CORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE HC 120-ii

House of COMMONS

MINUTES OF EVIDENCE

TAKEN BEFORE THE

FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE

Developments in the european union

Wednesday 5 December 2007

LORD OWEN

Evidence heard in Public Questions 458 - 494

Oral Evidence

Taken before the Foreign Affairs Committee

on Wednesday 5 December 2007

Members present:

Mike Gapes (Chairman)

Mr. Fabian Hamilton

Rt. hon. Mr. David Heathcoat-Amory

Mr. John Horam

Mr. Eric Illsley

Andrew Mackinlay

Mr. Malcolm Moss

Sandra Osborne

Rt. hon. Sir John Stanley

Ms Gisela Stuart

Richard Younger-Ross

________________

Examination of Witness

Witness: Rt. Hon. The Lord Owen, CH (MP for Plymouth, Sutton 1966-74 and Plymouth, Devonport 1974-92; Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs 1977-79).

Q458 Chairman: If you have mobile a phone, can you put it on silent or switch it off? I had to throw a member of the public out a week ago, so you have been warned. It is pour encourager les autres.

Lord Owen, thank you for coming today to give us evidence on our inquiry into foreign policy aspects of the European Reform/Lisbon Treaty. Obviously, you are very experienced at appearing before Committees of the House at various times, and we very much value the fact that you have given up your time to come and see us today-we welcome that. Given your experience as Foreign Secretary, what is your assessment of the European Union as a foreign policy actor today, compared with the time when you were Foreign Secretary?

Lord Owen: When I was Foreign Secretary, we were just moving into what was called political co-operation, and it was very early days in even discussing foreign policy. We were very involved in getting a community position on African questions, and that did not present very much difficulty when it came to things like South Africa and sanctions and the question of Namibian independence, and the rest of the Community-in those days there were nine-were very helpful over Zimbabwe, or Rhodesia as it was then called. We also got a bit involved in the conventional arms limitation talks. That was a new area for us to get involved in, and it was positive, really. One has to remember that in those days there was very good structured co-operation in relation to Berlin among what were then called the Quadripartite countries-the US, the UK, France and Germany-and so there was a constant dialogue going on. It did not always refer to Berlin, but that was why it came into existence, and it was a very effective mechanism. Unfortunately, it has lapsed considerably since 1996, although I hope it will be revived.

Q459 Chairman: The current emphasis on institutional reform in the European Union is obviously taking up a great deal of time. Do you feel that that is the best way to strengthen the foreign policy of the European Union?

Lord Owen: No, I think the best way is practical success on the ground. It worries me, because almost everybody who has been a European Union Special Representative-and I was an honorary one, in effect, having been a joint chairman of the International Conference on the Former Yugoslavia for nearly three years-knows that often, when we went to Brussels to report to the Council on Foreign Relations, the issue was the press release that was going to be put out at the end of the meeting. An endless conversation would go on about this press release which, frankly, very few people read, and there would not be enough conversation about the thinking behind the very complicated issues we were dealing with.

I have been much struck by the fact that the European Union spends so much time on institutional development and press relations, while all this time public support for the European Union has considerably lessened. I think there are real lessons to be learned, but I do not know how you stop it. We have now almost reached the stage where it is impossible for the Heads of Government to meet at the European Council without producing a massive public press comment at the end. I look forward to the day when they go, meet and talk, and issue nothing to the press.

Q460 Mr. Horam: Going back to first principles, do you think that the world would be a better place if there was more coherent European foreign policy?

Lord Owen: Yes, given the substantial complexities of the world, it is better, in many world forums-not least the United Nations-if a group of countries, particularly if they are neighbours, come with a fair measure of consensus and, if possible, total agreement, so I have always been a strong supporter of the Common Market, the European Community, and now the European Union. I have always believed that the EU can evolve only slowly, over time, and that it must not pretend: pretence is one of its biggest problems, as is pretension. Reaching agreement is a positive gain.

Q461 Mr. Horam: And that will be of benefit to the UK as well as to the European countries as a whole?

Lord Owen: I think that it will be, if it is a genuine agreement. Within that, of course, there has to be give and take. Sometimes you put up with things that you are not wildly enthusiastic about for a broader gain in other areas. It is of value to the UK, and we can show that in many respects. For example, I very much doubt whether we would have had the degree of co-operation that we had from France during the Falklands war if we had not been members of the European Union, or European Community as it then was. Mitterrand, sensing solidarity, went out of his way and paid a certain price for making information about French military equipment-the Super Etendard and the missiles-available to us, which he must have known could result in an economic backlash.

Q462 Mr. Horam: Do you think that it is important that we have a more coherent European policy in view of the UK's position in the world? As we look forward into the 21st century, the world is increasingly dominated what one might call "substantial powers", whether it is America, which is the only superpower, or China, Russia or the Middle Eastern states. Given the UK's position, do you think that we benefit from having a wider European voice, which might include the UK in many instances?

Lord Owen: Yes, but I do not think that this is terribly new. Bevin was trying to get that within NATO in the late 1940s. We have always wanted to take into NATO a measure of agreement on foreign policy among European members. NATO's virtue was that it was a structured form of co-operation, which also involved the United States and Canada, as well as other countries outside the European Union. I see no disadvantages in that, but the European Union has this inability to recognise that, for some of us-I hope that this remains the UK's position-the main forum for collective defence is NATO, and that that is the prime element of our defence effort, and it should remain so. I am not one who would ever diminish the influence of NATO, and I never thought that it would be diminished when the Berlin wall fell. I am pretty staggered that it has gone out of area as quickly as it has, so that you are embarked within the framework of NATO on really comprehensive foreign policy issues, particularly, for instance, Afghanistan.

Q463 Mr. Horam: Coming back to the treaty, you seem to be in favour of it, although you suggested various improvements in your evidence, which were very interesting. Leaving that aside, and taking the treaty as it is, if it were ratified in its present form, how do you think that it would improve the European Union as a foreign policy performer in the world?

Q464 Lord Owen: I am very doubtful that it would make any improvements, and it may even be damaging. There are a lot of problems in the treaty in relation to foreign affairs. I am extremely annoyed that these issues have not been fought for and there does not seem to have been a bottom line on many of these questions. I could go through all the areas that I think are incorrect, but I will start with the European Council.

The phraseology suggests that the role played by the new President of the European Council in foreign affairs could be the dominant question and that the High Representative would operate as a sort of Foreign Minister to the President of the European Council. It is only two lines, but that is one way of interpreting it. Either he or she will build up considerable staff to match the areas of staff created under the diplomatic service of the High Representative in the External Action Service, or we will find them working very harmoniously together. These roles have not been carefully assessed, and I am against the creation of a President of the European Council who is not a sitting Head of Government. I am fundamentally against the whole role, which was never thought through, and was produced without any serious discussion, when there was a very real alternative, which was to group the different European Union countries, and to retain the notion of a presidency owned by the member states. Countries would be in groups of three or four, and a larger country would act as President of the Council for 18 months to two years. That very reasonable measure of continuity is almost accepted, as the new outside figure is going to be there for two and a half years, renewable.

