Clause 6 — Parliamentary control of decisions

Part of Orders of the Day – in the House of Commons at 6:00 pm on 4 March 2008.

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Photo of Michael Connarty Michael Connarty Chair, European Scrutiny Committee, Chair, European Scrutiny Committee 6:00, 4 March 2008

I see no contradiction between those approaches. I think we should focus on how best we can satisfy Parliament that the Government are being scrutinised. Given that a mandating system will eventually be introduced, presumably it will be negotiated by all the parties in the House. The question of what the consultation arrangements will be for the devolved Administrations exercises my Committee frequently, and we must find a solution. Difficulties tend to be caused by the time scale and the capacity of the devolved Administrations, rather than by the House's willingness to take consultation on board. At present, the capacity does not seem to be there or to be developing.

Let me now deal with the relationship between this Parliament and decisions made in the European Union. Some say that "passerelle" can be translated as "gangway". They may be imagining a ship in the modern sense: a fancy big ship, with a large structure that people walk up and down. I prefer to think of the old-fashioned wooden ship which had a gang plank. In the old pirate days people were made to walk the plank, and that seems much more appropriate. When people walked down the plank they would not walk up again, whereas it is obviously possible to walk up and down a gangway. The passerelle is a one-way system. If a country gives up unanimity and adopts qualified majority voting, it is not possible for it to return to unanimity, which is why it was so important for the Liaison Committee to hear the Prime Minister's assurance.

The Prime Minister could have completed his contributions to the Committee without referring specifically to the passerelle, leaving it hanging in the air. However, during his final observations about the way in which the Bill would be presented to Parliament, he said this:

"Can I add for the passerelles, however—you did raise the question of the passerelles and this is a very important issue— you can only decide by unanimity, of course, to move in a passerelle to a different position from where you have been, but I do believe that is a matter that has got to come before the House of Commons."

That was a voluntary statement. The Prime Minister had clearly thought about it earlier, and wanted to put it on record before what is probably the most senior Committee of the House, consisting of the Chairs of all the Select Committees. That was a fundamental statement by the Prime Minister; if we move forward to QMV, we cannot go back, and that move can be made only by a decision on the Floor of the House. That gives the House a say and a chance to debate.

When the Minister is finished with the trials of putting the Bill through the House, I hope that Foreign Office officials will have brought forward proposals—our Committee will certainly have thought about it and made some suggestions—for a structure. The hon. Member for Forest of Dean talked about not taking the word of the Prime Minister; I am sure he was not implying that he would not be sincere. However, we would be putting in place a regulation—a set of rules—that would be voted on by this House, binding future Governments unless they wished to propose other regulations and get them voted through in the House. That would not bind a Government who wished to overturn the regulations, but it would set down a principle that, for me, would say that a future Labour Government would be bound by the same set of regulations as the present one. I take some comfort from that.

On the Post Office, the door has been slammed and the horse has not only bolted but is halfway through the paddock. We agreed earlier than everyone else to liberalise our postal services. The French have now realised that they would not be happy with their service being liberalised and have put the whole thing back to 2011; some countries have put it back to 2013. They realise, I think correctly, that we are destroying the Post Office and Royal Mail by what we are doing. We are fundamentally undermining and damaging not just a great icon of the British way of life, but a great service delivered to the people of the UK. Any argument made in Europe now about phasing liberalisation would find it hard to get a hearing, as what is now called economic patriotism—really obstructionism and protectionism—is back on the agenda in Europe. We cannot do anything about our postal service, but we are signalling that it is all right for other countries to deny us the right to go into their liberalised markets, which I believe to be the way forward.