I beg to move Amendment 6, in page 1, line 7, after ‘approved’, insert

‘, except for those provisions requiring the full application by the United Kingdom in respect of the Republic of Croatia, seven years after Croatian accession, of EU law on the free movement of workers’.

On Second Reading, referring to the report of the European Scrutiny Committee on the Croatian accession procedure—“Croatia: monitoring the accession process”—the Minister said:

“We will have other opportunities during later stages of the Bill to explore the points that my hon. Friend Mr Cash and his Committee raised”.—[Hansard, 6 November 2012; Vol. 552, c. 762.]

It appears that it is thanks only to the fairly modest, minor and small amendments tabled by my hon. Friend Jacob Rees-Mogg, who is not in his place, and me that the Committee has the opportunity this afternoon to discuss anything at all at this stage of the Bill’s progress. I hope that, if for no other reason, the Minister will welcome this debate and the amendments that have been tabled.

Although the Government have made it clear that they intend to take whatever measures they can to stop an influx of Croatian workers during the seven-year transitional period, the risk of such an influx after the transitional period has elapsed nevertheless remains. The amendment would provide a solution to that problem.

Under European Union law, as soon as accession takes place, Croatian nationals will have the right to move to and live in the United Kingdom if they are self-employed, or have sickness insurance cover and “sufficient resources” for themselves and their family members

“not to become a burden on the social assistance system of the host Member State”.

I lived in central Europe for some time. When this matter was last discussed, I asked whether the Government shared my impression that the country most associated with the departure of citizens of the former Yugoslavia to work elsewhere, perhaps as Gastarbeiter, was either Germany or Austria. Given that that is also the background to Croatian accession, does the hon. Gentleman not agree that Croatian citizens wishing to live and work elsewhere in the European Union are most likely to choose the countries with which they have long-standing historical and economic ties—Germany and Austria? If so, how can he possibly believe that there is likely to be, in any circumstances, an “influx” of Croatian citizens into the United Kingdom?

I will deal with that point more fully later in my speech, but let me respond to it briefly now. The hon. Gentleman may be right in saying that there are other countries that are closer geographically or with which Croatians have historical links, to which they will wish to move. Nevertheless, this country’s economic position, and the fact that the most widely spoken second language of Croatians is not German but English, provides evidence that there is—I shall use the word that I used earlier—a risk that some Croatians will want to move to the United Kingdom. We do not know how many there will be, and I shall say more about that later as well.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Yes, I will certainly give way to the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee.

Under the Government’s proposals, Croatian citizens will be in exactly the same position as citizens of Romania and Bulgaria. They will be part of the transition process, and they will be able to work here only if there is a job for them to do. They will apply for registration cards, and if they are students they will be given certificates of eligibility. It will not be a case of their simply turning up and working; there are very severe restrictions, as I know from representations that I have received. In view of that, why is the hon. Gentleman fearful that a whole lot of people will suddenly arrive and start trying to work?

Again, I will come to that point later in my speech, but, again, I will respond to it briefly. We know that following earlier accessions the number of people coming to work in this country, or to seek work, has significantly exceeded the original estimate.

As I said earlier, during the transitional arrangements EU nationals will have the right to come here if they are self-employed, or have sickness insurance cover and sufficient resources to ensure that they do not become a burden on

“the social assistance system of the host Member State”.

Certain family members—spouses, dependent children, children under 21, and dependent parents and grandparents of a Croatian meeting either of those criteria—will also have the right to live in the United Kingdom.

The hon. Gentleman is talking about the risks, but of course there are opportunities as well. Is not the experience of many countries with warm Mediterranean coastlines that rather a lot of British people end up moving to them, taking advantage of the business and cultural opportunities that European Union membership brings for both countries?

I am sure you would not wish me to be drawn off the subject of Croatia, Madam Deputy Speaker. My hon. Friend may well be right about that, although none of my constituents have expressed to me a desire to go to look for work in Croatia. They may all have a secret desire to do that, but I am not aware of a great number of my constituents seeking that opportunity at the moment.

We know what happened when Romania and Bulgaria joined the European Union in 2007. According to the Home Office’s impact assessment, the number of national insurance numbers issued to Bulgarians and Romanians increased by 560% and 710% respectively two years after accession. We do not have the precise figures, but it is likely that a number of those will have been Romanians and Bulgarians working in the UK under the seasonal agricultural worker scheme and the sector-based scheme, which the current Government have stated will not be open to Croatians.

Moving for work is likely to be the reason why most Croatians will want to emigrate to the UK, and this Amendment focuses on worker immigration. Let us be clear that after the seven-year period has elapsed the UK will have to apply full EU law on the free movement of workers. So a Croatian could move to the UK and compete with a British national for any job, and a Croatian so employed would have the right to reside in the UK. Of course, it is not purely the number of Croatians seeking work that would boost the number of people living within our shores, because the worker could bring their spouse, their children under the age of 21, together with any other dependent children, and their dependent parents and grandparents. While all those parents have the right to reside in the UK under EU law, they would all be entitled to equal treatment with British citizens, unless EU law stated otherwise. Of course that would include access to state welfare.

