per cent. of prison receptions are for fine defaulters, but the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee report suggests that the figure is 59 per cent. in comparison with just 2.2 per cent. in England and Wales. Some of these people spend as little as 24 hours in prison, causing a complete disruption of the Prison Service of Northern Ireland. Is it not a complete waste of resources to put people in prison on that basis?
I agree, and I am pleased that we are now giving some real focus to this particular issue. The figure is 30 per cent. of prison admissions last year, but the hon. Gentleman is quite right to say that that this is a terrible waste of resources. It costs £1 million or more each year just to administer the system of sending fine defaulters to prison. We will bring forward further proposals to deal with the problem—for example, attachment of benefit orders and attachment of earning orders—to make sure that people pay the fines without the expensive waste of putting them in prison for just a few days.
Saville Inquiry
I am advised that the Bloody Sunday inquiry has so far cost £181 million and that approximately half of that has been spent on legal services.
The Secretary of State should be ashamed to put that grotesque figure before the House. Is it not the case that nothing better demonstrates the Prime Minister’s twisted sense of priorities than the farce of the Saville inquiry, which is now threatening to outrun “The Mousetrap”? Would it not have been better to have spent this nearly £200 million on giving our armed forces the equipment they need, rather than lining the pockets of lawyers?
I understand the excitement that the hon. Gentleman wishes to generate on this issue, but a little less heat and little more light would be appropriate. First of all, it is essential to separate the cost of this inquiry from its value. The decision to hold the inquiry was absolutely critical to engaging Northern Ireland on the peaceful, prosperous and stable path on which it now lies. Costs are, of course, an issue, which is why the Government introduced the Inquiries Act 2005 and why new inquiries are being held under that Act. The Saville inquiry was established under terms before the Inquiry Act, and although we have done what we can to try to control costs, those costs are a matter for the inquiry rather than for the Government, as the hon. Gentleman well knows. He should be careful not to twist the facts and distort the issue, which runs the risk of trampling on the sensitivities of the families who lost their loved ones.
I totally agree with the Secretary of State that it is important to try to get—[Interruption.]
Order. Let the hon. Gentleman speak.
It is important to try to reach an agreed view of the facts, if that is at all possible, but saying that this inquiry has up to now been conducted in a time-consuming, leisurely and unbusinesslike fashion would surely be an understatement. Will the Government introduce some new disciplines—financial disciplines—that those concerned will understand to ensure a greater degree of urgency and focus as the inquiry proceeds?
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to distinguish the value of the inquiry from the cost. Members are also right to want to ask questions about the cost of the legal claims behind the inquiry. However, the legislation establishing the Bloody Sunday inquiry gives the Government no statutory powers to control costs. We have done what we can. We introduced rates for counsel and solicitors in 2004, and I have made representations to Lord Saville, but I am afraid that this remains a matter for him and for the inquiry.
The Secretary of State talks about value. He has told the House that more than £181 million has been spent on the inquiry. Has he considered two points? First, the inquiry will not bring closure. Relatives have already said that they want prosecutions to follow the expenditure of that £181 million. Secondly, the inquiry will not bring back to life the loved ones—more than 2,000 people—of relatives who have already not seen closure. That issue remains unresolved.
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. As he says, this process will not bring closure of the issues raised; it will simply produce a conclusion to an inquiry into the events of Bloody Sunday. As for all the families who have lost loved ones, it must be said that it is unrealistic to imagine that there will be an inquiry about the people—up to 4,000—who were murdered during the course of the troubles in Northern Ireland.
The work done by the consultation group on the past, chaired by Lord Eames and Denis Bradley, is extremely important in helping us to establish whether we can find a way of dealing with the past that does not involve spending hundreds of millions of pounds on inquiries. Those inquiries have mattered until now, and of course they matter to those who have lost loved ones, but we do not think that they will bring closure to all the families who have suffered such terrible tragedy.
Does the Secretary of State recognise the compound hurt of Bloody Sunday, caused not just by the deaths that day but by the travesty of the Widgery tribunal, which erected lies on stilts and interned the memory of innocent people without truth? The reliance of so many people on Widgery as the true verdict on what happened that day is what necessitated a new inquiry. Can the Secretary of State tell us by how much the legal costs were inflated by the chicane of legal challenges to the Saville inquiry from the military and related interests, and will he tell us what consideration he—
Order. The supplementary question is far too long.
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point about the need to establish the Saville inquiry, and the important role that it has played over the last few years in building confidence in all communities that the justice system will be fair and ensure parity across the board. This is a sensitive issue and I cannot give him answers to his specific legal questions, but he may wish to write to Lord Saville himself.
South Armagh
The security situation in south Armagh is being transformed. Police today operate without military support and enjoy unprecedented co-operation from the local community, especially with Sinn Fein joining both the Policing Board and district policing partnerships.
Does the Secretary of State agree that in spite of those welcome developments and the increasing co-operation between the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the Garda Siochana there are still real worries in south Armagh? Is he not disturbed, as I am, that no one has yet been arrested for the murder of Paul Quinn?
The hon. Gentleman is right about the concern that exists in south Armagh, throughout Northern Ireland and throughout the whole United Kingdom, and indeed in the Republic of Ireland, about the murder of Paul Quinn. We all want to see those responsible for that murder brought to justice. However, let me repeat to him what the district commander of south Armagh told my hon. Friend the Minister of State this morning during a conversation about the issue. The situation in south Armagh is improving. The communities are showing a greater engagement with the police in helping with all inquiries. Let me give just one example: the fact that today we see the police being invited into schools in Crossmaglen is a huge step forward. Notwithstanding the savage, brutal murder of Paul Quinn, we must not lose sight of the progress that is being made.
The Independent Monitoring Commission and the Chief Constable have acknowledged that the dissident republican groups in south Armagh and throughout Northern Ireland pose a major threat. We send troops across the world with a determined goal of crushing terrorism. When will the Government do that in Northern Ireland? Are we consigned to another 30 years of this activity because of a dissident threat from republicanism?
This Government are absolutely determined to bear down on terrorism wherever it happens. We continue to bear down on all paramilitary activity in Northern Ireland, and we will work closely with the police forces in Northern Ireland and in the Republic to ensure that those who pose a threat—it is a small but none the less significant threat—to the lives of ordinary people will be dealt with. We will bring them to justice as soon as we can.
Prime Minister
The Prime Minister was asked—
Engagements
Before I list my engagements, I am sure that the whole House will wish to join me in sending our profound condolences to the family and friends of Corporal Damian Lawrence of 2nd Battalion the Yorkshire Regiment, who was killed in Afghanistan on Sunday evening. We owe him, and others who have lost their lives, a deep debt of gratitude.
This morning, I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I shall have further such meetings later today.
I am sure the whole House will wish to add their condolences to those of the Prime Minister.
The fact that Labour Members welcome the decision to bring Northern Rock into public ownership may not come as a surprise. It was the right decision at the right time. However, given that the public purse is now to bear the risk of Northern Rock, can my right hon. Friend give my constituents the guarantee that when Northern Rock goes back into private ownership all the returns will come back to the taxpayer?
Yes, the benefits will return to the taxpayer. I welcome the chance to explain the background to how we will deal with the long-term interests of the taxpayer. Our first decision on Northern Rock was to ensure the stability of the economy, to prevent the problems at Northern Rock from spreading to the rest of the economy in a period of global financial turbulence—that has been achieved. Our second decision was to protect depositors—that has been achieved. Our third decision was to protect the long-term interests of the taxpayer. That is why it was right to invite bids from all quarters, to examine them thoroughly and to make the right decision on the basis of the long-term interests of taxpayers. That is why we will return Northern Rock from temporary public ownership to the private sector only when we can get the best deal for the taxpayer. Stability is our watchword. The interests of taxpayers will come first.
First, may I join the Prime Minister in paying tribute to Corporal Damian Lawrence, who was killed in Afghanistan on Sunday? He died serving our country. May I also take the opportunity to wish the Prime Minister a happy 57th birthday? [Interruption.] Enough of that.
In January last year, the Government were sent details of 4,000 dangerous foreign criminals and for an entire year they did absolutely nothing with that information. Can the Prime Minister explain how such a catastrophic failure to protect the public took place?
The Attorney-General has asked the Crown Prosecution Service to conduct an inquiry into this matter. A request was made by the Dutch authorities for us to look through our DNA records. Some 4,000 names were put to us by the Dutch, and 11 cases have been discovered as a result of the investigation. The inquiry will cover all the details of what happened. I must tell the right hon. Gentleman that it was possible for the Dutch to ask us to look at our DNA records only because we are keeping full DNA records. The Conservatives opposed that legislation.
The Prime Minister tells us that there is an inquiry, but there always is an inquiry with this Government—frequently it is a police inquiry. The Prime Minister is somehow pretending that the fact that 4,000 details were left on a civil servant’s desk for a year was a triumph of Government policy. I must ask some simple questions. He has told us about 11 criminals who have committed crimes in Britain this year. Can he tell us what crimes they committed?
The crimes, as I understand it, were assault and non-payment of fines. Those are the crimes that have been identified. The full report will reveal the final details, but I must ask the right hon. Gentleman again whether he now supports DNA being kept by the Government. The Conservatives voted against the Criminal Justice Act 2003. The Dutch would not have asked us for those details had we not had the DNA, but the right hon. Gentleman was against that measure.
As ever, the Prime Minister is completely wrong. The first DNA legislation was passed when my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) was Home Secretary and I was working for him. I seem to remember—[Interruption.] Let us be clear: if the Government had acted on the information, crimes could have been prevented. As the Prime Minister said, some of those crimes were serious violent assaults. Why are the Government so incompetent when it comes to processing information about criminals? They failed to deport the foreign criminals; they failed to process the details of 30,000 British citizens who committed crimes overseas; and now we know that information about serious crimes sat on a desk in Whitehall for a year and nothing was done. Should not people conclude that this incompetent Government simply cannot keep them safe?
The right hon. Gentleman is entirely wrong about the deportation of foreign criminals. Two years ago, only 1,500 were deported. Last year, as a result of the action that we have taken, 4,200 were deported. We are now signing agreements with Jamaica and Nigeria, and I have raised the matter with China and Vietnam, so that we can deport foreign criminals. No records of the deportation of foreign criminals were kept under the Conservatives; we have deported 4,200.
I come back to the central question. We have tightened up the law on DNA and that is why the Dutch authorities want the information from us. The right hon. Gentleman opposed that legislation. Has he now changed his mind?
Will my right hon. Friend create a badge of honour for the women Spitfire pilots of the second world war and their male colleagues in the Air Transport Auxiliary, who came from 28 countries to ferry more than 300,000 aircraft to front-line airfields during this country’s direst hour of need?
My hon. Friend has mounted a successful campaign to raise the issue of the women Spitfire pilots in particular. We now have medals for those people who are veterans of the war and for those who served in the Land Army. It is right in my view that we have recognition for the women Spitfire pilots who did so much to protect and defend the Royal Air Force and other military services, and we will go ahead with his proposal for a medal for those people.
I wish to add my own expressions of condolence and sympathy to the family and friends of Corporal Damian Lawrence.
This being the Prime Minister’s birthday, I welcome his belated acceptance of the advice from the Liberal Democrats that the temporary nationalisation of Northern Rock was the only workable option available to him, although he now seems to be jeopardising the interests of British taxpayers all over again by hiving off the bank’s best assets elsewhere. Will he now admit that if he had acted sooner he could have saved the taxpayer the tens of millions of pounds frittered away on bidders’ costs and prevented the untold damage done to this country’s reputation as a world financial centre?
I thank the right hon. Gentleman and the Leader of the Opposition for their best wishes on my birthday.
I also thank the right hon. Gentleman for raising the question of Northern Rock, which the Leader of the Opposition was reticent to raise, given that his party has six policies on the issue and has now decided on the worst possible option. As far as the Liberal Democrats’ policy is concerned, we were right to look at all possible options and we were right to invite private buyers to make offers. Because we will be subject to legal action, we were right to look in detail at every possible bid, and we were right to draw the conclusion, after considering every possible bid, that the temporary public ownership of Northern Rock was the best way forward. As far as Granite is concerned, I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that it will not affect the sale of Northern Rock to a private buyer.
Well, we might agree about the economically illiterate proposals from the Conservative party, but we disagree on why it took the Prime Minister so long to act on Northern Rock. Will he now agree to act in following our lead more urgently on another issue—namely, the scandalous profiteering by UK energy companies at a time when 25,000 people are predicted to die from the cold this winter alone? Does he realise those companies stand to make a £9 billion windfall profit from the European emissions trading scheme? Does he agree that that excess profit, equivalent to about £360 for every British family in this country, should be handed back to the neediest customers through lower energy prices?
I stress to the right hon. Gentleman that we were right to look at all possible options for Northern Rock before we took the decision that we did. If we had not done that, we would be subject to even greater legal action for not looking rigorously at all options. As far as energy is concerned, let me say that we are looking at the advice of the director general of Ofgem on that very matter. I have to say to the right hon. Gentleman that it was the Labour Government who introduced the winter allowance, which is helping thousands of elderly people. It was the Labour Government who raised it to £300 for the over- 80s. It was the Liberal Democrats and the Conservative party who opposed the winter allowance.
The Prime Minister recently completed a successful tour of China to promote better co-operation between the two countries and their economies. Wigan council will shortly be signing an agreement with a Chinese company to bring in £125 million of investment and create 1,000 jobs in the local economy. Will the Prime Minister join me in congratulating the council? May I ask him to use his best offices to ensure that if there are any problems, central Government will play its part in overcoming them to ensure that the development is completed as rapidly as possible?
I was talking to Premier Wen of China by telephone yesterday. I must confess that I did not specifically raise the question of investment in Wigan; I now regret that. We have excellent commercial and trading links with China. What is happening in Wigan and the new attempts at new investment in this area are to be welcomed. We have set a target of increasing trade between ourselves and China by 50 per cent. over the next two years. I believe that Wigan and the whole of the north-west will benefit from that. I shall ensure that in my next telephone call with the Premier I mention the needs of Wigan.
I think it is true to say that in the recent foot and mouth outbreak the British supermarkets helped the farm industry. They tried their best to ensure that British food was being sold in British supermarkets. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that issues have been raised by the Competition Commission. We will look at this matter, and I will write to the hon. Gentleman.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. She has taken up the issue of climate change both in her constituency and in this House. I agree that we might need to be far more radical in the targets that we set for cutting carbon emissions. We have set a target of 60 per cent. for 2050. We have now set up the new committee on climate change and will ask it to look at a new target of 80 per cent., which is a far bigger cut in carbon emissions than before. We are the first country in the world to have legislation that legally requires the Government to ensure that carbon emissions are cut every decade. In particular, of course, we will take action in the next few years to get a new world climate change agreement.
David Cameron.
What about Northern Rock?
Yes, Northern Rock. If the Prime Minister wants a question on Northern Rock, here is one for him. Last night, we learned that Northern Rock will not be subject to the Freedom of Information Act. I have the legislation here, and it says that, for the purposes of the Freedom of Information Act, Northern Rock is
“not…a publicly-owned company.”
What is the Prime Minister trying to hide?
The only reason that the Freedom of Information Act comes into this is that it would be unfair on Northern Rock if other companies knew everything about its business plan. It is surely a matter of commercial confidentiality that Northern Rock should be able to plan its business future. As far as the commercial future of Northern Rock is concerned, we have made it absolutely clear that the bank’s new head, Ron Sandler, will operate in a commercial market. He will be able to decide on repossessions and all other issues, and he will put forward his plan for the restructuring of the company.
However, it may be helpful if the Conservative party would explain its plan—which is now to run down Northern Rock and to have a fire sale of its assets and get less than market value for them. That is the worst possible deal for the taxpayer.
The Prime Minister’s answer is feeble. All other publicly owned companies, such as the Post Office, Scottish Water, the Tote and National Savings and Investments, are subject to the freedom of information legislation. Let me remind the Prime Minister, the supreme leader, of what he said about freedom of information in his lecture about liberty. He said:
“Freedom of information is the right course because government belongs to the people, not the politicians”,
but that it
“can be inconvenient, at times frustrating and indeed embarrassing for governments”.
Is not that why he is covering things up?
Not at all, and perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will publish the reports from the Midlands Industrial Council, which is a Conservative organisation. Everyone in the country will know that, in a competitive mortgage market, it would be ridiculous to ask Northern Rock to publish every detail of its business plans. Commercial confidentiality has to be respected in the running of the company, and he should be the first to support it.
The Government were happy to show Richard Branson all the facts, but they will not tell the British public. Here are some of the questions about Northern Rock that the Prime Minister will not answer. What is the total liability for the taxpayer, and how much money will the taxpayer pay for the business? He will not tell us. How long are we going to hold the business? He cannot say. Should the business get bigger or smaller? He will not tell us.
Last night, at 10 minutes to midnight, we found out that half of the mortgages—the best half—are owned by somebody else. When it comes to this Government and freedom of information, they would make Fidel Castro proud. Why is the Prime Minister covering all that up?
We have acted on Northern Rock for reasons that the country supports—to secure stability and to protect depositors and the best interests of the taxpayer. We are not going to reduce the Northern Rock issue to the student politics that the Leader of the Opposition is indulging in. We are the party of stability; the Opposition would leave Northern Rock and the economy unstable.
The issues that concern the country are mortgages, inflation, our country’s economic growth and jobs. My hon. Friend is right to point out that we have taken action on Northern Rock to preserve the stability of the economy. Over the past six months, when we have seen the worst of global financial turbulence in America and the rest of Europe, we have managed to isolate the problems of Northern Rock so that they have not infected the rest of the economy. The Opposition should at least understand that we are better placed to deal with those problems because of the actions that the Government have taken.
As far the general economy is concerned, we have more people in work than ever before and lower unemployment than at any time since the 1970s. Today, we published the best January figures for the public finances in our history, and inflation and interest rates are half what they were under the Conservatives.
Professor Sir John Tooke, in his inquiry on modernising medical careers, found that the United Kingdom is the only country in the European Union to apply the European working time directive in the way that we do. It is a way that endangers the delivery of consultant-led maternity and children’s services at hospitals such as mine, the Horton general hospital in Banbury. Sir John recommended that the Government look again at how the European working time directive is applied. Will the Government do so?
I believe that we are not the only country in that position, but I can tell the hon. Gentleman that we are going to reply to the Tooke report, and that that will happen in the next few weeks.
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I applaud the way that she has taken up the issue of youth employment in her constituency and in the country. Youth unemployment has fallen by more than 60 per cent. over the last 10 years, but there is more to do. That is why the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions is today putting forward proposals to deal with people who are long-term unemployed. That is also why we are increasing the number of apprenticeships in our economy, and that is also why, for those who are not able to get apprenticeships because they do not have the qualifications, we are going to introduce pre-apprenticeship courses so that young people without qualifications who have left school with nothing can get on apprenticeship courses. Those are the practical ways of making the new deal relevant to the new situation. The worst thing to do would be, as the Opposition want to do, to abolish the new deal.
I share the hon. Gentleman’s concerns. I think it is true to say, as I have looked at it, that the British Board of Film Classification has put a higher category on many films in a different way from that recommended by the distributor, but it is also true to say that he expresses the concerns of many people among the general public. That is why I have agreed to meet him and my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz) to talk about the issues, and why we set up the review headed by Dr. Tanya Byron. It will report very soon, and on the basis of that we can make recommendations for the future. As for the Conservatives who say it is wrong to review the issues, I say that the right thing to do is to review them and then make a decision.
I applaud the work of my hon. Friend’s health authority. I visited his constituency and saw at first hand the improvements that have been made. In the north-west, there are 11,000 more nurses than there were when we came to power, but he is absolutely right about access to GPs. Our proposals are for practices to open for three more hours at weekends or in the evenings. That is a sensible proposal to deal with the concerns of millions of families who want access to their GPs at weekends or out of ordinary working hours. I hope that doctors will accept the proposal, which is funded by the Department of Health. That is the right way forward, so that millions of people can have access to their GPs at the time that they want them and need them.
The Prime Minister will be aware that the horrific murder of Paul Quinn casts a serious shadow over the stability of devolved institutions in Northern Ireland. Serious allegations have been made about the involvement of current members of the Provisional IRA in that murder. Will the Prime Minister reiterate the commitment given that if any party—in this case, Sinn Fein—is found to be in default, he will not punish all the parties in Northern Ireland but ensure that devolution continues and that only the party in default is punished? It is absolutely vital to send a clear message to the people of Northern Ireland, who are growing increasingly concerned about the seriousness of the allegations.
I share the hon. Gentleman’s concern that the Quinn murder should be properly investigated. I have reason to believe that that is exactly what is happening, and there is co-operation on both sides of the border for that to happen. There is no evidence that IRA people are involved, but of course that must be investigated in full. Once that is investigated, we will know the full results. I hope the hon. Gentleman would agree that no criminals should be allowed to derail a peace process that has the support of millions of people in Northern Ireland, which he and others have played a great part in moving forward, so let us send out a message that no criminals will be allowed to derail the peace process.
I agree. All those matters will be the subject of debate over the next few months.
According to official Government figures—so it must be true—since 1997 the real cost of travelling by train has gone up 6 per cent. above inflation, the cost of going by bus is up 13 per cent. and the cost of going by car is down 10 per cent. Why does the Prime Minister want to penalise the public transport user? How does that help his climate change objectives and his social exclusion strategy?
We have doubled investment in railways and made it possible for hundreds of millions more people to do rail journeys in a year as a result of those decisions. The railway industry needed modernisation and that is what has been done. With reference to buses, I hope the hon. Gentleman will agree with our policy whereby there is now free national concessionary travel for all pensioners.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising the matter. I know that she works closely with the Community Security Trust. Its recent report shows that there has indeed been a rise in the number of anti-Semitic crimes in this country, which is much to be regretted. It needs the strong action of the police and of course the public to root it out. One area where the rise has been most noted is on the campuses of universities. That is completely unacceptable, so we shall work with the Community Security Trust to do everything we can to deal with what are hate crimes that should be condemned by all sensible people in this country.
Baby Jessica Randall was just 54 days old when she was murdered by her now imprisoned father, after having been repeatedly beaten and sexually assaulted. In her short life, she spent 21 days in Kettering general hospital and was seen by 30 separate health care workers. Is it right that, in cases like Jessica’s, senior and often extremely well-paid directors in our health care services and social services should collectively slope their shoulders and refuse to accept individual responsibility for their failure to protect such vulnerable children?
The hon. Gentleman raises a very sad and tragic case. I will investigate what he has said about Jessica and what happened to her, and I will write to him.
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. He has taken up the issues of development across Africa and Asia and has done so in a most eloquent way. It is true to say that one of the greatest tragedies which is avoidable is the number of mothers who die in childbirth. That happens to half a million mothers a year. That means that one mother is dying every minute, and in some countries, like Sierra Leone, one in every seven mothers dies in childbirth, compared with one in over 3,000 in countries like ours. Those are avoidable deaths, which harm the very children that are being born. It is therefore vital that we do more about it. That is why we are spending more on health care systems, why we are determined to help countries to reach development goals on maternal mortality, and why we have formed the International Health Partnership. I hope my right hon. Friend will agree that we are pushing forward other countries to do exactly as we are doing—that is, investing in maternal health.
I am not sure whether there is universal agreement about the hon. Gentleman’s interpretation of those figures, but I will certainly look at what he says. The fact of the matter is that this is a consultation process—people are free to put their views, and then a decision will be made.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I had a most enjoyable visit to his constituency in the best of weather. I met those at the Valley airfield and congratulated them on the great work that they are doing in air and sea rescue, including a major rescue off Blackpool, which saved many lives a few weeks ago.
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Some 100,000 more jobs are being created in Wales, many in his constituency. That depends on having a UK Government who run a successful economic policy. There is no Wales-only, Scotland-only or England-only solution to these issues. It is a United Kingdom economy, and under a Labour Government it will continue to do well.
Earned Citizenship
With permission, Mr. Speaker—[Interruption]
Order. Hon. Members must leave the Chamber quietly.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I should like to make a statement on immigration and the path to British citizenship. Today I laid copies of the earned citizenship Green Paper in the Library of the House.
Britain is a tolerant and fair-minded country. The British public know that carefully managed migration brings great benefits for the UK—economic, social and cultural. However, I also recognise and understand concerns about the impact of migration on local public services. At a time of change, we have responded to the need to control migration to the benefit of Britain, and to protect our borders.
We have made substantial progress in recent years, and we are seeing the results: record numbers of foreign national prisoners were deported last year; fingerprint checks are now in place for all visas for those travelling to Britain; and asylum applications are now being processed more quickly than ever before. This year, we are delivering further radical changes to the UK’s immigration system.
First, we are ensuring that those who come to Britain do so in Britain’s interests. The Australian-style points-based system, which goes live at the end of this month, will allow only those whom we need to come to work and study. Secondly, we have strengthened how we police the system and protect our borders. We will soon have systems in place to count people in and out of the country. From 1 April, the UK Border Agency will bring together the work of the Border and Immigration Agency, UKvisas and Customs at British ports of entry. Later this year, we will begin to introduce compulsory identity cards for foreign nationals who wish to stay in the UK, making it clear whether they are allowed to work and how long they can stay.
Building on those measures, today’s Green Paper sets out our plans for the third phase of immigration reform—ensuring that the path to British citizenship reinforces our shared values. Today we are setting out a new deal for citizenship, in which the rights and benefits of British citizenship are matched by the responsibilities and contributions that we expect of newcomers to the UK.
Our proposals are based on the UK-wide programme of listening events that we have conducted over the past five months with the British public, and in framing our proposals, we have taken their views into account. They were clear about what we should expect of newcomers who choose to come to the UK and start on the path to citizenship—that they should speak English; that they should work hard and pay tax; that they should obey the law; and that they should get involved in and contribute to community life.
British people want the system to be fair and transparent, and I am clear that progress to citizenship should be earned. The Green Paper proposes that all migrants coming to the UK will be admitted as temporary residents. A limited number of categories—highly skilled and skilled workers, those joining family and those granted our protection—will then be able to apply to become probationary citizens for a time-limited period. Probationary citizenship is a new and crucial stage in our immigration system, and it will determine whether a migrant can progress to full citizenship or permanent residence.
The Green Paper sets out clear expectations of migrants as they move through the stages of that journey. We will expect the vast majority of highly skilled and skilled workers entering under the points-based system to speak English, and we are consulting on whether spouses entering on marriage visas should be able to speak some English before arrival. In order to become a probationary citizen, we will expect everyone to demonstrate English and knowledge of life in the UK.
Refugees who legitimately require our protection will continue to receive their current entitlements. We will continue to expect temporary residents to support themselves without general access to benefits. We now propose to defer full access to benefits and services until migrants have successfully completed the probationary citizenship phase, so that they are expected to contribute economically and support themselves and their dependants until such time as they become British citizens or permanent residents. It is at that point that they will have full access to our benefits and services.
We expect people coming to this country to obey our laws. As well as deporting record numbers of foreign national prisoners, we will refuse applications to stay or progress from anyone given a prison sentence, so that they will be denied access to British citizenship and will lose their right to stay. There should also be consequences for those given non-custodial sentences. We propose, therefore, that minor offences should slow down progress to the full benefits of citizenship. Such offenders should need to demonstrate compliance with our laws over an extended period to earn the right to progress in the journey to citizenship. I believe that criminality should halt, or slow down, progress on the path to British citizenship, but also that we should reward those who play a more active role in the community. We will therefore enable people to move more quickly through the system where they have made a positive contribution to British life by, for example, volunteering with a charity.
I am today proposing a fund to help local service providers to deal with the impacts on our local communities of rapid changes in population. Money for the fund will come from charging migrants an additional amount on immigration application fees.
At a European level, we are making a concerted effort with member states to deal, for example, with criminal activity by European economic area nationals. We deported 500 EEA nationals last year, and we will continue that robust approach by identifying ways to return them more easily to their countries of origin. I can today announce that we are setting up two new units to work across Departments on how in turn we work with European Union partners to tighten our provisions on criminality and benefits. We will also work closely with employers to ensure that workers can speak the necessary standard of English.
Finally, the Green Paper sets out proposals to simplify and consolidate immigration law, allowing us to increase the efficiency of decision making, strengthen public confidence in the system, and minimise the likelihood of delays and inconsistency in decision making.
Our proposals will make it easier for migrants, decision makers and the public as a whole to understand the rules and have confidence in their operation. This is a comprehensive package of measures to strengthen our immigration system and reinforce our shared values. It will deliver a clear journey to British citizenship that balances rights and benefits with responsibilities and contributions. I commend the statement to the House.
I thank the Home Secretary for early sight of the statement. My I begin by asking her what has happened to the report on citizenship by Lord Goldsmith that was promised in Queen’s Speech? How does that fit in with what she has announced today?
In the Green Paper, the Government are proposing yet another immigration Bill—the seventh under this Government. The Home Secretary says that the current system is too complicated. Who does she think is to blame for that? If merely passing new immigration laws made our borders secure, we would already have the safest borders in the world, which we clearly do not.
I shall start with the issue of citizenship. The Home Secretary now says that she wants to restrict citizenship to those who have earned it. But it was her Government who relaxed the requirements in the first place, when, in 2004, they removed the requirement to provide a passport to support the application. They dropped the standards so far that they awarded citizenship to Muktar Ibrahim after he had spent three years in prison for violent crime, and had been arrested for disseminating extremist literature. He then used his British passport to travel to Pakistan to train as a would-be suicide bomber. At least, I suppose, these new rules—limited and late as they are—would have presumably denied him citizenship. But can the Home Secretary explain how her new system would have stopped Abu Hamza gaining citizenship? He became a citizen through his British wife. Under the new system he might have to wait two years before he became a probationary citizen, then another year if he could demonstrate “active citizenship”. The proposed system would not have stopped him gaining that citizenship.
I would like the Home Secretary to address a serious unresolved issue. In many cases, the granting of UK citizenship, probationary or permanent, will result in the loss of original nationality under the laws of the country that the individual comes from. Does the Home Secretary understand that that could make British citizenship permanent? Under international law, it is not possible to render a person stateless. It is not possible to take away British citizenship from a person if they have lost their original nationality—it is not like a probationary driving licence. Such action could be irreversible and irrevocable under international law and therefore under UK law.
Any period of probation must be a prior condition of citizenship, not a part of it, and I would like the Home Secretary to explain that. Moreover, that period should be much longer than one year; five years would be more appropriate. For a foreign citizen, we should always remember that British citizenship is a privilege, not a right.
Much of what the Home Secretary has said is an attempt to talk tough without taking effective measures, but she has at least finally admitted, for the first time, that public services are affected by large-scale immigration. It is the Government’s first admission of that. She proposes a Government-run fund, paid for by another tax on new arrivals. But let us consider the numbers. It is reported in the Green Paper that the fund will raise tens of millions of pounds. The original Green Paper—last Friday’s version—referred to £15 million. Will she clarify how many tens of millions will be raised? In any case, the amount will not even be enough to pay the policing costs of immigration, an issue raised by the chief constable of Cambridgeshire only a few months ago. It is barely one tenth of the cost to the national health service of immigration, little more than one twentieth of the costs to local government of immigration and it barely scratches the surface of the full public services cost of immigration. It is, in short, a gimmick.
Why not take the very obvious step of limiting the numbers of new arrivals instead? Yet again, the Home Secretary has reached for a complicated and bureaucratic solution when a simple and cheap one is available. Talking of bureaucracy and incompetence, I cannot believe that, today of all days, she had the cheek to stand there and talk about—I think that I am quoting her correctly—working “with EU partners to tighten our provisions on criminality”. Does even she believe, after the catastrophe of the Dutch criminal records being lost by her Department, that such a promise convinces anyone any more?
The fundamental flaw in the Green Paper is plain: it constructs a complicated, expensive and bureaucratic set of mechanisms to deal with the adverse consequences of immigration that is out of control. We have been warning about those consequences for years. The sensible approach is simple: we should deal with the original cause of the problem, put a limit on immigration and bring it down to much more manageable levels. That is simpler, cheaper and better for Britain, and will preserve Britain’s excellent history of good community relations, which is being put at risk by an incompetent and irresponsible immigration policy.
Let me respond to some of the right hon. Gentleman’s specific points. First, he is right to say that there is an important link between the proposals and the work of Lord Goldsmith, on which we expect a report in the next month or so. His work, like the work that I have outlined, clearly embeds the importance and expectations of British citizenship, to which, as the right hon. Gentleman says, many people around the world aspire. We are introducing the proposals to ensure that our immigration system reflects the shared values that are part of British citizenship.
The right hon. Gentleman made a point about the legal simplification that we propose. It builds on a series of Acts since 1971. It is right to consider now the way in which we can bring them together in one simple set of principles and law, which will make life easier for those who come to this country and those who make decisions about them. It is a bit rich of the right hon. Gentleman, whose Government were responsible for ending the practice of counting people in and out of this country, to start criticising us, when we are reintroducing the ability to count people in and out. If he is genuinely worried about the identity of people who come to this country, perhaps he will change his position and support our policy of identity cards for foreign residents.
I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will examine in more detail our proposals for probationary citizenship. However, I can confirm to him that it is a period prior to full British citizenship, so some of his legal points are wrong. That period of time is necessary to earn the right to British citizenship or permanent residence. He made a point about timing, but probationary citizenship lasts for a minimum of one year. It will build on a period of temporary residence of five years for economic migrants or two years for families and dependants. Even the one year depends on those who take the path to citizenship demonstrating an active contribution to British life. Without that contribution, the period of probationary citizenship would be three years. The minimum is therefore six years for people to demonstrate their commitment to the UK and earn the benefits of full British citizenship.
The right hon. Gentleman commented on the fund that I propose. The Government have already, through £900 million-worth of extra funding for local government next year alone, £50 million of funding for community cohesion and specific education funding for the impact of changes in numbers on school rolls, made an important contribution—[Interruption.]
Order. The right hon. Gentleman must be quiet when he is getting a reply.
The Government have made an important contribution to ensuring that our communities can function effectively. I would have thought that the right hon. Gentleman, like the chair of the Local Government Association, welcomed our proposals for new and innovative ways in which to tackle the transitional impact of migration on communities. The tens of millions of pounds that we believe that we can raise every year will make an important contribution.
The right hon. Gentleman fell back on a rather a vague assertion that we need to place an arbitrary limit on immigration. He did not appear to be clear about the details of that limit and how it would work, but the most recent estimate by the hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green) is that it could only ever cover one out of five newcomers. Instead of thrashing around for a soundbite approach to limiting migration, it would be better if the right hon. Gentleman engaged seriously in developing the points-based system—which, for the first time, will enable us to be clear that those who come to the UK do so in a way that benefits the country—and responded seriously to our proposals today. Does he believe that the deal for citizenship that we are setting out is the right one and the fair one for Britain, as people throughout the country have told us they believe? Will he support us in our reform? Will he for once engage seriously in looking at the future of our immigration system, as we are today?
The Home Secretary’s statement and her previous speeches rightly mentioned the benefits of migration. When she visits the cities of Leicester and Derby on Thursday, how will she reassure the communities there that the proposals are not discriminatory, in respect of what appears to be a double taxation on migrants into this country and the bureaucracy that will be created around them? They will be asked to do good works to earn citizenship. Will she go out of her way to show communities that this set of proposals is not discriminatory?
My right hon. Friend will know, as I have spelt out, that the proposals are built on our contact with communities around the country and our listening to them. Communities and people in the UK have already told us clearly that they can see the massive benefits of migration. They want people to come to this country, they want them to reach the stage of receiving the full benefits of citizenship and they believe that the process for doing that should be fair and should reflect the sorts of expectations that we would place on ourselves, which are precisely the reasons people want to come to the UK and gain British citizenship in the first place. We have designed the system as we have to build on those issues and concerns.
In respect of the details of the fund, what we are proposing is not a massively bureaucratic system; rather, we are proposing a small premium on fees that will be paid as part of the existing system. My right hon. Friend made the point about good works. Our proposals recognise the massive contribution that many people who come to this country and want to move through to obtaining British citizenship make. We are saying to people that if they make a contribution to building a better local community and a better Britain, that should help to speed them on their way to British citizenship and cement the contribution that they are making to the country.
First, may I thank the Home Secretary for an advance copy of the statement? It acknowledges that the Government are guilty of chronic mishandling of immigration. Their incompetence has created a crisis of public confidence and a strain on public services in some parts of the country. It would appear that immigrants are now to be made the scapegoats for the Government’s failures.
The Liberal Democrats accept the need for reform. The skills that UK plc needs have to be much more closely matched with those of the immigrant population. We therefore support the points-based immigration system. We also accept the need for immigrants to have a strong command of the English language and regret that Government policy on that has been so inconsistent in recent months. Such workers are needed by the UK economy. Does the Home Secretary accept that there will be projects such as Crossrail or the Olympics and fields of employment such as the restaurant sector where staffing requirements will have to be met from much further afield than Europe? Can the Home Secretary confirm that she has assessed her proposals as not having a negative effect on the UK’s ability to attract such people?
Can the Home Secretary explain what benefits and services she expects migrants to be able to access before they become British citizens or permanent residents? Can she confirm that that will not deter genuine and badly needed migrants from coming to the UK? If the Home Secretary is worried about resources going into the system, will she consider a sliding scale of charges to employers for work permits, using the resources thereby raised for training for the domestic work force, to make our workers more able to take up those jobs?
Hardly a day goes by without another initiative, pronouncement or press release on immigration. They come thick and fast. Today is no exception and tomorrow will not be either, because until the Government devise a fair, straightforward and properly resourced system, they will lurch from crisis to catastrophe.