The fundamental problem with foreign policy stems from the completely inadequate description of the role of the President of the European Council, if that post continues to be held by someone who comes in completely from outside. That then goes right down to serious problems which have not been explored, such as how you double-hat the High Representative. Furthermore, there are serious questions about the High Representative chairing all meetings of Foreign Ministers. Allied to that is the provision that any proposal that the High Representative puts on the table should be subject, from the moment they do so, to qualified majority voting. To argue that there is always a veto is wrong: there is an appeal to the European Council.

We are gradually being salamied into the Commissionising of European foreign policy, and we had better face up to it. Can we manage to live with it? Just, but I do ask myself, when do we say no, when are there limits? I find it very refreshing that the other day, when the Prime Minister of Holland went to the European Council, he used these words: "There must be clear limits to the EU powers. Only then can we allay the anxiety surrounding issues of sovereignty." For a Dutch Prime Minister to say that so boldly is a massive change in attitude in the European Community.

I have yet to be convinced that anyone, and particularly anyone from the UK-and I have said this under both Conservative and Labour Governments-is ready to have clearly defined limits, and say, "This far, but no further." In this treaty, I must confess that we have reached the absolute maximum of how much we can concede on foreign policy. Any further erosion would be destructive to the concept of an independent foreign policy, in which member states come together by agreement to reach a consensus on foreign policy.

Q465 Sandra Osborne: On that basis, with those fundamental problems as you see it in relation to foreign policy, would you oppose the treaty?

Lord Owen: Well, I am a believer in the European Union, and to oppose this treaty is a pretty serious issue-you would have to face some pretty serious backlash. The present Prime Minister has inherited a situation in which all the fundamental negotiation was done by the previous Prime Minister, who was perfectly prepared to sign up to the initial 2004 constitution, which I think would have been utterly disastrous. I argued it through with him in correspondence on many of these questions, and I have letters from him absolutely assuring me that we would not do certain things which we later did.

I shall try to spell this out. I would not be prepared to vote for the treaty unless the sort of parliamentary brake for which I argue in my memorandum is put in place. I want to make it clear that I do not believe a parliamentary brake is a matter of one single vote in Parliament. We are all parliamentarians and know perfectly well what happens in these situations. The only real brake is the one that I helped to put in place in 1977: no Minister could increase the powers of the European Parliament-or Assembly, as it then was-without prior primary legislation in the UK. That is what you need: if you want a brake, it is not a matter of one vote in the House of Commons. If you decide to set limits, you have to have a high threshold.

As we all know, there is pressure on parliamentary time and so forth. Primary legislation, with proper scrutiny, going through the full procedures, is a serious brake. You cannot go further-nobody can bind any Parliament-and you cannot ask for anything bigger. If Parliament votes for it through its full procedure, we are all democrats and we accept that-it is our procedure-but one vote in the House of Commons is insufficient. Although I welcome the present Prime Minister's clarification of qualified majority voting in other areas and his arguing that there should be a pause on further integration for five years, I am highly sceptical that that will happen unless we put in a real, serious parliamentary brake.

My attitude to how I vote depends on how the House of Commons scrutinises the Bill when it goes through, what parliamentary brakes and inhibitions it puts in, and how firmly it draws the line on the present proposals. If it did that, with extreme reluctance I would campaign for the treaty in any referendum, on the basis that that is better than the alternative, which is rejecting it again.

Q466 Sandra Osborne: Could I take you back to your initial comment that the EU often seems to be all talk and no practical action? That is a concern that many people share. Given that you are a supporter, what do you think of the Government's line, if you like, that we need to get the treaty and continual discussions about constitutional matters out of the way, so we can get on with delivering, which would increase the EU's credibility among the people?

Lord Owen: I really hope and believe that that will be done, and it is a sentiment of which I thoroughly approve, but I have long experience of this, both inside and outside the European Union, and unfortunately my experience is that it is a relentless machine, because there are other people who do not accept any limits. I perfectly understand their democratic right, and they genuinely want to reach a situation where there is a single European foreign policy, accepting that "common" means "by consensus" and is intergovernmental, and that "single" means one that stems in all its authority from the European Union.

Behind that is the other aspect in my memorandum which raises a major concern. We know that very substantial figures in the European Union plan on merging the President of the European Council and the President of the Commission. I cannot stress enough that that is their agenda. Unless we face up to that agenda and block it, it will happen. We can block it, but we have not done so. It is there in the wording of the current treaty and the interpretation, unless we are very careful, will be left to the European Court of Justice. One of the ways you can block it is to establish that the ECJ has no jurisdiction on the issue of whether you can double-hat the President of the European Council and the President of the European Commission, because it deals with a fundamental aspect of CFSP that is outside the ECJ's role.

It is that type of tortuous logic that you will all have to go through-I hope you will go through it-when Parliament scrutinises this. We have been told that you are going to have a lot of time, and I think that there is enough legislative imagination and courage in the House of Commons to put these blocks in the way. You cannot do it by going back and changing the treaty, unfortunately-we have signed up to it-so you have to do it a different way. You could also do it through a British constitution-by having a written constitution. At the moment, they have to have a Bill in order to take this treaty through, and that is the best, most available vehicle.

Q467 Sir John Stanley: I was interested in your answer to John Horam, in which you said that, in your judgment, the treaty before us reaches the absolute limits of the extent to which foreign policy can be taken into the EU. The problem, which you will certainly recognise because you have just used a phrase about the EU being a relentless machine, is that the boundary set by the treaty is not a static boundary; it is basically a moving train.

Against that background, perhaps I might refer you to what I believe are two really crucial provisions: the new common approach article and the mutual solidarity article. We have had a memorandum from Professor Richard Whitman at the University of Bath. He says: "There is, however, a substantially new article-revised article 16 now renumbered article 17a-making it incumbent on member states to seek a 'common approach' on matters of foreign and security policy and to be pursued by member states through their diplomatic representation in third countries and in international organisations. It also places greater obligations on member states to ensure that any policies that may be pursued and 'affect the Union's interests' require consultation either in the European Council or Council and member states are required to show mutual solidarity." Against those two provisions, coupled with the new personnel-the High Representative and the External Action Service-and the powers given to them, do you not agree that in time, the boundary of EU involvement in takeover of foreign policy is inescapably going to become greater?

Lord Owen: I quite agree, and in addition to those articles, I would say that there is some serious creep built into the provisions on terrorism which allow you to prevent terrorism. In the past, the European Commission has used-and perhaps the High Representative will now also use-the word "prevent" as a locus to build up a whole aspect of anti-terrorist activity, taking it away from being, as it is at the moment, a nation state responsibility and intergovernmental. It is one thing to say that you will respond to terrorism-the wording that they have is "on invitation"-and quite another to have this word "prevent".

