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Mr. Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury): The answer to the hon. Gentleman's question is simple. At the 1975 referendum, when two out of three people endorsed our continued membership of the European Community, the booklet, "Britain's new deal in Europe", which was issued by the Labour Government, specifically guaranteed that, if a British Minister objected to any legislation within Europe, that would be the end of the legislation. If the Government are to take us down a different road, they should at least have the courtesy to revisit the British electorate.
Mr. Rammell: Why, then, did not the former Prime Minister, Baroness Thatcher, take a similar route when she signed up to the Single European Act 1985? Clearly, we are dealing with a very different Conservative party today from the one in the 1980s.
Qualified majority voting will help us on the issues that I highlighted. It would be foolish to pretend that we would always win every argument in Europe, but I am certain that the pros will outweigh the cons. That is life. Whether it is in the workplace, business, government or politics, one sometimes wins and one sometimes loses. Sometimes one must negotiate and trade to proceed on the matters that are more important than others. That is how one makes progress in life, and it is how we shall make progress in Europe.
The treaty enshrines the concept of subsidiarity more clearly than ever before. After Amsterdam, Community action will be justified only when more can be achieved together than alone, but also when action cannot be achieved by a member state acting alone. That is not federalism; it retains sovereignty where it can be effective and pools it where significantly more can be achieved together than alone.
The treaty also improves the scrutiny process, so that national Parliaments and the people they represent can better understand and influence what the European Union does. I welcome the protocol setting out the six-week delay between the tabling of proposed legislation and its being placed on the Council agenda for decision. I also welcome the fact that Council decisions will now be published.
I hope that Britain will use its European Union presidency to take a lead and change the way in which the House scrutinises European legislation and makes decisions. Although improvements have been made, we need faster depositing of European documents in Parliament. We also need to extend the practice of Ministers appearing before Select Committees in advance of Council of Ministers meetings, and, in some cases, giving written reports on their return. The system should also be reformed so that pillars 2 and 3 come under the
scrutiny process. Furthermore, if votes at Council meetings are to be made public, the overall proceedings should be made public and televised. In that respect, I agree with the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Mr. Davies).
All those moves are designed to open up Europe and to open up the decision-making process. They will be widely welcomed, because the reason why people are sometimes suspicious and fearful of Europe is not that they are intrinsically anti-European but that they simply do not understand what is happening and how decisions are made. Post-Amsterdam, the solution to that problem is in our hands.
I welcome the fact that the treaty makes it clear that the European Union, post-Amsterdam, is not just a financial or business union; it is a people's union. The priority given to job creation within the treaty is long overdue. The co-ordination of employment strategies, the dissemination of best job-creating practices and the small incentive programmes that go with that are to be welcomed. That should not be simply a fig leaf, but this country should give practical support, through our Government and in the Councils of Europe, to that job-creating process.
Flexibility within the labour market will be part of the solution, but not the whole solution. Growth is already returning across the European Union, yet it is not matched by rising employment. Employment flexibility without higher employment levels is not sustainable in the long run and will not be supported by people in this country and elsewhere.
I am pleased that the treaty addresses the quality of employment as well as the number of jobs. I am delighted and proud that this Government have at long last signed the European social chapter. Arguments against the social chapter have always been exaggerated, and our arguments in its favour should not simply be defensive. In a global economy, the opportunity for unscrupulous exploitation of working people should be resisted, and we should do everything possible, through the social chapter and other mechanisms, to create minimum employment standards and fairness.
On the down side, as my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary and others have said, a significant concern is the treaty's failure fully to face up to the need for institutional reform before enlargement. The Commission cannot continue to grow whenever a new nation applies for membership. The weighting of Council votes to represent population size more effectively must be addressed. As the Foreign Secretary said, it is absurd and unsustainable that, under the current rules--certainly under qualified majority voting--countries that represent a majority of the European population could not mount enough votes to block a proposal.
If Europe is to enlarge, that cannot be allowed to continue. While I recognise the negotiating constraints in that respect, I urge the Government to make the problem a high priority for urgent and early resolution, otherwise that factor will be used by those who oppose enlargement to block enlargement unfairly and unnecessarily.
I also welcome other measures in the treaty, such as the fact that our veto on the key issues of changes to the treaty, the budget, foreign and security policy, taxation and social security has been maintained. I say loudly and clearly to the Euro-sceptic siren voices that
persistently and misleadingly claim that, after Amsterdam, the European Union will take taxation policies out of our hands: nothing in the treaty sustains that argument.
I shall now deal with some of the attacks on the treaty by Conservative Members. First, the shadow Foreign Secretary attacked my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary for his supposed lack of diplomacy and for offending officials. That was certainly amusing, but given his stewardship of the Prison Service and his relationship with some of its officials, those comments lacked credibility, to say the least.
Although I disagreed with the comments of the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth), who said that it was not simply a question of what happened in Amsterdam but that one needed to judge the whole train and flow of summits, treaties and decision making within Europe, I could respect the manner in which he put forward the argument. It was in stark contrast to the comments of some Conservative Members, both today and previously, who talk apocalyptically about the future of the nation state. That serves neither our debate nor the public debate, which, as we move towards a debate on the single currency, will be absolutely necessary to get to the heart of the issue, so that people are properly informed about what is at stake.
I was interested to hear the concern expressed about the penalties that can be used against nations involved in serious and persistent violations of human rights. As a democratically elected politician, I should be appalled to conceive of circumstances in which all 14 other member states of the EU believed Britain to be involved in serious and persistent violations of human rights, and we did not recognise that fact.
The Conservative approach to that scenario almost seems to be that we should be able to behave in whatever way we wish. That is neither helpful nor constructive. The new rules on their own may not have made a difference, but if their existence in the future and the pressure that they would bring to bear made it less likely, for example, that trade unions would be banned at GCHQ, or that section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988 would be imposed, that should be welcomed.
We have heard from the shadow Foreign Secretary and others their concern about the extension of qualified majority voting. Before the debate, I looked through copies of Hansard from around the time of the Single European Act 1985. That represented a significant advance in QMV. I was intrigued to discover that in the six months following that treaty, not once in Prime Minister's questions was the issue of QMV raised. That is a strong indication that the argument against QMV is a cloak for the arguments of Euro-scepticism. It shows that the present Conservative party is very different from the one that existed in the 1980s and earlier.
The Opposition say that they will vote against the Bill. No reasonable person, having listened to the debate, read the treaty and considered what is at stake, would vote against the treaty. Had the present Opposition been re-elected at the general election, they would have brought back from Amsterdam broadly the same deal as we brought back. Their tactics were aptly summed up by the former Chancellor, the right hon. and learned Member for
Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke). Asked recently about his attitude to the prospect of the Conservative party voting against the Amsterdam treaty, he said:
"I don't think anybody would take us seriously."
The right hon. and learned Gentleman was right. No reasonable person would take Conservative Members seriously, having seen their tactics in the debate. It is not what they would have done, were they still in government. The treaty is good for Britain and good for Europe, and should be supported.
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