Does the hon. Gentleman agree—perhaps he does not—that Croatia has the potential to be a tourist destination similar to Spain 20 or 30 years ago? If so, there is every possibility that more people will want to go from the United Kingdom to Croatia because of job opportunities and because the countries around it have stable economies.

The hon. Gentleman may well be right that lots of UK nationals will want to visit Croatia. All the evidence suggests that its desirability as a destination is increasing for UK holidaymakers, but that strays from my concern about the need to protect workers in this country. Once full EU law applies, a Croatian national, together with their family members, could move to and stay in the UK if they were looking for work. The Government already grant EU immigrants in the UK looking for work access to income-related jobseeker’s allowance. If a Croatian had been employed in the UK for 12 months continuously but had then lost their job, they would retain their right to reside in the UK indefinitely, provided they registered as a jobseeker. A Croatian would acquire the same right to reside if, having been in work, they then decided to take up vocational training. It would be fair to ask how many Croatians are likely to arrive on this basis. Unfortunately, even the Home Office’s impact assessment states that it has no “robust estimates” of the likely number of Croatian immigrants after accession, so no realistic estimate can be made—in other words, we simply do not know.

It has been suggested, including by Angus Robertson, that the evidence points to the fact that most Croatian migrant workers will be attracted to Germany. However, as the Home Office impact assessment points out, the most widely spoken second language in Croatia is not German, but English.

Will the hon. Gentleman concede that the most widely spoken second language among Croatians who have been prepared to move thus far and live, work and have businesses elsewhere, and who are likely to attract people from Croatia to work elsewhere, is German, and that they are in the German-speaking countries of Austria and Germany?

I do not know whether that is true or not, because I do not know the respective numbers. Even if one assumes, for the purposes of this debate, that it is true, it does not detract from what the position may be in the future if, as is more than likely, Croatia accedes to the European Union and its nationals have a new framework within which to examine their options. They may well, for a variety of reasons, choose to come to this country. It is reasonable to assume that once the UK is forced—we have no choice in this matter at the moment—to drop the transitional arrangements, our country could become a very attractive destination for those Croatians who have gone to the trouble of learning English as their second language.

We can also make a useful comparison with what happened after Lithuania, a country with a population some 20% smaller than Croatia, joined the EU in 2004. The Home Office estimates that about 134,000 Lithuanians are now living in the UK. Of course the major factor in determining whether a significant number of Croatians decide to move to the UK is probably the state of the Croatian economy relative to our own. The EU’s own figures from EUROSTAT show that unemployment in Croatia is running at about 15%, which is almost double the UK’s level. World Bank figures show that Croatia’s gross national income per capita in 2011 was equivalent to $13,850, compared with a UK figure of $37,780.

If I understand the hon. Gentleman properly, he is talking about what will happen after the seven-year transition period, and those statistics will be tremendously inaccurate by then. It is unlikely that he will be able to produce statistics that predict the levels of unemployment in our country and Croatia seven years after accession.

The hon. Lady makes a valid point. The position at the end of the seven-year transitional period will indeed be relevant, although of course we can only consider the statistics we have now. There might well be—who knows—some miracle growth in the Croatian economy as a result of it joining the European Union that leads to the complete transformation of its economy. If we consider the situation with other economies in the European Union, we can see that that idea stretches the bounds of credulity a little.

The hon. Gentleman has looked at the subject very closely so I am sure he will have considered the experience of Croatia’s neighbour, which is, of course, Slovenia, a former constituent part of Yugoslavia. Does he concede that in recent years the economic upswing in Slovenia has been remarkable?

The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point. There might be a sudden upswing in Croatia’s economy. However, rather than running the risk that there might not be such an upturn, the Amendment would leave it open for this country to put in place a different set of criteria to ensure that the transitional arrangements could be kept in place until we were sure that the upturn had happened, rather than when we merely thought that it might happen.

I am not clear about the hon. Gentleman’s arguments. Is he suggesting a further transitional period? He is obviously not suggesting no transitional period, even though his Amendment makes it clear that he wants the Clause approved without the transitional arrangements. Is he arguing for a longer period?

My view is that the Government could negotiate a different set of criteria, which might involve a longer period, if they were linked to an equalisation of the economic imbalances between respective member states. That is the key.

To be clear on the implications of the Amendment, if it were passed, does the hon. Gentleman agree that it would put a stop to Croatia’s membership of the European Union because we would effectively have to go back and renegotiate the whole package for Croatia to enter the EU? It would effectively put an end to that membership.

