Intergovernmental Conference (Hansard, 10 July 1996)

§ 2. Mr. Home Robertson
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what responses he has received to the proposals contained in the Government's White Paper on the intergovernmental conference. [35162]

§ The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Malcolm Rifkind)
The way in which the British case has been put in the White Paper has been welcomed by many in this House and more widely. The member states, of course, hold a variety of views on the proposals.

§ Mr. Home Robertson
As a citizen of a country that has fairly successfully shared a common currency and, indeed, a common supreme court with its neighbours for 289 years without losing the identity of either Scots law, as the Secretary of State should know, or the pound Scots, may I urge the Secretary of State to be less timorous about the concept of a single European currency and a European social charter? For a start, why does he not face up to the nationalist backwoodsmen behind him, who want to challenge the authority of the European Court of Justice?

§ Mr. Rifkind
I am rather puzzled by the comparison that the hon. Gentleman has just drawn. The success of the union of these islands has been because we have created a single state. I did not appreciate that the hon. Gentleman was in favour of a united states of Europe.

§ Mr. Budgen
Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that one of the first requirements of the IGC's success is that the Commission and the nation states 385 honour the opt-outs that were obtained at Maastricht? In view of the disgraceful way in which the Commission and other nation states have acted in complete breach of trust by bringing forward the working time directive, will he ensure that the Government say that, until we get an undertaking that the treaty will be amended, we shall, as soon as we hear of the judgment, bring in a policy of general non-co-operation in Europe?

§ Mr. Rifkind
Were those circumstances to arise, the proper course of action would be to do what we would do if our courts ruled that an Act of Parliament should be interpreted differently from how Parliament originally intended. In those circumstances, one observes the law but uses one's energies to change it back to what it was always intended to be.

§ Mr. Robin Cook
How can the Government claim that excessive working hours have nothing to do with health and safety when all the evidence confirms that accidents rise sharply with longer hours? The Foreign Secretary will be aware that the Government are currently challenging the beef ban before the European Court of Justice. Would not this be an odd time to undermine the authority of the court by rejecting its ruling on the 48-hour working week? Will he therefore assure us that the Government will accept the court's ruling on the working time directive, and will he spare Britain the humiliation of being the only country with a Government prepared to allow employees to be forced to work longer hours against their will?

§ Mr. Rifkind
The right hon. Gentleman should reflect on the fact that Britain is the only major country of the European Union where unemployment has been falling consistently in the past two years. That is because we have resisted imposing foolish burdens on industry, which may look good on paper but which result in people who would otherwise be employed being jobless. The House will note that the Labour party is more concerned with imposing burdens on industry than helping the cause of greater employment.

§ Mr. Garnier
Has my right hon. and learned Friend received any responses to the White Paper along the lines that there should be further qualified majority voting in subjects not currently covered by it? Will he direct all his energies at the IGC to ensuring that QMV is not extended, and reject any suggestion that, unless QMV is extended, the European Community will grind to a halt?

§ Mr. Rifkind
Qualified majority voting already applies to wide areas of European Union activity, and I agree that there are no grounds for extending it. The argument often used by Labour Front Benchers, that enlargement of the European Union makes more qualified majority voting essential, is bogus. It has been produced by a total absence of analysis by those who advocate it.