Sir Bernard Jenkin
MP for Harwich and North Essex · Conservative · United Kingdom
“Despite long and historic disagreements between successive UK Governments and Israel, it has remained a steadfast ally in counter-terrorist efforts to keep our people safe in this country. We are now embarked, it seems, on a full diplomatic dispute with Israel and tit-for-tat expulsions of diplomats.”
“I would very much have liked to have discussed the medical devices questions arising from the Bill. The Minister made an incredibly short speech about that important matter. It is quite clear that these provisions are part of the covert dynamic alignment with the EU and the covert rejoin agenda being pursued by the Government.”
“I am as keen as anybody to get on with discussing the Health Bill, but this topic is too serious an opportunity to miss, given that the hon. Member for Leeds Central and Headingley (Alex Sobel) has raised such important issues. I really commend his speech and his initiative. Everybody should read it.”
“The Minister shakes her head, but she is yet to give a good reason as to why this measure is in the Bill. When we had an Adjournment debate in July with the then Minister for patient safety, the hon.”
“The chief executive of the CQC is wantonly conflicted in terms of looking after the safe space, so he cannot be the one left in charge of that function. The real point here is that we are missing the opportunity to save so much money. Governments keep having public inquiries.”
“I asked the Minister, in a letter I sent her after the debate in July, to give us the information on how much the transfer of all this would cost. Nothing has arrived. I never had a reply to the letter. Of course, the Government have changed the Minister and the new Minister for patient safety, the right hon.”
The complete record
Every one of 4,591 lines we hold for Sir Bernard Jenkin, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 63 of 92.
“I am most grateful for the opportunity to speak at this stage in the debate. The Bill is significant by any standards and represents the Government’s plans to implement their reform of public bodies as a result of the review they carried out in the second half of last year. The Select Committee on Public Administration, which I chair, inquired into the review at the time and published a report last January. Somewhat to my surprise, the report was more controversial than I had anticipated, but I emphasise that it was unanimously agreed by all members of the Committee of all political parties. We expressed concerns at the time about the way the review was conducted, and we have heard some of them in the Chamber this afternoon.”
“My hon. Friend is making an emollient and helpful speech, but the real question is not how these issues will be dealt with during the passage of the Bill, but how they will be properly debated and adjudicated on by Parliament after the Bill is on the statute book. Will he give the House a general undertaking that these contentious issues concerning bodies that were established by primary legislation will be the subject of proper and reasonable consultation and debate when the orders come before Parliament, and that there will be an opportunity for Parliament to exercise the influence it would have exercised had we been confronted with primary legislation?”
“I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement and the excellent White Paper, which lays such emphasis on choice for individuals in the type of public services they wish to have. Does he agree that we cannot say that we are in favour of choice and then insist that a particular service be run by a monopolistic local authority? Nor can we say that we are against competition if we are also complaining about too much public procurement going to large private sector companies that were in favour of more competition, not less.”
“My right hon. Friend is making an able demolition of these unacceptable amendments, but will he describe what sorts of decisions on common defence he thinks would currently trigger a referendum, because it is difficult to see how such decisions would constitute a transfer of power under the rather narrow definition set out in the Bill?”
“I think he gets the terms “Government” and “Parliament” muddled up. Every piece of legislation binds future Governments to some extent, unless they manage to obtain a majority in Parliament to change it.”
“It gives me some pleasure to speak in support of the Government in opposing these Lords amendments. It also gives me the opportunity to address the remarks of the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr David). From listening to his description of, and support for, the so-called sunrise clause, I thought he advanced some unusual and novel arguments, albeit that they were supposedly supported by eminent people. I suggest that their words may have been a little removed from their context, because the hon. Gentleman is asking the House to adopt the relatively new constitutional doctrine that no legislation should be passed that is in any way an attempt to bind successor Governments. Legislation binds not future Parliaments but future Governments, unless Parliament chooses to change it.”
