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9.6 pm
Mr. Michael Lord (Central Suffolk): It was interesting to hear the hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane) talking about Conservative extremists since he is clearly a man of great extremes himself. He seems to think that one can only be either a federalist or in favour of leaving Europe all together. Federalism was implicit in everything he said; he agreed with the two Conservative speakers who agree with him.
There is another course between the two extremes. There is no doubt that what I would call the European experiment is failing and beginning to disintegrate.Its total disintegration may not be far away. That does not surprise me, as one who campaigned and voted against Europe in 1975. I did not understand in those days how there could be one set of rules for so many different nations, temperaments, cultures and climates. So I shall not be surprised if the experiment does not ultimately succeed.
The question really is how Europe will change. If it is going to break up, will it break up chaotically or in an orderly fashion? The great difficulty is in persuading the
people who are determined to press on towards a federal Europe that the game is finally up. Until now, this country and this Government have not quite known how to cope with Europe. We have tried a war of attrition to get our way; at other times we have been like Mr. Micawber, hoping that something would turn up.
The problem is hugely exacerbated by the fact that while we talk about reining in some of the European institutions and about subsidiarity, the truth is that the whole mad machine of federalism is grinding on as fast as ever. We really must distinguish between fact and fantasy, between reality and wishful thinking, between what we would like Europe to look like and what is actually happening to our constituents.
The common fisheries policy is a running sore.The common agricultural policy makes less sense every day. Only last week we learned that 2.5 million tonnes of fresh vegetables had been destroyed to keep prices artificially high. In our constituencies our work is continually frustrated by the interventions of Brussels. Nitrate-vulnerable zones are being forced on my farmers by a Brussels directive, although I do not have time to go into that this evening. Heavy goods vehicle drivers who wear glasses are told that they must lose their licences.I was amazed to get a letter from my hon. Friend the Minister for Transport in London--if anyone would call a spade a shovel, he would--telling me that the effect of this measure has been somewhat overestimated and that it will cost only 3,000 jobs.
The House might be interested to hear that I tabled a question the other day to my hon. Friend the Minister who is on the Front Bench tonight. I said to him, "You would think, would you not, that the countries which normally have embassies or missions in different countries would be nation states." I asked him how many embassies and missions the European Union had established to date. The House will be intrigued to know that the European Union has established 118 embassies or missions throughout the world. I have the list here, which I shall read into Hansard. From Bangladesh to Barbados, from Brazilto Cape Verde, on and on it goes, and it costs about£151 million a year--about £60 million in salaries and about £90 million in non-staff-related costs.
If that is not evidence of an organisation that believes that it is already a state, I do not know what is. I do not know who sanctioned all those embassies and all that spending. I trust that it was not my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State, whose views I suspect are not far removed from my own, and who I am sure will find it difficult to respond to today's debate in the way that I would wish.
More seriously, Chancellor Kohl warns of war if he does not get his own way. Yet most people now know that his federal dream is as dead as the dodo. Most people in this country are fed up to the back teeth with European interference. The challenge is to decide where we go now. The question, "If you don't want a federal Europe, what kind of Europe do you want?" is fair, and we should address it.
I welcome the White Paper, although I do not think that it goes far enough. I believe that it is an opportunity missed. I believe that the United Kingdom should now take the lead and spell out the Europe that we want for the future. There is no time for me to deal with all of that tonight, even if I knew all the answers--which I do not.
Many suggestions have been made. My hon. Friend the Member for South Worcestershire (Sir M. Spicer) talked about the European research group and its ideas. Opposition Members talked about the Council of Europe with variations. I believe that there is a way to share trade and to have a common market without binding ourselves politically in the way in which we are starting to do.
Hon. Members will agree that calls in their constituencies for total withdrawal are growing. If those calls are not to become irresistible, we have to do something about it. We talk about being at the heart of Europe, but this country has never been at the heart of Europe in the way in which some people mean. We have always been on the fringe, not just geographically but in other ways. Caring for Europe? Yes. I am very anxious for its future. In a sense, we are looking after it. We have had to help it from time to time. I do not believe that we are part of Europe in the way in which some people pretend, but this is a golden opportunity, from our relatively separate position, to take a lead and to say that this is the way in which we should go--not federal, not out, but a new way with which we can all be comfortable.
I listened with interest to the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn). I agreed with every word that he said about our responsibilities to our constituents and how important--I believe that it is almost sacred--that relationship is and how it cannot be given away without a referendum to ask the people whether that is the right thing to do.
Hon. Members say that we cannot do this or we cannot do that because the issues are hugely complex. I have come to the conclusion that almost all the great issues that the House faces are probably very simple at the end of the day, but we make them complicated, I suspect, simply because we do not want--or do not have the courage--to face them. This issue is all about the sovereignty of the House of Commons, about who governs this country and about the role that Back Benchers play on behalf of the constituents whom we look after.
Mr. Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford):
I did not expect to speak in the debate, and I assure both Front-Bench spokesmen that I will stick to the agreed time. I have only a few points to make.
The debate is supposed to be about the White Paper, but much of it has involved not the White Paper but the bandying of prejudices across the Chamber. One example is the speech of the hon. Member for Rotherham(Mr. MacShane), whose speeches I normally enjoy--but I shall not be tempted to follow him.
