Category: Press Releases

Yesterday in Parliament, John Redwood was quick to denounce the LibDem walk-out during the Lisbon Treaty debate. His intervention, taken from Hansard, follows.

Mr. Redwood: Does the Minister agree that it is a discourtesy to him and the House that the Liberal Democrats, after synthetic anger about their broken promise, should now have almost entirely removed themselves from the Chamber when those most important issues, in which they say that they are interested, are up for debate? We should now ask: where are they?

Mr. Murphy: That is not an issue for the Government or for any individual Minister. All that I would say in passing is that on the issue of Europe, the Liberal Democrats, in principle, see the benefits of our continued membership and continued involvement in the European Union and support the reforms in the treaty. As to the conduct of individual Members of Parliament, that is an issue for the Speaker or the occupant of the Chair, not for Government Ministers.

Later in the debate, Mr Redwood asked the Minister to confirm the firgures on power transfers under successive Governments. The question in full, taken from Hansard, follows.

Mr. Redwood: The Minister is right that there has been a progressive surrender of powers and a progressive increase in qualified majority voting, but to ensure that the record is accurate, will he confirm that qualified majority voting has been granted in 10 times as many areas since 1997 as were granted by Baroness Thatcher?

Mr. Murphy: The fact was that—[Hon. Members: “Yes.”] No, I disagree with the right hon. Gentleman’s analysis of Europe and, looking at the figures, I disagree with his analysis of qualified majority voting. The Single European Act made 12 such moves and the Maastricht treaty, which he supported, made 32 moves. There were 26 moves under the Amsterdam treaty and 32 under the Nice treaty, while the Lisbon treaty, as we have all discussed, makes 51 extensions.

<strong>During last night’s debate on the foreign policy aspects of the Lisbon Treaty, John Redwood raised a number of issues arising from the treaty in relation to Britain’s relationship with the wider world.</strong>

<strong>Mr. Redwood: </strong>It is now quite obvious that we will not be able to debate the second set of amendments, which is what we really wanted to debate. I had stepped out in case we got on to them, but with a vote that will not now be possible. Once again, it is extremely difficult for the House when important and weighty issues such as the defence of the country cannot be debated, because another important group of amendments on foreign policy still need to be disposed of.

Earlier in this debate, the Government’s position lacked clarity. It is quite possible for the Government to come to the House and say that they really think it better to have a common European foreign policy on all the main issues, rather than a British foreign policy. That is not a proposition with which I agree, but it is a perfectly respectable and understandable position. If that is the Government’s position, they will of course want Britain to make compromises and to work more with our partners. They will also want that common foreign policy to be expressed by a single president, high representative or Foreign Minister of Europe and they will want that policy to be represented around the table of the UN Security Council.

As the United Nations begins to understand that that is perhaps the way in which the Government wish to operate, other member states of the United Nations will ask, “Why should these people have three representatives around the table, when there is effectively only one country from the foreign policy point of view and when they’ve tried to get an extra seat by the back door?” The Americans, the Chinese or the Russians might ask, “Wouldn’t it be neater and more sensible to have just the one representative representing the common European policy, rather than the French and British view as well, which should be the same on these occasions?”

For those who wish to see the position clearly, the difference in House is quite simple. There are those who think that having most of this country’s major foreign affairs policy positions agreed with our partners by compromise is the right answer. There are others of us who think that, while we can do that on some things, there are enough differences between our country and the other member states that it is much better to keep things intergovernmental, not to assume that there is nearly always going to be a common foreign policy, not to put Britain under constant pressure not to be the odd voice out or to be different, and to allow the British Prime Minister and the British Foreign Secretary, on all those issues where we have a different view or we have an interest and the other member states do not have a strong interest, to be able to carry on doing what we have always done and to be a senior country in world affairs, because of our history and, most importantly, because ours is one of the few countries that systematically stands up for freedom, decent rights and democracy, and is prepared to back that up with the lives of its young men and women, and with the money of its taxpayers.

We make a large contribution in world affairs, along with our American allies, our French allies and some others who sit around the UN table.

<strong>Mr. Cash: </strong>Does my right hon. Friend agree, as I suspect he would, that there is something utterly pathetic about the situation we have arrived at in this debate? The question whether our young men are to be sent off to war really should be debated. The question of how a common foreign and security policy is being developed is being ignored by the Committee thanks to the means that the Government have employed to frustrate debate—

<strong>The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means: </strong>Order. We must return to the debate. I call Mr. Redwood.

<strong>Mr. Gummer:</strong> On a point of order, Mrs. Heal. Is this not a suitable moment for the Government to announce that they will introduce an extra day of consideration on which we may deal with the second part of the debate?

<strong>The First Deputy Chairman:</strong> That is not a point of order for the Chair. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman’s comments will have been heard.

<strong>Mr. Redwood:</strong> Thank you for those wise words, Mrs. Heal.