One can only surmise that that might be the case; I have no doubt that our European neighbours might be more than happy to agree to my suggestions. That prompts a question: if the Government were unable to deliver what is, in the scale of European affairs, a minor adjustment to the arrangements governing member states, how on earth would they ever be able to repatriate the powers Members on both sides of the House talk about so often? I do not want to go down that road, but I was asked the question, Madam Deputy Speaker—

Sounds like you do.

No.

A fact that is as worrying as the difference between the comparative present wealth—I accept that I am using the current statistics—of Croatia and the UK is EUROSTAT’s prediction that the Croatian economy will contract by 1.9% this year and will not grow at all next year whereas UK growth will be just under 1% next year. All the evidence points to the fact that the UK could well prove to be an attractive destination for Croatians looking for work, for better paid work or for any job so that they have the opportunity to improve their command of the English language.

When one considers the various measures the Government have taken to control the numbers of immigrants coming to the UK from outside the EU, is it not logical that we should now start at least to question whether placing a simple arbitrary time limit on the restrictions that apply to migrant workers from accession countries to the EU is enough? Would it not make sense when there are significant imbalances between the relative economic positions of would-be new entrants and the UK for more rigorous restrictions to be applied as long as those disparities exist?

Our first duty must be to protect the interests of British workers. It does not make logical sense for the Government to argue for stricter controls on immigration on the one hand while agreeing to new EU treaties that will almost certainly lead to thousands and perhaps tens of thousands more workers arriving in the UK on the other.

Once again, the hon. Gentleman seems to assume that the traffic will be entirely one way and to be obsessed with the idea that Croatians would have to come to this country to learn English. He does not look like someone who goes clubbing regularly in Malaga, Ibiza or Ayia Napa—perhaps it would broaden his horizons—but all those places were probably in disadvantageous economic situations relative to the United Kingdom to start with. Accession offered an opportunity for kids to go clubbing and on holiday, for British businesses to invest, for British jobs to be created and for wealth to be created for British companies. These things can work reciprocally, and that is the opportunity that Croatia might offer to this country, too.

My hon. Friend makes a fair point and I have no wish to do anything to prevent UK nationals from travelling to Croatia if they want to. It is for the Croatians to determine who they want to allow into their country and the conditions they want to impose on people who want to visit or remain within their borders. I am saying that I think that the vast Majority of British nationals would want our Government to do exactly the same thing. Indeed, that is what the Government are doing for the rest of the world, but somehow, when it comes to the EU, an entirely different set of rules and regulations apply.

On that basis, I commend my Amendment to the House.

It is a pleasure to follow Mr Nuttall. All his speeches on EU matters have reflected his close interest on this subject, and it is right that he should bring his concerns to the House before Croatia’s accession. I do not agree with what he said, but he has every right to express his views and to have the House debate their merits.

I congratulate the Minister for Europe and the Government on how they have conducted the negotiations that mean that Croatia will become the 28th member of the European Union. As a former Minister for Europe whose responsibility was the EU enlargement that brought in the first major set of accession countries since the reunification of Europe after the fall of the Berlin wall, I know how difficult these negotiations are. We had to visit quite a number of countries, and I am sure the Minister has had to do the same, but at least we are dealing now with just Croatia. It must have been a very difficult task and I congratulate him on what he has done. It is right that we should focus on the amount of money that the EU has given Croatia; I think that about €1 billion have been given in support. So Croatia is ready for accession and we look forward to welcoming it.

The Amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Bury North deals with immigration, which is always a contentious subject in the House, but in recent years EU migration to the UK has also become contentious. I should place on record my belief that the arrival of eastern European migrants in this country has made Britain a better place. They have contributed enormously to our country, helped our economy, provided new skills and brought in an enviable work ethic. Not all of them, incidentally, have arrived in huge numbers and then decided to stay. Some, of course, have stayed; some have returned to their countries of origin.

Enormous numbers of Poles, we were told, were coming to flood our towns and cities, take our jobs, take over our pubs and take our women—or whatever the saying is when foreigners arrive in a different country. That did not happen. The myths put about by some tabloid newspapers did not materialise. In fact, those immigrants have been model citizens contributing to our country in cities such as Bristol, Leicester and London. We welcome them and we welcome what they have done.

We need to have the argument on EU migration in the context of what has happened before. If we focus almost exclusively on all the negative aspects of EU migration, we miss the real importance of enlargement and the way in which these countries have made the European Union stronger and wider, and have created more jobs in our country. I think that as a result of Croatia coming in, exports from our country to Croatia will increase, as they have done to other EU countries.

