---

The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr. Keith Vaz): The right hon. Gentleman did that--he signed Maastricht.

Mr. Maude: That is precisely why I am personally acutely conscious of the need to go no further. [Interruption.] The Minister for Europe is getting wildly excited about that notion. He has been touring the country in a coach--rather oddly described as Eunice--trying to make the case for membership of the European Union to the British public. Will he tell the House how many people he found who support giving up the legislative veto on further matters? Did he find any? I shall happily give way to him if he can tell us that a single person on his tour supported giving up the veto on any further matter. He is unusually reticent; he normally springs to the Dispatch Box with restless ease. If he will not respond, perhaps the hon. Member for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson) will.

Mr. Donald Anderson: During what the right hon. Gentleman, in his wilder moments, might think of as the

15 Jun 2000 : Column 1141

near-treasonable years under Mrs. Thatcher when so much power was taken away from our country and given to those wicked Europeans, what was he doing to oppose it? Did he suggest that there should be a referendum then?

Mr. Maude: The hon. Gentleman refers to whether there should have been a referendum, but there were few precedents for holding referendums in this country at the time. In the past three years, referendums have been held on everything. For heaven's sake, we had a referendum on whether to elect a mayor of London. Given that we had a referendum on that, is it not reasonable to hold one on whether we should become a province of a single European superstate?

Mr. Cash: I hope that my intervention is thought moderately helpful. Does my right hon. Friend accept that the Single European Act referred particularly to competition, commercial matters and trade? The question of democratic consent at the highest level became paramount only when we moved into the area of government. Therefore, there should have been referendums on the Maastricht and Amsterdam treaties, and there should be one on the Nice treaty. Perhaps I live in hope that we will have a referendum on the treaty on European union.

Mr. Maude: My hon. Friend does indeed make a moderately helpful point, and I am grateful to him.

Mr. Bercow: My right hon. Friend will have heard, as I did, the Foreign Secretary assure the House that the charter of fundamental rights would not be incorporated in the treaties. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that assurance sits uneasily with the position of the Minister for Europe, who said, as recently as 5 April, that it would be premature to decide whether the charter should be so incorporated? Is not it time that the Foreign Secretary and the Minister for Europe talked to each other?

Mr. Maude: I was about to deal with precisely that point. The Foreign Secretary talked at length about the European security and defence identity, which is likely to feature in the IGC later this year. It is designed to sideline NATO. Again, for all the reassuring words that he speaks and the verbiage that he produces, the reality is that the driving motivation behind many such proposals is a desire to sideline NATO and reduce American influence. It runs the risk of reducing, not improving, the effectiveness and security of our defences.

I make no bones about the fact that we support greater European co-operation on defence. That is not the issue. We support a stronger European commitment to NATO. That has nothing to do with the defence identity, which is about politics and duplicating structures that already exist. It is designed by people whose primary consideration is ticking off yet another of the trappings of statehood, who say, "Flag? We have got that. Anthem? Yes, we have that. Currency? Got one of those. Government? Working on it day by day. Army? Well, we are getting there." Mr. Prodi says that the Commission is turning into more of a European Government. Mr. Prodi's ramblings about a European army were not needed to give the game away.

15 Jun 2000 : Column 1142

In a speech last month, Mr. Jospin, the French Prime Minister, spoke of a "single European defence structure" and of the "pooling" of Europe's armies. He said that, if that were done, the EU would have

crossed a milestone towards the creation of a united political Europe.

That is the truth about the defence identity.

It is time to think again about the project in simple terms of efficiency and effectiveness. The EU is the wrong body to be entrusted with European defence. There is already a structure devoted to European defence, which is composed of active members and committed by treaty to mutual co-operation. It is called NATO, and we believe in it. It should be built upon, not undermined.

The charter of fundamental rights, which in the Foreign Secretary's mouth has turned into a declaration of fundamental rights, runs the risk of turning British law upside down. It would be a licence to meddle for the European court and, if included, its social provisions would be a serious blow to precisely the economic and social reforms that the Prime Minister appeared to support not only in what he said in Lisbon, but in the Financial Times on Tuesday. In few areas is the gulf between what the Government here in Britain say and the statements of other European leaders so wide.

We should be clear about the fact that another piece in the integrationist jigsaw is being developed. The Government blithely assure the public that they do not need to worry as there will be, as the Foreign Secretary said again today, only a harmless restatement of existing principles and rights--nothing at all to be concerned about, and anyone who says otherwise is merely scaremongering or, as the Minister for Europe has said, paranoid. Well, a lot of people--not in Britain--are apparently paranoid. Let me refer to one or two of those who believe that the charter is another engine of political integration and union, and part of the motor of the single European superstate.

Commissioner Vitorino, who is in charge of the justice and home affairs portfolio, said:

The drawing-up of the Charter is an extremely important issue for the European Union, because, if it is brought off successfully, it will mark a definitive change in the Community, which will move away from the essentially economic raison d'etre of its origins to become a full political Union . . .

The German Foreign Minister, Joschka Fischer, said that the charter is a stimulus, not only for human rights, but

above all for the identity and legitimacy of the EU

as

the essential basis for the process of further integration . . .

Gunter Verheugen, as a German Minister, said that its function was as

the foundation stone of a European constitution . . .

According to the Minister for Europe, all those people are paranoid and scaremongering. It is odd that they have said what they have--there is a higher degree of honesty in the Governments of other European member states than in our own Government.

We are not the only ones to highlight the way in which the charter could eventually be used as a Christmas tree on which to hang all manner of so-called social and

15 Jun 2000 : Column 1143

economic rights that would destroy jobs. To quote someone else who is clearly paranoid, the French Minister for European affairs said that

the aim is to engrave in stone not only the political, but also the social rights which form the matrix of our political project.

Little wonder that the Confederation of British Industry is "deeply concerned" by calls to extend the list of existing fundamental rights and to make it binding, describing it as a "Trojan Horse". An interesting, straightforward comment in the French newspaper Liberation gave the game away on the agenda of many in that country:

Any charter of this sort would be welcome in France because most European regulation is anyway less stringent than the French law, and anything that pushes up the regulation in other European countries is seen as a good thing here. Not even Eurosceptics in France would oppose this because they know that it would diminish the competitive edge of France's European partners.

We look for two guarantees on the charter from the Government. First, they must ensure that a new set of wide-ranging rights will not be created at European level. Secondly, they must guarantee that any charter of rights will not be incorporated in the European treaties, even as an annex--[Interruption.] Even as an annex, which is the plan. Nor must it be made in any way legally enforceable.

Four months ago, the Minister for Europe, who is burbling away on the Front Bench, seemed to agree with us on that point in a written answer. Someone else did the drafting and all he had to do was write his name on it--[Interruption.]

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Lord): Order. Those on the Treasury Bench must not speak from a sedentary position.

Mr. Maude: I am happy to give way to the Minister for Europe if he wants to engage in the debate. I quote back to him what he said in a written answer carefully drafted by Foreign Office officials. All he had to do was sign his name to it. Here it is:

We do not therefore favour the Charter's incorporation into the Treaties.--[Official Report, 1 February 2000; Vol. 343, c. 541W.]

On the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow), when questioned on the same issue by the House of Lords European Union Committee on 5 April, he said:

I think it would be premature to decide now whether or not it should go into the Treaties . . .

What happened in those two months? Why did he have that change of mind, having been adamant in February that the charter was not to be incorporated in the treaties? To use the Foreign Secretary's phrase, why the sudden conversion on the road to Damascus? Why does he now think that it is appropriate to contemplate the charter being incorporated in the treaties?

---