Part of the argument on this group of amendments is whether there should be at the UN Security Council table a representative of the EU view. For the life of me, I cannot understand why the other UN member states would want that, unless that high representative or that president of the EU was backed by some effective European force. The whole point of the UN Security Council is the main powers—those countries that can use their diplomacy and influence with other countries—trying to form a common view that the General Assembly will accept. More importantly, the main powers form the most important part of any force that might have to be used by and in the name of the UN to enforce such a common strategy, if one or two other states in the world do not agree and force is unfortunately essential.

In this debate, we have not had enough clarity on the important issue of how on earth the EU could expect to be taken seriously in that seat without having such a force, which we are told would not exist as, we are told, there will be no common army. At the same time, I find it difficult to understand how we could avoid other UN member states making the perfectly reasonable point that, as we were moving towards that common position, and therefore the common use of our military forces, there should be only the one representative around the Security Council table.

There is a perfectly good solution to the problem whereby we will sometimes have a common policy and at other times not—that is, the current situation. If there is a common policy, we have France and Britain with seats. For some time, Germany has held a seat under the elected system. In relation to the position that they are adopting at the Security Council, those countries can pray in aid the additional strength that lots of other European countries agree with them. It is even better if we can join with a big country such as India.

There has been a lot of discussion about India. I happen to think that India is getting close to the point where it should have a seat on the UN Security Council. I hope that there will be discussions and negotiations, and if India wants to assume the responsibilities of a big world power—it is becoming a formidable economic power—I would be happy for Britain to see that take
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place. I am not happy to see this double banking and double-hatting through the EU, with all the muddle that that implies.

There needs to be a clear decision about whether these matters remain intergovernmental, in which case France and Britain would retain their seats, or whether we are in transit towards a world with a country called Europe that has a single foreign policy on all the things that matter. Then, of course, the balance of arguments would switch heavily and other UN member states would probably take a rather different view.

I hope that the Government will be more honest with the public and with Parliament about just how far the pressures will build for a common foreign policy under the Lisbon treaty as drafted. It is all very well for Ministers to say that the main decisions will remain subject to unanimity; that is true under the text that we are being asked to approve. But we all know what will happen: because the treaty also says that we have to show solidarity and loyalty and form common positions, there will be remorseless pressure on every major foreign policy issue to produce a common position. If it is not in Britain’s interest to agree with the rest, we will be put under pressure and made to feel bad until we agree.

There are four different types of issue. There are ones where we naturally agree with our leading allies in Europe, in which case we can have a common position. There are ones where we care a lot and they do not, where we should be able to do what we want. There are ones where they care a lot and we do not, where they should be able to do what they want without us stopping them, as long as they do not do it in the name of the European Union. Finally, there will be areas where we disagree; in those areas, Britain must retain her independence, and that is not compatible with having a president and a European seat on the Security Council.

<strong>‘Parliament, accountability and creating better legislation’ were championed by John Redwood in the House yesterday, in the face of yet another affront to Commons proceedings in the form of the ‘Northern Rock’ Bill. He urged the need for a gap between Second Reading of the Bill and the Committee stage, so that MPs from across the House, whether or not agreeing with the Bill in principle, could help the Government produce the best legislation possible, having had time to become sufficiently acquainted with the issues.</strong>

His speech in full, taken from Hansard, follows:

<strong>Mr. John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con):</strong> I rise to speak because I see a disturbing trend: the way in which this legislation is being handled is reminiscent of how European legislation is handled— [ Interruption. ] Labour Members should listen carefully to this, because it is about Parliament, accountability and creating better legislation.

I rise to speak in defence of the Committee stage. All Members with experience in the House will know that the Committee stage provides an opportunity for Members of all parties who are interested, have experience or have been well briefed by outside interests to come to the Committee and make their contribution in order to help the Government to get the legislation right in their own terms.

Obviously, I speak as someone who disagrees with what this legislation is trying to do. However, were there to be a proper Committee stage, I and people like me would be able to join in and to try to get the words and clauses right in order to do what the Government want to do, having vented our anger on Second Reading about what they want to do. In order to have proper Committee proceedings, there has to be a gap between Second Reading and the Committee. I appreciate that in this case, the gap might have to be rather short, for reasons that Ministers have set out, but there could have been a gap so that we could have heard first, on Second Reading, what the Government were trying to achieve, after which those interested could have tried to help the Government pick their way through in Committee.

When I was a Minister putting legislation before the House—I did so relatively infrequently, because I do not think that legislation is a very good idea on many occasions—I was always very grateful for the Committee stage, and for the contributions made by some serious-minded Labour Members. I did not think that I and the draftsmen and women working for me in the Department had a monopoly on all wisdom, so it was helpful to have interested and well-briefed people making suggestions in Committee and trying to get the measure right.