I was not quite clear whether the hon. Gentleman was supporting what we propose or simply having a rant about the issue. First, he asked me whether I recognised the considerable economic benefits to the UK of migration and the contribution that it makes to the UK. Yes, we most definitely do. That is why the points-based system, which I think he said he supported, will be about how we ensure, through a serious look at the economic benefits of migration to this country by the migration advisory committee, that we can welcome into this country those who will earn money for themselves, but also make a contribution to the economy.
The hon. Gentleman also asked what benefits would be available before the full benefits of British citizenship. We will ensure that those who come here for our legal protection as refugees will maintain all their current entitlements to benefits. We will expect those who come here as economic migrants and dependents to be self-sufficient up to the end of the period of probationary citizenship. They will be entitled to benefits to which they have made the necessary contributions. They will be expected to send their children to schools and be facilitated in doing so, and will receive NHS care. At the point at which people become British citizenships, they will receive the full range of benefits.
I hope that the hon. Gentleman will look seriously at the proposals that we are making, which are not about the conditions that we place on migrants coming into the country. They are, as I have explained, about that third stage of reform, which looks seriously at how we need to reform the system to ensure that the path to citizenship and the expectations that we place upon people coming to this country reflect the shared values that are often what attract people to come to Britain in the first place and take the path to citizenship. I believe that our proposals will make our shared values and the contribution that migrants make to this country even clearer, and will demonstrate to everybody in the UK and, more widely, to those around the world how we can reform our system to represent those values.
May I say to my right hon. Friend that there is much in her statement that is worthy of consideration? There is a lot to take in, in respect of the implications, but I have two immediate concerns. The first, which has already been raised, is about probationary citizenship. If people lose it or have to surrender their original citizenship and are not granted British citizenship, where do they stand? An even bigger concern is about fees. Fees have already increased dramatically. My constituents and spouses who come over here do not have the best-paid jobs and are already complaining about the level of fees. I do not see what an additional fee would positively do, but I can see it causing great resentment in constituencies such as mine.
Let me clarify for my hon. Friend that probationary citizenship will not imply that somebody has to give up their other nationality, as I made clear to the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis). In addition, we have ensured, through the category of permanent residence, that where people need to maintain dual nationality at the point at which they successfully apply to remain permanently in the country, they will not be forced to give up their other nationality.
On fees, we need to be careful how we consider the whole range of fees for immigration applications, to balance fairness to those coming to this country with ensuring that we can earn the money necessary to run the immigration system. The small premiums to make the transitional impact fund that we are proposing will of course be subject to consultation, and I will want to listen carefully to what my hon. Friend and his constituents say about them.
In 1997, there were 37,000 grants of citizenship. Approximately how many grants of citizenship were made in the last year for which the right hon. Lady has figures?
We will write to the hon. Gentleman with the detailed figures on citizenship.
May I advise my right hon. Friend that one reason why we have such excellent race relations in Britain is that migrants to this country relatively quickly achieve permanent residence, unlike those to other countries in Europe, for example, where their status remains unsecure and unclear for a long time? I am concerned that these proposals might damage those good relations. However, to get to her point about the fund, which will be raised by a levy on migrants, I have looked at the income from visa fees, which was £190 million last year. The fee for settlement is £500, or £650 if the person is in the UK. How can one raise tens of millions of pounds from additional fees? Will they deal with the issue? My local authority, for example, says that it requires a £5 million—
Order. The supplementaries must be brief. This is a statement and the House is questioning the Home Secretary on it.
I strongly agree with my hon. Friend about the benefits of clear status. That is why it is an objective of what we are proposing today that there should be a fair, clear and transparent route through probationary citizenship to British citizenship. She is right to say that we need that system to be clear and fair.
As I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Singh), we are talking about an additional fund that will enable us—in ways, for example, that the Migration Impact Forum is already identifying—to deal with short-term transitional issues of migration that might impact on communities. It is, quite rightly, additional to the considerable sums that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government is making available through local government and for community cohesion, and that we are making available across government to support English language teaching and the impact on schools of population changes in areas. We recognise the concerns around this issue, and I think that the additional impact that we can make with the fund will be widely welcomed.
According to the Government Actuary’s Department’s central projection, net immigration to this country will account for nearly 40 per cent. of the additional households for which we will have to build homes in coming years. Can the Home Secretary point out whether, in any of the documents that she has produced that assess the economic benefits of immigration, she has taken account of the cost of building those extra homes? By how much will that cost be reduced or increased as a result of her statement today?
In actual fact, over the past two years net migration to this country has fallen. The proposals are not about the number of people who come into the country; they are about how we ensure that the process and the path to citizenship are clear and fair, and that they represent our values. I am sure that that is something that the right hon. Gentleman would support.
There is a lot to take in from the Green Paper. I am glad that the Home Secretary corrected the impression that she gave in her opening remarks that there is some sort of presumption that immigrants—or, for that matter, those of us who are the children of immigrants—do not want to work hard and pay tax, do not want to obey the law, and do not want to get involved and contribute to community life.
On the question of the fund and the fees, one aspect raised by local authorities concerning incoming persons is paying for issues to do with children and schools, but many children in my primary schools in Hackney are the children of eastern European immigrants. They will not be paying any extra fees. How can it be fair for non-white immigrants, who already face steep fees, to have those fees ratcheted up even higher to pay for issues that relate to the broad immigrant population, including immigrants from European Union and European economic area countries?
My hon. Friend is right. We recognise that many people—including those who are already in this country and those who wish to come here—want to obey the law and wish to make a contribution economically and to their local communities, and we want to acknowledge that in the speed with which they can move through the system to become British citizens.
The point about the fund is of course important. Because of some of the transition issues that my hon. Friend has identified, colleagues in the Department for Children, Schools and Families have ensured through mainstream funding that there is a fund available for, in particular, those schools that experience a quick change in numbers in-year. That is already being recognised. The question is whether, in addition, it makes sense for us to add a small premium to the application fees so that we can further recognise that impact. I believe that that will make a contribution.
Is it fair?
In response to my hon. Friend’s sedentary intervention, I believe that, like the whole of the proposals, it is fair.
There is a great deal of detail in the statement and in the document. May I refer to the need for proficiency in the English language, which was mentioned five times in the statement? I welcome and I am grateful for the fact that Welsh and Gaelic will rank equally. There will be provision for assistance for employers to ensure that people are up to speed in speaking English. Will that apply equally to the Welsh and Gaelic languages?
We have taken responsibility, through my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills, for trebling the investment since 2001 in English for speakers of other languages. I am not sure that I can take direct responsibility for ensuring that there is also provision for Welsh speakers, but, as the hon. Gentleman pointed out, we are clear in the Green Paper that, in communities where Welsh or Scots Gaelic is the language, that should be recognised. I am sure that there will be provision for the Welsh language.
It is also important that, alongside the additional investment that the Government are putting in, employers play their part in helping those people whom they employ, from whose work they benefit and in many cases whom they sponsor to bring into this country, to integrate into our communities by supporting them with English language learning.
I have to say to the Home Secretary that I am very disappointed by her statement. It is a shame that she did not open by welcoming the fact that we live in a multicultural, multilingual society and the fact that migration has benefited this country culturally and economically in ways that would have been unbelievable to previous generations.
More specifically, if the Home Secretary is insisting that all non-European migrants learn English, what does she propose to do and say about the fact that it would be illegal for her to insist on European migrants learning English? To follow the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), why is the Home Secretary expecting non-European migrants in this country to pay for the economic needs of European migrants, who obviously are having a big and often very beneficial effect on our public services and our society? Can she not be a bit more inclusive and note the fact that we live in a multicultural, multilingual society?
I am sorry, but my hon. Friend appears to have missed the first sentences of my statement, in which I said, “Britain is a tolerant and fair-minded country. The British public know that carefully managed migration brings great benefits for the UK—economic, social and cultural.”
My hon. Friend makes a point about the difference between the conditions of those who are coming from outside the EU and those of people who come from within. Of course, it is a good thing if those coming from within the EU are also supported to learn English, which helps them to integrate in communities. This condition is not some sort of punishment for people. If we want communities in which people can feel safe and secure and in which they can play their full part—I believe that my hon. Friend wants that as well—helping them and expecting them to speak our language are key parts of that.
There are different legal statuses for those coming from within the EU and from outside it, but I made it clear that I think that employers have a role to play and that there is probably more that the Government can do to encourage the learning of English among those coming from within the EU as well as those coming from outside.
Is not my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis), the shadow Home Secretary, absolutely spot on when he says that this is a gimmick by the Government—a panic response to the huge public concern about the tidal wave of migration over which the Government have presided for the past 10 years?
Can the Home Secretary give us answers on how she intends to restore public confidence and deal with illegals? How does she intend to expedite the decision-making process? My community does not contain a high proportion of migrants, yet in Aldershot I have people who were served with deportation notices five years ago and are still in the country. How can we have confidence in a Home Secretary who fails to deal with such matters?
The hon. Gentleman will not be surprised to hear me say that I do not agree with him that his right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary was right. We are taking a serious and long-term approach to reform of the immigration system, following on from reform of the way in which we ensure that those who come here will benefit through the points-based system, and from a new approach to protection and policing the system. Given that the hon. Gentleman belongs to a party whose Members, in Committee, opposed the doubling of the resources that we intend to put into enforcement action, it is a bit rich for him suddenly to criticise the considerably improved enforcement action that we are putting in place. The third stage of the reform is the way in which, in the long term, we make sure that the path to citizenship in this country reflects the values that we share. I am surprised that he does not support that approach.
Did my right hon. Friend see the reports over the weekend that more Poles are leaving Britain now than are coming in? To treat fellow Europeans on a par with other immigrants is not right, because if the 800,000 British immigrants in Spain were to return home overnight, the pressure put on our social services would be extremely serious.
On the fee question, it is little more than we all pay at the frontier if we visit Egypt or Turkey. I welcome it as a gesture by people who come here to settle permanently, to show solidarity with the community they are joining. My right hon. Friend’s statement is reassuring, which is important. The Opposition’s language this afternoon has been intolerant, bordering on xenophobic.
Obviously, I welcome my right hon. Friend’s comments. He recognises the different legal status of those who come from within the EU and those who come from outside it, which I tried to explain earlier. I believe that some of the principles can apply to both groups, but I welcome his sensible and thoughtful words.
The Home Secretary’s Green Paper says that
“Migrants are on average net fiscal”
—I think she means financial—
“contributors”,
presumably after the impact on public services is taken into account. Has she provided any evidence to meet the view that migrants are a drain on public services? If not, how can she justify an extra tax on such migrants, who are net contributors? Is not that just prejudice-based policy, rather than evidence-based policy?
We have provided to the House of Lords Committee reviewing this matter detailed information on the fiscal contribution made by migration. We know, however, that there is a transitional impact on communities from high levels of migration, and it is to manage that impact in the short-term that we are proposing the funds. It is important that we respond and make sure that the system maximises the significant economic, social and cultural contribution that we know migration can make, and minimises its impacts. That is what we propose to do through the range of reforms that we are making to the immigration system.
I am able to give a broad welcome to the Home Secretary’s statement. I certainly acknowledge the dramatic difference that the new border controls have had in constituencies such as mine. However, firmness must always be balanced with fairness. Does my right hon. Friend agree that in many of the cases that we deal with, whether they be immigration cases or difficult asylum cases, it is enormously important that we balance firmness with compassion? Will she ensure that her Ministers consider such matters, so that we do not undermine all the good work that is going on at the surface?
My hon. Friend is right. Fairness is a fundamental part of the system, and it is to ensure that we are both clear and fair in the decisions that we make about those who come into this country and how they progress through the system that we are proposing not only the changes to the path to citizenship set out in today’s Green Paper but the radical simplification of the law. People deserve to know that decisions are being made quickly, fairly and transparently, and that is what we are attempting to deliver.
Like my right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary, I support many of the proposals, but will the right hon. Lady now answer one of his questions: what will be the costs of this package? Also, can she tell the House how many failed asylum seekers there are in the UK and how many will be deported next year?
This is, of course, a Green Paper. Part of our work will be to examine the costs of the proposals as we build on them. On the hon. Gentleman’s second point, because of the improvements that we have made, we are now processing asylum seekers through the system far more quickly and more effectively, and the figures on asylum seekers coming into the country are at historic lows.
Despite changes to the application process, citizenship ceremonies in my council, Enfield, are often rendered meaningless by applicants’ lack of command of basic English. What assurance does the Green Paper offer that the system will be improved?
I am glad that the hon. Gentleman believes, as I do, that citizenship ceremonies can play an important part in welcoming people to the UK. It is precisely because we feel that being able to speak English is an important part of becoming part of our community that we are proposing not only that highly skilled and skilled workers gain English language qualifications before they arrive in the country, but a requirement at the point at which they enter the probationary citizenship period to progress in English language skills, before moving on to full citizenship.
I very much welcome the recognition again today by the Home Secretary of the enormous benefit that Britain as a whole and constituencies such as mine have gained from those who have chosen in recent decades to make their home in this country. They have enriched our community in every aspect of our lives.
My right hon. Friend will, however, be aware that there is still considerable concern about the backlog of immigration and nationality cases to be dealt with by her Department. Although much improved, there is a long way to go. Can she assure the House that none of the proposals in the Green Paper and the accompanying statement today will exacerbate those problems? Will she assure us that the progress being made towards giving certainty and clarity to people who are already in the country and want to bring their relatives here to settle will be maintained, so that the uncertainty and resulting distress are minimised?
I can assure my hon. Friend that the improvements to processes that we have seen in recent years will continue. Furthermore, the simplification of the law on immigration will ensure even more certainty and fairness in the future.
The hon. Member for Leicester, South (Sir Peter Soulsby) talks about the backlog, and we know that there are about 500,000—perhaps more—illegal immigrants in the United Kingdom. Although I have some interest in the Home Secretary’s idea of probationary citizenship—she rightly says that if people commit a crime they will be expelled, whereas the process will be accelerated for those who do good work—how can we be assured, when she cannot even say how much the system will cost, that those who commit a crime will, in fact, be expelled and will not simply add to those 500,000 people residing illegally in the UK?
The hon. Gentleman is confusing a range of different matters. We have massively improved performance on decision making on asylum cases. Last year, we deported from this country a record number of foreign national prisoners and we shall double the resources that we put into enforcement activity.
I am sorry, Mr. Speaker, but I was wrong earlier. The Conservatives did not oppose the doubling of the enforcement budget; they just sat on their hands and abstained.
I remember my immigrant grandparents telling me how difficult they found it to master the English language. I believe that the reason that they managed to do it was that they had to. Does the Home Secretary, who rightly emphasises the importance of mastering the English language, agree with Trevor Phillips and others, and will she therefore give the authority of her office to a condemnation of those agencies and local authorities that insist on translating documents and other papers into the languages of the countries that people have left, rather than helping them to master the language of the country that they have chosen to come to? Will she give a definite indication that that practice must stop?
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government has made it clear, as have I, that we probably should refocus resources from translating into supporting people to speak English. That is why we have trebled the support for English for speakers of other languages since 2001 and why we are clear that being able to speak English should be one of the requirements for citizenship, as that will help people to integrate better into our society.
Criminal Justice (Raves)
I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 powers in relation to illegal raves.
Last July, I had an Adjournment debate on illegal raves, in which I described how devastating raves can be for farmers, local residents and the surrounding environment and wildlife. I know that Members on both sides of the House have, like me, received heartfelt complaints from constituents about raves held in their area. This is not just about Norfolk; it is an issue that affects rural communities across the country. My constituents have told me about the appalling mess that those attending raves can leave, including syringes and other drug paraphernalia and even human excrement. Farmers have told me of terrified animals, unbearable noise levels for hour upon hour through the night, and the impact of the antisocial behaviour of rave attendees.
The Government have talked tough on antisocial behaviour, and we have seen the introduction of numerous initiatives designed to tackle antisocial behaviour on our streets and in our towns, but what about our rural communities? Farmers in the country have to endure hundreds of trespassers entering their land in convoys of 50 or more vehicles, rubbish strewn over their fields and drug use on their land. There is huge damage to the environment and property. The clean-up and repair costs reach into the thousands. That cannot be a fair way to treat people who are trying to make an honest living. The countryside is not a theme park, and its residents have every right to protection under the law.
I want to make it clear that I and other Members have not been raising this issue in such a persistent way in order to be killjoys, or to deny others pleasure and fun just for the sake of it. I am sure that those who attend these unlicensed events enjoy themselves enormously, but that enjoyment comes at a very high cost to those living in the area. This is not a victimless crime.
There are excellent venues for licensed live music events—High Lodge in Thetford forest, for example—where people can enjoy concerts that are properly and safely organised. Unlicensed music events have nothing to do with the altruistic values of young people. They are hugely profitable to the organisers, who employ a get-rich-quick formula that tramples on the rural economy. Costs are minimised, no tax is paid and there is no regard for anyone, or for anything but profit. Even if no charge is made for people attending a rave, money changes hands for drugs and alcohol. Rural communities must deal with the terrible repercussions, week in, week out. Last week, it was the village of Weeting in my constituency that suffered. This is simply not fair.
The problem lies in the inadequacy of current police powers. The police in Norfolk are working extremely hard to tackle raves. They are gathering intelligence on organisers, and collaborating with neighbouring forces in order to pool resources. However, the police are looking to the Government to allow them to be more proactive. The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 gives the police powers to direct those preparing for a rave away from a site, and to remove any vehicles or property that they may have with them. These powers are not enough.
Despite the distress that an unlicensed music event might cause to local residents, or the damage that it might do in rural areas, the existing definition of a “gathering” stands in the way of appropriate policing in rural areas. The law seems to suggest that because loud, continuous music is disturbing only a relatively small number of people in a rural community, it is acceptable. If successful, my Bill would expand the definition of a rave to address that issue. It would create two new offences: of organising a rave, and of transporting sound equipment for use at a rave. People convicted of organising such events would face a tough penalty, providing a strong deterrent. In short, my Bill would make it much easier to prevent raves from happening in the first place.
The police have told me that they have the necessary intelligence on regular organisers, but that can be frustrating because it is not an offence to organise a rave. I shall illustrate that point. Last week, riot police were called out to disperse more than 1,000 revellers as they congregated in my constituency. More than 100 police officers, with dogs and a police helicopter, were used. The operation was, to Norfolk constabulary’s credit, successful. However, I dread to think how much it cost. Norfolk police are already struggling with a tight financial settlement, without needing to spend an exorbitant percentage of police funds on stopping raves. Under the Bill, the police could have used the intelligence that they clearly have in order to arrest organisers and seize equipment before the event happened.
During my Adjournment debate last year, the Minister was genuine in his support for local residents who suffer the effects of raves, but what positive action has been taken since then? The Minister passed my comments to the sub-group on raves, which has been set up by the Association of Chief Police Officers working group on public order. It has now been six months since that took place, and I have heard nothing more.
In the light of the fact that little progress seems to have been made on this issue since last summer, I am pleased to present my Bill to Parliament in the belief that, if successful, it will make a substantial difference to the lives of those affected by raves. Members of the National Farmers Union and of the Country Land and Business Association have expressed their support for what I am doing, for which I thank them. I now urge the Government to lend their support, so that the police can have the powers that they want, and so that local people can feel protected from this persistent and destructive form of antisocial behaviour.
The Bill’s sponsors come from across the House, which indicates just how widespread the problem is. I commend it to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Christopher Fraser, Sir Paul Beresford, Mr. Laurence Robertson, Sammy Wilson, Mr. Humfrey Malins, Mr. Julian Brazier, Dr. Tony Wright, Mrs. Siân C. James, Mr. David Drew, David T.C. Davies, Mr. Dai Davies, and Bob Russell.
Criminal Justice (raves)
Mr. Christopher Fraser accordingly presented a Bill to amend the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 powers in relation to illegal raves: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 6 June, and to be printed [Bill 69].
Business of the House (Lisbon Treaty) (No. 4)
Motion made and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Order [28 January],
That the Order of 28th January be further amended as follows: in the Table, in the entry for Allotted Day 5, in the third column:
(a) for ‘4 ½ hours’ substitute ‘3 hours’, and
(b) for ‘1 ½ hours’ substitute ‘3 hours’.—[Mr. Alan Campbell.]
Question agreed to.
Treaty of Lisbon (No. 5)
[5th allotted day]
[Relevant document: Third Report from the Foreign Affairs Committee of Session 2007-08, Foreign Policy Aspects of the Lisbon Treaty, HC 120-I.]
I inform the House that I have selected the amendment in the name of the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague). I also inform the House that I have placed a seven-minute limit on Back-Bench speeches, in order to allow as many Back Benchers as possible to be called.
I beg to move,
That this House approves the Government’s policy towards the Treaty of Lisbon in respect of provisions concerning foreign, security and defence policy.
Today, we have an opportunity to debate the EU’s common foreign and security policy and the improvements to its delivery as a result of the Lisbon treaty. The idea of European foreign policy—it was first called “political co-operation”—goes back almost to the foundation of the European Economic Community in the 1950s. It was given new life in the 1980s and then enshrined in the Maastricht treaty of 1992. It was all but broken by the Balkan wars of the 1990s, so I think it appropriate that, as we discuss the foreign policy aspects of the Lisbon treaty, it should again be on the western Balkans that European eyes are fixed. With your permission, Mr. Speaker, I will say a little about this particular case, which illustrates the value of the common foreign and security policy, before going on to address the detail of the changes envisaged by the treaty.
On Monday, the Government announced their decision to recognise the Kosovo assembly’s declaration of independence. We did so confident that Kosovo’s accession to independence in this way is entirely consistent with UN Security Council resolution 1244, which also continues to provide a sound legal basis for the NATO and EU missions in that area.
The situation on the ground in Kosovo remains calm, but yesterday there was an attack on two border posts in the north of the country. NATO forces intervened robustly, dispersing the crowd and taking control of the crossings. Nobody was hurt, but it is important that we all underline that violence by any side is unacceptable. The Government are concerned by suggestions that some in the Serb Government think that the attack was justified. The atmosphere in Serbia is more tense. Demonstrations in Belgrade on Sunday night inflicted serious damage on the Slovenian embassy, but subsequent demonstrations have passed off without trouble. A mass rally is being planned for Thursday and, to their credit, political leaders in Serbia have called for it to be peaceful.
The Government’s approach has been to promote discussion and dialogue until it was clear that there was no way to bridge the gap between Belgrade and Pristina and in those circumstances to seek the full implementation of the Ahtisaari plan; and to emphasise the need for a regional approach that offers economic and political support to all the countries of the western Balkans.
May I put it to the Foreign Secretary that, important as these matters are, they are not directly relevant to the scrutiny of the treaties that we are discussing? If he wants to make a statement on these matters, he could do so outwith the time for this debate, instead of taking time from Back Benchers who are limited to making seven-minute speeches because he has designed the timetable of the Bill to grandstand on these occasions for his own benefit instead of replying to points put to him by Back Benchers on matters pertaining to the treaty.
Before the Foreign Secretary replies, I should say that if anything irrelevant to the debate had been heard, the Chair would have intervened earlier.
I assure the hon. Gentleman that in the time that he has just taken, I could have concluded the relevant section of my speech.
Fourteen other European countries have joined the UK in recognising Kosovo, as have the US and six others.
Will my right hon. Friend say something about today’s reports that hundreds, if not thousands, of Serbian paramilitary or police officials are being sent into the area around Mitrovica? If that is the case, will he send a positive statement about the future of Serbia and its association with the European Union to try to—[Interruption.] Conservative Members obviously do not think this important, but this is in Europe’s heartland and it is important that we in Europe are able to assess the situation and do something to help the people of that region.
rose—
I am sorry to have to intervene a second time on the issue of relevance, but if we pursue that line we will be moving away from the main theme of the debate. Enough has been said on that subject, so the Foreign Secretary should proceed with his speech.
Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
I was going on to say that the framework that Sir John Major agreed at Maastricht has, with some improvements, helped the European Union not just in the Balkans, but further afield, too. That is why I am clear that some of the amendments tabled by Opposition Members, which would attack the foundations of common foreign and security policy and European security and defence policy, put ideology before logic. In a world with shared challenges requiring co-ordinated responses, CFSP and ESDP are crucial aspects of our response.
Today, we work with or through the EU on many foreign policy issues. I and the Government believe that we are stronger for it and the world is better for it, too. In the last 12 months, for example, the EU has imposed sanctions on Iran and Zimbabwe beyond those imposed by the UN; mobilised more aid for Palestine than ever before; put 2,000 troops on the ground in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in support of the UN; found €54 million for Iraq; provided financial backing for the African Union mission in Darfur; deployed a stabilisation force to neighbouring Chad to protect refugees from the crisis; delivered emergency aid in Pakistan; and shown genuine solidarity with us over Litvinenko, the closure of British Council offices in Russia and Iran’s seizure of UK naval personnel.
The Foreign Secretary referred to a number of amendments and I am happy to admit that I tabled some of them for a very good reason. Would he accept that, although proper co-operation can be achieved within the framework of an organisation such as the European Union, there is a world of difference between that co-operation and the degree of co-ordination being established within a legal framework, which has been accompanied by mistakes such as those seen in the disarray over a whole raft of matters from Iraq and Kosovo’s standing to many others, where the EU is demonstrating that it cannot meet the challenges that he mentioned?
I believe that the legal framework is being established to strengthen the co-operation that the hon. Gentleman says he supports. Whatever our different views about Iraq, I do not think that the situation there can be put at the door of the European Union.
For the future, we need a European Union not as an alternative to UK foreign policy, but as one means for its implementation. That is why the Government have set out their vision for a global Europe and why we support aspects of the treaty that seek carefully to enhance the existing common foreign and security policy.
I give way to my hon. Friend first.
Is it not the case that the Lisbon treaty does not promise to develop any policy to rival NATO politically or militarily?
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Some specific references have been added in respect of NATO, which give added assurance to those willing to look into the issue with an open mind that the development of European policy can complement NATO rather than rival it.
I agree with the Foreign Secretary that when western European countries genuinely agree with each other on some matter of vital foreign interest, it is highly desirable and beneficial that they should work together. However, will not he agree, on reflection, that his statement yesterday that the cobbled-together EU statement on Kosovo showed “clear political leadership” by the European Union was absurd? The issue of Kosovo showed the deepest division on a common foreign policy issue since the divisions on Iraq. He does no service to the genuine desire for European co-operation when he describes a failure to achieve European agreement as if it were a success.
I am surprised to find myself disagreeing on this point with the right hon. and learned Gentleman. It would only have been a failure if it were for the European Union to recognise the new country of Kosovo. There are divisions within EU countries about whether or not to recognise Kosovo, but it is a matter for individual countries to decide. The matter at hand for the EU is not about recognition and I am sure that he would agree with me that it would be quite wrong to move into a world where the EU starts recognising countries when it is in fact a responsibility of member states. In matters that are the responsibility of the EU—first, the deployment of a European mission; secondly, the partnership arrangements between all the countries of the western Balkans; and thirdly, the ultimate objective of EU membership—there should be and is European cohesion.
Does the Foreign Secretary not realise that he is compounding his own foolishness in this respect? How can he seriously argue that a coherent European policy on Kosovo can be achieved when many EU countries have recognised it as an independent state but the remaining EU countries still consider it to be part of Serbia? How can that provide the basis of a common European foreign policy?
Fifteen countries, including the UK, recognised the new country of Kosovo within 72 hours of its creation. I would be happy to lay a wager with the right hon. and learned Gentleman that in due course many more European countries will recognise it. We will see if one or two do not recognise it, but as I explained, it must be a matter for individual nation states to decide on recognition. He is only compounding his error, if I may say so, by confusing the responsibility of the European Union with the responsibilities of nation states.
I am grateful to the Foreign Secretary for giving way to me again, but on that basis, on whose authority did Javier Solana, the high representative of the European Union, visit Kosovo yesterday and announce that it is a good friend of the EU? Of course that does not constitute legal recognition of the independent status of Kosovo, but it is tantamount to it, and demonstrates the dynamic that the high representative gives the foreign policy under which, as he said, 15 states have recognised Kosovo. Is the Foreign Secretary in favour of qualified majority voting on that basis?
I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman, who studies these questions carefully, should destroy his own argument in seeking to make it. Mr. Solana’s visit was on the back of the agreement of the 27 to the statement made at the European General Affairs and External Relations Council on Monday, and was all the better for that. Whatever one’s view of the timing of recognition, the idea that the European Union should not be a friend of Kosovo strikes me as very odd indeed.
Is it not bizarre that Opposition Members should first complain that European Union countries, including ours, are drilled and forced into agreeing with each other on some issue, and then complain that they are not being drilled in that way? Does that not demonstrate a huge absence of consistency and intelligence among that lot over there?
As ever, my right hon. Friend speaks with precision and accuracy on these matters, and I entirely agree with him. Unfortunately, the laughter of Opposition Members suggests that they do not recognise the ridiculous position in which they have put themselves.
I had the privilege, if that is the right word, of being the Minister responsible for the Balkans for five years. We welcome the presence of European Commissioners, Mr. Solana and everyone else in Pristina and all the related lands, and the idea that there should be any criticism of that strikes me as absurd. However, ever since the treaty of Lisbon has been up for debate, I have been told repeatedly that it meant a common foreign policy that would wipe away the autonomy of the nation states of Europe. Spain has just said “Whoa! We cannot agree to recognise Kosovo.” Where is this steamroller telling the nation states of Europe what their policies should be? The Conservative party is in Alice in Wonderland country.
My right hon. Friend is entirely right. Let me proceed with the details to show exactly why that is.
The treaty does not, repeat not, change the fundamental nature of common foreign and security policy co-operation. That continues to be covered in a separate treaty, subject—as is stated in the treaty for the first time—to “specific rules and procedures”. The treaty includes an article—again, it appears for the first time—underlining those distinct arrangements: unanimity as the general rule so a veto for all countries, no legislative acts, and a limited role for Community institutions.
The Foreign Affairs Committee, whose Chairman, my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford, South (Mike Gapes), is present, has welcomed the fact that it is
“highly likely that, under the Lisbon Treaty, the Common Foreign and Security Policy will remain an intergovernmental area, driven by the Member States.”
He is right about that. The European Scrutiny Committee—its Chairman, my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty), is not present at the moment—has said that
“the largely intergovernmental nature of the CFSP and ESDP will be maintained, with no significant departures from the arrangements which currently apply”.
What the treaty will do is enhance the efficiency, effectiveness and coherence of the current arrangements.
Will the Foreign Secretary give way?
If the hon. Gentleman will let me make some progress, I shall be happy to allow him to intervene as I go through the details.
The treaty will make the European Council responsible for setting the EU’s strategic priorities for all external action, thereby underlining member states’ lead responsibility for setting the EU's foreign policy. It will strengthen the coherence of the EU's external action through a high representative, appointed by Heads of State and Heads of Government and straddling the work of the Commission and the CFSP.
Will the Foreign Secretary give way?
I will give way to the hon. Gentleman when I reach the end of this passage.
The treaty will bring together existing Commission and Council officials, augmented by member state secondees, into a single external action service to support the high representative, whose work will be governed by 27 nation states, and it will set clear objectives to guide all areas of external action.
rose—
I will go through each of those four areas. Members can intervene now, or they can intervene as I do so.
It is up to the hon. Gentleman to decide whether he wishes to intervene now or later.
The Foreign Secretary said earlier that the EU’s foreign policy would complement that of this country. I know he believes that our relationships with both NATO and the United States are key to our foreign policy, so why does the document presented by the Slovenian presidency and published by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office on the EU’s external relations make no mention of either of those relationships? They were mentioned in the document produced by the last presidency, but have been expunged from this one. That does not sound very complementary to me.
I refer the hon. Gentleman to the details in the treaty that have been added precisely in respect of NATO, for example. For the first time, a treaty will be peppered with references to NATO, which I hope will bring a smile to his face as well as to mine.
The Foreign Secretary has listed a number of aspects of security policy in the treaty. Will he tell us what is NATO’s take on the ESDP, and also whether he considers European common defence policy or NATO to be the cornerstone of Europe’s future defence?
Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, the Secretary-General of NATO, has made clear his welcome for the increased capability envisaged in the treaty, but also for the EU’s ability to complement NATO activity. It is in those areas that we should see progress. Although the cornerstone of our defence is NATO, I believe the development and effect of the ESDP can help us to make that progress.
rose—
May I deal with the details of those four areas before I give way? There will be plenty of opportunities for Members to intervene later.
Let me deal first with the establishment of the position of high representative. At present there are two separate roles. The high representative works for the member states, while the External Relations Commissioner works for the Council. In addition, the Foreign Minister of the member state holding the six-month rotating presidency—currently Slovenia, as was pointed out by the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr. Harper)—is responsible for chairing the ministerial meetings. That can be confusing, so the Lisbon treaty merges the roles into a new job, which will give the EU a more coherent voice internationally.
Article 13a of the Lisbon treaty sets out the role and responsibilities of the proposed high representative. He or she will chair the Foreign Affairs Council and ensure effective implementation of the decisions made. He or she will also represent the agreed position of the EU on common foreign and security policy matters, conducting political dialogue—again, when there is unanimous agreement on an EU position—with third parties. He or she will also be able to set out the agreed EU position in international organisations and at international conferences.
Does the Foreign Secretary accept that the problems in practice begin to emerge when a joint action plan is agreed on the basis of unanimity, but that is followed by a move to qualified majority voting?
I will come to the relationship between a specific request from the European Council—the Heads of Government—and an implementing measure presented by the high representative. I assure the hon. Gentleman that I will address precisely that point, but this is not quite the right moment to do so.
As for what we said in the Convention, to which the Opposition motion refers, we make no apology for asking searching questions. We were right to do so, and moreover we received answers.
The high representative will be the servant of the Council of Ministers on CFSP matters. He or she will be appointed by national Governments, and will be responsible to them through the Council. The high representative will be able to propose new CFSP initiatives, but in addition to rather than instead of member states, and it will still be the Council—representing the 27 countries of the EU—rather than the high representative that makes decisions. In short, Britain will continue to decide on its own foreign policy, and where we agree with others in the EU, there can be a common European role in helping to deliver it.
Should not the House be given the details of the position taken by the Government in the European Convention on the constitution in respect of clauses that are identical in the Lisbon treaty? When I raised the matter with the Leader of the House during business questions about 10 days ago, she graciously appeared to accept the point. She said that she would contact the Foreign Secretary and ask him to table, for the purpose of future debates, the position taken by the Government in the European Convention on clauses that are now in the Lisbon treaty, which we are about to debate. Has he done that? Has he discussed the matter with the Leader of the House, and if not, why not?
I am sorry if this has not been transmitted to the right hon. Gentleman, but the details of all the Convention discussions are available on the Convention’s website. There is no hidden agenda in this respect. I assure him that there is a very clear answer to his question.
The Foreign Secretary is a comparatively new Member of the House. There is a convention that Government documents reflecting Government policy are tabled in this House, so that we do not have to go through the Convention website line by line and download them all.
Although I am extremely new to this House, I know that we table documents that are relevant to the treaty and legislation that we are discussing. We do not table documents to do with historic discussions and treaties that are no longer on the table.
I think that the Foreign Secretary will find that the clear answer to which he just referred is that the Government did not want the two posts to merge. Apart from the change of name, is there any difference in substance between what was envisaged in the original constitution—a Union Minister for foreign affairs—and the high representative envisaged in the Lisbon treaty? What is the substantive difference, apart from the name change?
There are several differences. I hope that I will not bore the hon. Gentleman, but I want to read out two new detailed and important treaty articles that might directly address his fears.
I shall read them very slowly, if that would help my right hon. Friend.
The following two articles are new text. New article 10C states:
“The common foreign and security policy is subject to specific rules and procedures.”
That has never been said before. It continues:
“It shall be defined and implemented by the European Council and the Council acting unanimously, except where the Treaties provide otherwise. The adoption of legislative acts shall be excluded…The Court of Justice of the European Union shall not have jurisdiction with respect to these provisions”.
New article 240a states:
“The Court of Justice of the European Union shall not have jurisdiction with respect to the provisions relating to the common foreign and security policy nor with respect to acts adopted on the basis of those provisions.”
In other words, it is not just a matter of the name of the foreign Minister or otherwise; the treaty differs in a range of ways from the proposed constitution, which was abandoned by the 27 Governments of the European Union last June.
I shall put this next question slowly for the benefit of the right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane). What is the difference between the posts of Union Minister for foreign affairs and high representative? Where is the difference in what the person is going to do?
The difference in the posts is that the precision with which the new treaty defines the role of the nation states in governing the Council’s decisions addresses very directly some of the concerns about the original proposals that existed on both sides of the House. The hon. Gentleman will see in treaty language, clearly enunciated—
There is nothing different.
When I say there is something different and the hon. Gentleman says from a sedentary position that there is nothing different, I do not understand how we can come to a meeting of minds. The difference is that the treaty is different, and given that we are debating the treaty, I do not know how we can avoid recognising that.
The Foreign Secretary has lost that one.
No, I think that the hon. Gentleman has just lost the House. [Interruption.]
The posts are different. They differ in the relationships in respect of the Council and the Commission. The Foreign Secretary is discussing the narrow treaty provision, so will he just help me a bit in relation to NATO, about which he says the treaty contains special mentions that were not in place before? If the talk about France rejoining NATO fully is correct, some people might be concerned that the new dynamics would be that the EU positioned itself in such a way as to have a right of veto over NATO decisions. Is there anything in the treaty that would allow that to happen?
No. NATO is rightly governed by the rules of NATO and the European Union is governed by the rules of the European Union. Although Conservative Members suggested in a rather mocking tone that I had been foolish to allow my hon. Friend to intervene, I agree with the first part of her remarks about the two posts being different.
