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DEFERRED DIVISION
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Sylvia Heal): I have now to announce the result of the Division deferred from a previous day. On the motion on race relations, the Ayes were 260, the Noes were 16, so the motion was agreed to.
[The Division List is published at the end of today's debates.]
I must remind hon. Members that between 5 pm and 6.30 pm, Mr. Speaker has imposed a 10-minute limit on Back-Bench speeches.
3.36 pm
Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston): I was one of the House of Commons representatives on the Convention, but I was also our national parliamentary representative on the Praesidium and, since that was the drafting committee, I must probably plead more guilty than most of the final outcome. The draft is a good basis for the Government to work on, and I was delighted to hear the Foreign Secretary say so. It is a basis, not a framework within which only the Convention determines what should be debated further.
The United Kingdom Government will have a difficult job in a number of areas. I want to pass on some observations on how the Convention worked.
Some 28 countries were represented, including Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey. When the Convention started, 10 member states did not know whether their accession treaties would be finalised. Yet those states were asked for an opinion and an input into the way in which EU institutions should be reformed, without their having had first-hand experience of them. The prevailing zeitgeist was that of a group of people who clearly had a federal vision of a United States of Europe, and who clearly thought that the Convention provided a great historic opportunity. I think that some of the quotes that the right hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram) used were from the last day, when people were covering their disappointment. For the committed federalists, the outcome was a deep disappointment. The hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) mentioned the ratcheting and the seduction effect. Giuliano Amato said, "We wanted a boy, but we ended up with a girl." That means that the committed federalists and integrationists are now the most disappointed group.
The majority of members had to face up to the contradiction between wishing for deeper integration, which they saw not as a political project but one that allowed for effective working, and retaining national identity. To the new member states it was immensely important that national identity and elements of sovereignty were retained. In some cases, that is an irreconcilable contradiction, but we tried to find a way forward. For an effective union with 25 members, qualified majority voting is needed more often. Frankly, in practice—this is where the debate about the need for a national veto is disingenuous as regards the public—the national veto has an extremely bruising effect. It is used only rarely. With qualified majority voting, everyone has to negotiate an outcome on which they can agree.
Mr. Redwood: Surely the veto is what guarantees that we will have a Europe of nations. The introduction of QMV in more areas implies continuous revolution with the passion to legislate more, grab more power and take more control. That is why we do not like it.
Ms Stuart: I shall return to that matter.
The constitution is a challenge for all political parties and for the United Kingdom. It is a challenge for the Conservatives, who really must move away from the Thatcherite "Nothing good has ever come from this" and from thinking that if something has the word "Europe" in it, it must be bad. That is not true. It is also a challenge for the Labour party, because we have become accustomed to beating the Conservatives over the head with Europe. We have gone to the other extreme and said that it is all good, instead of being a constructive critical friend who says that the overall project has benefited us and the whole of Europe, but that if we want that process to continue in the wake of enlargement, drastic reforms are needed in the way the Union works.
From my experience in the Convention, the constitution is also a huge challenge for the Liberals. Andrew Duff said that the Liberal caucus collectively signed up to every word in the constitution and hoped that he would one day be able to return proudly to a United Kingdom where his fellow countrymen and women had shed their outdated nationalism and become true Europeans. Just because one thinks that one's party will never be in government, one should not want an ever-bigger kitchen in which to stir the broth—but I leave that to the Liberals.
This matter is also a challenge for the United Kingdom. What I have found extraordinary about the past few months is that in the international sphere we see ourselves as a strong and significant country that has huge influence and, some would say, that still punches above its weight. However, when it comes to Europe, we behave like a small country. We have become extremely defensive, rather than acting as France and Germany do and simply being assertive—going in early in a combative way.
I was glad to hear my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary say that he wants to be greatly involved in the debate. I hope that that will encourage hon. Members
on both sides of the House to engage much more constructively in the debate to make Europe work. That is the basic element.
Mr. Bercow: The hon. Lady was going to answer my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood).
Ms Stuart: I shall come back to that.
Three elements were important to me. One was accountability, and I do not agree with the right hon. Member for Devizes, who implied that power is conferred on the Union by national Parliaments; it is conferred by member states. The role of Parliaments—whether national Parliaments or the European Parliament—is to scrutinise the Executive. The scrutiny process will be strengthened, provided that Westminster lives up to the challenge. I am not yet convinced that hon. Members will use the extra powers conferred on them to challenge and scrutinise the Executive. I hope that they do, and that they will start to debate the Commission's annual programme in this Chamber so that they can no longer hide behind saying, "We knew nothing about this." The information is out there, and the new protocol will give the House the power to scrutinise and influence Ministers.
The openness requirement when the Government legislate will make clearer what Ministers have done on our behalf. By the way, that does not mean that I think that the new legislative council is a good idea; new institutions should be created only when there is a need for them.
Mr. Jim Marshall : I am listening closely and with great interest to what my hon. Friend is saying about scrutiny by this Parliament. She has appeared before the European Scrutiny Committee on more than one occasion and has been subjected to close questioning about her activities. She will be aware that that Committee is one of the most effective in Europe. One of the big problems is getting debates on the Floor of the House. What she should urge is that the Government take greater account of the recommendations of the European Scrutiny Committee so that issues such as those she mentions get prime time and prime publicity on the Floor of the House.
Ms Stuart: It is true that the United Kingdom's European Scrutiny Committee has been used as a model by a number of EU member countries looking at ways of taking the process forward.
On unanimity and qualified majority voting, some areas go to the heart of the nation state in terms of constitutional arrangements. On future treaty ratifications, for example, we need to be completely protected. I could not agree to a system under which a constitutional treaty would be amended by any process other than ratification by every member state. In virtually all other areas, however, what is important to me is whether we have the ability to change policy domestically and how we best achieve that. On asylum and immigration, therefore, it was right to move to QMV because unanimity has meant that we have been unable to force some of the other states in the Union to live up to their responsibilities.
On matters such as taxation and social security, however, I would insist on unanimity. The reason for that is best illustrated by one example: if I were asked what was the biggest achievement of the Labour Government who came into office in 1997, I would say that it was working tax credits. We changed the way in which benefits were delivered: no longer through benefit cheques but through the wage packet. The tools of taxation and social security are therefore vital for implementation of domestic policy. That is how I regard the trade-off between QMV and unanimity.
Let me give one example of how unanimity can be totally destructive. I talked to someone today who had spent 10 years of his life trying to secure an amendment to the E111 form, which covers people for medical treatment when they go to Europe, so that it would also cover pregnant women—the definition covered only illness, and pregnancy is not an illness. The attempt failed for 10 years because the Greeks insisted that a further line be added to say that pregnant women would be covered only if they did not travel on purpose. In circumstances where everybody wants an amendment but one country suddenly becomes unreasonable, the veto is not a virtue. That is why we need to consider the issues one by one. In areas of taxation and security, we need the veto, but in others it is not in our interests.
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