It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Amess. I want to put on the record my thanks to the Palestine Solidarity Campaign for its briefing, to the Library for its excellent debate pack, to Oxfam, with which I had a brief telephone conversation, and to the excellent Chris Doyle from the Council for Arab-British Understanding. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Martin Linton) who had the previous Westminster Hall debate on this subject on 17 December last year, and has been a tireless advocate for the rights of Palestinians in the middle east.

When the United Kingdom was an imperial power, we went to places such as Canada, Australia and Rhodesia, and occupied them militarily. We stole the land, and people went to live there. Those countries, under UK control, were called colonies. “Settlement” is a cosy word, and I will use it because it is the common word, but the west bank, the Golan heights, Gaza and East Jerusalem are colonies, and we should not lose sight of that.

I have no quarrel with the people of Israel, but I do have a quarrel with the successive Israeli Governments whom some Israeli people chose to elect, and it is sad that the bright ambition for a better future of many Jews who move to Palestine has been tarnished by a state that is, although in many ways successful, in some ways a failed state. It has fallen out with most of its neighbours, so it cannot guarantee the security of its citizens, which is sad. I emphasise that I support the right of Israel to exist, and I also support a two-state solution, but how is that to be achieved, given the fragmentation of land, particularly in the west bank?

What would be the size and shape of a Palestinian state? Gaza, East Jerusalem and the west bank extend to about 5,600 sq km, which is much smaller than historically was the case. When the mandate expired in 1948, 54 per cent. of historic Palestine was ceded to the Israelis and 48 per cent. to the Palestinians. After the six-day war in 1967, which I am old enough to remember vividly, the figures were 78 per cent. for the Israelis and 22 per cent. for the Palestinians. Let us consider what that 22 per cent. constitutes. It includes 48 closed military areas in the west bank. It includes nature reserves, which too often become settlements years later. It includes roads for the use only of settlers, and they are not just little roads, but are 125 m wide. There are many of them, and they take up a lot of land. There are innumerable closures in the west bank—my latest count is 614, including checkpoints, partial checkpoints, road gates, roadblocks, earth mounds, trenches, road barriers and earth walls.

The Israeli wall, which is illegal according to the International Court of Justice, will extend to 725 km. About 60 per cent. of it has been built and—surprise, surprise— parts of it are not along historic boundaries, but nick more Palestinian land. The west bank has about 121 settlements and dozens of outposts, which could be described as nascent settlements. The World Bank estimates that about one third of settlement land is on private Palestinian land, the remainder being on communal land under Ottoman law. It is agreed by the Palestinians that built-up settlements constitute 1.7 per cent. of the west bank, but the municipal boundaries into which those settlements have expanded historically constitute 9 per cent. of the west bank. As we all know, we have ended up with fragmentation of Palestinian towns and villages in the west bank with around 227 separate Palestinian areas, which the Israeli Government are connecting with tunnels, which—surprise, surprise—are also subject to closures and checkpoints.

All those factors—the military areas, the nature reserves and so on—have resulted in about 12 per cent. of historic Palestine being left with the Palestinians and 88 per cent., one way or another, with the Israelis. That is down from 1948 when the Israelis had 54 per cent. and the Palestinians had 48 per cent., and that makes it extremely difficult to have peace in the middle east. Successive Israeli Governments promised seriatim to free settlements and to remove outposts, including, in March 2001, in phase 1 of the road map, in April 2001 following the Mitchell report, in November 2007 following the Annapolis conference, and recently in discussions between Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Barack Obama of the USA.

We must examine the situation on the ground. In 1972, there were about 10,500 settlers in the west bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem and the Golan heights. The latest figures that I have, for 2007, show that there are about 474,000 settlers in the west bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan heights. They are no longer in Gaza because in 2005 the settlements there were evacuated. The Golan heights are often overlooked, but in 1972 there were 77 settlers, and in 2006 there were more than 18,000 in 32 settlements, so in the west bank and the Golan heights in the past six years the number of settlers has risen from 211,500 to 289,500—a 37 per cent. increase in six years. That trend is deeply disturbing and continues apace.

In 2008, the population of the state of Israel increased by 1.8 per cent., but the population of the settlements increased by 5.6 per cent., a threefold greater increase in the settler population than in the overall population of the state of Israel. Successive Israeli Governments have been totally complicit in encouraging settlements. Pinchas Wallerstein, Director-General of the Yesha Council of Settlements, a leading figure in the settlement movement, said:

“I’m not familiar with any”

building

“plans that were not the initiative of the Israeli government.”

Successive Israeli Governments have provided settlers with grants and tax breaks, although they have now been stopped, but preferential loan arrangements are still available.

It is clear that settlements are not simply about population or military security. Uzi Arad, national security adviser to Benjamin Netanyahu, was reported in the Financial Times on 11 July to have said:

“Damacus should know that neither this government nor the majority of Israelis would agree a complete withdrawal”

from the Golan heights

“since that would compromise national security, water and settlement needs.”

Part of the problem concerns water.

I will discuss the legal position, but I will not discuss the many attacks by settlers on Palestinians, most of which, as far as one can tell, are not punished. I will not talk about the intricacies of labelling goods and products from the settlements, but I will talk about the legality of some of those issues. I will not talk about the labour standards suffered by the estimated 20,000 to 30,000 Palestinians who work on settlement land now controlled by Israelis, and who do not often get minimum labour standards such as the minimum wage.

The legal position is clear. There have been successive UN Security Council resolutions—for example, resolution 465 from 1980, which stated that

“all measures taken by Israel to change the physical character, demographic composition, institutional structure or status of the Palestinian and other Arab territories occupied since 1967, including Jerusalem, or any part thereof have no legal validity and…Israel’s policy and practices of settling parts of its population and new immigrants in those territories constitute a flagrant violation of the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War and also constitute a serious obstruction to achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East”.

That is one of several Security Council resolutions on the issue.

In the advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice in 2004 on the legal consequences of the construction of a wall in the occupied Palestinian territory, it unanimously ruled that settlements were illegal. It stated that

“since 1977, Israel has conducted a policy and developed practices involving the establishment of settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, contrary to the terms of article 49, paragraph 6, of the Fourth Geneva Convention which provides: ‘The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.’”

The opinion continued:

“The Court concludes that the Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (including East Jerusalem) have been established in breach of international law.”

There are important legal issues for our Governments. There is a strong argument that Israeli settlements are explicitly a war crime, because when one occupies territory, there is, under international law, a limit to what one can do there. The allegation that the settlements are a war crime was re-emphasised in the Rome statute, and it was incorporated in English law in the International Criminal Court Act 2001—section 55 in particular. The UK’s Geneva Conventions Act 1957 criminalises those who aid and abet violations.

The UK Government position has been very clear. For example, the then Foreign Office Minister, who is now the Minister of State, Ministry of Defence, my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Bill Rammell), wrote to me on 12 March 2009, saying:

“We have made very clear that we oppose the expansion of settlements. Settlements are illegal and their expansion is an obstacle to the peace process.”

I wrote back about the E1 area, which is a large area just east of East Jerusalem, which is where, arguably, the Government of Israel are trying to create what they are pleased to call “facts on the ground”. The same Minister wrote to me on 20 May, saying:

“We agree that activity in the E1 area is of great concern...Continued settlement activity is contrary to Israel’s commitments under the Road Map...We, and our EU partners, continue to condemn illegal Israeli settlements...On 20 February the EU issued a statement condemning Israeli settlement activity”.

That condemnation is fine. It should be there. Let us consider what the Harvard programme on humanitarian policy and conflict research said in January 2004 about the status of occupied land and what an occupying power could use it for:

“The Hague regulations…require that the Occupying Power administer public lands, but only under the rules of usufruct, i.e. title to the public land is not transferred to the Occupying Power. The Occupying Power only acquires control over the ‘fruits’ of the land, and may engage in profitable use of public lands only for the benefit of the local population, as well as to cover the cost of the occupation itself…Further, an Occupying Power cannot requisition or seize private property on grounds other than security, unless such action is undertaken in accordance with local legislation in the occupied territory”.

There have been clear cases of seizures of private property in the occupied territories leading to settlements on that seized land. As I said, the World Bank estimates that one third of settlement land is on private land.

We therefore have the background legal position. For those who are not lawyers—I am fortunate enough to be a lawyer by training, although I do not moonlight, so I have not practised in the eight years for which I have been a Member of Parliament—let me say that under that legal doctrine, public authorities are under an obligation not to take any action that would imply recognition for the consequences of an internationally criminal act. For example, collecting customs duties for goods from settlements could imply recognition. There is a strong argument that the United Kingdom Government are in breach of that and have, de facto, recognised those settlements and the produce that comes from them.

On 22 July 2008, my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Tom Levitt) asked the Government about customs duties. He asked,

“how much in duties has been collected from companies importing produce into the UK from Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory”.

The then Treasury Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Jane Kennedy), replied:

“Between 1 February 2005 and 31 January 2008, HM Revenue and Customs have issued demands for approximately £338,000 customs duty on products imported into the UK from Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory under the provisions of the EC-Israel Association agreement.”—[Official Report, 22 July 2008; Vol. 479, c. 1393W.]

When my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes, South-West (Dr. Starkey) asked a similar question less than a week ago, on 16 July 2009, the successor Treasury Minister, my right hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, replied:

“In the 12 months ending 31 March 2009, HM Revenue and Customs have issued demands for £21,494 customs duty on products imported into the UK from Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory under the provisions of the EC-Israel Association Agreement.”—[Official Report, 16 July 2009; Vol. 496, c. 689W.]

Products are coming into the United Kingdom from what many of us believe to be illegal settlements—there are strong legal arguments at international level that they are illegal settlements—yet we are accepting them into our country quite openly, to the point at which we are collecting customs duties on them. There may be other products being sneaked in, but we are collecting customs duties on them.

Understandably, therefore, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Lynne Jones) asked:

“for what reasons the Government is not seeking a prohibition on the importation of goods from illegal Israeli settlements other than under the Preferential Trade Agreement.”

The Minister who is with us today replied:

“The Government believe that the best way forward is to seek ways to offer consumers better advice on whether goods have been produced in illegal Israeli settlements.”—[Official Report, 8 July 2009; Vol. 495, c. 856W.]

We certainly need much more consumer information. There will be several hon. Members present who, like me, search on supermarket shelves to try to find the origin of this stuff, to ensure that we are not buying stuff that would make us complicit in what is going on in the occupied territories in terms of production and export from settlements.

The then Foreign Office Minister, now the Minister of State, Ministry of Defence, wrote to me on 12 March, saying:

“We are…looking at what practical steps we can take to discourage settlement expansion, such as ensuring that goods produced in illegal settlements do not benefit from EU trading agreements with Israel.”

I have to say, however, that I am deeply disturbed about the position on such products.

Commendably, the Government agree that there should be a freeze on settlements, and that is to be encouraged, but I would like it to go further. I therefore have some questions for the Minister. First, do the Government agree that there should not only be a freeze, but that all existing settlements should be evacuated? If not, why not? Secondly, will the Minister confirm that UK-based charities should not donate money to settlements? That is certainly the pattern in the USA, and I would appreciate some clarity about the legal position of charities in the UK.

Thirdly, will the Minister confirm that the EU-Israel association agreement, which gives tariff breaks, does not apply to goods exported from settlements to the EU, including the UK? Fourthly, why do the Government allow any products from Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories to be imported into the UK? Fifthly, why do they condone such imports by allowing them in and then levying customs duties on them? Have they obtained a legal opinion on the legality or otherwise of such imports? If not, why not? If they have, when did they obtain it? Will the Minister or one of his ministerial colleagues release the conclusions—not the entirety—of that legal advice?

The position in international law is clear: the settlements and the wall are illegal, but the settlements continue to expand. Every now and then, there is the fig leaf of a freeze on settlement building, but the freeze is lifted when nobody is looking, and the settlements continue to expand, even though they breach several UN Security Council resolutions and international conventions.

The Government have raised the issue of settlements with successive Israeli Governments, but to no avail, and the settlements continue to expand. Having repeatedly tried diplomatic pressure on successive Israeli Governments, they should now ban not only imports from settlements, but all imports from Israel, as well as introducing a defence embargo, until Israel abides by its international legal obligations. If, surprisingly, the Minister does not agree with a total ban on imports, I would be grateful if he could explain why.

rose—

Order. The winding-up speeches will start at 10.30 am, and eight hon. Members wish to speak. I certainly want to call everyone, but that means, mathematically, that hon. Members should take no more than five minutes.

I will certainly keep within that time limit, Mr. Amess. I apologise in advance for the fact that I must shortly attend a Select Committee that the House eventually set up last night, so I will not be able to stay for some of the winding-up speeches.

I want to make two brief observations as someone who recognises Israel’s security needs. One, which the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris) clearly and expertly made early on, is that although Israel has security issues, the settlements make them worse. Not only are the settlements unlawful by any judgment of international law, and not only are they unacceptable, a provocation and a barrier to the peace process, but they make the task of providing security for Israel—I recognise the need to do that—more difficult. Not only can the settlements not be justified, therefore, but they are totally counter-productive in terms of Israeli security. That leads many of those, such as myself, who are more receptive to Israel’s security needs to question whether Israel’s settlements policy is an adequate motive for many of the other things that Israel does.

The same applies to the Golan heights. The military occupation, which is argued for on the basis of security needs in the absence of a long-term peace with Syria, is something we can debate—whether or not we agree with it or understand it, we can at least see the basis on which Israel takes its view. However, placing civilians somewhere where they are essentially in harm’s way and putting extra burdens on the Israeli security services that must protect those civilians is entirely unfathomable from a logical or rational point of view, and it cannot be defended.

The same goes for the west bank, where the civilian occupation of another people’s land makes peace more difficult to obtain in the long run. It also engenders extremism among the Israeli population, because settlers are likely to be extremely defensive and perhaps more zealous in their opinions about the historical boundaries of the biblical country, which is not a good basis on which to move forward to peace. The occupation also places extra burdens on the security services and raises the security stakes. Whatever one believes, therefore, about Israel’s right to exist, which I support, and however sympathetic one is, as I am, to some of the measures that it takes to protect itself, one simply cannot defend the settlement policy, which, in terms of Israel, is the single biggest barrier to progress in the middle east.

The other point that I want to make is that it is unacceptable for British consumers not to know which products come from illegal Israeli settlements in the west bank. We have all sorts of labelling requirements that are not justified scientifically—on genetic modification, for example—but there is no provision to introduce labelling on a human rights issue that it is critical for people to understand if they are to make an informed choice and show where their support lies. I therefore urge the Minister rapidly to give further thought to how labelling can be introduced.

From a human rights, an international law and a security point of view, the settlements are unacceptable, and I strongly support the approach taken by the hon. Gentleman, who has done us the favour of bringing this issue before us.

I, too, will try to keep within my time, Mr. Amess. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris) on securing the debate and on his excellent contribution. I hope that the Minister will be able to answer his many pertinent questions.

There can be no doubt that settlements are the test issue in the middle east peace process, and the new US Administration have rightly made them so. President Obama famously said:

“The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop.”

More recently, the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, said of President Obama:

“He wants to see a stop to settlements—not some settlements, not outposts, not ‘natural growth’ exceptions.”

It is obvious why settlements are the issue. My hon. Friend mentioned international law, and settlements are clear breaches of it. They are also an easy issue for the general public to understand. They are, quite literally, concrete proposals and they are an act of occupation. For most people who look at the issue in a fair and objective manner, that is clearly an injustice that cries out to be corrected.

There is inequity in a situation in which the demolition of Palestinian homes goes side by side with massive settlement-building. I was on the west bank in 2007 and I spent a harrowing morning with parliamentary colleagues watching the Israeli security services knocking down the upper floor of a Palestinian home, with bulldozers and cranes that had been brought to the village. Less than a kilometre away, across the valley, construction could be seen going on apace on a large Israeli settlement. If that seemed to us, as parliamentarians, an injustice crying out for vengeance, how did it seem to the Palestinian citizens of that village? The home in question was owned by a black family—I think the only black family in the village—who had left their original home and fled from Israeli violence in 1948, and had built the home that was now being destroyed by an occupying power.

Many other consequences flow from the settlements, such as the settler roads, checkpoints and other security measures, and the barrier that has been extensively documented by B’Tselem and other organisations. That is primarily there to protect settlements, and not to protect Israel’s security; it can, clearly, be accessed, but it is built into Palestinian territory to achieve that aim. As I think has been established, the consequence and the actuality is that 227 separate Palestinian enclaves—one cannot call them more than that—now make up the west bank. They make up no more than 12 per cent. of the territory of historic Palestine. That “Bantustanisation” is increasingly making a two-state solution impossible.

Does my hon. Friend agree that the access roads issue is a concern not just because of the impact on Palestinian lives, and the day-to-day humiliations that so many people must undergo, but because the economic recovery of the west bank is made almost impossible by the way Palestinian land is subdivided and people are prevented from going about their business?

Yes, that is true. Reports to this House have shown that, and if I had more time I would go into more detail about the overall crippling effects on Palestinian civil society and life that arise from the settlements, which go way beyond that.

We can see the intention that was set out by the Israeli Government. There are famous quotations, mainly from Ariel Sharon, because he had perhaps a nicer turn of phrase. Back in 1973 he said:

“We’ll make a pastrami sandwich of them, we’ll insert a strip of Jewish settlements in between the Palestinians, and then another strip of Jewish settlements right across the west Bank, so that in 25 years, neither the United Nations, nor the USA, nobody, will be able to tear it apart.”

A prescient comment perhaps, but of course he was the architect of much of that carving up. In 1998 he went on to say, addressing a meeting of right-wing militants:

“Everybody has to move, run and grab as many hilltops as they can to enlarge the settlements because everything we take now will stay ours...Everything we don’t grab will go to them.”

I am afraid that that is not history or extremism: it is what we now see with the current extremist Israeli Government.

At the beginning of this month the Housing Minister Ariel Atias, according to Haaretz,

“warned against the spread of Arab population into various parts of Israel, saying that preventing this phenomenon was no less than a national responsibility.”

To the credit of the Israeli population—and I am a supporter of the state of Israel—most of the 150 comments on the article described that as exactly what it was: apartheid and racism, which should have no place in the state of Israel. However, that is what is seen as possible in the west bank.

The sad thing, on which I shall end, is the fact that at present the response of the Israelis is not to engage with the Obama Administration, but to throw into action the formidable propaganda machine that we last saw during the invasion of Gaza, with reports in the past few days to show that the US condones the continued development of settlements and that private US money is going into settlements. That, and Olmert writing in the Washington Post last Friday that settlements were not the issue—which is, ironically, exactly what he told the Prime Minister a year ago today when he visited Israel—are attempts to deflect the issue and make it go away. Often, the Israeli response is, as now, to continue and accelerate building, and accelerate the recognition of settlements.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West has raised some very pertinent points and questions. The central question for the Minister is this: yes, we would like a reaffirmation of the promise of a total freeze on settlement development, but despite strong statements from the Government in the past, that has not worked; so what steps—I do not ask for a specific step—will be taken now to ensure that, in relation to trade, construction and dismantling, the British Government, through the EU or other partners, or directly, can deal with the issue of settlements, without which there will be no peace in the middle east?