I want to examine two aspects of what the hon. Member for Bury North said. The House needs to know that his arguments were directed against the whole notion of Britain being in the European Union, rather than just against letting little Croatia in. He makes arguments much deeper than the ones about enlargement, and those are for another day. As the House knows, I favour an in/out referendum because it gives the British people the opportunity to have their say on this and other issues, so on that matter I am on the same side as the hon. Gentleman, and I supported his Bill when he put it before the House.

If we look at the immigration issue and are sensible about it, however, we will find that we are limited anyway in extending transitional arrangements beyond what has been agreed by the Government. When the Minister replies, he will be able to tell us whether we are right or wrong, but the seven-year transition is the same arrangement as we had for Romanians and Bulgarians. That has not been a huge success, if I may say so. I have had representations from the Romanian and Bulgarian ambassadors about the length of time it takes for their citizens to exercise their treaty rights in order, for example, to get their permits to work in this country—their worker registration cards.

The fact is that it now takes between eight and nine months for a Romanian citizen to write to the UK Border Agency and get approval to work here. I do not believe that this helps our reputation as a country that welcomes people from the EU who want to come here and work legitimately. We are not talking about people coming to work here illegally, or about people who do not wish to comply with the law of this land. We are talking about people who want to pay their tax and national insurance, want to be part of Britain and want to comply with the law. They are having to wait up to eight months just to get their cases seen to by the UKBA.

Opening up the can of worms that is the UKBA is not the purpose of today’s proceedings, but interestingly, according to the report of the chief inspector last week, he discovered that at one stage last year 100,000 letters from MPs, applicants and solicitors were left unopened in Liverpool. Some of the applications from Romanian and Bulgarian citizens to come into this country may well have been among those letters, which could explain why things have taken so long, but the fact is that it takes the UKBA a very long time to process such applications.

I hope that as well as telling us whether the transition period can be extended, as the hon. Member for Bury North would like, the Minister can give us an assurance that once Croatia comes in, if its citizens wish to apply for their certificates and accession documents in order to work here, the process will be smooth and efficient

I did not quite get the point that the hon. Member for Bury North was making about English as a second language. In countries such as Romania and Bulgaria, English is a second language. The Romanian, Bulgarian and Croatian citizens whom I have met speak English beautifully. I am not saying that every single Romanian, Bulgarian and Croatian is expert at speaking English, but I did not understand the hon. Gentleman’s point. He will find that they understand and speak our language extremely well. If they want to live and work here, they make a big effort to learn English so that they can speak it well and get jobs in this country.

I would be interested to know, perhaps not today but at another time, what the hon. Gentleman meant. I find that all those who have come from eastern Europe—Poland, Hungary and others in the first wave of accession countries, right the way through to Croatia—want to be able to come here, settle in, integrate and be part of our country, in the same way as the 1 million British citizens who currently live and work in mainland Europe, if I may call it that, are able to contribute to the economies of Poland, Romania, Croatia and France. Over 1 million British citizens and their dependants live in the European Union and work there, but I do not see those countries and those Parliaments having the kind of arguments that we sometimes have here about those who come from EU countries.

As I have pointed out on a number of occasions, in around 2008-09 the largest group of people who entered the UK, numbering around 85,000, were UK citizens returning home when things got difficult on the European mainland.

I agree entirely.

To say that there are no skills shortages in this country in the sectors where some of those from the accession countries have come to work is completely wrong. Speeches that I have heard from the Scottish National party and its leader, for example, acknowledge a shortage of people for a number of skilled jobs. I have heard them say in their speeches that they want to encourage people to come to Scotland in order to work there. Such shortages exist in various parts of the country, where people will be most welcome to come and work in those sectors.

Does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that it is a little odd that the about-to-be Governor of the Bank of England, who is a Canadian subject of Her Majesty, will have to jump through lots of hoops in order to work here, whereas someone from an EU member state can simply come here as they wish? Surely my hon. Friend Mr Nuttall is right that we should keep more restrictions.

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman raises that point, because I understand that the new Governor of the Bank of England will apply for British citizenship, but if he has to wait as long as most people have to wait, his term will have expired before he gets it. Unfortunately, he is already married with two children and so cannot marry an EU citizen in order to get here more quickly. Otherwise, he could become an EU citizen and would not need to apply for British citizenship. Anyway, the hon. Gentleman is trying to distract me into a debate on the merits of citizenship applications, but I will not be tempted, even though I have huge respect for him and his great knowledge of the subject.

This is about exercising treaty rights. The Government have decided to have a seven-year transition period, as the previous Government did with regard to Romania and Bulgaria, uncomfortable though that was, and I think that is the right and sensible course of action. When a country joins the European Union, if it is to be the kind of European Union I want us to belong to, every country and every citizen should ultimately be treated equally. Sadly, some EU citizens are treated differently because they happen to come from certain countries, which I think is wrong.

