House of Commons Hansard Debates for 13 Jan 1993

Mr. Marlow : Will my right hon. Friend give way?

Mr. Garel-Jones : Perhaps my hon. Friend will forgive me if I do not. It would be wrong if hon. Members who have sat here throughout the debate did not have time to speak.

The Danish decision has been mentioned, and the Committee has a right to hear the Government's view on it. The Government do not intend to amend the Bill to incorporate the decision on Denmark. That decision does not amend the Maastricht treaty or Community treaties ; nor does it create any rights or obligations in EC law that require to be given effect in United Kingdom law. Therefore, it does not require to be incorporated in the Bill.

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Mr. Marlow : To some extent my right hon. Friend is being a little less than frank with the Committee. He says that this great juggernaut has been turned around by the Government's heroic efforts, and that things are now moving our way. The reality is that, in areas where the Community already has competence, it is being given more, as well as more majority voting. We are dealing with new areas of policy where it does not have quite the competence that it had before, but they are new areas, and the Community now has new competences. In all those areas, the Commission will be present and will have rights of initiation.

Mr. Garel-Jones : The European Community, the European union, is a developing institution. The Government, or at any rate British Conservatives, have rightly been uneasy over the past 30 years about the centripetal force driving the Community. At the very least, the Maastricht treaty can be said to have arrested that centripetalism. The intergovernmentalism that has emerged, and the way in which the treaty is structured, gives British Conservatives for the first time an opportunity to gain morer allies for our vision of Europe. A British Prime Minister at that 1996 intergovernmental conference will, if we back the treaty enthusiastically, not be batting alone against the rest of the Community and picking up allies where he can. He will find that a substantial bloc, which I hope will contain some of the new members who have acceded--I am sure that it will also contain Denmark--will join us in shaping the Community in that way. My hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North spoke about extended competences. As we debate the detailed articles, he will find that education, which he would no doubt describe as a new competence, is covered. The new article on education defines and limits the extent to which the Community can operate in education, and does it in a much stronger way than was allowed for in the Single European Act.

Under that Act, the Community attempted, under what we often saw as a false treaty basis, to move into education. Now, the specific areas are defined, and the article states that there shall be no harmonising measures. As we debate the Bill, I hope that my hon. Friend will find significant improvements compared with the Single European Act. I confirm that declarations are outside the Bill's scope.

Mr. Denzil Davies : The Minister spoke about the Danish decision. The Government line, described by the Prime Minister, is that the Danish decision is binding in international law. Does that mean that the International Court of Justice at the Hague has jurisdiction and could enforce that decision if necessary?

Mr. Garel-Jones : Any binding international decision that is in dispute would go to the International Court of Justice at the Hague. I have taken up enough of the Committee's time. My hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury will deal with economic and monetary union.

Mr. Spearing : I had hoped to speak to the amendment, but, because of the Chairman's choice in relation to the Edinburgh matter, I now have two tasks. I shall deal later with the Edinburgh issues. I am glad to pick up immediately the Minister's point about what he says has

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been a change in the centripetal authoritarian tendency in the Community. He and the Prime Minister claim not only to have halted but to have reversed that tendency. Many times the Minister has said that for the first time we have this or that. He nods in agreement. I shall try to prove what I said during the recommittal debate-- if I can call it that. That is not true. If anything, the reverse is correct.

Mr. Garel-Jones : I hope that I have never said that Britain has won, because in the development of the Community there are never final victories or final defeats. Most objective observers and certainly everyone in Europe believe that the shape envisaged by the treaty is a substantial advance for those who take a nation state view of Europe rather than for those who seek to be integrationists in a single structure. The debate is continuing and we need the enthusiasm and dedication of all political parties in the United Kingdom if we are to punch our weight and win more points.

Mr. Spearing : I agree that the Minister has never spoken about victories, but he has said that there has been a change of attitude and a change of mood. He nods in agreement. I dissent from that view. I am sorry that the Minister was not able to reply to my letter of 15 December on some of these matters. Perhaps if he cannot reply to my questions in the debate he will write to me. I hope that he will deliver a winding-up speech, because he has not yet heard all the contributions.