I, too, will observe the time. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris) for securing the debate.

No one can go to the occupied territories for long without history rearing its head in some way. Of course, we get different versions and views of history. A quotation in a letter of February 1914, from Israel’s first Foreign Minister—and its second Prime Minister—is instructive:

“We have forgotten that we have not come to an empty land to inherit it, but we have come to conquer a country from a people inhabiting it, that governs it by virtue of its language and savage culture…If we cease to look upon our land, the Land of Israel, as ours alone and we allow a partner into our estate—all content and meaning will be lost to our enterprise.”

Those are words to cause a shudder, when we think where we are nearly 100 years later. The gradual erosion of Palestinian residence rights was designed to pass by stealth, unnoticed by the international community.

In the early days of occupation the civil Administration could simply have taken possession by force of the land in the west bank and Gaza that it wanted for colonisation, but it preferred to devise “legal” manoeuvres to justify its actions and avoid the obvious bad publicity. It is worth examining—we could if we had time—the careful manipulation of the legal framework relating to land ownership in the west bank, to understand how that large-scale theft of Palestinian land was hidden behind a façade of legality. We all encounter that in our own way when we visit.

In 2004 Israel tried to resurrect the 1950 law on absentees’ property for use against west bank Palestinians who owned land in East Jerusalem. Even today we see the attempt to continue that process by taking advantage of the building of the 800 km separation wall, which is justified on the ground that it will prevent suicide attacks. The steel and concrete wall dividing the sections of East Jerusalem has sealed a large area of the city off from the west bank. Landowners in the west bank, cut off from their lands by the wall, were informed that they had now been classed as absentees, and their land was being confiscated. That is just one example of the way in which the legal framework can be manipulated to achieve certain ends.

More successful have been the confiscations on so-called administrative grounds. As we have heard, under the fourth Geneva convention an occupying power is entitled to make changes only if those are necessary for its security, or if they benefit the local occupied population. That provision should have forestalled any plans on Israel’s part to confiscate land for settlement. Shortly after the 1967 war, however, Israel’s chief adviser on international law advised that confiscations could occur on one condition, saying:

“it is vital that it”—

that is, the expropriation of land—

“be done by military bodies and not civilian ones...in the framework of bases”—

that is, in the framework of establishing bases. The chief adviser went on to warn that those bases should be temporary in nature. In the first years of the occupation, therefore, Israel was careful to cite security as the reason for taking Palestinian land, to establish what it claimed were military camps or outposts. Those people who have visited the occupied territories have seen those outposts, which were ostensibly set up for security purposes.

We know that in the early 1970s the number of those bases grew dramatically, with additional land confiscated to provide them with the services they required, such as roads, electricity and water. Other land was requisitioned for firing ranges and training grounds, as the occupation was entrenched in that land.

We have seen a complete misuse of legal frameworks to justify the actions by the Israeli Administrations. The Likud Government who promised they would no longer colonise Palestinian private land faced the ruin of a greater Israel project, unless new grounds for confiscating Palestinian land could be found. Up popped a senior legal official in the Justice Ministry to come to the rescue. That official was entrusted with surveying the west bank to find out how much of it could be classified as “state land”, so that it could be claimed as Israeli territory that was ripe for settlement.

According to international law, Israel had to abide by the laws that were already in force when the territories were occupied. In the case of the west bank, that meant Ottoman laws, along with the minor modifications made by the British and Jordanians to those laws. However, Israel hijacked those existing laws, mischievously reinterpreting them so as to define much of the occupied territories as so-called “state land”, a category all but unheard of in Palestine.

In a way, in the last few decades we have seen a gradual confiscation, theft and misuse of legal framework to carry out those original objectives outlined in the letter from nearly 100 years ago that I quoted from at the start of my contribution to this debate. The international community has, in many respects, stood by and allowed that to happen. There is an opportunity now in this moment of time—I am grateful for the opportunity that this debate presents—for the international community to put something of that right, after all these years.

Anyone going to the occupied territories or to Israel cannot fail to identify what would be seen as injustice in the way that people have lost their homes, their livelihoods and indeed almost any hope. And yet, we stand by and we almost allow that process to continue. As we have heard, the Israelis continue to exploit that opportunity and that space, to continue the building of settlements.

I want to finish with another quote, this time from a Palestinian lawyer in Ramallah, and I hope that it will run counter to the first quote that I read out at the start of my contribution to this debate:

“We now moved in our own country surreptitiously, like unwanted strangers, constantly harassed, never feeling safe. We had become temporary residents of Greater Israel, living on Israel’s sufferance, subject to the most abusive treatment at the hands of young male and female soldiers controlling the checkpoints, deciding on a whim whether to keep us waiting for hours or allowing us passage. But worse than that was the nagging feeling that our days in Palestine were numbered and one day we were going to be victims of another mass expulsion.”

That mass expulsion must never be allowed to happen and it is up to us and the rest of the western world, who have stood by for far too long, to ensure that it does not happen.

Like my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris), I respect the desire of Israelis and Palestinians to have a state of their own and I support the two-state solution. However, let us dispose of illusions from the start. The Israelis took 78 per cent. of historic Palestine by military force, leaving the Palestinians with 22 per cent. After the 1967 war, some Israeli politicians adopted a strategy aimed at taking as much of the remaining 22 per cent. of historic Palestine as they could. They did not admit so publicly and, fortunately for them, many western politicians were either complicit or were hoodwinked by their denials. However, they did admit privately that they were doing it. My hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Acton and Shepherd’s Bush (Mr. Slaughter) has already quoted the letter written by Ariel Sharon in 1973—the “pastrami sandwich” letter—in which Sharon described precisely what had happened in the previous 25 years. Then, 25 years later in 1998, there was another quote from Ariel Sharon, after all the settlement had happened, when he encouraged militants in an extreme right-wing party, by saying:

“Everybody has to grab as many hilltops as they can”.

In those intervening 25 years—between 1973 and 1998—growth of the settlements was continuous and relentless, despite Oslo, the road map and Annapolis. The settler population has doubled since Oslo. Some settlements have quintupled in size. For example, the population of Betar Illit rose from 5,000 in 1994 to 25,000 in 2004. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West said, population growth in the settlements has been three times as fast as population growth in Israel. Two thirds of that growth in the settlements has been the result of “natural growth”, which of course is very high among settlers, and the other third has been the result of Israelis and people from outside Israel moving in.

The settler population has grown every year. Even in the year that the Gaza settlements were given up, growth in the west bank settlements more than made up for it. Indeed, that is what Sharon told his friends—that he was giving up Gaza so that he could get a better grip on the west bank. Now we have nearly 500,000—my figure is 482,000—settlers in the west bank.

Two years ago, Ehud Olmert promised that he would not expand the settlement boundaries. I was taken in; I thought that sounded good. However, I was hoodwinked. That is because for every acre of built-up land in a settlement, that settlement has four acres earmarked for expansion within its municipal boundaries. A promise not to expand the boundaries was totally meaningless.

The Israelis do not seem to care that it is illegal, under the fourth Geneva convention, to transfer a civilian population to an occupied territory; that it is illegal to expropriate land from the occupied population; that it is illegal to destroy their property; that it is illegal to discriminate against them by building settler-only roads; that it is illegal to fail to ensure public order—

Would my hon. Friend like to pay due regard to those people, many of whom are from this country, who go on behalf of the Quaker peace and justice movement to report on the issues that he has referred to, before coming back to this country and other countries to tell us what is really happening? Those are very brave people, are they not?

Indeed. I join my hon. Friend in his tribute to the many people who take great risks to bring to the world’s attention what is going on in Israel and the occupied territories.

As I was saying, it is illegal to fail to ensure public order, for instance by allowing settler violence. However, even the author of the official report of the Israeli Government on settlement outposts said:

“The attitude towards law breaking settlers is mostly forgiving. The result is a large increase in law violations.”

It is also illegal to build the wall inside the west bank. It is okay to do so on the green line, but 87 per cent. of the wall will be in the west bank and it will not be there to enhance Israel’s security but to enhance the security of the settlements themselves.

If it is legal for the Israeli courts to transfer ownership of Palestinian homes in Sheikh Jarrah to Israelis who owned them in the 1920s or 1930s, as the Israeli courts did yesterday, most of the Israelis in Israel should be forced to hand their homes back to the original Palestinian owners.

The wall is strangling the Palestinian economy and imprisoning many Palestinians in their own villages. Already, 10,000 people live in areas enclosed by walls on all sides; 125,000 people will be surrounded by walls on three sides. In total, 70 gates, 43 tunnels and underpasses, and 614 checkpoints have been constructed, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West pointed out.

Our Government’s response has been to protest to the Israeli ambassador, but protesting to the Israeli ambassador is a pointless exercise; it is like shouting at a fish. All the evidence is that, when we protest, the Israelis build the settlements even faster. Even since Obama’s speech, they have approved 300 new homes north of Ramallah and a new settlement in the Jordan valley. The only thing that will have any effect is international action to impose an economic penalty on Israel.

I thank the Minister for rejecting the upgrade of the EU-Israel trade agreement, but I ask him to go further and suspend it, because the Israelis are in breach of its human rights clauses. I am glad that he has taken a firm line on settlements and encouraged President Obama to do the same, but what action will be taken against Israel if it refuses to stop building illegal settlements? Given that it is illegal under the Geneva convention to build settlements on occupied land, what action will be taken against the Israeli Government?

I have many other questions, but my time is up.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris) on securing this debate.

I shall be brief. Like many in the Chamber, I have had the good fortune to visit Israel, the west bank and Gaza and see for myself the effects of the settlements. It is humbling to stand on the Mount of Olives and look down at what ought to be the famous, historic road to Jericho, with the hills and the descending road all the way to the Dead sea. Now all that can be seen are settlements—massive settlements with all the arrogance of an occupying power—of huge, red-roofed, red buildings and special settler roads leading from one to the other. As my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Martin Linton) pointed out, around each settlement are preserved areas of land for them to expand further.

Then one looks across to the Palestinian towns and villages. Many of the buildings have been destroyed by Israeli military action or physically depopulated, the people having been moved away. Unemployment and poverty are rife—and anger very rife—in those remaining Palestinian villages. An apartheid state is developing on the west bank with the settlements, specialist roads between them and checkpoints for Palestinians travelling around—to the extent that a journey that I made from Jericho to Jerusalem took six hours, by a series of buses and taxis, because of the number of roadblocks, closed crossings and all the rest of it. And I am relatively well treated, because I am not a Palestinian. Then one observes the daily abuse and humiliation of ordinary Palestinian people—workers tired after a whole day’s work in the field or somewhere else being made to wait for hours at checkpoints, because a settlement has been built alongside and Israel claims that its “security” is at risk without this process.

The world cannot stand by and treat Israel as a normal state and say that it is a normal participant in international affairs. It is not! It illegally occupies a large amount of Palestinian land, holds nuclear weapons but has not signed up to any relevant convention, and is flouting the 2004 International Court of Justice judgment concerning the legality of those settlements. Goods are produced on those settlements that masquerade as Israeli goods and are sold on the international market. Water is taken from Palestinian farmers by the presence of those Israeli settlements, which obviously creates poverty and problems for Palestinian farmers and causes massive ecological damage. The beautiful plain area outside Jericho, just north of the Dead sea, is now covered in glasshouses built by Israeli settlers to produce goods, such as tomatoes and other fruits and vegetables, which are then sold on the international market. The water abstraction from the River Jordan, mostly by Israel—and to some extent by Jordan—means that the Dead sea is disappearing at a rate of between 1 m and 3 m every year. In our lifetime, the Dead sea will be gone—it will be finished.

What do we do about this? Do we stand back and treat Israel as a normal country, or do we take sanctions against it? If any other country in the world behaved like Israel—in a wholly illegal and abusive manner towards the people whom it occupies—it would face international sanction. I support the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea, therefore, that we should not be buying goods produced in the settlements. We should be imposing economic and military sanctions against Israel. I am not arguing for military action, but for military sanctions, such as the non-supply of weapons and parts for those weapons, a boycott of Israeli trade and, in the European setting, a suspension of the EU-Israel trade agreement—not just the non-extension to elevated status, but suspension of the existing agreement, because Israel is clearly in breach of the human rights clauses in that agreement.

It is up to us, as a Security Council member, a very important member of the United Nations and a very significant past trading partner of Israel, to say, “Enough is enough. We are not prepared to tolerate this. You behave illegally. You illegally occupy land and flout international law—consequences follow!” I would love to hear a British Minister send the message, once and for all and loud and clear, that that is this country’s position on this illegal activity.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris) on securing this debate. The debate is timely in the light of President Obama’s intention to achieve a freeze on settlement development, which has been referred to already, and Netanyahu’s recent comments, which have been heavily caveated, but which are a general step in the right direction.

It is clear that settlement construction is not supported by anyone here, but I want to make a few remarks about some details that perhaps we have not heard about today. More often than not, we talk about settlements and settlement growth in terms of the number of people living in them. For instance, the Israeli Information Centre for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories points to the fact that 2008 saw the settler population, excluding East Jerusalem, grow by 4.7 per cent. We all hope to see the west bank form the basis of a Palestinian state, and we all accept that many of Israel’s settlements sit on land that will be within that Palestinian state, but it is also important to discuss the location and geographical size of settlements.

In an interview with the Jordanian newspaper Al-Dustour on 25 June, senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat discussed the two-state deal that former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had offered Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas last September. Their lengthy discussions focused unsurprisingly on the issue of land and the proportion of the west bank taken up by Israel’s settlements. According to Erekat, Abbas calculated this to be 1.2 per cent. Others put the figure, when one includes empty land around the settlements where Palestinian construction is restricted, at about 3 per cent. Either way, although we all accept that the current system of settler-only roads that surround the settlements unjustly restricts the movement of Palestinians, and so increases the effective size of the settlements, if we are talking about drawing the borders of a two-state solution, 3 per cent. is a relatively small number that can be compensated for in land-swap deals.

It has been widely accepted, since the Oslo accords were signed in 1993, that some settlements will remain in Israel in exchange for ceding Israeli land to the Palestinians. Although we know that Olmert and Abbas failed to come to a final agreement over a two-state solution, it is useful to see how the issue of land swaps was dealt with. Olmert reportedly offered Abbas territory equal in size to 100 per cent. of the land occupied in 1967 by means of a land swap. Olmert proposed that the Palestinians establish their state on 93.5 per cent. of the west bank, receiving another 5.8 per cent. through a land-exchange deal with Israel. The rest was offered in the form of a safe-passage corridor from the west bank to the Gaza strip. Olmert’s plan left the major settlement blocs of Ma’ale Adumim, Ariel and Gush Etzion in Israel’s control, in exchange for the southern Hebron hills—colleagues will be aware of this—the Judean hills and the Beit She’an valley. I understand that that was turned down—Saeb Erekat appears to confirm this—on the basis that previous offers, made at Camp David for example, had been much better. They thought, “Why take this deal now?” I am not here to pass judgment on what is essentially history, but I think that that is significant.

The Annapolis process was certainly not perfect, but through it, as it turns out, Olmert and Abbas made a lot of progress, although they did, of course, fail to sign a deal. Israel and the Palestinians cannot be allowed to come this close and fail again. The international community therefore needs to be much clearer about what it expects to see from negotiations. In my view, a deal that allows Israel to keep major settlement blocs, situated just beyond the 1967 green line and that compensates the Palestinians with land swaps is a good deal. It would reduce the disruption to normal life that any major settlement evacuation would cause and give the Palestinians the quantity of land that they deserve.

Accepting that position, however, calls into question some of the more rigid approaches to Israeli settlements. A freeze in settlement construction, which we and the US Government want, is a good way of engendering trust. At the moment, Netanyahu is offering a freeze on all settlement activity, bar that in Jerusalem and that which is based on natural growth—by that I mean activity which occurs within the natural parameters of existing settlements. No one here doubts that Netanyahu has to go a great deal further. If he does not, the international community will continue to believe that the expansion of Jewish communities in East Jerusalem counts as settlement construction. This is an issue on which we must continue to press him.

In conclusion, I agree with the Government’s position on pushing for a freeze on settlement activity. However, we should also call for a temporary freeze on natural growth, because that would go some way towards enabling the peace talks to restart.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris) on securing this interesting debate. It is always pleasing when there is a good turnout of hon. Members because we get a wide range of contributions, even if that means that those contributions are fairly brief. No doubt we could have debated this issue for many hours and still found interesting points of discussion.

I should like to preface my remarks by putting it on the record that I support the two-state solution in Israel and Palestine. I should also like to remind hon. Members that over the many years of this conflict there have been crimes, abuses and breaches of trust on both sides. There are other debates, motions and opportunities in this House for us to discuss the rocket attacks and the suicide bombings against Israel or the continuing detention of the hostage Gilad Shalit. Today, however, we are debating settlements, which is a central aspect of the conflict and could be the key to unlocking a peace deal.

We have heard about the massive growth in the numbers of settlers. In 1972 there were 10,500 settlers and now there are some 480,000. The hon. Member for Battersea (Martin Linton) said that since the Oslo accords in 1993, the number has more than doubled. The hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West interestingly pointed out that we use the pleasant and homely word “settlements”, but that the word “colonies” is perhaps a more accurate description of the dwellings and towns.

The whole House will have welcomed the movement in the US position towards engaging with the middle east and putting the region at the heart of its foreign policy. I welcome the robust line on the settlement freeze that we have been hearing from President Obama and Hillary Clinton. However, a freeze on settlements has to be the absolute minimum for starting the negotiations. Let us be clear: the settlements are illegal, and if we are to have any prospect of peace in the middle east, they have to go. A freeze is just the starting point; ultimately, the settlements will have to be dismantled.

My hon. Friend the Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris) was very prescient when he said that the settlements are not in Israel’s interests. He said that they were counter-productive and made security more difficult, which is an important point for us to remember in this debate.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent speech was disappointing. Although he spoke through gritted teeth about the need for a two-state solution, he also talked about the natural growth in settlements. Last month, we heard that Israel plans to build dozens of new homes in Adam, which is deeply worrying. In recognising the importance of Israel and Palestine living side by side in peace, security and, in his words, prosperity, Netanyahu totally fails to see the huge negative impact on economic development and prosperity that such settlements have on the west bank. In fact, they threaten the very viability of a Palestinian state.

Does the hon. Lady not think that the Prime Minister of Israel is in a very difficult position when his own Foreign Minister is an illegal settler on the west bank?

