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The First Deputy Chairman: Order. The hon. Gentleman cannot make a speech in an intervention.
Mr. Streeter: The hon. Gentleman has not been listening to my points. If he does not yet understand that Europe works precisely in the way that he has described, he has a lot to learn.
Equally important to our long-term interests is the Government's failure to play Britain's strongest card in institutional reform. They gave away our second Commissioner and got nothing in return. Before the Amsterdam summit, there was an unshakeable link between vote weighting and the number of Commissioners.
The Committee will be aware that we have 10 votes in the Council of Ministers for 56 million people in the United Kingdom. That is one vote for every 5.6 million people. Luxembourg had two votes for 400,000 people. That is one vote for every 200,000 people. Luxembourg is 28 times over-represented compared with the UK. There is a similar pattern in the distribution of the 626 Members of the European Parliament. The five big countries are under-represented compared with the smaller nations.
In the past, our under-representation has been reflected by our second Commissioner. It was understood that we would give up that second Commissioner only in exchange for significant changes in the balance of power on the Council of Ministers and a redistribution of Members of the European Parliament. Article 1 of the protocol on page 88 of the revised treaty makes it clear, however, that, at the Amsterdam summit, Britain agreed for the first time in a legally binding protocol, on which others may rely in the Court of Justice, to give up its second Commissioner. That was Britain's trump card and it has been surrendered without a struggle. Our second Commissioner was given away without any binding agreement on vote weighting.
Mr. Doug Henderson:
Does the hon. Gentleman accept that a change in the number of Commissioners is subject to a reweighting of votes? We specifically achieved that in the negotiations.
Mr. Streeter:
The hon. Gentleman may not have read the wording of the treaty sufficiently carefully, as I shall explain.
The lost British influence is not to be restored by voting arrangements in the Council of Ministers, which more closely reflects the balance of population--not a bit of it. The second British Commissioner has been given away in exchange for a vague proposal for a future arrangement either to reweight the votes or--wait for it--to incorporate the principle of dual majority into Council decision making.
Dual majority is of no use whatever to the British people. It gives us no more influence; not a single extra vote. It gives us only a recognition that the population of the states that vote for a proposal must be taken into account. That is hardly comforting in the face of the Franco-German alliance. Influence has been given away for nothing in return.
The Minister's response suggests that he did not know what he had signed. He thought that he had agreed to give away our Commissioner in exchange for a clear commitment on vote weighting. That is not so. It shows that the Minister has slipped up. We already know that the Government have failed to challenge the Spanish amendment on the opt-in on border controls, and now we seem to have discovered another blunder by our man in Brussels. He has failed us again.
Mr. Ian Bruce (South Dorset):
Does my hon. Friend agree--I hope that this point is helpful to the Minister--that we are debating amendments to a treaty which amends two treaties and certain Acts, yet we do not have a consolidated text? Clearly, Labour Members, who have not read the articles as well as my hon. Friend, are having difficulty in understanding what the issue is all about. Surely the Government should have provided a consolidated document which we could discuss.
Mr. Streeter:
My hon. Friend makes a very important point. I have listened to almost all Labour Members' speeches over the past three sittings, and it seems that many of them have not read the treaty carefully. Many of them seem to be blinded by any piece of paper that says that it comes from Brussels.
If the Minister thinks that I am wrong on whether dual majority is of interest and any significance to British people, I invite him to get to his feet now to tell us how dual majority helps us in a decision-making process.
Mr. Doug Henderson:
I have been specific. There is no question of the United Kingdom Government agreeing to any change in the Commissioners until there is a reweighting of the votes.
Mr. Streeter:
I am even more worried than I was a few moments ago. The Minister has not read his brief properly, he has not read the treaty properly and he has not read the protocol properly. He has made another blunder.
That is bad enough, but the situation is worse. Not only will we give away our second Commissioner by 2003, to gain nothing in return, but the Government seem to have agreed, in article 2 of protocol D, that when the EU is enlarged to more than 20 states, there can be fewer Commissioners than member states. That means that we could be without a Commissioner. What a negotiating
triumph! That is why I say with such conviction that the new Labour Government failed at Amsterdam. They failed the House of Commons, they failed this country and they failed our people.