The Minister will remember Maastricht mark I or, rather, the Dutch treaty which was hurriedly removed from the public eye when the Dutch presidency started. It was chucked away. Everybody said that it was going too far too fast and that it was too ambitious. A few days ago I asked the Minister which of the matters in the treaty that disappeared were not within the scope of the present treaty. We are debating what the Minister called the trunk of the treaty--titles II, III and IV--and the supporting pillars.

I suggest that that is not the right analogy. Instead, we have a single building with a few partitions inside it. It is all pretty flimsy, and some of the partitions might be paper rather than the real thing. I asked the Minister--he replied only the other day--to tell me what matters that were to be found in the treaty that was suddenly removed are not within the treaty that is before us. The Minister could not refer to any. In other words, the so-called treaty of Maastricht--the treaty of union that we have before us--is of similar scope to the treaty that was introduced during the Dutch presidency in September 1991, and was then hurriedly withdrawn. 7 pm

The difference between the two treaties, as the Minister correctly says, is in the scope of specific Community competence, as envisaged in the titles that we are discussing, and that which he claims to be entirely intergovernmental that surrounds it. Incidentally, this is of importance in respect of the Edinburgh decision, because the Edinburgh European Council was not the intergovernmental body which made the decision. There is a fine but important distinction to be made.

Why do I say that the union edifice is very different from the structure that the Minister wishes to project to us? The elements of the trunk and of the European Community that are to be found within the so-called pillars are manifold. I would like to go through them in

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detail, but I shall not do so because I know that others wish to contribute to the debate. In title I, however, we find no fewer than eight references to institutions of the Community. They are not intergovernmental, because they are part of the trunk. There is one reference to the Council, four references to the Commission, two to the Parliament and one to the European Court of Justice. The elements within titles II, III and IV get into title I as well, and that was supposed to be entirely intergovernmental.

We were told that there would not be penetration into the other parts of the treaty. Article J deals with foreign and security matters. Within it there are 17 references to the Council and six to the Commission--23 in all. I am sorry that the Minister of State is not in his place to hear what I have to say because this is proveable stuff.

I move on to article K, which deals with judicial and home affairs. We cannot get more national than that. In the series of articles--it starts with K1--there are three references to the Council, four to the Commission, two to the Parliament and one provision for the European Court. If we take up cross-references--I shall not do so in detail--there are no fewer than 40 references to the Community's institutions as they are at present in the so-called pillars. Surprise, surprise, many of them refer to the ubiquitous Commission. The Commission is there all the time, and that is because it is charged with making the whole outfit coherent. That is made clear in the early articles of the treaty. The Commission has the right to understand what the pie is doing, if it is not a finger steering the pie, as it were. This means that titles II and III are much expanded. I suggest that the union is the entire temple and not the single trunk with supporting pillars, and that the claims of the Prime Minister and the Minister of State are not correct. I shall prove that--I hope to be able to do so entirely within the terms of the debate--in relation to the powers of the European Court, which are established and are of the Community.

Migration and home affairs are covered in article K. Article K3.2 (c) reads :

"without prejudice to article 220 of the Treaty establishing the European Community, draw up conventions"--

this is a reference to the Council--

"which it shall recommend to the Member States for adoption in accordance with their respective constitutional requirements. Unless otherwise provided by such conventions, measures implementing them shall be adopted within the Council by a majority of two-thirds of the High Contracting Parties."

That is the Council. There it is. It is working within the so-called intergovernmental area. The article continues : "Such conventions may stipulate that the Court of Justice shall have jurisdiction to interpret their provisions and to rule on any disputes regarding their application, in accordance with such arrangements as they may lay down."