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. Of course, he is in a difficult position because there are many differing views and constituencies of opinion that he has to balance. However, dealing with the settlements has to be in Israel’s self-interest, and that political reality cannot be lost on the Prime Minister.

The west bank has been sliced, diced and carved up as part of a deliberate strategy, and the settlements have been part of the tactic. We have heard about the numbers of settlements, the roads, the checkpoints, the roadblocks and the security wall. When they are overlaid on the land, we can see how impossible it is for ordinary Palestinians to go about their everyday lives in this Swiss-cheese patchwork. Settlements impact on the fabric of civil society, making trade, education and visiting family and friends incredibly difficult, and that is why they are so damaging to future peace in the region.

Natural resources are also key. The hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West was right to talk about the issue of water in relation to the Golan heights. When I visited Israel, I thought that the problem was all about land and ideology, but practicalities are also key. I come from the west of Scotland where access to water is not quite the same issue. However, in an arid climate such as that in the middle east, water is a key issue, and with rapidly increasing climate change, the problem will only become worse. Water is also a problem on the west bank. As the hon. Member for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn) pointed out, most of the water is going to the Israeli settlers’ farms, which makes that land very fertile but causes havoc elsewhere in the region.

Let me turn to the products that come from the settlements. The hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West raised an interesting issue about the legality of collecting customs duties on the products from the illegal settlements. Unlike him, I am not a lawyer, so I await the Minister’s reply to those remarks. Before the election, I was a marketing manager, so perhaps I am better placed to comment on the marketing of such products. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon that we should have consumer information clearly marked on the products so that people know what they are buying. I know that the Government, through the EU, have made some efforts on that issue, which I support. It is very important that consumers know what they are buying and whether it has been produced by the Palestinians or produced illegally on the settlements.

We have debated whether there should be preferential trade tariffs for such products. The settlements are illegal so there should not be any preferential trade agreements. The debate must now move on to considering whether we should allow the sale of any products from the illegal settlements. There is a case for looking at whether a ban on those particular products might be considered. I am interested to hear whether the Minister has considered such a ban. I do not agree with the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West that we should boycott all Israeli goods. To say the least, that would be an overreaction at this point.

In conclusion, we have debated settlements many times in the House. It is right that we should do so, but it is very sad that we have to continue to do so. I hope that the new US President’s push for peace will persuade Israel to freeze and then dismantle the settlements, so that we can move towards a viable two-state solution. I urge the Minister and the Government to use all the tools at their disposal—not just words with the ambassador—to help Israel recognise that removing the settlements is in its own self-interest.

Let me congratulate the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris) on securing this debate; it is one of those topics on which there will be a large degree of bipartisan agreement between members of different political parties. The Opposition support the Government’s approach, and endorse the view of successive British Governments that the Israeli settlements are illegal. As the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West reminded us, that verdict applies whether we are talking about settlements in what is commonly referred to as the west bank, or those on the Golan heights or in those areas of East Jerusalem that have been annexed by Israel, which the Israeli Government regard as part of the Israeli state.

Let us look at the history. The settlements have been declared illegal by successive resolutions of the UN Security Council, by the International Court of Justice and by contracting states to the Geneva convention. It is worth noting that when one gets into a debate with Israeli officials about the legal position, they assert that the settlements are not illegal in the absence of a treaty to govern arrangements for the administration of those territories, following the end of the British mandate. The Israelis with whom I have discussed the matter would argue that there was no definitive peace treaty in 1948, and that therefore they are not acting illegally. Against that, as long ago as 1967, the legal counsel to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs advised that civilian settlements in the administered territories contravened the explicit provisions of the fourth Geneva convention.

When one looks at how Israeli Governments have operated in practice, one can see that they have regarded the settlements as a political, rather than a legal, issue at root. After Oslo, the then Israeli Government agreed to a United States request to limit expansion to the so-called natural growth of existing settlements. In April 2003, they agreed to freeze settlements, including natural growth, as part of the road map. In recent months, the current Israeli Foreign Minister—who, as the hon. Member for Bolton, South-East (Dr. Iddon) reminded us, is a settler—has talked about the political conditions under which he would be willing to give up his home and recommend to his neighbours that they do the same.

The argument that we have heard recently from some Israeli spokesmen, which is that the settlements are needed to cope with population expansion, simply does not wash if one looks at the demographic reality. Israel’s central bureau of statistics states that the population of settlements grew by 4.7 per cent. in 2008, compared with 1.6 per cent. in Israel. Forty per cent. of settlement growth was from new immigration—certainly assisted by the sort of incentives described by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West—rather than through the birth of children to families already living there.

The key to this lies in the politics rather than the law. I think everyone has recognised that no peace agreement will work if it fails to include Israeli withdrawal from the settlements. In my view, it is almost certain that if an agreement can be reached, it will allow some settlements to remain under Israeli sovereignty as part of an overall package that also involves land swaps. That was an element of the draft agreement being negotiated between the Olmert Government and the Palestinian Authority.

In debates such as this, we must recognise that there are genuine political problems for any Israeli Government handling this issue. First, there is the sheer number of people that we are talking about, and if we recall how traumatic and demanding of the Israel Defence Forces it was to insist on the removal of settlements from Gaza, that should remind us of the scale of the challenge involved in requiring the evacuation of many thousands of people from settlements in the west bank.

Secondly, there is the Israeli experience of Gaza. The fact that withdrawal from the settlements led not to an enduring peace in the south but to rocket attacks from the Gaza strip, has led not only traditional hawks, but many people in the Knesset and among the Israeli electorate who still think of themselves as advocates for peace, to be sceptical about the value of early withdrawal from existing Israeli settlements. United Nations resolutions and the various peace agreements that have been reached in the past, insist on Israeli withdrawal from settlements. However, that is seen as one element in a broader package including, most obviously, the cessation of all violent attacks on Israel, and the recognition of Israel by its neighbours.

The key message from any British Government to Israeli leaders should be that they should not underestimate the damage—the severe damage—that their settlement policy is doing to the standing of those Palestinian leaders who genuinely want a negotiated peace. I was struck by one passage in President Obama’s Cairo speech, where he drew an analogy between the Palestinian experience and that of African Americans during the era of segregation. As several hon. Members have pointed out, the experience not only of settlements, but of the expropriation of property, segregated roadways, checkpoints and security arrangements that are in place to protect Israeli settlements, can only add to a sense of grievance and alienation among ordinary Palestinians and, above all, among young Palestinians who make up 60 per cent. or more of the population of the occupied territories.

Unless the Israeli Government face up to that reality, they will find that more and more young Palestinians give up on the idea of a two-state solution. I speak from anecdotal evidence, but I have been alarmed by the number of Palestinians who say openly that they will give up on a two-state solution and wait, as they believe, for demographic trends to do the work until the day when there is an Arab majority in the territories now occupied by Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.

The subject of the debate is Government policy. No doubt the hon. Gentleman aspires to be in the Government. Given the failure of Government policy, and that of previous Governments, which has seen an almost 40 per cent. expansion in the number of settlers in the west bank over the last six years, what would he like to see the Government do in order to address the problem?

The hon. Gentleman anticipates what I was coming on to. The policy of the British Government has to be set in the context of overall international efforts to bring about an enduring peace in the middle east. We must start by asking ourselves what is going to work. For example, I do not believe that a general boycott of Israeli goods and services will somehow lead to an Israeli Government who are more amenable to peace initiatives, and I ask the Minister to state clearly the Government’s position on the question of food labelling, and whether that needs to be addressed at EU or national level. Will further development of the EU-Israel association agreement, and trade agreements between the EU and Israel, be related to progress on the issue of self-government for the Palestinians, in particular progress on the issue of settlements?

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I will not. I want to give the Minister time to respond to the debate.

The key starting point now would be to persuade the Israeli Government to initiate another freeze on further expansion of existing settlements. That would give the Palestinians a reason to return to serious talks, no matter how difficult it might be given the state of play among the Israeli and Palestinian authorities at the moment. It is very much in our national interest for those talks to resume.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris) on securing this important debate. As he and other hon. Members are perfectly well aware, the middle east peace process remains a top priority for this Government. We remain committed to a comprehensive peace in the middle east, based on a two-state solution and a secure Israel alongside a viable Palestinian state.

Hon. Members will also be aware that the central tenet of the UK Government’s policy towards settlement building in the occupied Palestinian territories has long been clear. Settlements are illegal and construction should be frozen as a matter of urgency, in line with Israel’s commitments to do so in the 2003 road map. That is why we strongly welcomed President Obama’s Cairo speech and strongly support the new, clear US policy on freezing all settlement activity.

I welcome this opportunity to expand on the Government’s policy. It is important to set out why I believe that continued settlement construction remains an impediment to peace. By changing the physical facts on the ground, Israeli settlement construction unilaterally prejudices the outcome of any final peace solution. Moreover, continued construction threatens the geographic possibility of a contiguous Palestinian state. The UK Government remain firmly of the view that a two-state solution provides the greatest prospect of peace and security for Israelis and Palestinians, so the damage done to that prospect by settlements causes us grave concern.

As hon. Members have said, the day-to-day physical impact of settlement building has a heavy cost on the Palestinian people. Elements of the Israeli settler movement exacerbate tension. Road and security infrastructure to protect settlements carves through the west bank and severely restricts Palestinians’ movement and access. Although we welcome recent positive Israeli steps to alleviate some of the restrictions, much further progress is required. The symbolic impact of settlements is arguably as damaging as the physical impact. Continued settlement expansion sends an extremely negative message to the Palestinians that resonates around the wider Arab world. It continues to raise questions about the feasibility of a successful and lasting peace.

The UK has long made our opposition to settlements clear. We have pressed the Israeli Government continually at the highest level on the importance of fulfilling road map commitments: Israel should freeze all settlement activity, including the natural growth of existing settlements, and dismantle all outposts erected since March 2001. Our Prime Minister made the UK policy on settlement activity clear in his historic speech to the Knesset in July 2008, and my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary has reiterated that position frequently.

A number of questions have been asked during this debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West raised the question of the barrier. The first point to make about the barrier is that we recognise Israel’s right to self-defence and to protect its citizens by constructing the barrier. However, the barrier must be built exclusively on Israeli territory. As Israeli courts have ruled frequently, any part of the barrier that is not on Israeli territory is simply illegal.

My hon. Friend not only discussed advocating a freeze on settlements but believes that our policy should be to evacuate all settlements. We feel that that pre-judges what we believe will be at the heart of final status negotiations: an agreement on the respective borders of both states. That is why we confine our policy at the moment to the freezing of all settlement activities. He also asked about the lower tariffs under the EU-Israel Association agreement and wants to ensure that they do not apply to goods exported from the settlements. I assure him that they most definitely do not. Moreover, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs is proactive in ensuring that tariffs are applied correctly in accordance with the agreement.

My hon. Friend asked why this country does not ban all goods from the settlements. We believe that that would raise a number of significant legal issues in relation to our European Community and international law obligations. Therefore, we do not believe that that is viable at the present time.

Will the Minister give way?

No, I do not have enough time.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West also asked whether the UK has obtained a legal position on the legality or otherwise of such imports. Although we cannot disclose legal advice, Her Majesty’s Government believe, based on the legal assessment, that such imports are not actually prohibited in UK law. He and other hon. Members suggested that there should be a ban on all Israeli imports, and he suggested in addition that this country should embark on an arms embargo. We disagree strongly with those two positions. The Government’s position is to oppose a trade boycott or any other form of boycott against the state of Israel, and we are opposed to an arms embargo. We do not believe that either of those measures would progress the course of peace in any way at this stage.

I believe that I have dealt comprehensively with the crucial questions raised during this debate, but it is only right that we place this debate about settlements in the context of the overall situation. Other issues must be dealt with. It is essential that the Palestinian Authority develop their capacity to govern, with institutions that serve the needs of their people. Hamas must put an end to violence, recognise past agreements and recognise Israel. Its behaviour—firing rockets at Israel, attacking rival political parties, smuggling arms, holding Gilad Shalit in captivity—demonstrates, sadly, that it is neither a partner in peace nor a constructive force in building a Palestinian state. At the same time, we make it clear that the Israeli Government must ease restrictions on the Gaza border and allow an immediate increase in the flow of essential aid and reconstruction materials into Gaza, as well as the legitimate flow of trade, goods and people.

We encourage partners from the Arab world to demonstrate readiness to increase recognition of Israel and move towards a normalisation of relations as envisaged in the very welcome Arab peace initiative. On that basis, I welcome the views of His Highness the Crown Prince of Bahrain on taking the Arab peace initiative forward, which he articulated in the Washington Post on 16 July. That is exactly the sort of positive engagement that we believe will help lead to peace in the middle east. It is vital that all Arab states demonstrate both their commitment to dialogue and peaceful relations and their willingness to respond positively to significant Israeli action to freeze settlement activity.

As His Highness noted, now is the time to take “simultaneous, good-faith action”. The point will come when the Israeli Government respond positively to the clear statement of policy articulated by this Government and, for the first time, by the US in President Obama’s speech in Cairo. It is our intention to continue to work with regional partners and with the US and EU to make progress and move from rhetoric to reality.

I will be visiting the occupied Palestinian territories and Israel during the parliamentary recess. I want to learn at first hand about the realities facing the Israeli Government, the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli and Palestinian people, and I want to ensure that the United Kingdom plays a crucial role in pushing forward the peace process that is so crucial to peace and stability throughout the world.

I was deeply concerned when Baroness Kinnock was appointed Minister for Europe, because I feel passionately about our relationship with the European Union. It is pivotal to that relationship that there is more accountability to parliamentarians in the House of Commons on this issue. It is deeply regrettable that Baroness Kinnock was made a peer and that she sits in the other House.

One of Baroness Kinnock’s first acts on being appointed was to state that the Government would support Mr. Blair’s candidature for the European Union presidency, should the new constitution and that position come into being. Mr. Blair’s father lives in my constituency, so I had a good relationship with Mr. Blair and gained a certain amount of access to him, which cannot be said of the current Prime Minister. However, he is the wrong man for the job.

I know the hon. Gentleman well from our days on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee and respect him greatly. He criticises our promotion of matters European in the Houses of Parliament, but does he not think that the group that his party has joined in Europe is the most extraordinary mix of oddballs, malcontents, misfits, flat-earthers and unregenerate nationalist bigots? Is that not a fair and even-tempered description? Perhaps he should justify what his party has been doing in Europe since 4 June.

I wondered when that matter would be raised. That comment crystallises for me the sheer arrogance of this new Labour Government and the Prime Minister; it is the arrogance of power. The hon. Gentleman must not forget that the oddballs to whom he refers are people who represent parties that have been elected democratically by the people of sovereign nation states. If any political party dares to have even a scintilla of thought or opinion that differs from the great Labour policies, it is described as containing oddballs and nutters. That is bad for the democratic process.

The hon. Gentleman has talked about democracy and accountability, but is not Labour the only party that has ever provided such things on European matters? At about the time of the hon. Gentleman’s third birthday on 24 June 1975 Harold Wilson gave us a referendum on how Ted Heath had bulldozed us into Europe. I voted against at that time and have remained sceptical ever since. Is it not the Labour party to which people should look if they wish to embrace accountability and democracy?

It was good of the hon. Gentleman to try to find out when my birthday is. I was actually born on 24 January.

I said the 24th.

The hon. Gentleman said June, but let us not get into a debate about when my birthday is. I was born on 24 January 1972, which is the day on which Ted Heath signed the document to take us into Europe. I will come on to that later.

Let me finish my important point about Mr. Blair. We need only look at what he did in this Parliament to see why he is the wrong choice for that position. He neutered this place by using the Whips to railroad through huge, poorly thought out constitutional legislation, and he used his position to go to war against the express wish of millions of British citizens. In my view, he is quite simply the wrong person to bring greater transparency and accountability to Europe.

My hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh (Mr. Francois) is a brilliant negotiator, whom I have seen in action in Europe. I hope that he will guarantee that when he becomes a Foreign Office Minister—that will be sooner than the Minister thinks—the Conservative Government will veto Mr. Blair’s candidature to be President of the European Union.

I have a question to make the hon. Gentleman feel relaxed, comfortable and content. Does he think that any other member states would support the candidature of Tony Blair and, if so, will he name them?

The honest answer is that I do not know. As somebody who feels passionately about this country and its position in Europe, it pains me greatly that I would prefer somebody from another country to be President than a former British Prime Minister. However, I believe that Mr. Blair’s outrageous conduct in Parliament and his lack of regard for democracy should prevent him from becoming President.

Who is the hon. Gentleman’s preferred candidate?

We do not yet know who the candidates will be.

Our relationship with the European Union is under threat from the Prime Minister’s conduct towards other Heads of State. I hope that the Foreign Office officials are listening carefully. I have spoken to many foreign officials who say that he looks bored at European Union meetings, treats Heads of State with disdain and does not follow basic diplomatic protocol.

I will take as an example Iceland, which is not yet a member of the European Union, but which has expressed a desire to join in its Parliament. During the Icelandic banking crisis, the Prime Minister and the Government used counter-terrorism legislation to seize the assets of Icelandic banks. I will never forget his language during an interview on Sky News because it was the most undiplomatic that I have ever heard. The rudeness, disdain and contempt with which he treated Iceland and the Icelandic people were disgraceful. I will not go into detail, but I have a copy of that interview if hon. Members wish to see it. I hope that people will look at it again, because it was unacceptable.

Following the interview, I had discussions with the Icelandic ambassador and friends of mine who are Icelandic politicians and leading members of Icelandic society. They were traumatised by our Prime Minister’s conduct towards them. Nothing has done more damage to our relationship with Iceland. I hope that the Minister will apologise for the Prime Minister’s behaviour and that he will do everything possible to support Iceland as it tries to enter the European Union. We must show support to this vital NATO ally and neighbour and be its champion, so that we can repair that relationship.

From the perspective of the British people and my constituents in Shrewsbury, the Labour Government have put our relationship with the European Union into the deep freeze by refusing to give the British people a referendum on the constitution. In this Chamber, we have debated many times the necessity for our citizens to be granted an opportunity to cast their vote on this vital issue. The French and the Dutch people have had their opportunity to reject the treaty. The treaty of Lisbon, which has come into being as a result of that rejection, is, by the way, a carbon copy of the original constitution, according to Monsieur Valéry Giscard d’Estaing and many other prominent European politicians and former politicians. It is interesting that every time the people of any European country have been given an opportunity to have their say on the constitution in a referendum they have rejected it—for example, the French, the Dutch and the Irish.

The hon. Gentleman is simply wrong. The Spaniards were the first to have a referendum and there was an overwhelming majority in favour. He should get his facts right.

rose—

What about the other three?

Yes, what about the other three? The Minister is saying that only one country out of 27 has had a referendum in which the people have been in favour.

