Category: Articles

Last week the Prime Minister at last grasped that the credit crunch and the banking crisis is serious. I have met people on the doorsteps and in the streets who have told me how it is already affecting their lives. When the banks catch a cold we all suffer. Those working for the banks themselves, those involved with creating and issuing mortgages, those earning a living from selling and buy properties are all immediately affected. As other companies find it more difficult to borrow, so more businesses will be unable to create new jobs or even hold on to all the employees they currently have.

A number of my correspondents and website respondents have said they feel no sympathy for the banks. The banks did well in the good times, and did not take enough care to prepare for the bad times. Some of the bosses walked off with huge paypackets and bonuses when they were failing to sort things out as they should. Many think the banks should be made to pay for their own mistakes, with the Treasury and Bank of England watching from the sidelines.

I do not agree. Of course bonuses for the bosses should be removed when results are bad, dividends for shareholders should be restrained or reduced to husband bank cash, and shareholders should be asked to put some more capital. That on its own will not be enough. We need more cash in the markets to allow banks to go about their normal business. It is one of the duties of the Bank of England to manage the money markets. They failed to take enough cash out and put interest rates high enough during the credit binge. It is important they do not now make the opposite mistake, and put too little money in and leave interest rates too high during the credit crunch.

Many of you are finding it difficult to balance the family budget each month. The government tells us inflation is under good control because they use the CPI which seems to include too many things where prices are not rising, and distort the normal shopping basket the rest of us have to buy. We all know just how much fuel, food and taxes have soared in recent months. The petrol and diesel price is a shocker, and most of that is tax. (More than 70p a litre now goes to the Treasury). We need some respite from all of this. Lower mortgage rates would help. A more restrained and efficient government would also help, by stopping the upward drive on taxes.

One of the changes I would like to see is a greater sense of urgency in Whitehall about the need to increase central government efficiency and reduce its administrative costs, as the burdens on taxpayers are so large. If only more of the money we paid went on teachers, nurses, doctors and police we might then have better public services, but more than three quarters of it does not go on these essential public servants. It is high time the government stopped saying it was going to deliver value for money, and got on with trying to do so. The government is spending too much, taxing too much and borrowing too much. It is the pot calling the kettle black when the government says the banks lent and borrowed too much. The biggest borrower and the biggest user of off balance sheet vehicles to buy things on the never never was the government itself. We will all be paying back those debts for many years to come.

Back in February, John Redwood had an article published in e-International Relations concerning the Lisbon Treaty, entitled Britain in Europe in 2008: Big World, Bad Europe, Ugly Consequences. This article was criticised by Professor Anand Menon of the University of Birmingham, who published a response under the title of Britain in Europe: A Response to John Redwood. Today, John responds to Professor Menon’s criticisms and argues that those who oppose EU integration are not “little Englanders”, but “big worlders” who wish to see Britain successfully respond to the challenges of US technology, and the economic and political rise of China and India.

It is such a pity that pro European Union apologists like Professor Menno demean their case by spiteful personal attacks and silly misrepresentation. His personal distaste comes out throughout the course of his casual remarks, as in his conclusion that “Redwood and his ilk should look beyond their narrow anti European prejudices”.

I have no anti European prejudices. Europe is my continent, and I admire many of its cultural, architectural, scientific and political expressions. I enjoy travelling, hearing the music and learning from the literature, admiring the great paintings and standing in the buildings that represent the European achievement.

I do have a point of view about government and regulation which is shared by the majority of my fellow countrymen and women. There is too much government, it is too expensive and too prescriptive, and too much regulation which often achieves the opposite of what it sets out to achieve. Like President Sarkozy, I admire the creation of a great democracy in the UK over the centuries, and the spirit of freedom and global vision which characterises the British at their best. I am not a little Englander but a big worlder, responding to the huge changes of economic and political power of our century that come from the excellence of US technology and from the rise of mighty India and China.

Professor Menon sniffs at Conservatives offering a referendum on Lisbon for no good reason. We have always said further transfers of power to Brussels need the consent of the British people. Why is the Professor so afraid to make the case for the Treaty if he thinks it is so good for us? Why do so many people in the UK disagree with him?

He denies my point that debates over constitutional change reveal how undemocratic the EU has become. What more evidence does he need than the way the French and Dutch governments ignored the results of referenda in their countries, or the breathtaking way the UK government denied us the referendum they solemnly promised to win a General Election? He says that was the national politicians, not the EU – but as he should know, the EU is a political elite made up of present and former national politicians, some of them now Commissioners, and some Ministers in national governments pushing the EU agenda. It is this elite which has become so cut off from popular opinion in the UK, and who lost the referenda in France and Holland.

The Professor claims Lisbon reinforces national control. He should try reading the full Treaty, which sacrifices 50 national vetoes, some of them over important areas of national policy, and pushes us further towards a common foreign and security policy and a common criminal justice policy. Those are legitimate aims for those who want a country called Europe governed to a greater extent at EU level, but proponents should make an honest case, not deny this is happening.

He complains that post Northern Rock I want less financial regulation not more, as if it was obvious we needed more. We already have masses of regulation – far more now than years ago when we did not experience runs on banks in the UK. The issue to ask is why should we believe all this regulation is good for us, when we survey the current mess created by the Basel global framework and the EU regional framework of regulation in recent years? We need less and better, not more, and more levels of regulation. It is best to have global agreements, as financial services and banking know no regional borders.