Denmark is rather sensitive when it comes to matters relating to citizenship, for example, which one would think would be well outside the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice. I suggest, however, with the support of quotations, that they certainly are not. Hon. Members may say that there is no compulsion on member states to be parties to the conventions. Tell that to those who were present at the Trevi discussions. Tell that to the Select Committee on Home Affairs. We all know that if we are to have effective laws relating to policing and drugs, for example-- something which we all wish to see inside the possible union--we must have a certain amount of co-operation. The only way in which that can be achieved

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practically is by some sort of agreement. The pressure to adopt the conventions, subject to the European Court, will, I suggest, be politically impossible to resist.

Mr. Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley) : The hon. Gentleman has almost given the game away. I think that he is jumping at shadows in terms of the fears that he has expressed. Article K3.2 distinguishes the intergovernmental co-operation therein described from the procedures under the European Community by giving the initiative to member states as well as to the Commission. It makes it clear that agreement to any convention must be unanimous. There is no question of majority or qualified majority voting. It makes it clear that conventions can be referred to the European Court of Justice only where there is agreement by the states that happen to be parties to the convention. It is--

The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Janet Fookes) : Order. The hon. Member is beginning to make a speech. I think that he knows that in my book interventions should be short.

Mr. Evans rose --

The Second Deputy Chairman : That is it.

Mr. Spearing : I am grateful to the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans). I was saying that there is a channel of competence. It is true that agreement is required, but Ministers who have been to Brussels will know only too well that a ratchet applies to matters relating to European Community. Unanimity sounds fine ; it sounds as though there is a veto once and for all. We know that it is difficult to withstand that procedure and that once there is agreement there is no going back. I suggest to the hon. Gentleman that there is sufficient inducement to agree to competence, to agree to an agreement within the ambit of the European Court. I use that as a trenchant illustration, I believe, of the degree to which the separation of the pillars and the trunk will not, in practice, be as people think.

The hon. Gentleman knows what happens when Ministers fly into Brussels having been briefed by civil servants at the last minute after a constituency meeting, worrying about this, that and the other. That is irrespective of party. The hon. Gentleman knows the Commission, the Council and the central institutions of the Community, with their staffing, knowledge and the Committee of Permanent Representatives, and all the things that go on. That is the effective centripetal drawing in of effective power which, I fear, will be given a boost by the treaty.

The process may have been even faster under the Dutch mark I treaty. The Government have probably slowed down the rate of acceleration that would otherwise have taken place, but there is still that progression to centrality.

Mr. Tim Devlin (Stockton, South) : What concerns me about what the hon. Gentleman is saying, along with so many of his colleagues on both sides of the Committee who are against the Community, is that they lack flair and imagination in seeing what the Community could do. For the Community to draw power to the centre for certain purposes is not necessarily a bad thing. After all, in the past two weeks we have seen that we have no control over the merchant shipping fleets which pass through our waters and may come to grief on the rocks creating great

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disasters. A European market into which the world has to sell is a much more powerful entity than a merely British one, is it not?

Mr. Spearing : I am surprised to be accused of not having much imagination. My trouble is that I have rather too much. However, I think that I am realistic. I do not see hobgoblins.

What is there to prevent every European nation, whether a member of the Community or not, acting separately by intergovernmental action, saying that they will not accept any tanker discharging in any of their ports unless, unless, unless, unless? We do not need a European Community to be able to do that. That could be done fairly soon. It could be done if the Ministers responsible to the House took action. Why do they not? It does not require a centralised Community bureaucracy.

I was not going to make this point because I wanted to be brief, but I shall do so in answer to the hon. Gentleman. British farmers find themselves having to demonstrate against the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. Do not the poor farmers realise that the power to decide what we do with our soil in agricultural terms went from the House in 1973 by majority vote? Apparently they do not.

During the enormously important worldwide negotiation on the economy under GATT, the Minister, then the President of the Agriculture Council, had to book into a hotel under an assumed name and bite his nails while an unnamed, virtually unaccountable EC official negotiated on behalf of all the members of the Community. If the hon. Gentleman thinks that that is right, let him get up and say so.