Let me move on to qualified majority voting. As has been the case since Amsterdam, there is scope in this treaty to take some secondary and implementing decisions by QMV. In addition, when proposals are explicitly and unanimously requested by the European Council from the high representative, they can be decided by QMV, but the treaty makes it clear that there must be a specific request, by unanimity, from the European Council. It remains to be seen whether any of the provisions for QMV will be used—despite having had QMV for operational purposes in common foreign and security policy for 10 years, it has not been used once. In addition, the emergency brake mechanism can of course be used if the UK’s vital interests are affected by a decision that is about to be approved by QMV.
The Foreign Secretary is discussing the general point about CFSP and the views taken by the Union. The Union has a relationship with Russia, which strongly objects to national missile defence being placed in Britain, the Czech Republic and Poland. That clearly has implications for the whole continent. What competence does the European Union have in this regard? Does it have any? Does he expect it to have any if it is to have a common foreign policy?
That goes to the heart of the difference between a European Union foreign policy that is complementary to national policies and one that substitutes for them. The issue of ballistic missile defence is a bilateral rather than multilateral one.
Common foreign and security policy remains intergovernmental and in a separate treaty. Importantly, as I explained to the hon. Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison), the European Court of Justice’s jurisdiction over substantive CFSP policy is clearly and expressly excluded. As agreed at Maastricht, the ECJ will continue to monitor the boundary between CFSP and other EU external action, such as development assistance. But the Lisbon treaty considerably improves the existing position by making it clear that CFSP cannot be affected by other EU policies. It ring-fences CFSP as a distinct, equal area of action.
I would be grateful if the Foreign Secretary could give a little more clarification about how the new way in which policy will be defined links to the ideas put forward by the Oxford Research Group about sustainable security and the need to move from a paradigm of defence and control to one where we examine the issues of international development and, specifically, climate change. Will he tell us how that will be examined in the new Lisbon treaty arrangements?
I am afraid that my hon. Friend has all but floored me with her reference to the Oxford Research Group—I have not read its manifesto or recent research publication, although I clearly need to do so.
Perhaps my hon. Friend and I can both read the publication and then compare notes.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Joan Walley) will know that debates have taken place in this House about the changes introduced by the treaty in respect of sustainable development. She will also be reassured when the national security strategy is published, because it will take a broad look at these issues, rather than a narrow one.
The Foreign Secretary referred to the exceptions where the ECJ has a role, and I accept, as the European Scrutiny Committee said, that the role is limited. Under the Bill he is excluding the CFSP from implementation into English law. How will he reconcile that with the fact that, in those limited circumstances, the ECJ will, through the European Communities Act 1972, have an impact on British law? Can he reconcile the two positions?
I want to do so. The hon. Gentleman caught me halfway through my explanation of the ECJ’s role. The ECJ has a consequential role in respect of two aspects. It will monitor the boundary between CFSP and other EU external action, such as development assistance. As I was saying, the Lisbon treaty considerably improves the position by ring-fencing CFSP.
There is a judicial gap in a second area; it exists in respect of sanctions on individuals. Individuals subject to economic sanctions can already challenge them in court if they believe that their rights have not been respected. The treaty extends that provision to CFSP sanctions measures. That is an important part of ensuring that EU sanctions regimes are robust and credible. That consequential role of the ECJ does not infringe on our country’s laws in the sort of way that the hon. Gentleman fears.
Unfortunately, the Foreign Secretary’s Bill excludes CFSP from implementation into UK law. It follows that if the ECJ were to make decisions in the areas granted to it, it would be impossible to reconcile what the ECJ has the power to do under the treaties and what the Bill says.
I do not accept that those things are impossible to reconcile because they are doing different tasks. The treaty is clear about the limits on the ECJ’s role, not least in respect of policy, but it recognises that the ECJ must have a consequential role in the two areas that I described. I am happy to correspond with the hon. Gentleman further about the issue—[Interruption.] It is suggested that I do not correspond with him further, but I would be happy to do so.
The Lisbon treaty also establishes an external action service to support the high representative. It does not alter the responsibility of member states or the nature of CFSP decision making, but it will reorganise Commission and Council secretariat staff and include seconded staff from member states. All of this can deliver benefits in terms of more effective co-ordination. It will improve the policy advice to the Council by aligning EU external spending with the political priorities set by the member states in the Council. In post-conflict situations, it offers the chance to improve the EU’s ability to deliver coherently by improving co-ordination of a range of conflict prevention, crisis management and stabilisation tools.
Since 1973, under successive Governments, Britain has sent some of its best brains from different Departments—not just the Foreign Office—to work in Brussels, and they have done a good job for Britain. I know that my right hon. Friend is under huge budgetary pressures, but I urge him to see what he can do to ensure that as the external action service develops Brits help to shape it, in both Europe’s interest and British interest, which I believe genuinely coincide.
Mt right hon. Friend makes a good point. I can assure him that when it is in the interests of the individuals to gain experience from the EAS we will want them to do so. It is an important way forward.
Send some Tories.
We are happy to send people of any political stripe to the EAS, although I do not know whether Tories would want to go. We can address that question another time.
I am happy to confirm the Government’s continued commitment to UK presence on the United Nations Security Council. Like every hon. Member, I support that presence: we argued for clarity in the Convention and the treaty to safeguard that position, and nothing in the treaty will undermine it. Only sovereign states can hold seats at the Security Council and the EU is not a state, and will not become one. Under current arrangements, the President of the EU and the high representative sometimes already address the Security Council, if they are invited to do so, but that does not make them members nor negate our membership. As the Foreign Affairs Committee has said, the treaty
“will not undermine the position of the UK in the United Nations system nor the UK’s representation and role as a Permanent Member”.
For the sake of completeness, let me now turn to three aspects of European security and defence policy, on which we asked searching questions in the Convention to defend our position. The first is permanent structured co-operation. One of the UK’s priorities on defence—in both the EU and NATO—is to get our partners to shoulder more of the international security burden and to get them to develop the right capabilities and provide the right sort of forces so that they can help to tackle the security challenges that we face. The treaty includes a new provision—permanent structured co-operation—focused solely on developing EU member state capability in line with those aims. To become a member of permanent structured co-operation, EU member states will need to commit to a higher level of capability development. The prospect of membership will, we hope, encourage member states to develop the sort of deployable, flexible and sustainable forces for which we have been calling.
Many of us who have served in the armed forces, including myself, are concerned about the development of a European defence force and how that would work in conjunction with NATO. Can the Secretary of State give an example of when NATO might be used or when a future European defence force might be used? In all the conflicts and theatres in which I was involved, there was no unanimous agreement on action in Europe. I can see a situation in which there is a call for a European force that cannot be answered, partly because the forces are double-hatting in NATO, but also because unanimity will never be achieved.
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point, but inherent in it is a significant correction to what some of his hon. Friends were saying earlier. He used the word “unanimously”, and the troops would be deployed only on the basis of unanimous agreement. He raised the spectre that the EU would not be able to perform an important task because unanimous agreement would be required before any forces could be deployed under PSC. It is a significant point, but it is right that unanimous agreement should be achieved before forces are deployed, and I think that he would agree with that.
I do not wish to anticipate future conflicts, but the ESDP is involved in 13 missions at the moment, which gives some indication of where it is going. I know of the hon. Gentleman’s service in the armed forces and it is, of course, respected on both sides of the House.
If I may illustrate my point from my own experience, the problem is the one that we had in Bosnia. The EU was there for peacekeeping and monitoring, but when things got tough no one was willing to do the fighting. My worry is that if unanimous agreement is required, we will not send troops anywhere, because the member states will discuss the issue and never come to a resolution. We will have to fall back on the United States as a back-up, which leads to the conclusion that we should retain NATO as the structure and not even try to play around with an EU defence force.
The hon. Gentleman will agree that the first step is to build up capabilities. The purpose of permanent structured co-operation is to incentivise capability development. When the capabilities are in place, the decision on how to deploy them can be made. I do not disagree that NATO should be the first resort for the sort of missions that he describes, but I disagree that we should not even try to develop a European capacity to complement the work of NATO.
Is not the reality that there are some circumstances in which it will be far more appropriate for NATO to become involved, usually when there is a north American influence or interest? In other circumstances, where there is still a serious issue to be faced and with a specific European interest, as in Chad, for example—[Hon. Members: “Chad?”] There is a serious situation in Chad that needs to be addressed and there are many European Union interests involved. It would be better for the EU to provide a combination of forces for that situation, rather than NATO.
I am in favour of European co-operation on these matters, where possible, but will the Foreign Secretary acknowledge that whatever people may think is the case, the truth is that outside the NATO structures there is little capability for peacekeeping, almost no capability for peacemaking and no capability whatever for war fighting?
I think that the hon. Gentleman would agree that, beyond France—and we could debate exactly where it fits in his schema, although it does have those capabilities—which is outside NATO for these purposes, capabilities are severely limited.
I shall move to a conclusion with two final points about defence. There are changes to the mandate because the treaty expands the list of tasks that ESDP can undertake. The treaty also commits member states to offer assistance in the event that another member state is the
“victim of armed aggression on its territory”.
That means that EU member states that are not members of NATO are now committed to the defence of their European partners.
The treaty is in Britain’s interest because it will make the EU’s common foreign and security policy much more efficient, and it will give greater coherence to our actions and those of our partners on the global stage. In short, it will make the EU a more serious foreign policy player, not to the detriment of British foreign policy, but to our advantage. I say to Opposition Members that it is no good supporting European action around the world and then tabling amendments that would make it more difficult. The European Union is vital to tackling the global issues we face today. A more effective European Union is in our interest, not contrary to it. The treaty acknowledges that, and gives us the tools to create a vital and effective common foreign and security policy. I commend it to the House.
I beg to move, To leave out from “House” to end and to insert instead thereof:
“disapproves of the Government’s policy towards the Treaty of Lisbon in respect of provisions concerning foreign, security and defence policy; notes that those provisions are in large part identical to those in the European Union Constitution; further notes that the Government publicly opposed many of those provisions at the Convention on the Future of Europe; believes that the Government was right to oppose those provisions; regrets the Government’s change of policy; and believes that the consequent increase of the European Union’s powers over foreign, security and defence policy at member states’ expense is not in the national interest.”.
It was our contention, when the timetable for debating this Bill was discussed three weeks ago, that the vital areas of foreign policy and defence merited at least two separate days of debate, and I suspect that it will be clear, both from the uncertainty surrounding these issues and their importance, that far more time should have been given to them.
At the outset, let us be clear that the foreign, security and defence provisions of the EU treaty provide a classic illustration of how closely the treaty now before us mirrors the EU constitution, usually down to the smallest detail. The Foreign Affairs Committee, which has, of course, a Labour majority, concluded in its report that
“there is no material difference between the provisions on Foreign Policy in the Constitutional Treaty which the government made subject to approval in a referendum and those in the Lisbon Treaty on which a referendum is being denied.”
No rational person could come to any other conclusion. The similarities are overwhelming: the existence of the high representative, the renamed Foreign Minister, and the simultaneous membership of the European Commission for the person holding that post; the appointment of the high representative by qualified majority voting; the extension of QMV to proposals made by the high representative and the design of the EU diplomatic service; the creation of the new EU foreign policy fund; the requirement on Britain and France to invite the high representative to present the EU’s case at the UN Security Council when a common position has been determined; the creation of a single legal personality for the EU; and a series of defence commitments, including a mutual defence commitment and so-called permanent structured co-operation.
All those points, which are the subject of our six-hour debate today, were in the EU constitution and are in the EU treaty. Indeed, some were among the aspects of the treaty that made it a constitutional treaty in the opinion of the former Foreign Secretary, who is now the Lord Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw). He told the House that the creation of an EU Foreign Minister, as well as an EU president, were points that were
“central to the European constitutional treaty, and of course I see no prospect of their being brought into force, save through the vehicle of a constitutional treaty.”—[Official Report, 6 June 2005; Vol. 434, c. 1001.]
It is as clear in foreign policy as it is in any aspect of the treaty that if the Government were possessed of any honour or honesty in living up to their manifesto commitments, the people of this country would be permitted the referendum that they want and deserve.
On that point, is the right hon. Gentleman still of the same opinion that he was in 1998, which was that referendums eroded the democratic process in the UK?
I am of the opinion that when all the parties in the House have committed themselves to a referendum, that referendum should be granted. That makes this case wholly different from any previous case from 1998, 1992 or whenever else. In the general elections that preceded those occasions, no party had committed itself to a referendum on the European treaty. In this Parliament, every party committed itself to a referendum on a European treaty. The Government cannot therefore mount any credible argument that a difference in the provisions in the treaty from the provisions in the constitution absolves them from their referendum commitment. They can argue instead only that the provisions are relatively unimportant or are small improvements—that would seem to be the gist of the Foreign Secretary’s case—that would not merit a referendum in any case.
That argument, however, comes up against three major problems. The first is that it is generally agreed by observers who set out to be impartial that in this area the treaty makes important changes. The Foreign Affairs Committee of our own House noted that
“the Government risks underestimating, and certainly is downplaying in public, the importance and potential of the new foreign policy institutions established by the Lisbon Treaty, namely the new High Representative and the European External Action Service.”
Last week, Mr. Andrew Duff, who is the leader of the Liberal Democrat MEPs, said:
“The Treaty has large potential and a dramatic impact in the field of common foreign and security policy.”
Secondly, it has emerged that important decisions about how exactly the foreign and defence provisions will be implemented are being held back until ratification in this country, in particular, has been completed. The decisions, for instance, about the role of the president of the European Council in foreign policy and the roll-out of the EU diplomatic service, as well as those about the nature of the all-important structured co-operation in defence, will only be taken later, according to the leaked memo from the Slovenian presidency written on 16 January, when they will no longer be subject to the scrutiny of this Parliament, let alone the people of this country. Those decisions are clearly of huge importance. Indeed, there is a prospect that the scene is being set for a serious turf war between the president of the Council and the high representative—not a clever thing to build into any constitution, and not something that suggests that their roles will be unimportant.
The third difficulty for the Government in making their case is that the changes on foreign policy and defence brought in by the treaty were important enough for the vast majority of them to have been strongly opposed by the Government. The background to that is that for many years there has been instinctive agreement across the House about the relationship of the European Union to foreign policy. The Foreign Secretary gave voice to some of this in his speech. We have all been in favour of member states of the EU working together on foreign policy issues on an intergovernmental and consensus basis. The need to do so in the years to come—for instance, hopefully, in relation to the Balkans and in dealing with the foreign policy challenges presented by Russia—is clear. In common with the Government, we wish that there was a more effective and forceful unity of foreign policy approach from EU members.
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Let me complete this point first. An intervention from the right hon. Gentleman is always something to savour and look forward to, so I shall come to him in a moment.
Across the House, we wish that the approach to foreign policy of EU members had a more forceful unity in facing up to Iran’s development of nuclear weapons capability and the crimes of regimes such as those in Zimbabwe and Burma. There is no hostility to the co-operation of member states as nation states on a wide range of important issues. As the Foreign Secretary rightly said, that can be a means of implementing our foreign policy here in Britain. The vast majority of us in this House, including the Government, have always opposed the introduction of treaty changes that increase the role of the EU at the expense of member states and of institutions that go beyond supplementing co-operation and supplant it with supranational decision making.
Indeed, there is almost British consensus that institutional change is not only irrelevant to an effective common foreign and security policy but can even be a substitute for it or a distraction from it. That was clear from the evidence given to the Foreign Affairs Committee on this subject, some of which makes interesting reading.
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, who stressed the importance of unity on the question of Russia. Will he explain to the House why the Conservative party and right hon. and hon. Members colluded with Mr. Putin and the Kremlin to try to install one of Mr. Putin’s henchmen as president of the Council of Europe against the wish of all the other centre-right parties in Europe?
The right hon. Gentleman is making an extraordinary accusation when he says that we have been colluding with Mr. Putin, whom we have never met. I have to tell him that it was provided for in the arrangements for the presidency of the Council of Europe that the position would be taken by a socialist. One of the people who argued that the Russians should take the presidency was, as I understand it, the leader of the Labour delegation and former Deputy Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott). The right hon. Gentleman’s accusations against the Conservative party are rather misplaced.
The right hon. Gentleman says that he is in favour of co-operation within the European Union on foreign policy, and that is clearly welcome. Does he propose any measures to ensure that co-operation is easier and that the potential for co-operation is enhanced?
That brings me exactly to the points that I wanted to make about the evidence given to the Foreign Affairs Committee. It is an interesting set of evidence for the House.
Professor Hill of Cambridge’s centre of international studies told the Committee that
“institutional change has too often been a substitute for change at the level of policy and a willingness to grasp the nettle of difficult decisions…Whenever there is a problem in European Union foreign policy, the instinct is to say, ‘Let’s invent some new procedure’.”
Professor Whitman of the university of Bath similarly said that
“historically a lot of effort has gone into the procedure rather than the policy.”
He went on to tell the Committee that he thought that
“the CFSP could carry on working quite happily without the changes that are in that treaty.”
A dazzling array of Labour Foreign Secretaries—past and present—drove that point home to the Committee. The noble Lord Owen expressed the view that the EU spent too much time on institutional development and press relations, whereas the best way to strengthen EU foreign policy was
“practical success on the ground.”
The Foreign Secretary’s predecessor, the right hon. Member for Derby, South (Margaret Beckett), dealt briskly with the argument that, as she put it,
“if the European Union cannot get an agreement”—
on the treaty—
“there will be a huge crisis and…the EU will no longer be able to function”.
Not so, she said:
“the last few months have shown that that is not actually so. The EU is functioning and has, indeed, reached some quite far-reaching decisions”.
I rather agree with those Labour Foreign Secretaries and academic experts that the concentration of EU and foreign policy should be on practical agreement and grasping difficult issues rather than trying to change the rules.
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way again. Does he agree that the treaty’s changes on common foreign and security policy are so modest for the very reasons that he has just set out?
The hon. Gentleman had better take that up with his colleague Mr. Andrew Duff. As I mentioned a moment ago, he said that the treaty would have a “dramatic impact” in the field of common foreign and security policy. I know that the Liberal Democrats are having some disagreements about how to vote on some of these matters, so perhaps they can resolve that one at the same time as they resolve the others.
I am sure the right hon. Gentleman agrees that some changes need to be made. The history of the Iraq invasion shows that the Council of Ministers never talked about that country, which thus shows that there is a flaw in how the EU discusses foreign policy issues. Does he think that any of the proposed changes would be positive?
I do not think it would have been necessary to pass this treaty for the Council of Ministers to be able to discuss the situation in Iraq. I suspect that the Council did not discuss Iraq because it would have been too difficult for its members to reach any agreement on it. I recommend that the Council take the advice of the Labour party’s illustrious former Foreign Secretaries and concentrate on reaching practical agreement rather than on changing the rules.
In fact, the present Foreign Secretary has said that the EU’s actions on climate change have done more to show the relevance of the EU than any amount of institutional tinkering. I agree with him on that as well, and indeed the Opposition are in full agreement with that view. There is probably near unanimity in the House about it, so it is even less defensible that the Government, from the Prime Minister down, instead of standing up in the negotiations for their well-founded preference for practical delivery over increasing the EU’s powers through institutional change, should have rolled over and agreed to the profound changes and increases in the EU’s powers that we are discussing today.
That is why there was complete agreement in this country when the Government said that they had a “red line” and that there must be no intrusion into Britain’s right to an independent foreign policy. The fact that Ministers have secured a “declaration” attached to the treaty that makes clear our rights in foreign policy shows both the importance that they attach to foreign policy and their belief that the treaty intrudes in that area. It as a pity, to say the least, that the legal adviser to the European Scrutiny Committee should consider the existence of that declaration, as opposed to a protocol, to be legally meaningless, but it is instructive that Ministers felt that a declaration had to be made.
It is an illustration of the consensus that has existed in the House for many years that almost every provision in the treaty that concerns foreign policy has been opposed by Ministers at one time or another. It is now the Foreign Secretary’s job to put a positive gloss on everything that his predecessors opposed in the Government’s name. He now says that they were asking “searching questions”—a phrase that recurred throughout his speech this afternoon—so let us look at some of the “searching questions” that they asked.
In the first place, the Government were opposed to the EU Foreign Minister or high representative also being a member of the European Commission. As the former Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for Blackburn, who is now the Secretary of State for Justice, said:
“We would have preferred to have explicit separation of those two posts.”
That is a bit more than a question, although perhaps not very searching. At the same time, Ministers were trenchantly opposed to the idea that the proposals made by the EU Foreign Minister should be agreed by QMV. In December 2003, when he was still Foreign Secretary, the present Secretary of State for Justice also said:
“QMV on proposals made by the Union’s Minister for Foreign Affairs is simply unacceptable”.
Is “simply unacceptable” the tone of a searching question? I do not know what things are like in the former Foreign Secretary’s house, but when my wife tells me that something is “simply unacceptable” it is not a searching question but something much more emphatic. The right hon. Gentleman also said:
“We made it clear that common foreign and security policy is an inter-governmental matter, and must be established unanimously.”
Yet that “searching question” was cast aside. The article to which he was objecting is in the treaty, and it was in the constitution. The difficulty with it is obvious, as is the reason that the Government opposed it. The Council could unanimously ask the EU Foreign Minister to present a proposal, with Britain’s agreement; but if the proposal was unsatisfactory to the British Foreign Secretary, the EU Foreign Minister would then find that that unsatisfactory proposal was subject to QMV. The Government evidently shared our fears about that, but they capitulated.
The Government capitulated again over the creation of the European diplomatic service, or external action service. When that service was proposed, the then Minister for Europe, the right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane), said in a written answer:
“We believe that it remains for EU member states to organise their respective bilateral diplomatic services at the national level.”—[Official Report, 23 January 2003; Vol. 398, c. 226W.]
I am delighted that he is present to be reminded of his version of a “searching question”. It clearly stated the Government’s policy that they were not in favour of a European external action service.
Is my right hon. Friend aware that the Foreign Office has already nominated 25 people to work in the European external action service, even before the treaty has been signed?
Yes, although it is right that British nominees should take part if the service is established. When the right hon. Member for Rotherham referred to the “best brains” being sent, he was rather giving a hint that he would like to sent as one of the service’s ambassadors, as the phrase is one that he would certainly like to apply to himself. However, my hon. Friend makes a good point. The EU is sometimes in the habit of setting up institutions before it has the full legal authority to do so. The service should not be established or recruited to before the treaty has been ratified by Parliament.
Yet the Government have now agreed to the creation of such a service and to its rules on diplomatic and consular protection being determined by QMV, even though they used to be opposed to all of that. The Government’s opposition was deep and long standing: as recently as last June, only days before the treaty was signed, the Foreign Secretary’s immediate predecessor, the right hon. Member for Derby, South, fought a spectacularly unsuccessful last-minute rearguard action against the creation of the external action service. She reportedly said that the creation of such a service could be seen as “state building” and that Britain was opposed to it.
How can it be that the creation of the service was sufficiently alarming to the Foreign Office for the Foreign Secretary of our country to make every effort to stop it even at the final hour but, when the Government caved in and agreed to it, it became something that was no threat at all and a matter that Parliament did not need to worry about?
At the same dinner in Brussels, at the Foreign Affairs Council that preceded the Lisbon summit, the right hon. Lady the former Foreign Secretary also made a last-ditch effort to prevent the EU Foreign Minister or high representative from becoming the permanent chairman of the meetings of Foreign Ministers. Again, if that is of no account, why did the Government go to such lengths to try to prevent it? Is it the present Foreign Secretary’s position that his predecessor was wrong to try to prevent those things? Was she only asking “searching questions” when she declared her opposition at the last minute?
Then there is the matter of representation at the UN Security Council. Once again, the treaty carries the exact language of the constitution, saying:
“When the Union has defined a position on a subject which is on the UN Security Council agenda, those Member States which sit on the Security Council shall request that the High Representative be invited to present the Union’s position.”
The Government’s approach to that was unambiguous. When the right hon. Member for Neath (Mr. Hain) put forward the Government’s views to the European Convention drafting the constitution, he argued that that entire paragraph should be struck out altogether. He said:
“The UK cannot accept any language which implies that it would not retain the right to speak in a national capacity on the UN Security Council.”
Another “searching question”: the UK could not accept the paragraph and wanted it struck out. Having got nowhere with that argument, however, the Government instead proposed another amendment that suggested that the EU Foreign Minister could only make a request to speak on behalf of the EU. Overruled on that “searching question” as well, the Government simply gave in completely.
To be fair, the Foreign Affairs Committee has said that the provision allowing the EU high representative to speak at the UN Security Council would make little difference to current practice, and the Government of course have stated their agreement with that view. However, if they were confident that it made no difference to current practice, why was their initial hostility to the idea so emphatic and repeated? Presumably it is because they saw it as the thin end of a wedge.
Subsequently, of course, it has turned out that, while the Government have been resisting that wedge, the Prime Minister has appointed to the Foreign Office a Minister who is the wedge himself. The noble Lord Malloch-Brown said on 2 October 2006 that the European Commission would eventually represent the EU and the United Nations as the voice of all member states, adding:
“I think it will go in stages…It’s not going to happen with a flash and a bang”,
but
“as quickly as possible.”
That is not the Government’s policy, but it is the policy of one of their members. As Lord Malloch-Brown sees himself, to use his own words, as
“the older figure, the wise eminence behind the young Foreign Secretary”,
and as the Prime Minister saw fit to make him the Minister with responsibility for UN reform, who knows where it might lead?
My right hon. Friend is giving a brilliant exposition of the position. Does he agree that the context is legal personality? In the case of trade, the mechanics of trading arrangements are effectively made over to the EU. That is exactly the intention behind the arrangements with regard to foreign policy and the high representative.
I think that that is the intention of many of the drafters of the constitution that has become the treaty. It may not be the intention of members of the Government, although it is certainly the intention of one.
That brings me to paragraph 3 of article 48 of the treaty, which allows the Council to move to qualified majority voting in any of the remaining areas covered by unanimity, including foreign policy. That means that the extension of QMV to foreign policy embodied in the treaty could be taken much further without any other treaty having to be negotiated or ratified. It is almost needless to say that that provision, too, was opposed by the Government. The right hon. Member for Rotherham, if I may mention him again, said:
“We think that a self-amending constitutional treaty does not make a lot of sense”,—[Official Report, Standing Committee on the Intergovernmental Conference, 20 October 2003; c. 20.]
but it turns out that that is now part of the treaty.
The right hon. Gentleman is extraordinarily kind. We have Rotherham connections. In an article in the Financial Times, the Conservative MEP Caroline Jackson said:
“On the continent, the Conservatives now have a bad reputation (rapidly getting worse) for crass and offensive behaviour”.
That is not true of the right hon. Gentleman in the House, although it is true of the Conservatives on the continent. Does he not agree that in the treaty, any move to the so-called passerelle depends, again, on unanimity? He is cherry-picking bits of the treaty but not reading them across. He is a great speaker, but a poor lawyer.
I am only pointing out that there are many aspects of the treaty to which the right hon. Gentleman was opposed. If I am picking cherries, they are cherries at which he took aim in the past and which he was happy to try to rip from the tree himself. He says that extension is subject to unanimity. Of course it is, and the Government have said that they will submit any such extension to a vote in Parliament, but the Foreign Affairs Committee drew attention to the inadequacy of that commitment, saying:
“We further recommend that all amendments to the Treaty, including extensions of qualified majority voting, should be done by primary legislation and not simply by a vote of the House.”
That is right because the only restraint on Governments of either party in the agreement of European treaties has been the need to pass primary legislation through Parliament. That must apply to the amendment of treaties, too, unless the rights of the House are to be reduced yet again, in this case by reducing debate on changes in the governance of Britain to a matter of a few hours, instead of requiring the passage of legislation through all stages.
Do I therefore take it that any future Conservative Government would commit themselves to introducing a requirement that future moves to QMV be subject to primary legislation?
Yes, absolutely, although I hope that the hon. Lady will join Conservative Members in the Lobby to try to insert such a provision in this Bill, so that it is not for a future Conservative Government to carry that out.
It will be apparent from what I have said that the treaty’s impact on foreign policy making is more substantial than the Government have conceded, and its potential impact dramatically so. I am conscious of the time, but let me give a final illustration of that—the creation of the new EU foreign policy fund under paragraph 47 of article 1 of the Lisbon treaty. The Government demanded that decisions about the fund should be taken by unanimity but, believe it or not, that was only a searching question. They capitulated, and such decisions will now be made by qualified majority voting, including decisions on what amounts will be contributed by member states. The matter links foreign policy with defence, as the new fund is seen by some to be the first step towards a common defence budget for the EU. My hon. Friend the Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox) will of course wish to refer to the defence provisions when he winds up the debate, but I want to make clear now our concern about the extent, nature and implication of those provisions.
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way; he is being very generous. Can he point to any common foreign and security policy proposals in the treaty that the Conservatives support, or are they against every single one?
We think that there is no need for a treaty, particularly when it comes to foreign policy, as I pointed out earlier. The European Council should concentrate on making foreign policy work more effectively, not on changing the rules. The fact that we are against the treaty is clearly the foundation of our position.
Article 1, paragraph 49, of the Lisbon treaty states:
“The common security and defence policy shall include the progressive framing of a common Union defence policy. This will lead to a common defence”.
It goes on to establish a new, mutual defence commitment quite separate from that of the NATO alliance. Mr. Deputy Speaker, by now you may not be surprised to hear that the Government opposed all those provisions, with the right hon. Member for Neath arguing:
“Common defence, including as a form of enhanced cooperation, is divisive and a duplication of the guarantees that 19 of the 25 Member States will enjoy through NATO.”
It is serious enough to sign a treaty on common defence and a mutual defence commitment in an organisation that does not have the means to fulfil such a commitment, but it is more serious still to sign a treaty that could change the nature of the western alliance without sufficient national debate or forethought. The French Defence Minister has been perfectly frank about that; he said on 19 July last year that the new treaty
“will permit reinforced cooperation, notably in the area of defence, since defence”
in
“Europe will move forward by using a hard core of countries which want to take on their own Security.”
The reinforced co-operation to which he refers is the “permanent structured cooperation” referred to in the treaty, designed to allow an inner core of EU members interested in taking forward military integration to do so without the rest.
Yet again, the Government initially opposed structured co-operation, saying that they could not accept the proposal and that it would undermine the inclusive, flexible model of European security and defence policy. Their reasons for being against it were good ones, since permanent structured co-operation would leave those European countries not included in it with even less incentive to improve their military capabilities. By creating what some would see as a European pillar of NATO, structured co-operation could change the nature of the NATO alliance in a way that, in the longer term, would weaken its essential transatlantic character.
Added to that is the introduction of qualified majority voting on the statute, seat and operational rules of the European Defence Agency, an institution already established but on a shaky legal basis—the basis that we discussed earlier. Article 2 of the relevant protocol requires participating member states to co-operate to
“bring their defence apparatus into line with each other”
and to achieve
“approved objectives concerning the level of investment expenditure on defence equipment”,
among other things. It is surely part of our role as a nation to make our own decisions on our security needs and defence equipment, and to work in co-operation with European allies, the United States or others as we see fit. If such decisions begin to be circumscribed by the introduction of QMV into the affairs of the European Defence Agency, which will be headed by the EU high representative, who is also a member of the European Commission, there may one day be important consequences, including once again for transatlantic co-operation.
The eventual consequences of such changes will not become apparent until after the treaty has been ratified. The Government appear to be saying as little as possible about British participation in structured defence co-operation until after the treaty has been passed. They have done nothing to inform the nation of the consequences of the changes, or their future intentions. However, we are not talking about small matters. If there is a case for approaching something as vital as the defence of the nation in a different way, that case should be made openly and honestly. The former French Foreign Minister, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, has said:
“The Constitution lays the legal basis for a future European Army.”
Romano Prodi has said something similar, yet there has been no such frank assessment from the Government of that or any other aspect of the treaty.
The French Government have said that European defence will be one of the priorities of their forthcoming presidency, so will the Foreign Secretary—or the Minister for Europe, when he winds up the debate—come clean on whether it is the Government’s policy to participate in permanent structured co-operation on European defence? They should make that clear before Parliament passes the treaty.
Does my right hon. Friend agree that there is a difference between peacekeeping and war fighting, and that we heard it confirmed by the Foreign Secretary today that there is unlikely to be any agreement in the European Union on a European force that would be able to undertake either?
My hon. Friend is probably right about that. He made that point earlier in the debate to good effect.
Let me summarise the position. The provisions of the Lisbon treaty on foreign, security and defence policy are therefore not difficult to characterise. They are, by common agreement across the House, more substantial than the Government have acknowledged. Although they are described as limited in their implications, even a short analysis suggests that their future implications could be far-reaching. For that reason, they have been, almost without exception, opposed by Ministers during the negotiations on the treaty, and for the same reasons they are opposed by the Opposition today.
Yet the Government have at every opportunity tried to keep Parliament and the public in the dark about the treaty in general, and its provisions on foreign policy and defence in particular. They negotiated in secret. They have tried to cover up the importance of those provisions. Now they are delaying the crucial decisions about how they will work in practice until it is too late for MPs and voters to have any say on the matter at all.
If the treaty is ratified, only the passage of months and years will inform us whether the assurances of the Foreign Secretary today were to be relied upon, but I suspect that the judgment of time on Ministers, whose complacent advocacy of these proposals has replaced their virulent opposition to them in the recent past, will be very harsh indeed.
I should remind the House that Mr. Speaker has placed a limit of seven minutes on Back-Bench speeches, which operates from now.
It is a great pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague), who demonstrated again today his ability to present a bad case well and with humour. We all listened carefully to what he said, but ultimately the case was not proven.
I begin with an act of apostasy. I am pleased to see that my hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley, South (Mr. O'Hara) is present. In 1975 I campaigned as part of the Huyton Says No campaign, which advocated coming out of the Common Market, as it was then. I arrived in the House in 1986, just after the single European market had been created. The Act had just gone through Parliament. Had I been able to vote on it, I would have voted against it. During the debates on the Maastricht treaty, for the most part I voted against the treaty, mainly on the grounds that it excluded the social chapter. I thought it was wrong to go along with all the treaty’s provisions without including the social chapter. However—this is the act of apostasy—I am now minded to support the Government on the Lisbon treaty, and I shall give some of the reasons for that.
The first is that the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks and others on the Opposition Benches make a great deal about the similarities between the content of the treaty and the content of what was the constitution. I have no doubt that a large amount of the text was duplicated, but they repeatedly neglect to spell out the difference between a treaty and a constitution. Those are entirely different. A treaty is essentially a formal written agreement between sovereign states, whereas a constitution is a fundamental law—one that determines the fundamental political principles of a Government and the relationship between the branches of Government and individuals. The Lisbon document cannot be a constitution because it does not relate to a specific state. A treaty is an entirely different thing.
The right hon. Gentleman chose his words carefully when he spoke about the Community foreign and security policy. He said that some see it as a retreat from the protection of that under the pillar of the past, but no pillar has collapsed. The Opposition keep repeating their arguments as though they were true, but the truth is different. The right hon. Gentleman and those on the Opposition Benches may not do that deliberately. They probably genuinely believe their arguments, but they have convinced themselves of something that is not so.
The right hon. Gentleman made great play of the high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, but the holder of that position will not be a Union Minister for Foreign Affairs. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary made that clear in his opening speech. Such an office is another fear that is being paraded around which does not exist in reality. It is strongly the case that common foreign and security policy remains the responsibility of member states.
I shall deal briefly with qualified majority voting. With a European Union of 27 member states, the use of QMV is necessary in order to make quicker decisions. Nobody disagrees with that. I do not see that any change that is about to take place in that is a bad thing. It simply reflects changes—
The right hon. Gentleman thinks that no one disagrees with that. Is he aware of the ICM poll which shows that 80 per cent. of British people feel that Britain should retain total control of its defence policy, and only 15 per cent. think the EU should be allowed to dabble in that? Does he think those people are deluded or just stupid?
If I have time, I intend to speak about what we can learn from opinion polls.
I welcome the eventual introduction of double majority voting by 2014, which is based on population size and will be much fairer.
I shall deal briefly with the topic that the hon. Gentleman raised. Opinion polls tell us a great deal. An interesting poll was commissioned by The Sun and carried out by MORI in September. The poll showed that a majority of people were unhappy about the treaty. Over 40 per cent. of the population were opposed to Britain’s continued membership of the European Union. But when one analyses the breakdown by age ranges, those under 55 are less Eurosceptic, and the lower the age range, the less Eurosceptic they prove and the more enthusiastic Europeans they become. The Conservatives have some public support for their position, but they are playing to a segment of the population that is growing older, and younger members of the population do not agree with them at all.
The Conservatives need to think about that—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Macclesfield (Sir Nicholas Winterton) says that that is rubbish. It is not. If he examines the polls, that is exactly what they show.
My final point—[Interruption.]
Order. The right hon. Gentleman should not be disturbed by barracking from a sedentary position.
It is always a pleasure to be disturbed by the hon. Member for Macclesfield.
My final point is that what those polls demonstrate is that instead of this debate, which for the most part has been exaggerated and prone to hyperbole, not least on the part of the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks, the debate that we ought to have is the one that the Liberal Democrats suggest. We need a national debate about whether we want to stay in Europe. I think we do. Once we have concluded that debate, the sort of argument taking place in the House will not need to take place on a regular basis.
The right hon. Member for Knowsley, North and Sefton, East (Mr. Howarth) began by parading his history of Euroscepticism; he then explained that he was going to support the Lisbon treaty. It would be better if we saw such open-mindedness in all parties in the House. He has made a judgment on the facts, not on the fantasy.
On the subject of fantasy, I should say that the speech made by the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) reminded me of my old scout leader—
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
No. My old scout leader had a great capacity for telling scary ghost stories around the camp fire, frightening the naive younger cubs, but amusing the informed and experienced. The right hon. Gentleman’s speech fooled no one, especially when he was forced to admit that the Conservatives oppose every single measure on common foreign and security policy in the treaty.
A feature of our debates on the treaty has been that the Conservatives have sounded their opposition to everything with great tales of alarm. They have given warnings of doom, like a Dad’s Army made up only of Private Frazers. Given our current position on European and foreign defence policies, the Conservatives are about as relevant and useful as Dad’s Army—out of touch, not only with Europe, but with NATO and the United States of America.
I hope that the hon. Gentleman will reconsider his remarks about people, some of whom are still alive, who did this country a very good service during the second world war.
The hon. Lady has shown how out of touch she is; I was clearly talking about the programme “Dad’s Army”, which is a comedy.
As I will show, the Conservatives’ position is far worse than merely outdated—it is astonishingly inconsistent and incoherent, as was manifestly obvious when one listened to the gaps between the jokes made by the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks. I am happy to make it crystal clear that the Liberal Democrats broadly welcome the treaty’s modest changes on common foreign and security policy. Unlike the right hon. Gentleman, I stress the word “modest”. Despite the hysteria being whipped up by some, the changes wrought by the treaty involve no new powers for Brussels, but a simple and sensible reallocation of powers between those responsible for that area of policy in Brussels.
Foreign and security policy remains in the control of member states, as it always has been. Britain retains its veto on all key decisions—that is how radical the treaty is on that point.
I urge the hon. Gentleman to be cautious when using the word “modest”; “modest” proposals have a rather strange history. He has talked about the coherence of policy. Will he confirm whether the Lib Dems in Westminster agree with the Lib Dems in Brussels, or whether there is a divergence of opinion?
We certainly agree with most of our colleagues in the Brussels Parliament. I am sure that there are members of the Conservative party in the Brussels Parliament who do not agree with those in the Westminster Parliament. However, we will come to that.
The modest changes see the abolition of one foreign policy bureaucrat, a change in the chairing arrangements of one committee and the rationalisation of the management of existing policy levers and staff—real harum-scarum stuff. That is not to say that the changes are not useful and necessary; they certainly are. Why? Because the EU has rightly been criticised, and not only within Europe, for having confusing, inefficient and sometimes even chaotic foreign policy and defence structures. The organisational changes are long overdue and we must hope that they address the problems.
On the subject of clarifying confusing matters, can the hon. Gentleman confirm what the leader of the Liberal Democrats has been reported as saying on Fraser Nelson’s “Coffee House” blog? He apparently said that he has decided after all to allow his 65 MPs to abstain on the issue of a referendum. Is that true, or will they all be whipped to oppose it?
The hon. Gentleman will have to wait and see how we vote on the night. However, what is interesting—[Interruption.] One of the interesting things in the treaty in respect of EU developments and procedures is the proposal for constructive abstention; I think that that is a very good idea.
Let us look at the problems of EU foreign and security policy and at the reforms and their benefits more closely. First, there has been the problem that responsibility for driving the EU debates on foreign policy was divided between three people—the holder of the current post of high representative, the Commissioner for External Relations and the six-monthly rotating presidency of the Council of Ministers. Does anyone seriously wish to defend that system? It was confusing enough for Europeans, let alone others from the US or China who wanted to talk to a genuine voice.
The new arrangement is not without its problems; the new president of the Council may try to usurp some status from the newly titled EU high representative, for example. However, when member states collectively and unanimously decide a position, they can now at least entrust the implementation of that decision to a more permanent, professional and coherent bureaucracy—and therefore hold it to account far more effectively.
There was the crazy problem that the policy levers of sticks and carrots—mainly through aid and trade arrangements—were under the Commission and not readily available to the high representative. That created delays even when there was strong political will and consensus. Quick, effective decision making can be essential during crises and the new arrangements give EU Ministers, acting unanimously, the sporting chance of achieving that more easily.
There was also the bizarre situation of the high representative not controlling the Commission’s delegations to non-member states, often having to rely on the embassies of whichever country held the presidency for that six months. It was a real hit and miss affair. The European external action service, although largely a rebranding of existing EU delegations and offices, once again has the potential to assist the new EU high representative and ensure that the operations are fit for purpose for an integrated EU foreign policy.
We could, of course, talk about many other changes, although I believe that they are even less controversial or substantial. Other speakers have touched on them. I am thinking, for example, of the extension of the operational remit of the EU in common security and defence policy, to take on all the so-called Petersberg tasks—for example, humanitarian and rescue tasks and crisis management, including peacekeeping and conflict prevention. There is also the extension of qualified majority voting in some aspects of the implementation of foreign and common security policy decisions, themselves taken by unanimity. However, as the Foreign Secretary said, that is not in itself novel to the treaties.
Then there is the new article on the United Nations Security Council, which so perturbed the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks. The dramatic, the amazing, the quite extraordinary change that that treaty amendment makes is to ensure that when France and Britain have already agreed with our other 25 partners in the EU on a common position, we should, as a matter of course, always ask the Security Council whether the high representative can present the EU’s common position. Does that “revolution” mean that Britain will have to stay silent? No. Will it mean that we forfeit our right to vote? No. Will we be excluded from all the back-room, corridor dealings that inevitably precede a meeting of the Security Council? No. It simply means that a policy position that we support gets presented again, with the force of a spokesman who represents 27 member states—only modern-day Conservatives would oppose that minor change that is in our national interest.
If all the changes are so minor and modest, why is the hon. Gentleman breaking his pledge, made to his constituents at the last election, on a referendum? Why does he think some of his colleagues will not join him in abstaining or voting against a referendum, but will join the Conservatives to get a referendum?
I am not breaking my pledge, because I will be backing a referendum on whether we are in or out. That is the closest question to a referendum on a constitutional treaty.
The constitutional treaty will contain the treaties from Maastricht, from Rome, from Nice, from Amsterdam and from the Single European Act. A referendum on that treaty was in effect an in-or-out referendum, as we said at the time. We are keeping our pledge; the problem is that the Conservatives are trying to pretend that a pledge for a referendum on the reform treaty—a minor amending treaty—in any way meets their proposal. That is because the Conservatives are totally split on Europe. They would not be prepared to go to the people on the question whether Britain should be in or out.
Could the hon. Gentleman just for once, and uncharacteristically as a Liberal Democrat, be honest? In his election literature in 2005, did he say to his electorate that he would campaign for a referendum on whether to be in or out of Europe, or did he campaign for a referendum on the constitutional changes, which is a completely different thing?
I am not saying that they are exactly the same, and I did not say that. I campaigned for a referendum on the constitutional treaty, which is not the Lisbon reform treaty. Let us be clear about this. The two treaties are 90 per cent. the same. The genetic structures of a mouse and a human being are 90 per cent. the same, but the 10 per cent. difference is significant. If the hon. Gentleman cannot see that, he does himself a real injustice.
Was the hon. Gentleman in the House when the shadow Defence Secretary, who was for about six months the shadow Foreign Secretary, said that, as a doctor, he recognised death when he saw it, and that after the French and Dutch no, the constitutional treaty, as then written, was dead? Now we have the miracle of Lazarus in front of us saying that it has been brought back to life and must be voted on again.
The right hon. Gentleman’s interventions are always very amusing.
We broadly welcome the Lisbon treaty and the changes in it, but there are inevitably a number of unresolved issues that raise legitimate questions, and I hope that the Foreign Secretary—or his colleague, the Minister for Europe—can address them as they respond to the debate. In seeking those answers, he should not think that Liberal Democrat Members suspect some dark conspiracy is afoot—we just ask him in the spirit of genuine inquiry.
Perhaps the least clear element of the package before us is how the European external action service will work. I hope we can get some clarity on that, as I believe that it has the potential for delivering tangible benefits for UK citizens by increasing the availability of consular assistance while reducing costs to the taxpayer. What chance will this House have to scrutinise proposals for taking forward the European external action service? How will it be monitored in the future? For example, will the European Parliament, or this Parliament, have a role in the overview of its budget? What specific steps are Her Majesty’s Government taking to ensure that our own diplomatic service—and the rest of Whitehall, from the Department for International Development to the Ministry of Defence, and so on—can engage fully with the newly structured European external action service, so that UK civil servants play their usual starring roles?
In terms of policy development in the UK now, how will the UK national security strategy be assisted by the new apparatus? Will the European security strategy, which received such a broad welcome, feature in whatever new domestic ideas are under consideration?
Finally, on defence aspects, do Her Majesty’s Government have any plans to launch any particular initiatives under the permanent structured co-operation arrangements when the Lisbon treaty comes into force?
I partly single out those arrangements because I have been astonished by how hostile the Conservatives seem to be towards them. Their party argues for a multi-speed Europe; it invented the idea of opting out in Europe. Its defence spokesman has had the brass neck to attack the proposals for permanent structured co-operation, saying that it
“will allow countries to ‘opt-out’ of any further defence integration and will create an ‘inner-core’ of Member-States interested in furthering military integration.”
I thought that that was the Conservatives’ approach to the European Union. It is simply breath-taking.
Then we come to the inconsistency of the position adopted by the shadow Foreign Secretary. I have been fascinated to see how often he demands or supports action by the EU on one day, but on the next opposes anything and everything that increases the EU’s ability to act—he is always willing the ends, and never willing the means. So, on one day, he says, on Russia and the Litvinenko affair:
“We welcome the news that the Government have received strong support for their stance from European Union partners”.
Then he says, in opposition to the proposed EU high representative in the Lisbon treaty:
“Our own voice in the world will be less important”.
On another day, he says, on Darfur, that Britain
“should also seek to do more through stronger EU action”
but then on another occasion says that an EU diplomatic service is “unacceptable”. On Iraq, on one day he will say,
“I am referring to the European Union, alongside the United States, taking measures that go beyond the measures agreed at the UN Security Council. It is time for EU nations to do more.”
Yet back in his leadership days, he complained that the then Prime Minister had signed up at Nice
“to an independent and autonomous European identity, with only ad hoc arrangements linking it to NATO…Is it not the case that duplicate and conflicting structures are being set up?”
I am afraid that he is wriggling, writhing and, above all, wrong on those issues.
Perhaps it has something to do with the right hon. Gentleman having three former Conservative Foreign Secretaries sitting with him in Parliament, with 14 years of office between them, who support the Lisbon treaty’s foreign and defence policy proposals, and having to reconcile their views with those of his Back Benchers and, often, his Front-Bench spokespeople.
On the question of inconsistency, what does the hon. Gentleman say to his senior colleagues, and some junior ones, who perhaps do not have the luxury of a leafy suburb constituency in London but represent seats in the south-west, and who may not be going into the same Lobby as him on a referendum on whether the treaty should be enacted?
I would say to them that they should ignore everything that the hon. Gentleman ever says.
It is interesting to read what the Conservative Member of the European Parliament, Caroline Jackson, said this week in the Financial Times, when she called the Conservatives’ attitude to Europe a “poisonous fungus”. She said that they are getting a reputation for bad manners towards their continental allies, and that the time warp of the party’s European attitudes has two damaging effects, one being that the right-wing, “nasty” and dogmatic aspects of the party—so off-putting to voters from 1997 to 2005—are still alive; and she makes it clear that she thinks the Conservatives are unelectable until they sort this out.
We are sometimes told that the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) has been searching for his clause IV moment. Some said that he found it, then bottled it, over grammar schools. Yet the truth is that the Conservatives’ real clause IV is Europe, and the fact that so few of them realise that shows how far away they are from power. When Lisbon is ratified, as it will be, the debate on EU foreign and defence policy will move on, leaving the Tories beached once more. Yet that debate is crucial. Take Kosovo. Whisper it for now, but the EU may be the secret that unlocks sustainable peace in the western Balkans, with many nations acting together—yes, with their differences, but still able to act together peacefully to help other people on our shared continent through the largest civilian European security and defence policy mission to date.
Take the relationship between the EU’s defence initiatives and NATO—one of the Conservatives’ bêtes noires. Here President Sarkozy, with his rapprochement with Washington and his clear desire to return France to NATO’s structures, is showing leadership that Britain should surely respond to and encourage. The choice that the Conservatives say that we must make in defence policy—either the US and NATO or the EU—has always been a false one, but the new incumbent at the Élysée palace is making that ever clearer. Then take what is perhaps the EU’s most significant new strategic relationship for this century—that with China. There is now a steady stream of works attempting to divine what the Chinese think of Europe. Inevitably, it is hardly conclusive, nor should it determine our policy. However, from the perspective of a country the size of China, with the diversity of China, the view that Europe needs to get its act together and speak and act more coherently comes across loud and clear.
In the debates on the amendments, I hope to say more about defence, particularly missile defence, but let me now touch on the most crucial EU relationship of all—that with the US. When we look at the rapidly reducing field of candidates for US President, we can clearly see that the days of a White House full of unilateralist neo-cons have gone. The next US Administration will not seek to conscript a coalition of the willing—it will seek to coax a co-operation of colleagues. Europe must prepare for that.
The many failings of Europe in foreign, security and defence policies in the past need to be addressed, so that we can renew and strengthen Europe’s relationship with the US. Yes, that does mean challenging others about their investment in military capacity, but it also means building trust, commitment and structures, so that Europe can be a better partnership. Of course, NATO is essential to that process, but the experience of Afghanistan must surely make those who thought NATO was the unique answer to an EU-US partnership want to review their position. An EU that can agree common positions on foreign and defence policy will be a bulwark and a bolster to NATO.
Indeed, it is through close relationships developed throughout the policy arena within the EU that the chances of building more effective and sustainable alliances will be made stronger, not weaker. The most anti-American thing one could do is to reject the proposals before us, and retreat into a balkanised bilateralism that has often failed us in the past.
It is a pleasure to share in the poignancy of the act of apostasy of my right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley, North and Sefton, East (Mr. Howarth)—a poignancy that perhaps only two lads from Huyton could fully appreciate. I shall do two simple things in this short address: set out what I see as necessary and beneficial developments in European foreign, security and defence policy in the past decade or two, and then move on to the difference that the Lisbon treaty makes.
Even bitter opponents of the European Union will recognise the advantages of being part of the Common Market. What opponents do not always recognise is the corollary: the extent of the commonality of interest that that implies. It extends to responsibility for the protection of those at risk within our sphere of influence and to the defence of common interests.
The Balkan wars of the 1990s demonstrated how weak European Governments were when acting alone, and so the need for a common European foreign policy was perceived, in order to address future crises better. Following the St. Malo agreement of 1998, we saw the agreement of European defence policies at Helsinki in 1999 to support the common foreign policy, particularly through the development of the rapid deployment capability. That is why Europe was able to take over responsibilities from NATO in Bosnia, and to continue work in Congo, Sudan, and the other places in that impressive list of interventions for good cited by my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary in his opening address.
In December 2003, the agreement on European security strategy spelled out the main threats to European security, which were terrorism, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, regional conflicts, failed states and organised crime. None of those issues is purely military. They all require more than a military response, and they demand a complete rethink of how we deploy civil and military resources to address future threats. Also, importantly, they require maximum collaborative effort, because such threats do not confine themselves to national frontiers.
Such matters give rise to the consideration of defence procurement, rationalisation of the European Union defence industry base and, importantly, interoperability between our forces—hence the formation of the European Defence Agency to break down barriers, to encourage cross-border trade in military equipment and to harmonise the process of research, development and production of weapons and equipment. Such considerations have been made all the more necessary by reductions in defence budgets following the end of the cold war. As previous speakers have pointed out, the divergence of interests between the EU and the USA meant that we could not continue to depend entirely on NATO for European defence and security needs.
We are witnessing a transformation of European forces in terms of their purpose, their equipment and their operation. I was at a conference on this transformation of European forces in Paris about a fortnight ago, and much high praise was given to the European Defence Agency by European defence procurement Ministers and by high-ranking military officers. Indeed, much praise is due to Nick Witney, a Brit—the director who got the EDA off the ground.
What does all this have to do with the Lisbon treaty? Quite a lot. I am one of those who says that the treaty is emphatically not constitutional. It reforms institutions that need reform, specifically in the context of today’s debate. The current EU institutions for making foreign policy are inadequate for the collaborative approach. The rotating presidency means a lack of continuity and expertise, which frustrates our American colleagues, for example. The institutional split between the Council of Ministers, which is diplomatic, and the Commission, which is economic, is counter-productive and inhibits partnership work. The reform treaty will improve the situation in a number of ways to allow for positive, more effective action, such as the merging of the jobs of the high representative and the Commissioner for External Relations, and the downgrading of the rotating presidency. It is a myth that the rotating presidency will take away powers from the UK. As was said by a previous contributor to the debate, if that were so, how could Spain and Greece go their own way on Kosovo?
I put the case that collaborative effort is needed to promote and defend common and individual interests arising out of the successful development of the EU, which we all share. I commend the treaty to the House.
Deferred division
I now have to announce the result of the Division deferred from the previous day.
On the draft Shropshire (Structural Change) Order 2008, the Ayes were 257, the Noes were 164, so the motion was agreed to.
[The Division Lists are published at the end of today’s debates.]
Treaty of Lisbon (No. 5)
Question again proposed.
I must begin with a confession. When I addressed the House on Second Reading, I sought to reassure colleagues who were concerned about the proposed powers of the president of the European Council that they would be exactly the same as those of the current President. In fact, I was wrong: there will be fewer. The President of the European Council currently has a vote, as he is a Head of Government. The new president of the European Council will have no vote in the European Council, so whether we are talking about foreign policy or any other area, the suggestion that the creation of this post will somehow have a new, dramatic and sinister consequence is difficult to substantiate. The individual concerned will not even be able to vote on the matters before the European Council.
The post of high representative is similar. The high representative, like the president of the European Council, will, of course, have influence, but will not be able to vote. Only Foreign Ministers will vote and make the decisions. That must be borne in mind when we try to work out the implications and the overall consequences of the treaty.
The commissioners have no vote when they are in a Council meeting, but I am sure that my right hon. and learned Friend acknowledges that they have immense power, not only to propose measures but to withdraw them and hold them on the table. No one else has that power.
I am not referring to the commissioners, but to the president of the European Council. If one seeks a comparison, it would be with the Secretary-General of the United Nations, who has often been handicapped by the Security Council’s failure to provide the mandate that he wishes and has therefore been unable to deliver policy.
I agree with the right hon. and learned Gentleman, but does not he realise the damage that he does to the case of Conservative Front Benchers, who for six months or more have been telling us about an all-powerful president of Europe and an all-powerful European Foreign Minister? The Daily Mail, The Sun and The Daily Telegraph report that such monsters are approaching. Yet the right hon. and learned Gentleman claims that, like the Wizard of Oz, they may try to pull the levers but not much will happen unless we, as nation states, agree with them. He needs to have that discussion with his Front-Bench colleagues.
I must have that discussion with the right hon. Gentleman, too, because one of the problems that has bedevilled the European Union is that its enthusiasts and its critics resort to hyperbole on almost every possible occasion, thereby damaging both sides of the argument and confusing the British public. That must be borne in mind.
As one tries to work out the claims and counter-claims about the treaty, the British public are entitled to know whether it will fundamentally impede the pursuit of our foreign policy. It is reasonable to ask whether, if the powers had been available in the past 10 years, any of the most fundamental matters on which British policy diverged from that of most of our European colleagues would have been affected. Rightly or wrongly, we went to war over Iraq. Britain would not have been prevented from carrying out that policy if any of the powers had been in force at the time.
Policy on Kosovo divided Europe 10 years ago as it does today, but Britain was not impeded from making its judgment about what the national interest justified. Although we have differences with European colleagues about Afghanistan, our policy would not be impeded if the powers existed. It is important to make that point, or we confuse our electorate, whichever side of the argument we choose to present.
However, my comments are valid only if the Government are frank about not only the European Union’s achievements but its failures on foreign policy. Kosovo is highly relevant in that context. Nine years ago, we had agreement, not on going to war but at least on the objective of restoring autonomy to Kosovo. That was the purpose of European policy. The then Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, was clear about the matter. He said that, after the war in Kosovo,
“nearly everybody inside Kosovo wants independence and absolutely everybody outside Kosovo does not”.
President Clinton said on behalf of the United States that he believed that “autonomy not independence” was required and that
“independence could actually spur more instability”.
That was effectively the basis on which the United Kingdom went to war.
I therefore find it unimpressive that the Foreign Secretary spoke this week about a common European position, Europe realising its ideals and Europe working positively, when the emergence of Kosovan independence destroyed the whole basis on which this country entered into combat. I want to make a couple of other comments about Kosovo and relate them to whether there should be a common foreign and security policy.
There is a fundamental difference between a single and a common foreign and security policy. We all know that there will not be a single foreign policy for many generations to come, if ever. However, a common foreign policy is different. Let us assume that the European Union did not exist and that we were not constrained in any way by the EU or its institutions. Notwithstanding that, it would be highly desirable for the countries of Europe to try to find common positions if there was genuine and substantive agreement—not artificial agreement—between them. Whether it was on the middle east, Zimbabwe, Iran, Russia or energy policy, it would be highly desirable, from the point of view of the United Kingdom’s national interest, to have allies with whom we could work and present a common position if we were to influence the US, Russia and other parts of the world.
I have no doubt about that, but there are two important caveats if we wish to pursue a common foreign policy. The first is obvious: it must be based on unanimity and not on any form of qualified majority voting, not only because that is undesirable in principle and would conflict with our national sovereignty—vital though those points are—but because it would not work. One cannot force a country to pursue a foreign policy that is contrary to its perception of its national interest. The French, the Germans, the Spanish and the Cypriots will not do it, any more than the UK would do it. That goes without saying.
The second point has not yet been made today and it is important. If the Government rightly want to advance common foreign policy, they must do that only when there is agreement on substance, not simply on form. There has been a tendency, not only under this Government but for many years, to go for the lowest common denominator in Europe so that the European Union can say, “We have a common position.” We end up with documents, statements and policies that do not add up to a row of beans because they constitute an attempt to create a spurious unity. I fear that the Foreign Secretary’s statement yesterday on Kosovo falls in that category.
We all know that Europe is deeply divided about Kosovo. We may disagree about the proportions and how many countries will ultimately recognise Kosovo’s independence. However, today almost half the European Union refuses to recognise Kosovo’s independence. A statement was produced, and our Foreign Secretary said,
“What you’ve seen here is clear political leadership from the European Union”.
Would not it have been more sensible for the Foreign Secretary to say, “It is disturbing and sad that Europe is deeply divided on this issue, but we’ve at least established some points of agreement, and we might build on that in the future”? That would correspond to reality. However, instead he fell into the trap that catches people on both sides of the argument: anything European has to be 100 per cent. correct or totally wrong. Consequently, the national interest is not well served.
Is not the problem the fact that the institutional frameworks that have been created for a common foreign and security policy have led to the expectation that there should be agreement when that is unlikely? We thus end up with charade policies.
My hon. Friend may be correct, but the point of aspiring to have statesmen rather than politicians is that they can get beyond that and consider genuine national interest. Whatever the institutional arrangements that may have been created, no one can persuade me—they should not try—that we should require anything other than unanimity on foreign policy. As long as that remains the case, and it must, if we have statesmen governing our affairs, not only in this country but in other European countries, and they want to argue for a common foreign policy on any matter that is important to this country, it should be based on substantive agreement on genuine issues, not on cobbling together some form of words that pretend to a spurious unity.
I am sorry, but I am running out of time and therefore cannot give way to my hon. Friend.
Foreign policy goes to the heart of national sovereignty, which common policy does not preclude. However, common policy must be based on substance, not form. The Government, as well as others, have failed that important and relevant test.
I am grateful to follow the right hon. and learned Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Sir Malcolm Rifkind) and I share his view on the hyperbole heard from all parts of the House and outside. He rightly spent time on Kosovo and referred to the situation nine years ago, when he may have been much closer to the scene. However, the situation nine years ago is not the situation now. That is the important point that we have to understand and accept, and which has indeed been accepted, not only by the Foreign Secretary yesterday, but by the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) in his response.
I agree entirely with the view of the right hon. and learned Member for Kensington and Chelsea on a common foreign policy. It is not possible—it is not in the treaty, nor is it anywhere stated—to have foreign policies based on qualified majority voting. The qualified majority voting principle was introduced in Amsterdam in 1997, on the basis of secondary considerations. The fact that Romania, Spain and Cyprus have not recognised Kosovo shows that it is perfectly right, in respect of unanimity in foreign policy, that each individual state can and does go its own way. I also agree with him on the question of the lowest common denominator. As someone who supports the European Union and has done for many years, I find it sad that it is the lowest common denominator that unites member states.
One subject that has not been mentioned today—I am happy to be the first to get into it—is that it is almost 10 years since 4 December 1998, when the UK Prime Minister Tony Blair met French President Jacques Chirac at St. Malo in what became a defining moment in the development of defence policy. We have had a great debate today, with concerns expressed by the Opposition, on the role of NATO. However, at that summit in 1998 the two leaders resolved the dilemma of the Union’s relationship with NATO, declaring that Union security would rest with NATO.
It has been pointed out that President Sarkozy has made some statements about NATO and France getting closer, which would be beneficial. However, Prime Minister Tony Blair and President Chirac agreed at St. Malo not only that NATO would be the defence of Europe, but that there should be some institutional and practical arrangements, to act militarily where NATO chooses not to act. The hon. Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Ellwood) made some interesting points about that when he was here, but did not feel that that could happen under the European Union.
However, it was agreed at St. Malo that there would be—and could be—humanitarian and rescue tasks. They could include peacekeeping operations or crisis management, under principles already laid down in what were known as the Petersberg tasks, to which the Foreign Secretary and the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) have referred. The Petersberg tasks were agreed at the Western European Union ministerial meeting in June 1992.
My concern is that the hon. Gentleman is forgetting that there is, effectively, a mutual defence clause in the treaty, which prescribes that where one member state is attacked, the others are obliged to provide it with
“aid and assistance by all…means in their power”.
That takes the St. Malo position much further. Furthermore, just as, for example, the Germans are not doing the right thing in relation to article 5, with respect to what is happening in Afghanistan, so I fear that duplication with NATO will produce exactly the same kind of results that my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington and Chelsea mentioned, namely that things will start fragmenting and people will start breaking up the arrangements, which will affect NATO and undermine our overall commitment.
There are 21 member states in the European Union that are also members of NATO. In the situation that the hon. Gentleman described, of one member state not coming to the defence of another that was attacked, if he is saying that that is what we should do, that would not go down well elsewhere. He also widens the debate when he talks about NATO in Afghanistan and the relationship with Germany, which is a separate issue. However, I agree that there ought to be stronger representation of NATO forces in Afghanistan from countries other than ours.
Let me return to my central theme and refer again to the points made by the hon. Member for Bournemouth, East, who served in the Army, and the comments by Lord Owen about success on the ground. The European Union’s missions over the past few years, to which my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary referred, have included police missions—it must be stressed that they were indeed police missions—in Macedonia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Chad. When Chad was mentioned, there was some protest from the Opposition Benches from a sedentary position. Actually, the intervention in Chad, by way of a police mission, was to secure refugee camps. I am sure that the refugees in those camps would not have appreciated the kind of reaction that we have heard in the Chamber today. Also, there have been police missions in Moldova and Ukraine, so the EU has had some positive effect in various parts of the world.
Yesterday, the Foreign Secretary referred to the work of the group of three Union Foreign Ministers, who have been holding talks with Iran on its nuclear enrichment programme. That, of course, had the support of the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks. This is another element on which the Union can work together. The point made by the right hon. Gentleman, which is perfectly valid, was that the relationships between the Foreign Ministers of France, Germany and the United Kingdom come from intergovernmental action. That is perfectly right.
There are still pillars within the EU—and the defence policy and the foreign policy—that allow member states to act together, as we have done in relation to Iran. I have already made the point that Spain, Cyprus and Romania declined to recognise Kosovo on the ground that they are independent states within the Union that have their own foreign policies.
The hon. Gentleman’s example of Iran is not a good one. In fact, it underlines the disunity within Europe on a lot of foreign policy areas. Some EU member states want to extend the sanctions against Iran to financial sanctions while others do not.
That is true, but the point I made about Iran was that the actions taken by the three Ministers were intergovernmental within the Union framework. The question of sanctions on Iran is significant, and the time may come—I hope it comes quickly—when the EU and the United States act in concert, because the situation in Iran in relation to uranium enrichment is extremely important. The Foreign Secretary has already made that point.
I want to make a few final points. The foreign policy of the EU has to have certain pillars, and one is to be an ally of the USA and not to see it as a competitor. A lot has been made of relations with Russia in respect of gas and oil, its reaction to the anti-missile missiles, which are coming into Poland and the Czech Republic, and Kosovo. Those important issues must be dealt with between the EU and Russia, but interdependence with Russia must be a major policy plank of the EU.
The EU must not be afraid to seek influence in the continent of Africa, where we have been a colonial power, but where we must seek to use our influence in the interests of the people of Africa in education and health. We must also use our influence with China, which has a role to play in Africa, so that it, too, understands the well-being of the African people and the need for it to play a part in that.
This amending treaty and this foreign policy are seeking to give clear emphasis as to what the direction of the Union is, how other nation states may see the Union and how they may understand that the Union’s foreign policy is based on the rule of law, justice and democracy. Those are our values and principles, which we want to project into the wider world.
I hope that the time comes when we can have a debate of the kind that the right hon. and learned Member for Kensington and Chelsea referred to, in which we can see the EU in the round, accept its policies in the round and see that the EU is in the interests of the British people. It is not opposed to those interests, and together we can make for a better world.
I take a simple view on European matters: we are asked to adopt a treaty that brings about a constitution—not just for Europe, but for this country—and we were promised in advance a referendum on that treaty, so it is utterly shameful that the Government should now deprive us of that referendum.
It is all perfectly simple stuff. When politicians make promises, they should keep their word. If they do not do so, there is no point in their speaking at all. Worse, that brings into discredit the very process of government. Why should people turn out to vote in elections on the basis of manifestos to which, they believe, the very people who wrote them will pay no attention? This is absolutely shameful.
I also take a simple view on defence matters. First, defence is the most important duty of the Government. I find it hard to understand that a duty so crucial should be funded by slightly more than 2 per cent. of our gross domestic product. I shall return to that point. Secondly, the cornerstone of our defence is NATO. Thirdly, if the EU wants to add to the defence provided by NATO, I have no intrinsic objection to that—provided that it does not thereby weaken NATO in any way.
The Defence Committee is conducting an inquiry on NATO and European defence. I have to warn the House that, although everything else that I have been talking about is very simple, the Lisbon treaty is so far from being simple that I doubt whether we shall be able to conduct a deep forensic analysis of its effect on defence, and if we did, I suspect that it would unbalance our report on the future of NATO. We intend to publish that report shortly in advance of the Bucharest summit.
In evidence to the Committee, the Secretary of State said that the Lisbon treaty would not undermine NATO and that its provisions make it quite clear that NATO remains the foundation of the collective defence of its members. That is very good news indeed. The question is, will it turn out to be true? I welcome that assurance, because it is essential that nothing in the treaty adversely affects the very effective military alliance that is NATO, but I hope that the Minister winding up the debate will repeat that assurance unequivocally to the House.
Clearly, the ambition of many in the EU is to give the EU a stronger defence role, and it is true that, in some respects, the EU might be able to bring something to the party that NATO could not—for example, I believe that intervention in Lebanon was much more appropriate for the European Union than for NATO. What I do not understand, however, is why the European Union is so intent on building up a defence role for itself when it is so reluctant to pay for it, to build its capabilities or to deploy troops to Afghanistan, which many EU members voted for.
One of the main problems that NATO has encountered is the huge disparity in spending between the United States and the European members of NATO. Put simply, Europe does not spend anywhere near enough on defence. As a result of that lack of spending on defence, there is now a huge and growing capability gap between the United States and Europe. If we are to continue to be able to operate with the United States and to be a worthwhile ally, we need to address that as a matter of the highest priority. Any means of bridging the gap and encouraging Europeans to invest more in defence and to develop greater military capabilities can only be welcomed.
We are told that the provisions in the treaty on permanent structured co-operation will enable more effective military capabilities to be developed. Will they? I doubt it. What seems to be lacking in Europe is not structures, but the political will to commit to defence. If the Secretary of State or the Minister who winds up this debate could explain to the House how permanent structured co-operation will work in practice and how those provisions will enhance European military capabilities, I would be delighted.
Perhaps the Minister could also explain his understanding of qualified majority voting on permanent structured co-operation. Some people who take a close interest in these matters—after 21 years in the House of Commons, this is my maiden speech on European affairs—believe that it will deprive the United Kingdom of our veto in defence matters. I do not ask for an assurance on that because I do not know how worth while such an assurance would be. It will play out in the fullness of time.
Finally, on European Union-NATO co-operation, the Government have said that the Lisbon treaty will ensure that the European security and defence policy is NATO-friendly. That is jolly good, but at the moment there is little co-operation between the EU and NATO. In fact, there is little communication between them. That is damaging, inefficient and ridiculous. It does not seem to me that the Lisbon treaty adds anything that will improve co-operation between the EU and NATO.
We are discussing defence and security provisions. In practice, the tests will be these: what difference will the treaty make to the practicalities of European defence? Will it improve the military capabilities of the European countries, which lag so starkly behind the United States? Will it assist with the deployability of European forces? Will it lead to greater co-operation between the EU and NATO? These are the key tests, and I have to say that, on each of them, my own answer is: I doubt it.
For the record, I should like to reaffirm my belief that we ought to have a referendum on this matter, because all three parties have promised that we would. My right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley, North and Sefton, East (Mr. Howarth) was trying to explain why the treaty and the constitution were different, and why that made a difference. In answer, I would simply say that, after 30 years of various treaties and something that may once have been called a constitution, we have seen a considerable shift in our relationship with the European Union. We now have a presumption that the majority of our policies will involve a Community method—that is, that the European Parliament will have a role. For that reason, too, a referendum is appropriate.
It is interesting that so many of the treaty provisions on security and defence are enabling measures, because that makes it difficult to have an informed debate on the issues. The hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) thought that the objections to the treaty were simply scaremongering. When I was listening to the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague), I suddenly discovered a new emotion. We all know about the Jeremy Paxman test, when he is talking to a politician and wonders why this fatherless creature is doing certain things to him. Listening to the right hon. Gentleman, I found myself wondering why he was making me laugh. He does so not only because he is a very funny speaker, but because he manages to hide the total emptiness behind what the Conservatives are trying to achieve. I have no idea whether they think that the present arrangements on defence and foreign policy are perfect, or whether there is anything in the proposals that they agree with. All I know is that, whenever he gets up to speak, I find him incredibly funny. That serves a purpose, but we should be cautious, because nothing concrete is coming from that side of the House.
Did not the right hon. Gentleman give the game away when he said that he did not want the treaty at all?
Indeed, but there are still questions for the Conservatives to answer.
I want to raise a couple of issues about future capabilities, and about the ability of the treaty to achieve certain things. I have some concerns in that regard. When the Foreign Affairs Committee took evidence, one idea that emerged was to acknowledge that foreign policy was now in a separate pillar, that we recognised the intergovernmental nature of the arrangements and that there were certain provisions for movement towards qualified majority voting. For quite a few of us, however, the provisions stretch it to the limit of what I find just about acceptable. We were promised votes in the House on any further changes, but I do not think that single votes will be sufficient. We all know how any Government can just whip through a single vote. I hope that the Government will make a commitment to introducing primary legislation, as a safeguard, should there be any further movement towards QMV in foreign, security and defence policy.
That brings me to my next issue, which is parliamentary oversight. Let us take as an example the external action service. I again refer hon. Members to the Foreign Affairs Committee’s report, in which we list a number of questions that have so far gone unanswered. Where is the accountability for the further movements? Will there be parliamentary oversight of those movements? I suspect that there will be European parliamentary oversight, because there is an increased movement towards the European Parliament exercising such oversight, but not oversight by national Parliaments. We need to be careful about what is being done in our name, and to take part in shaping these changes at the time, rather than responding to them afterwards.
This thing is currently called the external action service. It does not have a very catchy name, and before long it will be called what was intended to begin with—the European Union’s diplomatic service—just as the high representative will in time be called the Foreign Minister. To anyone who says that that is scaremongering, I would say that I recall sitting here in 1997 when we created a Scottish Parliament and it was made quite clear that there would be a “Scottish Executive”, not a “Scottish Government”. But what happened when the right hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) came to power in Scotland? The first thing he did was unscrew the plaques of the Queen from any Scottish buildings and he then started referring to himself as the Scottish Government. It did not take long for the BBC also to refer in its news to the Scottish Government. Language is important, so when a name does not sit easily, we should be careful that it does not become certain other things.
Another aspect of the treaty provisions that worries me tremendously is that we are creating more opportunities for power, but very few opportunities for added responsibility. A number of earlier speakers picked up that theme in relation to defence. We commit ourselves to peacekeeping and military police training, which are very important, but what is singularly lacking—the problem seems to be getting worse—is combat troops. Who within the EU is providing the combat troops? There is no increased commitment in the EU to provide them.
I recall a wonderful moment during a European Convention when an Austrian MEP got up to say that he did not give countries who provide soldiers the right to determine how they should be deployed, in response to which I got up to say, “Precisely those who provide the soldiers have the right to determine how they are deployed.” We need to be much clearer about how those ambitions can be fulfilled. My key point, however, in respect of those positions, is how Parliament relates to them; there must be no move to qualified majority voting without primary legislation. We also need to look into our own procedures for scrutinising the expansion of some of these activities.
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart). May I suggest to her a third reason for holding a referendum on the constitutional European Union (Amendment) Bill—that people much younger than me and perhaps just slightly younger than her have never had an opportunity to vote on these matters in this country? It is also a pleasure to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hampshire (Mr. Arbuthnot). Like him, I believe that the defence of the realm is the first priority of any Government, and I would like to pick up one of the themes about defence mentioned at the end of the excellent speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague).