My hon. Friend clearly does not get it. The Spanish got it right; the other three countries got it wrong. When is he going to understand that?

A point very well made—I thank my hon. Friend.

Surely the central point is that the promise of a referendum that was given to the British people was a Labour party manifesto commitment. What does that say about the Government’s attitude to their manifesto commitments, and how should the British people respond to their manifesto at the next general election?

I totally agree with my hon. Friend: what has happened is a huge snub to the British people and is a trashing of the Government’s policy statements that were made in the run-up to the last election. That is part of the reason why there is so much cynicism towards politicians in this country.

Getting back to my date of birth, I do not know how old the Minister is, but I am 37, so, as the hon. Member for North-West Leicestershire (David Taylor) has rightly identified, I was three years old when we had the referendum in 1975. This issue is extremely important to me, because millions of people in the United Kingdom who are in their 20s, 30s and 40s have, like me, never been consulted on not just the relationship, but the ever-changing relationship that this country has been through with the European Community, the then European Economic Community and now the European Union. There has been no consultation at all for the British people.

I am following the hon. Gentleman’s comments with great interest. If there were a referendum on whether Britain should be a member of the European Union, how would he vote?

I personally would vote for continued membership of the European Union, which I will come on to later in my speech. It is very important that we have a referendum to give the British people their say and to give me the opportunity to campaign in favour of our continued membership of the EU. As my hon. Friend the Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Mr. Crabb) has said, however, the Government’s broken promises and the lack of a referendum mean it is very difficult to sell European Union membership to our constituents.

I find it staggering that the Home Secretary, who is obviously a very busy man at the moment, has time to write articles in newspapers demanding that a referendum on a new voting system is held at the same time as the next general election. He wants a form of proportional representation and is demanding a referendum on that at the next election. However, he refuses to allow the British people a referendum on this vital issue. What is more—the Minister may contradict me on this point—the Home Secretary said in his article in The Independent that the Prime Minister has given him an assurance that he has not discounted such a referendum on a change to the voting system being held on the same day as the next general election. When I think of all the problems facing this country at the moment, I find that absolutely scandalous. I must declare an interest because I am chairman of the all-party group on the continuation of first past the post, about which I feel passionately. I find it absolutely staggering that the Government are talking about a change to the voting system and yet refusing to allow the British people to have a referendum on this constitution.

In the recent EU elections, we have seen the challenges that we face in our relationship with the EU. As we in this Chamber all know, across the whole of the country, the UK Independence party did much better than the Labour party and, in my own neck of the woods in Shropshire, UKIP outstripped the Labour vote by even more. UKIP is a party that wants to pull out of the European Union, which I am passionately against. It worries me greatly that so many British people want to vote for a party that will pull us out of the entire thing. I am making the point that it is so important to have a referendum on the constitution, because it adds a huge amount of power and succour to UKIP if the British people are refused that referendum.

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this important debate. He makes a good point about the necessity of having a referendum; I totally agree with him on that. Will he go further and say that if second time around, in October, the Irish vote in favour of the Lisbon treaty, this country should still have a referendum on whether it should subscribe to the treaty?

There are hypothetical—[Interruption.] Let me answer the question. There are hypothetical things that we could consider—[Interruption.] They are hypothetical, because they have not occurred yet. As I will discuss in a second, the Polish President has not ratified the treaty and neither has the Czech President. Of course, if all those ratifications take place, there will be people like me in the Conservative party who will try to encourage my party to have a referendum. I cannot give the hon. Gentleman a guarantee that that will happen because I am a Back Bencher and do not make such decisions. However, I feel passionately about the matter, and others and I will, of course, try to lobby the Conservative Government on that point.

I will just talk a little bit about the Members of the European Parliament, because they are a very important direct link with British citizens and our relationship with the European Union. Over the past four years, I have repeatedly spoken to organisations throughout my constituency. I have addressed rooms of 300, 400 or 500 people and said, “I will give anyone here £100 if you can name me two of our Members of the European Parliament.” I have not lost a penny to date. Why? Because no one knows who the Members of the European Parliament are in Shropshire. Why is that? Because none of them lives, works or has offices in Shropshire. There is no accountability. I consider it to be very important that I live in the county that I represent, that my office is in Shrewsbury, that my child goes to the local school, that I am part of the community and that people can stop me in the street or the supermarket and talk to me. It is very important for there to be that accountability.

If we are going to have a better relationship with the European Union, we have to make Members of the European Parliament more directly accountable to the people whom they represent. However, that should not be done through a proportional representation system whereby Members of the European Parliament represent a vast area. From an economic perspective, the west midlands is larger than the whole of Wales. That is a huge area. How on earth can someone represent an area of that size and yet still be accountable to the people of Shropshire?

I want to mention my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans), who I think will also make a speech, because he is an assiduous member of the Council of Europe. On the record, I thank him for the tremendous work that he does for that organisation. He has asked me—he is pushing against an open door on this, because I totally agree with him—to formally thank the Czech President for not signing the treaty into existence. I have written an open letter in Polish to the Polish President asking him not to sign the document. For the record, I wish to state that those two politicians are being put under a huge amount of pressure by the Germans and the French to ratify the constitution, because they are desperate for that to be done before a Conservative Government come into office and give a referendum to the British people. So, on the record, and with all the sincerity that I can muster, I thank the Presidents of the Czech Republic and the Republic of Poland for the courage and integrity that they have shown under intense pressure—almost blackmail—to ratify the treaty. I thank them very much, and I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh will also discuss this issue. We need them to hold out until we get into office and can hold a referendum.

Returning to the point that the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) made, the reason why UKIP is wrong is that we have a golden opportunity to change the European Union, whereas it simply wants to pull us out of the entire thing. What a squandered opportunity that would be. I do not want to pull out of the European Union; I want to change it and to challenge the Franco-German hegemony that has been prevalent in the past 40 years. The Franco-German axis has come up with all the strategies and direction of the European Union, but that will be challenged for the first time in our lifetimes, because so many central and eastern European countries are looking to the United Kingdom for leadership. If I were to take you to Warsaw, Mr. Amess, or to Prague, Bucharest or downtown Vilnius, you would see that they look not to Germany for leadership but to the United Kingdom. The British nature is to hide our strength under a bushel, because we are modest people, but the people of eastern and central Europe feel passionately about Britain and the role that it should play in the EU. They want us to form a coalition of support and they want a new European Union that is not federalist, that works closely on counter-terrorism, tackling poverty abroad and illegal immigration, but that nevertheless focuses on ensuring that each country has its own sovereignty.

We must make countries adhere to the rules of the EU. That is another bone of contention for our constituents, as we gold-plate everything that comes out of Brussels. As chairman of the all-party group on dairy farmers, which is one of the largest all-party groups in the House of Commons—I am getting through all my all-party groups today—I must say that the rules on nitrates and other things that are being brought to bear are destroying our dairy sector in the UK. We are gold-plating those rules, whereas some other countries simply ignore them. A specific case in point is the Italian Government’s announcement that they will give $250 million per annum in aid to Libya for the next 20 years. That aid is for road, railway and other major infrastructure construction projects in Libya.

It seems that some of the flaws that the hon. Gentleman is discussing can be addressed only by renegotiating our membership of the European Union. On 2 June, the fabled Jeremy Paxman asked the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague), who was in the studio with him, “Would you renegotiate our membership of the European Union?” to which he replied, “No.” Is the hon. Gentleman encouraged by that comment from someone whom he hopes will be the future Foreign Secretary?

The whole nature of governance is through in-depth negotiations of the sort that take place all the time at regional conferences. I am sure that when my right hon. Friend becomes Foreign Secretary, he will want to negotiate with his counterparts in his own brilliant way to get a European Union that is more akin to the thinking of the British people. I do not understand what the hon. Gentleman is saying, because I know how passionately my right hon. Friend wants a change to the current situation in the European Union.

To get back to my point, why can the Italians give $250 million a year to Libya in tied aid? That cannot be right. I do not believe that European Union countries should do or are allowed to do that; it certainly goes against the spirit of the EU rules. I hope that the Minister will write to me on that, and that he will challenge the Italian authorities about giving that money to Libya in tied aid. As chairman of the all-party group on Libya, and as someone who is passionate about helping British companies to secure infrastructure construction projects, I strongly hope that the Minister will address that issue, because British companies are losing out on vital construction projects.

My hon. Friend makes a good point about Italian practices on overseas aid. Does he share my concern about the Labour party’s great friend and ally in Italy, Silvio Berlusconi, reneging on his commitment to give 0.7 per cent. of gross domestic product in overseas development assistance by 2013?

I do, very much. We are all under huge pressure because of the current economic crisis, but this country and all political parties have adhered to the targets, so I strongly regret that Signor Berlusconi finds it impossible to match such targets.

The EU relationship can be strengthened only if it tackles issues of concern, one of which is illegal immigration from Africa. I recently secured a debate in this Chamber on the Department for International Development’s support for north African countries. It transpired that DFID gives not a penny piece to vitally strategic countries in north Africa, who are neighbours of huge importance. Conversely, the Americans, who realise the importance of Egypt, give them $1.5 billion a year in aid, but we give them nothing. Those countries are grappling with counter-terrorism issues—a British citizen was recently shot dead by al-Qaeda in Mali—and they are dealing with illegal immigration and the tremendous suffering that happens as a result. We see many times on our televisions and in our newspapers the tremendous human suffering of people who cross the Mediterranean in boats to the Canary Islands, Italy, Lampedusa and Malta. The European Union needs to do more to help north African countries deal with the human tragedy that is illegal immigration from north Africa. I hope to hear more from the Minister about what is happening on that issue.

The right to self-determination is something that I feel passionately about as someone who has Polish ancestry. My grandfather’s country did not have self-determination for the whole of his life. Self-determination is one of the issues that drives me more than any other in politics, which is why I want to speak briefly about Gibraltar. We want no more talk of Anglo-Spanish co-operation over any changes to the status of Gibraltar. I hope that when my hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh becomes a Minister, we can give Gibraltar an assurance that it will always be British and that we are proud to have it as part of our family. I hope also that the next Conservative Government will encourage more visits and more royal visits to Gibraltar. I know that my hon. Friend campaigned in Gibraltar during the European Union elections; from what I hear, he went down extremely well there and they were grateful that he went. I wanted to get on the record my thanks to him for that, as well as my great love for the people of Gibraltar.

Finally—because I vowed that I would not speak for more than 30 minutes—let me discuss Turkey. It has been in a crazy situation for decades regarding whether it will join the EU. I want to ask the Minister about the current status of its application to be a member of the EU. What is his understanding of the time frames involved, and what is he doing specifically to support its joining the EU? Turkey is an important NATO ally, and I, for one, feel uncomfortable about the lack of clarity about its membership of the EU.

I have friends in Ankara who say, “Frankly, we are not actually interested any more. We’ve had enough. We’re going to pull the plug on this and go our own way.” People may say what they like about Turkey’s membership of the EU, but I worry about a situation in which Turkey is pulled closer to Syria and Iran. I very much hope that it will remain within the European sphere of influence, and that the Minister will give me an update on what is happening with its membership of the EU.

I thank you, Mr. Amess, for this opportunity, and I look forward to hearing what the Minister will say.

This is a great opportunity for me to contribute to this important debate on the last day before the recess, when—to get the record straight—we go into 82 days of working in our constituencies.

I had rather hoped that, following my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski), I would be able to tell him that I could name two of his MEPs and claim the £100. However, even by cheating and using the Blackberry to ask my researchers to come up with the names, I cannot do so. Even using the internet, we are hard pushed to name the MEPs from his area. I find it much the same when I ask people in the north-west of England to name their MEPs. Many can name their MPs, but, going down a list of seven or eight MEPs, they find it difficult to name just one of them. I appreciated his comments.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

I give way to my honourable neighbour.

Can the hon. Gentleman name one of his former MEPs?

That is the kind of question that could, perhaps, rebound on the hon. Gentleman after the general election. If I were to ask him to name some former MPs, the list would be somewhat longer than the list he is asking me to choose from at this moment.

Like my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham, I am a democrat, and I am concerned that the turnout for the European elections we have just gone through was lower than the turnout for the previous elections and the time before that. In 1979, the turnout was 63 per cent. for the whole of Europe; in 2009, it was 43 per cent. People say that it is just Britain that is Eurosceptic and therefore not interested in what happens in the European Union, but those figures prove that the whole of Europe feels somewhat remote from the institutions that act on its behalf.

In the United Kingdom, the turnout was even more worrying, at 34.3 per cent. Two thirds of the country had something more important to do on the day of the European elections, even though we have made it far easier for them to vote. In the UK, 11 million people voted in the European elections. In 2002, 23 million voted in “Big Brother”. More people in Britain are more interested in what happens on “Big Brother” than in the Big Brother state in Brussels, which actually has more say on how they lead their lives.

I am a democrat; therefore, I am concerned about what is happening in the EU and, indeed, in the UK. My hon. Friend mentioned the referendum on the Lisbon treaty. Tony Blair said that we would have one, but, in his dying days as Prime Minister, he said, “By the way, there will not be a referendum.” That is one of the greatest denials of democracy that I have seen in this country in the 51 years I have been alive. Everyone knows that the Lisbon treaty is exactly the same as the constitution, apart from one or two words. The French, the Dutch and the Irish said no to it. I am staggered that the French were told that they could not have another vote, and the Dutch “no” was also ignored.

Ireland keeps getting it wrong. I do not know what is wrong with it. It did the same in respect of the Nice treaty, but, fortunately, had another go and got it right that time—as far as Brussels was concerned. If I were Irish, I would feel somewhat aggrieved that my voice in a referendum is being ignored. We hear the great democrats of Europe ask, “Why should one country be able to block this treaty when the other 26 wish it to go ahead?” That is the system. They need unanimity of the 27 countries. They should not try to change the rules simply because one country is deemed to have got it wrong.

I must point out that I used a bit of irony when I intervened on my hon. Friend earlier, just in case someone thinks that I actually believed what I said about three countries getting it wrong and one country getting it right. I actually think that the referendum in Ireland was poignant. I hope that when the Irish are forced to have another referendum—I believe that it will be on 2 October—they will stand firm and vote as they did last time. They will be doing not only themselves but democracy a favour if they say “no” again. My great suspicion is that, if they do, the wonderful, nameless bureaucrats will take the Lisbon treaty to one side, salami-slice it and then introduce it bit by bit through the back door, as if the vote had never mattered. It is appalling that parts of the Lisbon treaty are already being introduced, even though it does not have the unanimous vote that it requires.

As my hon. Friend said, the Czech President, the Poles and, indeed, even the Germans—the treaty is going through their constitutional courts—are clearly showing greater care for democracy than has been shown by several other countries, and certainly by Europe generally.

I feel uneasy, to say the least, that we have an unelected Prime Minister who is trying to push a general election in this country into the long grass so that the Lisbon treaty can be ratified by the 27 countries before Britain has a general election. That is because the Conservative party is committed to having a referendum on it if it has not been ratified by then. And then, to have another unelected person—Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead, who was recently appointed to the House of Lords—say on behalf of the British people that we will support Tony Blair as president of the EU when the position has not yet been created is quite stunning. The lack of democracy in every stage of this is amazing.

As a member of the Council of Europe, I spend some of my time visiting some of the 47 member states to talk about democracy and observe their elections. I tell them how important the rule of law is, yet it seems that it does not really matter for us. I feel incredibly uneasy about that.

We all believed, when the French, the Dutch and the Irish said “no”, that the treaty was dead, but the walking corpse has had some life breathed into it, and we may well see it become a reality for the whole of Europe—for all 27 countries. I hope that that will not happen.

The EU is an important institution, but many of my constituents say that it has been transformed into a creature that they did not wish to see. The hon. Member for North-West Leicestershire (David Taylor) said that in the 1975 referendum he voted against, as many did. The vast majority of people whom I speak to did not have an opportunity to vote in that referendum because they had not reached voting age. They have never had a referendum on Europe, yet over the years they have seen it transformed into something akin to a united states of Europe, which is what some, including Hans-Gert Pöttering, wish to see.

Many of those who voted yes in 1975 voted for a Europe of independent sovereign nation states trading together, but with their own sovereign Governments who would conduct the laws that pertained mostly to them from their own countries. However, year by year, treaty by treaty, we have seen this ebb away and we now have a creature that few people, including Ted Heath, would ever have recognised as the organisation that existed when he took us into Europe in 1973. Ted Heath fought the ’75 referendum by saying that it was a Europe of trading states, and that that was all it was. Clearly, it has turned into something far more than that.

We have learned the word “subsidiarity”, which has come into our parlance, but we are not acting on it. I hope that a future Conservative Government will take subsidiarity to heart and ensure that, in the ongoing set of negotiations that is the European Union, we return vital powers back to the nation states and closer to the people—that is the sort of devolution I believe in—instead of more power being attracted to the centre, which we have already proven is fairly remote from the vast majority of people in the country.

I shall end by talking, as my hon. Friend did, about EU enlargement. The Council of Europe comprises 47 countries, many of which have had problems, such as Georgia, which has faced hostilities on its borders from another Council of Europe country—Russia. Many of those countries would dearly love to join the EU. Fortunately, two of the more recent entrants to the EU, the Czech Republic and Poland, have shown that they are no pushover when it comes to the rights of their countries and their peoples. I, too, want to see Europe expanding. I want a wider Europe, not a deeper one. I want many of the Balkan states neighbouring us to join the EU as soon as possible, including Croatia, which will hopefully be the next country to join, Montenegro, Serbia, Macedonia, Albania and Kosovo. I look forward to countries such as Turkey being able to join at the appropriate time.

It will not be the same Europe. It is almost impossible for us to talk about all the countries that will have joined Europe having the same access to labour markets as is currently the case. When Romania and Bulgaria joined we learned the lesson that we failed to learn when the other 10 countries joined. Whereas France and Germany protected their countries with derogations on people being able to settle and work there, we did not, and—surprise, surprise—several hundred thousand people from those 10 countries settled in the United Kingdom. Many of those people did so positively and have contributed to our economy.

Roughly 500,000 Poles are living in the United Kingdom as a result of Poland’s membership of the EU. I welcome their contribution, but I have repeatedly asked the Polish Government to invest more in consular and embassy staff to help those citizens, because a lot of them have to ask for support from British Members of Parliament, whereas the responsibility for helping them really should still lie with Poland. The Polish authorities should do more to support them here.

That is spoken from the heart by a man who probably gets a disproportionate amount of correspondence from Polish citizens in the UK—they know he is fluent in the Polish language—and who, I suspect, has become a sort of icon for the 500,000 Poles who live in the UK and are looking for help. I appreciate my hon. Friend’s point. Poland has to recognise the extra work load created when so many people from their country come to the UK.

