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9.25 pm
Mr. Archie Norman (Tunbridge Wells): The debate has been colourful and lively, and many interesting contributions have been made from both sides of the House. I regret that time does not allow me to mention them all, and I hope that hon. Members to whose remarks I do not refer will forgive me.
We all agree that enlargement should be a priority for Helsinki. The right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Mr. Campbell) made the point eloquently when he said that it was more than a matter of economics. Other hon. Members made the same point.
Serious doubts about European integration have been expressed in the debate. The hon. Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Cryer) put the case no less forcefully than my hon. Friends the Members for Stone (Mr. Cash), for Teignbridge (Mr. Nicholls) and for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis), who made characteristically powerful and lucid speeches.
My hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend, East (Sir T. Taylor) made a powerful speech on the single currency, about which he has been consistent over the years. I hope that he will not take it amiss if I say that his speech was marred only by his unfortunate reference to supermarkets.
Labour Members who expressed unreserved support for the Government's position were conspicuous by their absence. There was a mixed response from both sidesof the House. Many hon. Members, including my distinguished hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Sir R. Whitney), who made a courageous speech, called for honesty and straightforwardness in the debate on Europe. The appeal for honesty and openness is common ground for many hon. Members.
Behind all the arguments lies one great difference of view. It is the difference between the two visions of Europe. Helsinki and enlargement brings to the fore the choice between them. The first is that of Romano Prodi and many other European centre-left leaders. It is the vision of a highly regulated European super-state, in which, as the President of the Commission said:
That vision contrasts sharply with the Conservative vision of a flexible, outward-looking, deregulated European Union, in which there will be a firm balance between the role of national Governments and that of EU institutions. The Helsinki summit presents a vital opportunity to set out and debate those choices once and for all.
Both sides of the House share a commitment to enlargement; we owe that to the former iron curtain countries. It is embarrassing that it has already taken so long. However, it will be accompanied by serious challenges to the European Union, which has already regulated too far, is--as the hon. Member for Hornchurch pointed out--incapable of managing its existing budget effectively, and struggles to retain the confidence of the people of Europe. Enlargement is a watershed and calls for far-reaching and visionary changes in the outdated, regulatory, interventionist model of Europe.
The Foreign Secretary, faced with that challenge, has proposed nothing that resembles a coherent strategy to tackle it. I fear that the Minister has been left with an enormous task in the limited time available for summing up. He must demonstrate that the Government are seriously addressing the challenges that enlargement poses, and that they recognise the enormity of the choices ahead. Those challenges are considerable and I shall list three or four of them.
The first challenge is creating a European Union that can allow for the flexibility to accommodate a much more diverse group of member states, ranging from Poland to Portugal. To most people, it is common sense that the same employment or social legislation cannot sensibly apply in Hungary as in Britain. That is what we mean by flexibility and the Conservative approach to it is modest and focused only on future legislation outside the core areas. That concept is being discussed in the report ofthe so-called three wise men and many European Governments support the idea that flexibility should be on the Helsinki agenda. The Government are unusual in saying that there should be no debate about flexibility, but that there should be a substantial extension of QMV. They are arguing for a rigid future for the EU, not flexibility, and they are nearly alone in so doing.
Secondly, there is the challenge of establishing a better check and balance to what has become the inherently regulatory tendency of the EU institutions. Even the most ardent integrationist must now accept that there is no point, in the context of enlargement, in piling regulation on to regulation when there is no chance of applicant countries such as Poland and Hungary meeting the existing directives for years to come. Enlargement must mean that we have already reached the high-water mark of regulation and higher hurdles in respect of cost-benefit and tests of practicality for new legislation should be built into the treaty.
Thirdly, there is the challenge of paying for enlargement, which was wholly unaddressed by the Foreign Secretary and remains wholly unaddressed by most member states. Everyone knows that the Berlin forecasts will be blown to bits when the new members enter the EU. The President of the Commission himself has said that he "assumes" that expansion will result in
the loss of the British rebate. Perhaps the Minister will comment on that: what is the Government's position and who will pay? [Interruption.] It is no good the Foreign Secretary shaking his head; that is what Romano Prodi has said. What is more, it is absolutely clear that, once there are 25 member states, the common agricultural policy will no longer be affordable and the Berlin projections will simply not hold water. Somebody has to pay.
Fourthly, the people of Britain will want to hear what the Government will negotiate into the treaty to protect their sovereign and democratic rights from further erosion. There are limits to integration and we are near those limits now. Treaty after treaty has eroded the democratic rights of people in this country and the time has come to clarify once and for all the roles and rights of democratically elected national Governments and the role of the EU.
Since coming to office, the Government have sought to improve relationships with our EU partners, but they have made the cardinal error of confusing friendship with negotiating weakness. They have adopted a conciliatory approach before negotiations have taken place and have failed to hold the line. The track record is one of going with the flow and my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maples) referred to many individual examples such as giving up the opt-out on the social chapter, the surrender of the veto in 16 areas at Amsterdam, the conceding of the principle on tax harmonisation and failing to insist on serious reform of the CAP. It goes on and on.