The only real teeth offered by the Lisbon treaty concerning defence are the incorporation of the European Defence Agency—it was, of course, a key part of the European Union constitution—into that treaty. That is reinforced by the administrative measures being developed within the framework of the existing treaties, chipping away at the national interest provisions of the treaty of Rome while at the same time incrementally increasing the scope of procurement directives to cover more and more military expenditure.
Thus, the main thrust of EU military integration is still being directed through the Monnet method, by which I mean slow and steady integration through economic means with the aim of Europeanising defence equipment. The idea is that the use of common equipment, allied to common foreign policy objectives from which common doctrines evolve, will eventually lead to European military forces being drawn together, resulting in due course in total integration.
Also key to that integration process is the European rapid reaction force, which espouses among other things the doctrine of specialisation. The idea is that single nations, and especially smaller nations, need not provide balanced forces—that is, complete functioning formations—but simply components of a larger multinational force, thus fielding truly integrated European forces rather than national forces working together. The thinking behind that stealthy policy objective ensures that, while each member state has military components, only the European Union could actually field a complete, functioning military force.
However, the grit in the oyster is Britain’s insistence on maintaining its own balanced force which, at a certain level, is capable of carrying out self-sustaining operations in a multinational environment, thus defeating the object of integration. Furthermore, because the United Kingdom is fighting a real war alongside the Americans, it is driven by operational imperatives when it comes to the procurement of equipment, rather than by the notional, theoretical equipment profiles recommended in the headline goals specifying the equipment needed for the European rapid reaction force.
After a round of spending in the last decade aimed at “meshing in” with the ERRF, and the last Prime Minister’s European contribution within the St. Malo agreement, the United Kingdom is now diverging from, rather than converging with, EU military structures and ambitions, moving closer to United States forces as it becomes more deeply embedded in Afghan operations. Therefore, practically speaking, UK involvement in EU military integration is at its lowest ebb for some time.
What the Lisbon treaty seeks to do is add to earlier treaties small steps of politically rather than operationally driven integration, but for the Commission that does not go far enough. The very first full-scale attempt at military integration within the European defence community took place in 1950, preceding the treaty of Rome. That inspired the first attempt at a European constitution to bind the European political community, and was set up to control the European army. The raison d’être of the European Union suddenly becomes very clear.
Thus the main conclusion to be drawn is that the original ambitions of the integrationists are not satisfied by the treaty, and that they will have to come back for more. That puts us—and by “us” I mean the people on the opposite side of that argument—in the unsatisfactory position of warning about what can be dismissed as ifs, buts and maybes, rather than attacking hard, concrete proposals. It is all very woolly, nebulous and difficult to grasp: the typical nightmare for those of us who are fighting a project nine tenths of which—as with an iceberg—is hidden from sight.
Will the hon. Lady give way?
I will not, because of the time.
What we can be sure of is that the last Prime Minister lost interest in an integrated European Union defence policy, as he developed a separate foreign policy from the European Union that, together with mistakes made by previous Governments, resulted in the loss of billions of pounds—more than £8 billion, according to my calculations—in cancelled, altered or failed projects, and the provision of equipment unsuited to today’s conflicts.
Is it not ironic that the very subject of defence, which could be said to have begun the European Union project, should bring about its eventual downfall? The drift, muddle and confusion over the past few years about where the United Kingdom was going has been brought to a head by the Iraq and Afghan wars, in which, through operational necessity, Britain is heading in a different direction. If our armed forces are to succeed, the United Kingdom must continue to take its own line in regard to military thinking and the procurement of equipment.
In true Monnet fashion, however, while recent events have delayed the advancement of defence integration in the Lisbon treaty, further integration will be implemented in future treaties, for the simple reason that full European integration can never take place while national Governments still hold the competence to control their own armed forces and engage in their own security and foreign policy.
I am content to follow the speech of the hon. Member for Congleton (Ann Winterton). I shall read it very carefully in Hansard tomorrow, when I am sure I shall manage to understand it.
We have had a very good debate. We heard a remarkable speech from the right hon. and learned Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Sir Malcolm Rifkind), who, in effect, punctured the bubble of Conservative party rhetoric and the rhetoric of the anti-European tabloids over the past year or so which suggested that we were to have an omnipotent President. We all remember the remarkable speech about the President of the European Union made by the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) on Second Reading, and there behind him sits an elder statesman from past Conservative years saying that that is all hooey.
I shall not give way, because I have only four minutes in which to speak.
The right hon. and learned Member for Kensington and Chelsea also went on to say that the high representative would not be the overarching controller of European Union foreign policy. He made the important distinction between a common foreign policy, which we should work towards and co-operate within, and almost the impossibility of a single foreign policy. I think that I understood his metaphor correctly—I hope I did, because I wrote that article in the Financial Times in June 2003. It is good to have my words reflected back towards me.
The right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks is one of our most powerful parliamentary speakers. He can make us think and laugh, and he holds every audience in thrall. He has a clear enemy and he goes on and on. Sadly, the President of Cuba has announced his retirement, but the deputy maximum leader will continue condemning Europe and making us laugh despite being, like the maximum leader in Havana, utterly wrong.
The treaty contains something quite different from the constitution, which a former shadow Foreign Secretary declared dead. Every other Government in Europe have declared the two things not to be the same. That is why the pledge offered during the 2005 election is null and void. People may, by all means, make the argument for a referendum—the right hon. Member for North-East Hampshire (Mr. Arbuthnot) certainly was not making such an argument 10 years ago when he was a Minister and sternly against referendums—but they should do so by being honest and saying that the Conservative party has adopted the position of my former right hon. Friend Mr. Tony Benn that referendums should settle Britain’s international treaty obligations. I do not think that that is the right way forward.
This debate is about defence. I very much agreed when the Chairman of the Defence Committee said that Europe should get its defence act together, but we should be careful before patronising all the other countries of Europe. Many funerals have taken place in the past two or three years as a result of events in Iraq, Afghanistan and other parts of the world. As has happened in families in this country, men and women have grieved for people who died trying to protect our common security. I wish that there was more commitment, but it will not be secured unless there is engagement in Europe. The trouble for our country, which we are proud to represent, is that we walk with one hand tied behind our backs in Europe, because the Conservative party has entered into the most rejectionist, isolationist position on partnership in Europe of any party in the history of this country and of any other party except the extreme fringe elsewhere in Europe.
Reference has been made to the remarkable article by Caroline Jackson, the Conservative Member of the European Parliament, published in the Financial Times on 18 February. It stated:
“What continental politicians cannot understand is why one of the major parties of Europe should walk out of the broad church of their present group…Conservatives are getting a reputation for bad manners towards their continental allies. Recently, Daniel Hannan, a Conservative MEP, likened the European Parliament’s German Christian Democrat president to Adolf Hitler…in the Council of Europe, Conservative MPs sit in a politically mixed group, chaired by a Russian MP from Vladimir Putin’s party.”
The shadow Foreign Minister tried to wriggle his way out of that problem by citing my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott). Had the right hon. Gentleman been with me in Washington on Sunday he would have heard Mr. Edward Lucas of The Economist promoting his new book “The New Cold War”. He denounced the Conservative indifference to co-operation and partnership in Europe, saying that it was a national disgrace that the Conservative party, far from standing up to Russia’s bullying, was colluding to ensure that the Russian henchman of Mr. Putin became President of the Council of Europe. Had the right hon. Gentleman been there, he might have paused to think.
That is the difference. Tonight, I hope that we will again vote to ratify part of the treaty. The Conservative party will remain isolated, and isolated it does nothing but damage to Britain’s national interests.
Meanwhile, back in this universe. Laughter.]
It is easy in debates of this nature to get caught up in detail and to miss the big picture, so let us be clear what we are talking about today. This treaty proposes giving the EU a defence capability that will duplicate many of the functions of NATO. Worse, it will potentially compete with, rather than complement, NATO. Why does that matter? It matters because we believe that NATO, which has been the cornerstone of our defence for 60 years, should continue to have primacy. We believe that the transatlantic bonds with the United States and Canada should not be weakened. It is the Americans and Canadians who are fighting alongside British troops on the front line in Afghanistan while—with a few honourable exceptions, most notably the Dutch—it is not the majority of our EU partners.
So let me set out what we believe to be the instruments of this treaty that could undermine the NATO alliance. Under the Lisbon treaty, there is further duplication of NATO’s article V, with the solidarity clause, and no change to the duplication of NATO structures that already exists with the EU military staff, EU battle groups, the European rapid reaction force, the ATHENA mechanism and certain aspects of the European Defence Agency. There is no mention of NATO’s right of first refusal for all military missions pertaining to European security. There is no mention of NATO’s primacy. There is no change to the discriminatory attitude that the EU takes against non-European Union NATO member states, such as Norway and Turkey. That is especially true regarding the financing of EU military operations and Turkey’s “administrative agreement” with the EDA, which has been continually blocked by Cyprus.
We also have concerns regarding the democratic legitimacy of the ESDP under the Lisbon treaty. The newly created high representative will serve as a vice-president in the Commission and have a right of initiative for proposing military operations. That will bring supranationalism into EU defence planning for the first time. Consequently, foreign and defence policy in the EU will no longer be strictly intergovernmental. An unelected EU president will have a direct role in shaping the military budget for EU military operations by chairing the ATHENA special committee and will have a direct role in approving the new high representative.
The treaty formally creates the European Defence Agency, which will be headed by the high representative, who is also a vice-president of the Commission. That is just the foothold in defence procurement that the Commission has so long desired, as my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Ann Winterton) correctly pointed out.
Even though the EDA exists today as a part of the ESDP, it has never been part of an EU treaty that has been ratified by all member states. Originally in the constitutional treaty, European integrationists decided to go ahead with the creation of the EDA, even though it failed to be ratified in France and the Netherlands. That was an act of contempt for the citizens of Europe. Consequently, the inclusion of the EDA in the Lisbon treaty is an attempt by the EU retrospectively to justify the existence of an organisation that was created despite being originally part of the failed constitutional treaty.
The EDA sets out to develop defence capabilities and to promote armament co-operation between EU members, but what we need is greater armament co-operation with the military forces that we will be fighting alongside on the ground. We need better interoperability with the United States. We need more joint procurement projects with the United States, such as the joint strike fighter.
There is no point participating in joint procurement projects with countries whose defence spending levels are too low to purchase the end products and, in any case, it should be done between sovereign nation states and not on an EU, supranational basis.
Does my hon. Friend agree that the essence of this problem is not a question of isolationism, but the fact that performing independent tasks in a voluntary agreement with other member states requires an alliance? To try to railroad everybody into uniformity and mutual solidarity and to place that in a legal framework is a prescription for disaster and division. It will lead to chaos, as we see in the situation evolving in Afghanistan.
My hon. Friend makes an important point. In today’s debate, several elements have been mentioned that are not themselves problems—such as the EU’s operations as a delivery mechanism of NATO under Berlin-plus, or the example of what has happened in humanitarian missions. None of those is a problem in itself. The problem is the incremental nature of what is happening and the creeping competence of the Commission and the EU structures in all those areas, which gradually erode our ability to be masters of our own destiny. That is what is so unacceptable in the treaty.
The EDA offers the UK no tactical, strategic or technological advantage that NATO, bilateral or multilateral agreements, or the UK defence industrial base do not already provide. The idea of a joint market for defence equipment is all now featuring largely at EU level, with the Commission pushing for a deal that could secure more efficient spending among all the bloc’s member states. Internal market rules are not currently applied to the defence market, allowing member states to exclude defence contracts from EU procurement rules. Moreover, national licensing procedures make the transfer of defence material between countries difficult.
According to the Commission, a common defence market would significantly improve the military capabilities of member states magically without increasing defence expenditures. That is nonsense and it is in the same accounting league as double-hatting troops and pretending that that creates greater capability. All the measure does is to increase Commission competence in an area where it has no business to be, as my right hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hampshire (Mr. Arbuthnot) pointed out in his excellent speech.
The Government claim to share our affinity for NATO and they claim the treaty will not undermine it, but that is not what they said before. During the 2003 European Convention, the Government were opposed to many aspects of the Treaty that they have now accepted. In fact, permanent structured co-operation and the mutual defence commitment are two sections of the text that the Government wanted completely totally deleted from the treaty.
On the mutual defence clause, the right hon. Member for Neath (Mr. Hain) said in 2003:
“Common defence, including as a form of enhanced co-operation, is divisive and a duplication of the guarantees that 19 of the 25”
member states
“of the enlarged EU will enjoy through NATO.”
So why the change of heart? On permanent structured co-operation, the Government said during 2003:
“the UK has made clear that it cannot accept the proposed ESDP reinforced cooperation provisions.”
However, they have now caved in to European pressure and accepted permanent structured co-operation in the Lisbon treaty. It is nothing but integration in defence common policy by stealth.
Our suspicions have been reinforced by the noises coming out of Paris in recent days. The defence spokesman for the UMP—the Union pour un Mouvement Populaire party—Pierre Lellouche made it clear that France will push the limits of permanent structured co-operation to the maximum and create a six-nation hard core of EU members who want to further EU defence integration and a common procurement market for defence, and ultimately to establish an EU pillar in NATO. That is absolutely unacceptable.
At the Munich conference on security policy last week, the French Defence Minister Hervé Morin said that NATO was primarily a defence organisation and should not operate as a global policeman. He said that that was the role of the United Nations, and added that the EU must not simply become the civilian arm of NATO. To use new Labour-speak, that is a very clear direction of travel. I expect that, unlike France, the Government will publicly support using permanent structured co-operation in that way only after the treaty’s full ratification. That is no doubt yet another reason why the Prime Minister wants to avoid the public scrutiny of a referendum in this country.
We should welcome France into the integrated command structure, but not with an EU pillar of NATO as a quid pro quo. Integration ought to mean removing NATO duplication and continuing to operate under the Berlin-plus arrangement that has worked so well in the past. Under those conditions, we could easily sort out the potential problems we have with the French position.
With their support for the treaty, as with so many other things, the Government are heading down the wrong path when it comes to Britain’s security. With the threat of global terrorism, problems with energy security and a resurgent Russia the stakes are too high for some of the policy gambles that are being taken today. However, at least the Government have the advantage of clarity, which is more than we can say for the Lib Dems. First, they could not agree to agree. Then they could not agree to disagree. Now they praise constructive abstention, but it may not be unanimous—in other words, they cannot even agree not to have an opinion on the subject. These decisions are far too important for the current Liberal Democrat leader’s frivolous whipping arrangements and lack of authority.
I have spent 15 years in this House of Commons being told that every EU treaty put in front of us was more benign than it seemed and that there was therefore nothing to worry about. Enough is enough. The Lisbon treaty threatens to undermine the defence assumptions that our nation has had for 60 years, and to drive a wedge between us and our transatlantic allies. Britain cannot have two best friends when it comes to defence. The treaty asks us to make a choice, but the Conservative party will not support the weakening of our transatlantic bonds.
We want the EU to work in partnership with NATO, not compete with it. The provisions of the treaty move in the wrong direction—for Britain, for the EU and for NATO. That is why we oppose them.
I am delighted to have another opportunity to wind up a debate on the Lisbon treaty. Today’s debate has been genuinely interesting and occasionally fascinating. It has concerned an issue that I believe should command cross-party support, although it is clear that it does not.
The EU’s common foreign, security and defence policy is a key instrument with which Britain can influence what happens on our continent and beyond. It helps us to project British values around the world, and the Lisbon treaty will enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of the current intergovernmental arrangements. I shall give some recent examples of what that approach has helped to achieve.
First, I refer to the comprehensive EU sanctions against the vile regime in Zimbabwe—[Interruption.]. The hon. Member for Congleton (Ann Winterton) makes an intervention from a sedentary position. She has fought against the European project, and I shall be happy to give way to her.
From a sitting position, I said that the EU approach has not been successful in Zimbabwe in any way. In fact, the EU has been completely impotent when it comes to bringing about change there.
Britain is much more able to exert influence on Zimbabwe when we work with 26 other member states. The sanctions imposed by the EU against the Zimbabwean regime are stronger than the UN’s. I understand that the hon. Lady would like to leave the EU altogether, so the logical conclusion of her approach is that she must extend her criticism to every international institution.
As a member of the EU, Britain is in a position to shape the agenda, although of course I accept that we have not yet been able to deliver on that in the way we would want. However, the fact that we have not been able to bring about the change in Zimbabwe that we all want is no reason for us to give up altogether and lose the possibility of having any influence at all through the EU, yet that is what the hon. Lady advocates with her fight against what she calls the European “project”.
The EU continues to play a crucial role in arenas other than Zimbabwe. I agreed with the vast majority of the speech made by the right hon. and learned Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Sir Malcolm Rifkind), although we must agree to disagree about the EU’s role in what is happening in the Balkans. I consider it to have been deeply constructive, both in ensuring that the leadership in Kosovo protect the rights of the Serb minority and in ensuring that the Serbs see a European future for themselves. The EU has helped to influence the behaviour and attitude of Serbia’s authorities, political parties and civic society in an important way. It did the same during last year’s elections in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
In addition, Britain has had the support of our EU partners in our recent bilateral disagreements with Russia. All hon. Members should accept that our relationship with Russia and our influence in that country are much stronger when we speak as one of 27 voices that share the same message. The Opposition seem to demand more European action, tougher European words and greater European input in the relationship with Russia, but today they oppose the means by which we can achieve that. They have done the same over recent months, and I suspect that, unfortunately, they will continue to do so into the future.
I give way to the chairman of the all-party Russia group.
I was not asking the Minister to give way, but he has kindly offered. The position as regards Russia does not underscore his point; it undermines it. There is a complete difference of opinion across the European Union with regard to Russia, particularly on energy security and, as far as topical debates are concerned, in relation to Serbia and Kosovo, and indeed the Balkans as a whole.
I acknowledge that the hon. Gentleman was not seeking to catch my eye, but I have made a habit of trying to give way to him in every debate on the Bill as he takes a great interest in Russia. We have managed to get European Union statements on Russia. Such statements have much greater effect if they come from the European Union as well as the United Kingdom.
The weakness of the Minister’s argument is that even if he is right about speaking with 27 voices, that has been achieved without the treaty. That completely undermines the case that he is making.
Not at all. The case I am making is that the European approach has often lacked momentum and has occasionally been disjointed: an example is the rotating presidency. When we sought a statement on Litvinenko, we had to go to the Portuguese presidency—the route to an EU statement was through Lisbon. By the time of our disagreement with Russia over the British Council, the presidency had moved to Slovenia because of that ridiculous charade—that game of musical chairs with European diplomacy—and the route to a European statement on Russia was through Ljubljana. We are more effective when we work through the European Union, but we could be made much more effective still by some of the reforms in the treaty.
Will the Minister give way?
I want to make a little bit of progress; I will give way again if time allows.
I strongly believe that member states should support the Union’s external and security policy actively and unreservedly, in a spirit of loyalty and mutual solidarity. Member states should
“refrain from any action which is contrary to the interests of the Union or likely to impair its effectiveness as a cohesive force in international relations.”
Who wrote that for you?
I will happily give way again to the hon. Lady if she wishes. I was actually quoting the Maastricht treaty. I did not write it; her party took it through Parliament when it was in government. [Interruption.] I know that. The shadow Defence Secretary and the shadow Foreign Secretary both supported the treaty text that I have just shared with the House.
It is a measure of Conservative party unity that we all agree that the way things are being done under the treaty—which merges all the existing treaties, including Maastricht—demonstrates that those of us who took a certain position at the time of the previous treaties were correct in our assessment. The Conservative party is now completely right in its united opposition to the reform treaty.
The Conservative policy on Europe reflects two things: how consistent the hon. Gentleman has been, and how isolationist and ludicrous the lurch to the right has been—among the Front Benchers, at least; that does not extend to all Back Benchers—on the issue of Europe in recent years.
I would like to make some progress in the time available. The issue has again been raised of the UK’s position on the United Nations Security Council. It was floated in the media last summer, and the shadow Foreign Secretary had much to say about it. The treaty text is clear and much more authoritative than the shadow Foreign Secretary. The Select Committee on Foreign Affairs concluded that
“the new post of High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy has the potential to give the EU a more streamlined international presence…We conclude that the Lisbon Treaty provision for the new High Representative to speak at the UN Security Council will make little difference to current practice. It will not undermine the position of the UK in the United Nations system nor the UK's representation and role as a Permanent Member of the Security Council.”
I will give way, for the last time.
The Foreign Affairs Committee, which the Minister has just quoted with approval, also says that the position of high representative is identical to that of the EU Foreign Minister. Did the Committee get it completely wrong on that?
My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary dealt with that earlier. The Foreign Affairs Committee also said:
“We further conclude that the High Representative is there to enact agreed foreign policy”—
that is, foreign policy agreed by unanimity.
Let us look at the practice, not just the observations of the Select Committee. The European presidency spoke at the UN on eight separate occasions on issues such as Sierra Leone, Bosnia, climate change and the middle east. On each of those occasions we did not sit on our hands. We did not leave the room. We did not have to seek permission to speak. We, as an independent, sovereign, proud nation, also spoke on each and every one of those occasions. That will remain the case under the Lisbon treaty.
I congratulate the right hon. Member for North-East Hampshire (Mr. Arbuthnot). I am just disappointed that the House had to wait 21 years for his maiden speech on Europe, but it was worth the wait. It was an extremely thoughtful speech in respect of NATO. I offer the observation that both the United States and NATO support the provisions of the Lisbon treaty. Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, the NATO Secretary-General, has stated clearly:
“And no one today would still seriously assert that NATO and the EU are rivals whose aim is to drive each other out of business. Such discussions are now altogether obsolete if they ever existed in the past.”
The shadow Foreign Secretary was asked in interventions from my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) and from the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) whether he supported any of the provisions in the treaty, and his response was no—not a single foreign policy and security provision in the treaty, such as an end to the rotating presidency, for the first time making it explicit in treaty articles that the responsibility for setting the strategic objectives for all EU external action lies with member states.
The ring-fencing of common foreign and security policy on intergovernmental policy is opposed by the Conservatives. Expansion of the list of ESDP tasks is opposed by the Conservatives. They also oppose the rational and sensible introduction of a high representative. Today’s debate has not been about Europe; it has been about the Conservative party’s isolationism within it. The shadow Defence Secretary has said previously:
“There’s only one party that’s going to take Britain in the direction that those who vote UKIP would like to see. . . That’s the Conservative party.”
He also said back in 2005 that we should recognise death when we saw it, and that he saw it as a constitution that was dead—
It being three hours after the commencement of proceedings, Mr. Deputy Speaker put forthwith the Question already proposed from the Chair, pursuant to Order [28 January and this day].
Question put, That the amendment be made:—
Main Question put forthwith:—
Resolved,
That this House approves the Government’s policy towards the Treaty of Lisbon in respect of provisions concerning foreign, security and defence policy.
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Within the constraints laid down by the business motion, which the House has agreed to, may I, through you, enter a plea to colleagues in all parts of the House?
There are before us important groups of amendments on three subjects, and it would be extremely unfortunate if the Committee were to spend all its time discussing external relations and we were not to get on to at least the defence amendments. Are there any entreaties that you can make to Members of the House to move the business forward so that we may discuss what the Government clearly would like to discuss—all parts of the treaty?
The hon. Gentleman is quite correct. All the amendments before the Committee are extremely important. I would urge all hon. Members to bear that very much in mind as the debate in Committee proceeds. All that the Chair can do is make entreaties of the kind that he is asking me to make, and I do so most seriously. The speed with which we progress depends entirely on the length of the contributions made by hon. Members—Back Benchers and Front Benchers—and they ought to bear that in mind.
Orders of the Day
European Union (Amendment) Bill
[5th Allotted Day]
(Any selected amendments to clause 2 relating to foreign, security and defence policy)
Further considered in Committee.
[Sir Michael Lord in the Chair]
Clause 2
Addition to list of treaties
I beg to move amendment No. 258, page 1, line 12, after ‘excluding’, insert—
‘(i) Article 1, paragraph 16, inserted Article 9B TEU, paragraph 6 so far as it relates to the role of the President of the European Council in external representation of the Union; and
(ii) ’.
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: Amendment No. 253, line 12, after ‘excluding’, insert—
‘(i) Article 1, paragraph 24, inserted Article 10B TEU, paragraph 2, on joint proposals to the Council for recommendations to the European Council on the strategic interests and objectives of the Union; and
(ii) ’.
Amendment No. 156, line 12, after ‘excluding’, insert—
‘(i) Article 2, paragraphs 170 to 174, inserted Title V and Articles 188L to 188O TEC (TFEU) relating to international agreements; and
(ii) ’.
Amendment No. 254, line 12, after ‘excluding’, insert—
‘(i) Article 2, paragraph 173, inserted Article 188N, TEC (TFEU), on the procedure for international agreements between the European Union and third countries or international organisations; and
(ii) ’.
Amendment No. 157, line 12, after ‘excluding’, insert—
‘(i) Article 2, paragraph 175, inserted Title VI and Articles 188P and 188Q TEC (TFEU) relating to the European Union’s relations with international organisations and third countries and European Union delegations; and
(ii) ’.
Amendment No. 262, line 12, after ‘excluding’, insert—
‘(i) Article 1, paragraph 175, inserted Article 188Q TEC (TFEU), relating to European Union delegations; and
(ii) ’.
Amendment No. 93, line 12, leave out ‘any’ and insert—
‘(i) Article 1, paragraph 19, inserted Article 9E TEU relating to the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy; and
(ii) any other’.
Amendment No. 103, line 12, leave out ‘any’ and insert—
‘(i) Article 1, paragraph 30, inserted Article 13a TEU relating to the role of the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy; and
(ii) any other’.
Amendment No. 263, line 12, leave out ‘any’ and insert—
‘(i) Article 1, paragraph 30, inserted Article 13a TEU, paragraph 3 relating to the European External Action Service; and
(ii) any other’.
Amendment No. 106, line 12, leave out ‘any’ and insert—
‘(i) Article 1, paragraph 33, inserted Article 15a TEU relating to questions on the Common Foreign and Security Policy; and
(ii) any other’.
Amendment No. 109, line 12, leave out ‘any’ and insert—
‘(i) Article 1, paragraph 37, amendments to Article 18 TEU relating to the role of the Presidency in the Common Foreign and Security Policy; and
(ii) any other’.
Amendment No. 110, line 12, leave out ‘any’ and insert—
‘(i) Article 1, paragraph 38, amendments to Article 19 TEU relating to Member States’ coordination of action within the Common Foreign and Security Policy; and
(ii) any other’.
Amendment No. 1, line 12, leave out ‘any’ and insert—
‘(i) Article 1, paragraph 38(b)(iii), relating to Member States which sit on the United Nations Security Council and the presentation of the European Union’s position; and
(ii) any other’.
Amendment No. 111, line 12, leave out ‘any’ and insert—
‘(i) Article 1, paragraph 39, amendments to Article 20 TEU relating to diplomatic and consular missions; and
(ii) any other’.
Amendment No. 112, line 12, leave out ‘any’ and insert—
‘(i) Article 1, paragraph 44, amendments to Article 25 TEU relating to the Political and Security Committee; and
(ii) any other’.
Amendment No. 264, line 12, leave out ‘any’ and insert—
‘(i) Article 1, paragraph 45, in respect of the repeal of Article 26 TEU relating to the role of the High Representative for the common foreign and security policy; and
(ii) any other’.
New clause 3—Common foreign and security policy—
‘The Secretary of State shall, not later than 1st January 2009, lay before both Houses of Parliament a report setting out the role and powers of the High Representative and External Action Service and how they differ from those of the proposed Foreign Minister and External Action Service in the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe.’.
I begin by saying that I hear the entreaty made by my hon. Friend the Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin) in his point of order. I briefly remind the Committee that when the business motion was debated we pushed strongly for two days of discussion—one for common foreign and security policy, and one for defence. It was unfortunate that, due to the rigged manner in which the Government have allowed the treaty to be debated, when we finished our first three hours of debate, a number of Back Benchers, particularly on the Opposition Benches, were still rising and attempting to catch the eye of the Chair. Mindful of that, I shall do my best to be relatively brief in laying out the position that I wish to advance.
The treaty of Lisbon would have numerous and profound effects on foreign, security and defence policy—effects that would tend to enlarge the powers of the European Union at the expense of member states. Potentially, one of the most powerful agents of that change is the new president of the European Council, so our amendment No. 258 would remove the president’s foreign policy role.
The relevant provision in the treaty states:
“The President of the European Council shall, at his”
or her—
“level and in that capacity, ensure the external representation of the Union on issues concerning its common foreign and security policy, without prejudice to the powers of the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.”
The first fault with that provision is that it is definitely ambiguous. What is
“at his level and in that capacity”
to mean? That is nowhere absolutely specified in the treaty. Indeed, it is why it is now reported that the former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, has been raising queries about what the post might mean in practice. Is it not extraordinary that the man who, as Prime Minister, helped to bring the post into being never bothered to find out what it would mean in detail in reality?
Nevertheless, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) showed so memorably last month when we began to debate the treaty, in the hands of a skilful politician, that post could prove powerful indeed. Over time, he or she could be presented as a counterpart to the American or the Russian President. He or she would have the chief role in determining what the European Council discussed, and would presumably have the Council secretariat at his or her disposal, although that is one of the matters that is yet to be finally determined. In contrast, the current system of rotating Heads of Government holding the presidency would end. No more would each member state have a turn at the EU’s helm, helping to give each country a vital sense of ownership of the EU’s business; instead, we would have this powerful central figure. So—
Will my hon. Friend give way?
Let me finish my sentence, then I will be delighted to give way. So because that article in the treaty, in our opinion, represents something of a blank cheque, which is likely to have a large amount written on it, we call for that article to be left out. Now, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke), as a former Chancellor, knows a lot about large amounts, so I gladly give way to him.
I have great respect for my hon. Friend, although I know we do not agree. He was suggesting to his constituents and mine that there is a danger that the president of the European Council of Ministers will be equated with the President of the United States. Of all his arguments, is that really a sound one, given that all foreign policy will be made by unanimity among the Ministers of the member states and the president of the European Council of Ministers will have no executive or policy-making powers of his own? People sometimes describe the presidency of the United States as a rather weaker institution than is sometimes imagined, but to say that the European presidency is likely to be equivalent to the presidency of the United States is surely to take his otherwise interesting arguments to the lengths of extremism.
I thank my right hon. and learned Friend for his comment. I have two things to say in response. First, he will have noticed that I used the phrase “over time”. I was not implying that what I described would happen overnight. Drawing an historical analogy, one can see how in our own country the Prime Minister was originally one of a number of Ministers, but gradually took over the agenda of the Cabinet and began to drive policy. That happened over a period of time and is something that our right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks has written about in great detail in some of his very good books. I am asserting that such a development could take place over time, not overnight. Secondly, my right hon. and learned Friend said that the new president would have no executive authority, but if, in effect, the president controlled the agenda of the European Council, that would be a powerful tool. Perhaps he and I have a different perspective on the matter, but I have tried to answer his point in detail.
Will my hon. Friend give way?
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
I would like to make a little progress, because I promised to try to speak briefly. I shall take two interventions, but I hope that the Committee will forgive me if I then try to press on.
My hon. Friend will recall that when the then Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw), came to give a rather phlegmatic explanation of why the Government had reversed their position from opposing a referendum to favouring one on the previous treaty, he said that it was because there was going to be a permanent president of the Council. It was clearly a matter of importance to him.
My hon. Friend partly anticipates me, and he is entirely right to remind the Committee of that point.
May I pursue this interesting analogy with the Presidents of the United States and Russia? The President of the USA is, I believe, commander in chief of the US military—that was one of his functions right from the start of the formation of the United States. I am not saying that the hon. Gentleman is suggesting that the new European president would command some military force at this stage, but that parallel between the US President and the new role now being proposed is absurd. In suggesting that something might happen in future—many, many treaties hence, if it were ever proposed—he is presenting an Aunt Sally. The reality is nothing like what he suggests is in the treaty.
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and I am glad to hear that he was not suggesting what he thought I was suggesting. He used the phrase “at this stage”. Such points are the reason why we wanted two days, not one, to debate these matters in detail. I repeat, I used the phrase “over time”.
Does my hon. Friend agree that there will be a common position in Europe on most of the important issues? Let us say that there is a common position on the middle east. Who would the Prime Minister of Israel or one of the Arab leaders wish to see if both the president of Europe—the custodian of the common position—and the British Prime Minister wanted to visit?
My right hon. Friend’s point is well made. He mentioned a common position. If it is true that Tony Blair is going to apply for the job, I would be interested to know whether there would be a common position in the Labour party on whether he ought to get it. We await the answer to that question with genuine anticipation.
Amendments Nos. 262 and 263 deal with the new EU diplomatic service and, in particular, with the high representative’s authority over it. The external action service—to give it its technical name—is a new institution in the treaty whose role has yet to be determined. Indeed, a leaked note from the Slovenian presidency makes that explicit. The Government are again asking the House and this country to sign a blank cheque. The post of high representative is a powerful one in itself, but with the diplomatic service at his beck and call, we should be in no doubt that the EU would tend not to supplement member states’ foreign policy so much as try to supplant it. Our amendments seek to address that possibility.
Amendment No. 1 is also important because it would amend the crucial clause relating to the high representative’s right to speak for the European Union at the United Nations Security Council when a common position is reached. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks said at the beginning of our earlier debate, its provisions—with a superficial change to the Foreign Minister’s job title—are identical to those in the EU constitution. As such, they were repeatedly and publicly opposed by the Government’s representatives in the negotiations on that document. As they put it at that time:
“The UK cannot accept any language which implies that it would not retain the right to speak in a national capacity on the UN Security Council.”
Yet that is exactly what the Government have agreed to, the change having won the satisfied approval of the wise, eminent and noble Lord Malloch-Brown.
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
In a moment.
It should be totally unacceptable for any British Government to accept any treaty imposing such an obligation on us at the United Nations Security Council. It is patently obvious to everyone—not just Opposition Members; it was obvious to Ministers only a couple of years ago—that this represents the thin end of the wedge in the move towards an EU seat on the Security Council. That is potentially very damaging to this country’s national interests, and it is astonishing that the Government did not seek to change the provision in this measure, the latest guise of the constitution. We therefore oppose it. Having said that, I shall gladly give way to the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, North (Mr. Henderson), whom I remember from the day on which I made my maiden speech in the House.
The hon. Gentleman’s predecessor was my pair, in the days when we had such things in Parliament.
The hon. Gentleman has misunderstood the situation at the United Nations. If the European Union is represented by the Council of Ministers in a contribution to either the Security Council or the Assembly, there is absolutely nothing to prevent other members of the Security Council or other members of the Assembly from making an independent contribution. That is the current position, and it will not change.
I disagree with the hon. Gentleman. The key word in the treaty is “shall”. When a common position is agreed, the EU “shall” request that the high representative speak for it at the UN Security Council—
If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I have answered his point. The key word—the difference—is “shall”. That is why we object to the proposal.
Amendment No. 264 will—
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
I should like to get on to amendment No. 264, but I will give way in a moment.
Amendment No. 264 relates to the role and powers of the EU’s high representative, which are identical to those of the Foreign Minister proposed in the original EU constitution—a point that the Foreign Secretary failed to address in his speech a few hours ago. I remind the House that the post was one of two crucial aspects of the treaty, along with the new EU president, that the former Foreign Secretary—the present Lord Chancellor—identified as essential to the last proposed treaty’s constitutionality, thus providing the need for a referendum. I told my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne) that he had anticipated my making this point; it is definitely a point that is worth reiterating. A senior member of this Government’s Cabinet has said that if this provision were in the treaty, we would deserve a referendum. Well, it most certainly is, so what has happened to the referendum that we were promised? On that point, I shall gladly give way to the Liberal Democrats, who, as of today, have not got a clue whether they want a referendum or not.
Can the hon. Gentleman say what the Conservatives object to should the EU high representative make a presentation to the UN Security Council of a position that the UK Government have agreed to, and which in no way would prevent the UK representative at the Security Council from speaking and voting? What possible objection can the hon. Gentleman have to that?
I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman was listening to what I was saying, but I have already argued that that represents the thin end of a wedge. That is our view—[Interruption.]
Do not ask a question if you do not like the answer!
rose—
I give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison).
Is not the assumption of the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) wrong when he says that the UK will have agreed to the position? Is it not a fact that, like it or not, the treaty provisions open the door for qualified majority voting under article 32—[Interruption.] Read it, anyone who does not believe me. It opens the door for QMV now and even more QMV in the future as a result of the special passerelle clause. That means that the EU would speak for this country on the Security Council, even if this country disagreed with the stated policy.
My hon. Friend, a member of the European Scrutiny Committee, brings considerable expertise to these matters. I would remind him, the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) and, indeed, the whole House, that the Committee looked into these matters in detail and came to the conclusion that the red lines, including the foreign policy red line that the Government like to triumph, do not hold up. Indeed, the Labour Chairman of the Committee, the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty), said on the “Today” programme that those lines would “leak like a sieve”.
I am spoilt for choice. I will give way first to my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr. Cash), then to my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) and then to my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard)—[Interruption.] At some point, I will speak briefly and allow some Back Benchers to speak in the debate.
Does my hon. Friend agree that when a Foreign Minister walks like a duck, and talks like a duck, then he is a duck—and that in this particular context, it is the high representative who is doing it? Does my hon. Friend recall when Javier Solana said on Radio 4 that he was meeting Hamas at a very crucial moment—on the back of existing arrangements that were not then authorised? Is that not the sort of evolving, dynamic and dangerous situation that my hon. Friend is identifying and is exactly what will happen in practice? It is not just a matter of drawing strict legal lines; it is a question of how the whole system will function in practice. That is the larger problem that we are concerned about.