More importantly, we welcomed Poland and a number of other countries into the EU to assist them to grow and prosper and to lessen the magnet effect of other EU countries on their people, leading them to leave their own. The French and the Germans got it right, because they ensured that there was a 10-year period during which the cohesion funds going into Poland, for example, would at least have a chance to work. We just said, “Open the doors”, and coaches full of young Poles come to Victoria station, up the road, looking for opportunities in the UK. Yes, many of them have now returned to Poland, because they do not regard Britain as the golden place, as in the picture that was painted for them. Still, a considerable number of people have come here. At least we put the derogations in place in respect of Bulgaria and Romania. If we went down the road of accepting the Balkan states and then included Turkey, we would need to have safeguards to ensure that a fair chunk of people from Turkey, for instance, did not uproot themselves and plant themselves in the rest of the EU. That is the great fear in Germany and France, which is why Sarkozy has been making some of his pronouncements.

The next general election will soon be upon us and, if the Lisbon treaty has not been ratified, that will give an enormous opportunity for the British people to have their first say since 1975 on how they wish their country to develop. When the Minister responds to the debate, he has an opportunity to reinforce my suspicion, which is that the real and only reason why the British people are not having the referendum on the Lisbon treaty is that the Government have done their private polling and know what the result would be. Polls on the Lisbon treaty referendum have said that up to 70 per cent. of the British people would have voted no. Rather than the British people having their democratic say and rejecting the Lisbon treaty, as has happened in three other countries, they have been denied the vote. That is an absolute disgrace.

If the Lisbon treaty is ratified, I will, like my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham, press my party to consider giving a post-ratification referendum so that the British people will have their final say on whether they wished to have the Lisbon treaty foisted on them in this undemocratic fashion. If the British people say no, as I suspect they will, that gives us a wonderful bargaining chip with the rest of the EU in future negotiations to get the sort of Europe that is for the benefit of the British people and for generations to come in the United Kingdom.

The future is exciting for Europe if we get it right. At the moment, we are getting it wrong.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski) on securing this debate. Although at times the debate so far suggests that hon. Members may be a little bit demob happy, he made some interesting points that I agree with. I strongly agree that Britain should be in the EU. He may be surprised to know that, as Liberal Democrat spokesman on foreign affairs, I believe that the EU should be reformed. I would enjoy a debate with the hon. Gentleman on all the different reforms that we might have. He may be interested to know that I believe that some powers could potentially return, but that would have to be done in renegotiations with our partners. I will come back to that point in a second. I also agree that one problem is that we in this country have gold-plated EU legislation when directives come down to Whitehall. We are our own worst enemy when it comes to many aspects of how European Union law works.

It is incumbent on all Members of Parliament to try to explain why there is so much European law. Parties such as UKIP—I know that the hon. Gentleman opposes its position—try to suggest that Europe is taking over law-making. That is simply not true as one finds when one analyses not the numbers but the type of law. One reason why Europe has passed so many directives recently is that it deals with trade issues in the internal market—the single market. Anyone who is familiar with the history of law development, whether in the European Union, Britain, the United States or any other developed market economy knows that there are more laws, particularly detailed regulations, covering trade and economic issues than almost any other area. It is not surprising in a single market that more laws have been passed at European Union level. That does not mean that Europe is highly regulated—on the contrary.

An example that I often use is the directive on strawberries. Anti-Europeans say that it shows how mad the European Union is to pass a law on strawberries, but before that there was a British law on strawberries, a Danish law on strawberries and a French law on strawberries. There were 15 or 27 laws on strawberries—on what constitutes a strawberry, and what can be sold by strawberry growers or retailers. Those laws have been stripped away, and there is one law, so that strawberry growers of Kent and elsewhere do not have to have different punnets of strawberries going to Belgium, Holland and France. They can have the same punnets, which is helpful to trade.

European laws have inevitably been numerous because they have dealt with trade, but they have also been deregulatory because there has been a bonfire of member states’ laws. That vital fact is rarely stated, and I am grateful to the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) for providing the opportunity for me to air that argument.

[Mr. Eric Martlew in the Chair]

In raising the matter today, the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham inevitably focused our attention on the Conservative party’s policy on the European Union and what it might be if the Conservatives ever came to power. He and the hon. Member for Ribble Valley talked about their support for a post-ratification referendum if the Lisbon treaty is ratified before that event, and I look forward to the comments of the hon. Member for Rayleigh (Mr. Francois). I am sure that he will make clear the Conservative party’s position, so I will not put words into his mouth. I am interested to know whether he will talk about its strategy to renegotiate Britain’s relationship with the European Union, and how it has been building influence in Europe in recent weeks to make that more possible.

When framing foreign policy, a Government must consider their relationship with Europe’s capitals—Berlin, Rome, Madrid—and particularly with Washington. If the Conservative party believes that it will have more influence in the White House because it has less influence in Berlin, Paris, Madrid and Rome, it must be stark, staring bonkers. The major stake to the heart of the Conservatives’ attitude to their whole foreign policy is their inability to put forward a coherent, consistent and credible policy with key Conservative European Governments and parties.

How would the hon. Gentleman characterise the Liberal Democrats’ relationship with Washington?

It is extremely good. If the hon. Gentleman had joined me at the Democratic convention in Denver he would have seen that there were more Liberal Democrat MPs there than Conservative and Labour MPs put together.

I turn to business’s view of the Conservative party’s position on leaving the European People’s party.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

In a moment.

British Chambers of Commerce is alarmed and said in the Financial Times on 24 June that

“having so many UK MEPs outside the mainstream groupings is a worry for business.”

Its head of European representation said that time will tell whether the new alliance will prove successful, but at the moment it looks somewhat fragile. I shall talk about fragility in a moment.

During my speech, I tried not to say anything derogatory about the Liberal Democrats, but the hon. Gentleman has started to criticise the Conservative party. I want to raise two issues. First, why did his party vote against giving the British people a referendum? His party’s support for the Government prevented the British people from having that referendum. Not many people realise that. Secondly, why did so few people—only 15 per cent.—vote for his party in the European Union elections?

The hon. Gentleman should be careful about the latter point. He knows that all the major parties saw their vote fall from what was predicted in the polls. On the referendum, he should know—I believe that he attended many of the debates on the Lisbon treaty—that the Liberal Democrats supported a referendum on whether we should be in or out of the European Union, and we had an exchange on that. Our reason was that that was closest to our 2005 manifesto commitment. The constitutional treaty, unlike what members of the Conservative party often say, is not the same as the Lisbon treaty on key constitutional issues.

The constitutional treaty contained the Maastricht treaty, the treaty of Amsterdam, the treaty of Nice, the treaty of Rome and the Single European Act in one document. To vote on that is to vote on the whole European Union. The Lisbon treaty is minor. It is an amending treaty, not a constitutional treaty. It is not about whether one agrees with the whole of the European Union’s rules as built up over decades; the constitutional treaty, however, was. A referendum on being in or out of the EU was far closer to our pledge.

Goebbels was right in saying that propaganda is repeating the same lie—[Interruption.] Misrepresentation —I was talking about the Conservative party, not individuals.

The hon. Gentleman will know that when the former President of the European Parliament, Hans-Gert Pöttering, gave a speech to the Council of Europe he said that the document was virtually the same as the one the French, Dutch and Irish rejected. Indeed, the vast majority of European politicians rather like the Lisbon treaty, and when they talk about it in their own countries they reassure people that it is virtually the same document. Only in the United Kingdom do we carry on with the pretence that somehow the document before us is different.

Order. Interventions should be short.

Again, I refer the hon. Gentleman to our debates on the Lisbon treaty, because many people had a completely different view.

The realpolitik at the time was that the Labour Government would never allow a referendum on whether we should be members of the European Union. By not voting with us, the hon. Gentleman’s party lost a golden opportunity to give the British people a referendum on the constitution. Surely he knew at the time that the Government would never allow such a referendum.

The hon. Gentleman should have backed our call. We would then have had a much stronger case, and the Government would have been on a much weaker wicket.

The key issue—I am sure the hon. Member for Rayleigh will address it—is the Conservative party’s decision to leave the European People’s party in the European Parliament. Elected Conservative Members of Parliament and those in Brussels have described that as “stupid”, moving the Conservatives to the “wild fringes”, “crazy” and “head-banging”, the final description being that of the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke).

Let us be clear. A vast majority of respected Conservatives believe that the party’s current position is crazy. Why did it occur in the first place? The European Parliament does not have the power to change EU treaties, nor can it or MEPs make the EU more federalist. That can be done only by negotiation, subject to the unanimity laws, between member states. Why it was so difficult for British Conservatives to sit on the same benches as the MEPs of Chancellor Merkel and President Sarkozy is beyond me, particularly as Chancellor Merkel’s views are probably the closest of any German leader since the second world war to those of the modern British Conservative party.

The situation is even more bizarre because the European People’s party, after quite a big victory for centre-right parties across the European Union, is at its strongest in the European Parliament, and it is at this moment that the British Conservatives decided to leave, so they have chosen isolationism over influence. That will hobble a future Conservative Government.

Any grouping in the European Parliament must have 25 MEPs from seven member states. Following the decision of the Finnish MEP who had been recruited to leave the new grouping after a few days, having met his erstwhile colleagues, the new grouping has only seven member states represented and four of those seven have only one MEP.

The hon. Gentleman is incorrect: there are eight.

Oh, there are eight—it changes day by day. We can never quite tell. One day, we have former leaders of the Conservative group, people such as Edward McMillan-Scott, who are members of the Tory party, and then we do not. We have to keep track, and I apologise for not being quite as up to date as I needed to be, but the key point remains that four members of the new group have a single MEP. It only needs two of them to leave and then the group folds, so the instability—the fragility that the member of the British Chambers of Commerce referred to in the Financial Times last month—is still there. That cannot be a sensible way of going on.

The Conservatives told us that the new grouping would mean a big voice for the British Conservatives, so what have they gained since the elections? They still have only one chair of a committee. That is all that they had in the past. They have not gained any new chairs; their voice has not got any bigger. However, they have reduced voting strength on all the committees, so their voice cannot be heard when they are voting on legislation. Even the leader of their group, who was to be a Conservative MEP, has had to become a Polish MEP. The influence of the Conservative MEPs has been reduced.

I would have liked to go on about all the different members of the new grouping and their particular policy preferences, but I will not, because of time. They have already been rehearsed and I would like to give the Minister a chance to rehearse them, as I am sure he would like to do. I shall therefore end on an issue of policy that is relevant to how Britain is involved with the European Union, and to future issues that will challenge the next Government on both foreign policy and expenditure; we all know the expenditure problems. The issue relates to defence.

I refer hon. Members not to Liberal Democrat policy, but to an article by the right hon. and learned Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Sir Malcolm Rifkind) in the Financial Times last week entitled “Britain must work with Europeans on defence”. In the article, the former Conservative Foreign Secretary talks about the importance of European colleagues working together far more effectively on issues such as defence procurement, and in terms of ensuring that commonality is achieved in equipment, weaponry, armour and so on. He talks about the huge savings that could be reaped. He also talks about making our own Army far more effective. He talks about it being able to work more closely with other armies, particularly that of France, which does take its defence policy seriously, but also with others as, it is hoped, they begin to do so as well.

That ought to go to the heart of political debate—the security and the finance of our nation. We have to work with our European colleagues, and with rather more enthusiasm and with some semblance of influence. I think that the British Conservatives are about to sell our country down the river.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Martlew. I begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski) on securing this important debate. He criticised the possible appointment of Tony Blair as President of the EU, and I will certainly want to return to that theme. I commend my hon. Friend for his assiduous membership of a number of all-party groups; he is clearly a very hard-working Member of Parliament.

My hon. Friend raised, among other things, Gibraltar. I can tell him that one of the first all-party groups that I joined when I came to this place in 2001 was the all-party group on Gibraltar. Gibraltar and the desire of the Gibraltarians to remain British will always be something that is close to my heart. I intend to fight very hard for that should I ever have the honour of becoming a Minister in the Foreign Office. I hope that my hon. Friend takes some reassurance from that.

I also commend my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans), who made a typically passionate contribution. He raised several issues, including enlargement. He made the point that a number of countries look forward to the possibility of joining the European Union—of having an EU prospective, as it is often put. He also raised what happened in Bulgaria and Romania. People in all parties in this country and in many other countries in the EU have learned lessons from that. In essence, the lesson is that if we attempt to bring in countries to meet an arbitrary timetable, the risk is that we bring those countries in before the process of reform has been fully completed. That lesson has been learned across the EU, and we now talk about conditionality rather than arbitrary timetables. In simple terms, if further reform has to take place, it is better that it takes place before a country is admitted to the EU rather than afterwards, because there is still a degree of leverage to argue for reform before it comes in and it is difficult to get that reform once it has been admitted. It is fair to say that that lesson has been learned by many countries of the EU. It is hoped that a number of the countries mentioned by my hon. Friend can undertake the reform that might be necessary to allow them one day to join the EU.

Will my hon. Friend give way?

I have a lot to say, but I will give way.

Will my hon. Friend also accept that it is important to take the peoples of those countries with us as well? If it is ever gleaned by the people that they are being dragged by the nose in a certain direction but the chances of them ever joining are remote—Turkey is a perfect example of that—we run the risk of those peoples turning against the European Union and against the whole concept of what we are trying to create.

My hon. Friend’s point is well made. It remains the Conservative party’s position that we support, in principle, Turkish membership of the European Union. He is right to raise the prospect of some frustration in Turkey about what I think people there perceive as problems being put in their way by certain other countries in the European Union. We run the risk that if those problems pertain for any length of time, people in Turkey will begin to lose faith in the possibility of membership. My hon. Friend therefore sounds an important warning in the debate, and I hope that the Minister will take that warning on board.

I want to follow the remarks by my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham about the possibility of the former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, becoming the President of the European Union. That really came to light last Thursday following an extraordinarily candid admission by Lady Kinnock, the new Minister for Europe:

“The UK government is supporting Tony Blair’s candidature for president of the Council.”

The post of EU President does not exist at present, but the creation of the post by the Lisbon treaty and now the former Prime Minister’s candidature have huge potential consequences for the way in which the EU is run, for our relationship with the EU and, given Tony Blair’s relationship with the present Prime Minister, for British domestic politics as well. Of course, we are opposed to the Lisbon treaty, so we do not want the post to be created at all. It is particularly presumptuous of the Labour party to raise the prospect of his having the job before the treaty is even ratified.

The post of EU President, were it ever to come about, would, particularly in the hands of a well known and ambitious politician such as Mr. Blair, have the potential to become a very powerful yet, importantly, unelected office. That raises real concerns. I would therefore like, as part of this debate on how we might interrelate with the rest of the EU, to consider his record and what he might do were he ever able to assume that office.

The former Prime Minister will be remembered for many things. One thing that he will be remembered for is the surrender of £7.2 billion of the British rebate—that was British taxpayers’ money—for very little in return. That surrender followed a now familiar pattern from Labour of initially defiant rhetoric for media consumption, followed by surrender and subsequent spin to try to make up for it. To summarise, Downing street assured us in 2005 that the rebate was not up for negotiation. The former Prime Minister promised Parliament:

“The UK rebate will remain and we will not negotiate it away. Period.”—[Official Report, 8 June 2005; Vol. 434, c. 1234.]

When asked whether the rebate was justified and non-negotiable, the current Prime Minister replied, “Yes”. He went on to say:

“there will have to be the rebate and the reason is that even if you decided to negotiate down the Common Agricultural Policy...there would still be that period where we were paying far more because other people were getting the benefit—not just of the Common Agricultural Policy but of Structural and Cohesion Funds.”

However, that rhetoric soon turned into the reality of a Labour EU climbdown. On 21 June 2005, the former Prime Minister said:

“we have made it clear all the way through that we are prepared, not just to discuss and negotiate upon, but to recognise that the rebate is an anomaly that has to go, but it has got to go in the context of the other anomaly being changed as well.”

However, that did not happen. In his statement attempting to justify the new deal, the former Prime Minister claimed success, saying:

“we also agreed on a fundamental review of all aspects of the EU budget, including the common agricultural policy…it is then possible for changes to be made to this budget structure in the course of this financing period.”—[Official Report, 19 December 2005; Vol. 440, c. 1564.]

In practice, however, that so-called fundamental review of the CAP, which was promised to Parliament, was downgraded to a non-binding health check, which has not led to genuine reform. We were sorely let down, and £7.2 billion of our money was given away with virtually nothing in return. If the former Prime Minister became the EU President, therefore, Britain would be left facing a powerful President with a track record of failing to stand up for Britain’s interests in Europe.

The former Prime Minister’s record should also be examined with regard to his role in forcing the Lisbon treaty on the British people without the referendum that he had promised them. As we know, the treaty represents a significant transfer of power from member states to the EU’s central institutions. That includes the loss of 60 vetoes and the creation of a European diplomatic service, a Foreign Minister in all but name, a charter of fundamental rights and an EU President. The treaty is nearly identical to the EU constitution that Blair promised would be put to the British people in a referendum.

Let me pick up the point that the Liberal Democrat spokesman, the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey), made about the Lisbon treaty. He attempted to argue that the treaty and the constitution are markedly different, but they are not, and he does not need to take that from me. He can take it from the former Irish Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, who said that they are 90 per cent. the same. He can take it from the Spanish Foreign Minister, who said that they are 98 per cent. the same. He can take it from the Spanish Prime Minister, who literally went one better, saying that they are 99 per cent. the same. He can take it from Chancellor Merkel, who has been mentioned several times today. She said:

“The substance of the Constitution has been maintained.”

He can even take it from the Prime Minister. Shortly after taking up his new post, the Prime Minister had a meeting with the Taoiseach. At the subsequent press conference, he was asked what they had been talking about. He replied:

“the European constitution and how that can move forward over the next few months.”

Even the Prime Minister therefore knows that the treaty and the constitution are essentially the same. It is—I choose my words carefully—disingenuous of the Liberal Democrats to pretend that they are materially different, so that they can get out of the referendum that they solemnly promised the British people in their 2005 general election manifesto.

Hear, hear.

Order. Hon. Members need to be quiet.

I am sorry, Mr. Martlew, I appear to be enthusing my hon. Friends that bit too much. Nevertheless, the Liberal Democrats have tried to wriggle out of their promise. They tried to make the same case on the Lisbon treaty in the European elections, and they were ritually slaughtered for their trouble, so we will take no lectures from them about the treaty.

Tony Blair’s possible candidature was not really an issue in the European elections, and I do not remember it cropping up very much. However, the elections were one example of the British people having at least some say over the European policies of this country’s different parties. Although the elections saw socialist party policies across Europe being rejected, the people’s rejection of the Labour party in Britain was particularly decisive. The Labour party did worse than its socialist brethren in France or Spain; it got just over half the MEPs that the Italian socialists did; and it achieved a similar result to that of the German Social Democrats, the SPD, despite the fact that the SPD had its worst election result since the second world war. In the new European Parliament, the British Labour delegation will rank as only the sixth-largest party in the Socialist group, only just ahead of the Romanian Socialists, who have 10 seats. As I understand it, although the Minister may correct me, the Labour party will have no committee chairmanships in the European Parliament. Given that my party has at least one, therefore, it is rich for the Government to criticise us.