Mr. Devlin : He thinks that it is right. It is far better for the Community to negotiate GATT as a whole than to spin out the whole arrangement by perhaps another 10 or 15 years on each round simply because there are that many more parties to the agreement. Of course it is better that we negotiate as a single market.

7.15 pm

On the hon. Gentleman's earlier point about shipping, he simply described the position as it is now. The disaster that we are faced with at the moment occurred because a ship going from Norway, which is not in the Community, to Canada, which is not in the Community, did not have to meet the standards required in a British port because it was not going to a British port.

Mr. Spearing : There is nothing to prevent the Norwegians, if they so wish--I should have thought that they might, being a maritime power-- agreeing to anything whether inside or outside the EC. I shall take up the matter with the Canadian High Commission because Canada is worried about the environment.

On the other point, the hon. Gentleman mistook what I was saying. If there is a single market by law and there is a negotiation under GATT, of course we must--unfortunately, from my point of view--negotiate as a Community. But we do not have to send in an unnamed official while the President of the Council of Ministers concerned has almost the status of an office boy on the edge, or so it looked. Is that what the hon. Gentleman wants? I do not think so. That separates the elected person responsible to the people in this Parliament and in other

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Parliaments, accountable in some way or another, from the officials of the Commission who have far too much power.

Mr. Devlin rose--

Mr. Spearing : I said that I would not give way again and, in order to assist other colleagues, I must move on to the second part of my remarks relating to the so-called decision at Edinburgh.

I was at Edinburgh during the summit. I spent one evening in the company of the hon. Member for Billericay (Mrs. Gorman) and 200 other people. We were both making our views known about the succession of treaties. One member of the multinational audience asked me what the hon. Lady was like. I said that she was Baroness Thatcher times two. That was met with disbelief, but I was believed when she made her speech. She was not in favour of these matters. Everyone knows my views. She said that we needed to get rid of the Community because it was a socialist plot. I said that the hon. Lady was wrong because I thought that it was a capitalist plot. I had the words of the treaty on my side. It requires

"the free movement of capital and labour unless authorised to the contrary."

However, I said that we should compromise because we both agreed that it was a plot. We must remember the old succession, "I plan, you scheme and they plot". I suppose that that is what we all say about each other.

The decision at Edinburgh was surely about political power, because that is what the treaties are about. They are a map of political power ; a proto- constitution taken as a library of treaties, including the Single European Act, bits of which are also lying around.

What does the Edinburgh decision do? Does it modify political union? I should have thought that it must ; otherwise Mr. Schluter would not have been able to go back to Copenhagen satisfied that he had enough to be able to recommend a second round in Denmark. It must make some change. On the other hand, we are told that the decision does not change the wording of the treaty. If that is so, how can it have a different effect? I should like the Minister to explain that conundrum when he replies.

Many people say that the decision makes no difference. Earlier in the debate the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Cash) quoted the German Chancellor and I shall do so again. In the Financial Times on 4 January 1993 the Chancellor is quoted as saying :

"the European Community expressed their sympathy for Denmark's special reservations, but decided not to change the Maastricht treaty. Reopening negotiations was not, and is not, on our agenda." I do not know who "our" is. Presumably it does not include Denmark. He continued :

"In Edinburgh we therefore could go no further than to clarify the relevant treaty clauses to respond to the main Danish concerns. This purely declaratory decision' neither changes nor complements the treaty, and therefore does not require ratification by member states."

I think that everyone who is present now was present when, in reply to a point made by one of my hon. Friends, the Minister--having received some information--confirmed that declarations were not legally binding. There may be a problem in the translation, but it is clear that Chancellor Kohl does not want the declaratory decision that we are discussing to be legally binding in the sense that we have been told it is.

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The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Stephen Dorrell) : The hon. Gentleman quoted my right hon. Friend as having said that declarations were not legally binding. That is not quite what my right hon. Friend said. He was asked specifically whether the declarations attached to the treaty came within the ambit of the Bill, and the answer to that very precise question is an equally precise no.

