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David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con): Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Hood: All hon. Members, including Conservative Members, know that I always try to be courteous and polite in the House. However, as you know, Madam Deputy Speaker, I am also a member of the Chairmen's Panel, and we do have conventions in the House. It is a bit rich for the shadow Home Secretary to come in half way through the debate and then seek to intervene on a contribution by an hon. Member who has sat here from the beginning, so if he will excuse me on this occasion, I intend to carry on with my speech and not accept an intervention.
The Commission states that substantial progress has been made in most aspects of justice and home affairs since 1999, but that the original ambitions of Tampere have been hampered by institutional constraints and sometimes by the lack of sufficient political consensus. The proposals state:
"It was not always possible to reach agreement at European level for the adoption of certain sensitive measures relating to policies which remain at the core of national sovereignty. The legal and institutional constraints of the current Treaties, where unanimity in the Council generally remains the rule, partly explain these difficulties.
The Member States are sometimes reluctant to cooperate within this new European framework, and when their interests are at stake they do not hesitate to threaten the use of the veto . . . in order to lower the level of ambition of the Commission's proposals and reject [the European] Parliament's opinions."
The Commission says that once legislation is adopted, the limited role of the European Court of Justice and the restricted powers of the Commission are an obstacle to ensuring it is effective.
The Committee criticises the fact that the communication does not evaluate the practical benefits and measures already adopted, and says that it is therefore not possible to judge whether expected benefits have been achieved.
"Moreover, the Communication does not state what practical benefits the Commission expects from the priorities it proposes for the next five years.
We consider that it would be prudent, therefore, for member states to withhold commitment to the inclusion of these proposals in the work programme until they are presented with, and have considered, such a statement."
The European Scrutiny Committee adds, on unanimity:
"It seems to us reasonable and proper for member states to withhold their agreement from measures they do not support and which, to use the Commission's own words, 'remain at the core of national sovereignty'. It bodes ill for the future if, on such sensitive matters, the Commission envisages reliance on QMV to impose on Member States legislation to which they are opposed".
Mr. Djanogly:
I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. Is it therefore the view of the Committee that QMV
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should become a red-line issue for the Government; in other words, should the Government insist on not giving up our national veto?
Mr. Hood: The Committee would agree with the view that QMV is not suitable when deciding the issues that are contained in the proposal.
On visas, asylum and immigration, I refer to the Commission's proposals again. One proposal is the development of an integrated border management system and visa policy. The external agency and co-ordination mechanisms must be
"supplemented with the long-term objective of establishing an European Corps of border guards to complement the national border guards."
Visa policy should address the security of documents—including biometric identifiers—and improved consular co-operation.
Another proposal is a common policy on the management of migration flows, including proposals relating to links between legal and illegal migration, such as legal admission for employment purposes, better integration of legal migrants, targets for legal admissions, an effective policy on returns and readmissions and partnerships with countries of origin to deter illegal immigration and trafficking of human beings.
The Government support the development of a common EU asylum policy, which quickly and fairly identifies those in need of protection.
Caroline Flint: I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. Does he agree that one thing that the Government secured is that even where there is QMV, on asylum and immigration issues we have an opt-in to any measures that protect our frontiers? Also, in regard to criminal procedural law, we have an emergency brake which would mean that any issue that we felt undermined the judicial systems throughout the United Kingdom could be put to a European Council where a decision would have to be made unanimously?
Mr. Hood: Yes I certainly agree and the Committee accepts that in its report.
As I said, the Government support the development of the EU asylum policy, which quickly and fairly identifies those in need of protection whilst tackling abuse and inefficiencies in the system. They support a more practical approach to EU co-operation, in particular through partnership with countries of origin and transit, but are not convinced of the need for further harmonisation of EU asylum policy. Again I took comfort from what the Minister said earlier.
The European Scrutiny Committee says:
"the Commission has not presented a sufficient justification for the proposal"
for the creation of a European corps of border guards. We say that the Convention did not support a reference to such a corps in the draft treaty and that the proposal is objectionable in principle. We say:
"Control over admission is a good illustration of the sensitive matters which remain at the core of national sovereignty."
The Scrutiny Committee also notes that the common policy on asylum is not necessarily the same as a uniform policy and, while recognising the importance of
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common minimum standards for asylum, agrees with the Government that the case for further harmonisation remains to be made.
Mr. David: I thank my hon. Friend for giving way and I agree with the comments and criticisms of the European Commission made by the European Scrutiny Committee. However, does he agree that what we need to do is ensure that in future the European Commission is held to account to a greater extent both by national Parliaments and the Council of Ministers, and that is not in any way an anti-European argument?
Mr. Hood: I will not surprise my hon. Friend when I say that I very much agree with him. As Chairman of the Committee and as a member of the 16-member Committee, I should say that we were very much maligned by some sections of the press recently for our scrutiny successes. However, I can say that as a Committee we very rarely, if ever, follow party lines in our deliberations. We see our function as looking after the national interests of this Parliament, and anything that we do and say and anything that we report on has that at the core of its considerations.
Mr. Denham: Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the reasons why the debate on the proposals becomes so polarised is the truth that the Commission has produced an extraordinarily poor-quality JHA document? In fact, if it came to my hon. Friend the Minister in her red box this weekend as a work programme from officials, she would chuck it back in the box and say, "Go away and do it again." Should not one of the messages that we send to those in the Commission be that, if they produce such vague and ambiguous documents, they lay themselves open to the type of misinterpretation that we have heard from the Opposition today?
Mr. Hood: I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention and for making that important point. In accepting it, I can reinforce the fact that much of our work identifies what I would class as incompetence. Such things are, by their incompetence, provocative and cause unnecessary provocation in national Parliaments of other member states as well. That message should go out loud and clear, and it is one that the Committee often sends to the Commission, both in our reports and, if we are given the opportunity to meet or take evidence from individual commissioners, in Brussels.
On civil and criminal justice, the Commission proposes the creation of a European judicial area, respecting the legal traditions and systems of the member states. It says:
"The development of the European judicial area has neither the objective nor the effect of challenging the legal and judicial traditions of member states, and total harmonisation would be neither proportionate nor appropriate . . . For this reason, the principle of mutual recognition has been placed at the heart of European integration in this field . . . However, mutual recognition requires a common basis of shared principles and minimum standards."
"It will be necessary to avoid a situation where in each member state there are two separate legal regimes, one relating to the disputes with cross-border implications and another purely on internal disputes."
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