Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1-19)
WEDNESDAY 16 JULY 2003
RT HON
PETER HAIN,
MS SARAH
LYONS AND
MR TOM
DREW
Q1 Chairman: Welcome, Minister, to
the European Scrutiny Committee again. I was just recalling that
when you first came before the Committee I reminded you that you
were the sixth European Minister to come before us, and I wished
you well and longevity in your post, and you did not do badly—you
lasted just over a year—but we are delighted to see you
promoted because two previous European Ministers have been promoted,
but now I find out that you are the third Leader of the House
we have had in only five months! Maybe you are used to these promotions
and fast turnover, but welcome to you in your responsibility as
the minister who led the government into the Convention and we
are very pleased that you are here to discuss with us aspects
of the draft Treaty. It is particularly nice to see you here and
congratulations on your new promotion. Minister, you have described
the Treaty as "a good basis for negotiation at the IGC".
Having sat through those many hours, how much manoeuvre will the
government have at the IGC to make the improvements it wants,
and what is it that we will hopefully persuade some of our members
to do?
Peter Hain: First of all, Chairman,
thank you very much for your generous welcome. I am not sure whether
the change of job is anything to do with me or to do with the
way government operates but one thing I have learnt is that you
can never anticipate what is going to happen in government! I
am delighted to be back. I think we have a very good deal for
Britain out of the Convention. Indeed, compared with what most
people expected it was an exceptionally good deal. Even our own
officials did not anticipate that we would be able to win as much
ground as we did for Britain's case, and I think the proof of
the pudding is in the reporting in European newspapers. European
newspapers overwhelmingly described it as an excellent result
for Britain, some in such terms as it being a triumph for the
Prime Minister in rather aggrieved terms. If I just finish on
this point before I answer your direct question, it is odd that
there has been so much criticism in Britain from certain quarters
when in fact it is the federalists, the advocates of a Brussels
super state, that feel the most aggrieved about the outcome—which
has essentially defended nation state interests. In terms of what
we cannot accept, they include the mutual defence guarantee and
the enhanced co-operation package around that which will allow
a minority of countries to go off and do things in the European
Union's name for defence purposes. We managed to stop harmonisation
of taxation, though there were pressures in the Convention for
that: there is a limited area where there is a proposal in the
text to allow QMV, qualified majority voting, for cross border
tax fraud. You might say "What is wrong with that? Tax fraud
is a bad thing and it is in the interests of the European Union
and, indeed, in the interests of Britain to stop that". Our
concern is once having conceded the principle, it might then allow
an encroachment into other tax matters in the name of combatting
tax fraud. The other area is criminal procedural law—qualified
majority voting there; a limited area of social security—qualified
majority voting there mainly for cross border issues; and qualified
majority voting in the system for own resources, which is effectively
a way of allowing the European Union to decide what contributions
we as nation states make, which is for us a national sovereignty
issue. As to how we will do in the IGC that remains to be seen
but we are pretty confident because in all of these issues, for
example the limited area of tax, we had around ten countries signing
up, ten governments signing up to our opposition to that, and
you can go through every other area and find similar groups of
countries that are signed up with us, so we are not on our own
in objecting to these things: we have good support and I think
we are in a good position to negotiate for a successful outcome.
Q2 Mr Marshall: Can I welcome you
as well, Minister? When you were exchanging pleasantries with
the Chairman, you did say you never knew what was going to happen
and you referred to government, but is it not also true about
processes within the European Union? Could anyone have foreseen,
when the Laeken declaration was made some years ago, that we would
be in this situation now? I just wonder, whilst the British government
does have reservations about some aspects and clearly other governments
will have reservations too, once the governments get down to horse
trading within the context of the IGC, then one country is going
to trade off its interests with the others, so do you not feel
that it is inevitable that the United Kingdom will have to accept
something which even you say at the moment would be unacceptable?
Secondly, the Laeken declaration also said that one of the objectives
of this exercise, if not the most important objective, was to
engage the citizens of the European Union with the institutions
of the European Union, the Parliamentary institutions and the
Commission, but can you point to one shred of evidence in the
Convention report which enhances that role?
Peter Hain: First of all, on the
issue of the balance, as it were, of negotiating forces there
and how that compares with Laeken, I think given the ambitions
of Belgium, which hosted the Laeken Summit obviously and had the
European Presidency at the time, which has a very federalist agenda
for the future of Europe and the way that European parliamentarians,
who were playing at home when the Convention met because meetings
were almost all in the European Parliament and there was a lot
of pressure from those quarters, the outcome was good and I think
we can hold our position and I think we can improve on it in these
areas because, as I say, we have a lot of support in other areas.
