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Mr. Bercow: Does my right hon. Friend agree that there is a danger that the inclusion of the words in the Bill "anticipated change" could themselves act as a self-fulfilling prophecy? That is to say that the very fact of including the words and predicting the scenario could force the pace of events within the Community in a direction that it might otherwise have not have taken.
Mr. Redwood: It could have that impact, or we could end up legislating twice. We might anticipate wrongly and the House would have to deal with an embarrassing correction from Her Majesty's Government.
I urge Ministers, first, to accept tonight that they have given some ground, and rightly so. That would be sensible, accepting their role in democratic debate. Secondly, I would like Ministers to assure the House that, when negotiating such matters in future with our partners in the EU, they will try to obtain more space and time so that we can go through our usual democratic processes and not feel rail-roaded and dealt with rather shabbily, as we do tonight.
Yvette Cooper: I knew that I would need my copy of the Nice treaty. When the hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) gets a chance to speak about Europe, it is always useful to have a copy ready to hand.
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I am slightly puzzled by the concerns of the hon. Member for Stone about this issue, because he seems to think that the Council's pro rata decision under the Nice treaty is already prescribed, if various states fail to ratify. Yes, the way in which the Council will need to make such a decision is prescribed; it has to be a pro rata decision. That was among the many points that I made when we discussed this in Committee. It will have to make a pro rata adjustment. The Council's decision is pursuant to the treaty, but given that the numbers in question are not on the face of the treaty, it is important to clarify that the numbers—the final end point in terms of the numbers of MEPs that we shall have—and the Council's decision, should a pro rata adjustment need to be made, are both covered in the Bill. It will be possible
to introduce an order that will implement the Council's pro rata decision under the treaty of Nice if such a decision is needed.The hon. Gentleman seems to be complaining that this is referred to in the Nice treaty. We have always said that this is about the decisions that are pursuant to that treaty, which has been debated in this place and incorporated in UK law by this Parliament. That should surely constitute the safeguard that the hon. Gentleman is asking for. He is concerned that Parliament has not had a chance to debate these issues, but the fact that it has debated the Nice treaty and incorporated it in UK law should surely be the answer to his concerns.
Mr. Cash: The hon. Lady might recall that I tabled 240 amendments to the legislation incorporating the Nice treaty. Her answer does nothing to contest the argument that I am presenting, which is that the provisions in subsection 1(a) and (b) of proposed new clause 1 are too wide. They refer to
- "(a) a treaty provision that is part of the Community Treaties; or
(b) any provision of a Council Decision, or of any other instrument, made under a treaty provision that is part of the Community Treaties."
Yvette Cooper: Madam Deputy Speaker, I thought that it would not be long before we strayed into such territory, but that is not the subject of the Bill and I will not debate those issues now.
Yes, the hon. Gentleman did table an immense number of amendments to the legislation incorporating the Nice treaty, but the fact that he does not like the treaty does not mean that Parliament did not get the chance to debate it. He might not like Parliament's decision, but the UK Parliament decided to incorporate the treaty of Nice in UK law, and he should stop trying to use Parliament as a cover for the fact that he simply does not like the treaty or the European Union. That was most telling in his opening remarks, in which he said that if people were wise, they would vote against the provisions. I think that that probably sums up where a lot of this is coming from.
The hon. Gentleman raised some concerns about amendment No. 2. Let me try to spell this out again. The order cannot come into force until the Community law provisions come into force. It cannot be implemented until those relevant decisions come into force. It is, however, sensible to be able to debate the matter in advance. Of course we can anticipate now that 78 is the number of MEPs that the Copenhagen Council and other discussions that have taken place across Europe have allocated not just to the UK but to other countries as well, if all countries ratify. We shall also have the
ratification decisions by September this year. Conservative Members seem to be asking for us to wait until 1 May 2004—when the treaty of accession comes into force and at which point elections will be just five or six weeks away—to tell the electoral administrators, candidates and political parties how many MEPs there are going to be. They are suggesting that, in the interim, we should simply leave them to guess on the basis of what they read in the papers, while we give them a nudge and wink and say, "Well, it will probably be 78, but we cannot have a debate about it in Parliament. Everybody is capable of reading the papers, and electoral administrators up and down the country will be capable of working out that the anticipated number is 78 but, no, Parliament just cannot do it."Conservative Members seem to be suggesting that we should take that position. That is just not sensible when a whole load of people across the country have to organise an election. They have a hard enough job as it is; an immense amount of work goes into such organisation. Surely we should be able to say, very sensibly, that we can debate the order now, when we are able to, and give those people warning as to what we expect to take place. The order cannot come into force until the Community law comes into force, but it is sensible that we should be able to have that debate in advance.
The hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) has an obsession with the word "anticipation". The term "anticipated changes" allows the Lord Chancellor to refer anticipated changes to the Electoral Commission and to ask for its advice and recommendations. If necessary, the Lord Chancellor can refer a series of options on which it can make recommendations. Again, this prevents us from having to wait until the treaty of accession or other treaties come into force, possibly at a very late date, before we can even ask the Electoral Commission to advise us on the distribution of MEPs.
Mr. Bercow: Any idea that the Lord Chancellor should be entrusted with the responsibility for determining what constitutes anticipation in these circumstances is scarcely reassuring to most right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House. May I ask the Minister, however, to agree to the principle of consistency in these matters and, therefore, to tell the House how she reconciles the decisions under the treaty of Nice that have necessitated the Bill and the amendments to the order-making power with the prior inclusion in the treaty of Amsterdam of the protocol on the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality, because there is obviously a direct read-across?
Yvette Cooper: I should have brought my treaty of Amsterdam. I knew that I was taking a risk by just bringing a copy of the treaty of Nice to the House this evening. The treaty of Nice sets out the clear and simple issue, which the Bill is trying to implement, of changing the number of MEPs in order to allow the accession states fair representation in the European Parliament. We cannot simply unilaterally decide how many MEPs we want to send to the European Parliament this year—they would arrive there and there would not be any seats for them. Clearly, the number of MEPs that each nation
is entitled to send has to be negotiated and agreed across Europe. Those decisions then have to pass through the appropriate incorporation into UK law, and the House decided to incorporate the treaty of Nice in that way. The treaty set out a simple principle, which does not need the treaty of Amsterdam or any other treaty that the hon. Member for Buckingham chooses to throw into the debate to explain it.Hon. Members have asked whether there will be a debate on these matters. There has already been a debate on the treaty of Nice, and there will be a debate on the treaty of accession, which will set out the number of MEPs for 2004, when the legislation to incorporate the treaty of accession will come before the House. My hon. Friend the Minister for Europe, who is on the Front Bench, has responsibility in those matters.
The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) is right: the amendments improve the Bill and I hope that Conservative Members will recognise that and will have the sense to vote for them.
Question put, That this House agrees with the Lords in the said amendment:—
The House divided: Ayes 270, Noes 113.
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