I thank my hon. Friend for that observation. Everyone knows that he reads these documents in very considerable detail. I agree with him, so let us see whether I also agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal.
I just ask my hon. Friend how can it possibly cause a difficulty if a spokesman for a common position of the European Union makes that position clear—in present terms, it would relate to something for which we had voted because of unanimity, irrespective of what is true about the details in the future—and the British representative then makes his points? That seems to me to be an extremely good way of getting the same point said twice. I do not understand the difficulty with that.
My right hon. Friend may know that there have been one or two occasions in this debate when the same point has been made twice, but I offer him the thought that if there is nothing to worry about, why did the Government oppose the change so adamantly in the negotiations in the Convention?
They got it wrong!
Well, they argued vehemently against that change and then, as with so much else in this treaty, they rolled over.
I am not a conspiracy theorist and I want to be fair to the Government, but might not an unintended consequence of these measures be the de facto abandonment of the UK’s permanent seat on the Security Council?
No, it would not.
I am not claiming that it would lead to the abandonment of our seat, but I am saying that it could lead over time to the power vested in our seat being compromised because of the EU’s role—[Interruption.]
I shall give way to my right hon. Friend first, then to the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee. Perhaps I can then be allowed to make a little progress.
As the Government’s speeches and amendments in the Convention are hard to come by, my hon. Friend may not be aware that it is a matter of record that at the time of the Convention the Government also said that the obligation to ask the Union Foreign Minister to speak
“could in certain circumstances contradict the Security Council’s Rule of Procedure.”
They therefore wanted the obligation to be removed. Does my hon. Friend not think it very unwise to write into a treaty an obligation that would conflict with the standing orders of the United Nations? Is that not another reason for looking at the treaty requirements again, in the light of our more important, wider, global obligations?
My right hon. Friend, who also serves on the European Scrutiny Committee, makes a valid point. It has already become apparent, after a few minutes of debate on the amendments, that this is a contentious issue.
I will give way in a moment. Clearly the Government cannot sweep this under the carpet. I repeat: if there is nothing to worry about, why did the Government object so vehemently?
I will now give way to the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee. I thank him for his patience.
Perhaps I can deal with this canard once and for all. Our Committee went into the issue in some detail, and spoke to Dr. Solana about it as well. Paragraph 157 of our report states:
“Dr Solana confirmed that he has spoken at the Security Council in his current capacity, always following an invitation to do so by EU Security Council members. We conclude that the Lisbon Treaty provision for the new High Representative to speak at the EU Security Council will make little difference to current practice. It will not undermine the position of the UK in the United Nations system nor the UK’s representation and role as a Permanent Member of the Security Council.”
I thank the Chairman of the Committee for that. I also thank him for the Committee’s report, which stated that in foreign policy areas the treaty of Lisbon was almost exactly the same as the original constitution, and pointed out that we had been promised a referendum on the first and not on the second. I read the report in some detail, and I am grateful to the Committee for its work, but I have already responded to the hon. Gentleman’s point several times, not least when it was put to me by my right hon. Friends. However, I thank the Committee for the report, because it provided us with some great quotations with which to embarrass the Government.
Will my hon. Friend give way?
I will certainly give way to a former leader of my party.
In fact, the intervention by the hon. Member for Ilford, South (Mike Gapes) has helped my hon. Friend. If he thinks about it carefully, he will realise that what the treaty has done is formalise practice that was not necessarily formal or acceptable before. The hon. Gentleman’s intervention makes the point about progression in the European Union. What happens is that the EU takes a bit more, the next treaty formalises the position, and it moves on. That is exactly what has happened here.
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. A key part of the argument is the question “What is the direction of travel? Where is this all going?”, and I think it is fairly clear to the House what the direction of travel is.
If parliamentary scrutiny is to mean anything, it is vital for the role and powers of the new institutions to be subject to the examination and judgment of the House. We have already heard—and the relevant cross-party Committees have reported—how at every turn Ministers have sought to minimise scrutiny of the treaty, and it is not right that the House should allow Ministers to continue to do so in the future. If Ministers mean any of what they say about allowing the legislature to hold the Executive to account, they should support new clause 3.
The new clause would also force Ministers to do something that they have been extremely reluctant to do, and set out in detail how the treaty compares with the constitution. That is something that the Foreign Affairs Committee and the European Scrutiny Committee—both Labour-dominated and both with Labour Chairmen—have felt able to do, and there is no reason why the Foreign Office should not be able to do the same. That would provide the basis for an honest and detailed debate, which is more than we are being allowed in the House owing to the rigged methodology that the Government have imposed on us.
I was unable to take part in the earlier debate because I was chairing a Select Committee meeting and we had an important report to agree. Therefore, while discussing the terms of the amendments, I shall take the opportunity to make some points that I would have made earlier.
In the European Union’s dealings with other countries and its foreign policy, it is represented by a so-called troika: a representative of the presidency; the high representative for the common foreign and security policy, who is currently Mr. Solana; and the European Commissioner for External Relations, Mrs. Ferrero-Waldner. The arrangement is wasteful, confusing for our foreign partners and inefficient. The present system also contains the absurd rotation of the presidency every six months. That undermines both the European Union’s ability to pursue consistent priorities and positions, and the ability of the individuals involved to build the long-term relationships with other countries necessary for effective diplomacy.
The Lisbon treaty will address both those problems. It will do so first by having the high representative take over the job of the European Commissioner for External Relations—that post will be abolished—leaving both functions united in a single person and reducing the number of people involved in European Union foreign policy making. It will do so secondly by abolishing the rotating presidency in favour of, potentially, a five-year post—it will be a two-and-a-half year post that can be renewed—of president of the European Council. That is the body comprising the Heads of State or Heads of Government.
The Lisbon treaty will therefore streamline and stabilise the EU’s external representation and make the Union a much easier and more coherent partner for foreign countries to deal with and have a relationship with. That is long overdue, necessary and, in a European Union of 27 countries, essential if we are to have effective coherence in our role in the world.
In a way, the hon. Gentleman is making the point for my hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh (Mr. Francois), because he is saying that the EU’s external position is not coherent, and that the changes in the treaty will make it more coherent and easier to represent the EU’s view to the outside world. In effect, a position will be built over time—exactly the point that my hon. Friend made—that will become the view of the EU around the world and will undermine our independent foreign policy.
The hon. Gentleman has missed the point. Let me give an example. The German presidency decided to give great emphasis in its presidency document to work in central Asia. That was not the position in the previous presidency and it was not continued afterwards. The Portuguese presidency has taken up something in the British presidency’s remit—the priority of Africa—but there was a gap inbetween. We thus need the coherence of the longer-term approach, which is more efficient and more effective. The six-monthly rotation includes the small countries that have very small diplomatic representations. Slovenia has only one embassy in Africa and it uses the French diplomatic service, as it must, for many of its functions as part of its presidency of the European Union. That is absurd.
Unlike me, some Members of this House are somewhat Francophobic. They are opposing a proposal that gets away from the current situation, whereby, as my hon. Friend points out, Slovenia is very much dependent on support from France.
Leaving that point aside, does my hon. Friend agree that the proposal for a coherent five-year term should help Britain’s national interest, because it would allow Britain, with its presence in the European institutions in Brussels, its connections and its influence, to have an ongoing relationship with the presidency? By contrast, under the present arrangement, every six months Britain has to build a relationship with whichever country and individual happens to assume the presidency.
I agree with my hon. Friend. The need to develop that coherence is also in the interests of the larger countries in the European Union, because we will then not be dependent on countries with small diplomatic services which may not be able to cope with the sheer volume of contacts. How could the Maltese or the Luxembourgers provide the necessary back-up for engaging with China or the countries in Latin America? We need coherence, which the bigger countries can provide, alongside the European Union’s collective institutions.
The hon. Gentleman mentions Africa. Will he condemn the fact that of 53 African nations, 23 no longer have any form of professional British diplomatic representation? That has a real impact on the welfare of British citizens. For instance, the lack of an embassy in Equatorial Guinea has an impact on the case of Mr. Simon Mann.
Will the hon. Gentleman also condemn the fact that, prior to the treaty’s ratification, the European Union has set up its first embassy—so-called—in Addis Ababa in Ethiopia?
I will come to the external action service issues in a moment. On the specific point, I refer the hon. Gentleman to the report of the Foreign Affairs Committee on choices made by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to close, for example, the high commissions in Lesotho and Swaziland and to concentrate representation in Pretoria. It is not only in Africa but in some of the Pacific Commonwealth countries where we no longer have diplomatic representation. The Chinese, however, are all over the place.
The Committee has raised that issue consistently in recent years. It is wrong that we no longer have that level of representation, and that is a matter for the Treasury, which needs to provide more resources to the FCO. It also reflects the difficult choice that the FCO has to make on resources to provide greater security and more posts in certain countries. For example, we have a big new embassy in Afghanistan.
The other change is the development of the role of the high representative—now correctly named. The role was never that of a European Union Foreign Minister. That was always an absurdity, because the EU is not a state and it does not need the terminology of a state. We do not have a Foreign Minister or a Foreign Ministry: we have the external action service and a high representative for foreign affairs and security policy. It is important that all hon. Members and people who write about our proceedings use the correct terminology. If those people who oppose the development of a “European super-state” start using the wrong language, they may mislead people into thinking that something exists when it does not. We have, as the Foreign Affairs Committee pointed out clearly in its report, an intergovernmental approach to foreign policy, and it is clearly stated that such matters are dealt with on the basis of agreement between the 27 member states.
We can go further. The Committee concluded that the changes in the Lisbon treaty do not risk undermining the common foreign and security policy’s intergovernmental nature. Indeed, there is a greater shift towards the member states, not away from them, in some aspects of foreign policy.
I am listening with interest to the hon. Gentleman’s powerful argument for more centralisation of the European Union. Is not the point that the argument that he has just made does not apply to the presidency? If the approach is intergovernmental, why do we need a permanent, fixed president? That is what states have.
For the hon. Gentleman’s information, the presidency will not be a permanent post but an agreed post appointed by the 27 countries for a period of two and a half years, subject to a further term, and it will have to be made on the basis of agreement between the member states. It certainly will not be a permanent post, as the hon. Gentleman suggested.
The role of the high representative obviously relates to the work on external policy that is currently done by the External Relations Commissioner, whose role will be abolished. It is therefore important to recognise the way in which it will work. There is currently a division between the aspects of EU external policy that are handled by the European Commission under the so-called Community method, such as aid-trade development, and those that are handled within the common foreign and security policy, such as the diplomatic statements, sanctions and security policy developed in the European Union, including matters that were referred to earlier about the deployment of civilian and military security missions outside the EU.
During the preparation of the Select Committee’s report, we heard evidence from witnesses, including EU officials, that that division has bedevilled the effectiveness of the EU’s external activities. Mr. Solana told us that the link between his high representative job and the Commission was “loose” and that the separate nature of Council and Commission decision making
“sometimes creates problems and even contradictions.”
Work on achieving greater co-ordination between the Council and the Commission, for example on energy security, is already under way. In that sense, the Lisbon treaty brings together aspects of the Council and Commission’s external relations functions in a single person, which will be more effective and will move things further in the direction in which they have already begun to try to move. The mere fact that there are two posts at the moment makes it very difficult, even if the individuals get on very well personally. That was the case with former Commissioner Chris Patten, who got on very well with Mr. Solana—he told us that. Nevertheless, the institutional division leads to inefficiency and a lack of coherence. The treaty deals with that problem effectively.
Does the Chairman of the Select Committee agree that he is arguing that a common European position is a lot better than a separate British foreign policy and that he would want a British Foreign Minister to try to accommodate the views of colleagues so that there was always a common foreign policy position? Is not the divide in the House tonight about the fact that some want a common European position on everything while others think that we are better off with a British position?
I take it from that intervention that the right hon. Gentleman wants inefficiency and incoherence between the Commission and the high representative. Frankly, I would agree that he and I have a different view about whether we want an effective European Union that is coherent and efficient. He presumably wants an ineffective European Union—or perhaps no European Union at all. We will no doubt have a chance to debate that in future.
The need to bring together all the possible instruments for action abroad is one of the most important lessons for us to consider internationally. We have had comment in other contexts about the difficulties of co-ordinating all the different agencies that work in Afghanistan. Work in the Balkans—in Serbia and Kosovo, for example—has involved a lot of incoherence, because there are so many different offices, individuals and players. The EU has been trying to co-ordinate the signing of the stabilisation and association agreement with the Government of Serbia in Belgrade, and it has to engage with the European Commission, the European security and defence policy mission to Kosovo and other agencies in the EU family. Having one person, a high representative with overall responsibility for all such matters, would make that co-ordination and effectiveness easier to achieve.
The Lisbon treaty also gives the high representative explicit responsibility for ensuring the consistency of the EU’s external action. For the first time, it brings together a single set of principles and objectives that will govern all the EU’s external activities, both in Community areas and in its common foreign and security policy. Linked to that is the high representative’s role in respect of the European external action service, which will be under the representative’s control.
As the FAC noted, many aspects of the new service remain to be worked out in practice. Until it is established, there will naturally be some ambiguities, but it is already clear that it will be made up of officials from existing departments of the Council secretariat and the European Commission, as well as people seconded from national diplomatic services. Moreover, although the treaty does not spell it out explicitly, it is likely that EU representation outside the EU will be integrated into the new service.
Unless a member state wishes the EU to take on the role, the EU missions and representations will not replace individual member states’ diplomatic posts abroad. I referred earlier to Slovenia’s lack of diplomatic representation in Africa, and that should be compared with the very large diplomatic footprint that countries such as France, the UK or Germany have around the world. However, as was noted in an earlier intervention, that footprint does not extend everywhere.
How can the UK use other countries’ diplomatic missions—something that, to an extent, we already do in some parts of the world? There are countries where the British are not present but the Germans or French are, and the EU’s external action service might, in time, develop a similar role, but that will not mean that it determines UK foreign policy or that we cease to be an independent state. All the myths to that effect must be laid to rest, one by one: they are scaremongering, and they bear no relation to the reality of the world as it is, or to what it will be after the Lisbon treaty is ratified and comes into effect.
The creation of a single EU external action service that will support the high representative and operate alongside national foreign offices and their staff should encourage the development of a more unified EU approach to foreign policy. It should also reduce the amount of duplication in the European Council and European Commission bureaucracies in Brussels. For those reasons, I believe that it is very important that we support the foreign policy elements of the Lisbon treaty, and that we reject the amendments before us today.
The best way to protect our national interests is to have high-quality British people from our diplomatic service working at all levels in the EU’s institutions, including the external action service. That should be regarded in our Foreign Office as a good career move for the people involved, who should be able to improve their promotion prospects by putting their EU work on their CVs. As happens with officials from other EU countries, our people will be able to have an input into the EU system and to influence the policies that are adopted collectively. The result will be that the EU will be more effective and coherent, and that it will work more in Britain’s interests.
I rise to speak primarily because the Liberal Democrats have concerns with every amendment in this group. In that regard, we have something in common with Conservative Front Benchers. They confirmed today that they are against every single measure in the common foreign and security policy; I can confirm that we are against every single one of their amendments. They would undermine a sensible and modest package of proposals.
Amendment No. 258 would delete the proposal relating to the president of the Council. The hon. Member for Rayleigh (Mr. Francois) seemed to think that that would become a powerful position; he suggested that it would be akin to the presidency of the United States in due course, and that the proposal was a stalking horse for a new presidential element to the European Union. He skirted some of the facts, such as that the president of the Council will be accountable to all the Ministers from all 27 states and will be able to act only when all 27 states have agreed and given the president a remit, as well as that the president will not have a vote. If he really thinks that such a position is equivalent to the presidency of the United States, he is living in cloud cuckoo land.
A long time ago, the British people were asked to vote on whether they wanted a Common Market, and they voted yes. They have never been asked whether they want a common defence, foreign and security policy; why would the hon. Gentleman not put that to the British people?
I believe that the British people should have a referendum on the whole European Union to encompass that matter and many others. It is time to have an in/out referendum so that the British people can put the anti-Europeans to flight. I believe that the vast majority of the British people do not share the Euroscepticism clearly evident in some Conservative Back-Bench Members—
—although not the right hon. Gentleman.
The hon. Gentleman should be a bit careful about the issue. The House is elected by the British people to make decisions as a Parliament. That is the basis of the British constitution. There is no question but that we have that job and that duty. People know how we voted, and we must stand by our votes. Referendums are always the refuge of those who are not prepared to stand up for what they believe and vote as they should. The fault of this Government is to have promised a referendum and not delivered it, but their fault is double. They should not have promised it in the first place, and having promised it, they should have delivered it.
The right hon. Gentleman’s position on the matter has been consistent; I do not disagree that he fought on that position during the last election. I fought on the position that there should be a referendum on a constitutional treaty. The best way to honour that pledge is to have an in/out referendum, because it is the question closest to that of a constitutional treaty.
I am pleased to hear views being expressed by the Liberal Democrats in the House. When my local paper wished to know where all the political parties stood on the issue, I was the only one who responded. There was a resounding “no comment” from the Liberal Democrat and Labour parliamentary candidates. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman shares my view—I should like his comments on it—that people would like to engage in the debate. That debate is stifled not only within the Chamber but outside it, and that is part of the problem. People cannot debate the arguments, because they are not being put.
Order. I remind hon. Members that a debate on whether to have a referendum will take place later, in the next few days.
I am certainly happy to abide by your ruling, Mrs. Heal, and to talk to the hon. Lady outside. I know the Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate for St. Albans, and I am sure that he will want to comment; he is not normally a quiet candidate.
Amendment No. 1 deals with the United Nations Security Council. When challenged on it, the hon. Member for Rayleigh had absolutely no answer. He must accept that the treaty proposes the most timid, modest, small change that could possibly be made to the relationship between the European Union and the United Nations Security Council. The idea that the British Government or a serious political party should be against the European Union speaking with all the authority of 27 member states and backing a policy that we have agreed is absurd.
Amendment No. 156, which I believe was tabled by the hon. Gentleman or his colleagues, would prevent the European Union from signing any international agreement. The EU would not be able to sign a trade agreement, an agreement on climate change or any agreement that was in the interests of our people. That shows what an absurd position he is adopting.
Amendment No. 156 was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr. Cash), and I am sure that he will make the case for it.
If I made a mistake, I apologise to the hon. Member for Rayleigh, but I say to the hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) that the amendment is still absurd.
I refer to amendments Nos. 1 and 258. I am slightly unfamiliar with Committee stage discussions these days, and I am not sure whether the Opposition intend their amendments as probing amendments or whether they have a more serious purpose. Perhaps the hon. Member for Rayleigh (Mr. Francois) could clarify that.
I am not sure whether amendment No. 258 deletes the concept of a president of the Council from the treaty or whether it prevents a president of the Council from having a view on external affairs. I suspect that it deletes any reference to the president, which implies that the current situation would continue, whereby there are potentially three different spokespeople for the European Union on external affairs matters.
Those who have been in regular contact with the European Union know that the current position is untenable with 27 members. With six members of the original Community it may have been possible, as the presidency came round every three years and there could be some degree of continuity. With 27 members it becomes almost impossible to conduct business in the long term. Particularly in relations with outside bodies and other international bodies, there is a need for administrative consistency so that people know whom they are speaking to, what kind of person they are and whether they can trust them. That is crucial in international negotiations, which is why a presidency is needed.
That brings me back to the question whether the amendment was intended as a probing amendment. Was it meant to probe whether the presidency would be like the President of the United States? Clearly, that is not the case. The president of the European Council would have very limited powers and would have to be extremely careful to stick closely to the mandate that that person was given. There would not be a huge amount of discretion, if I anticipate correctly the future relationship between the president and the Council. That may be a point that Tony Blair is examining. I do not know whether he is a candidate or not, but he would be wise to work out what the job description was if he wanted to put his hat in the ring.
With regard to amendment No. 1, there is a myth that must be killed off. There are many legitimate and credible reasons to argue against the treaty and the foreign affairs and defence aspects of it, but the idea that it will in any way deny Britain access to the United Nations at the Security Council, the Assembly or any of the intermediary committees is just not realistic. The president will be there to represent a common position of the European Union in whatever is being discussed. If there is no common position, the president will not be there; the president could not be there unless originally there was unanimity—or, as my European friends say, consensus—on the issue under consideration.
I agree with my hon. Friend’s description of the situation. Does he agree that there is no downside? If there is no consensus, the United Kingdom will go alone to the United Nations, as would happen if there were no treaty or arrangements. If there is consensus, the United Kingdom will go with 26 allies—in its pocket, as it were, via the high representative—to the United Nations.
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. If there is a common position, the United Kingdom or any other of the 27 can decide how loquacious to be in reinforcing that position at whatever United Nations committee it happens to be. If there is no such position—that will happen on occasions; it would have happened in the original debates on Iraq, for instance—the United Kingdom will have the same access to the United Nations as at the moment. If the Opposition’s amendments are more than probing ones, their arguments will have to be better than those put forward by their Front Benchers.
Why do we need the complication of a possible right of audience at the United Nations for a representative of the EU? If there was a common position, surely the French and British representatives, who have seats, could pray that in aid as part of their case if we thought that that would help.
I do not understand the right hon. Gentleman’s point. The European position will be stated if there is one. If any nation wanted to reinforce it, they could do so. If there were no European position, any nation that wished to express a view could do so. That is the framework.
The point is that that would not have to be done three times. Doing it twice would be quite enough—we would already have two representatives around the table.
The right hon. Gentleman and I go back a long way on these matters. He knows about some of the issues. I would have thought that he would recognise that if there is a common European position it will be more influential in UN committees if it is put forward as such, and not by the French or British or whoever happened to have the presidency in a 27-unit cycle. In the larger committees, the position would be far more effective coming from the European presidency—normally from the president himself. That would not prevent any other nation making a point if it wished to. If there were no common position, any nation wishing to make a point could do so. We cannot get away from that; that is the position of the UN. It will not change its constitution to accommodate the EU or its member nations. The Conservatives need to have another look at the issue.
The right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) raised a point in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford, South (Mike Gapes); he said that it was better to have a British than a European position. That is a matter of horses for courses. In some circumstances—for example, the situation in the Congo or Chad in respect of external affairs—it is better for Britain to express its view alone, knowing that it does not have to have a lead-nation role, but that it can still very much influence the direction of the EU. In other situations, however, Britain would have a direct role. For instance, because of our history we have a closer and deeper interest in the diplomatic discussions on Zimbabwe than some other European Union countries. It is a matter of considering the issues and dealing with them as they come forward.
The amendments bear on the common foreign and security policy, which I have always supported as an aspect of the European Union; it is very much in British interests that it should develop further. So I look at the amendments and ask whether they will enable us to make better progress than we have made already in developing a common foreign and security policy on issues for which it is in British interests to do so. Those are issues on which our interests coincide with those of other member states and on which we can reach unanimous positions on matters of great importance to us all. In the earlier debate, Members referred to our relationships with the Russian Federation. I can think of no more important area where the European Union should make faster progress towards having a coherent common foreign policy that enables us to establish good, but proper, relationships with the very important superpower that is almost a near neighbour of ours to the east.
The structure on which the amendments bear is fairly long-standing. There is no great substantial change in this treaty from the Maastricht treaty, which we debated at considerable length in the past. Unfortunately, I was divided then from some of the colleagues who are present now, who still do not agree with me. A lot of these arguments are extremely familiar. At that time, we debated amendments claiming that the proposals would be the end of British foreign policy, that we would be handing over to a new European superpower, that we would lose all our power to represent ourselves abroad, and so on. None of that ever happened. Unfortunately, since the Thatcher Government led on the whole idea of a common foreign and security policy and the Major Government supported that, we have not gone far enough in the direction towards what we need—a union of nation states collectively being able effectively to put into practice representations on their mutual behalf in the areas that matter to them.
I agree with, and will not repeat at length, the arguments in favour of a single presidency for a period and an end to the rotating presidency. I am surprised that my party has tabled amendments challenging the idea of the new presidency. The Conservative party was always unanimous on the question of enlarging the Union—apart from my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood); I am sorry that I have attributed to him a moment of deviation from his very firm position on these matters. Certainly, the official policy was all in favour of enlargement. Indeed, most of us view it as a triumph that the Union has succeeded in enlarging and taking democratic and liberal values across into central and eastern Europe. I always gained the impression that it was assumed that once we had enlargement, certain treaty amendments would be required, including getting rid of the rotating presidency. I will not labour the argument, but the hon. Member for Ilford, South (Mike Gapes) was entirely correct in what he said.
There are two arguments about the presidency that must be refuted: first, that it is, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh (Mr. Francois) suggested, a tremendously powerful position that could eventually, over time, rival the presidency of the United States as a position in world affairs. I have to tell my hon. Friend that I do not see how that can be seriously argued while keeping a straight face. One thing that is retained in this treaty is the idea of unanimity in forming foreign policy—unanimity, that is, of Ministers in the Council of Ministers, each of whom comes from their democratically elected Government in each member state and is individually answerable to his Parliament and the electorate to whom his Government answer. The president will represent the Union once a common policy has been arrived at, and only then. The president of the European Council of Ministers—that is the best way of describing him, rather than the president of Europe—will not be the commander-in-chief of the forces of Europe. When we discuss later amendments, we will no doubt hear the old Maastricht stuff about European armies and so on, which have always been phantoms. The president will not have any policy-making power—that will reside with the Ministers drawn from the member states, and his duty is to represent a common position when they have arrived at it.
Secondly, it is argued that the presidency will somehow threaten our position in the United Nations. Again, I will not labour the arguments that have already been made, other than to say that we are continuing a practice that has already become well established, and that has not yet happened. The fact that the president of the Council can sometimes go to address the United Nations does not mean that the United Kingdom will lose its place on the UN Security Council, any more than the French will. I strongly believe that the British should retain their position on the Security Council for as long as possible. We are a very valuable influence there, and it is obviously in our interest that we stay there.
We have had difficulty in maintaining that presence in modern times because the permanent members of the present Security Council were the victorious allies in the second world war. As the world steadily changes, that situation is getting quite difficult to defend. It is not the best defence of the British position to say that we will rely on that historical case, or even to bar the quite harmless practice, which has become quite well established, of the president of the European Council addressing the Security Council when there is a common position.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham, with his usual sensitivity to the political world of Europe, says that the other 25 countries should put up with being represented by either the British or the French. He asks why there is a need for the European president to be able to turn up and put their views. Quite apart from the generally undiplomatic nature of that suggestion, such an approach is not the best way of defending the United Kingdom’s seat on the UN Security Council in the longer term. With the greatest respect to my right hon. Friend, such near xenophobia about the desire of other powerful countries to be able to put forward a collective European view in the UN will simply arouse more pressure for reform, and most proposals for reform suggest that there should not be so many European countries individually represented on the Security Council. I resist that view, but we have to be sensible and flexible, and we should not raise such extraordinary fears about what has been a successful practice since Maastricht.
I know that others want to go on to the subject of the European army, so I shall conclude by relating something to my hon. Friends in a way that is in order. These debates, which I have attended quite regularly, largely seem to involve an extraordinary series of exchanges about what the treaty means. In my opinion, although I respect the views of my colleagues, there has been an attempt to extract from the wording of the treaty extraordinary meanings that I simply cannot see there. It is exactly like Maastricht. Everybody said that similar things would happen after Maastricht. We debated it at interminable length then because we were not confined by such a dreadful timetable as we are now—despite our best efforts to get one. All those fears were raised, none of them were realised, and now everyone is coming back to say exactly the same thing.
My right hon. and learned Friend referred to the Maastricht treaty and to the meanings that people gave to the words in that treaty, and are giving to the words in this one. Can I get rid of a canard, one way or another? I think that he once said that he did not actually read the Maastricht treaty. I have the greatest difficulty in understanding how he could put a meaning on words that he had not read.
I knew more about the Maastricht treaty than most of the Maastricht—
Order. I really do think that we ought now to return to the subject matter under discussion, which includes external representation.
I am sorry, Mrs. Heal. I shall therefore not rehearse my claim that I understood the Maastricht treaty and knew more about it than the Maastricht rebels at the time. I shall leave that for another occasion. The canard has been repeated, and will one day be properly put to rest.
If today’s debate includes assertions about the president of the European Council of Ministers becoming like the President of the United States, our loss of our seat on the Security Council, a loss of our ability to have an independent foreign policy, and—in a few moments—our Army being subordinated to a European army, I cannot see how a referendum can be sensibly conducted. My opposition to a referendum is the same as that of my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer). The effect of this process on the public is bewildering. People say that they do not understand the treaty, and having listened to this debate, I am hardly surprised. There is not even the faintest agreement among Members about what the treaty means.
I am afraid my response to the amendments is that they raise fanciful fears, no doubt genuinely held by my right hon. and right hon. Friends, that are based on an interpretation of the language of the treaty that it simply will not bear. For that reason, I continue to hold the views I did when we debated Maastricht. I will vote against any of the amendments that are pressed, and I will try to persuade my constituents that the fears raised in support of the amendments are delusions. The experience of our membership of the European Union so far, particularly since Maastricht, has shown that they were delusions then and they are delusions now. They do not reflect the way that anyone sensible in the EU, in any member state, intends to travel in future.
Like many others, I want to discuss amendments Nos. 258 and 1. I do not know whether those who tabled amendment No. 258 intended it to be a probing amendment or whether they wish to press it to a Division, but they have overblown the consolidated text resulting from the treaty. Article 15(6) states:
“The President of the European Council shall, at his or her level and in that capacity, ensure the external representation of the Union on issues concerning its common foreign and security policy, without prejudice to the powers of the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.”
Those in the Chamber could hear the inflexion of my voice, so for the benefit of Hansard, I point out that I stressed the word “common”. The president of the European Council will be involved in the common foreign and security policy and
“ensure the external representation of the Union”.
Other hon. Members may interpret that wording differently, but to me, ensuring the external representation does not mean being the external representative. That interpretation is confirmed when the article goes on to refer specifically to the high representative of the Union for foreign affairs and security policy.
The president of the European Council will be elected by the European Council, which can finish the term of office before the end of the two and a half years in
“the event of an impediment or serious misconduct”.
I am not sure what “impediment” means, but in lay terms, I think it means that someone who is naughty or falls out with their mates will be voted out by the Heads of State and Heads of Government of the 27 member states in those circumstances. The president of the European Council is therefore on some sort of leash, albeit that it depends on the interpretation of “impediment or serious misconduct”.
The president will not make foreign and security policy for the European Union; the European Council will do that, and it will be a common foreign and security policy. I stand to be corrected, but I understand that that would be done by unanimity; that is where the word “common” comes in. If the United Kingdom took a fundamentally different position on an issue of interest to the European Union, such as on Zimbabwe, which my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, North (Mr. Henderson) mentioned, there would be no common foreign policy and the UK could properly pursue its own path.
I am following the hon. Gentleman’s argument, but what would happen if the United Kingdom were in a minority of one in its view of a foreign matter? What would the high representative do? Would he do nothing and simply sit around in his office?
Strictly speaking, the high representative would have to do that. In practice, he or she would make matters clear to his or her interlocutors. I do not expect the European Union to fall out over Zimbabwe, but let us take it as an example. If 26 member states took one position and the UK took another, the high representative would have to say, “My hands are tied. I am the high representative for a common foreign policy and, as I’ve indicated to you, my interlocutor, there is no common foreign policy because one member state doesn’t agree with the others.” That is what a common foreign policy means. As I said in an intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, North, in such circumstances, standing up for what we believe in as a single country would not put the UK in a weaker position than we would have occupied if we had never joined the Common Market and then the European Union.
Before we joined the Common Market on those terms—we were, of course, in the European Free Trade Association, but in foreign policy we were alone—if we were in a minority of one on what would otherwise be a common foreign policy of the European Union, we would again be on our own, so we would not be in a weaker position. However, we would potentially be in a much stronger position if 27 member states were taking their lead from the United Kingdom on, for example, Zimbabwe, which is a more likely scenario, but not a definite one, because of our history with that country and our knowledge of it, as has been mentioned. On the one hand, we might be alone, which is not a weaker position than we would have been in, were we not involved. On the other hand, the upside is that we could be in a considerably stronger position. That seems to me a pretty good each-way bet.
There is a slight inconsistency between the hon. Gentleman’s position and that of the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee. The Chairman was arguing that the development of having a president who served a term would improve the external representation of the European Union’s common policy, but the hon. Gentleman is suggesting that the president would be constrained in the policy that they represented and would have to follow narrowly the instructions of the European Council. However, I am at a loss to see why a president serving for a period of two and a half years would be any more capable of representing that narrowly constrained common policy than the Prime Minister, President or Foreign Minister of one of our European partners.
The president of the European Council will not be representing that policy—that is the point that I am trying to make. The president of the European Council’s role is to
“ensure the external representation of the Union on issues concerning its common foreign and security policy”.
I see no inconsistency between my position and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford, South (Mike Gapes), and no doubt he will intervene on me if he thinks that there is one. What I was referring to, in the vernacular, is an each-way bet—sometimes we will be alone, sometimes we will be stronger. That is good.
I entirely agree with the comments that the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) made about the United Kingdom’s position at the United Nations. Historically, we are in a somewhat anomalous position, whereby our country is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, but has a round population of 60 million, albeit with a fantastic history and the goods and bads of the British empire. At the other end of the spectrum is India, which has a population of 1.1 billion, but is not a permanent member of the UN Security Council.
The point about membership of the Security Council is that it is held by the major military powers of the world that are prepared to commit men, women and treasure to United Nations expeditions when force is needed to back up policy. We have more than earned our keep around the table. We are assured that there will be no European army, so how could there be a European Union seat?
I do not want to get diverted too far down that path, but the right hon. Gentleman is not quite right. The five permanent Security Council members are in fact the original declared nuclear powers. That is where it comes from.
Canada, for example—a country of which I am a citizen and for which I have a great deal of affection—was one of the victors in the second world war. It has a long and proud history of contributing to UN security forces throughout the world; indeed, it argues with some justification that it has the proudest history, in terms of proportional contributions. In fact, the Canadian losses in Afghanistan per capita are far higher than the United Kingdom’s. However, Canada is not a permanent member of the UN Security Council and, as far I know, neither Mike Pearson nor anyone else ever suggested that it should be. However, as I was saying, we are in the strange and historically anomalous position of having two countries of 60 million people—the United Kingdom and France—that are permanent members of the Security Council, whereas India, which has a population of 1.1 billion or whatever it is today, is not a permanent member. Membership comes from history, and, quite understandably, that history is being questioned, not least by countries such as India.
If we wish the United Kingdom to remain a member of the UN Security Council, as I am sure all hon. Members would wish, we have to look at how we interact with it. The changes brought about by the treaty include reinforcing the way in which the United Kingdom, as a member of the European Union and a permanent member of the UN Security Council, interacts with the United Nations, at both the General Assembly and the Security Council level. The treaty and the changes that it would effect are helpful, in respect of preserving this country’s position as a permanent member of the UN Security Council. Paragraph 2 of article 34, on page 25 of the consolidated text, says:
“Member States which are also members of the United Nations Security Council will concert and keep the other Member States and the High Representative fully informed. Member States which are members of the Security Council will, in the execution of their functions, defend the positions and the interests of the Union, without prejudice to their responsibilities under the provisions of the United Nations Charter.
When the Union has defined a position on a subject which is on the United Nations Security Council agenda, those Member States which sit on the Security Council shall request that the High Representative be invited to present the Union’s position.”
I think that that strengthens the position, principally of the United Kingdom and France, although—again, I stand to be corrected—at a given time, another EU member state could be a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, so the EU, with 27 member states and a population of about 400 million people, might have three members of the Security Council, two permanent and one elected on rotation.
The EU is a body of 400 million people, so it seems to me reasonable for the high representative to be invited to the UN. The member states, under the treaty, would be beholden to request that the high representative be invited to present the Union’s position—again, if there were a Union common position. If there is no common position, quite properly and in the interests of our country, our position could be presented to the Security Council, of which we are a permanent member.
The provisions of the treaty seem to me an each-way bet. We might be alone at the UN Security Council—there would be no change there, then, if we had never been in the Common Market and in the EU—but we might not be alone; we might have the strength of being able to say that, at the UN Security Council, we have a common foreign policy on a particular issue, which might be Darfur or whatever, and that it is supported by the UK. Perforce that common position would be supported at the UN by France, which is an EU member state. Another EU member state might also be present as a rotating member of the Security Council.
May I add a point to my hon. Friend’s argument? There have been occasions over recent years on which the high representative, representing the EU or negotiating on its behalf, has been closely involved in trying to resolve some issue of conflict. Iran is the obvious example, but there are others. Mr. Solana has played that role, and it would surely be helpful to the collective influence of the UK and the EU within the UN system if someone who had been engaged day to day in trying to resolve some of the most difficult international issues could appear before the Security Council and give it his take on those issues.
I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. That issue is to do with expertise, but also many hands make light work. We should get more hands on the pump.
If a delicate issue were being considered by the Security Council and if it were clear that the EU had a common position, as evidenced by the fact that the member states that were members of the Security Council at the time were asking for the high representative to be invited, and if that invitation were extended and the high representative attended, other UN member states around the world would know of the solidity of the common position of the EU, of which we are a member. Therefore, our bargaining power would, in a sense, be given leverage, and the treaty helps in that respect.
The proposal is an each-way bet, as I have termed it. That is why I oppose amendments Nos. 258 and 1. They would strip out things that are advantageous to us. Were we to strip out those things, there would be a serious downside, whereas if we leave them in there will be an upside but no downside.
I shall be as brief as I can, because I hope that the Committee gets on to the other groups of amendments. It is one of the major scandals of this entire procedure that not only does the Committee not have the opportunity to go through the treaty line by line, but that often, owing to the short time allotted, we do not even have an opportunity to debate whole groups of amendments. That is particularly important given the significance of the subject before us tonight.
This policy area contains some of the worst drafting, and it is one in which the Government sustained some of the heaviest defeats in the negotiations leading up to the drafting of the text. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke), who spoke before me from the Opposition Benches, put the most optimistic complexion on the treaty provisions. I disagree with him, but we have always managed to conduct our disagreements at a fairly genial level. In this case, however, he is at variance with the Government’s position. We know that the Government do not like the text, so we have the odd situation whereby my right hon. and learned Friend is defending a text which was rejected by the Government. We know that because of the many amendments that the Government tabled during the Convention on the Future of Europe.
I had the honour of representing this House and I witnessed the Government’s then representative, the right hon. Member for Neath (Mr. Hain), tabling and speaking to scores of amendments, very few of which were successful. It is difficult for hon. Members and this Committee to find out exactly what those amendments were; we have to trawl through a Commission website. There is no consolidated version of those amendments, but they do exist and I have a copy. There is no doubt that the Government talked tough in advance about their position, but caved in under pressure; they were not successful in amending the text and are now making the best of a bad job.
The problems were compounded by the procedures in the first half of last year when, following the defeat of the constitution, it was resurrected by the German presidency and the resulting negotiations did not even take place in public. At least in the Convention on the Future of Europe, there was parliamentary and public input; in the early part of last year, the negotiations were conducted entirely by officials in secret. Member states were shown the text only 48 hours before it was all agreed in the June European Council. That is one of the reasons why we have a treaty that is virtually incomprehensible. My right hon. and learned Friend said it would be inappropriate now to put the treaty to a referendum because no one would understand it, but the reason no one can understand it is that it was negotiated by officials, without any parliamentary or public involvement. There being no obligation to make it comprehensible, of course we have a text that is ambiguous, contradictory and misleading. The situation has not been helped by the partial and selective way in which Ministers have presented the outcome to this House.
Our amendments are designed to reinstate the position that the Government wanted during the early negotiations, or at least to make the treaty better. Earlier today, we heard a lot from the Foreign Secretary about the role of the European Council and how that will now be the intergovernmental body that will direct, at least strategically, common foreign and security policy. It is true that the European Council’s role has been enhanced to some extent, but the treaty does not strengthen the intergovernmental nature of the process. Instead of being led by a serving Head of Government of a member state, the Council is now to have a full-time, permanent president who will be supranational.
What we have done in the treaty is create more presidents—that is really what happened during the Convention. Not only are we to have a full-time president of the European Council, but we will still have a President of the Council of Ministers—in some respects, that role will continue to circulate among member states—as well as the President of the Commission, the President of the European Parliament, the President of the European Court of Justice, the President of the European Central Bank and the President of the European Court of Auditors. We have a Europe of presidents, but what we were seeking in the Convention was a popular Europe—a Europe for the people. That was the instruction given to those involved in the reform process, and we failed. If one adds together all the presidents and the vice-presidents enumerated in the treaty, one has something that is even more remote from the lives and concerns of ordinary people.
Of course, what we did not know at the time was that the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, was actually writing his own job description. However, to repeat a point that has already been made this evening, he might have looked a little more deeply into exactly what the job entails. One of the conclusions of the European Scrutiny Committee was that there are ambiguities surrounding all the jobs of most of these presidents. The search for clarity and certainty in the text has failed.
Another defect has been identified. If we are to have a more powerful, strategic European Council, why are its proceedings still to take place in secret, with no written minutes of any kind? This was the subject of a recent report by the European Scrutiny Committee, which rightly pointed out:
“The Conclusions of the European Council have an important influence—sometimes, a decisive one—on the future of the EU and the 500 million people who live in it.”
The Committee points out that no one knows what goes on. There is apparently a recording of the proceedings, although that was denied by the previous Foreign Secretary. It was confirmed, however, by Sir Stephen Wall, who was an ambassador to the EU. If there is an accurate recording, though, it is certainly not presented to Parliament or to the outside world.
The Committee recommended that
“the Government discuss with other Member States the options for improving the process and removing its present inefficiencies and eccentricities; and, in particular, whether a clear, definitive and accessible record of the proceedings of the European Council should be made as a matter of course.”
I strongly agree with that. If we are to have a supreme decision-making body that is going to set the strategic direction of the foreign policy of 27 member states, we are entitled to know what it is discussing, and who agrees and disagrees when a vote is taken. We need to know what is going on. All we have at the moment are the conclusions, which are circulated before the European Council meets but are never discussed as minutes. A statement is made to the House by the Prime Minister afterwards to tell us what has happened, but there is no clear, definitive record of what actually took place.
If the treaty goes through, this provision will have big implications for the democratic right of this House to scrutinise foreign policy. There is nothing in the treaty to reform those secretive proceedings. Amendments were tabled in the Convention to correct that, but there was no appetite for such reform. There was a desire to keep these matters at European Union level, deliberately to avoid the tiresome habit of member states’ Parliaments inquiring exactly what their Ministers are doing on their behalf.
We can add to that the fact that there is confusion over the roles of the president of the European Council and of the high representative. It has been mentioned several times today that the high representative will be entitled to speak at the United Nations on behalf of the European Union when there is a common position. This is not what the United Kingdom Government wanted at the time, however. The Minister who is going to respond to the debate does not appear to be in the Chamber at the moment, but if he would kindly return before the debate concludes, I should like to ask him whether it is still the Government’s position that the obligation on permanent members to request the high representative to speak on our behalf contradicts the rules of procedure of the United Nations. We are entitled to an opinion on that. That is certainly what was asserted at the Convention on the Future of Europe, and it would be wrong to write into a treaty something that conflicts with the rules of procedure of an international organisation of which we are a member.
The Foreign Affairs Committee carried out a comprehensive study of the roles of these various posts, and concluded that it was
“concerned by the current degree of uncertainty which surrounds the role”—
that is, that of the president of the European Council—
“and by the potential for conflict with the High Representative in representing the EU externally”.
We are being invited to agree to a text—the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, whom I see in his place, did not mention this in his very good report—when we are entitled to an explanation of whether the Government believe that these ambiguities have been sorted out before we pass the Bill.
The high representative will have at his disposal not just what amounts in most respects to a foreign ministry—although it is to be called an external action service—but more than 100 delegations, which to all intents and purposes are embassies. It has been calculated that more than 7,000 members of staff are working for these overseas delegations and for the Commission in Brussels on foreign and security policy and external matters. It is certainly clear to me that the new high representative’s staff and the ministry at his disposal, as well as the overseas delegations, will be heavily dominated by the Commission. Yet the exact role of the Commission is another ambiguity in the treaty, so one of my amendments is designed to remove from it the quite unnecessary confusion over whether the high representative or the Commission can table proposals on foreign policy matters.
The Commission’s role is further enhanced by the fact that the high representative will also be a vice-president of the Commission. Such double-hatting was a matter brought up in the Convention and subsequently as something that the Government did not want. In trying to clarify and simplify the roles of EU institutions, it makes no sense to leave such ambiguities in the text.
Another problem relating to the Commission’s role and how it will interact with that of the high representative is the fact that the European Council and its president will have to practise “mutual sincere cooperation” with the Commission, as written into the text in article 9. If the UK or any other state seeks to assert its independence in foreign policy, it will run up against the problem that the European Council—the decision-making body—and its president will be obliged mutually to co-operate not with member states or the UK but with the Commission. I find that to be a distortion—once again, the Government did not like it in the negotiations—and it should have been removed.
The melancholy fact remains that, regardless of the text, the momentum and the internal dynamic of the EU will sweep away the Government’s red line defences in any case. The clearest example of that are the numerous loyalty and solidarity clauses in the text. Even if we manage to take out some of the specifics through the amendments, we are still left with member states’ obligation to seek an “ever-increasing degree of convergence” of their actions, as in article 11. That is an echo of the existing treaty obligation for member states to seek “ever closer union”. At great political cost, the Government managed to get some of that taken out of the existing text, only for it to re-emerge in the new form of seeking an increasing degree of convergence in foreign policy.
Moreover, it is the high representative who will have a new power to ensure compliance with the obligation—again, a new obligation—for member states to support the European Union action. If there is a change of Government after a general election and the new Government seek to take a new angle on foreign policy and form some new alliances, they will not be able to do so if the policy is the subject of a pre-existing position to which the previous Government signed up.
It is slightly worse than that, is it not? A Government may have agreed a common position on a foreign issue to start with, but foreign issues change. We might take a different view from the rest of Europe after agreeing initially to a common approach. Will the high representative say, “I will not say any more about that now”? I fear that he will continue to side with the majority view in the European Union.
Yes, These developments are, to all intents and purposes, irreversible, and undermine one of the basic constitutional tenets by which we live: that no Parliament can bind its successor.
I hesitate to advertise some of the demons whose existence some of our colleagues refuse to accept, but if the Council invited the high representative to formulate a proposal on the basis of a resolution of the Council, that proposal would be subject to qualified majority voting. It is possible that a newly elected Government who did not even agree to the initial invitation for the high representative to make a proposal would be stuck with qualified majority voting on its implementation.
My hon. Friend rightly mentions a new provision in the treaty which extends qualified majority voting in the way that he has described. It means that once the high representative has been invited to present proposals, qualified majority voting will apply. Any member states must veto at a very early stage even the proposal to request a proposal from the high representative. That is a significant extension of qualified majority voting. Again, the lack of clarity in the relevant clause was criticised by the Foreign Affairs Committee, but to no avail.
The right hon. Gentleman seems to be reading the provisions in a very different way from the way in which I am reading them. The second paragraph of article 24 (1) on page 19 of the consolidated texts states:
“The common foreign and security policy… shall be defined and implemented by the European Council and the Council acting unanimously”
—end of quotation. [Interruption.] I will complete the quotation if Members want me to. After “unanimously”, it continues
“except where the Treaties provide otherwise.”
End of quotation. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman could tell us where the treaties provide otherwise. It seems to me that what I have read out suggests it is a question of implementation as well as defining.
Characteristically, the hon. Gentleman did not complete the quotation, which continues
“except where the Treaties provide otherwise.”
“They do provide otherwise.”] My hon. Friend the Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin) will probably try to find the exact point in the text.
The words “where otherwise provided” refer to article 31(2). If the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris) looks at that paragraph, he will find a list of examples in which qualified majority voting applies.
That was a good answer from my hon. Friend. It is true that a new provision in the texts extends qualified majority voting if the European Council, acting on the basis of unanimity, requests a proposal from the high representative. Once that request has been made, qualified majority voting applies, even when the proposals are not implementing measures. That is a significant advance in qualified majority voting.
Let me end by referring to a solidarity clause that I do not think has been sufficiently ventilated. It gives the European Union the ability to require member states to make available military resources to prevent a terrorist attack. Hon. Members who wish to look it up will find the reference in article 188R, which is a new provision in the treaty. As far as I can tell, it is judiciable by the European Court of Justice. In other words, there is no voluntary spirit involved. If a request is made, member states, including Britain, would have to give military assistance or make military assets available. That would be done not in response to an actual attack, but possibly to prevent a terrorist attack. That is a significant extension of European Union power and a restriction on the freedom of action of all member states. How it can be asserted that British independence of thought, policy and action is uninhibited by this treaty is mystifying.
Perhaps the best demonstration of that point is the fact that, yet again, the provision was opposed by the Government in the negotiations. I hope that the Minister for Europe, who has now returned to his place, will spend less time arguing against amendments that the Government promoted at an earlier stage of the negotiations. Instead, I hope he will start to find the spirit that the Government at least partly found during the Convention—standing up for British interests in complex negotiations, although there was a failed outcome.
My amendments and those of my hon. Friends will help to rescue this treaty from where it has ended up, although they will not do so comprehensively because of the solidarity and loyalty clauses, which have an overarching effect. In my view, they will erode British independence in foreign policy to the stage where we will become exclusively a continental power, whereas we are partly continental and partly what General de Gaulle called “maritime”. We must retain the ability to choose in foreign policy. Sometimes we have chosen the continent—sometimes we have had to rescue the continent—but at other times we have chosen a global role, a maritime role and a role that perhaps associates us more closely with the Anglosphere. If the treaty and these provisions go through in their current form, that choice and destiny will be denied us.
The right hon. Gentleman’s contribution, with respect, seems to exemplify the type of approach that the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) described, whereby the Conservative Front-Bench team and the majority of Conservative Back Benchers present choose to read into the treaty proposals the most alarmist outcomes possible. Such outcomes could only possibly come about after further treaty changes had been agreed upon by all the member states and, in any event, they could not in any sense be regarded as inevitable. Certainly such outcomes are not at all comprehended in the proposals.
I am sure that some Conservative Back Benchers from the Eurosceptic majority—that is what it now appears to be—believe that the treaty will bring about such consequences, but I have difficulty in believing that the Conservative Front-Bench team really believes that such things could happen. Nevertheless, its approach to the amendments and to the substantive policy debates on the issue since we began our consideration a couple of weeks ago has been to set up a series of Aunt Sallies and to try to frighten the public with scenarios that, when pressed, the hon. Member for Rayleigh (Mr. Francois) has had to concede, even today, were only theoretical possibilities rather than inevitable consequences of the treaty proposals.
One example, which we discussed earlier, was the attempt to parallel the new president post with that of the Presidents of the US and Russia. I do not want to make too much of it, but it is quite instructive that Conservative Front Benchers have chosen to make that parallel. The purpose of trying to suggest, entirely erroneously, that the five-year presidency was in any sense parallel to the US presidency could only be to put into the public’s mind the suggestion that an EU president would be akin to President Bush or other American Presidents and that the treaty brings in that sort of constitutional change. Anyone who reads the proposals knows that that is not the situation, but it is an example of how the Conservatives are trying to frighten the public.
Another example is the way in which the high representative—an important and welcome reform—is being promoted as being, in effect, an EU Foreign Minister, when the proposal has in fact been hedged about with many restrictions and limitations. Indeed, the proposal could be criticised for not going far enough. If anyone is in any doubt about that, they need only refer to the words of former French President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, who said that in the revised proposals Britain has already weakened all attempts at further European integration, including rejecting the title of Minister for Foreign Affairs. The reality is that the high representative will be nothing like the EU Foreign Minister that the Conservatives suggest is being created.
Those are two examples of the fairly extreme, but at least rational criticisms of the proposals that we have heard from some members of the Conservative party. There are even more extreme proposals from some sections of the party represented in this House. I had the great fortune last night of being here until 2 am in support of the Government’s proposals for local government changes in Shropshire. I had some time on my hands, as one does at the time in the morning, so I had a closer look at my e-mails than I might do earlier in the day. I was interested to receive an e-mail from the office of the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies)—I have told him that I would raise this point if I had the opportunity to speak today. It was an invitation from the hon. Gentleman to attend an event launching the FreeNations website, presenting
“The Totalitarians who founded the European Union and their impending triumph.”.
I had a quick look at the website, which contains a list of Eurofederalists—a list of conspirators that makes the conspiracy recently outlined by Mohammed al-Fayed seem modest in comparison. That list includes not only, as one might expect, the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke), the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) and my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Mr. Davies), but the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Mr. Galloway) and even my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell). For him to be denounced as a Eurofederalist is an indication of the outer reaches of reality that are occupied by some members of the Conservative party.
I make that point because it illustrates the position of an increasing number of Conservative Members. They actually believe some of that stuff. They believe that there is some plot, as the website helpfully sets out, to do through the European Union what Hitler attempted to do between 1939 and 1945. That illustrates the problem for Conservative Front Benchers: they have to try to bridge the gap between some contact with reality and the extreme views on the Conservative Back Benches, which are gaining a higher and higher profile in their party.
My view is very simple. I want to see the EU working more effectively. I believe that the situation in the EU institutions does not allow the member states of Europe to work together as effectively as they could. The proposals for the presidency and the high representative are sensible measures that will allow the Union to work more effectively to meet the challenges of our time, and that is why I oppose the Conservative amendments, which would reduce the improvements in efficiency and efficacy that I want to see brought about.
I shall try to be relatively brief, as I know that one or two Members still want to speak and that many Members want to get on to the next group of amendments. I shall limit my remarks more narrowly than I had intended.
I speak in favour of amendment No. 258, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh (Mr. Francois) and our right hon. and hon. Friends, which concerns the role of the president. My hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh was careful and, despite what Labour Members have said, he was in no way alarmist. He made it clear that he was suggesting not that there should be instantaneous changes but rather that there should be changes over time. He was right to warn us of that.
It is worth remembering that one of the powers of the presidency of the US, other than the President’s specific powers as commander-in-chief, is the use of the office as a bully pulpit. That is a phrase that is often used in America and means a forum in which the President can argue diplomatically with other states, as well as arguing through the media to persuade citizens to influence the legislature—sometimes going over the heads of Congress. That is exactly what it would be reasonable to anticipate that the role of the permanent president of the Council might turn into, particularly if the person appointed is a character like Tony Blair. I do not necessarily mean him specifically, but he is someone whom we know, to our cost on these Benches, has some formidable skills when it comes to arguing and articulating positions. Many Labour Members were persuaded by him to do things that they perhaps would rather not have done.
The case put forward by a number of my hon. Friends seems perfectly reasonable. If a character such as Tony Blair were to take the position of president and use it as a platform and an opportunity to speak to the media around the world and to speak in diplomatic council, it is perfectly reasonable to suggest that it would develop over time into the sort of powerful position that my hon. Friends have described.
The hon. Gentleman’s point is without substance. There is no way that the French, the Germans or the Spanish—or anyone else—will allow a president of the Council to dictate everything in Europe because they will require that person to stick strictly to the mandate. Until the treaty changes that, I do not think that such fears are in any way justified. The hon. Gentleman should be a bit more objective.
If what the hon. Gentleman says is true, then, contrary to what the Chairman of the Select Committee has argued, the president will not transform the effectiveness of the EU’s position abroad. Such a transformation will occur only if the changes to the roles of the high representative and the president make that position more effective. If those changes are modest and do not have the effect that I have suggested, I do not see how the transformation argued for by the Chairman of the Select Committee will occur.
If the hon. Gentleman checks the record, he will see that I did not use the word “transformation”. I talked about how it would make the system more effective and coherent. I stand by that. We are talking not about transformation, but about incremental improvements, which are contained in this relatively modest treaty.
I thank the Chairman for that intervention. My hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh was not arguing that there would be instantaneous changes. Part of the argument is that those changes will be incremental, but, over time, enough incremental changes have significant effects. That is all we have said. I do not see how such comments merit the charge of being alarmist or of scaremongering, which were among the phrases used by Labour and Liberal Democrat Members. I shall conclude my remarks on that subject, because I do not want to take up any more time than is entirely necessary.
Let me speak briefly about amendment No. 1, which concerns the UN Security Council. The hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris) seemed to be arguing quite forcefully that the position of a country on the Security Council should be relative to its population.
indicated dissent.
The hon. Gentleman shakes his head, but he kept saying that the fact that Britain has a population of only 60 million meant that we were lucky to be on the Security Council. He suggested that it was outrageous that India was not a member, given that it has a population of 1.1 billion.
If an EU spokesman habitually addresses the UN Security Council, it will not be long before other members—or countries in the General Assembly that want a place on the Council—will suggest that the EU spokesman should take the place of Britain and France. That seems to be the logical consequence of the argument, and it is something that would weaken rather than strengthen our negotiating position on the Security Council.
I am sorry that I did not make myself clear, although I stressed that I wanted the UK to remain a permanent member of the UN Security Council. I said more than once in my speech that it was arguably a historical anomaly that a country with a population of 60 million should be a permanent member. I still wish us to be a permanent member, but we are susceptible to countries such as India arguing that that representation is wholly disproportionate. I expressed the view—the hon. Gentleman may disagree—that the provisions effected by the treaty would strengthen our position on the Security Council and make it more likely that we would be able to remain a permanent member. The treaty means that we would rotate membership with France and perhaps one other country, and that we would represent not 60 million people but, in matters governed by a common policy, more than 400 million.
In a way, that seems to be the same argument as the one advanced by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood). He said that, when there was a common policy, Britain and France—the two members with a permanent place on the UN Security Council—could make it clear that they were enunciating the EU position. My right hon. Friend said that that could be perfectly satisfactory, but the hon. Gentleman’s assertion that the EU representative would outline the common EU position seems to render the case that Britain and France should be there much weaker. I see that as a danger, and I do not believe that it is a possibility that we should raise.
I am not being especially alarmist, and I do not think that things will change instantly if the treaty is passed. However, I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh, who said from the Front Bench that that is a risk that we should avoid.
The more significant point was alluded to by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wells (Mr. Heathcoat-Amory) and my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke), who noted that it had been argued that a common EU position could be reached only through unanimity. Although the initial position can be reached only in that way, my right hon. Friends pointed out that a new provision in the treaty would insert QMV into the implementation of such proposals.
The hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West read out the first part of the relevant article. I do not think that what it proposes is a good thing, as it could be used in such a wide way that what is said to be the EU’s common position could be something that Britain does not agree with. As a result, there is also a danger that the EU representative could put forward a position that is at variance with the one advanced by Britain. That would be very damaging.
As my right hon. Friend the Member for Wells said, the Government were opposed to any move to QMV on foreign policy matters. My right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) told the House that the current Secretary of State for Justice had made it clear that that would be “simply unacceptable”, but we now have QMV in 11 areas that affect foreign policy.
It is not so long since the Government were arguing that QMV in those areas would be “simply unacceptable”. However, they lost the argument, and that is why they are now trying to present a brave face and put the best possible gloss on matters. I believe that it would be very damaging for the high representative and the president to argue for positions that Britain does not support, given that, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Sir Malcolm Rifkind) said, it is essential that common EU foreign policy is decided by unanimity. That goes to the heart of the matter. I agree, and I think that the treaty sets us on a road that leads to the common foreign and security position being decided not through unanimity, but through qualified majority voting.
My final point is on language. The words that we use are important. The high representative may not be called a Foreign Minister, the external action service may not be called a diplomatic service, and the missions may not be called embassies, but it does not mean that they are not effectively those very things. The outside world will treat the high representative as a Foreign Minister, missions will be treated as embassies, and the external action service will be treated as a diplomatic service. That is the reality, although the language may be different.
A connoisseur of conspiracy theories would have a lovely time if they attended the debates on European constitutional issues that we have in the House from time to time. I have been to a great many such debates, starting off with the Maastricht debate, and including the Amsterdam and Nice debates. On every occasion, I can recall the right hon. Member for Wells (Mr. Heathcoat-Amory), the hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) and others arguing that national sovereignty was about to come to an end, and that if we passed the legislation in question it would bring to an end centuries of British constitutional history. Today they are still arguing that if we pass the Bill before us the same effects will ensue. They always do their homework and are always extremely interesting to listen to, and I do not wish to run down their sincere convictions on the subject, which I have known about for a very long time, and which I thoroughly respect. However, their predictions are in danger of running out of credibility.
The treaty’s provisions for a European common foreign and security policy are extremely desirable, sensible, and pragmatic—and, I shall argue, extremely modest in their effect when we consider what might have been called for given the circumstances in which we find ourselves in the modern world. The provisions include important reforms that are desirable for two reasons. First, it has been clear to a great many people for a long time that, in the modern world, a platform of 60 million people with single-nation status is simply not sufficient to solve some of the problems that we face. That goes for the economy, climate change and the environment, and many other matters, and certainly for foreign and defence policy.
If we wish to have an effective, positive influence on the stability of the world, we need to join forces, pool our resources and join our voice to those of like-minded countries. We need to put structures in place, so that if we come up with a common initiative or make a common démarche on a particular matter, we are taken seriously and it is not regarded as a temporary coming together of a group of nations whose opinions might diverge again the very next day; we should instead be seen as a major world force that has coherence, conviction and sustainability. Many of us have been making that analysis for a long time. It is of course the basis of the development of the European defence and security policy initiative, which has come to fruition in the treaty.
The second important aspect of the treaty is that it brings to an end a lack of coherence, a potential contradiction. Until now, the European Union has had a distinct untidiness—it is worse than untidiness; it is a serious administrative handicap—in the division of responsibility between the Commission in its external affairs function and the high representative on one hand, and the country holding the presidency of the Council on the other. Until a few months ago, I sat on the Select Committee on International Development—I lost that position for reasons that I shall not go into now—and I frequently saw at first hand how frustrating and almost incomprehensible it was to third-world countries to have to deal with two different representatives of the European Union. In matters of foreign policy, human rights and security, they had to deal with the high representative, Javier Solana. On matters of trade and aid, which are enormously important to a large number of developing countries, they had to deal with the External Relations Commissioner.
It is always difficult to get two or perhaps three extremely busy people such as Peter Mandelson, Mrs. Ferrero-Waldner and Javier Solana all in the same room at the same time in Beijing, Delhi, Abuja or wherever it might be. That is virtually impossible, but in order to have a coherent, meaningful and fruitful discussion between the European Union and the third-world country concerned about the range of issues of interest to both sides, it would be necessary to get those three individuals into the same room. That is absurd. All those individuals have their own staffs, their own briefing and so forth. No doubt those staffs have their own bureaucratic interests and agendas. That cannot be avoided in any bureaucracy, even in one as effective and as relatively lean as the European Commission. It is a highly undesirable situation.
Anyone coming from a private sector background—the right hon. Member for Wells, like myself, comes from that background and understands these things—would be horrified at such administrative muddle, duplication and possibility of creating misunderstandings all round.
The situation is even more complex when the Foreign Minister of the country holding the presidency is involved in those discussions, because as well as being the President of the Council, the Foreign Minister will have responsibilities in his member state, and will no doubt have to attend his own Parliament and perhaps deal with constituency matters in his member state. That is another reason why the arrangements proposed in the treaty are sensible for the efficient working of the institutions.
Indeed. I entirely agree with my hon. Friend, who set out clearly and lucidly the reason for another major reform enshrined in the treaty—the replacement of the rotating country presidency by a personal president with a two-and-a-half-year tenure. That would be another enormous advantage.
Against that background, the proposal under discussion is not only a timely move, but one that should have been made a long time ago. I thought that the Conservative party, of which I used to be a member, was a pragmatic party which considered the practical costs and advantages of any move and whether a particular change had a reasonable chance of achieving some practical and desirable outcomes. I find that in many cases hon. Members on the Opposition Benches, not for the first time in some cases, take an essentially dogmatic view of these matters. They get caught up in the treaties, sub-clauses and so on, and are reluctant to consider the practical consequences of any decision that we take in the House about further constitutional amendments to the European treaty.
I emphasise the point that I made at the outset: that the proposal is a pretty modest way forward. A plausible and convincing argument could have been made—although I do not want to make it at the present juncture—that the treaty does not go far enough, and that there should have been qualified majority voting on ESDP matters.
There was a case earlier this week—the matter of the recognition of Kosovo—about which the European Union was all over the place. That was obviously an undesirable situation. If the European Union splits three ways, as it has done on Kosovo, with some member states such as Spain refusing ever to recognise an independent Kosovo, some such as the United Kingdom jumping in to recognise Kosovo at the earliest opportunity, and some preferring to wait and see, it is sending not one signal or message to the world or to Belgrade or Kosovo, but three, and those three are likely to be in conflict.
The net effect of all those foreign ministries, which cost a lot of taxpayers’ money in all our countries, and of all those Foreign Ministers giving press conferences and making speeches, is to negate each other. That is, on pragmatic grounds, a rather undesirable waste of resources and it shows a regrettable lack of effectiveness in foreign policy. One might well have made a coherent case for going the whole hog and having qualified majority voting; in that way, the Council of the European Union would have got together last week on a QMV basis and decided whether to recognise Kosovo, to make a declaration that it would never do so or to wait and see. Had it done so, it would have mobilised the full force of the considerable influence that it can bring to bear—political influence, and influence in respect of economic back-up and potential defence capabilities.
We have not gone down that road, although we could have. I am surprised that people have not said that we should go further. As far as I can see, the Opposition amendments have come from those who say that we have gone far too far, that it is all terrible and that British and parliamentary sovereignty and the traditions of our constitutional history are coming to an end. As I have said, we have heard that rhetoric so many times before.
Finally, I should like to make an elementary, logical point. What is the difference between what would happen if we and the other place passed this legislation and if we did not? If we pass it, and have unanimity on ESDP decisions, we can count on being part of a body that will, effectively, exercise a superpower’s power in the world and will therefore be much more likely to resolve any problem. That is a plus; we will have a mechanism that we can use if we want to—although we do not have to, because there must be unanimity. We will have an additional asset, resource and source of leverage on events. If, however, we or others decide not to agree to the unanimous decision of principle that needs to be taken before any action under ESDP is triggered, then we will be where we are now. Nothing will have changed. Bringing in the treaty will result, at worst, in our being in the same position as before. However, it could result in our being in a better one.
I do not know whether elementary logic looks different on the Labour side of the House, but it seems to me that my proposition would be immediately understandable to any member of the human race. If we have a choice between A, the current state of affairs, and B, a future state of affairs—and if B cannot be worse than A, but could be better—then logically we should go for B. The Conservative party does not appear to do logic these days; if it did, it could have saved us an awful lot of time. We could have put the whole measure through on the basis of unanimity in the House.
Anybody who considers these matters in the House should, as I do, ask what is in Britain’s interests and how Britain should use what is in front of us to spread her influence. This is the question that I have to ask—is the treaty, in the respects that we are discussing today, a way for Britain to have greater influence in the world or will it limit our influence?
I say to the Government that it is a scandal that one should feel rushed at this point because we have not the time to talk about the rest. It is not sensible to ask us to discuss two hugely important matters—foreign affairs and defence—in the circumstances given to us. From a Government who promised us line-by-line debate, that is an outrage. Frankly, it makes things difficult, even in respect of issues on which some of us on the Conservative Benches feel that the Government are closer to the truth than are others on our side. That is why I am sorry that the Minister has had to defend what has been an intolerable timetable throughout, but is on this occasion worse than usual.
However, this is too important a subject to allow the opportunity to go by. Let me deal first with a well-known argument—the thin end of the wedge. If one does not like something and does not have a good argument to oppose it, one argues that it is the thin end of the wedge. I have used that argument with my wife from time to time when I could not think of a good reason why we should do something that I did not want to do.
I have great respect for my hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh (Mr. Francois), who has made the best possible case for the argument that he is advancing. However, the thin end of the wedge argument, which I have heard in this House in all the many years that I have been here, is almost always wrong, because people who use it wish to avoid the fundamental question, “What is actually before us?”
The slippery slope.
We hear about the slippery slope and so on, but we should simply ask what is before us. [Interruption.] Let me explain to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith), who I think is fundamentally mistaken on this issue: at the moment, we have a presidency of the Council of Ministers and a mechanism whereby the Council is able to express its view on what we would call foreign affairs. We are not suddenly deciding that it should express its view on foreign affairs but discussing whether the way that we do it at the moment is a satisfactory one that is of maximum use to the United Kingdom or an unsatisfactory one. The treaty of Lisbon says that it is an unsatisfactory one. We want a system that is more effective and efficient—one that is not hugely different but that makes an incremental improvement.
If we do something that does not increase the European Union’s power but increases its ability to do what we are doing already, some people who do not like the European Union feel that that is an unhappy circumstance, because they would really like it to be less efficient. I happen not to be one of those people. I want the European Union to be better because I want Britain to have more influence in the world, and it cannot unless the European Union of which it is a member is better able to influence the world and we are better able to influence the European Union. It is clearly better to have somebody who has gained some experience in these matters, who is elected by all the Ministers, and who has a limited period but a long enough period to get used to it than to ask the representative of Slovenia, for example, to become the sort of person in six months whom it would be difficult for many of us to become with a great deal more experience and much more back-up.
We have been trying to find ways round this for a long time. Although the UK did not hold the presidency at the time, I represented the European Agriculture Ministers in the Uruguay round discussions simply because my successor in the presidency was the Luxembourg Minister, who was also Minister of Defence and several other things, and it was generally felt that perhaps my experience as an Agriculture Minister would be better served elsewhere, so I went off to Chicago and did that job. I did not mention that to some of my Eurosceptic friends because I might have been in trouble. However, I did my best to represent Britain’s interests because we had the presidency of the European Union and therefore had a voice and could say something. Of course, it was about a common interest, but we would not have been listened to had it not been in the context of the European Union.
That is why the EU voice is important. Although some of us would like to be back in the days of empire when people listened to us because we were Britain ruling a quarter of the world, they do not do that any longer. They are more likely to listen to 27 nations coming to a common position. Having a structure that enables us to come to a common position and that needs that common position before the president can represent us is a sensible step. I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison)—a very great friend and long-standing colleague—that we need thereafter to have some system of majority voting because it is not possible to work out the details unless we do. That is an excellent balance. It is a balance between the principle of deciding in common—if we are frightened about the process, we can stop at that point—and trying to work something out together when a certain amount of give and take is necessary to achieve a sensible end.
It is very simple; Britain must decide. Can it risk the give and take of 27 nations, and believe itself strong enough to produce the answer that is best for the British people, or is it so frightened, so uncourageous—
Will my right hon. Friend give way?
In one moment.
Is Britain so uncourageous that it thinks that someone else will always win? The French are pretty clear about their national sovereignty. They think that they will win.
And they do.
If they do, it is partly because their Parliament supports the European Union and makes it work, instead of moaning on about it as a constant operation.
I am delighted that the right hon. Gentleman has given way. Earlier in the debate, the hon. Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison) directed me, when we were talking about qualified majority voting and European Union foreign policy, to article 31, on page 23 of the consolidated text, which I can assure him I have been reading. In paragraph 2, after the bits about qualified majority voting as implementation of a common policy decided unanimously, it says:
“If a member of the Council declares that, for vital and stated reasons of national policy, it intends to oppose the adoption of a decision to be taken by qualified majority, a vote shall not be taken. The High Representative will, in close consultation with the Member State involved, search for a solution acceptable to it. If he does not succeed, the Council may, acting by a qualified majority, request that the matter be referred to the European Council for decision by unanimity.”
That is where a nation state, such as France or the United Kingdom, plays its joker, as it were, and says, “These are vital and stated reasons of national policy.”
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and he underlines the degree to which the treaty goes out of its way to protect the fundamental fact that foreign policy is a matter for each individual nation. However, my concern is that if foreign policy is kept as a matter for each individual nation, a mechanism is needed whereby nations can operate together so that what they produce jointly gives greater strength to the issue with which they are concerned. That is why the treaty of Lisbon is such an excellent one with regard to this precise matter. It properly balances national interests, which are crucial and sacrosanct, with the need of every nation in a world such as ours to get together with its nearest neighbours to provide answers.
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
No; I ought to try to go on.
The second issue, which I find extremely difficult to deal with logically because it seems so illogical, is that saying that the changes are the thin end of the wedge means reinterpreting the treaty of Lisbon in the most apocalyptic terms. It is just not true that, because the word “president” is used in both cases, there is a connection between the president of the European Council and the President of the United States of America. There is a president of the National Farmers Union, but people do not compare him with the President of Russia. That is not a sensible argument. We have to consider what powers that person has, and compare them with the powers of others.
I contrast the moderate way in which my hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh moved the amendment and my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr. Harper) spoke—they presented the reasonable position, with which I happen to disagree, that the treaty is a slippery slope—with some of the more extreme views, which suggest that we will wake up tomorrow to find ourselves with no sovereignty. We heard exactly the same prediction during the Maastricht debate and it did not happen. Indeed, the opposite has happened. It is a rare occasion on which I agree with the previous speaker, the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Mr. Davies), with whom I disagree deeply on all subjects and about whom I am sad. However, I agree with him that it could be argued that we still do not have sufficient methods for reaching a common view and getting the influence that Britain needs. It is in Britain’s interest to make the European Union stronger in the matters that we are discussing simply because we need to be stronger. For example, those of us who voted against the Iraq war, and have now been shown to be right, would have liked to perceive a willingness in this country to realise that there are occasions when it is important to stand up for an alternative position.
I want to consider pragmatism. I am a Tory largely because I want to achieve things. I would not like to live in the never-never world of the Liberal Democrats or the dogmatic world that new Labour patently hides in. I want to live in a world that delivers. If I am to deliver, I must ask myself about the mechanisms whereby I can do that. It is no good saying that I can deliver the important international agenda that this country has or should have if I am determinedly independent, in the sense that I do not want to associate with anyone else.
Most hon. Members on this side of the House belong to a party and recognise that that involves some co-operation. They could sit, if they got people to vote for them, as independents. However, we know that the independent who eschews all permanent links cannot achieve the many things that he or she wishes. In the end, I am the person who decides how I shall vote and I am the only representative of my constituency. However, I join people of like mind so that, if we can produce a common answer, I am more likely to achieve my end. If I have to do that in politics, I must do it in greater things.
The greater thing is how to achieve the end that Britain wants in international affairs. I do not want Britain to be a backwater or to cease to have power in the world. If she is to have that power, it must be through alliance and permanent relationships. Our permanent relationship must be, first and foremost, with the European Union. However, that does not stop us having other friends. I understand, although I missed the contribution, that a colleague suggested that we cannot have more than one friend. That is not true. I myself have more than one friend. If there is someone in the House with only one friend, that is sad.
The proposals are moderate and modest and will not lead to the terrible apocalyptic ends that some fear. They will give Britain the opportunity to exert greater influence in the world without losing any influence that she already has. What could be better? Why cannot we be as one, at least on the issue that we are discussing?
It is a great pleasure to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer). I agree unreservedly with his comments about the time available. If he were still representing this country in international discussions, I would have no worries; I would be at home either tucked up in bed or on my way to bed. However, that is not the case.