There is further creep in the whole relationship to common defence. We have always had "might" before, and we now have "will" and "might" in the same treaty. Again, I believe that is the sort of issue that you have the opportunity to put a British imprimatur on. We cannot put into law two phrases which are mutually exclusive. We have to have a definition and we should revert to "might".

There are other areas, in my view, that we need to watch very carefully, and essentially that will be a question of how this diplomatic service develops. You have the usual technique: you have a statement that the Government attach a lot of influence to-it is certainly better than not having it-which is that foreign policy will remain effectively as it has been. On top of that, we have all these other additions, which are being re-designed against it. Let us take the example of the UN. It was not an accident when the present Minister of State in the House of Lords, Lord Malloch-Brown, said not many years ago-admittedly, he was wearing a different hat, as this was the UN-that he believed that the sooner the independent positions of France and Britain as permanent members of the Security Council were got rid of and the EU had a single representative, the better. There are a whole range of provisions in connection with the UN that are basically aimed at reducing overnight our freedom to make a decision.

Many of the people who draft these things do not know how decisions are taken. Things have changed. I used to be woken up at 3 o'clock in the morning to decide how to vote in the Security Council. The permanent representative was on the phone and said, "Within my terms of reference I have got the following, and we have now reached a point where-", and I would decide then and there. I did not have time to ring the Prime Minister or go to Cabinet; I had to decide.

There are countless times in foreign policy where the circumstances are so fraught that you have to make decisions quickly, yet this wording is deliberately designed to stop you having that freedom. People will say, "Now thank goodness we have got the ECJ-I think-out of foreign policy". I say "I think" because I am not absolutely sure. But you need to look again with a microscope at this business of having primacy redefined on case law.

Q468 Sir John Stanley: On that last point, what is your area of doubt about whether the ECJ is actually out of foreign policy?

Lord Owen: Well, it is really about the definition of foreign policy; there are aspects of security and home affairs, for example. It was not an accident in the Maastricht Treaty that there was provision for intergovernmental pillars. I believe that it was absolutely right that home security was such a pillar, because it is closely linked to foreign policy. In the world of international terrorism it is very hard to make this distinction.

I personally would have preferred to keep the intergovernmental, pillared structure of the Maastricht Treaty. It is very worrying that it has been eroded. It has been substantially replaced in the new treaty, and that is to the credit of the British Government, who I am sure have been the ones who mainly negotiated it. In a clever way, despite getting rid of the pillars, they have almost created another pillar for foreign policy. However, the home security side, and the role of the European Court of Justice in that, have been conceded; so that is the way that they will come round and back into this issue, unless we are very careful.

Q469 Sir John Stanley: It is almost a rerun of the ill-fated opt-out of the social chapter being circumvented by the health and safety competence.

Lord Owen: Yes.

I reject the word sceptic about me, but I sometimes wonder whether I can go on doing so much longer. I am not a sceptic about this group, but I think that we must stop feeling ashamed of setting limits. That is what we signed up to. We did not sign up to this endless movement, this endless creep. I do not know how you stop it. The Foreign Office will not stop it, that is for sure. They will always argue why this does not create a precedent, and why you should do this. There are exceptions, thank goodness, within the diplomatic service, who understand the creep argument, but broadly, as an organisation, it does not understand it. The involvement of Ministers is then required, but so many of these Ministers change.

It is very hard to see where this intellectual astringency and toughness will come from. The one Department that has it is the Treasury. In their own area, they are usually the first to spot the little wording changes, the comma in the wrong place. They are alert to it and bright enough to see it, and usually the Chancellor or other Ministers follow that line. But the erosion is within the system.

Remember, the biggest erosion ever was when the then Prime Minister effectively conceded the euro without realising it. Despite the fact that she was warned, in very perceptive and clear terms by the Chancellor, Nigel Lawson, Margaret Thatcher chose, as I am sure she regrets, to take the advice of the Foreign Office against that of the Treasury. The Treasury saw absolutely the logical steps that would lead to the eurozone.

Q470 Mr. Hamilton: May I just pick you up on something that you said, Lord Owen? If I remember rightly, you said that we should stand up for our own interests, for those of the United Kingdom, and draw a line and say , "Thus far, and no further." You are talking about our own national interest.

Lord Owen: No, I am not. I want to make that quite clear. I am not a sceptic, I am a genuine European.

Q471 Mr. Hamilton: Can you clarify that point, then?

Lord Owen: I really do believe that it is in the interests of Europe for us to have these things. It is thoroughly beneficial to Europe that, largely as a result of historical accident-we all accept that-France and Britain have places in the UN Security Council. I say that despite the fact that we differed on Iraq: in many ways that was a sign that it was a genuine representation of viewpoints from the European people. I therefore feel very strongly that we are arguing a European case.

The public disillusionment is not shared just in Britain. When given the opportunity, country after country votes against some of these things. That is why, given that all three political parties-the Liberal Democrats, the Conservatives and Labour-told the electorate in the 2005 election that there would be a referendum, it is vital that there should be one. The disillusionment that will come from this will be horrendous. We have not yet begun to realise the backlash that we will unleash in this country. We have seen the problems, and we must be brave enough to go out there, fight for it and argue for it. I believe that you could sell this treaty to the British public. If the Government put it through, created more party support for it-as was done in 1975-for better, for worse, with all its problems, I think that you could get support for it. If you back off and refuse to go and get that support, we will pay a price.

In my memorandum, I say that I was the immediate beneficiary of the 1975 referendum, and it was a dramatic change to speak in Europe with a country that was behind you. That more or less stayed the same until 1992. We have now had 15 years in which, broadly speaking, Governments have made commitments in Europe that have not carried the conviction of the British people. There is a price to pay for that.

Q472 Mr. Hamilton: Would you not argue that this treaty is somewhat different from the referendum of 1975, in that although, as you point out, all three parties promised a referendum on the constitution, such a referendum would be used as a stick with which to beat the sitting Government?

Lord Owen: I really do not believe so.

Q473 Mr. Hamilton: You do not believe that it would be used to argue the case for withdrawal from the European Union?

Lord Owen: I have suggested in my memorandum that we should have two questions. There should be a question on withdrawal, and a question on the treaty. I think that it is better to get the point clearly made now that we are not going to withdraw, and then we have to negotiate within that framework. On the Reform Treaty, if you have these parliamentary brakes and you really do delineate all these areas, it would be tight, but I think that you could win it. I do not think that it would be in the interests of many parts of the Conservative party to see this as a whipped vote. They will not even get that majority. We know that these issues cut across party political lines and have done ever since the early '60s. I lived with this issue being divisive across the Labour party all my political life when I was a member of that party-and then I soon discovered that it was divisive within the Social Democratic party, too.