“However, the fact is that we need a Government who are prepared to negotiate vigorously, and to do so with the extra leverage and strengthened hand that the requirement for a referendum gives them.”
“If there is one thing that true Europeans should want it is that we reconnect the decisions on how powers are exercised with popular democratic consent. The Bill goes some way towards doing that. The sunrise provision is simply the last gasp of a past generation who are trying to neuter what is today called Euroscepticism. The support of the hon. Member for Caerphilly for Lords amendment 15 gives the lie to the idea that the new Labour party, under its new leader, is flirting with Euroscepticism. It is not. It has no intention of following through. It might pretend to be, and to sound, sceptical, and it might even start talking of an in-out referendum, inviting one or two of my more radical hon. Friends to fall into the trap of thinking that that is the way out, when it probably is not.”
“We should think about what that means for the criminal justice system of this country. The amendments would allow Governments, without a referendum, to give up the veto over labour laws, taxes and planning, and the multi-annual financial framework and spending of the EU. The Opposition should shed no crocodile tears over how much the EU is spending if they are prepared to give up that veto without proper consent. The amendments would remove the veto from all the enhanced co-operation procedures, which would enable what is effectively majority voting to come into effect in a whole lot of areas. Clearly, that is an anti-democratic provision. If there is one thing that ardent advocates of the EU should have learned, it is that that structure lacks popular consent. It legislates without popular consent.”
“Anthony Wedgwood Benn of going around the country stirring up apathy. The amendment is a charter for going around the country and doing just that. It is completely unjustified and should be given very short shrift. Lords amendments 6 to 13, to clause 6, are simply designed to rip the guts out of the Bill. My right hon. Friend the Minister for Europe very properly went through some of the things that Governments in future would be able to do without a referendum if the amendments were not disagreed to. Under the amendments, Governments could, without a referendum, give up the veto over foreign policy and over almost anything else under article 48(7). The amendments would allow the UK to join the public prosecutor and to extend the role of the public prosecutor to any serious crime with a cross-border dimension.”
“I thought the whole point of a threshold was to test whether there was a measure of consent for a particular constitutional change. The threshold in the amendment is not about testing whether there is a measure of consent but is more about testing whether there is a measure of resistance, or whether there is apathy. Unfortunately, the people who have largely guided European policy in this country for the past 20, 30 or 40 years have got away with what they have done largely by relying on people’s apathy and ignorance. The proposed threshold is designed to create an incentive for a Government who wish to transfer more powers to the EU to maintain high levels of apathy and ignorance. I am reminded of my late noble Friend Lord Whitelaw, who during the 1975 referendum accused the right hon.”
“He wants to go back to the system to which my hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom) referred—of signing up to treaties, promising referendums on them and then ratting on those promises. That was the record of the Labour Government. I regard all these Lords amendments as completely unacceptable. Whatever shortcomings the Bill has—I am afraid there are many, because it is limited in scope—the amendments are designed to pull the guts out of this democratising measure. The vote threshold proposed in Lords amendment 3 is not a recognisable one but a perverse one. It does not suggest that unless the number of votes reaches a certain level, a decision cannot be taken. It suggests that if the votes do not reach a certain level, the Government and Parliament can carry on as they like.”
“But that applies to a great deal of legislation. I do not understand the distinction that the hon. Gentleman is attempting to make. Actually, what the Bill will do is restrict the ability of Governments to give away power and to reach decisions in the EU and present them to Parliament as faits accomplis without reference to the people. That seems to me a thoroughly good and democratic thing. The hon. Gentleman has given the game away this evening about the future direction of the Labour party’s policy. What he has told the House tonight is that he is quite happy for aspects of the Bill to go through, but he is not happy for its provisions to apply to a future Labour Government. He does not want a future Labour Government to have their hands tied by the necessity of referendums before they give away more powers.”