In terms of citizens and relationships with the European Union,
I think there are several things I would pick up. First of all,
you have now a single constitutional Treaty wrapping up four existing
treaties which is clearly expressed, to the extent that any Treaty
can be clearly expressed, where people can see for the very first
time in one document, in a readily digestible form and reasonably
accessible, how their rights in the European Union are affected
and what their opportunities are, what their rights are and what
Europe's democratic structures are, so I think that is a big advance.
The second big advance is we have, for the first time, national
parliaments, including our own House of Commons, able to vet effectively
any new Commission proposal for legislation—that is a big
advance which has never existed before and citizens' rights are
enhanced by that. The next area is in the proposal to make the
President of the European Council, what we call the Chairman of
the Council, full time instead of rotating six monthly with the
job changing every six months, then you have at least somebody
representing governments, accountable to those governments, accountable
to national parliaments through those governments and accountable
to citizens therefore through national parliaments—a much
clearer chain of accountability than you ever have had before.
Finally, I think the clear statement in the Convention text, in
the constitutional draft, that the Union only has the powers that
Member States give it is a really important principle to embed
it—in other words, it only acts at an EU level when it needs
to, and when it does act its law prevails over Member States'
laws: when it does not, they do not.
Q3 Mr Davis: Minister, was it the
same ten governments who agreed with you about everything?
Peter Hain: No, it was not. Spain
tended to be a reasonably reliable ally on most things: Sweden
too: Denmark too. Ireland, for example, was in the group of those
ten, and many of the central and eastern European new Member States
tended to be allies of us on many things. The alliances shifted,
but we were always in a position where we were not alone.
Q4 Mr Cash: At the beginning, Mr
Hain, you indicated your concern about conceding matters of principle,
which you did just now. How could it possibly be a "triumph"
for the Prime Minister to have conceded the principle of the constitution,
when it says in the Treaty that the constitution shall have primacy
over the laws of the Member States? Would you not regard that
as more a betrayal of the voters of this country in relation to
their government and the way in which they can decide how they
are to be governed, and do you not agree with me that, having
conceded that, it is far from a triumph—it is actually a
disaster?
Peter Hain: If it was a disaster
it is a disaster that has been in existence since 1957—
Q5 Mr Cash: That is not true.
Peter Hain: —And that we
signed up to, and I think if I am right you always said that you
voted for joining Europe in 1975—so it is actually. European
law only has primacy where European competencies operate, not
over national laws where European competencies do not extend to
those areas, so pretty well we are where we were.
Q6 Mr Cash: Do you not understand,
perhaps, that the provisions relating to the Court of Justice
give as the first and prime duty of the European Court to interpret
the constitution? Does that not in relation to this provision
that I have already referred to amount to a concession, I would
say a betrayal, of the British people?
Peter Hain: I think with all due
respect the very fact we are in the European Union is a betrayal
from that point of view, and I think people who are arguing this
line of argument should really come clean on what they really
want, but in respect of your specific question on the Court of
Justice's remit and interpretation of the constitution and the
primacy of European law, no, I do not think anything has changed
fundamentally. In a lot of this, and this is another area, around
three quarters of the clauses in the new constitutional draft
Treaty are imported from one or other of the four existing treaties,
so to that extent it is a tidying up exercise in respect of three
quarters or so of those clauses—
Q7 Mr Cash: You are still maintaining
that?
Peter Hain: Let me finish—but
the rest, the other quarter roughly of the clauses, is reforming
and modernising structures which were designed for the six Member
States in the 1950s and 1960s which are barely coping with 15
Member States and certainly will not cope with 25, later to become
27, 28 and probably later 30 by the end of the decade. I would
have thought anybody with common sense would welcome this modernisation
and reform as well as an obvious self-evident tidying up of clauses
into a new single constitutional text.
Q8 Mr Cash: So why did you vote with
me on the Third Reading of the Maastricht Treaty against that
Treaty?
Peter Hain: If we want to re-open
that, I am very happy to do so—
Q9 Chairman: Not particularly.
Peter Hain: —not for the
same reasons he did, Chairman!
Q10 Mr Tynan: You have indicated
a number of successes, Minister, as regards the negotiation, and
negotiations at the IGC are obviously very important. Would you
comment on the question of asylum and immigration and the United
Kingdom's position on that?
Peter Hain: Yes, I would be very
happy to. This is obviously extremely important because we felt
from the outset that it was really important to accept an extension
of qualified majority voting in justice and home affairs areas,
with the exception of criminal procedures and our own judicial
system, because it is in our interest to get, in order to be able
to tackle the problem of human trafficking and illegal asylum
seekers much more effectively, other countries to bear their share
of the burden instead of passing the buck to ourselves, for example,
and you can only achieve that by having a common policy, common
procedures for admitting asylum seekers, and common procedures
are very important for returning people to the country that they
first landed in in the European Union, which is what this new
approach will deliver, instead of allowing certain Member States
to be backmarkers and opt out of their responsibilities. So through
an extension of majority voting and by voluntarily giving up our
veto on this area we strengthen our border controls and our barriers
against illegal asylum seeking, and it is only a dogmatic position
that refuses to countenance any sensible European co-operation
that will, I think, baulk at that achievement.