As the House knows, we get only an hour and a half in Committee to debate huge chunks of constitutional treaty, and we are going to get only two and a half hours this evening, if the motion goes through, on an extremely complicated Bill that has implications for the country’s whole banking sector. I urge the Government to think again. The Committee stage is crucial. Members of Parliament need a chance to talk to people outside the House who have real expertise in these areas, and Members with expertise in their own right need the chance to marshal amendments and bring them to the Government’s attention. We need to table probing amendments to see whether the Government have got it right and we need to table amendments to help them get it right. That has not been possible in this case. Will the Government please think again?

During the subsequent debate, John Redwood made a speech in which he reiterated concerns over the Government’s inexplicable rush to pass this legislation, asking why they could not do some due diligence on Northern Rock first – standard procedure for any business take-over – so that the House can know what it is buying. The entire process, in fact, seems to be a list of unknowns in terms of what is being bought, and therefore what the implications might be for the taxpayer. Certainly the £110billion figure currently talked of is probably an optimistic one.

<strong>The speech in full, taken from Hansard, follows.</strong>

<strong>Mr. John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con):</strong> I have declared my interests in the register.

I want to see this business survive, recover and flourish. I quite understand its importance to the north-east. I do not think that the nationalisation model on offer is the way to do that. Indeed, as those on my party’s Front Bench have made clear, it could well be that given the constraints on competition policy and the uncertainty of the Government over the business plan, nationalisation will mean substantial redundancies and a winding down and a scaling back of the business—the very opposite of what Members in the north-east want.

I propose, as I have consistently advised the Government, that the Government and the Bank of England should act as an intelligent and tough bank manager to this business. They are the bank manager, because they are the lender of last resort, and they gave a large loan to the bank when it was in difficulties. What they should have done was taken enough asset protection for the taxpayer so that there was no argument about getting our money back. They should now secure what assets they can, which they need to give us protection, and then agree a timetable for the repayment of the money. They should agree a timetable that makes sense for both parties. Of course, if the parties cannot agree it, they can dictate it because the Bank of England is the only bank that will lend to this business, but it is better to agree it. It should be tough; there should be exacting targets to get the money back.

Under such a course of action, Northern Rock has all sorts of options. It has the opportunity to get money back if the markets get freer and it can refinance. It has the opportunity to get money back through cash flow, profits and the success of its business. If it cannot do either of those things, it can always pay the money back—assuming that enough asset cover has been secured, as we were told originally—because it can sell assets. The pace of the sale and the cash generation should be agreed between the bank manager and the business. The bank manager should lean on the bank to go further and faster, should watch inappropriate spending and should ensure that the bank is not spending unnecessarily on capital expenditure, high wages or elaborate bonuses. People should not be earning bonuses in a business that is under this much pressure. I submit that that is a far better model than the nationalisation model, with all its uncertainties.

As someone who has spent time in business and has, from time to time, bought a company, what I find breathtaking about the business before the House is the lack of the information that a buyer of any size of business would wish to have, let alone the purchaser of the biggest business, in cash terms, ever bought on behalf of the taxpayer. But we do not know the price. We are told that the Government have decided to buy the business without negotiating the price with the sellers—or without deciding what price they are going to impose on the sellers. We are told that we have to rush the legislation through in a week, but the Chancellor cannot even tell us how long it will take the Government to work out the price to complete the deal. It is obvious that they cannot complete the deal until they know the terms of transfer for the shares. Why the rush? Why can we not do some due diligence on the business first, as they will have to, when trying to work out a price for the compensation, so that the House knows what it is buying?

As the shadow Chancellor said, we do not know about the quality of the assets we are buying. There is no analysis of the repossession rate, past and future, or evidence about the quality of the lending made. There is no evidence about how many of the loans are at the 125 per cent. rate and no analysis of the unsecured loans. Such things are the first things someone would ask about if they were thinking of buying such a business. We have no analysis of the properties and the branch network. We have no idea whether there is surplus property, or whether the business needs to carry on with its big capital programme to build new property. There is no environmental report on the state of the properties and no report on the leases, or on the commitments to those property leases. Are they long leases? What would be the cost of paying some of them off if they are on inappropriate property?

There is no duty of due diligence on the people whom we will employ on behalf of the taxpayer. There is no human resource report, or report on the contracts of senior executives. We have no idea of the cancellation costs for senior executives if some proved not to be wanted in future by the new executive team. We have no idea of the number of write-offs and losses that the new executive team will want to record in the first set of accounts to clean everything up and make the task a bit easier. Somebody coming in on a salary of more than £1 million would be unlikely to want to accept everything as a given and to make no adjustments to the accounts.

We do not know from the Treasury what the impact on public borrowing will be. We do not know what the capital expenditure programme is and how much will have to go into public accounts because it cannot be funded out of the cash flows of the business. We know nothing about virtually anything that we are buying or about the risks that we are taking on.

There is no pensions report. We do not know the impact of the pension regulator’s latest idea that pension funds have been understating the longevity of the people in their funds and that the allowance made for that must be increased. The pensions liability, like contracts with the staff and any redundancy payments, will now rest with the taxpayer.

