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Mr. Cash: Would the hon. Gentleman be good enough to bear in mind the fact that although the Union is founded on principles of liberty, democracy and the rule of law, if we dig a little deeper into the behaviour of current member states of the EU we find that "fundamental freedoms" and the rule of law do not apply with equal
validity to all member states? I am not even thinking of Greece at this point. It is not xenophobic to claim that there is a serious problem in the EU already.
Mr. Rowlands: I defer to the hon. Gentleman's more detailed knowledge of the political performance of members of the current Union. I cannot think of any immediate examples of member states seriously abusing human rights. If the hon. Gentleman can, perhaps he will list them in his speech. As I understand it, the safeguards will apply to current members as well. I do find it difficult to believe that the sort of breaches envisaged in this article are being committed by any of the present 15 member states--but if they are, we should be aware of them and should perhaps invoke a procedure to deal with them. There might be some virtue in that.
I certainly believe that the Union should uphold and stand up for these rights, and if there are any breaches of the kind the hon. Gentleman has in mind a power should be created to bring offending member states to book.
Earlier, my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Mr. Davies) rather wickedly suggested to me in conversation that some of the European Union's current institutions might not be up to the mark in certain respects. Certainly, no one can sack the Council of Ministers. One could play around with these arguments endlessly, but I for one do not share the qualms expressed by Conservative Members about the article. I just wanted to prise out of the Minister a better understanding of the context that gave rise to the article, and of the situations that might trigger its use.
Mr. Howard:
As the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) has said, I deployed my arguments on this matter fairly fully last Thursday and I do not intend to go over the same ground again. I would like, however, briefly to respond to the points that the hon. Gentleman has just made.
We start from the common position of wanting to do all we can to safeguard and advance basic human rights. The hon. Gentleman says that the treaty may not contain procedures at the moment that would enable a country seriously and persistently breaching fundamental human rights to be expelled, which would be my preferred remedy if it ever came to it. My answer to that is to put such procedures in the treaty. Just as the Government have put procedures into the treaty of Amsterdam to permit this much more unsatisfactory course to be adopted--depriving a member state of its rights but continuing to subject it to its obligations--so it would have been possible at Amsterdam to deal with the problem in the way I think preferable: providing procedures for expulsion.
It is not right to say, either, that on this alternative approach there would be nothing between the first step and expulsion. It would be perfectly possible for the other
member states to give measured warnings to the offending state and to make it clear that unless it mended its ways expulsion would follow. So there is no question of expulsion coming out of the blue.
I suggested last Thursday that it was difficult to identify any precedent for the procedures that have been put in to the treaty of Amsterdam. The Minister has not volunteered any precedent. I do think it extraordinary to say of a member state, however badly it has behaved, that it will continue to be fully bound by all the obligations of the treaty but deprived of all its rights under it.
As my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) conceded in his speech earlier today, the procedure could be used and abused to take away the voting rights of a recalcitrant state. The hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney calls that a fanciful scenario. Perhaps so, but if this Committee is to carry out its responsibilities in relation to the scrutiny of a treaty, it is incumbent on us to identify scenarios that may not be very likely but which could be turned to the disadvantage of this country. It is also our duty to point out the dangers.
It is, after all, not entirely unprecedented for provisions in European treaties to which we have signed up and agreed to be used in a way that was never predicted at the time. One obvious example would be the way qualified majority voting procedures in respect of health and safety were used to introduce a 48-hour maximum working week. No one in the previous Government who agreed to QMV for health and safety measures at the time of the Single European Act ever contemplated their use to introduce a maximum length of working week. Indeed, none of my hon. Friends during the debates on that treaty made this point, to my knowledge. I have no doubt that had they made it that, too, would have been dismissed as fanciful or extremely unlikely.
The point is that we have a duty to examine the provisions of treaties such as this and to make sure that there is no scope for abuse or for their use in a way that may never have been intended or which might be to the disadvantage of our country. That is the basis on which I offered my observations on Thursday, and I remain unconvinced by the doubts expressed by the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney.