On our relationship with the EU, we would like to hear from the Minister what the position of Labour MEPs will be on the working time directive in the new Parliament and perhaps under a new Commission— whatever happens to the Lisbon treaty, there will have to be a new Commission. As the Minister knows, I have raised this issue with him before. The UK’s opt-out from the working time directive—the opt-out is now used by 15 different EU countries—affects the jobs of 3 million people in this country. This is not, therefore, some esoteric debate, because the issue matters to the employment of millions of people in the UK. In the crunch vote a year ago, most Labour MEPs, including the woman who now leads them in the European Parliament, voted to get rid of the opt-out, although a few voted to retain it. It is likely that we will return to the issue, so it is important to press the Minister on exactly where Labour MEPs stand.

When my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) became the leader of the Conservative party, he said that we would form a new grouping in the European Parliament. In effect, he gave three years’ notice that we would do that, so it is not something that we decided to do overnight. Many people, including several Ministers, the Liberal Democrats and several commentators in the media, said that we would never do that, but we have. We have established a new grouping, which has 54 Members of the European Parliament representing eight EU countries. If we look at the balance of power in the Parliament—I know that the Minister studies these things—we can see that that grouping will have quite significant influence and could be a swing voting grouping on particularly important votes.

I will conclude now, so the Minister has a chance to make a contribution—[Interruption.] Well, I want to give him at least 13 minutes. I leave him with this thought. A GfK NOP poll at the weekend asked people whether they wanted Tony Blair to be the EU President. Some 25 per cent. said yes, but 54 per cent. said no. If the Government intend to take any notice of the slaughter inflicted on them in the European elections by the people of this country, they should pay some heed to those figures and change course.

It is a delight to sit under your chairmanship, Mr. Martlew. I am afraid that I will have to rather rush through things because so many different matters have been raised.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski) on securing the debate. I should tell him that I do know who the Welsh MEPs are; indeed, I know two of them—Derek Vaughan and Jill Evans—personally, although I do not know John Bufton and Kay Swinburne. I also happen to know who the hon. Gentleman’s MEPs are: Mike Nattrass, Malcolm Harbour, Philip Bradbourn, Nikki Sinclaire, Liz Lynne and Michael Cashman.

The Minister asked a friend.

The hon. Gentleman suggests that I have a better researcher than he does, and he is quite right.

It is good formally to confirm on behalf of those of us in the Chamber that the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham is a Polish icon. He is much respected in the House—I mean this seriously—for many of the issues that he raises and for his relationship with Poland. There are not many fluent Polish speakers in the House, and I know that the hon. Gentleman also speaks Swedish. Hon. Members who come here from many different parts of the world with their own family history often add something to the way in which we do our business.

The hon. Gentleman will know that our relationship with Poland is a strong and historic one. That is particularly true as regards the second world war, but it was also the case before. As he will know, we have just opened a new embassy in Warsaw at a cost of £35 million, and we are very much committed to our strong relationship with Poland. Polish and British troops often fight together, in places around the world, and there is a strong link. It is a delight to see that shopping habits in Britain have changed—that there are Polish sausages on our supermarket shelves. In 2007, Poland imported £47 million of British food—an increase of 54 per cent. I am told that a large amount of that is Marmite.

One thing rather let down the hon. Gentleman’s speech. He accused the Labour Government of arrogance, but he presumed on the British public on about five occasions, talking about when someone would be the Minister, and when there would be a Conservative Government. That shows the arrogance lying beneath. He may not want to own up, but it is a matter of motes and beams.

The hon. Gentleman raised the issue of Department for International Development aid to north Africa, and said that it is wrong that we do not provide aid in the way that Italy is providing it to Libya. We do not agree with tied aid of that kind. It is inappropriate, and we shall lobby throughout the European Union to ensure that that does not happen. Likewise, one of the things of which I am most proud is that when Labour came to power we said we would not tie the aid that we provided to other countries to contracts secured by British companies. Instead we would tie it to two things, and the first of those was good governance; we would not simply put money into the pockets of corrupt Governments, even though they might represent very poor areas. Secondly, we said that we would target our aid at the poorest countries in the world. If anything, one of our criticisms of other European countries has been that they have tended merely to provide aid to countries with which they have a historic link. That is inappropriate because if we are to meet the millennium development goals we must target our money at the poorest countries.

The hon. Gentleman referred to Iceland and its continuing process of trying to join the European Union. Obviously, we are delighted that Iceland will submit an application for membership. We do not think that it should be linked, directly or indirectly, to banking and the crisis earlier in the year. The Government are working to try to overcome the difficulties that charities and individuals have had because of the collapse of Icelandic banks.

Will the Minister give way?

I am very hesitant to, because I have a very short time. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman can raise things with me after the debate; I have to deal with about 20 other things that he has already raised with me.

The hon. Gentleman raised the issue of ratification, and so did other hon. Members. That is, of course, an issue in Germany: in the Bundestag on 26 August there will be the First Reading of the changes to the law that it believes it needs to proceed with ratification. The Second and Third Readings will be on 8 September in the Bundestag and on 18 September in the Bundesrat. We hope that the Czech Republic and Poland will proceed to ratification, notwithstanding the charming letter that the hon. Gentleman sent to the Polish President.

The hon. Gentleman raised the matter of Gibraltar, as did the hon. Member for Rayleigh (Mr. Francois). I do not know whether he is aware that there are trilateral meetings today between the Spanish Government, the UK Foreign Ministers and Peter Caruana, on behalf of Gibraltar. There are several issues, and the process is a serious one, which can only redound to the benefit of the people of Gibraltar. We are engaging on issues to do with financial services and taxation, customs, police co-operation, education and so on. The self-determination of the people in Gibraltar must obviously be at the heart of the trilateral relationship. The British Government have no intention of changing that.

Will the hon. Gentleman assure us that in those meetings Her Majesty’s Government will raise the important issue of Spanish vessels making incursions into Gibraltar’s territorial waters?

Those issues have already been raised, and we shall continue to raise them, as well as environmental issues that have come up in the past few months, on which we believe the Spanish Government have not acted appropriately, and on which we disagree with them. We can have disagreements with strong allies.

The hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham raised the issue of renegotiation of Britain’s membership of the European Union. I want to say to him and the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans), who is immensely charming but always wrong—on these issues anyway—that renegotiation can happen only if we persuade all the other members of the European Union that they want to renegotiate. Talks of bargaining chips, referendums, post-ratification referendums and the rest of it are cloud cuckoo land unless another single country, to start with, and, in the end, all the other countries in the EU, can be persuaded that they want to go through the process of treaty renegotiation. In my view, the European Union has been too obsessed in the past five or 10 years with treaties and institutional arrangements and it would be better if it were more focused on the real needs of the peoples of our countries. That means an appropriate level of subsidiarity so that member states can make the decisions that are important for them. However, it also means that on key areas of co-operation we must all bind together.

The hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) referred to work that was done by the former Conservative Foreign Secretary, the right hon. and learned Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Sir Malcolm Rifkind), and he is right that there are major areas in which we still have to develop further levels of co-operation. In defence areas the basis of that would always be unanimity—it would have to mean member states taking clear decisions about whether they wanted to take part in military intervention. However, there must surely be a greater opportunity for us in greater, enhanced co-operation.

The hon. Members for Shrewsbury and Atcham and for Rayleigh raised the issue of Turkey. We are fully committed to Turkey’s membership of the European Union; it is important. Of course, many issues must be resolved. The hon. Member for Ribble Valley referred to migration. He is right that one of the focuses of the concept of the European Union was the freedom for people to live and work where they chose within it. That is essential to a free, open and single market. However, we must ensure that migration patterns across the European Union are not so intense that any one country feels overburdened, or, for that matter, over-denuded, with respect to the working population. Of course that is right. One of the many reasons for our support for a very important round of talks in Copenhagen, at which we must get a clear resolution on climate change issues, is that the danger of climate change, in particular if sea levels rise because of the increased temperature of the globe, is that because some of the poorest people in the world live in the lowest-lying areas, they may be pushed into patterns of significant migration. We do not believe that that would be sustainable, and that is why we want to fight climate change.

The hon. Member for Ribble Valley raised issues about enlargement and Croatia, Serbia, Kosovo and Bosnia, and I do not know that I can cover all of those now, but I want to return, as the Liberal Democrat spokesman thought I might, to the question of the Conservative grouping in the European Parliament. Is it not fascinating that the Conservatives decided to eschew the most important and significant Members of the European Parliament, with whom they might have had historic associations, in France, Germany, Italy and Spain, and decided instead, out of an ideological obsession, to work not in the British interest but in that of their ideology, and to stitch up a new grouping on the sidelines of the European Parliament? Fascinatingly, of course, we now know that part of that stitch-up was making sure that Mr. Kaminski would be one of the vice-presidents of the European Parliament. Unfortunately, so incompetent was the negotiation waged by the hon. Member for Rayleigh that those involved knew Mr. Kaminski would not get anywhere near the vice-presidency; consequently, Mr. Edward McMillan-Scott, one of the wisest members of the Conservative party, decided he had to stand. He secured the vice-presidency, in the British interest, I would suggest. That meant greater influence, because the vice-presidents play an important role in the way the European Parliament does its business.

There are major issues about Mr. Kaminski. Only this weekend, Rabbi Barry Marcus, of the Central synagogue in London, condemned the Conservatives’ association with Mr. Kaminski, who is now, of course, their leader in the European Parliament. They organise a new group and cannot even sort out making sure that one of their own Members is the leader. What does that suggest about what a future Conservative Government might get up to?

Will the Minister give way?

No; there are barely seconds left. Rabbi Barry Marcus of the Central synagogue—

Order.

Thank you for calling me to speak, Mr. Martlew; I was just beginning to enjoy the exchanges at the end of the previous debate. It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the last time in this Session, before we all retreat to what the newspapers say will be an 82-day holiday. I know that it will not be an 82-day holiday for you, Mr. Martlew, nor will it be for the Minister or myself. In my case, that will be not least because of some of the issues that I will outline in the coming minutes. I am pleased to say, though, that I will not have to go at this debate with as much gusto as I thought I might have to a few weeks ago, when I requested it, because some good progress has been made since then. I am very pleased about that progress and I will talk about it in a moment.

In the past eight years, since I have been the Member of Parliament for Gloucester, there has been a very good story to tell about regeneration in the city of Gloucester. Since I was elected as the MP for Gloucester in 2001, we have seen £35 million spent on a new Gloucester Royal hospital and about £20 million spent on a university campus at Oxstalls in my constituency, with the university of Gloucestershire being given university status for the first time. In addition, we have seen about £20 million spent on creating a state-of-the-art new police headquarters in Quedgeley in my constituency. As part of the urban regeneration in Gloucester, we have seen a £35 million further education college—Gloucestershire college—built on the shores of the Sharpness canal, which was a project that I was intimately involved in. I think that that project has been one of the catalysts for the wider regeneration of the Gloucester docks.

Since 2001, we have also had a very good relationship with the regional development agency. In the past 10 years, we have had about £35 million in capital and revenue expenditure, which certainly would not have happened if we had had a Conservative Government. The Conservatives do not believe in RDAs. That sum of £35 million has made a huge difference, not only because of what one can do with £35 million but because it has acted as a stimulus, working alongside an urban regeneration company that has been set up in recent years to lever in other moneys, not least private sector finance, of which we have had about £300 million. In total, as a consequence of all that investment, we are looking towards a £1 billion regeneration of Gloucester.

We have had our ups and downs in recent years. At a time when the Government are talking about a fiscal stimulus, I would urge my right hon. Friend the Minister to see what we have done in Gloucester. That is one of the biggest ups. The Minister may bring the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government with her, by all means. I think he would be delighted to see the work that has gone on in Gloucester, in terms of keeping jobs in the construction industry, by building a £140 million designer outlet centre, with 100 new designer outlet shops, in the Gloucester docks. The jobs in that centre and those associated with it probably equate to about 1,000 jobs in total.

In May this year, unemployment actually went down in the city of Gloucester. It was up again slightly in June, but the work that has taken place in and around the regeneration area, including a new Sainsbury’s store that has opened on the other side of the Sharpness canal, has created, as I said, a very significant number of jobs. The designer outlet centre was opened, as I am sure my right hon. Friend the Minister will know, by Gok Wan. She will be very aware of his talents, as I am sure you are, Mr. Martlew; I can see that you are wearing one of your finer suits today, which I am sure that Gok Wan would approve of.

On the downside, however, we know that RDA budgets have been raided by the Government. I understand why that has happened. At a time of recession, it is only right and proper that Governments want to keep people in their homes and want to keep people in work. So we have seen tens of millions of pounds taken from RDA budgets and used in projects based around housing and employment. We in Gloucester have benefited from some of those projects too, so I entirely understand why that has happened.

We have been through a process with the South West of England Regional Development Agency in which it wanted us, with our urban regeneration company, to make a pitch for the key projects that we need to keep money coming into. Today’s debate is actually the second part of a debate that I initiated in Westminster Hall on 13 May, which was with the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Claire Ward), who was acting as the Minister then. I offer my congratulations to her; she did so well that she is now a Minister in her own right. I am sure that the Minister for Regional Economic Development and Co-ordination, my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster, Central (Ms Winterton), who is here today, and I will work so well together, not least with officials at the central project review group within the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, that it will only mean good news for her, and she will be in the Cabinet in no time at all after this debate, if the precedent of my hon. Friend the Member for Watford is anything to go by.

We made the case in that debate on 13 May and to the RDA a few months ago for keeping four key projects going, because we know that, especially in the midst of a recession, they will make a huge difference. One of them, which I will come back to and speak about in some detail, is the linkages project, which deals with linkages between the Gloucester docks and the conventional and well-known town centre of Gloucester, which includes the cathedral and the shopping centres. It is also where the Four Gates meet; it is the actual town centre. It is important to have a strong linkage between those two areas—the docks and the town centre—because there has always been a fear factor in the town centre, understandably, among small and medium-sized businesses that we would lose jobs and businesses if we regenerate the docks and leave the town centre as it is. Those linkages are absolutely crucial and we made a case for them. I am pleased to say that the RDA board liked the case that we made and approved the linkages project.

We also made a case for Kings square, a 1960s monolith or “carbuncle”, as I think I described it in the debate on 13 May. That project was approved and I am glad that the Department for Communities and Local Government approved of that too. The same was true of a heritage quarter in the town centre, known as Blackfriars. It houses the Dominican priory, which I am told is the most historic Dominican priory anywhere in the country.

I also made a case for the Four Gates centre in the deprived Westgate ward, but I was less successful in that respect. The Four Gates centre was important to me and to many of my constituents, because I think that regeneration should not only be about steel and glass but about social regeneration; it needs to be about child care, community facilities and health provision. Unfortunately, the RDA board did not approve the sum that we were looking for—I think it was a sum of about £2 million—in that particular case. I am still hopeful that that project can go ahead with the support of the primary care trust and I will be working with local community groups to try to ensure that it does happen.

So we heard good news from the RDA board. We had not thought that we would get absolutely everything that we hoped for; we accepted that. We also accept the issue around the Four Gates centre and we will try to find other ways of funding that project. However, we had some bad news when the central policy review group of the DCLG did not approve the linkages scheme. That scheme was No. 1 on my priority list, as it was on the priority list of the urban regeneration company and the city council.

I know that my right hon. Friend the Minister and the Secretary of State are concerned about this process, because we have talked about it, and I know that other Ministers in the DCLG are interested in it, but I am really pleased, especially at a time of recession, that my right hon. Friend the Minister has got hands-on involved with it and engaged her officials with the RDA to take a closer look at these linkages. I hope that we are now making some good progress. From what I have heard, there is a much better level of dialogue between the local urban regeneration company, the RDA and the Department on getting this money in and doing the work. Especially during a recession, we need those linkages and to complete the public realm work done between the Gloucester docks and the town centre. Many businesses—not to mention shopping centres such as the Eastgate and Kings Walk shopping centres—and the Federation of Small Businesses are lobbying very hard for this money, because they think that we will lose a lot of jobs. We already have an issue, as do many town centres, with boarded-up shops, but that will get much worse if we cannot find the resource to do the public realm work.

I understand that part of that work has involved an evaluation by the Department of what can be achieved over three years. I say to my right hon. Friend and departmental officials that, especially during a recession, we need to be more flexible and sometimes look at a longer period. The public realm work will make a difference over a much longer period than three years. During a recession, the RDA, which feels very strongly about this, thinks that we have to be more flexible. A decision approved by its board has never been overturned before, and it has made it clear to all of us locally that this is an important scheme for it and one that it wishes to continue to support.

I am very confident that, within six weeks, we can clear up the detail between the CPRG and the RDA so that the former can formulate the detailed criteria and tell the latter what else needs to be done locally to secure the money. We then need a quick decision. Ministers are right when they talk about fiscal stimuli and bringing forward funding and projects, and I do not believe for a second that they want to be held back by officials. We understand the need to go through due process, but if we can get through this in six weeks, we can ensure that the money is spent, that the work on the ground is done, that the construction jobs are in place and that the town centre remains confident that the project will make a difference, not in isolation in the docks area, but in perpetuity in the rest of the town centre.

This is a very important project for us, and I am pleased with the way in which my right hon. Friend has engaged her Department since my initial concerns were raised. I know that she will not be having an 82-day break or anything like that, although I hope that she gets away and recharges her batteries over the summer—we all need to do that. However, it is really important that her officials, the RDA, the urban regeneration company, myself and her Department continue to engage on this matter. I hope that we can secure a positive solution and return, certainly before October but hopefully quite a bit earlier, so that we can get on with delivering the project and returns and with demonstrating not only that we have started a decade-long regeneration project, but that we are here for the long term, and that we will complete what was started in my constituency by this Labour Government, the RDA and the urban regeneration company.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Martlew. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Mr. Dhanda) on securing this debate. He has raised this issue before in Westminster Hall, and Parliament more widely, and has made a number of representations to Ministers in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills in recent weeks. He has also worked very hard to secure regeneration projects in his constituency.

My hon. Friend set out very clearly some of the investment made over the past 12 years to regenerate his area. I would certainly like to take up his offer of a visit to his constituency. I shall be touring the regions in my new role, and it would be a pleasure to return to Gloucester. I think that I am looking to visit at the beginning of September, so if he is around then, which I am sure he will be, perhaps we can find a suitable date. I well remember his area, because of the floods. I was a Transport Minister at the time of those severe problems in his area, and I know that a lot of work was done to try to ensure that the Government could provide assistance.