It is a disgrace that no normal financial and due diligence information is available on the business before we commit that huge sum of money. My hon. Friends have been generous in saying that the commitment is £110 billion. It could be more than that sum, which is the stated liability on the balance sheet, but does not include the pension, redundancy, property and environmental liabilities and all the other things that might come out of the woodwork. When one buys a business, one normally agrees a price in principle, fulfils due diligence requirements and either decides that the price is right or agrees a revised price in the light of what one has discovered.

Will Ministers please think again? Will they perform some due diligence duties for the taxpayer? If not, they will rue the day because they will lose us a huge sum of money and end up making unpleasant decisions, which will not suit the north-east.

<strong>Yesterday in the Commons John Redwood was again at the forefront of the debate on the Lisbon Treaty, this time concerning its provision for human rights. Mr Redwood championed Parliament as the appropriate and historic legislator for defining and protecting the rights of its people. Being bound to Europe in this area of legislation as proposed by the Treaty is yet another example of the erosion of Parliamentary democracy.</strong>

Mr Redwood’s six interventions and speech, taken from Hansard, follow.

<strong>(1) Mr. John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con): </strong>Does the Secretary of State accept that, over the centuries, it has been this Parliament that has defined, upheld and shaped our human rights, and that it should be this Parliament that does so in future? The European charter would be too inflexible and would not reflect the will of the British people.

<strong>Mr. Straw: </strong>I do not accept that. It was this British Parliament that decided in 1971 to join the European Union. It was also this British Parliament that signed up to the Single European Act in 1986, to the Maastricht treaty and to the treaties of Amsterdam and Nice. We now have the prospect of signing up to this one. It is open to any party in this country to propose in its manifesto that the United Kingdom should withdraw from its treaty obligations and leave the European Union. That is the sovereign right of this country and this Parliament, and long may that continue to be the case.

<strong>(2) Mr. Redwood: </strong>We do not disagree with individual rights—we disagree with the legal process which means that they are defined and imposed on us instead of defined and imposed from here.

<strong>[No direct response]</strong>

<strong>(3) Mr. Redwood: </strong>Does my hon. Friend agree that the major fallacy in the Secretary of State’s argument is that all these rights, if we like them, can be granted by this Parliament and interpreted and enforced through our courts, with the advantage that if we do not like them as they evolve we can amend them here without needing the agreement of 26 other member states?

<strong>Mr. Lidington: </strong>Throughout his speech, the Secretary of State carefully sidestepped the challenge posed by my right hon. Friend.

<strong>(4) Mr. Redwood: </strong>Is there not a simpler point? The European Court of Justice is a federalist, activist Court, which over time always makes judgments in favour of more European power, so why take the risk? We could opt out of the whole provision and not include it in the treaty.

<strong>Mr. Lidington:</strong> It is not only my right hon. Friend who says that Britain should opt out of the charter of fundamental rights; it was originally the position of the Labour Government, but they have subsequently abandoned it. If we further consider the likely consequences of a European Court of Justice decision deriving from the application of charter rights, we can see that irrespective of the protocol, any company that operates in more than one EU member state will change its practices across the EU, even in the United Kingdom or Poland, once the ECJ has given a judgment on what has gone on in one particular country.

<strong>(5) Mr. John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con): </strong>I am grateful to my hon. Friend (Mr Cash) for putting together and tabling so many excellent amendments, which, if we had the time to discuss them, would indeed provide us with the line-by-line scrutiny that we are being denied. Does he agree that the Government do not seem to grasp that the simple question is: “Do you wish to be governed by elected people in Parliament, whom you can sack, and from whom you can get a different answer following a general election, or do you wish to be governed by unelected people on the continent whom you cannot sack, and from whom you will never get a different answer?”? Is not that the issue?

<strong>Mr. Cash:</strong> It is the issue, and the point needs to be repeated over and over. I believe that there are Members on the Labour and Liberal Democrat Benches who believe in that, because their own parties evolved from, or came from, the fight in the 19th century for the very rights that we are now taking away from them. It is astonishing that a vague application of general principles, through the European Court of Justice, should be allowed to be a substitute for people’s right to choose who they want to vote for, and to choose the Government under whom they want to live.

<strong>Speech</strong>

<strong>Mr. Redwood: </strong>Tonight’s debate, like many of these debates, is about where power should rest. It is about democracy itself, especially in the context of the excellent amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr. Cash). I should like the amendment to go a little further, because I should like to see the sovereignty of a Parliament clearly reaffirmed and re-established in the laws that we enact when trying to tackle this rather difficult and refractory treaty.

This Parliament made itself great over many centuries because campaigners of all parties and of none—Whig and Tory, Labour and Liberal and Conservative—came together so often to assert the right of elected representatives in this House of Commons to make the laws and take the right decisions, and to face their electors in turn on the hustings so that their work could be adjudged good or bad and the necessary decisions could be made about the futures of MPs individually and of Governments that had exercised the powers of this House.