“I agree with my hon. Friend. I rather like the hon. Member for Caerphilly, who is an engaging and assiduous parliamentarian, but I do not know whether he has given vent to his real feelings on these matters. Unfortunately, if one is speaking from the Front Bench, one’s real feelings rarely matter. One just has to do the bidding of one’s superiors. I just wish to end by—”
“If I follow my hon. Friend’s question, he thinks that we should have a referendum on more questions than are raised in the Bill. I agree with him.”
“I would not usually criticise civil servants in public, but they are now taking part in the political process having advised successive Governments to hand over more and more powers, as a result of which Governments have been in an ever-weaker position from which to defend our national interests. The Bill is a small step towards starting to redress the balance in the relationship between the overweening power of the EU and the people in this country governed by the laws it makes.”
“As recently as 26 May 2009, the latter delivered a lecture in Edinburgh on monetary union, in which he lamented that we were not trying to join the single currency. I raise those points not to stray from the substance of the debate, but just to question whether the people who proposed the Lords amendments should not stop trying to get Britain further into the EU, and start apologising for the appalling judgment and advice that they have given to successive Governments. Their advice has put this country into a perilous economic position—because of the state of the EU and the euro—but they have also advised successive Governments to hand over more and more powers.”
“We could therefore form a NATO-style command structure in the EU, which successive Governments have set their face against, and pass such powers into the treaties of the EU, without a referendum. I hardly think that the British people would vote for that. The noble Lord Hannay, former permanent secretary at the Foreign Office and former chief negotiator for the UK in the EU—an illustrious and distinguished person—is also an author of the Lords amendments. Do not mistake me: I have great admiration for the ability and sincerity of those people, but I just advert to their track record of advocating policy on the EU. Lord Hannay said quite recently that the single currency would be quite a good thing for the UK, as did Lord Kerr of Kinlochard.”
“The amendment on the threshold was introduced by Lord Williamson of Horton—he who was secretary-general of the Commission during the passage of the Maastricht treaty; he who was the secretary-general who pushed through the social action programme, which negated any effective UK Government opt-out from the social chapter; and he who was one of the architects of economic and monetary union, which is now collapsing around our ears. In Lords amendment 8 to clause 6, which incidentally completely fails to define, as my right hon. Friend the Minister for Europe said, “a single, integrated military force”, Lord Williamson is pretending that we should have a referendum on defence matters. However, I would just pose this question: does NATO constitute “a single, integrated military force”? I would submit that it probably does not.”
“I know that my hon. Friend does not advocate an in-out referendum, but the general direction of the EU certainly merits a referendum at some stage. I still flirt with the idea that we should have a referendum on the proposed treaty amendment. My right hon. Friend the Minister for Europe adverted to the fact that four fifths of the British public think that we should have a referendum on any treaty amendment. That seemed to be the substance of the Government’s original commitment, which has been hedged in the Bill. Perish the thought that I am straying from my support for the Government on the Lords amendments—I would rather stay where I am—but I would finally wish to remark that the authors of the Lords amendments have a track record of their own. The introducers of the amendments are not minor figures.”
“I hope that there is a change of heart in Whitehall officialdom such that when the next generation of civil servants arrives, they will seek to re-establish the independence of the UK within the EU, rather than to carry on weakening it.”
“Yes, but I am left wondering whether their advice to us from the House of Lords today reflects the advice they gave to Ministers and the policies that Ministers in their day pursued. I am also left wondering whether my right hon. Friend the Minister’s advisers, when they go to the other place, will be advocating the policy he is now pursuing. I think that we are up against the establishment here. The establishment in this country is still wedded to the idea of ever-closer integration and even of joining the euro. I do not think that the British people or the Conservative party, which I think represents the aspirations of the British people on this subject, accept that view.”
“I agree that it is a good thing, but I wish that the Bill applied to some of the powers that the Government want to give away now through treaty amendments and opt-ins.”