Gloucester has had more than its fair share of challenges over the years, some of which have their root cause in the current recession. However, it is also true, in terms of regeneration over the past 12 years, that the Government have made a deliberate effort to address some of those problems. There are prosperous areas in my hon. Friend’s constituency, but also areas of quite severe deprivation problems. That is why the Government have tried to use public investment to ensure that so many of the projects to which he referred lead to increased employment and improved services and are effective in regenerating the area.

The current recession has had a major impact on Gloucester’s strong economic base, especially in advanced engineering and manufacturing. I pay tribute to much of the work done—my hon. Friend has been involved in it too—in bringing together local partners in the city, to develop plans to combat the recession and to look at some of the longer-term problems. One of the issues that comes to mind is around skills and how, over the years, there has been a loss of skilled work in the area. Local partners have been considering how to build up that skills base, so that when the upturn comes, manufacturing and engineering can take advantage of the opportunities that come with it.

Some of the decisions made—for example, on the completion of the Gloucester south-west bypass—have not only opened up an opportunity for economic development and growth but, as my hon. Friend said, created a very different environment for the renewal of the city centre. I am glad that he paid tribute to the work of the RDA, especially its championing of the Gloucester Heritage Urban Regeneration Company, which has pioneered regeneration investment in the city area and the area around the Gloucester docks. About £17.7 million has already been invested in bringing parts of the area back into productive use.

My hon. Friend was right to draw our attention to the work of the RDAs, and point out that the Conservative party would do away with them. Both before and during the recession, the RDAs have been one of the delivery agents that have made a real difference to people on the ground. To imagine that Whitehall and Westminster could deliver the type of changes that we have seen without organisations such as the RDAs is living in fantasy land, so it is important that we invest in them.

My hon. Friend was right to say that as part of the fiscal stimulus in which the Government have been involved, we asked the RDAs to accelerate projects that could deliver a short-term boost to the economy. Gloucester docks was one such project that the South West of England Regional Development Agency put forward as part of that stimulus.

In the current economic climate, it is right to ask RDAs to use their funds to maximum effect to help regional economies. My hon. Friend referred to the CPRG, which examines the economic robustness of RDA project proposals. If there are questions over value for money or any other aspect, it is right that officials within my Department work closely with the RDAs to examine the issues that have been raised to ensure that where a case can be taken forward, we work closely together to do so.

My hon. Friend also referred to a number of issues that are perhaps seen as blockages to taking a project forward and ensuring that a case is robust. After representations from my hon. Friend, I have been making inquiries to see that everything possible is being done to ensure that officials work closely with the RDA to iron out some of the concerns about value for money and the robustness of a case. We must do that to ensure that public funds are being well targeted. We are always anxious to ensure that projects offer value for money so that local people can benefit from the best case to secure regeneration.

The South West of England Regional Development Agency made an initial submission to the CPRG in November 2008. A number of key issues were identified as areas that needed further work. A revised business case was submitted in June 2009 following interactions between my Department’s economists and policy officials with the South West of England Regional Development Agency. I understand that a site visit also took place to understand fully the context and project objectives.

Currently, the business case is much improved. There are still some concerns that more work needs to be done, particularly where there are uncertainties about costs and benefits. We want to ensure that the appraisal fully reflects some of the uncertainties and risks inherent in the current property market.

If the Minister is to pay a visit in the first week of September, it would be terrific to resolve the issues before then. If the issues are not resolved and a decision still has to be made, may I suggest that she brings with her an official or two from the CPRG? In that way RDA representatives and urban regeneration company representatives can show them the need for the work. It is all very well listening to me, but if the Minister can see the issues physically it may help to make the difference on the day.

That is an extremely good idea, which I will take forward. In the meantime, I will make some inquiries about the point that my hon. Friend raised on the three-year evaluation. Again, that is something that we will want to discuss at any future meeting.

I want to assure my hon. Friend that officials in the Department are continuing to liaise with the RDA. We hope to be able to take a decision on the matter as quickly as we can. I understand that the RDA is itself reviewing the appraisal, taking into account some of the points that have been raised by the CPRG. I am anxious that any appraisals or reviews of projects take account of the changed economic circumstances. I need to be certain that we are getting good value for money and that we have asked RDAs to bring forward projects that will provide the fiscal stimulus that we need at the moment. Therefore, it is a question of ensuring that those two matters are brought together so that we can be clear—and I know that my hon. Friend will want to see this as the local Member of Parliament—that any project in which we invest will provide maximum value for local people. This project has been identified as a fiscal stimulus project, but before we can take a final decision on it, we need to identify and consider carefully information on the short-term boost to the economy. As I have said, we must get the balance right and ensure that we get good value for money and that we achieve the fiscal stimulus to the economy that I have talked about.

Once again, I want to congratulate my hon. Friend on the way in which he has ensured that the voices of his local constituents, the RDA and the urban regeneration company are heard in this House. I can assure him that Ministers take very seriously the points that he has raised, and that I look forward to visiting Gloucester.

In March 2004, when he was Chancellor, the Prime Minister made an important promise. I heard him say:

“Our capital investment allocations will ensure for every constituency in the country that by 2015 every secondary school can be refurbished or rebuilt with world class technology in every school and the best state of the art learning support in every classroom.”

He has not forgotten that promise. Indeed, he repeated it at the Labour party conference last year when he said that

“over the next decade”—

that sounds as if the timetable was slipping—

“we will rebuild or refurbish not some but all secondary schools”.

I have raised this issue previously in Adjournment debates and questions, but today I want to draw the Minister’s attention again to the fact that there is no sign whatsoever that that rebuilding is happening, or will happen, in my constituency. In particular, there is no sign that it will happen in Alnwick, where the buildings of the Duchess’s community high school are in a deplorable state, despite the school’s great achievements in the standard of education that it provides. Of the other schools in Alnwick, some have serious problems with their buildings—Alnwick South first school, in particular. I understand that the lease for the Dukes middle school has expired, and it is operating on a year-to-year basis.

Let me provide some background. Northumberland is the sixth largest county in England, but with 310,000 people it has one of the smallest populations. Nearly half the population live in 3 per cent. of the land area, in the urban corner. That distribution of population and those small numbers make it a difficult authority in which to provide a full range of schools for every part of the county.

For some time, the education authority has been seeking to change the basic structure, which is a three-tier system with transfer at ages nine and 13. That system was originally devised to suit the buildings of the time and the post-war secondary modern schools, which in most cases formed the middle schools within that system. There are sharply divided views about whether that is a good or bad system. My experience is that although the middle schools worked well, 13 is not a good age for transfer to high school, and a number of problems tend to flow from that. The county has been looking to restructure the system, but that is not really the reason why we have problems in replacing the Duchess’s school in Alnwick, and the other schools in the town.

Let me explain the problems in more detail. The main site of the Duchess’s high school—which incidentally is one of only three secondary schools in my constituency— is made up of buildings from the 1950s and 1960s. It is on a split site, which I will talk about in more detail in a moment. The school was built for 900 pupils but now has 1,131. The dining hall seats 200 people, but over 1,000 have to use it in the space of a lunchtime. The fire certificate for the hall gives 300 as the maximum number, but that will not even accommodate the entire sixth form for an assembly. There are 13 mobile classrooms; 13 science teachers share eight science labs. The heating system is old and inefficient, which adds massively to school running costs, particularly when fuel prices go up. It would be an expensive system to replace, and that might not be a sensible use of money when we are all hoping to see the school housed in completely new buildings.

As I said, the school is on a split site, which creates enormous problems. Many things, such as caretaking and cleaning provision, have to be duplicated. There are two boilers, both of which are ancient and in need of replacement. Much time is lost by staff and students in moving between buildings; pupils lose about an hour a week of teaching time in transferring between the two sites. There are great difficulties in timetabling across the two sites. There are safety problems because students have to cross two streets when going between the two sites. In bad weather, students who change sites twice a day might spend a large part of the day in wet clothing, which is not conducive to learning or to maintaining a good environment in the school. The Bailiffgate building is a four-storey Georgian building built as a domestic residence, which is in poor condition. The music rooms, one of which is a cupboard, are not soundproofed or suitable for teaching. The building is not compliant with the Disability Discrimination Act 1995—it is a profoundly unsatisfactory location in which to be carrying out education.

Land has been identified for a replacement school. Within the local community, there is a clear understanding that that is where the school needs to be—not just the Duchess’s high school, but an education campus that accommodates a number of the other schools on the same site. There have been discussions with the biggest landowner in the town, the Duke’s estate—Northumberland Estates—but those have not reached a conclusion or brought about an alternative solution to the normal ways of solving the problem of replacing a school.

Ironically, the school’s academic success is a handicap to getting its buildings replaced. Teachers and pupils achieve remarkable results in an unconducive environment, but that success tends to mean that the school does not appear in the right column in the figures that are necessary to get on the various schemes.

Ofsted describes the Duchess’s high school and specialist college as a

“good and improving school with outstanding features. Students make good progress in their studies, and the care, guidance and support they receive is excellent…Personal development is excellent and the school has other strengths such as the partnerships with parents and links with other schools. There are many examples of students making very strong contributions to the community, for example through music, drama, and vocational course activities.

Leadership and management are good. Senior managers are steering the school well and capacity to improve is very good. The governing body monitors the school’s performance and makes sure it continues to move forward. Resources are effectively deployed to achieve good value for money. Parents, staff, and students are highly concerned about the accommodation and say many aspects are no longer fit for purpose.”.

In the last month or two, the school has been badly affected by the loss of teachers who died suddenly—one used to teach with my wife and it was a sudden and unexpected death. Two former students, both teenagers who had recently left school, were killed in separate road accidents. That has been a very sad experience for the school, and the school’s management team have been praised for the way that they have handled that difficult situation.

There is enormous community concern about the state of the school, and support for new buildings at the Greensfield site, which adjoins excellent sports facilities alongside the cricket, football and rugby clubs. There is a recognised way forward with a site that has been identified, and community support.

So what do we do? There are a number of possible schemes through which the school could be taken forward. Building Schools for the Future is the centrepiece of the Government’s programme for replacing schools. However, the Duchess’s high school tends to do badly in that programme, as it is predicated on results and the school receives good results. That scheme is also predicated on deprivation, and although the school sits alongside the most deprived area in the Alnwick district, the overall catchment area is not deprived enough to rate highly on the scales that are used.

What is the situation with Building Schools for the Future? Northumberland county council submitted an expression of interest to Partnerships for Schools in November 2008. Since then, it has been told that it comes 31st in the ranking order for future waves, but apparently it has not heard anything further about how it should start to engage with the BSF programme. We are not even at stage zero of the BSF process, and stages zero and one take between two and three years to carry out.

The Duchess’s high school is part of what is called a hard federation. The Duchess’s high school, Lindisfarne middle school, the Dukes middle school and Alnwick South first school have one governing body. Theoretically, that should make it easier to move to one site, and whether that happens in the existing three-tier structure or a reorganised structure, such a decision is not an impediment to going ahead. Building can proceed on the site whether or not reorganisation has been agreed on.

If we cannot act through Building Schools for the Future, what are the alternatives? The national challenge programme is similarly restricted, and once again, the Alnwick schools do too well academically to qualify. What about the academy system? Again, that possibility has been explored locally, but when a possible academy solution was explored, it turned out that the locality was not deprived enough. Although academy schools went ahead in the south-east of the county—where they were quite controversial, and there was considerable opposition to the scheme—that route was also closed to us.

The education authority then considered alternative ways to find the capital necessary to carry out the rebuilding. Its medium-term capital programme for 2008-09 to 2011-12 included £33 million for investment in schools in Alnwick town. The inclusion of the scheme in the capital programme was based on the assumption that it could be financed through a combination of land sales and county council borrowing, but the current financial and economic situation has had a significant impact on the scheme. The downturn in the housing and land markets means that developers are not acquiring sites, which has had a serious effect on the value of the county’s asset portfolio. It would not be sensible for the county to dispose of land assets when prices are at an historic low. At the same time, the council is facing the need to make significant revenue savings in the medium term, so it is less able to provide revenue funding to support significant borrowing in its capital programme. That has affected any financing of Alnwick schools directly from the county’s programme and land sales.

The authority has taken no decisions about the future structure of Alnwick schools. It has said that it will reconsider its reorganisation programme, Putting the Learner First, for the Alnwick pyramid, but it will not spend money on doing so or raise expectations of progress unless it can identify the money for building the new school on which any reorganisation would depend. Again, however, I insist that that need not be a barrier to progress on the building of a new school. That can go ahead regardless of the future structure, because the age range would be on the same site in either form of solution.

The previous Schools Minister promised that he would visit the Duchess’s school, but was unable to meet that promise before completing his period in office. He has now been moved to other duties. We need a ministerial visit, and I am hopeful that the Minister will agree to one, so that Ministers can see for themselves how difficult the situation is. I am glad that the Minister of State is here to reply to this debate. Will she identify how we can make progress in securing the implementation of the Prime Minister’s promise? The Prime Minister clearly believes that every secondary school in the country should be rebuilt or refurbished within a period that requires a decision to be made now if Alnwick is to fall within it. Unless we make a decision soon, we shall reach the end of the period that he identified only last year without doing so.

Can either Building Schools for the Future or the academy scheme be interpreted so as to accommodate a situation that clearly requires action? A school in as poor a physical condition as the Duchess’s high school cannot be expected to continue in that way, and it would be negligent in the extreme if clear plans were not made to replace it with a school that serves its purpose, is efficient to run and does not involve unnecessary maintenance costs, which will mount greatly the longer the school stays on its present site. How will that be achieved? That is the question that the Minister must answer for us. We are running out of time to get an answer.

It gives me pleasure to reply to this debate on behalf of my hon. Friend the Minister for Schools and Learners.

I will return to the point about a visit to the constituency of the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith). I congratulate him on securing this debate and on raising this important topic again. I have no quibble with him. As he has rightly said, and as I know from his speeches in the House, he is absolutely committed to ensuring the highest standards for the schools in his constituency. The Government share that ambition. Like him, we believe that all pupils should have access to a truly world-class education in truly world-class schools, and I shall return to the points that he has raised. As he acknowledged, that is why the Government have undertaken an unprecedented programme of investment in our schools through, for example, Building Schools for the Future, the biggest Government investment in school buildings for five decades. As he has said, one of the schools in his constituency was built during the previous period. We are now trying to catch up after that time of no action.

Last year, tens of thousands of pupils started term in new buildings or new schools. The number of new or refurbished schools is at its highest in at least 30 years. More than 20 of those schools came through Building Schools for the Future. In total, 78 BSF schools are now open. Local authorities have reached a financial close on a further 35 deals covering BSF projects, and contracts have been signed to a value of more than £3.5 billion.

In addition, almost 1,000 secondary schools are developing plans for modernisation, with around 115 new or remodelled schools anticipated to open in 2009-10 and 200 in 2011-12. After decades of under-investment in school buildings, we are saying to children that their learning environment matters and that their future is worth investing in. Over the next 15 to 20 years, BSF will help to improve the life chances of more than 3 million young people. I know that the right hon. Gentleman recognises that it is not just important to make finance available, because it takes time to move through every single school and piece of estate in this country.

The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the Duchess’s community high school. It has some temporary classrooms, and many of its buildings date back to the ’60s or even before. Suitability data for the school show some shortcomings, to which he has referred, but they also suggest that the classrooms are in fair condition. Maybe they are not in the condition to which all of us would aspire, but they are certainly in fair condition. Likewise, Berwick high school’s buildings are generally in fair to good condition, and no significant shortcomings were identified in that school through the suitability study.

Most of the right hon. Gentleman’s comments concerned the Duchess’s school, which remains strong, has good GCSE results and has successfully introduced post-16 provision. The school was also a pilot for the extended schools programme, which helps place schools at the heart of their communities. Again, as he has said, that is supported by the local community.

Although the previous Minister for Schools and Learners hoped to visit the right hon. Gentleman’s constituency, he moved to another post in government before that was possible. However, the new Minister for Schools and Learners is enthusiastically planning a visit as soon as his diary allows. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will want to accompany him, so it will be necessary to bring the diaries together. As he has said, the school has enormous strengths. Sadly, it will have to draw on those over the coming months, because it has recently been struck by tragic events.

As the right hon. Gentleman knows, it is for the local authority to set the priorities for BSF funding in Northumberland. The Government cannot and should not dictate those priorities from Whitehall. I know that he is a passionate supporter of such devolved responsibility. Northumberland has revised its expression of interest in BSF funding. Bedlingtonshire community high school, Ashington high school and St. Benet Biscop Roman Catholic high school were prioritised by the local authority on the basis of local deprivation and educational achievement.

As with all BSF projects, Northumberland’s first priority project has been assessed against social and educational need. That is done to prevent the most vulnerable children from falling behind their peers, and I know that the right hon. Gentleman supports that aspiration. Unfortunately, not all schools can benefit at the same time. However, I am pleased to say that three schools in his constituency—Berwick high school, Coquet high school and the Duchess’s school—have been chosen to form Northumberland’s next BSF project. He will be able to discuss that with those who are responsible locally and with the Minister for Schools and Learners during his visit.

There has already been significant capital investment in Northumberland’s schools that is not linked to BSF, and more is being provided. The county will receive more than £65 million in capital grants and supported borrowing between the past financial year and 2010-11. More than £16 million of that money is being invested in the modernisation of school buildings and the primary capital programme. A further £23 million will be invested in the devolved capital formula, which is allocated to schools for investment in their own capital priorities. As an unmodernised secondary school, the Duchess’s school will receive £18,500 plus £94 per pupil per year.

The level of per pupil funding in the right hon. Gentleman’s constituency should be compared with the national average. The latest figures for this year show that Northumberland receives £3,850 per pupil, which is a significant increase in real terms compared with 1997, although it is slightly below the national average of £4,218. As he has suggested, the main reason for that difference is that finance is targeted at areas with more disadvantaged pupils or a more sparsely distributed population. We must ensure that smaller rural primary schools, which are more expensive to run, are supported. Northumberland receives £3.3 million through that grant allocation.

Northumberland has both those problems. It has high levels of deprivation, particularly in the south-eastern corner, and as sparse a rural distribution as is possible over the rest of the county. The funding system seems to work in such a way that the county qualifies as neither one nor the other. It does not get the maximum benefit from the funding formula that it would get if it consisted of entirely the one problem or the other. I hope that the Minister will address that point.

I understand the right hon. Gentleman’s point. In Northumberland, 9.6 per cent. of the dedicated schools grant is for disadvantaged pupils, compared with a national average of 12.1 per cent. He has acknowledged that the pockets of deprivation in Northumberland are fairly small compared with the rest of the country. The Government must decide how to weight such funding. He may wish to discuss that matter with the Minister for Schools and Learners. As the Minister with responsibility for children’s centres, I find that deprivation is often felt more strongly within communities than is demonstrated when compared with deprivation across the country. Such pressure points inevitably emerge when weighted formulas are used.