Q474 Mr. Hamilton: Can I bring you back to your memorandum, which you mention? In that, you say that the Reform Treaty remains a massive step towards further integration, particularly, as you have already said, since it dismantles the intergovernmental pillars, which were the foundation of the Maastricht Treaty. Can I ask you to elucidate further why you think that the Reform Treaty would represent such a massive step towards further integration?

Lord Owen: I do not want to go too much over this, unless other people want to pick up the detail, but I think that the creation of the new post of President of the European Council, who is not a Head of Government and who is not elected, is tantamount to getting a new institute. I believe that they will build up their staff and they will build up their authority, and you will find that, before long, they will be challenging the Commission, at which point everybody will say, "Yes, I told you, it was bound to be conflicting; we always warned you about this; therefore, the only thing to do is to double-hat them." That is exactly the argument that we have had over the High Representative and the External Commissioner. So I think that is one very major thing.

There has been a really substantial number of areas-60 or so-where majority voting has been increased. In some cases, I would support that; I do not want the absence of all majority voting. Majority voting is a little easier for countries sometimes to cope with, but I do not think that it should be extended into foreign policy, and I do not believe that a proposition should be subject to qualified majority voting, merely because it has come from an official, which effectively is what the High Representative is. I cannot understand how that has been agreed, and I would like to see how we can deal with it. You can appeal, so one way is that Britain appeals, routinely, on every single case that this is invoked in-it becomes automatic, and you do it, which, yes, is obstructive-until they then do not use that provision. That is one of the ways that you block.

If you look at the language on health-nobody in their political life has been more concerned than I have been in my political life about legislation for children, and I understand why there is tremendous pressure to get some cross-border children's legislation-I think that it is ill-conceived, and I think that we should rely on the normal consensus and obvious co-operation across member states. I think that it is an absurdity to use that approach. You use that and you are into children's law, and before you know where you are, you are into another area of law.

There are some other aspects, including education and higher education. We are beginning to see that moving into being. I believe that the Government are far too involved in universities anyhow-I speak as the Chancellor of Liverpool University-and the idea of the EU coming into higher education is absolutely intolerable. Then we see public spending, transport, energy policy; in all those areas, there is creep. Unless you are very careful about these things, I think you will run into serious problems.

Q475 Mr. Hamilton: Is that why you think that the dismantling of the pillar structure that we have had previously under Maastricht represents a further step towards integration?

Lord Owen: Yes. I am an unashamed supporter of Maastricht, and I think that it was an extremely successful negotiation. The intergovernmental structure was, in fact, proposed by a French diplomat. I believe that it was a very sensible arrangement, and I could never quite understand why so much hatred was expressed about Maastricht from a British point of view; I can see why there were other aspects. Once we had our opt-out on the euro, I was broadly content with it, but I think that we will regret the dismantling of it. It was always hated by those who wanted ever-increasing integration. They disliked the whole structure of Maastricht. The extraordinary thing is that the opposition to Maastricht has almost legitimised getting rid of the pillars-that was not the intention, but that has been one of the consequences. Anyhow, we are there now, and we have to live with it-at least, I think that we have to live with it, because I wish to continue to be a constructive member of the European Union.

Q476 Mr. Moss: In your article for The Sunday Times back in June, Lord Owen, you said: "I am in no position today...to judge how real are the safeguards or other matters that Blair claims to have negotiated. All I know is that similar hype in the past has been shown within days to be false." Does the Reform Treaty at this remove meet the Government's red line on foreign affairs?

Lord Owen: I do not think that it does, no. However, on the business of it, the former Prime Minister came back and told us that he had secured an opt-out, and then the Minister for Europe within, I think, a month, was disowning that whole thing. It is extraordinary. One of the reasons that they like finishing at 3 o'clock in the morning is that they can spin the next day's press, so you then get another victory for Britain in these talks. I am much too long in the tooth to believe that I know what has happened for at least two or three weeks, and it is usually two or three months before you really realise what lies in the interstices.

This present thing is a complete act of plunder-highwayman techniques-on the British public. Angela Merkel presented her thing only a couple of days before to Governments, let alone to us. We still do not have a proper treaty. You are talking about a treaty in which I think the wording can still be changed. This treaty is extraordinarily complex. We have reverted to using the old treaty, which I personally think is a good idea, but it makes it very difficult to find out exactly what has happened. I am beginning to think that I understand it, but I am certainly not there yet.

Q477 Mr. Moss: So is the Government's assertion about the red lines that they claim to have got into the treaty meaningful in the sense of maintaining an independent foreign and security policy?

Lord Owen: I do not think that it is meaningless. As I said, I do not believe that this treaty is exactly the same as the one that was rejected by the French and Dutch public. I believe that it is very substantially the same, but some of the changes are about things that I have argued for, for a long time. What stops a British Foreign Secretary from saying that we will not allow President of the European Council provisions to be included unless it is made clear that there can be no double-hatting?

The British Government say that the safeguard that they are now relying on is that it says that the President of the Commission's is a full-time job. Of course it is: it will be even more full-time if he also becomes the President of the European Council. I have put the legal advice to the Dutch Parliament, as in my memo, to the previous British Prime Minister for the last three years. They have not been able to refute it. Whatever the Dutch are or are not, their country is famed for its knowledge of international law. When they advise their Parliament that it still allows double-hatting and there are no substantive changes in the draft, you realise that these people are fighting for something that matters to them. Good for them. I do not object that they should fight for it, but I want to see us fight back.

What will happen if we get that merger and we fail in our argument that the ECJ has nothing to do with it? Let us assume that whoever is in government says no when they come up with this provision. It is carried on a qualified majority vote, which can be done on the appointment. It is appealed through the ECJ, and the ECJ supports it. What do we do? At that moment, I honestly defy anybody to deny that, if you merge the roles of the Commission President and the European Council President, you are effectively one country. It is that important, and it has been completely and comprehensively ignored. The House of Lords has no power over these things at all, but I think that you have got to try, if you can, to do something about that provision. I am not quite sure how you can do it, other than to get the ECJ out of any area relating to the European Council. The European Council President is given foreign and security powers and therefore, on past jurisprudence and case law, is outside the reference of the ECJ under the provisions.

Q478 Chairman: You have referred to the ECJ. At present, it has jurisdiction over EU sanctions policies. What impact do you think the treaty will have on that?

Lord Owen: I think that you have put your finger on yet another area where there would be creep. Sanctions have hitherto been more or less a foreign policy initiative. Obviously, you have to get agreement inside Governments, and sometimes, when it has economic implications, the issues are fought inside Governments, but if you start getting into this, there is the rationale of why you have applied sanctions, which are usually foreign policy actions, and that is another area where you will see foreign policy constraints coming on us quite seriously.

