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Inter-Parliamentary Scrutiny (EU Foreign, Defence and Security Policy)

Indeed. The WEU's history goes back to 1948 and the Brussels treaty. The treaty was amended in 1954, which is when the Assembly came into effect. One very good thing about the treaty is its article 5—a common defence pact that, as it is not in any way replicated in the Lisbon treaty, we will lose as a result of the WEU and Brussels treaty ending in June. The Assembly, which was part of the treaty, has evolved over the years and has been known as the European Security and Defence Assembly for some time. It has brought together parliamentarians from all 27 European Union member states as well as non-EU NATO members in Europe, which have had associate status within the body. As such, they have been able to speak and vote but have not contributed to the budget. Eventually, as a result of the discussions I have mentioned, on 30 March 2010—the very last day before the general election on which business could be introduced in the House—a written ministerial statement from the then Foreign Secretary indicated that the United Kingdom intended to withdraw from the Brussels treaty. I think the other signatories to the treaty must have had some notice of that because the following day all 10 of them indicated that they too would cease operations before the end of June 2011. Those statements and a statement that the EU Foreign Affairs Council made a month later all paid tribute to the Assembly and said that its work should be continued by another inter-parliamentary body and that it should involve the non-EU NATO members in that parliamentary scrutiny. We all believed that was a way forward but, sadly, not much has happened since then. It has been a considerable frustration to me and my colleagues from all Parliaments across Europe that nobody has given any guidance on what we should do next. The EU Speakers Conference decided to take an initiative and ask its Belgian presidency to report on what the way forward should be. It was to report next month but, as we are all aware, Belgium had an election just after our election and although it took us five days to form a coalition, the Belgians are still working on it. As a result, there has been little action in Belgium on this matter. However, our Select Committee on Foreign Affairs has produced a report, under the chairmanship of my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South, and has—quite rightly, because it needs democratic legitimacy—put it before the House. In the report, my hon. Friend repeats an error to which I have just referred. Paragraph 3, on termination of the WEU, points out that"““the then Government announced that it intended to withdraw…from the WEU””" and"““commented that the WEU was 'no longer relevant to today's European security architecture'””."