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UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 132-iv

House of COMMONS

MINUTES OF EVIDENCE

TAKEN BEFORE

EUROPEAN SCRUTINY COMMITTEE

 

 

EU CONSTITUTIONAL TREATY

 

 

Tuesday 8 February 2005

RT HON JACK STRAW, MP, AND MR DAVID FROST

Evidence heard in Public Questions 222 - 255

 

 

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Oral Evidence

Taken before the European Scrutiny Committee

on Tuesday 8 February 2005

Members present

Mr Jimmy Hood, in the Chair

Mr Richard Bacon

Mr William Cash

Mr Michael Connarty

Mr Wayne David

Jim Dobbin

Mr David Heathcoat-Amory

Angus Robertson

Mr Anthony Steen

Mr Bill Tynan

________________

Memorandum submitted by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

 

Examination of Witnesses

 

Witnesses: Rt Hon Jack Straw, a Member of the House, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, and Mr David Frost, Assistant Director, EU Internal Division, examined.

Q222 Chairman: Foreign Secretary, welcome again to the European Scrutiny Committee. Several of our witnesses have suggested that ratification by national parliaments of the principle of the primacy of EU law in Article I-6 of the Constitutional Treaty may lead to greater deference on the part of national courts. Can you give us any assurance that the existing principles by which the UK courts recognise the legislative sovereignty of the Westminster Parliament will not be altered by this provision?

Mr Straw: Yes, I can. I think your Committee will be familiar with what Lord Denning, then Master of the Rolls, said in McCarthy v Smith: "If the time should come when our Parliament deliberately passes an Act with the intention of repudiating the Treaty or any provision of it or with the intention of acting inconsistently with it - it says so in express terms - I should have thought it would be the duty of our courts to follow the statute in our Parliament." That much is clear. Other consequences would follow in those circumstances, which arise from our signature on the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaty, Article 27, which says that you have to respect the international obligations into which you have entered. There would be a serious problem. In terms of primacy qua primacy, I can give you that clear undertaking. We are clear that the statement about primacy and the declaration are no more than a statement of the status quo and it is not just the status quo in respect of European Treaty obligations but effectively of any treaty obligations, particularly those which are incorporated into domestic law. It would be impossible to run an international system and have treaties unless where people entered into treaties they were binding on a number of signatories as long as they were there. The British Parliament in any event has the final say because it is up to the British Parliament as the sovereign authority in this country to decide whether or not we should remain a member or a signatory to a particular treaty.

Q223 Mr Cash: As you know, there is this problem of competing assertions of jurisdiction by the European Court on the one hand and, as you quite rightly point out, McCarthy's case and indeed Metric Martyrs in which Lord Justice Law said much the same thing. There is a problem, is there not, and it came up in the evidence that we received from the expert witnesses on the interpretation of European law, which is that the balance of opinion was that, if there was a contest of competing jurisdictions after the Constitution had gone through, because of Article I-6, the advice we received was that the UK judges would have to decide as to which way they would go if an Act of Parliament, for example, like my Supremacy of Parliament Bill, notwithstanding the European Communities Act 1972, was clear and unambiguous. Do you not agree that it is most unsatisfactory for us to be in a position of uncertainty in this arena of competing jurisdictions? Would you not agree that this Bill that we are going to consider tomorrow should be amended to ensure that if Parliament passes an Act of Parliament clearly inconsistent with the European Communities Act or anything flowing from it, including the Constitution itself, the UK courts must give effect to that Act and, if not, why not?

Mr Straw: On what happens at the committee or report stage, I am always open to looking at the merits of particular amendments. That has been my consistent practice. If there are amendments put down, including from you, we will look at them. You always have to look at amendments in terms of their detailed wording. In terms of what the Constitutional Treaty does in this area, it is effectively a statement of the status quo. There is this declaration in respect of Article I-6: "The Conference notes that Article I-6 reflects existing case law in the Court of Justice of the European Communities and in the court of first instance."

Q224 Mr Cash: That is dreadful, is it not, because they say under Costa that they take precedence.

Mr Straw: The issue of primacy has been part of our obligations of membership since we joined. If you look at the competing texts of the yes and no campaigns back in 1975, you will see that there was exactly the same argument. It went before the British people and it has not changed. If we joined the European Union in respect of those obligations to which we voluntarily have signed up, which give the EU competence, we have to accept those obligations as interpreted by the European Court of Justice. On this issue of competing competences, the European Court of Justice ----

Q225 Mr Cash: Competing jurisdictions.