Q479 Chairman: It has been argued that one of the reasons why we need to change the structure is that there is a disjunction between the intergovernmental and the community areas of the existing provisions. It has been argued that that is a major weakness of the way the European Union currently operates. Do you think that it is a major weakness?

Lord Owen: No.

Q480 Chairman: You are saying the opposite, aren't you?

Lord Owen: There are problems. The External Commissioner's role in some of the areas of overseas development and on some of the questions on the applications of sanctions policy could, and sometimes has, conflicted with the role of the High Representative. When Chris Patten was the External Commissioner, he and Javier Solana-who is an extremely good High Representative, and my criticism of the post is not a criticism of him-got on very well, but there were differences of opinion. I am not a great believer in mergers. Sometimes you have to have differences of opinion, and the idea that simply merging everything will resolve the problems seems crazy to me. This is all work in progress.

We are effectively accepting a European diplomatic service without any knowledge of how big it will be and how it will be financed. We do not know how many of these people are also going to work under the Commissioner, as Commission staff, whether they are going to be kept separate or whether they will all be put into the same pot. Sometimes, since the intergovernmental process and the Commission are quite separate, as we have always accepted in treaties, there is an idea that double-hatting will solve the problem, but I do not think that that is the case. I would actually welcome more clarity in the role and accept that there will be some disagreements.

I see the logic behind merging the two roles, but it is also linked to the idea that you can have a Commission of only 11 or 12 people. I am more and more convinced, and I have changed my mind on this. When I was working in Yugoslavia, I believed that there was value in every member state having a Commissioner position, and I thought that the way to deal with such a large Commission would be similar to how we do so in British Government-to have senior and junior Ministers or Commissioners, working in teams.

Q481 Mr. Heathcoat-Amory: Lord Owen, you have referred to the desire of a lot of member states to have an integrated single policy-a desire shared by the Commission. They will regard the High Representative as their agent to achieve that: this will be their man-or woman. That person will be appointed by qualified majority, so we will not be able to prevent someone we disagree with. He will be a Vice-President of the Commission and will have the External Action Service behind him, so there will be a tremendous dynamic to give effect to this single policy.

I am interested in what you said earlier about the need for checks, and whether these can be in a treaty, which I think you do not find, or in our own legislation. Will you say a little more about what we as parliamentarians can do at this very late hour to build in some check on this person, to take this example? All we now have is a Bill coming before the House next year; the treaty is all over and we cannot amend it, as you have said. So what can we do to build in this firewall, or check, to ensure that the High Representative is genuinely the agent of an intergovernmental process, which you and I both support, rather than a Commissioner or official, giving almost unlimited scope to this integrated foreign policy?

Lord Owen: I will touch on it a little by saying that I think that there is merit in the House putting into the legislation provisions for annual reports on the External Action Service and both the budget and the numbers, so that you can review it. I have not thought of an exact mechanism, but the tougher and more detailed it is, the better. Again, you could demand that they report back to, perhaps, a Select Committee and build in Select Committee scrutiny, but with the power, like the Danes have done, that they cannot agree without coming to you and making a report about what they intend to do and having got your agreement. The Foreign Office hates this, because it means delay, but that is exactly what we want. So I think that you should look at all the provisions in any other parliamentary system for scrutiny that builds in delay and inhibits Ministers from making decisions at 3 o'clock in the morning. I think those two areas of activity need to be covered in terms of both personnel counts and finance. That would be one provision.

It is not yet clear to me what the wording means about him chairing the Council of Foreign Ministers. It does not say every Council of Foreign Ministers. Why can we not say that he would chair meetings of the Council of Foreign Ministers in areas where he had already had delegated to him an executive responsibility, but not in the creation of policy, in which case that would be held by one of the trio or quartet for the presidency. I do not know whether there is provision for this, but it might help if I put to you what I have actually argued in the past, and that is the way you can split up the presidencies.

Q482 Chairman: I see that you have a document. We will take it as a written submission to the Committee.

Lord Owen: My understanding of the wording is that you are not inhibited from appointing as the first President of the European Council an existing Head of Government. You will not get it through, but I think it would be very encouraging if you made that clear, when it goes through the Parliament, that that is a provision. It says that they appoint by qualified majority a President of the European Council. There is no provision that says explicitly that he cannot be an existing member of the European Council and an existing Head of Government. I think that that needs to be teased out and made clear in our situation, and I think that you can ask for a report to Parliament through the Select Committee procedures before this person is appointed, so that the British Government justify appointing somebody who is not an existing Head of Government. Let the onus of proof be on them for their own position. I agree, they have only one vote.

I think it possible that, if you go systematically through this, putting in checks and balances, making them justify every issue, and it does not work-assume they appoint somebody who is outside, someone like Tony Blair, perhaps, who seems to have wanted this job, or the Danish Prime Minister, and they do a lousy job-after two and a half years, it will be much easier to remount the argument that it should be an existing Head of Government. Equally, we should consider that there are certain areas where the High Representative can chair the Council, but in other areas it can be a Foreign Minister from the trio who are co-ordinating the presidency, since the presidencies still go on. It is bloody-mindedness, of course, but then we cannot amend the treaty.

This is the last opportunity we have. We have more or less been told that there will be no guillotine. A lot of this Bill will, I imagine, be considered on the Floor of the House, and I think that these provisions can be done. The other thing is-and I no longer have any involvement in the controversy of party politics-that the Conservative Opposition have got to consider that what they argue for in the House of Commons they may at some future date be charged with introducing when in government. So they need to look very carefully at what sort of things they could do. One of the issues would be that, even if it is not conceded by this Government, they promise that they will do it as an incoming Government. I think that that is quite an attractive proposition, if I might be allowed to say so. It is up to them. Whether or not you get committed to a referendum is a bigger issue.

This is a whole question of how much scope you have. I do not use the word "renegotiation", but it is a question of how much you can delineate in any future Government these areas of confusion in the treaty language. It seems to me, again, that there is more scope than people think. Because the language is so opaque, an incoming Government have got some freedom of manoeuvre to say, "Look, we oppose this treaty. We want to have it more defined." Therefore, I think that there is a lot more on definition and delineation that we can extract, because of the very vagueness of the whole wording of the treaty. After all, Parliament looks exactly at the wording; you cannot change the treaty, but you can attach interpretations to it, as it goes through Parliament, which again is a block.

Q483 Mr. Heathcoat-Amory: You seem to be arguing for a situation whereby we mandate our Ministers to take certain positions, and I think that that is a fruitful approach. It would massively increase our scrutiny powers, which I am sure parliamentarians would like. But, of course, we only have leverage where there is a unanimity requirement. On the External Action Service and the overseas EU delegations, both are set by QMV, as indeed are the proposed consular services.