“May I just test my understanding? Am I right in thinking that my hon. Friend is saying that the original wording of the clause, covered by the Interpretation Act, covered everything, but referring specifically to the European Communities Act 1972 serves to limit the meaning of the clause so that future amendments to the 1972 Act will not be covered by it and are therefore subject to the interpretation of the Supreme Court?”
“In fact, it does not even refer to the word “sovereignty”. The clause puts in statute issues that are contested by the European Union legal structures in a context that means that the Supreme Court might have to interpret them. We know that some justices of our Supreme Court question the very notion of the sovereignty of Parliament as I have described it and think it is a matter of common law rather than of history and fact. I believe they are wrong and that Parliament will always be able to prove them wrong by legislating, as statute law always overrides common law.”
“I am not a lawyer—I am an amateur lawyer—but ever since we started discussing this clause earlier this year, I have had the sinking feeling that we are in very deep water and that we are potentially creating completely unnecessary problems for this House and for Parliament. I say that because the sovereignty of Parliament is axiomatic; it is self-evident and it is a historical fact. We do not need to legislate in any way to maintain the sovereignty of Parliament. There would have been some virtue in a declaratory Act with the legal effect of returning powers to the United Kingdom from the European Union to redress our relationship so that we had the ability to negotiate, but this clause, which has erroneously been nicknamed the “sovereignty” clause but is no such thing, does not even attempt to do that.”
“I do not wish to detain the House for more than a few minutes. I had not intended to take part in this debate, as I took part extensively in the debate on clause 18 in Committee and I thought that we had covered all the issues then. I had become reconciled to accepting the clause as the Government had drafted it and I came to today’s debate expecting my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash) to make a technical argument, but one that would not necessarily excite me—of course I was wrong. The hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr David) says that the clause does not take us back and it does not take us forward, but he has missed the fundamental point about the revised drafting of the clause.”
“I am grateful to my hon. Friend for drawing the House’s attention to that conversation. We are potentially engaged in the early skirmishes of a dispute between Parliament and the judiciary about which has supremacy. By legislating on this issue, which touches on the sovereignty of the Queen in Parliament, we are tempting the justices of the Supreme Court to begin toying with those concepts. They have already done so in some of their ancillary statements to cases—I forget the right word for such statements. We know that they are tempted in that direction and putting this clause into statute, as the evidence received by the European Scrutiny Committee showed, could be the red rag to the bull, providing meat for the justices of the Supreme Court to chew on.”
“The Act referred to in an Act of Parliament stands as it stood at the time of enactment and by specifying the European Communities Act 1972 in this clause we are opening up the possibility that at some stage in the future the 1972 Act will be amended but this clause will not apply to the amended Act or to the amendments to the Act, but only to the Act as it stands now. Should there be a dispute between the Supreme Court and Parliament about the sovereignty issues that touch on our relationship with the European Union, the question would be left open with more ambiguity rather than less.”
“I am just coming to the hon. Gentleman’s point. I was minded to accept that we had done such a thing before I heard my hon. Friend the Member for Stone speak, but he has described how the situation might have been made worse than it would have been under the previous drafting of the clause. He referred to section 20 of the Interpretation Act 1978, which, if I understand it correctly, already stipulates that when an Act is referred to in an Act of Parliament that Act is deemed not to be constantly updated by subsequent amendments.”
“Although my right hon. Friend, and indeed President Obama, are under all kinds of pressures to speed up the withdrawal from Afghanistan, and although that would be the wrong reason to withdraw, may I commend my right hon. Friend on setting a timetable, because that is how to accelerate the political process in Kabul and make President Karzai sit up and engage in the some of the talks that are already taking place? I also agree with my right hon. Friend that it would be quite wrong to internationalise that process. It must be done through the tribal structures and Loya Jirgas in Afghanistan, by and for Afghans. It is not something that we can supervise from the UN.”
“I commend my right hon. Friend’s determination to see through the NATO campaign to a positive conclusion, but when did the Government first realise that the campaign might take 100 days, six months or even longer? May I advise him that, having produced a report on strategic thinking in government, which the director of the Royal United Services Institute this morning described as a landmark report, the Public Administration Committee will return to the subject of how such decisions and assessments are made on a cross-departmental basis, which, as he rightly claims, he has much improved under this Government?”
“May I commend my right hon. Friend for getting down to the unglamorous business of how his Department works, and may I welcome the Levene report as the kind of corporate change programme that the Public Administration Committee is seeking to recommend for every Department? Will he bear it in mind, however, that such corporate change takes years and depends on united, consistent and sustained leadership from the top and throughout the Department in order to bring about the necessary cultural change that I am sure his people want to see?”
“I must confess that I think the House of Lords has done a pretty good job over the past 100 years, and I am glad that the Deputy Prime Minister acknowledges that it does, indeed, do a good job. I invite him to consider that House of Commons Library figures show that the average Member of Parliament costs the British taxpayer about £257,000 a year, whereas the average unelected appointed peer costs well under £100,000. Is now the right time to start demanding that we spend more money on more politicians, more expenses, more secretaries and more office space, when the House of Lords is doing a perfectly good job as it is?”
“On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Will you look into the House’s sound system? I distinctly heard the right hon. Gentleman the Deputy Prime Minister refer to the size of the House of Lords, when my intervention made no mention of that whatever, so he must have misheard me.”
“I commend the right hon. Gentleman for securing this debate and for examining conflict prevention in the round. I support the aspiration to achieve the aid target of 0.7% of Britain’s GNP. However, does he share my view that, just as aid is very important in promoting conflict prevention, so is the role of our armed forces? They could play a much greater role in conflict prevention. In fact, their role is to prevent conflict and not to engage in it. However, if they are under-resourced they will be less able to play that role.”
“May I urge my hon. Friend to bear it in mind that the nearer we get to the inevitable break-up of the euro, the faster the denials will be made that it is not going to happen? Will he urge the European Union to design a policy that creates a legal framework for an orderly departure of Greece from the euro? Can he name a single reputable economist who believes that the Greek economy can recover without a devaluation?”
“I thank the Minister for the information he has given the House and congratulate the hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Nick Smith) on his urgent question. There are two such homes in my constituency. This matter is of great concern not just to residents, but to staff. The impact on staff morale has an impact, in turn, on the care given to residents. I urge my hon. Friend to facilitate a speedy resolution as best he can, and to look at the model that we expect local authorities to adopt for buying care. Residents, their families and their advocates should be consulted more and be more involved in the process, so that care is more tailored and there are not such enlarged packages that can be exploited by large organisations, which may not be run as openly and transparently as they should be.”
“May I commend my right hon. Friend for his determination to engage to the maximum with the public sector unions to try to avoid industrial action? He has made it clear, however, that he does not rule out legislative changes. May I plead with him, on behalf of the Public Administration Committee, that we make changes in an orderly fashion, and that perhaps he should publish a Green Paper to consult on what changes should be made, so that we can have a proper debate about them rather than find ourselves propelled into legislative changes in an emergency?”
“May I assure my hon. Friend that he is entitled to plan military operations and discuss them with allies in private and that so long as he reports decisions to the House he will not have taken his country’s name in vain in any manner at all? May I draw his attention to the fact that US Carrier Strike Group Two will be visiting Portsmouth this weekend and then proceeding to the Mediterranean? Will President Obama be included in these discussions about military options in Libya, because we either have to break the stalemate or broker a peace?”
“On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Could you clarify whether the House has the option to take today’s votes in an order that would facilitate the expression of Back-Bench opinion, as we will be debating Back-Bench business? In the usual course of events, a motion is not voted on until the amendments have been taken. That means that if the Government use their majority to whip through an amendment, the House will never get the opportunity to vote on the motion that the Backbench Business Committee selected for debate. Is it possible for you to ensure that the House has an opportunity to vote on the motion that was selected for debate, or are we in the hands of the Whips and those under their influence?”