Mr Straw: And jurisdictions. It is the same thing. The European Court of Justice itself has been very careful not to engage in a gratuitous argument with national jurisdictions. I could cite the Annibaldi case and the Karlsson case. They are alive to the fact that they have a very specific, limited job. On the issue of Kompetenzkompetenz which runs round some Members of the Committee sometimes rather like a hare, I had a very lengthy discussion with a former, very senior member of the German Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe about this issue. Happily, he spoke perfect English so we had a very good discussion over dinner one night about this. He was explaining the issue but I came away from it thinking that, even for them, they do not see it as a practical problem in terms of their relationship with the European Union. I know of your anxieties, Mr Cash. I know where you are coming from. You do not like the European Union; you do not like the fact that currently there is law as explained by the ECJ about primacy in respect of treaty obligations and those which flow from it. To reassure you ----

Q226 Mr Cash: Very difficult, I would say.

Mr Straw: This Constitutional Treaty does not make any difference and the issue of primacy arises fundamentally from Article 27 of the Vienna Conference on the Law of Treaties.

Q227 Mr Cash: We can break our treaties by statute. Lord Diplock made that abundantly clear in a House of Lords case.

Mr Straw: The British Parliament as I was taught at school - this has not changed - can do anything it wants, but there are consequences in the real world.

Q228 Mr Cash: Fortunately.

Mr Straw: Politics and government are about responsibility. If we pass a law which is plainly and expressly inconsistent with treaty obligations, we will then be in breach of those treaty obligations. The consequences are likely to be political and financial, more than legal, but they may also be legal in other jurisdictions in which we voluntarily have accepted the authority. Do not worry on this one.

Q229 Angus Robertson: Can I move on to the Charter of Fundamental Rights? Article II-111 states that the Charter will apply to Member States only when they are implementing Union law, whilst the explanation to this Article uses the wider expression, to "act in the scope of Union law" and a number of our experts, eminent professors, have said that they believe the European Court of Justice will take the view that this wider formulation will prevail. In view of the difference, how firmly based is the government's view that incorporation of the Charter will not result in the extension of EU competence?

Mr Straw: We are as firm as we can be. You may have seen the Attorney General's speech that he made on 25 June where he described the Charter of Rights as a brake, not an accelerator. Peter Goldsmith took intense interest, as did I, in ensuring that we had nailed down safeguards in respect of the potential scope of the Charter before we agreed to it being included within the text of the Constitutional Treaty. We do not think the phrases are different in practice. We also believe that the ECJ will look at each case on its merits. Again, I quote from the Annibaldi and the Karlsson cases. In the Annibaldi case which is cited, by the way, in explanations to Article II-111 the European Court of Justice refused to give a ruling on fundamental rights points because the matter fell outside EU law and they said it was for Member States. I do not think there will be a problem. This is a statement of existing rights and it quite emphatically, as Article II-111 makes clear, does not extend the field of EU law beyond the powers of EU law or establish any new power or task for the EU or modify powers and tasks defined in the Constitution. Lord Goldsmith also said that he was unaware of any other human rights statement where the legislator has offered so full and careful elaboration of its meaning. We went to very considerable lengths. One of the last things that I agreed before we gave our assent to the whole document was to beef up the acknowledgement in the text of the status of the explanations, because we wanted to make it clear.

Q230 Angus Robertson: If this is the case, if so much work has gone in to make sure that there is not ambiguity, why is the wording not exactly the same and why do so many eminent academics feel that there is this gap?

Mr Straw: I cannot answer the latter question except to say that academic life would not be academic life unless there were differing opinions and long may that continue. Our judgment is that it does not make any difference between implementing Union law and being within the scope of Union law. Because the words are different you could argue that the meaning is different. Sometimes you get different words used and their meaning comes down to the same thing. I think that would be the case here.

Q231 Mr David: I want to talk about the implementations in the extremely unlikely scenario that the United Kingdom should vote no and other Member States have already voted yes. Do you think that we would be in a situation whereby Member States would try and put some kind of political pressure on the United Kingdom to have some kind of associate status to the European Union or would you stick by what you said originally in your letter of 20 October, that the Treaty would simply be terminated and that would be the end of the matter?