So it really goes back to the European Council-that, to me, is the only place where there is a definite veto-but it only meets four times a year and it will only lay down the Union's strategic interests, as well as determining the objectives of the common foreign and security policy and defining general guidelines for it, so it has nothing to do with the conduct of foreign policy, which will be the High Representative's responsibility.

From what you say, therefore, it is important that we keep a lock on that European Council and do not allow any majority voting. Of course, at the moment, the High Representative can, at his request, obtain majority voting, if that request is acceded to in principle by the European Council. The lock will therefore only work if we veto a policy request by the High Representative, because if we do not do so, thereafter it is subject to qualified majority voting. That course of action is possible, but it is pretty drastic. Would it not be much better to reject the treaty? Otherwise, it is rather disingenuous to sign up to and ratify a treaty that you do not intend to implement.

Lord Owen: There is a perfectly logical argument, which might triumph, that that is why, as I personally think, this issue must go to a referendum. I do not shift from that position in any particular.

With all these safeguards that I want in place, it is a pretty tough agenda, but it can be argued for. I think that we are getting to a situation where we have allowed our Prime Minister to negotiate the treaty over four or five years, and it is probably legitimate for the European Community to start feeling really pretty fed up with the British position. I think that, if we rejected the treaty, we would face a very serious situation. They cannot throw us out, so we are not going to be thrown out, but the nastiness and the general frustration would become very great and I think that it would feed those who want to come out of the EU anyway. The balance of my argument is that I am very, very reluctant to vote against the treaty, because the consequences of doing so are quite serious. Having said that, I fully understand why somebody should take a different position. Had we not achieved some of these important changes-and I think that they are important changes-I would have said that we should throw the treaty out. I would throw my cap in the air if people did it, probably.

Q484 Andrew Mackinlay: Listening to you this afternoon, I think that I am broadly where you are-pro-European, but concerned about the pace of digestion and about not taking Parliament and, more importantly, the people with us over a score of years or more. Where I think you are slightly potty-if I may say so-is in the concept of having two questions in a referendum. [Interruption.] No, he is not offended: he has not burst into tears, has he?

Lord Owen: I have broad shoulders, and have been called a lot worse than that.

Andrew Mackinlay: We have to pause, and consider whether, if there were a referendum, it might be defeated. Then you have the scenario that you described a moment ago, with appallingly bad blood in the European Union, total frustration in the United Kingdom, and after some sulking there would have to be some form of renegotiation, because we know that these things have to be addressed. Perhaps Prime Minister Cameron will go off and say that he has renegotiated-"a fundamental renegotiation of terms" was the phrase. He comes back and says, "Parliament, I want you pass this." The logic-the argument for a referendum-also applies in that case. Once you concede on this, you could have referendum after referendum. That is what I feel, and I would like to hear your views on this. The next Prime Minister may make what he would claim to be a successful stab at this. Some friends of mine will probably say, "You still haven't been successful. We want a referendum on that too." There is no end to it. A better position would be that we have it written in statute that there will be a time scale-say, before 2012-for a referendum on our membership of the European Union, so you and I can argue the positive aspects, and it is make-your-mind-up time for the British people. That would be done outside of the context of the treaty, for the reasons that I have given.

Lord Owen: I am sure that it has been put forward with the best of intentions, but I do not think that it is the issue. The issue is the Reform Treaty. If you had a referendum on an issue on which all three major parties are on one side-very few people would argue the case against-that would be rather dangerous for the European cause, because the only option for voters to show their dissent about what was going on would be to vote against it, and you would find that you had a much higher vote, whereas if you allow some of the people who are fed up, but who have no intention of coming out of the EU, to vote against a reform treaty-which they will-they can express themselves in that way. In the first referendum, I suspect that you would have a very small vote. It might be as high as 20% or maybe even higher. If you have a referendum on its own, I think that the vote would go up to 35%, maybe more. These figures are off the top of my head. If you have two votes, you will easily win the first, but it will be tough to win the second. You will then focus on the real issues and not threaten voters with being kicked out of the European Union but tell them that we cannot do much better than this. I have tried to identify that strategy because I think that it is more realistic.

We are in the Wilson Room. I lived through all this. I was very much in favour of the referendum. I nominally resigned from the Labour Front Bench on the issue, but actually that was not the case, and I spent most of my time trying to convince Roy Jenkins that we should have a referendum. For all the cynicism about Harold Wilson and the terms-and I used to have that cynicism-when I became Europe Minister in 1976, I was heard to say, "I rather think old Harold was right about the terms." Once or twice, I tried to pretend that I had not said it, but I did say it. The terms were indeed lousy, in particular on the financial contribution.

History rarely repeats itself. I do not think that with a new Conservative Government in, say, 2009-10, it will be like renegotiation. At first it was a much bigger issue-whether you were in or out. The Community genuinely wanted us in, and many countries such as Holland and others put a lot of political capital into overcoming the French veto. We also had a friend in Helmut Schmidt-he liked Callaghan and had a good relationship with Wilson, and was ready to help them out. Maybe there will be powerful Governments again-perhaps a German Government-ready to help out an incoming Conservative Government. I would avoid the word, "renegotiation", but there are areas that would be greatly improved by delineation. It would be an interesting development if we were to appoint an existing European Head of Government as President of the European Council in, say, two and half years' time, and if we were to curtail, through agreement with the Foreign Ministers, the High Representative's activity.

I agree that it is perfectly legitimate to say, "You've not given us what we want. You have fettered us around so much that we are not going to allow a European policy to develop." I understand that we are meant to have a European policy on Russia, but nobody has been able to define what the policy is. It is a bit of a joke. I absolutely agree, however, that there will come a moment when you will have a policy and there will be a special representative who will exercise this role and demand majority voting. Most people have been told that there is no majority voting on foreign policy, because it comes in round the backside, but it is there.

On your question, there is a role for referendums. People say you cannot turn things around: the Spanish turned round a referendum on NATO that looked dreadful at one stage. The Irish turned round a referendum on abortion. There was a period six months before the 1975 referendum, when it looked as if we were going to lose that, too. Therefore, I am not defeatist. When there is all-party consensus, that is different, but when there is a division that goes across parties, referendums are very helpful. We would not be where we are now in Northern Ireland without the referendum provision. I remember opposing it when Ted Heath announced it, but it actually proved to be a very important building block.

What is there to fear if Gordon Brown says, "Look, I have nothing to do with this treaty really; I've done my best and argued the case against it, but I accept we're going to have to hold a referendum, and we'll go out and win it, and it won't be just me winning it-it will be the Conservative party and the Liberal party, too, and we will all put our back behind it, and we'll try and do it." All I have said today, as a rather reluctant soldier-that is all I will be-is that I will sign up to try and win it, provided all the other safeguards are built in.

