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Foreign Affairs and Defence

It is an enormous pleasure to speak in this debate, which has had so many notable contributions by new Members, including the hon. Members for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi), for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds) and for Burnley (Gordon Birtwistle), my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart), who made a very good speech indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis (James Morris), and my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy), whose constituency I had the honour of representing for about 14 years some years ago. I was fascinated by his reference to Izaak Walton, who I think I am right in saying left his estate to the citizens of Eccleshall, in my constituency. However, under the terms of the charitable trusts, if they did not behave themselves the estate was to be left to the citizens of Stafford. There is an interesting interaction there. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the campaign that he maintained during the Stafford hospital crisis. We worked closely together and he showed his mettle, as I know he will as he proceeds in the House over the next few years. To revert to the subject before us, I begin by invoking the words of Disraeli, that great one-nation Tory. His book, "Sybil, or The Two Nations" was one of the spurs that brought me into politics. In his great book, "Coningsby"—this was in about 1849, after the repeal of the corn laws, with which my family was somewhat associated—he said that there was a great deal of shouting about Conservative principles, but "the awkward question" of what we are supposed to conserve "naturally arose". He also said that""England does not love coalitions"." We will have to a make a good fist of this one, but Disraeli said something else that I urge hon. Members to bear in mind in the context of this important debate. He said that""the Tory party, unless it is a national party, is nothing"." He did not say "nationalistic", which is extremely important. In other words, we put the national interest first. As I suggested in an intervention on my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary, we really must look at the question of the negotiations that will be necessary because we are now in government, not opposition. We have to receive legislation from Brussels and decide what we are going to do about it—not only from Brussels, but all the European institutions, which operate by majority vote, so that we do not have an option. It is not like legislation that comes from Downing street, the Cabinet Office or the legislation committee or wherever—it comes from the European Commission, which makes the proposals. We must react to those proposals, but what are we going to do? We must decide yes or no when there is a majority vote. I shall give the House but a few examples. Recently, on the question of the bail-out, £15 billion of British guarantees were subject to a majority vote. The previous Chancellor of the Exchequer suggested that there were legal guarantees. As a long-time member of the European Scrutiny Committee—26 years now—I shall be looking into that very closely in the next few weeks. Is it a guarantee and is it legal? Is it binding upon us despite assertions to the contrary? Is the Barnier report, which came out only yesterday, binding upon us by majority voting? Above all else—many other things—there is the question of European economic management and whether our own Budgets will be imposed upon us by a surveillance system before they come to Parliament. Those are crucial matters that go to the very heart of how we are governed. I wish that hon. Members and others outside would get rid of the idea that somehow those of us who raise such questions are wrong. If I may say so—not in any vainglorious manner—we have been proved right in our rebellion on the Maastricht treaty, which I conducted from this very spot some 20 years ago. When we look back, we should recognise that we were right over the exchange rate mechanism, and monetary and political union. Under the headline "Markets in turmoil", City AM, which is edited by Allister Heath, who became director of research of the European Foundation, a think-tank that I happen to have the honour of chairing, states:""SHARES worldwide plunged yesterday as fears that Europe's sovereign debt crisis would lead to a fresh collapse in the banking sector… Investors are concerned that Greece's debt crisis is spreading across the Eurozone, in particular to Spain"." We cannot exempt ourselves from the consequences of the mistakes that have been made in the European Union, the Lisbon agenda, high unemployment rates and our massive trade deficit, which results from the fact that we are trading with a Europe that is in turmoil. We have to revise our views about the European Union and I urge the Government to take that seriously. After all, my party was badly afflicted by the European issue in the general election. The United Kingdom Independence party deprived us of as many as 23 seats. We would not be sitting in this configuration if those 23 seats had come to us, as they would have done had we had a more robust policy on Europe. I do not doubt that many people would agree. How do we restore this nation's economy, its respect in the world and the respect of our people for their Parliament? This is not Europhobic nonsense: these are realities that we have to tackle if we are to govern ourselves. That is what the general election was about—whether the views of the people who voted for us are reflected in the laws that affect them during their daily lives. This is not about some theoretical abstraction; it is about the realities of life. Unemployment levels in other parts of Europe are astronomic. Europe is in turmoil. We need an association of nation states and, with respect to our own economy, small businesses can thrive only if we repatriate social and employment legislation—something that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister described as his imperative requirement in a speech he made in 2005. We must restore our ability to reduce our debt, which can come only from a vibrant and enterprising economy. That requires the repeal of that very legislation. The British Chambers of Commerce has suggested that small business legislation from Europe and elsewhere costs the enormous sum of £88 billion. That is completely and totally impossible and has to be reformed. Our competitiveness internationally will depend on our ability to ensure that we get the balance right. I am serious about this issue. We are now in government. We know that we have a responsibility to discharge. As I said in an intervention on my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary, we need a sovereignty Act to underpin negotiations on this issue. My Bill has been published and some have been good enough to refer to it as a gold standard. We have to require that, notwithstanding the European Communities Act 1972, we will legislate where it is in our vital national interest to do so, and require the judiciary to take account of the legislation passed in this House and override European legislation when necessary to restore this country to prosperity and well-being.