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Mr. Bercow: How many vetoes will the Government give up?
Mr. Cook: There are some areas in which we want majority voting, because in those areas Britain will do well out of it. Under the present Government, Britain has already done well under majority voting. Over the past two years, we have won 80 decisions on majority voting and we have lost only five. All other major partners have lost more often: France has been outvoted eight times, Spain 11 times, and both Germany and Italy more than 20 times--four times more than Britain.
If all those decisions had been taken by unanimity, Britain would have lost every time because one of our partners would have vetoed it. We would not, for example, have secured the new rules on e-commerce, which are to Britain's advantage because British companies have the leading edge in the new technologies.
To take a totally different example--let us see whether the Opposition are interested in this--we could not have secured the new standards on drift nets in response to the concerns of our animal welfare lobby for the dolphins around the British coast. Both of those decisions would have been vetoed if they had been taken by unanimity.
Mr. John Redwood (Wokingham): The Government have stated time and again that they wish to retain a veto over our national tax policy. They seem to accept that this House should make tax decisions. Will the Foreign Secretary please explain, then, why the Chancellor had to confirm to me that we need European Union permission to make changes to vehicle excise duty in the pre-Budget statement, changes to VAT on churches and changes to stamp duty? That power has gone recently, under this Government, because the EU has simply asserted the power, without even waiting for the decision on the treaty of Nice. The Government still had the power to make such decisions when they came to office.
Mr. Cook: I can only repeat to the House what I have said on many previous occasions: we will not accept majority voting on taxation. I must also say to Opposition Members that this is not an issue on which Britain is isolated or alone; a number of other partner countries stand with us in recognising that taxation is important for the identity of a nation and the characteristics of a state. However, there are other areas--
Mr. Christopher Gill (Ludlow): Will the Foreign Secretary give way?
Mr. Cook: I must make progress.
I say frankly to the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) and his colleagues that there are other areas where we will be willing to consider an extension of majority voting. We would like to get rid of other nations' vetoes in areas where we are trying to get a decision in Britain's interest.
Mr. Cook: I shall conclude this point and then give way to the hon. Gentleman.
For example, we would like to get rid of the German veto over free movement of professionals. That would help British companies and professionals who want to work in other European countries. We would like to get rid of the Greek veto on transport liberalisation, which is currently held up because Greece does not want its ferries opened up to competition. I suspect that if there were competition, it would be a net plus for the millions of British travellers who visit Greece.
We would like to get rid of the Spanish and Portuguese veto on financial regulation to make sure that financial controls match the standards of accountancy of the northern states. We would like to get rid of the French veto on some elements of our common approach towards
the World Trade Organisation, so that we could secure a less protectionist negotiating position on audio-visual services.In all those cases, a shift to majority voting would be in the British national interest. Conservative Members must explain why they want a British negotiating position to preserve the German veto, the Greek veto, the Spanish veto and the French veto to block decisions in Britain's interest.
Mr. Gill: I am grateful to the Foreign Secretary for giving way. Is it still the view of his Department that, as stated in a letter of 13 July from one of the officials in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office:
- Unlike the Maastricht or Amsterdam IGCs, this IGC will not be about increasing the powers of the Union?
Mr. Cook: Yes. It is one of our positions on competencies right from the start that the treaty is not about extending the competence of the European Union. I look forward to the hon. Gentleman's support when we report our success on that point after Nice.
There are areas that we believe are so central to the identity of the nation and the character of the state that unanimity is the appropriate basis for decision. We set them out in our White Paper at the start of the year. They are treaty change, taxation, border controls, social security, defence and the EU's revenue. On none of those do we intend to accept majority voting. Our position on that has not changed in the nine months since February, when we printed the White Paper, and will not change in the 14 days until Nice.
Mr. Cash: On 22 May 1997, in an article that I know the Foreign Secretary will have read carefully, he clearly stated:
- On defence, the French and Germans want the Western European Union to be merged into the EU. This would undermine NATO.
Mr. Cook: I fully maintain our position that we will not undermine NATO. That is why, throughout the past two years--1998, 1999 and 2000--ever since we launched the St. Malo initiative, Britain has been careful to ensure at every step that nothing we did undermined NATO. As a result of those measures, the European Union now has a stronger relationship with NATO and with its non-EU members. I hope, therefore, that the hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) will support the initiative.
We look forward to negotiating a treaty at Nice that will deliver two strategic objectives of Britain in Europe: reform of its institutions and enlargement of its membership. If we succeed, that will represent a good outcome for the dozen candidate countries and a good deal for Britain.
The shadow Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for Horsham, has committed his party to a referendum on the Nice treaty and a campaign to stop it. It is brass neck on the Conservatives' part to claim to be the party of the
referendum. In their long years in office, they never once gave the British public a referendum on anything. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would like to explain why he believes that the treaty of Nice demands a referendum, but never thought to offer the public one before he signed the Maastricht treaty. With that signature, he signed away the British veto on 30 different articles. I can predict now that, whatever the outcome at Nice, we will not match the figure of 30 increases in majority voting to which he signed up at Maastricht. I do not intend to match his performance as an architect of more majority voting.It is self-serving nonsense for the right hon. Gentleman to argue that when a Conservative Government agreed to majority voting, it served Britain's interest, but when this Government agree to a smaller amount of majority voting, it is a dangerous measure of integration. It is also damaging nonsense. Opposing the Nice treaty will simultaneously isolate Britain within the existing European Union and leave it without a friend among the candidate countries. No wonder that, when the former chairman of the Tory group in the European Parliament defected this week, he said:
- Conservative influence on the Continent is now probably at the lowest level since the Napoleonic War.
Mr. Robathan: Mr. Newton Dunn is an MEP for my region and I listened to his justification for being chosen as a Conservative MEP. As he is not a Member of the House, I think that I can accuse him of having lied. He stated categorically that he had changed his view on Europe from that which had held previously and that he was now committed to the Conservative party view. The Foreign Secretary may use him to justify his case, but I assure him that the people who voted for Mr. Newton Dunn were lied to.
Mr. Cook: I think that all Labour Members who heard those comments will include them in their election addresses as a warning not to believe a Conservative candidate.
Mr. Kenneth Clarke (Rushcliffe): I do not think that the Foreign Secretary can intrude into any debate on this matter, but I should like to let him know that I was present at the meeting to which my hon. Friend the Member for Blaby (Mr. Robathan) referred. Those present at the meeting, which was held during the selection process, were not lied to by my former colleague, Mr. Bill Newton Dunn, for whom I still have considerable regard and respect.
Mr. Cook: The House will accept the right hon. and learned Gentleman's statement, which he makes with sincerity.
At some point in the next decade, the dozen or more candidate countries will join us around the table at the European Union. One reason why we want Britain to be a champion of enlargement is that we want those countries to remember Britain as an advocate and an ally of enlargement. I do not want them to remember Britain as the country that most strongly opposed the reforms necessary for enlargement. I want Britain to be still at the table when they join. However, the logic of Conservative policy is that we would have been long gone.
Lord Tebbit let the cat out of the bag on Tuesday when taking part in the celebrations of the 10th anniversary of the resignation of Lady Thatcher.
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