I welcome the principle of producing a White Paper.I think that those who say, like my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Sir E. Heath) that the White Paper was a mistake are wrong. After all, what is democracy if it is not discussing what Governments plan, and then discussing what they do after attempting to implement their plans? I congratulate the Government on seeing this through.
Although I enjoyed the main rhetorical thrust of the White Paper, however, I feel that what is not in it may be more important than what is. The section dealing with home affairs includes a lengthy restatement of the intergovernmentalism that was supposedly established by the Maastricht treaty. The Government set great store by that, but nothing in the White Paper leads me to believe that the border controls declaration of exemption from the Single European Act will be sorted out and bound into the treaty at the intergovernmental conference to give it some force of law.
I think that my hon. Friend the Minister will accept that that is vital, given some of the propositions advanced by the European Parliament and even the Commission in connection with getting rid of the declaration. Perhaps, as the White Paper suggests, we fear that our proposal would
I ask my right hon. and hon. Friends to stand a bit straighter, and to approach the IGC with determination.
As for foreign affairs, we have again stressed the intergovernmentalism of the whole approach; yet quietly, almost subliminally, we are told that there is to bea spokesman on European common foreign policy.I understand why the Germans might ask for that: their position has been clear and explicit. I only ask why we have agreed to it. It strikes me as yet another ratchet towards the institutions gaining control over much of the decision-making. Why have we gone first in one direction and then in another?
The fishing issue is interesting. We have had a big row about that, and much concern was caused by the judgment of the European Court. Incidentally, I do not know why hon. Members were surprised; we have known that the judgment was on its way for the past few years. We say that we will adopt a robust stance--that we will take on our partners--but we do not say what we will do if they tell us that they do not agree with us. It seems that we are not going to send a message saying that we mean business, although I suspect that France and Germany might do just that.
Why do we not enact a two-clause Bill restating the position, and stating our belief that the judgment will lead to a waste of taxpayers' money? Why do we not say that we are politically determined to sort the matter out at the IGC but that, until then, the European Court should not implement its judgment under direct applicability, because the matter is political and we will deal with it politically? Such a message would be understood by the Germans and the French, and respected, because they understand the force of argument backed up by their own institutions.
The White Paper does not deal properly with two important issues. The first is the whole issue of European law and the European Court of Justice, which runs through the body of the European Union like a backbone. The second, which hangs there like a shadow, is the issue of European currency union and the eventual single currency. It is strange that a White Paper presenting a Government position for which we hoped does not specify the Government's real approach, or set out what they hope for in regard to the rest of Europe, which will be advanced at the IGC. We are often accused of standing back or of being negative, but we have an opportunity to be positive and to say that there is an alternative to what is clearly not working. If we do not take that opportunity, we shall have wasted it.
The right hon. Member for Llanelli (Mr. Davies),as always, set out the position fluently and clearly with regard to the European Court of Justice and I commend him for that. I made a similar speech on 24 March 1993 and on 20 January 1993, in which I pointed out that the social chapter opt-out was non-existent because the treaty contains all the social chapter provisions to implement everything that the European Court would wish. Right hon. and hon. Members have been surprised at the recent decision on the working time directive, but I am not surprised, because that is an inevitable progression. The court will always find in that direction.
We ask ourselves what we can do about it and we seem to agree, somehow, that we can resolve this matter at the IGC. Yet as my hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth (Mr. Carttiss) said, we gave the European Court the powers. We agreed the competences under successive treaty amendments, so we have acquiesced in that. We should not be surprised about it, but we should understand it. The court legislates on the move--we accepted that fact when we joined in 1972--and it is political because it takes a view on the political intentions of treaties and their amendments. It will always let one phrase ride when there is doubt: ever closer union between the peoples of Europe. It will always read things in that direction.
We cannot deal with that by saying simply that we will take the court on or ignore its judgments. We should not ignore them: if we believe in the rule of law, that would be wrong. We are saying that Parliament should reassert its position with regard to this country's courts and to the way in which divisional courts strike down Acts of Parliament without even a referral to the court. We need an Act of Parliament.
Most of all, clearly, if we pass to the European Union competences on which the European Court of Justice will rule, what are we to expect? It will rule on them and widen the breadth of its rulings. The only answer, therefore, is to withdraw those competences so that the court will not be able make such rulings, It is quite simple, but it will take a heck of an amount of political will from Ministers at the IGC. I wish them luck. Without the will, there will be no scope to curtail the court's powers.
The single currency issue hangs over us. Unemployment is rising across Europe because of the timetabled drive towards currency union. Chancellor Kohl is a man in a hurry and with a view of his destiny.His own bank and people do not agree with him, but he does not care, because he has a dream and a vision and we must all march to that vision. In the wake of that vision, however, will come the one thing that he seeks to avoid: the destruction and chaos caused by the kind of government that he experienced in his country.
He is about to create that here. He will set nations against nations. Germany will be unnecessarily criticised roundly in all the various conferences and discussions. We have heard many such criticisms tonight. I do not fear Germany and I wish that it would not fear itself, but I recognise that it is powerful. We must deal with it, but we will not do so according to Chancellor Kohl's agenda, because that will lead only to fear and unhappiness.
"stand no chance of . . . acceptance".
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