House of Commons Hansard Debates for 17 Dec 1997 (pt 42)

Mr. Cash: Will the right hon. Gentleman answer the question that was put by my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd)? Why does the Foreign Secretary wax so eloquent on the subject of the single market when he was against the guillotine motion on that Bill?

Mr. Shepherd: So was the Prime Minister.

Mr. Cash: So was the Prime Minister--and the Leader of the House. How can the Foreign Secretary get away with such hypocrisy, given that he thinks it is wrong for us to continue the debate and is imposing a guillotine on this Bill?

Mr. Cook: I can explain that with the greatest of pleasure. First, this is a much more generous timetable motion than the motion we were offered then. Secondly, that Bill was of greater constitutional magnitude because it provided for the most significant extension of qualified majority voting in the history of the European Union.

Mr. Cash: Absolute rubbish.

Mr. Cook: What I said is true. That Bill provided for a wide extension of Community competence through 11 new titles for Community action, which is far more than the Amsterdam treaty provides. It paved the way for most of the European Union regulations that Conservative Members now complain about most loudly.

Mr. Gill: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Cook: No, I shall not give way again.

Let us have no humbug about constitutional outrages from the very people who guillotined the earlier Bill. This Bill contains no similar measure of fundamental constitutional change. Indeed, the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) described it in Committee as "a mouse", although no doubt that will not prevent him from puffing in mock indignation as he marches through the Division Lobby to oppose his mouse being guillotined.

I do not deny that the Bill is important. It is important because of the real benefits for the people of Britain that the Amsterdam treaty provides. The treaty gives, for the first time, explicit legal authority for Britain to retain its border controls; it confirms NATO as the cornerstone of our defence; it provides a fuller, legally binding basis for the principle of subsidiarity; it provides for tougher action on fraud against the Community budget; it obliges the European Union to give greater priority to protecting the environment, promoting openness in its proceedings and to tackling unemployment; and it extends to the working people in Britain the same rights under the social chapter as are enjoyed throughout the continent, but which were denied to them by the Conservatives.

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The Bill fulfils the manifesto commitments on which we were elected by the British people. I commend the timetable motion to the House, so that the Government are not frustrated in their duty to carry out that electoral commitment. A vote for the motion will enable us to give effect to the clearly expressed wishes of the majority of Members of Parliament at Second Reading and to the even clearer choice of the people of Britain at the general election.

8.41 pm

Mr. Michael Howard (Folkestone and Hythe): The Foreign Secretary's performance showed the complete contempt in which he and the Government hold the House. He advanced two utterly novel propositions in justification of the guillotine. Their novelty was equal to their absurdity.

The first novel proposition advanced by the Foreign Secretary in support of the guillotine motion was that a large majority for a Bill on Second Reading relieves the House of its duty to scrutinise that legislation. What an extraordinary proposition. The second proposition that he advanced was that unanimity on the Opposition Benches in Committee is required if a guillotine is to be averted. That is another extraordinary proposition, even if one does not take into account the fact that some of the most striking speeches in Committee were made by Labour Back Benchers in complete contradiction to everything that we have heard from the Government.

The Foreign Secretary referred at length to some of the minor differences of emphasis placed on this subject by Conservative Back Benchers in Committee. No one could apply that description to the contributions of the right hon. Member for Llanelli (Mr. Davies) or the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands), whose powerful speeches were different in tone from and completely contradictory to everything we heard from the Government.

One of our first duties as Members of Parliament is to debate legislation. By discharging that duty, we hold Government to account and serve the interests of our constituents. We are not relieved of that duty by the fact that the Bill received a large majority on Second Reading, or that differences of view on the Bill's contents are expressed by hon. Members from both sides of the House.

The Foreign Secretary has moved to guillotine an important constitutional Bill after just 12 hours in Committee. The Bill puts into British law the treaty agreed at Amsterdam. The treaty transfers significant powers from the House and from those whom we are elected to serve, to the European Union.

The Bill is not just another measure relating to domestic affairs, making some adjustment to our domestic arrangements that could easily be put right by another measure in some future Parliament. It is not even a domestic constitutional Bill, such as those for devolution in Scotland and Wales, which could be repealed by future legislation. The Bill enshrines in law a treaty that has been negotiated with our partners in Europe. No future Parliament can undo its provisions unless the Government of the day are prepared to renegotiate the treaty.

What makes the Bill doubly significant is that it reduces the powers of this Parliament. By simultaneously reducing the ability of the member states to veto European legislation and increasing the power of the European

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Parliament to veto that legislation, it diminishes the powers of the House. That is why the guillotine motion is so obnoxious. It means that these momentous decisions will be taken without full and proper debate.

This is the second time in six months that the Government have stifled debate on a major constitutional issue, and this latest decision is all of a pattern with the contempt that they have shown for Parliament since 1 May. There has been the change without consultation in the format of Prime Minister's questions, a change which I suspect the Prime Minister is already beginning to regret. There is an obsession with making announcements anywhere but in the House, and there has even been the failure of a Minister to turn up to reply to an Adjournment debate. Those are formidable manifestations of the arrogance of the Government's attitude to Parliament.

Of course, the list does not end there. Since taking office, the Government have made plain their intention to whittle away the powers of the House and of those who sent us here, and to transfer them to assemblies elsewhere in Britain, to Europe, to the Bank of England and to an unelected judiciary. When the Government treat the House with contempt, they treat with contempt those who send us here. This motion is just the tip of that iceberg.

The guillotine motion is the most draconian way to silence debate that exists in Parliament. "Erskine May" is clear. Under "Allocation of Time Orders (Guillotines)" it states:

"They may be regarded as the extreme limit to which procedure goes in affirming the rights of the majority at the expense of the minorities of the House, and it cannot be denied that they are capable of being used in such a way as to upset the balance, generally so carefully preserved, between the claims of business and the rights of debate."