| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
2.55 pm
Mr. David Heathcoat-Amory (Wells): I am pleased to follow the right hon. Member for Swansea, East (Donald Anderson), who set out the scale and importance of the enlargement process with great clarity. Before he spoke, the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Mr. Campbell) made an important announcement on behalf of his party by committing himself to a referendum if the final outcome of the intergovernmental conference includes any constitutional changes. His speech also indicated that that was likely, if not probable.
The Convention contains a German group, called More Democracy, which has obtained 80 signatures from Convention members in support of national referendums on the outcome. Those signatures come from across the political spectrum—not only from critics, such as me, but from people who are fervently pro-Europe and the EU and who believe in a constitution for that body. Those people know—as the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife suggested—that if the outcome is to have a strong foundation, it must be based on the clearly expressed support and will of the people. For that reason, most other countries have already made a commitment, or expressed a firm intention, to have a referendum. They can see, even at this stage, that the constitutional consequences of the Convention will be enormous.
I regret, and I have said so in the Convention, that the fantastic complexity of the present Union has led to an enormously complex treaty for the accession of the new countries. No attempt has been made to simplify or repeal sections of the acquis communautaire, which now runs to 97,000 pages, all of which have to be implemented to the letter in all the applicant countries. If another model had been attempted, we could have brought the newly liberated countries into the European family of democratic states much more quickly.
The accession will happen on 1 May next year, although it has been described in some of the Baltic states as "an arranged marriage"—no love and little
passion, as already shown by the low turnout in the referendums that have been held. However, the referendums will show a yes vote and enlargement will take place on time. For that reason, I support the Bill, but I am critical of several aspects of it.The implications have not been described or debated. The right hon. Member for Swansea, East mentioned immigration and the Romany population of some of the accession countries. Estimates range from 2 million to 5 million Romanies, all of whom would, in theory, have immediate access to this country. I do not claim that we should be unnecessarily scared about that, but we should at least consider the issue. The consequences of the free movement of people could take us all by surprise. The issue was debated last November, and when I asked the Minister about the terms of entry to this country, he said:
- "There will be transition periods with respect to free movement of people and Britain will apply some of those". —[Official Report, European Standing Committee B, 20 November 2002; c. 6.]
We must also consider the effect on the countries concerned. I visited the Czech Republic last week, where I was told that we had been fantastically mean. Commission figures published in a paper by the European Research Group show that Greece receives in any one year four times as much from the EU as the Czech Republic will get over the next seven years. The terms of enlargement are therefore not particularly generous. More important is the fact that we are imposing on the new countries an enormous regulatory burden that will undermine their competitiveness. In some cases, we are imposing an agricultural system, particularly on countries such as Estonia, which has free trade and will have to raise its tariffs against poorer countries such as Belarus and Ukraine to its east. If that is added to the known weaknesses in those countries' legal and administrative systems, we could be storing up great problems. Those have been under-reported and under-debated—indeed, they were under-remarked in the Foreign Secretary's opening speech.
We learned about another effect of the EU's increased diversity during the Iraq war. Eastern European countries very much resented being told, particularly by
the French President, to keep silent. That was the language that they used to get from Moscow—they were told, "Don't worry, we handle the foreign policy." We all need to recognise that it will be a different, more diverse and, perhaps, more diluted Europe. Unfortunately, the Convention on which I serve is designing a European constitution that will concentrate more powers at the centre. I want to say a word about the outrageous remarks of the Foreign Secretary in our debate. It is not right that a British Minister should pretend that the constitution is a "tidying-up exercise". I know that that was not his phrase—it was coined by the Secretary of State for Wales—but it should have been contradicted, clarified and put right by him. This is not a tidying-up exercise. We are engaged not just in building a new constitution for Europe but in establishing a written constitution for this country, which has never been attempted before. We are not a golf club or a political party, and to trivialise the matter like that, as Foreign Secretary did, demeans his office.Comparisons are made with Maastricht, and we are to have a referendum on that treaty, because by far the biggest issue at Maastricht was the single currency. When the Government make their mind up about that, we will have a referendum—or perhaps not. At least we have been offered the possibility of a referendum on the single currency. In any case, Maastricht was signed by the Prime Minister of the day just before the 1992 election, and featured prominently in our manifesto. We ratified it after the election. There is not a single syllable in the manifesto on which the Labour party won the last election about the constitution that we are building.
Mr. Tom Harris: My memory may be less accurate than the right hon. Gentleman's, but the Prime Minister of the day negotiated an opt-out on the single currency at Maastricht. That did not stop many members of his party calling for a referendum on the remaining clauses of the treaty. One of the people who called for a referendum, without any reference to the single currency, was the present Leader of the Opposition.
Mr. Heathcoat-Amory: My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition was absolutely right, and that call led directly to the promise by my party to hold a referendum on the euro decision—by far and away the most important matter to come out of Maastricht.
Enlargement is far more important than Maastricht. The cure for anyone who thinks that this is simply a tidying-up operation with no constitutional significance is simply to read the draft constitution that is now available. All the existing treaties will be repealed and rolled into the new constitution after amendment. In addition, there is a new 50-page section that will become part 1 of the constitution, setting out a wholly new Union with its own new legal powers and powers in new areas. It will have its own new legal personality, and qualified majority voting will become the norm across the board. We will have a Europe Minister and harmonisation by qualified majority voting of criminal laws and criminal justice procedures. This week, the House debated the Criminal Justice Bill, which excited many hon. Members who wanted to retain trial by jury. I must tell them: enjoy it while you can, because once the constitution is enacted—and the Government have no quarrel with this part of the constitution—criminal
procedures will be harmonised across the European Union by qualified majority voting, and they will not be determined by the House at all.
Mr. Wayne David (Caerphilly): Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Heathcoat-Amory: If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I am short of time.
How can the Government pretend that a change of that nature, which clearly takes decision-making powers, such as those that we discussed earlier this week, away from the House and gives them to the new Union, is not of constitutional significance or does not affect what is called the institutional balance in Europe? Frankly, it is outrageous. We want honesty on this subject. If the Government are confident that all this is good for the United Kingdom and Europe, they should describe it accurately and defend those policies honestly in public debate. What is wrong and, I repeat, outrageous, is to take embarrassing or difficult proposals and simply deny their importance. I cannot accept that. The proposals in the Bill will have epic consequences for the powers of the House and this country's powers of self-governance. That is widely recognised on the continent. No one in the Convention is unaware of it—they realise that we are refounding the Union on a different basis with new and different powers. People who want that and people who do not both agree on the constitutional significance of the change that is being proposed. A Government who have said that they will grant the people of Iraq a vote on their constitution should have the humility to grant this country a referendum on our constitution when it happens.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |