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Treaty of Lisbon (No. 2)

I regard this as having been a rather unsatisfactory debate. I managed largely to avoid the debates on the Maastricht treaty, although sadly I was once called by the Whips to make a filibustering speech lamenting the then Opposition's wasting of time during the debates—there was a certain irony to that, although I managed to discharge my duty with reasonable decorum. I find it unsatisfactory that we should be having a Second Reading debate on energy policy which lasts for four and a half hours, followed by a Committee stage that lasts for one and a half hours. My understanding is that things would normally be the other way round: normally a Committee stage lasts three or more times as long as Second Reading. We have it the wrong way round. It is a shame that it has taken more than three hours for the first Opposition Back Bencher—and I am not only a Back Bencher, but the Chairman of a Select Committee—to make their first contribution. Having said that, I am delighted to follow the right hon. Member for Leicester, West (Ms Hewitt). I did not agree with everything that she said—particularly her concluding remarks—but it is good to see a former Secretary of State for Trade and Industry using her skill and expertise and coming back to participate in debates. The right hon. Lady set a model for other former Cabinet Ministers in joining us in that way and showing herself to be a true parliamentarian, and I thank her for that. There is another unsatisfactory aspect of the debate. We waited more than a year for a debate on energy policy, and then, rather like London buses, two came along together. We had an energy debate last week, we are having another this week, and the Minister of State and I are to have a third opportunity to catch the bus tomorrow, when the Minister will attend a sitting of my Committee to discuss energy prices and generating capacity. I am sure that many of these issues will be dealt with again in detail and in a very congenial forum, and a fine job I am sure the Minister will do of it. So far in today's debate there has genuinely been little disagreement about the objectives that we all share. It has been very much a debate about mechanisms, which has made it slightly frustrating in many ways. I must tell the Secretary of State and the Minister that I am concerned about the provisions in the treaty, although not for the reasons identified by the right hon. Member for Leicester, West and certainly not for the reasons offered by the Secretary of State in his opening remarks. He suggested that the treaty was some kind of proxy for opposition to the European Union itself, and some kind of cover for a wish to withdraw from it. I believe that the Government were once opposed to these provisions. They had sound, well-argued reasons for opposing precisely the provisions that they now ask us to endorse. It is a shame that they lost the negotiations on the issue, because their negotiating position was the right one for the country, but sadly they abandoned it, which is why we are in the position in which we find ourselves today. As for my own position, it is simply this: ever-closer union must have its limits. There are some matters that all Members, however Europhile they may be, do not believe should be transferred to the competence at the centre. The limit must come somewhere. The question is where we should draw the line, and my contention is that in the case of energy policy the line pre-Lisbon was drawn in about the right place. I believe that the treaty pushes it a bit too far. Why does this matter so much? All Select Committee Chairmen think that their subjects are the most important to the country, and I genuinely believe that energy policy is one of the two most important issues that the country faces. The other, for my money, is probably skills, in which we have some competence in another Department. Those are the two key issues involving United Kingdom competitiveness, and hence the United Kingdom's future ability to pay its way in the world and our long-term security. Mercifully skills are not in any sense a European Union competence, and I think that that is the answer that the hon. Member for Northavon (Steve Webb) should have given when he was challenged on the point earlier. Skills are an example of the competences that we believe should remain firmly in this country. [Interruption.] Perhaps there was no specific suggestion to the contrary, but it is a good example nevertheless, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman would have endorsed that view in any event. We are debating the interrelatedness of energy policy and the European Union. What is also common ground between us is that there is no way in which British energy policy can be separated from European energy policy. It cannot be, and it should not be. In fact, when I write to my constituents urging withdrawal from the European Union, I cite energy policy as a reason for not doing so. Our ability to influence the European market in gas and, in particular, electricity depends on our membership of the European Union, and it is therefore absolutely in our interests to engage in energy policy. There can be no debate about that; the debate must be about how we are to engage in that policy. The question I want to ask is ““Do we need any new powers and competences at all?”” A thought at the back of my mind suggests that we might, and I wish that we were debating it now. I think it was my colleague on the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Angus, who made the point about French and German national champions, and listed other countries with a chauvinistic approach to energy policy. It is certainly true that the conduct of British energy policy is shaped very heavily by the aggressive chauvinism of, particularly, the French and the Germans. There is no doubt that the European Commission, in its magnificent battles with the national champions in the rest of Europe, is encountering a great deal of resistance to the liberalisation of the European markets that is so much in Britain's interests. It is possible that we need new powers to deal with that, but I do not think we do.