There have been two great movements. There has been a great movement over many decades to ensure that we reach the point where all adults have the precious advantage of the vote, so that they can choose those elected representatives and decide whether to remove them when they fail to do their jobs in the imagined way. The other great movement was to ensure that the powers were in this Chamber and in Parliament as a whole, so that here the laws could be chosen, here they could be amended, and here they could be struck down. What the Government are asking us to do tonight is suspend that right, in perpetuity perhaps, and certainly for a very long time—there is no fixed time for this treaty—so that in future such decisions may in many areas be made by unelected people in a European court. They may, as far as the British people are concerned, in future be made by unelected people sitting in Council chambers, often meeting in private and reaching decisions in private.

<strong>Ms Hewitt: </strong>I am following the right hon. Gentleman’s points with great care, but I am puzzled that he seems to ignore the fact that, ever since this country joined what was then the Common Market all those years ago, there has been primacy of European Union law as decided by the collective institutions of the EU and as interpreted by the European Court. The point he is making is simply an argument for the United Kingdom to withdraw from the EU. That is a perfectly respectable point of view, although I profoundly disagree with it. Is that what he is asking this House to decide, and is that the official policy of the Opposition?

<strong>Mr. Redwood:</strong> The right hon. Lady is a little cleverer than that: she knows that that is not the official position of the Opposition party, and nor is it the case that I happen to be making at present. Her history is wrong, of course: we did not give all those powers away at the beginning when we joined something called the Common Market in common parlance, or the European Economic Community as set out in the original treaty. That was not the deal offered to the British people when they last had a vote on this issue in 1975. It so happens that I voted “no”. I have always since accepted the verdict of the British people. I am sure that they voted for a common market, and that is what I would like them to have. They voted for co-operation and collaboration while our country retained its veto. What I dislike about the deal under discussion—the clauses before us tonight highlight this—is that our veto has been given away needlessly, when the Government had the veto to veto surrendering the veto; the Government just had to say “no”, and they would not have had so many law-making powers brought in by the back door by this treaty and this proposed legislation.

I, like my party, say that this deal is many steps too far—it gives away far too much of the power rightly accumulated by Parliament over the centuries to do good for the British people and to respond to their will and their wishes. The right hon. Lady has in a previous intervention in our debates today come up with a clever argument. She says that the magic of this particular block of work is that at last the EU will have to submit itself to the human rights court and the human rights convention that many states in Europe have signed. What she omits, however, to tell the House in that very partial interpretation is that that in no way detracts from the power of the European Court of Justice to keep on advancing its power at the expense of the British people and their elected representatives in this Parliament assembled.

<strong>Mr. Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con):</strong> The logic of the argument we have heard from the Labour Benches is as follows: as we have given some power away already, we might as well give the rest of the power away. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that is the Government’s position?

<strong>Mr. Redwood: </strong>That is clearly the Government’s position. They have shown total surrender in the negotiations over the treaty as a whole. The Government have told us again tonight that they wish the large number of principles and rights set out in the document before us to be adopted as part of our law code. Worse still, they will accept not one but two European Courts standing in judgment over us. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr. Cash), I am more worried about the European Court of Justice, because it has a long tradition of furthering a federal agenda. In case after case that Court is determining that there should be more power for law-making and decision in the European Union and less in the member states.

<strong>Mr. Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con):</strong> Is that not why this House and the British people should approach this treaty with the greatest scepticism? They will recall the European Communities (Amendment) Act 1986, which I voted against. Our right hon. and noble Friend Baroness Thatcher was assured that employment and the social contract would be outside the ECJ’s remit, but the ECJ took that area into its own power. Therefore, we should resist any Government attempt to hoodwink the British people into thinking that we should accept these assurances.

<strong>Mr. Redwood:</strong> That is exactly right. The facts are stark. This Government have surrendered 10 times more vetoes than previous Governments. Some of us had reservations about surrendering some of those other vetoes, but they were at least surrendered in furtherance of the Common Market, for which people had voted in a referendum. That was why Baroness Thatcher decided to make those modest surrenders of power in the 1980s. Since then, this Government have given away massive rights, duties and powers that have nothing to do with the Common Market for which the British people voted.

<strong>Mike Gapes: </strong>Surely the right hon. Gentleman cannot believe that the modest changes in this treaty or in the Amsterdam and Nice treaties are comparable with the massive expansion of European competence in Baroness Thatcher’s Single European Act?

<strong>Mr. Redwood: </strong>I suggest that the hon. Gentleman tries reading the different treaties. The Single European Act was, as its name describes, about market measures to try to promote a common market. I believe that a common market is created by having buyers and sellers and does not need nearly as much law as the European Union subsequently developed. The SEA was a very narrow area of work compared with a common foreign policy, a common army, a common defence policy, a common criminal justice policy, a common immigration policy, a president of Europe and a much-expanded Parliament, all of which have come under this Government’s watch.

At each point, the Government have claimed that they were not giving any real power away, that we would not notice the difference, that they had protected our interest and that the famous red lines were in place. We have heard all that nonsense, but we can see from the huge amount of work embedded in this revised treaty that massive powers were surrendered at Nice and Amsterdam, and that such a surrender is being proposed tonight in this crucial area of fundamental human rights.

We have been told by some Opposition and Labour Members that we do not value human rights or the very good principles embodied in parts of this text—but of course we value those things. We fight, and our predecessors fought, for those rights for the British people just as surely as the Labour party has often done in the past. We believe that those rights are best expressed in British law, in the English language and in a way that is answerable to the British people. We believe they have to stay like that, so that the British people can, through their elected representatives, change, amend and improve them as circumstances and time require.

This treaty is an inflexible, unaccountable and thoroughly undemocratic way of legislating. We are being asked to embody at one point in the long evolution of our national and European history, a set of principles that might make sense to some people now, but which are going to be extremely difficult to change. It will be impossible to change them in a democratic way in this Parliament, because the agreement of so many of other member states will be needed, as will a treaty amendment. As we can see, such an amendment is a complicated and difficult process.

We must amend these clauses and retain these powers that the Government wish to give away. We must restore the position that this Parliament makes these crucial decisions, so that we answer to our electors. We should live or die as politicians by how well we do and by whether we answer to our electors in the correct way.

<strong>(6) Mr. Redwood: </strong>The Minister is now getting to something interesting. Is he not ashamed that there is so little time because of the ridiculous guillotine motion? Many Members cannot tease out these important points and have a proper debate on them. Will he give us more time?

<strong>Mr. Murphy: </strong>That does not fall within the scope of the amendment. The matter has already been resolved by the House.

<strong>Last night in the Commons John Redwood was again prominent in the ranks of MPs remonstrating against the inevitable loss of Parliament’s legislative powers if the Lisbon Treaty is ratified. </strong>

John Redwood’s three interventions, taken from Hansard, follow.

<strong>Mr. John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con): </strong>Why did the Home Secretary not just say that Great Britain wishes to keep in place the original architecture—outside the EU treaty and European Court of Justice jurisdiction—and to co-operate with other member states where appropriate, so that we preserve our veto and future Parliaments can change their mind if they wish? The problem with her system is that future Parliaments will be bound by any decision she makes.

<strong>Jacqui Smith: </strong>I made it absolutely clear that I felt—I shall outline this when I make some progress in my speech—that having the benefits of taking EU co-operation forward through the new treaty arrangements alongside the protection of UK interests negotiated through our opt-ins on a range of justice and home affairs areas was the right balance to deliver the sorts of results that we wanted.

<strong>Mr. Redwood: </strong>Will the Home Secretary tell us how she would have felt if the previous outgoing Conservative Government had passed a series of laws that Labour did not like and had locked them all in by means of an opt-in so that they could not be repealed without the consent of most of the other member states? Is that a democratic way of proceeding?

<strong>Jacqui Smith: </strong>I would have hoped that any Government had negotiated hard in Britain’s interest. I would have hoped to see negotiating success such as that which we have seen in this case, although I am not sure that that Conservative Government would have achieved it. I also would have expected lengthy and detailed scrutiny of the proposals, along the same lines as that which we are carrying out and that will take place over the coming days. That is what the Government are delivering.

Mr. Redwood: Will my hon. Friend confirm that, every time the Government opt in to an area of competence under the treaty, the House can no longer reach a free and independent view and repeal and amend it and it cannot be debated sensibly in a general election? The people, as well as Parliament, have lost their power.

<strong>Mr. Grieve:</strong> My right hon. Friend is right and I shall deal with that point towards the end of remarks.

John Redwood has today made a submission to the Post Office consultation on the proposed closure of Barkham Road and London Road sub-post offices in Wokingham, in which he makes strong representations against the closures on behalf of local constituents. Both branches evidently offer an exemplary and convenient service without which many local residents would be significantly worse off. He also urges that, if the closures were to take place, there would need to be significant improvements in the service provision of the Broad Street branch to accommodate any migrating custom.

<strong>The submission and its covering letter follow.</strong>

<em>Mr. Tim Nickolls
Network Development Manager
C/O National Consultation Team
FREEPOST CONSULTATION TEAM

28th January 2008

Dear Mr Nickolls,

Please find enclosed my submission to the consultation on network changes for West Berkshire and Wiltshire. Two of the proposed closures, the London Road and Barkham Road offices, are in my constituency of Wokingham

I have received a significant amount of correspondence from my constituents concerning both of these closures. The enclosed submission summarises the case against closure.