Mr Straw: For the Treaty to come into force there need to be 25 positive ratifications. If there were not, it would not come into force. Such things happen in respect of other treaties. It always takes a long time. We saw that recently in respect of Kyoto which took some years before it had sufficient numbers to ratify it, although in that case it did not require unanimity of all the signatories; or, for example, in respect of the Nice Treaty where Ireland failed to ratify. Secondly, the European Council will meet and decide what to do. The only certain thing is that we would be in an era of quite profound uncertainty for the British government's relationship with the European Union if we were in a situation where 24 had said yes and we had said no. I cannot predict what the reaction would be, except we would be in a weaker position than we are now. This is a Treaty which is very much in Britain's interests. If you go round Europe to see what people said at the time the Treaty was agreed, they said it was a victory for Britain. That was said repeatedly in one country after another, or words to that effect. I set out in September 2003 what were our key concerns and key demands before we would sign up to it and it was a very public negotiating position which had its own risks, but it nailed us to the floor and we have delivered on all of those. We have changes to make the EU better managed and I have yet to see a single argument explaining in rational terms why there is objection to slimming down the size of the Commission, to having a voting system which reduces the disproportionate weight of the small countries and makes the weight of votes proportionate to people's population which, by definition, helps a country like the United Kingdom. Having a full time president of the European Council to act on behalf of Member States and particularly having a really effective mechanism for involving national parliaments and the British Parliament - how is that against our national interest? It cannot be and yet these are some of the things to which some people in this place object. You can have an argument about the extension of QMV. Although the substantive extension of QMV is very limited, overall we got a good deal because the strength of our negotiating position. We had the British Parliament behind us and we had been very open in the way we had obtained public backing for our position; and also, because we had a veto at that stage. To try and renegotiate the treaties with the reverse position would be very difficult. It would be a very risky enterprise. I cannot see it as in Britain's interests, given the fact that more and more the EU is working for Britains's interests and becoming as we would wish it.

Q232 Mr Steen: Welcome back to the Committee. Until recently we did not see Foreign Secretaries but it is very nice that we see so much of you now and thank you for your answers. We have had a lot of evidence from academics and you rightly said that they all have different views. I would like to test you on one or two of the views put forward. The first view put forward by a group of MEPs was that if Britain said no in the referendum it would be a period of great uncertainty, although they thought it likely that the other 24 countries would go ahead and we would just be on the sidelines. A much stronger view expressed by some of the professors and others was that if France, probably Poland and Spain said no in the referendum that would kill the whole Constitution dead; but if we said no, as we are already very much on the outside of the EU, which is somewhat different from what you were saying, what we said was gloriously unimportant. The rest of the EU would go on and we would be struggling behind in the coach at the back of the train, trying to stop the train but it would keep going. I wonder what you feel about the French saying no. Would that kill it dead?

Mr Straw: I am not talking about any other particular country saying no. The legal position is the same whichever country says no. It must be. We are all pari passu as Member States around the table. The political consequences would be broadly the same. There would be a serious problem, not to say a crisis, inside the European Union. People know what they are going to get with this document. That is a matter of debate. It will be further debated tomorrow, no doubt, when it goes on the floor of the House at committee and report stages and then very publicly. I am confident both about making the public argument and about winning the public argument. In the end, I have one vote of 30 million so it is for the British people to decide. We have produced a greater certainty for the British people. If we make a decision where we are the only ones who are rejecting it, we are making a decision for isolation and where we would be negotiating from weakness, not from strength. It is risky and uncertain. It is not in Britain's interests.

Q233 Mr Cash: If there was a no vote, as I put to the Prime Minister the other day at Prime Minister's question time, which would be an expression of the national interest which you have been harping on about just now in a big way, would you not agree that it would be absolutely essential following such a no vote to repeal the Bill, if you have managed to get it through the House of Commons and the House of Lords by then? After all, if the national interest has been reflected by the no vote, it would not make any sense at all to keep that Treaty enshrined in an Act of Parliament for all the reasons that we discussed in our previous discussion about the competing competences.

Mr Straw: Frankly, I think it would be a waste of parliamentary time to do that.

Q234 Mr Cash: It could be done in a day.

Mr Straw: The Bill makes it very clear that our ratification does not come into force until there has been a referendum and that is conclusive.

Q235 Mr Cash: You have not answered my question. Would you not agree that you should repeal the Act as well?

Mr Straw: It would be a complete waste of parliamentary time.

Q236 Mr Cash: You really think so?

Mr Straw: Yes, I do.

Mr Cash: I am astonished by that.

Q237 Mr Heathcoat-Amory: You have frequently said that the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights creates no new rights; it simplify codifies what exists and indeed the commentary you have just published does say that in terms. It says that the Treaty makes clear that the Charter contains rights which already exist and whose detail is defined elsewhere. To take one example, Article 13 of the Charter, Part II, says that scientific research shall be free of constraint. It is obviously important in the EU legislation in this area. The scientist wants freedom against attempts to constrain him on animal rights grounds or whatever. Interestingly, your commentary against that Article says that it has no equivalent in the current Treaties or in other parts of the Constitutional Treaty and also does not exist in a separate European Convention on Human Rights. Therefore, that is a new right. Why are you saying that it does not create new rights when your commentary admits that it does?

Mr Straw: What it then says is that the right is produced primarily for the rights to freedom of thought and expression, exercised having regard to Article 1 to 61 of the Constitutional Treaty and may be subject to limitations authorised by Article 10 of the ECHR. With luck, the freedom from constraint for arts and scientific research is in practice a right which is exercised by anybody across Europe at the moment and so is the respect for academic freedom. If that is going to be the basis of the argument between those like you who want a no vote and those like me who want a yes vote, I am very happy to join with you.

Q238 Mr Heathcoat-Amory: I am sorry; that will not do. It is nothing about respecting scientific freedom. It is a right that says scientific research shall be free of constraint. That is unconditional. This is an important, new right. You say there are no new rights in the Charter. Your commentary agrees that this does not exist in the existing European Convention and does not exist elsewhere in the Treaty. This is a new right. Why are you saying that the Charter creates no new rights?

Mr Straw: It is a declaration of rights that already exist. Those rights certainly already exist and they would exist here and elsewhere across Europe.

Q239 Mr Heathcoat-Amory: Can you tell me where they exist?

Mr Straw: In practice, they exist.

Q240 Mr Heathcoat-Amory: Rights do not exist in practice unless they are written down.

Mr Straw: We in this country had a whole series of rights to freedom of speech, to freedom of association, to freedom from arbitrary arrest, which were not codified for a very long time but they were still rights which existed. They did not begin to be codified until British lawyers drafted the European Convention of Human Rights. Even then, there was a decision made in this country not to incorporate that codification of rights into British law until we passed the Human Rights Act in 1998, but it did not mean that we had to wait until 1998 until there was a right to freedom of speech and association in this country any more than we have to wait until this before there is a right of freedom from constraint of academic and scientific research. On your point about animal welfare, there are other rights and duties which any court has to take into account. Any rights which are in this text can only be exercised where they deal with EU law and powers. Personally, I think it is a good thing that where proposals are being put forward - for example, over conditionality of research provisions - by the European Union they are subject to being measured against that right because there are some people around, as we know, who have a particular view about constraining some research - for example, stem cell research. I would not wish ever to be party to that kind of constraint and I am delighted that what has been a longstanding right for British scientists and British arts researchers is now being reflected in a codification in the Charter. It is a protection for our scientific endeavour.

Q241 Mr Heathcoat-Amory: It is very unsatisfactory that you have not been able to tell me where that right exists already. You have waffled on about freedom of expression. This is not the issue. This is an unconditional right to freedom of research which some of us are alarmed about because we believe that that should be balanced against other rights.

Mr Straw: Lord Goldsmith has said it does not create any new rights.

Q242 Jim Dobbin: My question is about the scope of interpretation of rights and principles, Article II-112, which is contained in paragraph 3. It states that Charter rights which correspond to European Convention rights are to be given the scope and meaning as the latter, but that this "shall not prevent Union law providing more extensive protection." How can the Union provide more extensive protection to one right without restricting another -- for example, in the case of privacy under Article 8 and freedom of expression under Article 10? Will this provision undermine the balance which the Strasbourg court has achieved between conflicting rights?

Mr Straw: As you will be aware, this issue of potential conflict between the European Convention of Human Rights - if you like, the Strasbourg rights - and the Charter was very much in the minds of the drafters of the Charter and for that reason they are horizontal Articles which tie the Charter provisions to their sources, especially to the ECHR. On 266, that corresponds to Article 5 of the ECHR and 299, the right to vote, corresponds to Article I-10 of the Constitutional Treaty.

Mr Frost: What Article 112(3) is trying to do is to say that where a right is mentioned in the Charter and in the Convention you define the Charter right in terms of the Convention. I am not a lawyer but I understand the provision that provides for the EU to provide more extensive protection where it wants is something that is common and also in the ECHR.

Q243 Mr Tynan: We have had a number of experts here and there seems to be a disagreement as regards their interpretation of the Treaty and your own. Evidence given during our inquiry indicates that the impact of the Treaty is unclear in a number of areas and particularly so in respect of the interpretation and application of the Charter of Fundamental Rights. Are you saying that is not the case? You are saying there is no ambiguity at all there?

Mr Straw: I am aware of the differing views that you have been offered and I have seen a short summary of those. Some experts are more relaxed about the effect of the Charter than others. I can only offer you the negotiating history in respect of the Charter and our own best opinion but also draw your attention to the text of the Charter. It spells out in these horizontal articles - for example, in the new numbering, II-111 - that the Charter does not extend the theme of EU law beyond the powers of the EU or establish any new powers or tasks for the EU or modify powers and tasks defined in the Constitution. I understand that people are interested in this because, unlike any other European country, we are less familiar with declaratory statements of rights which are formally codified than are they. That was why it took such a long while for a British drafted codification, which was the European 51 Convention, to become incorporated into British law. There were anxieties on both sides about what that would mean but in the now getting on for five years since the Human Rights Act came into force the interpretations by our courts have not been unexpected. It seems to me to have been very sensible for our courts to be able to interpret the European Convention but also, as Parliament itself decided in 1998, for other legislation to be measured against the human rights legislation. We have got used to that. The Charter is of less significance in many ways than the European Convention of Human Rights because in respect of fundamental human rights it is simply a repetition of what is in the European Convention. I genuinely do not think there will be a problem. I understand the anxieties but it is because of those anxieties that we worked so hard to get these horizontal articles in and we worked hard and successfully to have proper recognition made in the text of the Treaty for the explanations.

Q244 Mr Tynan: You reject the idea that much would depend on the interpretation of the European Court of Justice as regards where there is a belief by experts that there is not the clarity that is required in order for decisions to be made?

Mr Straw: By definition, any law from a local byelaw to something very substantive will finally depend for its interpretation on the decision of the court. Words generally mean what they say. The European Court of Justice, contrary to the parody of it, is alive to the fact that it has to operate with care in a situation in which they are one part of a supra-national organisation , where Member States have different legal traditions and very great pride in their own national sovereignty. I have read out details from two cases already. The evidence of the way in which the ECHR operates is that they are much more alive to the need to cut what the Strasbourg court calls a marginal appreciation for individual Member States than some people think.

Q245 Mr Tynan: There is a feeling that if you hire a QC and you do not get the answer you are looking for you hire another one. The danger is that the general public are going to be asked to endorse the Treaty. If there are issues that experts declare are unclear, would you think it fair for the public to be asked to make a decision, on support or otherwise, on the basis of the Treaty not being as clear as it should be?

Mr Straw: I do not think these things are unclear. We have pinned them down. That is the point of the horizontal articles. It will not stop some people arguing that in any event they dislike the Charter. If you read what is in the horizontal articles, words do mean what they say. Everybody knew what was being said around the room. Everybody knew what we were deciding when I got agreement to pinning down the status of the explanations and I do not think there will be a problem. People have already been trying to say, "This is going to be a problem. That is going to be a problem. The Charter will lead to the end of civilisation as we know it." May battle be joined. I do not happen to think it will and I happen to believe that it is in Britain's interests. The closer we get to the referendum, the more British people will come round to that point of view.

Q246 Mr Connarty: These answers strengthen my opinion that we are going in the right direction in this venture. Moving to some of the technical questions that people ask about the policies that were made that the Council would meet in public but only when deliberating and the concern people have that it may push some of the real negotiations off the board, at your last appearance before us you made clear that if the Council delegated most of the detailed negotiations to COREPER these negotiations would remain closed to the public, simply because they did not take place in the Council itself. Have you given any thought to how to ensure that there is genuine discussion during the public meetings of the Council?

Mr Straw: The honest truth is that I have not given as much thought to this as perhaps I should have done. It is partly because of my own experience in the last four years where there is very little by way of formal legislation that we deal with in the General Affairs and External Relations Council. It is something I need to follow up with colleagues. Whether decisions are brokered in COREPER or brokered in the room, the truth is that since everybody is always seeking a consensus in the EU and not a bust-up, sometimes the consensus require unanimity; in every other case it requires a qualified majority. There has to be a lot of very detailed negotiation and you cannot get the ebb and flow of detailed negotiation if it is done under television cameras. People simply are not willing to take part in that. Everybody understands that. It is different from legislating on the floor of the House of Commons. It is more like operating in a Cabinet committee.

Q247 Mr Cash: Those get leaked all the time.

Mr Straw: Fortunately, less than you think. It is important that, at the point where there is legislation with a capital 'L', the public should be able to see this. It arises outside this and it is something we need to do more of in any event. I will follow it up.

Q248 Mr Bacon: Are you saying, in the light of what you said earlier, that ultimate legal authority in this country if this goes through would continue to rest in the Queen and Parliament and not in this Constitution as interpreted by the European Court of Justice?

Mr Straw: Yes. What this Treaty does is to establish the limits of the European Union and make it clear in an early Article that the powers of the Union are conferred by Member States on the Union. This is Article I-11 in the new numbering. The limits of the Union competences are governed by the principles of conferral but the use of Union competences is governed by the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality. Under the principle of conferral, the initial act within the limits of the competence is conferred upon it by the Member States. This is an inter-governmental Treaty. This is another reason, for those who are worried about the creeping competence of the EU, why we voted for this document rather than being against it. When we sign up to this, we accept certain obligations. One of the things we accept, as with any other treaty, is the obligations under international law which derive fundamentally not from this or the European Court of Justice but from the international law of treaties. It will be for Parliament to decide. If Parliament decides, because Parliament is sovereign and rightly so, you may say, that it wants to leave the European Union, it can do so. If it wants to decide to bust up with an organisation of which it is a member, it can also decide to do that but there will then be consequences because actions have consequences.

Q249 Mr Bacon: You said to this Committee that you were against the passerelle clause. Can you say what is the difference between the passerelle clause and Article IV-444, page 226?

Mr Straw: The difference is that originally, as I recall, it was not possible under the original passerelle for one Member State to veto a change. There is an absolutely fundamental difference. I am completely against that because it meant that Treaty articles could have been changed against our say so. When we started these negotiations in the autumn of 2003, we made it clear there was no way we would sign up to this unless that was changed. Anyway, it has been changed.

Q250 Mr Bacon: In other words, if the European Council may adopt a European decision authorised or cancelled out by qualified majority in that area or that case, that European Council adoption can only occur unanimously?

Mr Straw: Yes, that is right. In the Bill, my concern was to ensure that provisions which gave the British Parliament powers would be pinned down in this Act, on the face of the Act, and were not just left to Standing Orders. By clause two of this Bill, there is a specific procedure by which, subject to the decision of the House of Commons and the House of Lords, I am proposing that there should be parliamentary approval for treaty changes. Unless there is positive approval, the message has to be sent back by Parliament to the EU that we are against it. People cannot just hide away an issue and, by the effluxion of time, hope that we have agreed it. There is very strong protection here.

Q251 Mr Connarty: When we took evidence from the European Parliament's Constitution Committee, they did refer to evidence they had given in writing to say that they intended using an ability they had to bring forward some minor amendments to the Treaty whenever they thought it necessary. I presume you are aware of this. This would presumably have to be through a process of approval similar to the one you have just mentioned in Article IV-444?

Mr Straw: There is no provision in here by which the Treaty can be amended without the approval of the British Parliament. In some cases it requires a full inter-governmental conference and full ratification. In other cases, it is to do with amendments of Part 3 articles as specified by Article IV-444. There is a more streamlined procedure but the British Parliament still has to make the decision and it has to be an affirmative decision.

Q252 Chairman: Can I ask if a transcript of the public meetings of the Council will be published to ensure that the proceedings are genuinely on the record?

Mr Straw: It is an oxymoron, I think. There is always a very public press conference.

Chairman: No; it is the meetings of the Council.

Q253 Mr Connarty: It did come up in discussion with the European parliamentary representatives.

Mr Straw: I am advised by one of my officials that there is no transcript.

Q254 Mr Steen: Why not?

Mr Straw: It goes back to ----

Q255 Chairman: We are talking about post the Treaty.

Mr Straw: In the European Council, if we are talking about the Council itself which is the quarterly summits that take place, what we are dealing with are the difficult issues which require resolution, which cannot be resolved by the functional Councils of Ministers. They do require a lot of negotiation. It would simply, in my judgment, not be possible to reach agreement if you were doing that under the full glare of publicity. Why? Because people across the room would be saying, "Can we agree that? No, we cannot. Can we agree that? Maybe we can. Can we have an adjournment?" In the real world, we would not be able to deliver for Britain if that was under the glare of publicity. I agree generally there ought to be greater openness about what we can do, for sure. What you do get immediately out of the Council is very extensive conclusions.

Chairman: Thank you very much. It has been an interesting 45 minutes and, as usual, you have whetted our appetite. Thank you for coming.