I appreciate the sincerity, honesty and principles of the hon. Member for Bury North, who was against the treaty in the first place, but once a country signs up to a treaty and successive Governments have endorsed it—the British people have not done so since we entered the EU, which is why I favour a referendum—they sign up to all of it. That is the least the Government can do to protect the labour market, but at the end of the seven years the transitional arrangements will lapse, as they will for Romania and Bulgaria on 31 December 2013, and rightly so in my view.

The Home Secretary announced that she was looking carefully at those arrangements for Romania and Bulgaria and could extend the transition period, but I knew that of course that would never happen. Her view on this aspect of policy, which is that emergency measures could be introduced to prevent people from Greece or Italy coming here if there is a crisis in those countries, has come to nothing. She wrote to me and mentioned work going on, but not much work can be done on Laws that we have signed unless we break our work on the treaties. I am absolutely certain that the Foreign Office’s view on such emergency arrangements is different from that of the Home Office because, funnily enough, I have seen no such proposals come before the House to try to stop Greek citizens, for example, coming here. That would be very difficult, if not impossible, to do. All we can do with accession countries is give them a seven-year transition.

I very much agree with the point my right hon. Friend is making, as he knows, but I think that we must be frank with ourselves and recognise that one of the problems in this debate is what happened in 2003, when the Home Office grossly underestimated the number of migrants who would come here from the 10 accession countries. I think that explains in part why many people in this House and beyond are concerned about the enlargement agenda. We must recognise that we got the figures wrong and learn the lessons from that.

My hon. Friend, who had a distinguished career as a Member of the European Parliament, is absolutely right. We must have that debate. The Home Office got it wrong on that occasion, but I do not think that any of us clever people sitting in the House of Commons got it right either. Nobody predicted that there would be a flood of people, to use the tabloid expression, rushing into this country. They were boom times, when people were willing to open the United Kingdom’s doors and allow people into the country.

Immigration will always be an emotive and difficult subject. As we speak, the Mayor of London is in Mumbai telling the Government that all their facts and figures on student immigration are wrong. However, we have limited control over EU migration, which is why it has been raised today. The only possible control that the Government could introduce was the seven-year transition, and they are right to introduce it.

Ultimately, however, we have to be fair to EU colleagues and say that if their citizens wish to come here to work, we will process their applications for work permits and accession documents quickly. That is the deal that ought to be done by a nation that, as the Prime Minister said yesterday, is the beneficiary of what my hon. Friend Wayne David did when he was an MEP, what Shadow Ministers did when they were on the Government front bench and what others did in the 13 years of the Labour Government: they built up alliances with countries such as Poland, Hungary and the other accession countries. They will not forget the stand taken by our country in allowing their citizens to come here to work.

I think that it is absolutely right that we have these transitional arrangements, but let us also understand the fundamental principle: if we sign up to a treaty, we have to abide by its words and ensure that, in doing so, we are fair to the other citizens of Europe and treat them as equally as possible.

It is a great pleasure to follow my right hon. Friend Keith Vaz. He is right to point out that the issue of economic migrants coming here from other European Union countries is a sensitive one. It is something that always comes up in the context of new accessions, and in the case of Croatia, as we have seen with the Amendment, it has come up again.

The Opposition are in favour of applying a maximum transition period of seven years to the free movement of people coming from Croatia, which is what we applied, when in government, in the case of Romania and Bulgaria. However, the amendment refers to the period beyond the seven-year transition, and I think that we need to bear in mind the context. As Angus Robertson has already pointed out, the Croatian people have strong links with Germany and Austria and it is not yet clear whether the Governments of those two countries will impose transitional periods—it is open to them not to. Given that Germany’s economy is doing incredibly well, especially compared with our own, and given that unemployment there is very low indeed, it might decide not to impose a transition period or to impose a period shorter than the full seven years.

It is also worth bearing it in mind that there are 4.4 million people in Croatia, so it will not be a large member state. I ask Mr Nuttall not to underestimate the Croatian people or be complacent about our own economic growth. He talked about the relative difference between our unemployment and theirs. Our unemployment, to my mind, is still too high, and their unemployment rate is currently higher than ours. However, if we consider previous accession countries, such as Poland, which has avoided recession, let alone a double-dip recession, or Slovenia, whose economy has been transformed and whose prosperity is to be admired, as the hon. Member for Moray pointed out, we see that it is somewhat complacent and perhaps misleading to suggest that after the seven-year period the Croatian economy will not have improved and that the unemployment rate will not have fallen. I think that we should view the matter in that context.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East pointed out that as a member of the European Union and a signatory to the European treaties, the UK has rights and responsibilities, and one of the responsibilities is to abide by the rules of those treaties. One of the principles of the founding treaties is the so-called four freedoms—the free movement of people, capital, goods and services. The accession treaty before us is a negotiation among all the member states of the European Union and the new member state of Croatia, and the seven-year transition period that is negotiated within that framework is a derogation from the principles in the European treaties. If the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Bury North were to be passed—which is highly unlikely, but let us say it is for the sake of argument—then it would either scupper the accession treaty altogether or put us in a situation in which our Government could be taken to court by the European Commission or another member state.

Does the hon. Lady agree that it would be helpful if the Minister clarified, perhaps on the basis of legal advice, that that would indeed be the consequence of the Amendment? This is not just a debating point about something that we think is a good idea or that we disagree with; it could have a fundamental impact on Croatia’s potential accession to the European Union, which would be very serious.

I could not agree more. It would be useful if the Minister gave us the exact legal advice on the implications of the Amendment and whether it would indeed scupper Croatia’s accession, which would be regrettable.

I am sorry to disagree with the hon. Lady, but I remind her that the Bill includes the protocol for Ireland, which was to allow the Irish not to ratify the Lisbon treaty and then to do so at a later date with certain guarantees. As it is possible to do that for Ireland, a protocol to a future treaty could allow amendments passed by this House to be incorporated, allowing Croatia to accede in the normal manner.

I respectfully disagree with the hon. Gentleman. The accession treaty with Croatia has been negotiated in good faith, and its conditions and provisions state that an existing member state has the option to put in place a transition period of up to seven years. Labour Members are in favour of the treaty; indeed, there is cross-party support for the accession of Croatia. If we were to pass the Amendment—again, that is highly unlikely since I do not see a great mass of supporters on the Government Benches—I believe, although I would welcome clarification, that that would derail the accession process because we are considering an accession treaty with a temporary derogation with regard to the free movement of people.

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way again, because this is an important point that is worth following through. The treaties are not treaties until they have been ratified by the normal constitutional process of all the member states. If, in the normal constitutional process, a reservation with the treaty is found, that can lead to amendments being brought forward later, as with Ireland. There is clear precedent for that within the European Union.

There is no clear precedent with regard to the accession of new member states. I believe that such a provision goes against the accession treaty with Croatia that has been negotiated with the 26 other member states and our Government. An Amendment of this kind would send us back to the start of negotiations. All 16 member states that have already approved the treaty, and we and the remaining member states, would have to go back to the drawing board, along with Croatia, yet again to reopen what has been a very long and arduous process—a thorough process, and rightly so—for Croatia in its negotiations to join the European Union. This is not like the Irish protocol. It is not a post-factual situation—it has to apply from now on—and it is part of the accession treaty that we are discussing. We cannot just alter it and expect something to happen in future that would help us. I totally disagree with the hon. Gentleman.

I would welcome clarification of this matter, given that Opposition Front Benchers do not have a whole army of Foreign Office civil servants to help us—

You’ve got me.

I have my hon. Friends, obviously, whose help and advice are always most welcome.

I look forward to the Minister’s response, but I am pretty confident that my interpretation is correct, and we therefore do not support the Amendment.

I thank my hon. Friend Mr Nuttall for tabling the Amendment. He was prompted to so by the seriousness of these issues, and Keith Vaz rightly complimented him on that.

The issues that my hon. Friend spoke about are very important, and I can give him one immediate reassurance. He feared that this might be the last time that Parliament could discuss potential migration from Croatia and, indeed, other aspects of Croatia’s accession process, but there will be at least two further opportunities. First, next year, probably in the spring, the Home Office will bring forward the statutory instrument to provide the detail on and to implement the transitional arrangements on migration. That legislative instrument will have to be dealt with by the affirmative procedure, so I would expect a debate in a statutory instrument Committee, attendance at which is open to any Member of the House, and subsequent approval to be given by the House as a whole in the normal way, as for any other statutory instrument.

Secondly, next March we are expecting the European Commission to publish its third and final interim report on monitoring how Croatia has made progress with the various accession chapters of the negotiating process. That report will be subject to the normal parliamentary scrutiny process. It will go to the European Scrutiny Committee, and it will be open to the Committee, if it so chooses, to refer it for debate on the Floor of the House or in a European Committee.

Is that not the real issue? The reports from the European Commission that we have before us are full of hope, but they say, in effect, that Croatia is not compliant and that in some areas it is going backwards. The big issue on immigration is not what Mr Nuttall talked about; it is that the new EU boundary with Bosnia is insecure. Beyond the Report stage, this House will not have a full chance to debate the Commission’s third report.

It will be for the European Scrutiny Committee to choose whether to refer the Commission’s third report for debate in the House. As I said on Second Reading, the Croatian Government have made enormous progress towards implementing their integrated border management plan and establishing on the EU external border a system of fully operational border control posts, which are part of its accession process. The key outstanding issue is the Neum corridor, where a small part of Bosnia and Herzegovina divides two pieces of Croatian territory. However, matters are now well under way to put the border control posts in place and to make available the relevant technology and trained staff. It is not just the Commission’s view, but that of the British Government, too, that Croatia is fully on course to meet the obligations into which she has entered.

