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Mr. Michael Ancram (Devizes): I thank the Foreign Secretary for his statement and start on a note of consensus by endorsing his welcome of enlargement. I have to say, however, that if this morning's process is part of his promised consultation, two hours to digest more than 50 pages of closely argued text is a travesty.

The White Paper is pretty typical of this Government: another dossier with another prime ministerial foreword containing inaccurate statements. In particular, the Prime Minister writes—it was echoed by the Foreign Secretary in his statement—that the proposed treaty reforms

"do not alter the fundamental constitutional relationship between the Member States and the Union".

Who do they think they are kidding? That phrase will return to haunt them. No one in Europe believes the tidying-up streamlining argument that we just heard. They see the treaty as a step change along the route to full political union. This dossier is another chapter in the Government's campaign to use smoke and mirrors to hide their true intentions towards Europe.

The White Paper was originally billed as the bold negotiating stance that the Government would adopt at the IGC. Instead we find that it is a timid attempt to soften us up for eventual acceptance of the draft text pretty well as it stands. That fits with the expectation of other European leaders that the text is unlikely to be changed. The right hon. Member for Neath (Mr. Hain) used to tell us about red lines that would not be crossed, the implication being that the Government would veto the treaty if they were crossed. The words "red lines" are nowhere to be found in the dossier. Instead we learn that the Government will "insist" on certain areas that the Foreign Secretary set out in his statement.

What does that insistence mean? If the Government's insistence in all or part fails, will they veto the treaty? We have a right to understand what the change of language means. If they will not veto the treaty, their insistence will, as I suspect, prove pretty meaningless. Anyway, most of the areas of so-called insistence are on issues that are already pretty well conceded, although I am sure that in due course they will be publicly spun by the Government as significant victories.

The Foreign Secretary has previously talked about constructively improving the treaty, and he has also told us again today that he believes in a Europe of nation states. The current draft treaty proposes something very different, namely a distinct political entity with all the key elements of a state, and no amount of prime ministerial bluster can disguise that fact. If the Foreign Secretary means what he says, there should be many more areas of insistence to achieve that goal of a Europe of nation states.

The Foreign Secretary should insist on opposing the legally binding and enforceable charter of fundamental rights, as the Government promised to do last year,

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instead of suggesting, as the White Paper does, that it will be left until the end of the IGC to decide what the Government's position will be. We all know what that means. He should insist on removing the explicit primacy of EU law enshrined in a constitution that fundamentally overrides our sovereignty. He should insist on deleting the proposed five-year presidency, which strikes at the heart of the whole concept of intergovernmentalism and marginalises smaller countries.

The Foreign Secretary should insist on striking out the proposal for a European diplomatic service, which is by definition the tool of a state. He should insist on preventing creeping integration by way of the so-called escalator clauses. He should insist on the principle that subsidiarity and proportionality should be enforceable by national Parliaments. Above all, he should insist that a written constitution is not only, as the Prime Minister told us two years ago, unnecessary, but totally inimical to the interests of the United Kingdom and should be scrapped. Such insistences would be proof of the Government's sincerity when they claim to be against the establishment of a European state, but none of them has been made.

What has happened to those other changes demanded in former amendments tabled by the right hon. Member for Neath? What has happened to the amendment to article III-162 on asylum, which he described in the amendment as fundamentally important? What has happened to the description of the proposal to create a EU Foreign Minister as unacceptable? If the Government have already backed down on those, as I believe they have, it does not augur well for any of their other areas of insistence.

This IGC is an unparalleled chance for the Government to act genuinely on behalf of the British people by fighting integration and resisting the onset of a European state. It is a vital opportunity to put forward a positive alternative vision of a new Europe, a genuine partnership of sovereign nations, as Conservative Members have been doing in recent months. [Interruption.] The White Paper tragically fails to do that, and for all Labour Members' laughter, its clear intention is to soften up the British people for the adoption of the constitution and the treaty as they stand, in a cynical exercise that shows yet again why the Government can no longer be trusted.

This is not so much a White Paper as a white flag, and the Government's docile surrender to the concept of a politically united Europe is a betrayal of trust. They can respond to that charge by letting the people decide who is telling the truth and who is speaking for Britain. A significant number of other European countries will be honest enough to trust their people on this issue in referendums. Why are our Government so frightened of trusting the people?

Whatever the spin, the changes proposed in the draft treaty are fundamental and constitutional. No Government have the right to agree them without the consent of the people. If they want to regain some of the trust that they have recently lost, they should start by trusting the people in a referendum.