There is a lot to learn from the Danes. They used to be very ashamed-and I think they have become slightly ashamed again-about all their reservations and parliamentary procedures and so on, but I think we should model ourselves on that and tighten it up; if we made it respectable, we might find that a lot of countries would follow. I do not know what has happened today on the temporary vote, but if Germany and Britain acting together can be overridden on such an issue it is a pretty good indicator of what is going to happen for the future.

Chairman: Andrew Mackinlay-briefly, please.

Andrew Mackinlay: Briefly? I have been here all afternoon, and I have had one question, all right?

Chairman: It was a long question.

Lord Owen: And my reply was rather long, too.

Andrew Mackinlay: I think I am entitled to two questions.

Chairman: You are entitled-but briefly.

Q485 Andrew Mackinlay: I listened carefully to your exchange with David Heathcoat-Amory, and to your point about the possibility at some stage, by stealth, of a merger of the Presidency of the Council and the Presidency of the Commission. If we are persuaded by your point, which I broadly am, we will have to find the modalities of including that in the legislation-literally: there is a Bill coming round on the track in a few week's time. Do you feel that we ought to prepare a schedule for amending it in the House, so that it would take into account a number of scenarios that you and others could add to it, saying that if there is ever an attempt to merge, it will come before the House of Commons?

The point that you discussed with David Heathcoat-Amory almost spelled it out. It seems to me that there are legislative differences. Even if you could get it to the Floor of the House, it has to be within the footprint of the Bill-within the long title. You are a more experienced legislator than I am, but it seems to me that the only realistic way of doing this is to have a schedule of, more or less, scenarios saying that if this happens, there will be an affirmative resolution in the House of Commons or indeed primary legislation, which you suggested at one stage. Otherwise, all it can be is part of the debate-discursive-in the Chamber, and of course Ministers will say things at the Dispatch Box just to get them over those immediate few minutes.

Lord Owen: The honest answer is that it is very difficult to do it. I think that you can only build it up cumulatively. First, you extract from the Ministers the various explanations that they have been given over this area. You explore the Dutch position. A Select Committee could do that while this is happening on the Floor of the House, or before it gets there.

I have detailed the Dutch position. I have tried for two or three years to get people to take it seriously, and I have failed completely. I am not going to be able to do it. You have the power to get the Foreign Office officials around who have had these assurances given. You can get an explanation of whether the Dutch still consider this to be the situation. You can work with your Dutch colleagues to try to deal with it. The other way to do it is to have a reservation.

I think that the Government should be making it clear in Lisbon, before signing the treaty, that they have interpreted this wording of the treaty as excluding double-hatting. Were that ever to be done, it would then be considered by the British Government to be a breach of faith. I think that that should be written in before we sign it. They will probably not do that, unless you urge it. How do we get people to listen, in this whole area? You must puzzle over that as a Committee. This is the most important single issue.

Q486 Ms Stuart: I remember a draft existing until about 3 am, which had a complete clause saying that the President of the Commission shall not be the President of the Council. That was removed at 4 am on the basis that that was a self-evident truth that did not require to be spelled out. What you describe about the vagueness of the language being extremely deliberate is true for anybody who has sat through the years of this developing. It is interesting that you seem to be in a position where, rather than saying what this treaty delineates, its language is so vague that the only way to deal with it is to change parliamentary processes to have greater scrutiny. That is about the only space that we could act in. Am I right in thinking that?

Lord Owen: Yes, and building it in through our own legislation.

Q487 Ms Stuart: So the way to approach it that would pass through Parliament, is not just to require undertakings from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Prime Minister in terms of the treaty, but for there to be parallel undertakings of changes here at Westminster in scrutiny and in primary legislation. Would you say that those things would have to happen in parallel?

Lord Owen: Yes, but you could legislate for it. You can legislate like the Danish Parliament. It has often held up the Foreign Council's decisions by not being able to get its pre-scrutiny Committees to act in time. People get extremely irritated about that, but they are going to have to be extremely irritated and live with it. I think that you have to go through it systematically. It is peculiarly important for the Conservative party that it should deal with this. It would be a constructive proposition, but it would also be something that it could rely on later if it came to power.

Q488 Ms Stuart: For ease of reference, could you summarise why you think that article 213 of the Treaty on the functioning of the European Union is not a sufficient safeguard? The matter has, quite rightly, been consistently raised with the Government and their current answer is that this article bars members of the Commission from engaging in any other occupation. The Government regard this as an adequate safeguard that the Commission and the Presidency of the European Council will not be merged.

Lord Owen: This is slightly new wording is it not? I have not had a legal view on this. I do not know whether the Dutch would withdraw their comments to their Parliament in the light of this. Personally, I do not think that it would be difficult to get the European Court of Justice to say that this is not a new post, it is part of a continuum of what they are doing already. It is a mechanistic decision by the Council, a political choice, and not one for it to refuse. Furthermore, it would argue that if that had been the intention, it would have been ruled out in the main provision regarding the European President.

Provided that we mark it up seriously-the European Union is not exactly bound by law, and there are enough sensible people around the Council to not push it because they would know that any British Government would consider this to be a massive issue. However, it means that you have to extract all the wording that has been given-why it is, why it is not-and as far as possible, put it into the legislation.

Q489 Ms Stuart: May I press you a little on something you said before? If I understand correctly, one of the reasons why you think the ECJ may have a foot in foreign policy is due to the definition of foreign policy. How would you regard what is effectively the treble-hatting of the High Representative? He is Vice-President of the Commission, he has a role in the Council and is also the Chair of Council meetings. Is that potentially another way in which the ECJ may have a role in defining and adjudicating on foreign policy?

Lord Owen: It is argued that this is inoffensive, because the Secretary-General of NATO, by tradition, chairs most of the meetings-whoever holds the presidency gives over the Chair. It is not quite the parallel that they claim. From what I remember, the President takes the Chair for a formal moment, and then passes it on. Technically, the presidency chairs the meetings.

I do not want to sound as if I am against Solana. He knows the two roles, he has been Secretary-General of NATO. There are some areas in which the complexities of dealing with a detailed negotiation-Quartet business for example, or EU negotiations with Iran-mean that it might be helpful to have him in the Chair. When there is a issue of contention between member states and what the high-representative's office proposes, I think that it is absolutely deplorable that he or she should be in the Chair. That is why you should recover this. The language is not clear.

None of this has been worked out, none of this has had any research, there has been no effort to look at how you could have better kept the presidency. Everybody said that it is outrageous that it rotates every six months. Since it is obvious that you could have changed that, why are these people doing it? I believe that it is because they are continually positioning authority in the build up of the Commission. More and more they are pulling these things away from intergovernmentalism. They get rid of the pillar-they continue to say that it is common foreign and security policy, but they bring in qualified majority voting by the back door.

I remember that it was Douglas Hurd who conceded on this business of policy. He said, "Oh well, we don't want to get into having to reach agreement on what flag we put on a vehicle, or something like that." But that was never their intention-their intention was to use it for substantive questions.