“On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. May I put it to you that the Backbench Business Committee is in fact not being allowed to operate as was clearly originally intended when it was established? Because the motion was amended, the Committee was unable to allow the House to vote on the motion that it had selected for debate. What advice can you give to the House on how that matter might be rectified so that in future, as on Opposition days, the motion is voted on before the amendment is taken? What advice can you give to enable that to happen in future?”
“Is this not yet another tatty roadshow brought to us by the same people who thought that the British people wanted the alternative vote? If the Deputy Prime Minister really believes that the British people want this reform—and I note that he makes no criticism at all of the way in which the House of Lords currently does its job—why does he not submit these proposals to a referendum, and let the British people decide?”
“I very much welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement and look forward, with interest, to reading his proposals for improving the mental welfare services for ex-servicemen in this country. May I just ask him to make an awkward clarification? I am sure that he has an answer to this question. This military covenant strengthening is clearly intended to bring an uplift to the services available to our veterans and this will have to be funded from within the defence budget. Will the extra resources have to be found from within the existing defence budget or can he assure us that they will be provided by the nation as a whole, by the Exchequer?”
“These obstacles and distortions impede the proper functioning of the internal market.” The proposed directive refers to “disincentives for investment”, to the complexity in article 3 whereby the “network of double taxation conventions between Member States does not offer an appropriate solution,” and to the need for “a single market for the purpose of corporate tax”.”
“The advisory part of article 5 relates to the objectives of the proposed action, and subsidiarity is a purely relative concept if it relates to the objectives of the proposed action, so what are the objectives in the case before us? They are set out at the start, and this speech is, I am afraid, about the futility of depending on subsidiarity. Subsidiarity is a futile defence of the national interest. Article 1 of the preamble to the draft directive states: “Companies which seek to do business across frontiers within the Union encounter serious obstacles and market distortions owing to the existence of 27 diverse corporate tax systems.”
“We should remind ourselves what article 5 of the Treaty on the European Union says about subsidiarity: “Under the principle of subsidiarity…the Union shall act only if and in so far as the objectives of the proposed action cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member States, either at central level or at regional and local level, but can rather, by reason of the scale or effects of the proposed action, be better achieved at Union level.” Back in 1992-93, when the Maastricht treaty was being debated, a great deal of Hansard ink was devoted to reporting the discussion of that principle, and I might say that I majored in the topic.”
“I am most grateful for the indulgence of the House in allowing me to take part in this debate, despite the fact, which I regret and for which I apologise, that I missed the speeches by the Economic Secretary to the Treasury and the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie), who speaks for the Opposition. I heard my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash) and the subsequent speeches, and I get the tenor of the objections that have been raised to the draft directive and the concerns, which have been very well expressed. I wish to speak not so much about the substance of the directive as about the matter that is so germane to this debate: the nature of subsidiarity—what it is, and what we mean by it. That is the issue on which the debate hangs: a plea for subsidiarity.”
“It was always something that could be a centralising, as opposed to a decentralising, concept, and if we rest our case against the proposal purely on the principle of subsidiarity we will allow the EU, rather than what we want ourselves, to determine what is imposed upon this country. If we rest our case against this proposal purely on the principle of subsidiarity, we are allowing the European Union to decide what shall be imposed on this country rather than deciding what we want for ourselves.”
“Indeed, article 26 of the draft directive, the penultimate paragraph of the preamble, states: “The objective of this Directive cannot be sufficiently achieved through individual action undertaken by the Member States because of the lack of coordination among national tax systems.” It goes on to justify the objective as being “in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity”— and in its own terms that is very difficult to argue with. I appreciate the European Scrutiny Committee’s points about the direct legal base, but the European Union is going for an indirect legal base. That demonstrates that subsidiarity was always a deceit.”