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Mr. James Plaskitt (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab): Does my right hon. Friend agree that the new constitutional treaty marks a fundamental and overdue change in the distribution of powers between Union institutions and the member states? Whereas current treaties, which grow out of article 235 of the Rome treaty, effectively sanction and encourage competence creep, article 9 of the new treaty puts the brake on it.

The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend is right. A couple of days ago, the treaty was described in one of the Belgian newspapers as:

"A text in the service of Her Majesty . . . it was a text"

with a

"'Britainised' content that they approved . . . Great Britain set its mark on this game . . . the most determined European federalists had no option but to back down."

I could read out about 30 similar quotations—[Hon. Members: "Read the British newspapers."] We all agree that some of the British newspapers take a somewhat different view. That shows the nature of the debate. However, as it continues, it will become increasingly obvious that the problem is not the treaty but that some people believe that the existing relationship is wrong and needs to be changed, irrespective of the treaty.

The longer that that goes on and the more that it dawns on people, the more they will realise that the real agenda of many who are opposed to this treaty is to take this country out of its current relationship with Europe.

Ann Winterton (Congleton) (Con): The Prime Minister said on television yesterday that he had agreed to the requirement for member states to co-ordinate their economic policies. Will he now answer the question posed a minute ago by my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Mrs. Browning) and tell us whether this so-called co-ordination will be decided by qualified majority voting?
 
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The Prime Minister: The idea of member states co-ordinating economic policy is not a novel thing in this treaty; it has been there for ages. It makes absolutely no difference to the essential nature of the sovereignty of economic policy residing with us. Look at the past few years: it is perfectly obvious that we decided, for example, to give the Bank of England its independence and that we decided to pursue our own Budget and fiscal policy. We are perfectly entitled to do so and we will carry on being entitled to do so.

Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab): The Prime Minister will know that some politicians in this country have been arguing against not only this constitution but any constitution while saying that the European Union needs a charter of competences. Is not this a matter of semantics? After all, the United Nations has a constitution; it just happens to be called a charter. For that matter, it has a president. For the Tory Opposition, is this a case of rabid ideology or rampant opportunism?

The Prime Minister: I think it is probably increasingly the first, actually, which makes this a more serious position for them. I simply pose this question: if the Government had brought forward a treaty like the Single European Act or the Maastricht treaty now, with the Conservative party in its current situation, it would not have been very supportive of it. The fact of the matter is that the Conservative party has made its choice, for the moment at least. It has decided effectively to join at least the rhetoric of the United Kingdom Independence party, even if it attempts to keep its policy a little different. I say to Conservative Members that, in the end, whatever the short-term advantage, that is a long-term mistake.

Mr. James Paice (South-East Cambridgeshire) (Con): For a long while, it has always been the case that, under certain European competences, this Parliament and the British Government cannot legislate on issues on which the Europeans are considering legislating themselves. Can the Prime Minister confirm that under this constitution the list of such competences is extended and therefore that the powers of this House are diminished?

The Prime Minister: I do not accept that the powers of this House are diminished at all. Indeed, as I say, for the first time national Parliaments have a specific input and an ability to refer back legislation that is proposed. This is an advantage for national Parliaments.

Mr. Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow) (Lab): I am an unreconstructed pro-European. Would not some of us be thankful if foreign policy, particularly over the last two years, had been given to Brussels and if the Prime Minister had asked the French President about recent events and recent policies? May I ask why he thinks that Chancellor Schröder and President Chirac were so cheesed off with him?

The Prime Minister: I think we had better disentangle all those various points. First, no, it is not a good idea to say that we can exercise our foreign or defence policy only with the say-so of the French President, or indeed anyone other than ourselves. Secondly, I simply point
 
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this out to my hon. Friend: I have to disappoint him on that ground, but also on the ground that in the new Europe—the Europe of 25—a majority of states were with us in relation to the conflict in Iraq.

Thirdly, there are disagreements from time to time in Europe, and there was one on Thursday night, but I am sure that all of us will get over those disagreements because in the end it is important that we make progress.

Sir Michael Spicer (West Worcestershire) (Con): If the constitution were to go ahead, would the 1972 Act of accession still apply? Would it still be amendable by this Parliament?