Could the right hon. Gentleman clear up a matter of fact? The House of Commons research paper states:

“A further issue is weaknesses in border management: Croatia’s border with Bosnia and Herzegovina will be one of the longest in Europe, posing challenges to EU security, and Croatia has so far made only moderate progression.”

Footnote 42 notes that that information came from the European Commission on 10 October 2012, which was not long ago. The Commission is clearly saying that progress is not being made, which is in direct conflict with what the right hon. Gentleman is saying.

We debated this at some length on Second Reading, but I will take advice and might give a detailed answer later in today’s proceedings.

In response to the point raised by the right hon. Member for Leicester East, we acknowledge that there have been unacceptable delays to the processing of applications from Romanian and Bulgarian citizens. The UK Border Agency has taken action to provide additional staff resources to deal with that and is confident that the Government’s published target standards for turning around such applications will be met by the new year.

I hope the Committee will forgive me if this has been covered in earlier debates when I was not present, but is it true that if Croatia acceded to the European Union, it would be easier for the International Criminal Court to serve an indictment on an alleged war criminal who happened to be Croatian than is currently the case because Croatia is not a member of the European Union?

I am not certain about the position of the International Criminal Court, but I will either respond to that question later in the debate or write to my hon. Friend. What I will say is that, in the context of this Amendment, which relates to migration, once Croatia has become a full member of the European Union, the normal EU arrangements to combat illegal migration and to secure the return of illegal migrants, overstayers and others will become fully operational. As I hope to say if I reach the later stages of my planned remarks, there is already evidence that Croatia has been very energetic in preparing for those new duties and in implementing a system for dealing with illegal third-country migrants, and that will be to the benefit of every European Union member state.

Perhaps it would be helpful if I followed up on the Intervention by Bob Stewart on the potential arrest of a European Union citizen. That, of course, would be subject to the existing procedures for a European arrest warrant, which, indeed, would be beneficial in trying to deal with serious crime, including international war crimes. Would that not underline the total folly of a member of the European Union walking away from a commitment to use European arrest warrants, which the current Tory Government are considering doing?

I am not going to get drawn into a further debate about the 2014 opt-in, opt-out decision on justice and home affairs. As the Government have pledged, there will be ample opportunities to debate that at length in the House.

I think that everybody in the House shares the concerns of my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North about the need to ensure the appropriate management of potential labour market risks, particularly at a time when there are serious tensions in the UK labour market. At the same time, we have to acknowledge that the principle of freedom of movement has given enormous opportunities to British citizens. Roughly 1 million British people live and/or work in other member states of the European Union at present.

The Government have been clear from the start that we intend, as a matter of course, to impose transitional controls on workers from any new member state. In the case of Croatia, we have concluded that these restrictions should be as rigorous as the terms of the accession treaty allow and should provide no greater level of access than that already enjoyed by Croatian workers prior to their joining the European Union. That would put Croatian citizens on a par with workers from Romania and Bulgaria, who are subject to such vigorous control already.

Let me be clear about what the existing provisions make possible. The powers in the treaty provide for member states to apply transitional control to workers for at least five years, with a review after the first two years, at which time member states are required to notify the Commission whether they intend to maintain transitional restrictions beyond the first two-year period. After five years, those controls may be extended by a further two years in the event of serious labour market disturbance or threat thereof, bringing the total to seven years. The powers in the treaty provide controls that can be imposed robustly and meet the UK’s stated commitment to impose transitional controls for an appropriate period without undermining our long-standing and principled support for EU enlargement. These controls cannot be extended beyond the seven-year period.

I am afraid that it will disappoint my hon. Friend that the provisions for transitional restrictions on migration from Croatia in annexe V(2) of Croatia’s accession treaty make it very clear that the controls are derogations from the articles in the treaty on the functioning of the European Union, which provide for the free movement of people between different member states in order to exercise treaty rights under European law.

My hon. Friend Jacob Rees-Mogg asks what could happen if the Committee agrees the Amendment. The United Kingdom could be in breach of the free movement principles in the EU treaties, which could lead to the UK being infracted by the European Commission. The accession treaty would stand, provided that we and other member states went on to ratify it, but the UK would be in breach of it.

The Irish protocol, to which my hon. Friend alluded, was a different beast. It is important to recall that Ireland’s ratification of the Lisbon treaty awaited the outcome of their second referendum, which in turn followed the negotiation of the Irish protocol by EU Heads of State and Government, but the text of the treaty did not change by one word between the first and second Irish referendum. Ireland went on to ratify the Lisbon treaty as it had originally been agreed before the Irish protocol was finalised and had been through the Brussels process, and, as is happening here and elsewhere in Europe, before its ratification by the 27 member states according to their respective national procedures. The Irish protocol is a very different question.