Q11 Chairman: The European Parliament
has been given the provision of being consulted and involved in
the work of the Inter Governmental Conference. What role do you
envisage for national parliaments, or are you arguing at the IGC
for an effective role and for national parliaments to be involved
in the IGC?
Peter Hain: I think the key area
for national parliaments, and I hope this will be actively accomplished
over the coming period, is that it is really important for our
own House to maintain effective scrutiny over the IGC proceedings.
I know that the Foreign Secretary is very keen on this and I think
he has written about this. I am certainly very anxious in my role
as Leader of the House, as well as fulfilling my role as being
accountable to the House for my work representing the government
and the Convention, that we have maximum opportunities for scrutiny
and for debate about how the IGC negotiations are fulfilled. Obviously
everybody will appreciate that these negotiations are done, unlike
the Convention, behind closed doors, and in the nature of negotiations
you have to get what you want. You have to negotiate hard and
nobody will expect that to be done under a public spotlight.
Q12 Chairman: I was just smiling
at the mannerisms there while you were describing negotiating
at the IGC!
Peter Hain: A lot of other European
Member State delegates saw that as rather my role in the Convention!
Q13 Mr Connarty: I have a supplementary
question to Mr Tynan's question. I raised with you when you were
wearing another hat the question of detention of children in detention
centres in this country, which I believe we took as an exception,
an opt-out to part of the European Convention of Human Rights.
When we fall into one regime for asylum immigration in Europe,
will we also fall into line with the European Convention on human
rights of children in prison in Cheltenham?
Peter Hain: I need to take some
advice on that. Perhaps I could come back to the Committee on
that point? If I could just sign off on this issue, we have only
agreed in the area of justice and home affairs, asylum for example
but it also applies to combatting terrorism and combatting international
crime, to majority voting and to common policies because it is
in our interests as a country to do so. It strengthens our security:
it strengthens our borders against these threats of illegal human
trafficking and terrorism, international crime, in order to get
everybody to accept their responsibilities so that the problem
is not continuously dumped on our island.
Q14 Mr Marshall: Minister, firstly
a brief comment on what you just said: one of the concerns that
some of us have about the collapsing of pillars 2 and 3 to the
new structure is that it is just the first step on a road that
will eventually lead to qualified majority voting, and that is
the big concern, but my substantive point, if it is a substantive
point, to your question, is this: you did refer to haggling taking
place behind closed doors, perhaps no longer smoke-filled rooms,
in the IGC. One of the criticisms that we make of a committee,
of the work that the European Council do, is that they do their
work presently behind closed doors and you can never quite be
sure what people say they said in the meetings: they will come
out saying they fought for their national interests as strongly
as they could when they probably sold them at the first opportunity,
so we have argued that those meetings should be held in public
and hopefully under the new Treaty they will be. Do you not think
there is a similar argument for some of the IGC meetings to be
held in public for similar reasons?
Peter Hain: I am very much in
favour of greater transparency and therefore democratic accountability
of the European Union's institutions to its citizens and to its
parliaments, and I strongly support the provision in the draft
articles that the Council should meet in public when it is legislating—well,
the European Council does not legislate as such but in the Treaty
negotiation. And that is something that needs to be looked at
in the European Council as well. As I say compared with the United
Nations Security Council, people have an image of the United Nations
and how it makes key decisions—they see the Foreign Secretary
there: they see Colin Powell there: they see Joschka Fischer there:
they see a decision being played out and people speaking and voting
but they do not see that with the European Union, and I think
that is a great flaw and has been a flaw in the way Europe has
operated. I think it is in Europe's interests to be much more
transparent and accountable because people then see on their television
screens that democratic system operating. On the question of the
second and third pillars I understand your concern, but we would
have wanted a common asylum policy, whilst retaining control of
our own borders and our opt-out from the schengen arrangements
therefore, regardless of how this particular constitutional Treaty
had been configured because it is in our interests, for the reasons
I have explained. You will understand that in respect of the second
pillar, the common foreign and security policy, we have retained
our national veto. It remains a matter for unanimity except in
those areas where we already have qualified majority voting, which
is basically for implementing policies, so once you have agreed
on a policy by unanimity, obviously implementing it is the status
quo. So effectively moving it out of the second pillar into a
single, as it were, constitutional text does not change anything
in practical terms, but it just makes it more understandable.