Like many of my constituents I am particularly concerned about the provision of service in the Broad Street branch to which most of the customers are expected to migrate. Service capacity in this branch is already very poor, and unless improved any such proposals for closure will remain deeply unpopular.

Several constituents have complained that they feel these proposed closures are a foregone conclusion, and this consultation a futile gesture. I hope that you will demonstrate this is not the case by giving serious consideration to the concerns and suggestions outlined in this submission.

Yours sincerely,

John Redwood</em>

<strong>Submission to the Post Office Proposal for West Berkshire and Wiltshire by The Rt Hon. John Redwood MP</strong>

The concerns communicated to me by my constituents regarding the proposed closure of the London Road and Barkham Road sub-post offices in Wokingham take two forms: (1) that existing demand for the two sub-post offices is considerable; (2) that provision for migrating custom in the main Broad Street branch is wholly inadequate; and 3) closure will be most inconvenient for many of the branch post office users. My constituents are therefore against the closures.

Several constituents have raised the important point that a number of large-scale housing plans are currently being considered for the Wokingham area, some of which will undoubtedly be approved, if not by the local authority then possibly by the Planning Inspectorate, increasing the already existing demands made on the Broad Street branch.
<strong>
1.1 Concerns over the proposed closure of the London Road sub-post office</strong>

A petition against this proposed closure has been sent to my office. The petition contains 653 names and has been co-ordinated independently of the sub-branch management and workers. All the signatories have put their names to the statement that they are regular users of the London Road branch, that they think it is a busy branch, and that it is an essential part of their community. Those sending the petition to my office also expressed concern over the method used by the Post Office to estimate customer numbers at the London Road branch.

Constituents have praised the efficient service they experience at the London Road branch.

Some of its elderly customers cannot drive or walk the extra distance demanded by this proposed closure, a problem compounded by the poor bus service. A couple of local businesses have also stressed that they depend on the proximity of this branch for the efficient running of their business.

<strong>1.2 Concerns over the proposed closure of the Barkham Road sub-post office</strong>

Constituents writing to me about the possible closure of the Barkham Road sub-post office have again emphasised the efficiency of the service and the convenience of on-street parking they experience at this branch, in notable contrast to the experience of Broad Street customers.

They also maintain that the number of people living in the Barkham Road area is increasing rather than decreasing, with plans for at least 80 new homes in nearby Wellington Road and Molly Millars Lane.

According to correspondence from my constituents, the bus service, on which many elderly customers would have to rely in order to use the Broad Street branch, is infrequent.
<strong>
2.1 Concerns over inadequate service provision in the Broad Street branch</strong>

Those writing to me on the matter of these post office closures have been unanimous in their concern for the service provided by the main Broad Street branch, to which custom from the two sub-post offices is expected to migrate.

The queues in this branch are notoriously long, often extending into the street – an obvious problem for elderly customers, especially in inclement weather. For disabled customers the space limitations of the branch also present difficulties. Ten to fifteen minutes is not an uncommon time for customers to wait in the branch. Anecdotal evidence suggests that customers have been known to wait over an hour to be served, seemingly because only two positions were open.

Parking is also a considerable problem for the customers of the Broad Street branch, something which will clearly become a more common grievance if former customers of the sub-post offices are now driving to the main branch. The proposed redevelopment of the adjacent shopping area would also likely compound the problem of parking and traffic congestion. There is only one disabled parking bay by the branch and two bays adjacent to a nearby bank branch with a 30 minute limit. Otherwise the nearest parking is chargeable and 250 yards away.

<strong>2.2 Suggestions for improving the Broad Street branch </strong>

I urge that detailed proposals for upgrading and increasing the capacity of the Broad Street branch are budgeted for following this consultation. Such proposals should take into consideration the expected migration of customers if you intend to close either or both branches, as well as any pending planning proposals for the area which might further increase service demand.

I suggest that increased capacity on the scale demanded might best be achieved by rationalising the Broad Street site’s use. Sorting activity could be moved from the current location at the back of the site to better premises. This would release cash for much-needed expansion and modernisation of the existing customer facilities from the sale of the development.

Staffing the positions at peak times is also essential to improving this facility. Providing a means of achieving this should be considered in the consultation’s conclusions. The Broad Street front building should be retained and additional counters incorporated. There is room to do this on the left of the building.

John Redwood made two interventions in the Commons debate on the Lisbon Treaty yesterday. He stressed the need to devote sufficient time to debating its implications, over and above the limited time currently allocated by the government. Such careful consideration is needed now, since the treaty’s dubious opt-in system is very wrongly paraded by the government as a protection of Parliament’s decision-making powers.

The interventions, taken from Hansard, follow.

(1) <strong>Mr. John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con):</strong> Does my right hon. Friend think that the reason why the Minister needs only an hour and a half for amendments on each of the topics is that the Government have only one argument—“We’ve given the powers away, we’ll drive the Bill through with Liberal Democrat votes and we don’t care a damn what you think about it all”?