In their approach to the intergovernmental conference, the Government have started in similar vein, offering up the concessions before it even starts. In September, the policy was fairly clear: minimise the agenda, stick to the so-called leftovers from Amsterdam and the Cologne agenda and perhaps dish up a few concessions, hoping that it would all pass quietly. In September, the Minister's predecessor wrote to me--I have the letter here--to say that the Government
Today, the Foreign Secretary acknowledged that in some respects that agenda has already started slipping beyond the one set out at Cologne. More than that, the Government's own MEPs have voted in the European Parliament to widen the IGC way beyond the Government's preferred agenda to include, among other things, reconsideration of the Amsterdam flexibility clause, which he ruled out earlier this evening. It will be interesting to see whether the Minister disowns his own MEPs tonight, or whether he will be definitive about what will and will not be on the IGC agenda as far as the Government are concerned.
While we are on the subject, let me add that the Government's friends in the Liberal party have been even more explicit. Liberal MEPs have voted in favour of the extension of qualified majority voting to all areas, including taxation--a fact that the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife neglected to mention.
The Government have already failed to rule out conceding the veto in approximately 19 new areas, and would receive nothing in return. It is no good saying that qualified majority voting has been the general rule in the past, because it has not been the general rule in those 19 areas. It will be in the future, however, and some of the 19 areas are vital to our national interests, including transport, supervision of credit institutions, Council procedure, own resources, co-operation with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, culture and the harmonisation of aid.
The Government have already accepted implicitly that they will concede a halving of the number of Commissioners. We understand the practical arguments for that, but it has been conceded before we have started. They have accepted that they will concede a reduction in the number of our MEPs, perhaps by as much as a third, and a reduction, after reweighting, of our share of the votes at the Council of Ministers. If we take that route, enlargement cannot amount to anything other than a substantial reduction of British influence in the European Union. It is folly to accept some of the proposed changes, and to make concessions, before we have even started, without negotiating--at the very least--safeguards of the kind that I mentioned earlier.
Not only are the Government in a muddle, and bereft of any clear strategy; they have offered the bargaining chips before we have started to play. It is not surprising that British public opinion is drifting into a more and more anti-EU stance--the figures have been quoted tonight--because, as many Members have pointed out, that increasingly negative shift is a direct consequence of the Government's unwillingness to come clean on their agenda, to make the choices explicit, to make the price of enlargement explicit to the British people, and to allow them to buy into both the costs and the benefit. It is a consequence of disillusionment, as treaty after treaty and regulation after regulation erode the democratic rights of the electorate.
The Government's duty is now to make the position and the choices clear, but what do we have? We have a Minister who is off on his bus, pootling around the country, mouthing banalities about the benefits of the single market. I hope that he has learned something from the experience; in particular, I hope that he has learned from Mr. Hopkins, who is quoted in today's Financial Times as saying:
I am sure that the House will take the Minister's reference to his travelling companions with the good humour that was doubtless intended. I understand that the leaflets in Hull refer to a new improved Vaz, but I fear that, if this is what that means, we would rather go back to the old version--classic Vaz, perhaps.
The Minister has a serious task ahead of him, and the sooner he gets off his bus and on to the job the better. The forthcoming negotiations will require great resolution, knowledge and wisdom. Nor is the country done any service by the tendency of the Government and the Foreign Secretary to make remarks about Conservative policy that imply in some sense that it is extremist, when it actually has the support of the majority of the British people.
It is the hallmark of the closet federalist that every attempt to address the issues seriously, or to criticise today's inadequate structures, is described as prejudiced or extreme. It is naive and starry-eyed to go into the enlargement process without recognising that the existing institutions of the EU are already not without their problems, and that those problems must be tackled alongside enlargement. We have the problem of regulatory addiction. We have an EU that is already regulated too far, and has failed to implement existing directives: we have a backlog of 2,979 unimplemented directives. We have an EU that has not delivered some of the most basic tasks of the single market, and one that has proved incapable of handling its own budget professionally and without fraud, as the recent Court of Auditors report showed.
To make those points is not anti-European. They are facts against which enlargement must be planned. An EU of 25 member states must allow for flexibility and diversity. It must for its own viability retain its people's democratic support. That means clarifying and establishing once and for all the role of member states and of national Governments.
"QMV should become the norm".
That vision includes all the apparatus of the federal state: an army, converged legal systems and a Commission that looks, talks and acts like a Government. There is no point
in Labour Members belittling that view because we have heard today an abundance of quotes, from Prodi and many others, which made that agenda explicit.
"supports the agenda set out at Cologne".
He went on to explain that he did not see reasons for extending that agenda, but even as that letter was being written the Prime Minister's very own Lord Simon was drafting another report that would comprehensively undermine that strategy and provide European leaders and the President of the Commission with an opportunity to expand the agenda.
"There was just not enough flesh on the bones for businesses . . . I used to be all for the euro, but what worries me is the pernicious onset of bureaucracy that goes with it."
Hear, hear.
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