The Prime Minister: I think that I am right that, legally, the treaty of accession would still apply. I will check the strict legal interpretation for the hon. Gentleman. The important thing about the treaty is that, for the first time, people are given the right explicitly—they have always had it implicitly—to withdraw from the European Union. If, for example, a Government of his persuasion were to come to power, with the policy that he espouses, they would be able to do that. In the end, no one can force us to be part of the European Union. I happen to think that we should be part of the European Union, because it is in the interests of Britain.

Mr. Stephen Pound (Ealing, North) (Lab): Sometimes, I look at this nation and despair. When the Conservative Benches ring with the inchoate fury and synthetic outrage designed solely to appease a party led by an orange-skinned, Spanish-resident escapee from the dregs of daytime television whose one-word manifesto is no, I despair. In the case of the various factions masquerading as an Opposition—

Mr. Speaker: Order. Could we possibly get a question to the Prime Minister?

Mr. Pound: As a Londoner, as a European and as a patriot, may I tell the Prime Minister that many of us support and endorse his work in Brussels and seek better for this nation than a Ruritanian role as a blighted backwater or, even worse, as the 51st state of America?

The Prime Minister: I thank my hon. Friend very much for that.

Mr. Patrick McLoughlin (West Derbyshire) (Con): Will the Prime Minister explain to the House where the consistency is in the Government's policy? Referendums on regional government will be held before the legislation is passed by this House, yet the referendum that he has talked about today will be held after the legislation has passed through the House.

The Prime Minister: When the issue of the referendums on Scotland and Wales was up, we were on opposite sides of the fence. I am well aware of why people want the referendum quickly—it is so that people should not have the chance to study the detail. I think that it is important that we study the detail, and on such an issue it is also important that Parliament is able to sit and study it. I am surprised—actually, I am not surprised—that the Conservative party has decided that it really does not want that to happen.
 
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Orders of the Day

Health Protection Agency Bill [Lords]

Order for Second Reading read.

4.32 pm

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Miss Melanie Johnson): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

I am pleased to have this opportunity to open the debate on the Second Reading of the Health Protection Agency Bill. The Bill establishes the Health Protection Agency as an executive non-departmental public body. I will start by outlining the background to explain why we need the Bill, given that the Health Protection Agency special health authority is already in existence.

The establishment of the Health Protection Agency was first proposed in "Getting Ahead of the Curve", the chief medical officer's strategy for infectious disease and other aspects of health promotion, which was published in January 2002. The strategy brought together a number of proposals to establish a more systematic approach to health protection, of which the HPA is the centrepiece. From June to September 2002, the Department of Health conducted an extensive consultation exercise on the creation of the agency, to which it received 215 written responses.

Following that exercise, in November 2002, the then Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Salford (Ms Blears), announced the decision to create the agency through a two-stage process. The first stage was to create the agency as a special health authority in England and Wales, which is able to carry out functions under the National Health Service Act 1977. The second stage, which will be put into effect by this Bill, is to establish the agency as a non-departmental public body, which will be able to carry out a wider range of functions.

The two-stage approach enabled us to move speedily to set up the agency as a special health authority covering England and Wales on 1 April 2003. It also provided the necessary time for the Scottish Executive to complete its own consultation exercise to help determine what role the agency might have in Scotland, before we started the second stage. The rationale for creating the HPA was the recognition that the existing structure for health protection in this country was both fragmented and outdated. The shortcomings of the system were highlighted by the diversity and constantly changing nature of the threats to public health.

We are all aware that killer diseases such as tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS are still prevalent in this country, while the recurrence of SARS—severe acute respiratory syndrome—in China just last month serves as a timely reminder of the threat posed by the emergence of new diseases and by infections being imported into this country. Alongside those naturally occurring threats, we are also faced with the possibility of the deliberate release of biological, chemical or radioactive agents. Continued vigilance, combined with a strong and coherent response, is required to manage those diverse threats.

Despite the need for a coherent response to meet the challenges, the specialist support for health protection on which the NHS and local authorities relied was
 
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fragmented among a number of different bodies. Advice on infectious disease generally came from the Public Health Laboratory Service. Support on chemical hazards was provided by the national focus for chemical incidents and regional service provider units. The health aspects of emergency planning were provided by regional advisers. Much of the action at local level in relation to infectious disease and other hazards was the responsibility of consultants in communicable disease control and their teams in primary care trusts, while advice on radiological hazards was provided by the National Radiological Protection Board. Additional services were provided by the National Poisons Information Service and the Centre for Applied Microbiology and Research.

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