The right hon. Gentleman asked about the programme date for the next phase of Building Schools for the Future. I cannot give the assurances that he seeks this afternoon, but the Minister for Schools and Learners will discuss those matters with him. I have mentioned the capital moneys that are available to the local community, and I am sure that he is pressing the local authority on further investment in the schools that he has identified.

The right hon. Gentleman went on to discuss the desire for the development of an academy in his constituency and said that strong partners are waiting in the wings until consideration of such a project comes forward. As he knows, the criteria that usually trigger academies are the national challenge and being near the threshold for poor performance, neither of which exist in the schools that he has identified. In one sense, that is a matter for celebration, because the schools have good achievement. However, I understand his frustration, because of the enthusiasm of local parents and partners for an academy programme. He will be able to discuss that matter in detail with the Minister for Schools and Learners during his visit.

The Minister has mentioned the decisions that the local authority can take. However, the local education authority finds that it has to tick the boxes to qualify for such programmes. In making decisions about the limited capital available to it, it must take account of how a viable project can be unlocked. Such projects depend on precisely the factors that she has described. How can the Prime Minister’s pledge be met in areas that do not tick the boxes for academies or Building Schools for the Future?

The Prime Minister’s pledge is being met because the Government are investing. We are starting with the schools that need to make the greatest progress. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, all decisions are accountable locally or nationally and are made against clear, transparent criteria. We must all accept that we should start with the schools that need the greatest investment. None the less, we must not leave other schools behind.

It is good to see you in the Chair, Mr. Martlew, and to see that the Minister is present. I would like to use our last day before the recess to discuss an issue I have raised in the past: the free movement of labour and the impact of that policy on working people in this country as enshrined in the EU, which, as we all know, is dominated by neo-liberal ideas. More specifically, I want to look at the economic and political infrastructures and the political attitudes that allow and promote the free movement of labour without proper safeguards for working people in their respective countries.

In particular, I would like to talk about the posted workers directive and four European Court of Justice rulings that give clear precedence to freedom for big business in the EU over fundamental collective and trade union rights. I shall discuss the wider impact that those rulings can have on ordinary working people and will, in effect, argue that the four rulings construct serious obstacles to trade unions in exercising their right to freedom of association, collective bargaining and collective action.

As a quick preface, before I talk in some depth about the ECJ cases, I would like to make it crystal clear that my concerns are both for our own workers, who as we have seen are having their already low wages held down by the status quo, and for migrant workers, whose work in this country is often very low paid and is undertaken in what can only be described as disgusting conditions. In short, I do not want any group of workers to be exploited, and I am sure the Minister would agree with me on that.

Everyone talks about the posted workers directive, but no one seems to be analysing it. The directive’s preamble makes it clear that it was introduced in contemplation of

“the transnational provision of services, prompting a growing number of undertakings to post employees abroad temporarily to perform work in the territory of a Member State other than the State in which they are habitually employed”.

Effectively, that relates to employers moving workers into other countries. In those circumstances, it recognises that

“any such promotion of the transnational provision of services requires a climate of fair competition and measures guaranteeing respect for the rights of workers”.

On reading further through the posted workers directive, the tone becomes even more positive. The directive’s net effect is to protect workers against what we call social dumping and a race to the bottom, and the requirement that standards should be levelled up rather than levelled down. Unfortunately, the unelected, unaccountable, unreformable European Court of Justice chose to interpret the directive in a different way and, in its view, the PWD provisions had a maximum rather than a minimum standard. So, once again, neo-liberal ideas have permeated the very institutions of the EU.

The posted workers directive has become a politically volatile issue following the well-publicised disputes at the Lindsey oil refinery and other such sites. The directive does not necessarily apply to all terms of employment, but it does apply to pay. Any employer posting or, let us get the language straight, sending—as someone would post a letter, they would post a worker—workers to the UK must observe at the very least the national minimum wage, although many of us argue that that falls some way short of a living wage, let alone the established collectively bargained wage that might be applicable in any particular sector of the labour market.

It is worth looking at the Lindsey dispute for two reasons: first, we will see more actions of that kind in the future and, secondly, much nonsense was talked about the dispute by many in my own party, who could not face up to the real issues involved and who retreated behind cheap and inaccurate descriptions of the workers being motivated solely by xenophobia. In late January/early February 2009, construction workers walked out in protest at the use of posted workers by the Italian company IREM, which was a subcontractor to a UK company that, in turn, had a broader subcontract to a US company that was the holder of the original primary construction contract.

Workers on that site rightly expected that those working there would be paid in accordance with the national agreement for the engineering construction industry. The unions were concerned that although the posted workers were being paid the minimum wage, it was below the terms of the national agreement. That is an important point, and is absolutely central to this issue. Such a situation gave the Italian company an unfair advantage and also undermined the national agreements in place in that workplace. The concern of the union related to hours of work, travel allowances, auditing of wages and the wage levels themselves. We all know that ACAS was brought in and that a muffled silence ensued. There was confusion among all parties. However, it is worth noting that ACAS was unable to establish in fact what rates were being paid to the posted workers.

The problem of the PWD arises where there are convoluted clauses that allow varying interpretations of whether collective agreements are declared universally applicable. In the United Kingdom’s case, there is no system for declaring that collective agreements are universally applicable. That is something we should be looking at. However, it is an option for member states, such as the United Kingdom, to base themselves either on collective agreements that are generally applicable to all similar undertakings in a geographical area or an industry concerned, or on agreements that have been concluded by the most representative employers’ organisations and trade unions at national level. It is therefore clear that nation states can act to protect their work force from that undermining of their terms and conditions. However, the UK Government have not done so.

Professor Keith Ewing, an esteemed expert on such matters, recently stated:

“The British government has not taken the power in legislation to use collective agreements for this purpose, even where appropriate agreements do exist”.

So in reality, in terms we can all understand, the national minimum wage, which, as we know, is itself very difficult to enforce and is well below a living wage rate, remains the only binding reference point for companies posting—sending—workers to Britain. So the protection and support that could ultimately be offered to workers is not being given by the Government.

The negative interpretations of the PWD are made even worse by the four European Court of Justice rulings that I have referred to and will now look at. Generally, those rulings sanction social dumping—in other words, temporary or transitory movements of labour whereby employers use workers from one country and send them to another country where labour costs are usually more expensive. Doing so undercuts those costs, thus saving money and increasing profits, but it also undermines collective agreements and prevents trade unions from taking industrial action to protect their members’ terms and conditions. Any politician worth his salt would also recognise that such a situation creates a toxic mix of racial tensions, as we have seen in this country.

Although unions are restricted, businesses are free to restructure and create a cross-border element, so that they can take advantage of freedom for them to move goods and services, capital and even workers in the EU. I would like to consider the Viking judgment—I am sure you will know about that, Mr. Martlew, but I will go over the facts again. That Finnish company wanted to re-flag its ship and replace its Finnish crew with an Estonian crew, which was, surprisingly, on much lower wages. The Finnish Seamen’s Union threatened industrial action in protest at that, so the company went to the European Court of Justice. The Court decided that it can review whether industrial action is justifiable and, in that specific case, it determined that industrial action was not proportionate. Of course, that brings serious uncertainty into what view a court might take of the merits or otherwise of industrial action.

That ruling is a crushing blow to trade unions, in that it holds that the right of business to the freedom of establishment and the freedom to operate must take priority over the right of trade unions to take industrial action to safeguard the interests of their members. It is an explosive judgment. It has also raised the prospect of employers being able to claim for unlimited damages against a union even where industrial action is legal under its own domestic law. To those who know labour history, that is the European equivalent of the Taff Vale judgment.

One week after the Viking case, we got the Laval judgment, which effectively ruled that trade unions could not take industrial action to compel a Latvian company operating in Sweden to observe the terms and conditions of collective agreements in Sweden. Laval involved a Latvian company that posted, or sent, workers into Sweden on Latvian terms and conditions, seriously undercutting Swedish collectively bargained terms and conditions. The Swedish unions responded by taking industrial action that was lawful under Swedish law. Laval claimed, through the ECJ, that the unions’ arrangement of a boycott of supplies to the Vaxholm school site restricted their freedom of business. The Court took the view that where the posted workers directive applies, it is unlawful for unions to organise industrial action to agitate for terms and conditions above the legal minimum available in that country.

The Ruffert ruling—I hope that I am pronouncing it right, Mr. Martlew; I will take your guidance on that—concerned a public contract for building a prison, which was awarded to a German company and then subcontracted to a Polish company. The tender required that the relevant companies, including any companies that were subcontracted to do the work, should pay the rates in the collective agreements for that region on building and public works contracts. The Polish company was paying a lower rate and was fined for doing so. The posted workers directive states that minimum rates may be set by collective agreements that are either universally applicable, or that apply to the whole sector or region. However, the ECJ found that the collective agreement in this case did not meet either of those criteria, and that the directive therefore prevents public contracts from requiring compliance with collective agreements of that kind. In reaching that judgment, the Court interpreted the directive extremely narrowly and ignored the procurement directive, which allows for social clauses.

The Luxembourg case demonstrates another measure that could have only a negative effect on working people. The European Commission took Luxembourg to court for making its own domestic legislation applicable to workers from other member states who were posted there. Nearly 40 per cent. of workers in Luxembourg come from outside the country, but the ECJ ruled in favour of the Commission, and decided that Luxembourg had gone too far in implementing the posted workers directive in relation to requirements for maximum work periods and minimum rest periods. Luxembourg must now change its law to enable the use of foreign workers to undermine the conditions of indigenous workers.

People might be forgiven for thinking that those four cases are detached from or peripheral to us in the UK, but they are not. Those decisions send a clear, green, empowering signal to employers to resist any compulsion to comply with any undertakings other than those relating to the base minimum wage. However, as a story about fruit pickers in last week’s Independent showed, even compliance with the minimum wage is undercut by large suppliers to the major supermarkets. In essence, this discussion is about the direction of travel and what our Government are prepared to do to protect some of the most vulnerable workers in our labour markets from exploitation and from the systematic low pay that the machinations I have talked about not only allow but positively encourage. It can be only a matter of time before large employers that post EU workers in the UK attempt to undercut and freeze the lowest possible wage it is legal to pay to British and migrant working people. Too much of what comes out of such rulings allow that to happen.

The Labour Government, who, to the howls of big business and the Conservative party, gave us the national minimum wage as a means of protecting low-paid workers, must reconsider this issue. The ever-changing, flexible labour markets with which some people are so enamoured leave working people vulnerable to exploitation and low pay, so we have to consider what continuing measures we can and must take to offer protection to the people who need us most—those whom we used to describe as our core vote. We must look at the EU and its myriad legislative mechanisms, and check constantly that they are consistent with our values of social justice and rights for workers—at least, I hope we have those values.

I know that the Minister wants to spring into the debate and answer some of the questions I am throwing up, so I shall put some specific questions to him. First, will he make the bold and responsible move of considering an urgent change in domestic law to guarantee that the posted workers directive is implemented to the fullest extent possible in order to require the minimum wage payable by contractors to be higher than the minimum set down under the National Minimum Wage Act 1998? I am told that that could be done easily by requiring posting employers—to use the correct legislative terminology, or bosses who send workers to this country—to comply with wage agreements set by appropriate collective agreements that apply to particular sectors in given geographical areas. The Minister will be aware, because he will have done his research, that I asked the Prime Minister about precisely this point on 4 February 2009, when I asked what measures were being taken to improve the posted workers directive. The Prime Minister said that some work was being done, but I have not been updated about it since; perhaps the Minister can update me.

Secondly, does the Minister agree that in relation to the posted workers directive, we should introduce a system of declaring collective agreements as universally applicable? Thirdly, is he supportive of the European TUC’s draft social protocol as a way of moving forward on protecting working people?

Fourthly, the Minister will be aware that the Government will submit to the International Labour Organisation, by 1 September, their report on ILO conventions 87 and 98. Will they express concern that the ECJ rulings mean that it sees trade unions as regulatory bodies that are equivalent to an arm of state, which is in direct contradiction to the underlying purposes of the freedom of association? Will they also say that the right of trade unions to take industrial action is being subordinated to overriding commercial interests so that the trade unions will always have to be justified as permitted restrictions to those freedoms? What will they say in their report to the ILO about compliance with ILO conventions 87 and 98 by reference to the impact of the four ECJ judgments on the UK? If the Minister is not in a position to respond to those points today, I am sure he will write to me.

Let me draw my remarks to a close and allow the Minister to respond. The ECJ decisions come at time that is crucial to the European unification process. We have increased economic integration together with reduced social protection; that is a highly explosive combination. Radical steps have to be taken by those who support the European project. The support of European citizens and workers will be secured only if the fundamental importance of social progress is at the forefront of all policies. Working people want a social Europe, and they will reject a market Europe.

It is good to see you in the Chair, Mr. Martlew. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Elmet (Colin Burgon), I, too, welcome you. I should also like to express my gratitude to him for securing this debate, because the European Court of Justice rulings that he has discussed have generated much discussion in recent months. I am glad to take the opportunity to set out the position and perhaps even to shed a little light on what can be a complicated area of legislation.

As my hon. Friend said, the underlying context for the Court’s judgments is the posted workers directive, which came into force some 10 years ago. It operates throughout the EU and allows companies to post their workers to another member state on a temporary basis in any sector of the economy. Its intention was to protect the posted worker and to ensure that he or she had access to at least the minimum conditions applying in the host country, rather than carrying what may be significantly poorer employment rights and standards from the country of origin.

The directive clearly states that companies must abide by the minimum worker protections in the host country, whether defined by national law or a universally applicable collective agreement. In the UK, that means that people are entitled to a range of universal protections that this Government have worked to develop: the national minimum wage, default limits on working hours, annual holidays, health and safety legislation and equality legislation.

My hon. Friend went through the judgments in some detail. I hope that I will not be too repetitive if I touch on several of them. As he said, the Viking case related to a Finnish operator that wanted to register its vessel to sail under the Estonian flag. The Finnish unions opposed that because the Estonian-Finnish crew would not need to be covered by the provisions of the Finnish collective agreement, and Viking sought an injunction against the unions’ action. The Court ruled that the right to strike is a fundamental one, as recognised by the charter of fundamental rights, and that exercising the right can, as a matter of principle, legitimately interfere with single-market principles. But it also concluded that, in this instance, the extent of such interference went beyond what could be considered appropriate or proportionate.

As my hon. Friend said, the Laval ruling relates to a Latvian company that won a contract to refurbish a school. The company declined to sign the Swedish collective agreement, and the Swedish trade unions blockaded the school site. Laval’s application to the Swedish court was referred to the ECJ, which reaffirmed its conclusion that the right to strike was a fundamental one but also concluded that, in this instance, the unions could not insist on Laval’s participating in or being bound by the Swedish collective agreement because it had not been declared as being of universal application. My hon. Friend referred to that in his speech.

The Ruffert case was not so much about the right to strike as about the application of collective agreements. In that case, the Court found in favour of the company, again on the grounds that the collective agreement was not of universal application because it applied only to public sector contracts and only in one part of Germany.

All those cases deal with the balance that the directive seeks to strike between the freedom to provide services and the protection of workers’ rights. The issue then is the real interpretation of the judgments, and how we should respond. Many trade unions, parts of the European Parliament and my hon. Friend have expressed concern about the rulings. The contention is that they have altered the balance of industrial relations, tipping it away from the right to strike and towards the freedom to provide services. As a result, some people have called for a review of the directive and demanded that the EU look again at the balance between workers’ protection and the freedom to provide services.

Demands around the directive have also been fuelled by the recession, in which job competition is inevitably much tougher than during better times. Such issues of course become more urgent when people are losing their jobs. We saw some of the effects of that in the industrial unrest earlier this year, to which my hon. Friend referred, which took place after the loss of several thousand jobs in the construction engineering sector.

I do not want to get too side-tracked by those disputes, but the contention was that the Italian posted workers were being paid less than the UK workers. The Government asked ACAS to step in. We wanted to try to get to the bottom of the matter, and to use the good offices of ACAS to help resolve a situation that involved a heated industrial dispute. I quote from ACAS’s conclusions:

“Acas’ inquiry has found no evidence that Total”—

the principal employer on the site—

“Jacobs Engineering”—

the principal subcontractor—

“or IREM”—

the Italian company—

“have broken the law in relation to the use of posted workers or entered into unlawful recruitment practices. We have also received assurances from management that they will abide by NAECI agreement”—

which is the collective agreement governing workers in the construction engineering industry. What was contested was whether the collective agreement had been broken in the circumstances, and ACAS found that it had not been.

The judgments have given rise to concerns, as I said, particularly among trade unions. Through significant improvements to the position of people at work, we have over the years enhanced the protection to which posted workers in the UK are entitled. They are entitled to the protections in legislation on the national minimum wage, working hours, health and safety and so on.

I am conscious of the time, and I do not want to go over ground that has already been covered. I asked the Minister several specific questions to which, given the time, he obviously will not be able to respond verbally. Could I have his assurance that he will come back to me with written replies to the questions that I put to him?

I am, of course, happy to write to my hon. Friend. The principal question that he asked, in several ways, was whether the Government would declare collective agreements universally applicable. The issue is important, because the existence of such a system will affect whether the rulings have a particular effect in individual countries.

We do not have a tradition of universally applicable collective agreements. The tradition supported up until now by trade unions has been for a voluntarist approach on collective agreements, which means that they are not applicable to those who do not sign them. I counsel some caution in this debate on posted workers, because that would be true of contractors from another country and also contractors from within the UK.

Therefore, I am glad that my hon. Friend said that he did not want this to be a debate about migrant workers. The interpretation of our collective bargaining law is not concerned with migrant workers but with the parties to individual agreements. I hope that gives him some guidance on the issue.

What else has happened in Europe on this matter? I was present at the Employment and Social Affairs Council—my hon. Friend referred to his question on this to the Prime Minister some months ago—at which the UK Government supported the Commission’s proposal to establish a high-level expert group to look at the operation of the posted workers directive. The group has been established and has begun to meet—I believe that it has met twice—and research has been commissioned into the operation of the directive. At the same meeting, we also supported the suggestion that social partners at a European level should enter into dialogue on the effect of the Court’s judgments that my hon. Friend outlined in his speech. Again, I believe that a couple of meetings have taken place. We have supported dialogue at the European level on both those fronts.

What we want to see going forward is, of course, workers being treated fairly in the workplace, but we also want to keep the open, outward-looking trading stance that has benefited the UK and workers in the UK. There are more British posted workers abroad than there are posted workers in Britain, according to information from the EU. In conclusion, we absolutely want fairness at work, but we also want openness in trade and the free movement of people that has benefited our economy and many other countries’ economies, too.