Mr. Straw: I was hoping that we might have some forensic comments from the right hon. Gentleman. He

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complains that he has had two hours to read the document, but I have to say that that is far longer than I used to get when I was in opposition. He has also had two months to read the full Convention text, and it is evident that he has not done so. He sought to create a fantasy of a European superstate, a piece of confection, and then to knock it down.

The right hon. Gentleman ought to be reading the text in the Command Paper, which is very clear, and, as I said, I published that not two hours but two months ago. Article I-9 in that document is very clear, and in terms of defending the interests of nation states, it is a far better text than that which the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues secured in Maastricht. The article makes it clear that the member states confer competences on the Union, not the other way round. Any competences not conferred on the Union remain with the member states.

The right hon. Gentleman says that the process is creating a European Union. I have to point out to him that that was created by the Maastricht treaty. That was part of the argument. He says that, outrageously, this process proposes to make European law superior to the law of the United Kingdom Parliaments and those of the other 24 member states. He is right to say that, but he forgot to say that that has been the central part of our law relating to the EU for 31 years.

Mr. Ancram: You are missing the point.

Mr. Straw: I do not think that I have missed the point at all. Thirty years ago, the argument about whether we should join the European Union turned critically on whether the House and the country were willing to accept that where the EU agreed legal changes, they had primacy over the law of this Parliament. What the House decided then, and what the country decided by referendum in 1975, was that European law would indeed have primacy over UK law in order that we were able to share the benefits of EU membership. That was the bargain that was struck, and nothing in this treaty changes the nature of that bargain.

The right hon. Gentleman then went on about subsidiarity and enforceability. His colleagues in the House of Lords looked at the draft proposal on subsidiarity, and they, not me, complimented that proposal, which is now in the text of the Union, saying that it would shift the balance of power

"from the Commission in favour of the Member States if the proposals . . . are adopted".

Obviously the right hon. Gentleman has not read that report or looked at the names of the members of that Committee, but I can tell him that it has five Conservative members, including a distinguished former Chief Whip of this House, Michael Jopling, and someone who is not known for his fantastic enthusiasm for all aspects of the EU, Norman Lamont. At least he had the good grace to recognise that, as the Committee said, this does represent a shift in the balance of power from the Commission to nation states.

I appreciate the difficulties faced by the right hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram). Here is a man who, in developing his political career, was strongly in favour of the EU. Many of us in the House will remember the dark days of the Conservative party, when, in 1992 and

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1993, it was writing an extremely long suicide note. The right hon. Gentleman, along with 12 other members of the current shadow Cabinet, argued passionately against a referendum on Maastricht. He also argued in favour of what was in the Maastricht treaty. In those days, he was even willing—as I am not, and nor are my Government or my party—to contemplate being a member of a European superstate.

I ask the House to listen carefully to the right hon. Gentleman's words because they are confusing at first blush. He said:

"I said at the beginning that I did not want to be part of a European superstate. Equally, I do not want to find myself in a country that is outside a European superstate".—[Official Report, 4 November 1992; Vol. 213, c. 343.]

That was perhaps a less eloquent part of his speech, but overall he was endorsing Maastricht.

In this White Paper we have set out in detail not only what is proposed in the Convention but what was decided at Maastricht, and I invite the right hon. Gentleman to refresh his memory of Maastricht. It changed the European Community to the European Union and extended the EU's competence to a number of new policy areas, including economic and monetary policy, social policy, education, vocational training and youth, culture, public health, consumer protection, trans-European networks, industry and development. It introduced the co-decision for the European Parliament, a fundamental change in the running of the EU, and extended or introduced qualified majority voting to 30 policy areas. I repeat that on any analysis the Maastricht treaty involved a greater and more significant change to the way in which the Union operates than does that which is before us.

Lastly, the right hon. Gentleman said that the set of proposals was inimical to the interests of the European Union and should be scrapped. I look forward to hearing from him what his position and that of his party is in respect of the EU. Are they manoeuvring themselves, as many members of the Opposition Front-Bench team are, including the Leader of the Opposition, to a position where they are proposing to leave the EU and to disengage altogether?

I do not pretend that the EU is perfect—far from it. However, after 37 years of experience, I believe that we are better in it than out of it. We are better making the best of it for Britain in it than out of it. I know that the body that is totally inimical to the interests of Britain is the Conservative party.

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