| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Ms Joyce Quin.
9.24 pm
Ms Joyce Quin (Gateshead, East): For many hon. Members on both sides of the House, this has been a frustrating debate--in particular because of the lack of time available to discuss the many issues that are raised in the Government's White Paper and that are likely to be raised at the intergovernmental conference. Sadly,an already short day was curtailed even further by the admittedly important Government statement on Northern Ireland. I strongly regret the Government's retreat behind the device of an Adjournment debate to avoid dealing with a substantive motion. However, we will seek and,I hope, win other opportunities to bring these matters before the House so that a vote can be taken on the issues.
I want to puncture one myth that Ministers frequently peddle, including the hon. Member for Boothferry(Mr. Davis), who will reply to the debate. He has claimed that Labour is criticising the Government's White Paper because it does not have any ideas of its own. However, as he should be prepared to admit--and as was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Livingston(Mr. Cook)--Labour published a White Paper on the issues many months ago and it has been unanimously adopted. It contains many details that I commend to Conservative Members. It is even in a white cover, unlike the Government's White Paper which, intriguingly, alone among European countries has Britain coloured red on the front cover--[Interruption.] My hon. Friends think that it is a sign of things to come.
This is our second debate on the Government's White Paper because the hon. Member for Ludlow (Mr. Gill) introduced an Adjournment debate on it last Wednesday. The Minister made a rather odd statement when he replied to that debate, which he might be able to explain tonight. First, he said:
I punctured that claim by pointing to Labour's White Paper. However, the hon. Gentleman then said:
I am not sure what on earth that means, but I am sure that we cannot be following Government policy on the one hand and being impaled on various hooks of Europhoria on the other. Perhaps the Minister will explain his mysterious remarks.
What is clear from this debate and from the White Paper is that the document is wholly inconsistent.Indeed, the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup(Sir E. Heath) put it well when he said that it was riddled with schizophrenia. The Government are trying to have it both ways. During the Adjournment debate last week,the Government appeared to have been partly successful in getting a welcome for the White Paper from both Euro-sceptics and Europhiles in the Conservative party.
However, a different picture has emerged tonight. It is now clear that the Euro-sceptics very much reject the White Paper. They feel that it does not go anywhere near as far as they had hoped. Indeed, they have been fiercely critical of it during this debate. The Foreign Secretary had to deal with a large number of interventions from Conservative Members. At one point, it was suggested that the sitting be suspended so that a meeting of the 1992 Committee could be convened to sort out some of the huge divisions appearing before us.
The White Paper is inconsistent on many issues. That is especially true in the section that deals with the European Court of Justice. The Government say that they want to strengthen the court and they acknowledge the importance of its strong and independent role, yet at the same time they suggest various ways to weaken its powers, including some rather strange proposals such as damages being paid only in cases of serious or manifest breaches of obligations. That is a very curious principle and we would all be extremely surprised if the Government tried to apply it in our own national courts. Indeed, the way in which the Government say that the damages should be limited suggests that they are saying that there should be one rule for Governments and quite another rule to the disadvantage of individuals who have previously been protected by the court's rules.
In saying that the court should be liable only for damages in cases of a serious or manifest breach of obligations, the Government are presumably opening the way for the court to decide whether that breach has been serious or manifest. Paradoxically, therefore, what the Government are proposing could lead to greater interference by the European Court of Justice rather than less.
I should like to pay tribute to some of the judgments of the European Court of Justice, especially those that have protected the interests of many British women at work who had been treated unjustly by the Government and their employers. We should recognise that.
On working hours, it seems to be totally illogical for the Government to adopt a position that effectively means that even if one worked 24 hours a day, seven days a week, there would be absolutely no health and safety implications. That is totally untenable. My hon. Friend the Member for Livingston was quite right to point out that we stand to benefit from the European Court of Justice applying rules uniformly across the European Union. Indeed, the figures that he quoted showed very clearly that Britain is a beneficiary of that system. It does not lose.
The section of the White Paper relating to the European Parliament is also full of inconsistencies. The Government criticise the European Parliament for lacking popular respect and affection. That seems a particularly ironic claim to be made by the Government at this time. They also criticise the use of powers of co-decision by the European Parliament, and say that it abuses its powers.In fact, the figures clearly show that the powers have been used very sparingly and that, in most cases where co-decision could have been used, the European Parliament and other EU institutions have managed to reach agreement well in advance.
It is also sad that Government are not prepared to consider any of the modest reforms that the Labour party proposes in its own White Paper for increasing the influence of the European Parliament. Labour Members
believe, especially if the scrutiny in national Parliaments is made more efficient, that, far from taking powers away from national Parliaments, our proposals can enhance the democratic structures and democratic accountability of the whole EU. It is again ironic that the Government are refusing to consider any of our proposals, when it is clear that they are treating our own Parliament with contempt in the way in which they deal with many aspects of European legislation.
Many hon. Members on both sides of the House have talked about their frustration at not being able to debate monetary union as they would have liked. Yet, at the same time, a proposal by the European Select Committee to debate a document on monetary union on the Floor of the House has so far been blocked by the Government. Conservative Members ought to direct some pressure on members of the Government so that such matters are brought into the full gaze of public scrutiny on the Floor of the House.
The White Paper also talks about bringing powers backto--presumably--this House, but it is very short on details of how that could be achieved. Perhaps the Minister will tell us whether he has any more specific proposals on the matter. The White Paper talks about the concept of subsidiarity, too. Once again today, the Foreign Secretary claimed that subsidiarity was some kind of uniquely British idea and an uniquely British success. That simply is not the case. Subsidiarity was mentioned before Maastricht,in article 130S of the Single European Act. It was also mentioned in the European Parliament, in a much earlier report by the Italian MEP, Altiero Spinelli. For the Government to claim that it was a British idea is false.
In the White Paper the Government also say that they are now considering proposals to improve the system of comitology. However, less then a year ago, in a written answer to one of my parliamentary questions, the Government said that they had no proposals to change the system of comitology. Perhaps the Minister of State will deal with that inconsistency, too.
The Government's aims in the White Paper are unrealistic. They talk again about trying to introduce a sunset clause into the revision of the treaty. The idea of a sunset Government trying to put forward a sunset clause made me smile. But what they are asking for is already there in the European institutions. It is already possible for the Commission to withdraw proposals, and it frequently does so. Moreover, if a sunset clause came into effect, the Commission could make new proposals to replace the sunset proposals when it wanted to. So that is another idea that is simply window-dressing, with no substance whatever.
Many of my hon. Friends talked about monetary union. I welcome the fact that in doing so they spoke eloquently about addressing the issue of employment at the IGC.It is wrong for the Government to claim that the only people interested in putting an employment chapter before the IGC and into the revision of the treaty are the Swedish Government. In fact, the Swedish proposals are gaining impressive support across the European Union.
"Labour policy is partly a lame shadowing of our policy when the Labour party is too afraid to have a view of its own."
"It is a pathetic wriggling on hooks that the Labour leader has impaled the hon. Lady on in moments of Europhoria."--[Official Report, 13 March 1996; Vol. 273, c. 914-15.]
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |