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Sir Russell Johnston: Not in all cases.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr. David Davis): I have checked it out and discovered that 98 per cent. of decisions on the CAP are taken by majority voting.
Sir Russell Johnston: I accept--[Interruption.]
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Morris): Order.
Sir Russell Johnston: I accept that the majority of decisions are taken by QMV, but, still, some are not.
The hon. Member for Thurrock (Mr. Mackinlay) said that he wanted the Visegrad countries to join the European Union as quickly as possible. That will be hellishly difficult. Poland, for example, with its textiles, steel and agriculture, could not be taken in before the common agriculture system was reformed. I do not see any great advantage in extending NATO at the moment if its consequence is to alarm Russia. That would not necessarily be a good thing.
Ms Joyce Quin (Gateshead, East):
I can assure thehon. Member for Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber(Sir R. Johnston) that, rather than there being some sinister pact, I expect to have the same amount of speaking time as he had. I congratulate the hon. Member for Ludlow(Mr. Gill) on his good fortune in winning the ballot and on being able to introduce this subject--but I am not sure whether all his right hon. and hon. Friends will congratulate him in the same way. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Mr. Mackinlay) said, the debate is a curtain-raiser for our debate on the White Paper next week.
I was intrigued to hear whether the hon. Member for Ludlow would be pleased with the White Paper that was presented to the House yesterday. The fact that it appeared at all is something of a victory for the hon. Gentleman and his fellow Euro-rebels, because the Government did not originally want to produce a White Paper. None the less, I am sure that much in the document is a disappointment to him. Indeed, at times he described it as "modest" and said that it did not go far enough.
Later in the hon. Gentleman's speech, he seemed to recommend that, if the Minister did not get his way, and did not manage to go even further than the White Paper, he should walk out of the intergovernmental conference. The hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber talked about hidden agendas. There may be one behind the words "walk out"--that is, withdraw.
Sir Teddy Taylor
indicated assent.
Ms Quin:
The hon. Member for Southend, East(Sir T. Taylor) obviously agrees with that hidden agenda. It has been behind much of what we have heard this morning.
The White Paper is a strange document, in that it alternates between positive and negative sentences. It is clearly designed to try to appeal to two very different audiences. Its schizophrenic approach is evident in the section that deals with the European Court of Justice.In paragraph 36 we read:
At the same time, the White Paper makes an attempt to respond to some of the objections to the recent court decisions about which the hon. Member for Ludlow and his colleagues feel so strongly.
Mr. Marlow:
The position is very straightforward. There are some things that Europe has agreed to do, on which the court should adjudicate, and there are some things that Europe has not agreed to do, concerning which the court has acquired powers to itself to make political decisions that should be made in Parliaments within the Union, not by the court. What the Government seek to do, in which we wish them success, is to ensure that the court concentrates on the areas with which it has the proper authority to deal.
Ms Quin:
We feel that, in many the cases, some of which were mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock, the court has acted properly. What is straightforward is the split within the Conservative party on the issue. There are some court judgments, whether made by national or by European courts, with which people agree and others with which they do not agree.The Government should be careful about what they propose, because they might end up with a worse situation.
In the White Paper the Government suggest that
That could prove a hostage to fortune, because we want many other countries to abide by the obligations that they have entered into. The Government must think the problem through more carefully than they seem to have done so far. We have much to gain if other countries fulfil their obligations, especially on internal market matters.
Finally on the European Court, will the Minister confirm that, when he raised the question in the reflection group, he got no support from any other country? In that case, how does he expect to deliver on the attempts outlined in the White Paper?
One reason why Conservative Members do not like judgments by the European Court is the fact that many of them relate to social matters. Although in his statement yesterday the Foreign Secretary said that he would maintain the Government's commitment to the opt-out from the social chapter, which would not end during their no doubt short-lived existence, it is clear from what has been said, both by the hon. Member for Ludlow and by others in interjections, that the so-called Euro-rebels do not believe
in the value of the opt-out. They clearly think that there are other ways, via other parts of the treaties, in which various social measures can be applied across the European Union.
Mr. Marlow:
Will the hon. Lady give way?
Ms Quin:
No, I shall not give way to the hon. Gentleman again. I have already given way to him once, and I have little time left.
Mr. John Sykes (Scarborough):
Will the hon. Lady give way?
Ms Quin:
I shall give way to the hon. Member for Scarborough (Mr. Sykes), but this will be the last time.
Mr. Sykes:
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way and indulging me. Is she aware that, in my constituency, there is a large company that could not afford to build a factory in France because of the social chapter and the minimum wage and that, as a result, it doubled its production in Scarborough? How would she answer that?
Ms Quin:
By referring the hon. Gentleman to the speech recently made by President Chirac, in which he said that, these days, France is taking the lion's share of United States investment in the European Union. France is now second to the United Kingdom in terms of inward investment. That change has happened in recent years and it shows that, whatever the reasons are for inward investment going to particular countries, they have nothing to do with the social chapter.
That fact was confirmed to me by some of the Japanese firms that have invested in the United Kingdom. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would like to read the evidence given to the Employment Committee by the personnel director of Nissan, who said that the social chapter had no influence in its decision to invest in the United Kingdom.
Yesterday, the Foreign Secretary made a rather strange claim about subsidiarity, which I would like the Minister to address in his reply. We all agree that subsidiarity is a good principle, but yesterday the Foreign Secretary claimed that the United Kingdom had introduced that vital concept into the Maastricht treaty. My understanding is that that is not the case.
Subsidiarity already existed, under article 130S of the Single European Act. Treaty buffs will know that that is in the section of the Act that relates to the environment, which talks about working out which decisions should be taken at EU level and which should be taken at other levels. The concept of subsidiarity is not unique to the British Government and their approach to the European Union. Perhaps the Minister will say something about that.
The hon. Member for Ludlow and his Euro-rebel friends said that they wanted the power of the European Union to be cut. I have a feeling that the White Paper does not offer them anything like enough in terms of cuts in EU power. Perhaps the Minister could also address that point.
My hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock rightly stressed the importance of the enlargement issue--something about which I feel strongly and passionately.
Having encouraged the changes in central and eastern Europe, we have a moral, political and economic responsibility to make our relationships with the countries there a success, and to bring them into as close an arrangement for membership of the European Union as we can, as quickly as we can. Continued enlargement should not be regarded only as a problem, which it is often presented as being, but as an exciting opportunity.
There is not much vision in the White Paper. The Government mention enlargement, but not its exciting possibilities. They mention common agricultural policy reform, but express no specific ideas about the reforms they want. If they had suggested that we should reform the common agricultural policy to improve its impact on the environment and to try to make it more helpful to developing countries outside the European Union, that would have been welcome. The Government have blocked a welcome move to tackle the problem of racism and xenophobia at European level. We feel strongly about that omission.
"The Government is committed to a strong independent Court without which it would be impossible to ensure even application of Community law, and to prevent abuse of power by the Community institutions."
"a Member State should only be liable for damages in cases of serious and manifest breach of its obligations".
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