Applying the Amendment to line 7 on page 1 of the Bill would make it say that the accession treaty would be approved,

“except for those provisions requiring the full application”.

It would, therefore, be a conditional approval of the treaty and I do not believe that the European Court of Justice could rule us in breach of treaty obligations, because Croatia would not have them until the treaty was ratified under our normal constitutional procedures, which, thanks to the European Act 2011—which the Minister presided over—require an Act of Parliament that is unqualified.

I simply do not think that we can have 27 countries agreeing unanimously on a treaty text and committing themselves to ratifying it, only for 26 countries to ratify it while one country chooses to do so up to a point and not ratify one particular element. My hon. Friend was right in his earlier Intervention that it is legally and constitutionally possible for a separate protocol or derogation to be negotiated at the time of an accession treaty to exempt one or more member states from particular obligations. However, that has not happened with any other accession treaty hitherto.

The United Kingdom, under successive Governments, has been committed to the enlargement of the European Union since Margaret Thatcher championed the idea when the iron curtain began to crumble. I remain, in that respect, an enthusiastic Thatcherite. The entrenchment of not just free and open markets, but, even more importantly, the rule of law and democratic institutions in eastern and central Europe that has been brought by enlargement has been of benefit to the long-term strategic interests of the UK, as well as being in the interests of Europe as a whole.

The Minister has made an important point. He should not hide his light under a bushel. I urge him to make that point more forcefully and regularly to his Back Benchers.

My hon. Friends know where I stand on these issues. We always have a good-tempered but serious debate. The points that my hon. Friends have raised this afternoon reflect concerns that are expressed by many thousands of people—

Millions.

Possibly by millions of people, in every Constituency in this country. It is right that Parliament should be seen to be paying close attention to those concerns, which are being ably expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North in supporting the Amendment.

Croatia has a small population of only 4.5 million people. The levels of emigration from Croatia to EU member states are currently very low. The official Croatian statistics suggest that in 2011, about 2,000 Croatians migrated to EU member states. Angus Robertson is right that half those people went to Germany and that a fair number of the others went to Austria.

The UK Border Agency’s statistics state that in 2011, 115 Croatian nationals were admitted to the UK for the purposes of employment. Of course, those 115 people will have had to meet the same tests as anybody else who comes here from a third country anywhere else in the world. They will have had to apply successfully under the points system or perhaps as a person of independent means. If we look at the patterns of migration from Croatia and the history of Croatian migration to this country, and set that in the context of a small country with a small population, the Government judge that there is little risk of a mass migration of Croatian nationals to these shores when the seven-year transitional period is up.

I do not think that the travel is likely to be one-way. For example, several thousand British people are now resident in Bulgaria, largely because the Black sea coast is an attractive place in which to settle and is less expensive than the parts of Spain and the western Mediterranean that had previously been fashionable. I can envisage the Adriatic coastline of Croatia becoming a magnet for people from elsewhere in Europe who are seeking a warmer climate in which to settle. I therefore do not think that freedom of movement will be exercised in one direction only.

In conclusion, the accession treaty, which has been signed by all member states already, provides for only a temporary imposition of transitional controls up to a maximum of seven years. It is not possible to extend transitional controls on Croatian nationals beyond the seven-year period. The Government’s careful judgment is that the existing flexibility provided by the accession treaty will protect the stability of the United Kingdom labour market as we would wish. I hope that, having heard the assurances that I have given, my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North will choose not to press his amendment.

We have had a useful and interesting debate on the Amendment. I thank Keith Vaz, who is not in his place, Emma Reynolds, the Minister and all the Members who have intervened.

I suspect that the Government’s view on this matter and the stance that is widely taken by Members will only add to the concerns of many of my constituents and, as the Minister has said, of people across the United Kingdom.

Will the hon. Gentleman confirm whether any of his constituents have written or spoken to him to raise specific fears about Croatian nationals coming here to work after the maximum seven-year transitional period?

No, they have not. However, I often receive representations about immigration in general and difficulties with finding work. I will be honest and say that nobody has said that they are worried about Croatia specifically, but people have said that they are concerned about what will happen if large numbers of people from other countries come to this country and about how that will affect them. That particularly affects people who feel that they are competing for jobs with people who have come to this country from abroad.

This has been a useful debate. However, the stance of the Government and of many Members will add to the concerns of my many constituents and the many millions of people throughout the country who think that our membership of the EU is damaging the interests of the UK and that we would be better off if we left it. I share that view. The further this country becomes entangled in the tentacles of the EU, the more it hastens the day when a Majority of people in the UK vote to leave it. The accession of Croatia and the extra migrants that it brings will be another drop in the British people’s growing puddle, reservoir or ocean of discontent with the EU.

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 1 ordered to stand part of the Bill.