Mr. Spearing : Well, we shall consult Hansard. I believe, however-- although I am subject to correction--that, while protocols are legally binding, declarations in a treaty are not. That is laid down in the Vienna convention. Declarations of hope or intent, for example, cannot be legally binding, because people can change their minds--and that is quite right. None the less, some of us expected a protocol at least : I think that the Danes expected that. Such a protocol could have been added, and it need not have been very long.

Following what may have been skilful negotiation by our Prime Minister, we have secured certain clauses and derogations. Some people object to them, and I understand why. The Danes, however, want much more ; they suggested, for instance, that changes applying to Denmark could also be applied to applicant states of the Nordic union, if they wished it. I understand that the decision concerned extends to no country other than Denmark, so one of its requirements has already gone out of the window.

Having asked questions about the declaration, I discovered that it did not need ratification. I was told by the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office--a junior Minister--

"The decision does not require ratification".

He went on to say that the decision had been made not by the European Council, but by

"Heads of State and Government meeting within the European Council."--[ Official Report, 17 December 1992 ; Vol. 216, c. 356. ]

As recently as 11 January, I asked the Prime Minister who had signed the decision, on behalf of all the nations involved. The Prime Minister replied :

"The decision relating to Denmark was not signed."-- [ Official Report, 11 January 1993 ; Vol. 216, c. 554. ]

I am not suggesting that every international treaty should be signed, but if I take a guest into the Strangers Cafeteria, I sign for it. We all sign for things all the time, do we not? We have to sign even for small transactions. Why did no one sign that decision? One would have thought that, if it is to be effective and applicable in international law--as the Prime Minister told us several times that it would be on 14 December--all possible steps would have been taken to ensure that.

According to information that we received recently, a ruling of the European Court of Justice--to which the Prime Minister referred repeatedly on 14 December ; it sounds good, does it not?--currently binds only seven of the 12 members of the Community. Somone might ask, "How far are titles II, III and IV exclusively the Community's provenance, and how far are the other titles exclusively within the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice?" What if there are conflicting judgments about the interpretation of this so-called decision? Who will win?

My right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Mr. Davies) asked a pertinent question : whether the decision was registered with the United Nations as an international treaty. According to the most recent information that I

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have received, my right hon. Friend asked the Foreign Office that question before Christmas, in which case it has had plenty of time to find the answer.

Mr. Denzil Davies : I can confirm that. I asked whether the decision, or treaty, was registerable, and whether it had been registered. I have not yet received even a holding answer, although I believe that it will arrive by van today, three days late. I do not know when the substantive answer will arrive.

Mr. Spearing : I do not see a Foreign Office Minister in the Chamber. I am sorry that the great Foreign Office, with all its Ministers, cannot provide someone to listen to what we are saying ; but I am not surprised that, in a rather strange speech, the Minister made it clear that he did not want the matter to be reported to Parliament.

Mr. Shore : On a point of order, Dame Janet. Is it not extraordinary that no Foreign Office Minister is present? My hon. Friend is raising points that are clearly not within the competence of the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, who is here to deal with European monetary union. These are serious matters, and it is outrageous that no Foreign Office Minister is listening.

The Second Deputy Chairman : The question of whom the Government put up to listen, or to speak on their behalf, is not a point of order for the Chair. No doubt Ministers will have noted the right hon. Gentleman's point.

Mr. Spearing : Thank you, Dame Janet--and I also thank my right hon. Friend for reinforcing my point. On an earlier occasion, I raised a point of order asking for a separate debate on these important matters ; we are having that debate now. I pointed out then that I had written to the Attorney-General on 15 December, seeking information about the Edinburgh summit. I also asked him about the failure of the Foreign Office Minister to reply to points made in the previous debate. Many hon. Members will recall that famous occasion, when the Minister was apparently unable to reply to questions about justiciability. No wonder the poor chap could not answer ; I did not think that there was an answer.

I took it on myself to write to the Attorney-General because I thought that he would know the answers to my questions. I requested a reply in time for today's debate, but so far it has not arrived. I believe that it will come tomorrow, but I am told that it will come not from the Attorney-General but from a Minister of State at the Foreign Office. It looks as though I shall have to write another letter. Not only have I had to write to the Attorney- General, who was not present for the previous debate, but no Foreign Office Minister is present today.

Mr. Nicholas Winterton : The hon. Gentleman referred to the status of the declarations relating to Denmark. Many of us are concerned about what is happening in Denmark, and interested in the outcome of the next referendum. We do not know when that will take place ; it will depend on what Government Denmark has after its current difficulties.

Is the hon. Gentleman implying that the Danish people may be faced with a false prospectus? They may well be given certain assurances which have no validity in law. If the matters concerned come before the European Court in the first instance, the declarations may well be set aside and

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the Danish people may find that they have participated in a referendum on the basis of various assurances given to them by the Government of the moment which have no legal validity and could be dismissed by the European Court with the stroke of a pen.

7.30 pm

Mr. Spearing : I am not sure that it would necessarily be for the European Court or even for the International Court of Justice at the Hague. That matter has yet to be decided--we do not know. If the House of Commons does not know, I fail to understand how the Folketing can know either. The House is surely entitled, as a provisional signatory to the treaty, to the same information as the people of Denmark. We have yet to decide whether we will have the same opportunities in the future--that comes in a different part of the Bill--to put the same question that was put to the people of Denmark. We may yet do that. If Denmark is treated in that way--at least by a possible con ; I put it in colloquial language--we, as members of the European Community concerned with the quality of democracy in the Community, have just as much right to know whether the decision taken at Edinburgh was genuine.

On the evidence before us, the chances are that it was not genuine. My evidence is the words of the Prime Minister himself. On 14 December, I asked him how the nature of the European union could not be affected if the declaration at Edinburgh was to be legally and justiciably effective. If it is not to have an effect on the treaty, what has it to be effective and justiciable about? There cannot be one without the other. The Prime Minister replied :

"The hon. Gentleman began with a fallacy What was agreed was an intergovernmental binding decision, not a treaty. There is a clear distinction between the two."--[ Official Report, 14 December 1992 ; Vol. 216, c. 37.]

I do not see a clear distinction between an intergovernmental, binding decision and what we know as an international treaty. Perhaps I had better ask the Prime Minister about that. It seems that we are in dangerous waters.

Mr. Christopher Gill (Ludlow) : Is not the most distressing part of much of this debate that we, as the tribunes of the people, are unable to decide such matters for ourselves? At every twist and turn, one is looking to the legal profession to tell us what it is that we think that we have decided in the name of the people. It seems that we have effectively copped out of making decisions on behalf of the people that we represent.

Mr. Spearing : I understand the hon. Gentleman's concern, but I will try to be a little imaginative and optimistic. In Britain, other than by treaty, the highest court is this House and another place. Is it not suspicious that, despite the hon. Gentleman's assertion about asking lawyers--I like to ask them things and obtain full explanations--no representative of the Lord Chancellor's Department is in his place? We can tell the people of this country that the fact of that absence should cause them to think very hard.

It may be that the Attorney-General's office would say, "This isn't really for us. We only deal with domestic law. International law is a job for the Foreign Office." That may be true, but where are the representatives of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office? Is it not the height of ministerial arrogance that, during 10 or 15 minutes of

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debate, the people of this country did not have a Foreign Office Minister present on the Government Front Bench to hear our remarks about international law?

Mr. Gill : Is it not almost irrelevant whether Ministers are present, because in the final analysis neither my right hon. Friend the Minister of State nor my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General will be the final arbiter? A court beyond our shores will decide such matters.

Mr. Spearing : That may be terrible at the moment, but if the House does not pass the Bill, that is not entirely a matter for the Executive in Whitehall--the princes of politics. It is a matter for right hon. and hon. Members. If we say no to any important part of the Bill, there is nothing to prevent an improved treaty coming before us next time. That has already happened in the case of Denmark--or is it an improved treaty? The very fact that we do not know about the change that the people of Denmark managed to effect, if it is a change, is itself important. That the whole thing was not dropped straightaway because there was no unanimity is also a tell-tale sign.

One major constitutional matter has so far eluded the House, the media, and most of the public. It is of such stratospheric constitutional significance that is is not visible from the Floor of the Committee. The treaty was discussed for 18 months or two years at intergovernmental conferences, summits, conclaves and other meetings. The mind boggles at the man hours that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office must have put in. We had one version of the treaty, and then another. Then we had the treaty on European union, and a modification or not from the Danes. It went on and on.

That treaty of 134 pages was subject to ratification by the due constitutional procedures of each member state under article 236, but then one member said no. A few gentlemen and perhaps one or two ladies--I am not sure whether there are any lady Ministers--met for two days in Edinburgh and reached an overnight decision, without signature. They said, "We are going to change the treaty in respect of the obligations placed on one of our members."

If the Prime Minister is to be believed, they effectively changed the nature of the treaty, which is not to be ratified by the House or any other assembly of the people of the member states. If the Prime Minister is right and the nature of the change is justiciable, the treaty was changed-- changed overnight by a group of people sitting in Edinburgh and deciding the way that the treaty should be changed. It is not just a question of legislation. They do that in the Council, probably every week. It is not just the justiciability of the European Court or tax--they have those already. It is a matter of changing the effective constitution of the union. If that can be done virtually overnight by people sitting in Edinburgh, doing a deal, and changing the constitution of the total union that may be, surely that strikes more of the philosophy of ancient Rome than of the revolutionary and forward-looking philosophy that drove the people of Philadelphia into a different sort of constitution--had it been otherwise, I might not be speaking like this today.

Mr. Michael Spicer : First, let me say in response to the hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) that I, too, recollect the Minister of State saying that declarations

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were not legally binding. I listened rather carefully to that assertion. The hon. Member for Newham, South may have heard it before, but it was the first time that I had heard it said, certainly from the Dispatch Box. Perhaps the Minister of State made a mistake. I am sure that he will not wish to change the record, but he may wish to correct himself. I agree with the hon. Member for Newham, South : the Minister of State certainly said that in my hearing.

I support amendment No. 40 because title II is the instrument by which the jump is made irrevocably--which means for ever--towards a federal state of Europe. Hon. Members asked my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Cash) what was the fundamental difference between the passage through the House of the Single European Act--and of earlier legislation in connection with that treaty--and the passage of the Maastricht Bill. The answer is precisely the word "irrevocable". We are to pass legislation that will bind future Parliaments. If there is a central element to our unwritten constitution, it is that one Parliament should not bind another. That is the new step that we are taking and it is the fundamental difference between the present Bill and everything that has happened before. That is the answer that my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford should have given in response to those who teased him by asking why he had voted in favour of previous legislation but proposed to vote against the Bill. It is a perfectly logical position to adopt.

For the most part, those in Britain who defend the treaty avoid conceding that to accept Maastricht is inevitably and irrevocably to accept the formation of a united states of Europe. As has been said already, others in Europe have no such reservations about accepting the essential federalist nature of the treaty. Indeed, to them, the federalist intent of Maastricht is its chief attraction. That was clearly stated by Chancellor Kohl in a speech made at the Bertelsmann forum on 3 April last :

"In Maastricht we laid the foundation-stone for the completion of the European union. The European union treaty introduces a new and decisive stage in the process of European union which within a few years will lead to the creation of what founder fathers of modern Europe dreamed of following the last war : the united states of Europe."

The Chancellor of Germany is in no doubt about the intent of the Maastricht treaty and his interpretation of the treaty must readily be accepted as the correct one : article 8 of title II establishes the rights and duties of union citizenship. To be a citizen, one has to be a citizen of something ; there must exist a state to which one belongs.

The path by which the federal state is to be established under Maastricht is clearly laid out--it is through the formation of a single currency.

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