The problem is that we do not have sufficient time to debate the treaty. The intervention by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris) brought that point home clearly. I would like more time to go into the detail, in the way that he suggested, but we do not have time, because it is important that we get on to the next group of amendments, on security policy. What he said completely illustrated the inadequacy of our proceedings and the farce in which we are now involved.
Let me briefly tell the hon. Gentleman that he was quite right in his analysis. However, the provisions do establish qualified majority voting, subject to a purported safeguard, but safeguards do not have a very good history in the European Union. The pillar structure of the European Union was supposed to be the ultimate safeguard, to keep foreign and security policy separate from what was then the rest of the Community and to keep the Commission out of foreign and security policy. What have we got today? If I have not been the victim of a conspiracy theory, as the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Mr. Davies) would have it, we have got a member of the Commission not only chairing the Council of Ministers when it deliberates on foreign and security policy, but representing the Union’s foreign and security policy, dealing with third parties and negotiating. All that will be on a foreign and security policy that can be determined by qualified majority voting in some circumstances, subject to the provisions to which the hon. Gentleman referred, with the undoubted prospect of more qualified majority voting determining our foreign policy in future.
We know that we are not going to get on to the next set of amendments. Let me remind those who were not here during the debates on Maastricht—just to get this one clear, I was here and I opposed it—that the then Foreign Secretary, our former colleague Douglas Hurd, assured my hon. Friend and me that we would have the pillar system, a wonderful construct, and that it was set in concrete that it could never be affected by the Commission. My hon. Friend has just made the exact point that that has changed in the period since, so all the assurances given by Ministers are worthless when it comes to the European Union treaties.
I am tempted to say that I went home to bed after hearing assurances such as that one, but the problem is that I did not go to bed during the Maastricht debates. However, those assurances were indeed given.
We talk about British interests, but what is the greatest interest for our constituents? They want a foreign policy that is determined in this country by their elected representatives, whom they can change if they disagree with the Government’s policy. That is something of which we are increasingly depriving our constituents for the future, and that is the most important British national interest of all.
It is now quite obvious that we will not be able to debate the second set of amendments, which is what we really wanted to debate. I had stepped out in case we got on to them, but with a vote that will not now be possible. Once again, it is extremely difficult for the House when important and weighty issues such as the defence of the country cannot be debated, because another important group of amendments on foreign policy still need to be disposed of.
Earlier in this debate, the Government’s position lacked clarity. It is quite possible for the Government to come to the House and say that they really think it better to have a common European foreign policy on all the main issues, rather than a British foreign policy. That is not a proposition with which I agree, but it is a perfectly respectable and understandable position. If that is the Government’s position, they will of course want Britain to make compromises and to work more with our partners. They will also want that common foreign policy to be expressed by a single president, high representative or Foreign Minister of Europe and they will want that policy to be represented around the table of the UN Security Council.
As the United Nations begins to understand that that is perhaps the way in which the Government wish to operate, other member states of the United Nations will ask, “Why should these people have three representatives around the table, when there is effectively only one country from the foreign policy point of view and when they’ve tried to get an extra seat by the back door?” The Americans, the Chinese or the Russians might ask, “Wouldn’t it be neater and more sensible to have just the one representative representing the common European policy, rather than the French and British view as well, which should be the same on these occasions?”
For those who wish to see the position clearly, the difference in House is quite simple. There are those who think that having most of this country’s major foreign affairs policy positions agreed with our partners by compromise is the right answer. There are others of us who think that, while we can do that on some things, there are enough differences between our country and the other member states that it is much better to keep things intergovernmental, not to assume that there is nearly always going to be a common foreign policy, not to put Britain under constant pressure not to be the odd voice out or to be different, and to allow the British Prime Minister and the British Foreign Secretary, on all those issues where we have a different view or we have an interest and the other member states do not have a strong interest, to be able to carry on doing what we have always done and to be a senior country in world affairs, because of our history and, most importantly, because ours is one of the few countries that systematically stands up for freedom, decent rights and democracy, and is prepared to back that up with the lives of its young men and women, and with the money of its taxpayers.
We make a large contribution in world affairs, along with our American allies, our French allies and some others who sit around the UN table.
Does my right hon. Friend agree, as I suspect that he would, that there is something utterly pathetic about the situation we have arrived at in this debate? The question whether our young men are to be sent off to war really should be debated. The question of how a common foreign and security policy is being developed is being ignored by the Committee thanks to the means that the Government have employed to frustrate debate—
Order. We must return to the debate. I call Mr. Redwood.
On a point of order, Mrs. Heal. Is this not a suitable moment for the Government to announce that they will introduce an extra day of consideration on which we may deal with the second part of the debate?
That is not a point of order for the Chair. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman’s comments will have been heard.
Thank you for those wise words, Mrs. Heal.
Part of the argument on this group of amendments is whether there should be at the UN Security Council table a representative of the EU view. For the life of me, I cannot understand why the other UN member states would want that, unless that high representative or that president of the EU was backed by some effective European force. The whole point of the UN Security Council is the main powers—those countries that can use their diplomacy and influence with other countries—trying to form a common view that the General Assembly will accept. More importantly, the main powers form the most important part of any force that might have to be used by and in the name of the UN to enforce such a common strategy, if one or two other states in the world do not agree and force is unfortunately essential.
In this debate, we have not had enough clarity on the important issue of how on earth the EU could expect to be taken seriously in that seat without having such a force, which we are told would not exist as, we are told, there will be no common army. At the same time, I find it difficult to understand how we could avoid other UN member states making the perfectly reasonable point that, as we were moving towards that common position, and therefore the common use of our military forces, there should be only the one representative around the Security Council table.
There is a perfectly good solution to the problem whereby we will sometimes have a common policy and at other times not—that is, the current situation. If there is a common policy, we have France and Britain with seats. For some time, Germany has held a seat under the elected system. In relation to the position that they are adopting at the Security Council, those countries can pray in aid the additional strength that lots of other European countries agree with them. It is even better if we can join with a big country such as India.
There has been a lot of discussion about India. I happen to think that India is getting close to the point where it should have a seat on the UN Security Council. I hope that there will be discussions and negotiations, and if India wants to assume the responsibilities of a big world power—it is becoming a formidable economic power—I would be happy for Britain to see that take place. I am not happy to see this double banking and double-hatting through the EU, with all the muddle that that implies.
There needs to be a clear decision about whether these matters remain intergovernmental, in which case France and Britain would retain their seats, or whether we are in transit towards a world with a country called Europe that has a single foreign policy on all the things that matter. Then, of course, the balance of arguments would switch heavily and other UN member states would probably take a rather different view.
I hope that the Government will be more honest with the public and with Parliament about just how far the pressures will build for a common foreign policy under the Lisbon treaty as drafted. It is all very well for Ministers to say that the main decisions will remain subject to unanimity; that is true under the text that we are being asked to approve. But we all know what will happen: because the treaty also says that we have to show solidarity and loyalty and form common positions, there will be remorseless pressure on every major foreign policy issue to produce a common position. If it is not in Britain’s interest to agree with the rest, we will be put under pressure and made to feel bad until we agree.
There are four different types of issue. There are ones where we naturally agree with our leading allies in Europe, in which case we can have a common position. There are ones where we care a lot and they do not, where we should be able to do what we want. There are ones where they care a lot and we do not, where they should be able to do what they want without us stopping them, as long as they do not do it in the name of the European Union. Finally, there will be areas where we disagree; in those areas, Britain must retain her independence, and that is not compatible with having a president and a European seat on the Security Council.
I am delighted to have the opportunity again to respond to a debate. We have heard a number of interesting speeches and interventions, particularly from my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford, South (Mike Gapes), the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, and my hon. Friends the Members for Newcastle upon Tyne, North (Mr. Henderson), for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris), for Edinburgh, North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) and for Grantham and Stamford (Mr. Davies). We also had the opportunity to listen to the hon. Member for Rayleigh (Mr. Francois), who will no doubt speak again later. As is his custom in the House, he argued his case entirely reasonably; I disagree with him, but it is a case that he makes with great thought and care.
We also heard speeches from several other right hon. and hon. Members, which I might respond to later, but I shall start with the comments made by the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) about our general approach to common foreign and security policy. Our approach is that where we can find common cause and agree with our European allies and partners, it makes sense that we then articulate that as a common position. It makes absolutely clear sense that that should happen.
Will the Minister give way?
In a little moment.
However, to argue as the right hon. Gentleman did that, when that happens, we should be bound to argue that position at the United Nations, instead of having the high representative as an alternative, turns the UK seat into a European seat at the United Nations, and we want nothing to do with that.
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Will the Minister give way?
Of course. I will take two brief interventions, then carry on.
That is, of course, what the treaty says. I said something different. I said that where the UK thought that it was right to argue the European position, we would choose to do so.
In the interests of time, I will give way to the hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) and then respond to both interventions.
The Minister will know that under the provisions that are supposedly before us now, but which we will be unable to debate properly because of the disgraceful way in which this business has been handled, there is a provision that links the common position to article 51 of the United Nations treaty. The plain fact—the Minister knows it, the Prime Minister knows it, and the Foreign Secretary knows it—is that there is often no common position on matters such as Kosovo and Iraq. Such matters go to the very heart of whether or not we fight and our young men are sent out there. The Government will not even give the House the time to discuss those matters properly. It is a thorough disgrace.
To turn to the substance of the business before us this evening, the fact is that the position of president of the European Council already exists. The Maastricht treaty explicitly stated that the European Council is chaired by the Head of State or Head of Government of the country holding the Council presidency.
The hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr. Harper) said, fairly, that language is important. He, or one of his hon. Friends, went on to talk about the de facto abandonment of the UK seat on the Security Council. That is complete and utter nonsense and the Opposition know it. The fact is that the full-time president will replace the current, ridiculous system of a rotating six-month presidency of the European Council. The twice-yearly rotation causes problems with continuity and reduces the effective time each presidency has to deliver the shared agenda. As I said earlier, in the Balkans we made a commitment to the people of Kosovo to stand by them, but in the period since then we have had, I think, no fewer than 17 presidencies, and despite the best intentions, momentum in the EU has ebbed and flowed throughout that period.
The hon. Member for Rayleigh was on very thin ice when he put forward his arguments about the thin end of the wedge and about trapdoors. He also argued that the president of the European Council would in some way be the equivalent of the President of the United States of America. That assertion does not stand up even to superficial examination. The US constitution vests executive powers in the President of the United States of America; the president of the European Council will have no such powers. The US President is the commander in chief of the US armed forces; there will be no such role for the president of the European Council. The US President can make treaties; there will be no such power for the president of the European Council. The US President can appoint Supreme Court judges and grant pardons; there will be no such power for the president of the European Council. The President of the US can veto Bills passed by Congress; there will be no legislative role for the president of the European Council. We must all be careful about the terminology that we use. To argue, as the hon. Gentleman did, that this measure was tantamount to the creation of an all-powerful president akin to the President of the United States of America showed a kind of Europhobia gone rampant on the Conservative Benches.
Will the Minister give way?
I am sorry, but I must make some progress.
The full-time president will have an external representative role, as has already been discussed.
The issue of the high representative was covered by amendments Nos. 93 and 110. There has been a Commissioner responsible for external relations since 1958, the year after the original treaty was drawn up. The establishment of the high representative is an important reform that is being introduced by this treaty. The proposed new high representative will combine two existing roles: the EU high representative for the common foreign and security policy introduced at Amsterdam, and the position that was created more than 50 years ago. They will be appointed by national Governments in the European Council to conduct CFSP on their behalf.
Will the Minister accept from me that it is essential that he give the House an undertaking that a discussion on the matters relating to defence will take place, even though those matters have not been able to be discussed during this debate? We all need to have that discussion.
The right hon. Gentleman knows that that is a matter for the usual channels, in the context of the programme motion.
The treaty will pass the task of organising the co-ordination from the rotating presidency to the high representative for foreign affairs and security policy. It will not change the nature or substance of that co-ordination. The treaty will also allow the high representative to present agreed EU petitions at the United Nations Security Council. I have already alluded to the fact that the German presidency spoke at the UN Security Council on eight separate occasions. Furthermore, the UK spoke not once, not twice but on each of those occasions. When Javier Solana spoke on, I think, five occasions since 2002, the United Kingdom spoke on each of those occasions. It is therefore clear that the high representative will be there in addition to the UK, France and any rotating member state of the European Union. They will not be there instead of us, or to replace or undermine us. The Foreign Affairs Committee made that point very clearly.
On a point of order, Mrs. Heal. It was clear that the Prime Minister promised line-by-line scrutiny of the Bill. We are now not going to reach either the second or the third group of amendments, so the whole question of the common foreign and defence policy will not be discussed at all. Is it in your power to enable a proper debate and line-by-line scrutiny to take place? The Government are presiding over an utter farce, so far as scrutiny is concerned.
May I remind right hon. and hon. Members that the occupant of the Chair is bound by motions that have been passed by Members of the House?
Further to that point of order, Mrs. Heal. May I invite you to invite the Minister to make a statement about the future consideration of this Bill in order to have an opportunity to discuss the defence provisions of this treaty?
That is not a point of order for the Chair, but a matter of debate. I have already said earlier this evening that the comments of right hon. Members have been heard and that there is always recourse to the usual business channels.
Amendments Nos. 156 and 254 are designed to prevent the EU from concluding international agreements and they are nothing short of ludicrous—
On a point of order, Mrs. Heal. Although international women’s day is a very important subject indeed, given the importance of security and foreign policy issues to the whole House and everyone in the country outside it, I submit that next week’s topical debate should be on foreign policy and security issues, not on—
Order. That is not a point of order for the Chair. The hon. Gentleman is trying very hard, but I am holding fast to my ruling.
As I was saying, amendments Nos. 156 and 254 would prevent the EU from concluding international agreements. The EU has had the ability to conclude such agreements since the treaty of Amsterdam and has done so in some 100 cases. The Lisbon treaty simply summarises the existing powers to conclude international agreements with one or more third countries or international organisations. If we were to agree to such amendments this evening, the EU would not be able to enter into any agreements on behalf of its 27 member states. That would include agreements on world trade; agreements on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees; agreements with Latin America on combating the drugs trade; and agreements on EU crisis management operations in Bosnia and Kosovo. That shows what would be the impact of those amendments tabled by Conservative Members.
Despite the rhetoric and the assertions, the fact remains that no other member state and no other conservative party in any other member state opposes the proposals in the treaty on common foreign and security policy. We have already heard from the shadow Foreign Secretary that the Conservatives oppose not just one of the proposals, but each and every one of them. As the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) said, we have to do what is in Britain’s national interest, and this treaty helps to deliver that. The opposition to our proposals that can be seen in each and every one of the amendments tabled this evening is a victory for an isolationist ideology over our national interest.
We argued from the outset that we needed two days to debate defence and foreign policy, and the Government denied that. Yet again tonight, we have been able to debate only one group of amendments and we have not been able to debate defence in detail at all. The defence of the realm is the first duty of governance and this Government have rigged the debate so that that subject could not be debated in detail for one minute. The Prime Minister promised this House, instead of a referendum, “line by line scrutiny” of the treaty, but the debate has been completely rigged to prevent that. We will protest ever more vigorously about the deception of the House by the Prime Minister and his Government.
On a point of order, Mrs. Heal. Is it in order for Conservative Members to make consecutive spurious points of order when the Minister is trying to wind up the debate and then to complain that they have not got enough time?
Perhaps we could all calm down a little and get on with concluding the debate.
There were a number of references in the Foreign Affairs Committee report, but the key one was this:
“We conclude that there is no material difference between the provisions on foreign affairs in the Constitutional Treaty which the Government made subject to approval in a referendum and those in the Lisbon Treaty on which a referendum is being denied”.
The hon. Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) made a mistake in quoting Valéry Giscard d’Estaing on this issue, because Giscard also said of the differences between the documents, which are supposed to be so minor, that
“all the tools in the toolbox are still there”.
So where is the referendum that we were promised?
I will give the Liberal Democrats 30 seconds, because that is all that I have and all that they deserve. Their spokesman—[Interruption.]
Order. The Committee must come to order.
Thank you, Mrs. Heal. The Liberal Democrats now have 20 seconds. Their spokesman said that essentially we had nothing to fear from the changes in the treaty that relate to foreign policy. Why, then, has the leader of the Liberal Democrat Members of the European Parliament said that those changes will have a dramatic impact? This is yet another Liberal Democrat split on the treaty, in what is becoming an increasingly long list.
We must also bear in mind that the treaty is self-amending. It contains powers to allow the abandoning of further vetoes, including vetoes relating to foreign policy, without any requirement for another treaty or an intergovernmental conference. I refer to the so-called ratchet clause. When the Minister was challenged to give a commitment that no vetoes would be abandoned without primary legislation, as the Foreign Affairs Committee had recommended, he ducked the question. We will hold the Government to account for that as the Bill proceeds.
With regard to—
It being three hours after the commencement of proceedings, the Chairman put forthwith the Question already proposed from the Chair, pursuant to Orders [28 January and this day].
To report progress and ask leave to sit again.—[Liz Blackman.]
Committee report progress; to sit again tomorrow.
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I think that this is by common consent one of the most important measures to come before this House in many years, and it strikes at the heart of our constitutional arrangements. You will be aware that we have had no time this evening to debate in detail amendments relating to defence that arise out of the Lisbon treaty. That is an extremely important issue for our country, yet no Defence Minister made any contribution to the debate. Indeed, the Minister of State was here for only a short time himself—[Interruption.]
Order. I need to hear the point of order. Mr. Gerald Howarth, could you conclude?
We need to know what we can do in order to demonstrate to the people of this country that the Prime Minister has betrayed them by failing to give us an opportunity to examine—[Interruption.]
Order. [Interruption.] Will the House come to order?
I think the main point that the hon. Gentleman is trying to get across to the House has already been raised with the Chair and expresses the concern at the lack of debate on matters to do with defence. They have been raised on the Floor and I have already suggested that the usual business channels would perhaps be the most appropriate way to raise that concern. The matters are on the record and have been heard.
DELEGATED LEGISLATION
We now come to motions 5 and 6.
Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118(6) (Delegated Legislation Committees),
Social Security
That the draft Pneumoconiosis etc. (Workers’ Compensation) (Payment of Claims) (Amendment) Regulations 2008, which were laid before this House on 14th January, be approved.
Immigration
That the draft Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006 (Duty to Share Information and Disclosure of Information for Security Purposes) Order 2008, which was laid before this House on 10th January, be approved.—[Liz Blackman.]
Question agreed to.
Welsh Grand Committee
Ordered,
That—
(1) the matter of the Budget Statement and its implications for Wales, being a matter relating exclusively to Wales, be referred to the Welsh Grand Committee for its consideration;
(2) the Committee shall meet at Westminster on Wednesday 26th March at twenty five minutes past nine o’clock and between two o’clock and half-past four o’clock to take questions under Standing Order No. 103 (Welsh Grand Committee (questions for oral answer) and to consider the matter referred to it under paragraph (1) above.—[Liz Blackman.]
Petitions
Planning (Bedfordshire)
This evening I have two petitions to present, one from the campaign for a sustainable Harlington and one from the campaign for a sustainable Toddington, both of which are in my constituency. Both Toddington and Harlington declare their opposition to proposals to destroy the green belt around Harlington and Toddington by building a stadium and a large industrial complex and commercial development on the land adjacent to junction 12 of the M1. Luton Town football club and the council should find—and would prefer to find—a sustainable urban site for the new stadium within the boundaries of Luton, preferably looking at areas around junctions 10 or 11A of the M1. The petitions state:
The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to take steps to preserve the green belt
land around Harlington and Toddington for the good of the people who live in both places and to preserve their quality and standard of life.
Following is the full text of the petitions:
[The Petition of the campaign for a sustainable Harlington,
Declares their opposition to proposals to destroy the green belt around Harlington by building a stadium and a large industrial/commercial development on land adjacent to Junction 12 of the M1. Luton Town Football Club and the Council should find a suitable urban site for a new stadium within the boundaries of Luton.
The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to take steps to preserve the green belt around Harlington.
And the Petitioners remain, etc.]
[P000120]
[The Petition of the campaign for a sustainable Toddington,
Declares their opposition to proposals to destroy the green belt around Toddington by building a stadium and a large industrial/commercial development on land adjacent to Junction 12 of the M1. Luton Town Football Club and the Council should find a suitable urban site for a new stadium within the boundaries of Luton.
The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to take steps to preserve the green belt around Toddington.
And the Petitioners remain, etc].
[P000123]
Local Infrastructure (Northamptonshire)
With your permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to present a petition with several hundred signatures. May I declare an interest first? When I went along to meet the residents to talk about the issues in the petition I fell down one of the potholes to which they refer and that is why I might be limping tonight.
The petition reads:
To the Honourable the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland assembled.
The Humble Petition of the residents of the Hatton Park area in Wellingborough and surrounding areas
Sheweth that for three years they have pursued, through the appropriate channels at the Borough Council of Wellingborough and Northamptonshire County Council, improvements to the local infrastructure including the speed and volume of traffic, the poor state of roads and pavements, the large and intrusive trees and illegal and dangerous parking; notes that these improvements have not been carried out, and are concerned that they pay the highest council tax in the Borough of Wellingborough.
Wherefore your Petitioners pray that your Honourable House urges the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government to liaise with the two local authorities concerned in order to investigate the concerns above and resolve the situation.
And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray, etc.
[P000126]
Cyberbullying (Children)
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Liz Blackman.]
I am grateful for this opportunity to raise concerns relating to cyberbullying among schoolchildren and to make my right hon. Friend the Minister for Children, Young People and Families directly aware of a case in my constituency. She may be interested to hear that while I was preparing for the debate, teachers’ representative bodies contacted me to express their concern. They, like others, have had to develop new guidelines and advice for professionals on how to deal with such incidents.
Owing to the growth in new technology, and particularly the popularity of camera phones and video-sharing websites, there has been an increase in bullying that relies on those formats. It is commonly known as cyber-bullying. The unsavoury term most associated with cyberbullying is happy-slapping, whereby an unsuspecting victim is attacked while an accomplice records the assault, commonly with a camera phone or smart phone. A more inappropriate descriptive term could not have been coined; there is nothing happy about such incidents. Indeed, they are the ultimate humiliation and leave many young people devastated.
The Government have made tackling bullying in schools a priority, and the Under-Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Kevin Brennan), has made it clear to me that no form of bullying should be tolerated. Bullying in our schools should be taken very seriously. It is not a normal part of growing up, and it can ruin lives. My interest in cyberbullying issues developed following a complaint received from one of my constituents. The family wished to remain anonymous, and I respect and understand the reason why: they believe that their child has been through enough. The child’s father wrote to me, expressing deep concern about the fact that his son was assaulted while on school premises, and the incident posted on the video-sharing internet site YouTube. My constituent asked me to view the footage, and I was appalled by the content. His child was ambushed from behind and physically attacked in the most sickening way. The perpetrator was seen laughing, along with other pupils who aided the assault. The footage was classified on YouTube as comedy and entertainment.
I would like to make my right hon. Friend the Minister aware that the headmaster of the school took the incident very seriously. I understand that the police visited the boy who assaulted the pupil. However, my right hon. Friend will know that there is no consistent way of dealing with those problems in our schools. I hope she agrees that often young people who participate in cyberbullying mistakenly think that camera phones and the internet will provide them with anonymity, allowing them to target other young people and/or teachers without fear of identification or retribution.
I firmly believe that video-sharing and social websites have allowed young people to communicate in a positive way. I am not against people enjoying the internet, being proud of cinematography and wanting to post videos for others to enjoy, but it is clear that such sites have a darker side. They act as a channel for bullying. Recently, my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mrs. Moon) drew our attention to the tragedy of young people, many of them seeking support and guidance, choosing to take their own lives after using social networking sites.
I recognise that the vast majority of the UK internet industry takes a responsible approach to the content that it hosts, both of its own volition and in co-operation with law enforcement and Government agencies. However, I would be grateful if my right hon. Friend worked with websites such as YouTube to prevent videos featuring such incidents involving school-age children from being uploaded. Is my right hon. Friend able to update the House on the progress of discussions with internet service providers and mobile phone networks to tackle cyberbullying among schoolchildren? The parent who contacted me says:
“I believe that these videos should be appropriate and that YouTube should be doing more to ensure that footage showing inappropriate and violent content is not screened.”
He is right. The moderation provided by the industry is clearly inadequate and I ask my right hon. Friend to seek ways of strengthening its role.
My constituent firmly believes that internet sharing sites hide behind the fact that as it is their customers who upload the images, they are not responsible. To remove the footage of a violent assault in a school only after a complaint is received is not acceptable. It is too late. Action should be taken at the point of uploading—a key role for the moderators. It appears that some sites profit by encouraging customers to upload material, but when that material is offensive, they seek to pass the blame on to others.
I am aware that the Government have provided new guidance in how to prevent and tackle cyberbullying in their document “Safe to Learn: embedding anti-bullying work in schools”, which was released on 21 September 2007. That is welcome, and I know that the Government have worked hard with their taskforce to try to address the problem. What further work is the Department undertaking through the cyberbullying taskforce to ensure that schools and parents are provided with the information that they need to keep children safe online? Will the Minister also update us on her work with charities such as Bullying UK and ChildLine, which are at the forefront in helping young people with these issues?
I have mentioned the concerns of parents and pupils, so let me turn now to the concerns of professionals working in our schools. The National Union of Teachers has informed me that it sees the use of new technology as positive. Even a mobile phone can be useful. Many students store assignments, notes on lessons or their timetable on their phone. In these circumstances, the possession of a mobile phone can be an opportunity to improve their learning. However, if misused, it may become an instrument of bullying or harassment directed against pupils and teachers.
There is clear abuse in our schools. The Association of Teachers and Lecturers undertook a survey which revealed that 17 per cent. of respondents had experienced some type of cyberbullying. Those incidents ranged from receiving upsetting emails and unwelcome text messages to silent phone calls and malicious use of websites and internet chat rooms. Some teachers left the profession or retired as a result of these new phenomena. What shocks me is that some cases of cyberbullying have even been reported between teaching staff.
The results of the survey showed that 53 per cent. of respondents did not know whether their school had a code of conduct to address cyberbullying, and 39 per cent. said that their schools did not. Of those whose schools have a code of conduct to address the issue, 19 per cent. said it was not properly enforced and 72 per cent. could not say whether it was enforced. Will my right hon. Friend look into these issues, particularly the confusion among some in the profession about how to deal with them? I am conscious of the fact that there are many demands on teachers and that parents often have high expectations of them, but will she work closely with teaching representative organisations to spread awareness among teachers who experience these dilemmas?
Schools face several challenges when trying to eradicate these problems. Staff in some schools are not always up to date with new technology. They need clear guidance on cyberbullying, the methods used and their rights and responsibilities when dealing with these issues. They need examples of good practice and the support of local authorities and Government.
I am sure the Minister is already aware of many of the issues and I would welcome her comments. It is time for an outright ban on all mobile phones on school premises. Alternatively, could a ban on any mobile phones that are able to take and display photographs or video clips be the answer? Through new technology it is possible to install cell phone detectors, which could help to enforce non-use policies.
There is a need for greater understanding across Government Departments. When my constituent made the initial complaint to me, I took the issues up with the Home Office. I recognise that it is the Minister’s responsibility to take the issues forward with teachers and children, but it would be helpful if she could liaise with other Departments that have similar elements of responsibility.
The Minister will know that all commercially produced films and videos are subject to classification and regulation; user-generated violent videos or video clips are not. That fuels the perception among young people that they can film acts of violence or bullying and extend that abuse on to websites. They are encouraged in their actions by the failure of internet sharing websites to take positive action and prevent such material from being posted.
The Home Office has informed me that it is not possible to prevent such videos from being uploaded; it claims that the sheer volume of them prevents screening or classification and that pre-screening could prevent the reporting of new events and the uploading of slapstick comedy films. It argues that it would be difficult to distinguish between slapstick and deliberate happy-slapping incidents. However, if we are to change the perceptions of those who participate in happy-slapping acts, perceptions across Government must also change. I am confident that the Minister will agree to take the lead in changing those perceptions.
The Internet Watch Foundation is the only authorised UK organisation operating an internet hotline for the public to report their exposure to potentially illegal content online. Will the Minister make contact with the IWF and work with it on cyberbullying issues? It could develop a method whereby parents, teachers and pupils could report acts of violence among pupils online. The Home Office believes that such issues are outside its remit, but I believe that it has the knowledge and experience to help to eradicate such problems. Will the Minister work more closely with Home Office Ministers to ensure that young people have enough information to understand the implications of a happy-slapping incident? Such people could be committing a criminal act—more to the point, they are abusing fellow pupils. Interestingly, France has made happy-slapping a criminal offence. I do not wish to demonise young people or suggest that they should be criminalised for cyberbullying, but it is clearly a subject for debate across Europe and not only in Britain.
I am very aware that the Government are committed to tackling all forms of bullying in schools.
Has my hon. Friend considered liaising with the Children’s Commissioner for Wales, who has been in post for a number of years, to pursue her aims? Will the Minister also consider that?
That would be an excellent way forward, as I am sure the Minister will agree.
The guidance clearly states that bullying should never be tolerated and should always be dealt with seriously. Following the original complaint, I have become aware of an ongoing perception that it is acceptable for children to continue to film acts of violence and post them online without facing any consequences at all. Furthermore, internet websites and social network sites are failing to take responsibility for their content or for removing offensive and/or upsetting material as soon as possible. Only if we tackle that perception among young people, work with internet service providers who allow such material and support teachers in their work will we neutralise this new form of bullying and ensure the safety of the children in our schools.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, East (Mrs. James) on securing this debate and raising this important and distressing issue; I also thank my other hon. Friends, who share her concerns, for being here tonight.
Technology opens up a world of opportunities for pupils, but it also presents hazards. Cyberbullying is one of the nastiest consequences of technological development. Estimates suggest that between 11 and 34 per cent. of children have been affected. It is a particularly insidious form of bullying. Because new technology is available 24/7, bullying can continue 24/7 without respite or refuge, invisible to all but the victim and the perpetrator. The abuse—for that is what bullying is—can be compounded in this form many times over by posting it in cyberspace for all to see or by passing images to whole swathes of people at the flick of phone key. Because cyberbullying can transcend institutional boundaries, we need a broad response to conquer it, so schools, businesses, parents and young people themselves all have key roles to play. Our job in Government is to enable, to support and, in particular, to drive what must be a multifaceted response so that it has the impact that my hon. Friend and I want to see.
There is much more work to do, as my hon. Friend said, but in the past 12 months significant progress has been made. I am happy to answer her request for an update on our work, and I will respond to her specific questions as I go. As she said, schools have our anti-bullying guidance, “Safe to Learn”, which contains a specific cyberbullying section developed by Childnet International. That gives teachers all the information that they need to get to grips with cyberbullying—how to identify it, how to prevent it, and how to respond before things escalate. Above all, it meets teachers’ demands for more information and advice on the issue to ensure that they can be as savvy as their pupils and that schools have effective strategies for dealing with cyberbullying.
The guidance currently applies to English schools, but I understand that it is being considered by the Welsh Assembly for use in Wales too. Alongside that, English schools have been given additional powers and resources to tackle bullying, including cyberbullying. We have given them statutory powers to confiscate mobile phones used maliciously in and around school grounds; we have recently launched peer mentoring schemes whereby older pupils can help teachers to tackle bullying; and we are expanding the social and emotional aspects of learning programme to secondary schools following its great success in primary schools.
Cyberbullying is a new phenomenon, and understandably there are still issues to do with awareness and training to deal with it. We are continuing to work with the teaching unions and the Training and Development Agency for Schools, but “Safe to Learn” is an important start. As my hon. Friend rightly said, now that we have given schools this guidance and those powers, we need to help them to use those tools consistently. I am pleased that the school that she mentioned appears to have responded in absolutely the right way. We need all schools to apply the best practice contained in “Safe to Learn”. That means—I say this unequivocally—taking a hard line on cyberbullying. In cases where an assault has occurred—that is what happy-slapping is; it is already a criminal offence—schools should involve the police, as that school did. Equally, we will back heads to take the strongest action against pupils who use new technology to harass their teachers, because that has absolutely no place in our classrooms.
Young people themselves are another important focus. The explosion in social networking sites in recent years means that it is vital to teach children how to use the net safely and responsibly. We have responded to that need with an e-safety module as part of the key stage 3 information, communication and technology curriculum. The “Safe to Learn” guidance provides further advice on how schools can teach pupils to stay safe online and what to do if they are cyber-bullied. Last year, Childnet International developed a short film bringing to life how cyberbullying starts, what its impact can be on the victim, and how schools, parents and pupils can take active steps to prevent it. The film has been circulated to all schools as a teaching aid.
We are also reaching out to parents. Parentline Plus has produced a leaflet for parents on how to protect children from cyberbullying. That leaflet offers measured and practical advice showing parents how to keep their children safe without denying them the positives that technology can bring—it is important to strike that balance. Because most surveys have shown that there are big differences between what parents think that their children are doing online and what children actually say they are doing, it is crucial that parents keep a close eye on what their children do. Right from the beginning, they should be aware of the potentially negative uses of technology. They should instil the right values in their children and the expectation that cyber-bulling is just not acceptable.
At heart, we have to address the culture that allows cyberbullying to flourish. Through personal, health and social education lessons and the social and emotional aspects of learning programme that I mentioned, schools must teach children about the need for respect and tolerance. But we are also taking a more direct route. Last year, we ran a vigorous online campaign on popular sites like Bebo, Yahoo and MySpace. It was called “Laugh at it and you're part of it”, and it aimed to challenge those young people passively involved in cyberbullying—perhaps by observing and filming something that is going on—by showing that sending on a malicious e-mail meant that they were taking part in the bullying, too. It meant that they were part of it.
Evaluation showed that the campaign reached nearly 170,000 young people in its six-week run. More impressively, 84 per cent. of respondents to the survey we conducted after the campaign said that they would now help in a situation where someone was being cyberbullied. The audience were also more aware of the severity of cyberbullying after the campaign: 71 per cent. had seen it as a serious problem beforehand, and that rose to 90 per cent. after the campaign. That is real evidence that we have started to get the message across and that we have started to spark a cultural shift among young people.
I know that some have argued—my hon. Friend touched on this—that technology providers are complicit in cyberbullying, and I have mixed views on that point. Certainly, online channels, by their very existence, provide the oxygen for cyberbullying to survive. Without a medium to broadcast content, the appeal of cyberbullying would probably shrivel, and I agree with my hon. Friend that we need business to raise its game. However, I do not think that the suggestions of a blanket ban on mobile phones, blocks on websites or tweaks to video phones are a feasible way forward. Some schools may choose to ban mobiles—they have that power—but I am not convinced that a wholesale ban would necessarily prevent cyberbullying. It would not necessarily have any effect beyond the school gates.
I understand my hon. Friend’s question as to whether pre-vetting can prevent the broadcasting of content. That makes absolute sense. The problem, however, is the extent to which it is a realistic idea in the context of the extent to which young people are using such sites. Users of YouTube, for instance, upload on average six hours of video every minute. We estimate that it would require 360 people working 24 hours a day to keep tabs on every video. That reveals the scale of the difficulty of monitoring content before it gets posted.
We need collaboration, creativity and consensus in order to keep pace with the threat. In that spirit, we have developed the cyberbullying taskforce that my hon. Friend mentioned. It is a forum for internet service providers—they are part of the taskforce—mobile phone companies, teaching unions, charities and law enforcement agencies to work together to find the creative means to stop cyberbullying. The taskforce has played an important role in the initiatives I have already spoken about, and it continues to be important for building consensus on the way forward. Through the taskforce, we will continue to push for more effective solutions to speed up the removal of malicious content, as far as we can, to refine safety precautions and to tighten up terms of use across the industry.
We need to acknowledge what has already been achieved. For example, YouTube has worked with beatbullying to develop an anti-bullying channel; MySpace is working with the Department to develop an anti-bullying webpage, and Vodafone and O2 have contributed to the cost of cyberbullying resources for schools. There is clear evidence that that collaborative approach is paying dividends, and I am sure that there is more to come.
Alongside the cyberbullying taskforce, we have commissioned Dr. Tanya Byron to conduct a wholesale review of the risks that new technology may pose to young people. It will inform a broader strategy, including that on cyberbullying. Dr. Byron is considering the way in which institutions can work together more effectively on child protection issues, which, as my hon. Friend rightly points out, is vital. There is significant join-up across Government—I understand her call for that. For example, Home Office representatives sit on the cyberbullying taskforce. A colleague in my Department regularly discusses such matters with his counterpart in the Home Office. However, we clearly need to make things more seamless at all levels. I think that Dr. Byron’s recommendations will be helpful and I look forward to hearing them.
We all know that behaviour evolves as society evolves, and that new opportunities also present new hazards. In the 1970s and 1980s, racially motivated bullying was the scourge of our schools. It required a concerted response—by teachers, media, the Government and society at large—to make a significant impression. Cyberbullying is in danger of becoming the scourge of 21st century schools. However, I believe that we can make the same inroads against that form of bullying as we did against racism in the 1990s. It will take a similarly broad response across Government, schools, businesses and the community to achieve success. Crucially, it involves mobilising young people, and especially their parents, in the fight against cyberbullying. Through “Safe to Learn”, the cyberbullying taskforce, increased powers for teachers and hard-hitting information campaigns, I believe that we have made an important start.
We have much more to do, but by continuing to work in partnership with providers, schools, charities and families, I am confident that we can claim technology as a force for good in our schools and our lives and not allow it to become a force for ill. My hon. Friend’s concern and pressure for action contribute to that. Again, I am grateful to her for bringing her concerns to our attention and enabling me to say that we share them, to outline what we are already doing to respond and what, with her help, we will continue to try to achieve.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at eighteen minutes to Nine o’clock.