<strong>Mr. Hague: </strong>My right hon. Friend is certainly right that the Government want to drive the Bill through, although I suspect that this evening they will not have even the Liberal Democrats’ votes, so I shall not be as rude about them as I usually am. No doubt the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) will make his case in a moment—or for most of the evening, in all probability.

(2) <strong>Mr. Redwood:</strong> Would my right hon. Friend confirm that the danger of the opt-in system is that if the Government opt in, we cannot debate the matters in question in a future general election, offer to change a particular view or get powers back because it is a one-way ratchet? That is why we need hours of time to consider this grave step that takes away the people’s right to change their minds and have a better Government.

<strong>Mr. Hague:</strong> Once again, I agree with my right hon. Friend.

Earlier today (Thursday the 24th January), John Redwood met with Sir Michael Pitt, author of the official review into what action should be taken to tackle the problem of flooding, in the House of Commons to discuss his interim report.

John Redwood visited the affected areas in Wokingham over the weekend of last July’s floods, and has visited several of the sites subsequently to learn more of the problems and to try to direct help from the Agencies involved. His evidence to Sir Michael Pitt’s enquiry included the following main points:

1. In all too many cases there has been a lack of clarity over which body or authority is responsible for maintaining and improving the flood defences. This can lead to delay or failure to take the necessary action in time before heavy rainfall occurs. John has recommended that the Environment Agency draw up a list of the principal bodies with their responsibilities detailed on a district by district basis. He also proposed that an independent Adjudicator be established to decide in cases where public bodies and water companies are in disagreement about their responsibilities.

2. The Environment Agency, the water companies and the local authorities should be expected to maintain their flood defences to a higher standard than the EA has been achieving in recent years. There should be an immediate programme of cleaning and scouring to improve the flows and capacity of the ditches and culverts.

3. The leading authorities, including the Environment Agency, the Water companies and the Highways Agencies should draw up a programme of works to improve the capacity of their systems where it proved inadequate for the volumes of water last July. In many cases the work will entail a digger enlarging a ditch or creating an additional one, to take the surplus water.

4. Government Planning Inspectors should not grant new planning permissions on flood plain, unless they require the developers to pay for enhancements to anti flood systems which not only handle the extra water the development will generate, but make some contribution to the backlog of inadequacy in systems.

5. Consideration should be given to requiring new housing and commercial developments to include rain water collection from roofs for reuse on site as grey water for cleaning purposes, to reduce the flow into the drainage systems.

6. The Environment Agency should press ahead with its plan for a larger retaining area on the Emm Brook to control surplus flows during heavy rainfall.

7. The Environment Agency should examine flows and volumes on the Loddon and see if a longer term larger scheme is needed to improve the capacity of the river.

In addition to his submission and meeting with Sir Michael Pitt, John Redwood has repeatedly raised these issues in the House of Commons.

Speaking about his meeting with Sir Michael Pitt, John Redwood said: “The public does not just want the Environment Agency to publish better maps of flood risk, and to publish earlier and clearer warnings of floods. It wants the government as a whole to find ways of preventing floods by better water management”.

“I hope the Pitt Report will include these proposals in its final version. More importantly, I hope the Environment Agency and the other bodies will now turn their attention to better maintenance and a programme of improvements to the flood defences.”

<strong>When quizzed by John Redwood yesterday in the Commons debate on freight rail, the Secretary of State for Transport surprisingly conceded that road rather than rail activity was a much more viable option for businesses, and that commercial companies can only be expected to make this choice.</strong>

The question and answer, taken from Hansard, follow.

<strong>Mr. John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con): </strong>Why did the nationalised Post Office transfer so much of its activity from rail freight to the roads? Does the Secretary of State have any plans that might encourage the railways to win that business back?

<strong>Ruth Kelly: </strong>The answer is a very simple one: it was a commercial decision for the Post Office. The fact of the matter is that rail freight is growing incredibly quickly; it has increased by about 49.5 per cent. over the past 10 years. We can do more??I would like more goods to be shifted by rail freight over the coming years??but ultimately these are decisions that commercial companies have to take for themselves.

<strong>In the debate on rail transport in the Commons yesterday, John Redwood asked the Minister when Network Rail is going to understand the cash-raising possibilities for refurbishing stations such as Wokingham.</strong>

The question and answer, taken from Hansard, follow.

<strong>Mr. John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con):</strong> When will Network Rail, a publicly owned company, get to grips with problems such as a very tatty and run down station in Wokingham that could be rebuilt from the proceeds of planning gain on its very valuable site?

<strong>Mr. Harris:</strong> The right hon. Gentleman has been misinformed. Network Rail is a private company over whose operations I have no direct control. He takes a close interest in these matters, so he will know that in the White Paper published in July we announced ?150 million to act as leverage money for the 150 medium-sized stations. We expect major improvements to be carried out by Network Rail and its partners during the next control period between 2009 and 2014.