Sir Raymond Whitney:
My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) is right, and we would all agree that the Committee has a duty to examine legislation such as this, especially legislation of an international nature, to make sure that there are no traps or hidden dangers or faint possibilities that might endanger our national interest. However, there is a danger of that awareness and alertness turning into paranoia. We can take matters so far that they verge on the absurd.
I hope that there is no dissension on either side of the Chamber from the view that article F.1 of the treaty of Amsterdam is well intentioned and necessary. It is directed not only at the potential new members of the European Union, but possibly at existing members. It started as an initiative at the Copenhagen summit, where all attention was focused on the enlargement of the European Union, to which my party has traditionally attached a good deal of weight.
We want to ensure, of course, that the character of the European Union does not fundamentally change. That is what the article is surely designed to achieve. As the
hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) pointed out, before any candidate member is accepted, there is a test to be passed. We must recognise the possibility that a country can be in a state of grace and pass the test one year, but--especially in the case of democracies that are not deeply rooted--a few years later the standards achieved to pass the test may no longer be met. Therefore criteria are required.
By their very nature, such criteria cannot be spelled out in every last detail. I believe that the drafting of the treaty is adequate. I shall not read the treaty out; the hon. Gentleman mentioned it and we went over this ground in the earlier debate. It is clear enough. We know what we mean when we say that human rights are persistently and seriously breached. It is chopping logic to suggest that we do not understand. Even if one nation did not know, the other 14 or 15 would surely get it right.
Mr. Letwin:
All of us throughout the Chamber know what is meant, and we all agree that it is necessary to do something about a member state in such circumstances. Does my hon. Friend agree, however, that sometimes, regrettably, there has been a tendency for the European Court to apply interpretations of clauses in treaties that go far beyond the ordinary meaning of those terms, with a view to establishing certain patterns of integration? Does he agree that that could give rise to the problems to which my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) alluded?
Sir Raymond Whitney:
No, I do not agree. I suggest that my hon. Friend read article F.1 of the treaty. He will see that, before the matter ever came near the court, it would have to be approved by unanimity minus one--that one being the state in the dock. It is for the Council of Ministers to make the judgment and activate the other criteria--one third of the Council to bring the charge and two thirds of the European Parliament to go along with the conviction, so to speak. At a subsequent stage, if the accused state wanted to apply to the European Court of Justice, it would have a right to do so.
My hon. Friend may fear what might happen to Britain, but that is another safeguard. There are so many hurdles in the procedure that we should rest assured. I am not saying, and my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) made the point that one cannot say definitively, that the world will not go mad tomorrow, but compared with the prospect of no such provision being included in the Amsterdam treaty, and compared with the risk of the provision being absurdly abused, common sense would judge that we need the provision.
Earlier in the debate, some pretty rum options were offered to the Committee. We were told that the provision might be applied to a Communitywide minimum wage. Our minimum wage would allegedly be set at too low a level, and that might be interpreted--or misinterpreted--as a serious and persistent breach of human rights. Misguided as the concept of a minimum wage might be, the possibility that Greece would be in a position to vote with the rest of the Community and condemn us does not bear contemplating.
We were told about the possibility that if we had--or perhaps if we did not have--abortion on demand, that would be seen as further evidence that we were in serious and persistent breach of human rights. Another such
possibility might arise if we changed--or failed to change--the age of homosexual consent from 18 to 16. My hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr. Cash), who, happily, is not in his place, even mentioned the risk of paedophilia. How crazy can we get?
It is fun to have an after-dinner debate, but this is a serious issue. We want to ensure that any criticisms of the Amsterdam treaty--the Opposition do indeed have some criticisms--are legitimate and well founded.
My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe wants the treaty to contain a mechanism for expulsion. There might be a case for that, or perhaps such a mechanism exists already. I look forward to the Minister of State explaining the exact legal position, as the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney invited him to do.
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