Q490 Ms Stuart: You were quite right when you said that rejection of the treaty would create a considerable amount of bad will in Europe, given that they felt that they had made concessions to us. The original idea of the permanent President of the Council was one of the very few UK priorities, so they see it very much as a creature of the UK's wish and desire. It is often argued that the new President strengthens the member states, whereas I would suggest another interpretation, which is that it strengthens the institutions of the member states and that in the absence of a clear separation of powers, in effect we will have a weakening of the individual states.

Lord Owen: It might do. The honest answer is that it depends on the personality of the person involved. You are right that this proposition came from the previous Prime Minister. There have never been any pieces of paper from it; it was never worked through, and it was never advocated in a document from the Foreign Office. It came as a suggestion from No 10. It was always considered by people who first heard it as his retirement job; perhaps he would not want to do it now. The European Union is a very complicated organisation and it takes a lot of time to understand it and what is behind it. One has to be very careful about making these innovations, but you were right in that, because it is seen as a British innovation, it is very difficult for us to get it back.

I am a complete realist and know perfectly well that they are going to appoint somebody who is not a Head of Government the first time around. I rather hope the thing is a disaster and they appoint somebody who is so intent on their own agenda that they push it to the exclusion of all else and get airs and graces that are way above them, and that the Heads of Government start to resent this character stomping around the world, claiming to be the person who talks to the President of the United States. It is all part of this whole belief that Europe has to have the number for Henry Kissinger to ring. I always thought it was the most ludicrous position of all-Henry Kissinger only ever wanted the telephone number of somebody to ring to find out whether they agreed with him; if they did not agree with him, he would then ring around and try to find somebody else who did, and rally a group. It is an absurdity.

The answer to it all is that this could work well; it might work to strengthen the intergovernmental nature of foreign policy. If you had somebody who was very considerate of member states, who went round genuinely trying to rally a consensus and saw themselves as purely the spokesman of the European Union where there was already unanimity and was not pushing themselves forward, was not combative in their relationship with the High Representative and was ready to see the High Representative-the more I go on to tell you about this marvellous figure, the more we all know bloody well that this is not how many of those who want this job expect to have it. They want it for quite different reasons.

Q491 Chairman: Is the High Representative job doable by one individual?

Lord Owen: I do not think it is and I am very glad you asked me this question. Let us take the example of Javier Solana, who has done extraordinarily well. Take the example, too, of Macedonia and the break-up and all the problems that he faced. He went in and spent weeks and weeks of his time building a consensus in and around the different parties in that area bordering on Kosovo and Albania, and he did an extraordinarily good job. He also has taken on the issue of the Quartet. Of course, he has a representative there, but he has to master the detail of Quartet business. He is on top of that, and has taken on the detailed negotiations for the three-now, there is the US, as well-on Iran. These take a lot of time. When America says, "Right, we will let Javier Solana deal with Iran," they are not saying that he can appoint a special representative to do it. They are asking him to do it. They are using his authority and his prestige for that role, and quite rightly so. It is in a way flattering to us, and is ample demonstration that with his heavy experience, he can speak for everybody.

Javier Solana already refuses, more or less, to be Secretary-General and tries to get rid of that responsibility. If we want that type of role for him-if he is now going to be in charge of all the Commission's external activities and embassies around the world, to have all the problems of attending as a Vice-President of the Commission and of being a regular member of the Commission, as well as attending the European Council-I have serious doubts as to whether one person can do it. You have put your finger on it once again, Mr. Chairman. There is a fundamental illogicality to all this. For example, we have special representatives now, doing all these different roles.

When I was dealing with Yugoslavia, I used to send detailed memorandums back after every negotiation. E-mails would go out sometimes late into the night. I knew perfectly well that France, Britain and Germany did not really need them; they knew what was happening and could brief their ambassadors in Geneva. But the smaller countries found it extremely helpful. That is one of the great roles of the High Representative-small countries can feel part of the process and be serviced, and have someone in whom they can be confident. I am a great believer in the role of High Representative, but I think that we are putting far too much on to that person.

Chairman: I am conscious that you must leave in four minutes, Lord Owen, and we will not keep you beyond that point. I bring in Richard Younger-Ross for the final question.

Q492 Richard Younger-Ross: My apologies for not being here at the beginning of your answers. I was trying to persuade the Minister with responsibility for water to cut water charges in Devon and Cornwall-an area that I know you know very well.

You said earlier that, on the balance of the argument, you would be reluctant to vote against the Reform Treaty. If you felt that there was virtually no scrutiny of our Ministers and what they say by this House, would your view on that change?

Lord Owen: Yes, definitely. I made it quite clear that it is contingent on our going right to the maximum by not doubling but more than quadrupling the level of scrutiny, really paying attention to delineating the words of the treaty, and explaining to Parliament what we were given at each and every juncture and why we have conceded. One could simply go through those parts of the treaty that the British Government previously refused to accept-there were masses of the stuff-why they were satisfied to concede ground, and what assurances they were given. Perhaps all those could be written in to the Committee stages and then somehow enshrined in the legislation.

Q493 Richard Younger-Ross: Would you be surprised if I were to say that, when the former Foreign Secretary gave evidence to the European Scrutiny Committee and to this Committee, she denied that there had been any discussions and would not engage with either Committee at the earlier stages, back in May, when we discussing the Reform Treaty?

Lord Owen: I really do not know about that sort of thing. I am out of that, thankfully. I have not followed the proceedings quite as carefully as I should have.

Q494 Richard Younger-Ross: I put it to you that the amount of scrutiny by this House is minimal.

Lord Owen: You missed my answer earlier on, but it is in my memorandum. I can only tell you that when we had had the referendum in 1975, it was being demanded that we stop the business of MPs representing us in the European Parliament and that we have a direct election procedure for MEPs. I was never very keen on that. I always thought that it was a thoroughly good thing that we were double-headed, and that we brought the House of Commons into the European Parliament. I thought that excluding Westminster MPs was a bad move, but I felt obliged, because we had committed to take this step on entering the EC.'

I took that legislation through and in it-as I have already said to the Committee; I do not think that you were there-you cannot increase the powers of the European Parliament without primary legislation. That is on the statute book now. I urge you to fight this one. The Prime Minister said that he will give you a vote. One vote is not enough. Primary legislation is what you need. That is a real inhibition, and serious scrutiny that we all understand and know how to do. Build in as much Select Committee scrutiny as you can. Build in as much prior authorisation as you can. But above all, make it clear that primary legislation is needed. There should be no qualified majority voting on any area at all without primary legislation. There should be no extension of competencies without primary legislation.

Chairman: Thank you for coming this afternoon and for answering all our questions. We found this to be a very useful session and it will inform us as we produce a report in the next few weeks on the foreign policy aspects of the treaty.

Lord Owen: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.