I do not think anybody really understood the first, second and
third pillars except experts like ourselves—hopefully we
are experts—in this room so I do not think there is a need
to be worried there. On the third pillar, the justice and home
affairs issues, the one area where we are opposed to majority
voting is the one I mentioned at the beginning which is in criminal
law and our judicial system, and we hope to get that out. By the
way, could I just welcome your report on all of this, Chairman,
the report on the role of national parliaments and the opposition
to harmonisation and taxation, for example? I very much agree,
although I know the government still has to respond—
Q15 Mr Cash: Criminal law.
Peter Hain: Criminal law, I am
sorry. The government still has to respond to that, but I very
much welcome it.
Chairman: We look forward to that response.
Q16 Miss McIntosh: Can I ask a question
of the Minister that straddles both his present hats? There is
the early warning mechanism on subsidiarity and there is a six
week deadline within which this House or any national Parliament
has to review any Commission proposal in view of the fact that
it is not deemed appropriate to be dealt with at Union level.
Have you as Leader of the House and as Welsh Secretary given some
thought to what body in this place would be used as the early
warning mechanism, bearing in mind we only have six weeks from
the date of transmission not six weeks from the date of receipt,
and also whether there would be discussions between this place
and the other place and what formal channel you would use between
this place, both Houses, and both the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish
Parliament, on paragraph 5 of the protocol which you are obliged
to give some thought to? Also, why do you think that the Commission
would pay a blind bit of notice and how do you believe that we
will convince the Commission that it needs to review its proposal,
or in fact perhaps even accept that it is not the competent authority,
and which other Member States would you look to on particular
issues such as, for example, criminal law?
Peter Hain: Firstly, on the exact
mechanism by which our own House of Commons could express its
point of view, as I say, this is a really important advance—to
have for the very first time the House of Commons in a position
to vet any new proposal from Brussels, to say whether it should
be done at a European level at all, or whether it is properly
a matter for our own national Parliament. That is a really big
democratic advance for Britain, for our Parliament and our citizens,
and I think that is very much to be welcomed. On the exact method
of scrutiny, this is now I think going to be a matter for discussion—we
have plenty of time, because the IGC will run into next year,
I am sure. There is then, of course, the process of ratification
which could take up to two years so it is not going to come into
force soon, although I hope myself that the Commission will start
to act in a way that respects the fact that this is coming up
the road towards us, and that will start to be very careful about
subsidiarity, and any new proposals that come through. I hope
the Commission effectively will be acting in anticipation from
now, that this new provision is going to come in, but I look forward
to discussing as Leader of the House with yourself, Chairman and
through you the Committee, your own ideas on this and consulting
on it. I think it is a great opportunity for the House to empower
itself over the matters affecting European Union, and I am keen
to see the European Union and its decisions and our own role within
that much more accountable to the House as a whole—not just
through the very important work and detailed work and expert work
that you do in scrutiny Committee, but to the House as a whole.
There are relatively few members who are informed about, interested
in, and expert on European Union matters, and I think this is
to the detriment of both our own quality of democracy and European
democracy. On whether the Commission will take a blind bit of
notice if a third of national parliaments say "No, they do
not like it", I think they will have to. We wanted a red
card rather than a yellow card: we wanted a situation and I argued
for a situation where, if half of national Parliaments said "No,
this infringes subsidiarity", then that should just knock
it out of court. We were not able to win that argument, but do
not underestimate how very significant this move is. The Commission
fought against this proposal, as did the European parliamentarians,
and the federalists all the way down the line to the last. This
is a very big change and in practice, if you imagine a third of
national parliaments or more saying "No, this should not
go forward", for governments then, who will be the final
party in the legislative chain, ignoring their own national parliaments,
it is inconceivable that Brussels will just take no notice at
all of any decision in this respect—not only in respect
of subsidiarity, I might add, but in respect of proportionality
as well, because that is a very important factor here too.
Q17 Miss McIntosh: Can I press you
on the question of relations with devolved assemblies which this
Committee has pioneered because of a number of members that are
interested in this field? Given the fact that there is only a
six week period have you given any thought to how, particularly
wearing your two hats, this could be achieved?
Peter Hain: Again, this is going
to be a matter of consultation but what I would like to see is
immediately the Commission e-mails our own Parliament with a copy
of any new proposal it is immediately forwarded on to the National
Assembly for Wales, the Scottish Parliament—
Q18 Miss McIntosh: That is not the
point, with respect. Paragraph 5 says it is up to each national
Parliament or chamber to consult where appropriate. Do you consider
it appropriate?
Peter Hain: I do, and I argued
for that. We will immediately e-mail it across and we will work
out with the devolved legislatures how best to take that forward.
Six weeks is a short time but I think it is long enough for us
to do the exercise we need to do.
Q19 Angus Robertson: Welcome to the
Committee—again, Minister. Can I ask you whether you agree
that the Common Fisheries Policy and the Common Agricultural Policy
have the same legal status?
Peter Hain: The same legal status?
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