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Geraint Davies (Croydon, Central) (Lab): Is there any new provision in the treaty that the right hon. and learned Gentleman actively supports? Or is his position one of blanket opposition, in order to mimic Robert Kilroy-Silk without having the integrity to advocate withdrawal?

Mr. Ancram: If the hon. Gentleman had read our manifesto for the European elections, he would know that we actually support the principle of what the Foreign Secretary called the yellow card provision to enable national Parliaments to exercise a veto, but we do not think that it goes far enough. Indeed, like us, some Labour Back Benchers have suggested that the yellow
 
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card should become a red card. That is how we can ensure that we achieve stronger support and ability for national Parliaments.

Mr. Straw: So is the right hon. and learned Gentleman saying that he does not want national Governments to have a greater and more enhanced role in the running of the European Union, which will be achieved by a full-time chairman but cannot be achieved by a rotating presidency that would take 12 and a half years to come around for each member state? Does he object to what is in article I-11, which for the first time provides, as the Leader of the Opposition called for only half an hour ago, for powers to be repatriated from the EU back to member states?

Mr. Ancram: Once again, the Foreign Secretary raises the extraordinary idea that if the head of the Council is not an active politician in his domestic Parliament—someone who does not represent a Government in the EU—that somehow strengthens the position of national Parliaments. He should take the time to visit some of the accession countries, which feel that that would remove their ability to influence the European Union because they would never have a chance to take part in its presidency.

Angus Robertson (Moray) (SNP): The right hon. and learned Gentleman will probably know that neither red nor yellow cards will have an impact on the exclusive competences of the EU. That being agreed, why did a Scottish Conservative MEP, Struan Stevenson, propose in the European Parliament that fishing should be an exclusive competence of the European Union?

Mr. Ancram: I can say only that Struan Stevenson stood on the manifesto at the European elections—[Interruption.] Under our present system for electing our MEPs, devised by the Government, candidates stand only on their party's manifesto, and our manifesto makes it clear that our position on repatriating control over fisheries is maintained.

I was asking what had happened to all the other amendments. Why have they apparently been surrendered? I shall not try the patience of the House by going through the whole long list, but unless the great bulk of those amendments is secured by the Prime Minister this week, the Government will have done something quite extraordinary: they will have demonstrably failed—not in our terms, nor even in the terms of the British people, but in their own terms. What the Prime Minister will be facing tomorrow is not a tidying-up exercise, not a mere consolidation of existing treaties, but what the Belgian Prime Minister has described as the "capstone" of a federal state.

If we are to believe that the Government are fighting to protect British interests, there are some simple benchmarks. The Prime Minister should firmly say no to any constitution. Countries have constitutions; the EU
 
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is not a country and must never aspire to become one. Indeed, only three years ago the Prime Minister told us that a constitution was not necessary.

Mr. Harry Barnes (North-East Derbyshire) (Lab) rose—

Mr. Malcolm Savidge (Aberdeen, North) (Lab) rose—

Mr. Ancram: I will give way to the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Savidge) for old times' sake.

Mr. Savidge: Can the right hon. and learned Gentleman tell us whether the Conservative party has a constitution? I would concede that it is in a state.

Mr. Ancram: I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman has read the EU constitution, but if he thinks that a political party, or a golf club—one of the other organisations that is often mentioned—has 175-page constitutions of intense and obtuse language, I do not know where he has been. I know constitutions. I know golf clubs. This ain't no golf club constitution.

Apart from one slip of the tongue, the Foreign Secretary told us again that this was a constitutional treaty and thus somehow not a constitution. That is a form of sleight of hand, because the treaty describes itself as

"establishing a Constitution for Europe".

Throughout, the document refers to "the Constitution" and until the Government accepts that it is a constitution we shall hear the sort of meaningless and irrelevant rant that we heard from the Foreign Secretary today.

Mr. Barnes: It is very courteous of the right hon. and learned Gentleman to give way. If the word "treaty" were to replace the word "constitution" throughout the document, would that be okay for him?

Mr. Ancram: I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman has read the document—[Interruption.] I am about to give the hon. Gentleman an answer—the Foreign Secretary really must restrain himself. He sits on the Treasury Bench chewing away and I know that he is anxious about the next few days, but he must restrain himself.

The document is a constitution; when one considers the way it is set out, it must be a constitution—it cannot be anything other than a constitution. When one has an elephant it is worth calling it an elephant; if one calls it other than an elephant, one tends to get trampled on.

Sir Menzies Campbell (North-East Fife) (LD): Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

Mr. Ancram: I shall give way in a moment. I want to make some progress.

The Prime Minister must meet other benchmarks. He has to say no to the constitutional imperative of a Europe "united ever more closely". We were told that that concept would be removed, but there has merely been a change in the wording—it actually means the
 
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same thing. Following on that, he should say no to giving the EU a single legal personality. It does not need one unless it is seeking to become a state in its own right. It has not had one in the past and can perform perfectly well without one.

The Prime Minister should say no, as the Government tried to do in their earlier amendment, to the article giving the EU constitution legal primacy over our own. He should say no to the EU having control over our asylum or immigration policy. Of course, we can co-operate, but we should not be told what our policy is by Brussels.

The Prime Minister should say no to the EU having any control over our criminal law. Of course, we need to work together to fight international crime and terrorism, but that must not mean the emergence of an EU criminal code that supplants our own.

The Prime Minister should say no to the charter of fundamental fights. If it has only the legal force of the Beano it is unnecessary. If it has legal force, which our Government promised us it would not have, it must be opposed. I seem to remember that the Government's exact words were, "There is absolutely no possibility of us agreeing to this". We can look after our own fundamental rights. We do not need Europe's judges to tell us how to do it.

Sir Menzies Campbell: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

Mr. Ancram: I shall give way in a moment.

We must be wary of accepting bold assurances that attempts to harmonise taxes and to create a single foreign and security policy have been thwarted by the brave actions of our gallant Prime Minister. Left behind in the text will be the "aspirational" articles, I-14 and I-15, requiring co-ordination of economic policies within the Union and active and unreserved support for the Union's foreign and security policy,

"in a spirit of loyalty and mutual solidarity and compliance with the acts adopted by the Union in this area".

Mr. Straw: That was in the Maastricht treaty.

Mr. Ancram: The right hon. Gentleman keeps shouting about Maastricht, but Maastricht was about an intergovernmental system; this constitution is creating something very different and those words have a very different meaning when they form part of a constitution.

If, in a constitutional context, the first of those two articles does not mean a long-term aim of achieving tax harmonisation, it is not only hard to see what it means but even harder to see why it is still in the document. If the Prime Minister's claims to have achieved that red line are to be believed, that should have gone, too.

The second article is even more serious. It could make anything that is not an EU common foreign policy justiciable before the European Court of Justice. It is the backdoor to a single European foreign policy, something which would be disastrous for us and which the Government have also assured us would not happen. If the Prime Minister means that assurance, he must insist that that article goes, too.
 
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I give way to the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell).

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