The Government did not stop failing there. They also gave away more power to the European Parliament. They gave more power to a Parliament that approaches legislation as though it were playing a game of poker--it deals itself extra cards every time. They gave more power to Labour MEPs such as David Martin, Vice-President of the European Parliament, who said:
Mr. Streeter:
Not at all. I am simply pointing out what Labour's MEPs, who represent the people of this country in the European Parliament, are like. The Minister is happy to give them more power, gaining nothing for the British people in return.
Mr. Radice:
What about those Conservative MEPs who support the treaty of Amsterdam?
Mr. Streeter:
The hon. Gentleman should know that in our party we do not try to gag duly elected Members of Parliament, as the Labour party has disgracefully tried to do. They cannot even discuss issues that are relevant to their constituents. Labour should reconsider that.
I have an internal briefing note produced by the European Commission, dated 7 July 1997. This 12-page summary of the outcome of the Amsterdam summit for each Commissioner contains some interesting comments. Writing to itself, on page 9, paragraph 14, the Commission says, on the European Parliament:
Let us consider what co-decision means. It is nothing short of Euro-speak for a parliamentary veto. The European Parliament has a veto over decisions of the Council of Ministers. Labour has handed over extensions of that veto in 23 new areas.
Dr. Ladyman:
From my recollection of the Conservative party manifesto at the election, I believe that the Conservative party was in favour of increasing the powers of the European Parliament. It said that that was one of the aspects that needed reform. Is the hon. Gentleman now saying that that has changed and that the Conservative party is completely against the European Parliament?
Mr. Streeter:
The hon. Gentleman has obviously failed to read the treaty, and one can forgive him for that, but one cannot forgive him for failing to read the Conservative manifesto.
The power exercised in the legislative process in the EU is a delicate balance between national Parliaments, national Governments, the Commission, the Councilof Ministers and the European Parliament. If the Government have agreed extensions of power to the European Parliament, which the Commission says they have, will the Minister tell us--I am happy to allow him to intervene--from whom the additional power has been taken? Has it been taken from the Commission? Not a chance. It has been taken from national governments and national parliaments, all for nothing in return.
Our objections to the failure of the Government do not relate only to the new areas in which co-decision is now to be used; they relate also to the complete failure to deal with problems in the day-to-day operation of the parliamentary procedures in Brussels. What efforts were made to counter the European Parliament's growing tendency to pack First Reading with spurious amendments to give itself areas in which it can force compromise during later conciliation; or is the Minister happy to see more than 600 amendments tabled, as during the progress of the trans-European network transport scheme; or is it the case that in Brussels, as in the United Kingdom, the Government simply do not understand the system that they are trying to reform?
Taken together with the increase in powers of the European Parliament and the extra powers that new Labour has given the President of the Commission, which we will discuss later, I hope that I have demonstrated to the Committee's satisfaction that the treaty represents a complete failure by new Labour. The Government have given up British influence with no extra influence in return. It is no wonder that, on page 2 of the private Commission assessment of the Amsterdam treaty, the Commission states:
"A socialist superstate is exactly what we do want to create."
They gave more power to MEPs who voted in September 1995 for the liberalisation of drug use, declaring that
"drug dependence is . . . not a crime which calls for punishment"
and that
"drug users should not be prosecuted"
unless actively involved in production, trafficking or dealing. They gave more power to Labour MEPs who voted in March 1996 to increase the number of fruits and vegetables included in common agricultural policy price support, even though the Labour party committed itself to the abolition of the CAP in 1994. They gave more power to Labour MEPs who, in April 1996, called for an increase in the rate of income tax, saying:
"It is in the interests of all of us to . . . challenge the idea of cutting taxes."
Dr. Ladyman:
Is the hon. Gentleman saying that the Conservative party has given up all hope of having more MEPs after the next elections?
"The European Parliament made two major gains at the Conference to become a genuine co-legislator and a full arm of the European legislature alongside the Council:
Despite its public pronouncements, the Commission's private assessment of Amsterdam is that the European Parliament made major gains.
Firstly the co-decision procedure has been considerably extended (see Annex p.1) essentially along the lines of the principle suggested by the Commission in its report of July 1996, whereby any instrument of a legislative nature should be adopted under the co-decision procedure between the European Parliament and the Council."
9.30 pm
"For the most part the Treaty delivered the goods."
For whom? Perhaps the treaty delivered the goods for the European Parliament and the Commission, but it sadly did not deliver the goods for the British people.
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