He also thinks an EU common market needs a strong regional government. You do not need a common government to trade with people. You need willing buyers and sellers, and World Trade Organisation rules, which are now good at policing more open markets at least in industrial products. Unfortunately EU rules block up agricultural markets in ways which damage the interests of UK consumers and developing countries and have not yet been dealt with by WTO engagement owing to the unhelpful stance taken by the EU in trade negotiations.

Professor Menon and his friends should understand that people like me want better living standards for all the peoples of Europe, and want Europe to make its contribution to a more prosperous and happier world. We do not find the protectionist and power seeking policies of the European federalist political class helpful in pursuing these goals which is why we want a freer gentler Europe with less government, not more.

The oddest thing about this slowdown and credit crunch is the delayed reaction – or the lack of reaction – of the UK housing market. Shares have slumped. Commercial property prices have fallen substantially. Retailers have complained about the squeeze on their customers. Yet house prices are still slightly up on a year ago, and the last few months have seen only small declines in the national house price figures.

High Stamp duty, Home Information Packs and higher mortgage and transaction costs must be encouraging people to sit tight and not move. The market has been short of homes to sell, just at the point when otherwise it might have gone down. Fortunately unemployment has not been shooting up, and most people have been able to meet their mortgage payments even though their budgets are under more pressure. There has been an uneasy equilibrium created by inertia and the new impediments to selling and buying.

We may still, however, be in a for a slow but painful decline in house prices. There is plenty of evidence that new buyers are finding it more difficult to obtain a mortgage. Gone are the deals offering total borrowings in excess of the house price, and gone are the days when you could get by without much of a deposit. US interest rates may be plunging, but UK general rates are much stickier, and banks and building societies are keen to rebuild margins by charging more for a mortgage relative to the general level of interest rates.

There are those who say they do not think lower interest rates will make any difference to the Credit Crunch – indeed that seems to be the fashionable position. They link this with fears about inflation in the UK getting out of control if any action is taken to cut rates. This is a strange misunderstanding of the position.

Lowering the general level of interest rates could be crucial to avoiding the slowdown of the housing market becoming something worse – a price crash. As part of the Credit Crunch is the banks’ unwillingness to accept mortgages when lending to each other, anything that makes it more likely more people can pay their interest on the outstanding mortgages would be good news. Surely more people will be able to afford the mortgage if the mortgage rate comes down, than if it stays up or even goes higher? In the USA the authorities have grasped it. They are fighting the battle of the bulge of the sub prime. If too many sub prime mortgage holders give up on the mortgage, then the losses will multiply through the banking system and more credit will be destroyed. The UK may not have had such an extreme version of sub prime lending as the USA, but similar dynamics apply in our housing market.
If the UK house price slide gathers pace, then more people will be in negative equity where the home is worth less than the mortgage. If more people lose their jobs, more will struggle to pay the high mortgage bills they currently face.

Meanwhile, many people are struggling with an inflation rate much higher than the official figures suggest. There is the shock at the petrol pumps, the increase in Council Tax, the surge in electricity and gas bills and the hit on bread and meat. The public sector is at last taking a tougher line on public sector wages. There is no evidence of inflationary pressures building up on private sector pay, as the market for goods and services is still competitive enough to make passing on big cost increases difficult. Private sector bonuses, especially in the financial sector, will be well down, deflating total remuneration. All this makes it uncomfortable for many people to pay the bills and get to the end of the month with something to spare.

It also means the UK authorities should not worry too much about inflation. We are living through the worst of it now. They should worry much more about slowdown and credit squeeze, which will curb price increases in due course but could do lots of other damage if allowed to get out of control. I urged the government to do more to relax the squeeze in my speech during the Budget debate.

So how was the budget for you? Few are pleased that drinks are going up a lot, whilst the tax attack on motoring is postponed rather than cancelled. The headlines were understandably taken by the bad news on whisky, wine and wicked cars.

Beneath the front page stories the Chancellor shuffled a few hundred million here and a few hundred million there, as if he were running an economy one tenth the size of the UK’s. The overall increase in spending is dwarfed by the huge supplementary estimates that went through with precious little explanation on the Monday of budget week. The big tax hike on alcohol will pay for very little of those big spending increases, so we now know most of that money is going to be borrowed. Pensioners will welcome a one year increase in fuel allowances but they would have been more reassured if they were promised for future years as well.

The budget speech contained endless references to “stability” as if repeating the word would deliver the desired result. If the Chancellor really wants stability, he needs to take the kind of action the US is taking to prevent the sharp slowdown getting out control – tax cuts and more assistance in money markets. The reason he cannot do this, is he has allowed careless spending in his inefficient public sector, taking public borrowing and spending to record levels just before the downturn in growth hits the figures.

What we needed was a serious analysis of the turmoil in credit and banking markets; an explanation of how quickly the vast sums lent to Northern Rock will be repaid; and a drive to raise the productivity of the public sector to curb its inflationary costs. Instead we were treated to little homilies on plastic bags, drinking and driving, as if they were the most important things on the Chancellor’s mind. He should be spending his every working hour trying to get to grips with the credit crunch and the Rock mistake. That is serious money. This was a budget of penny packets that will have no overall economic impact, though it will annoy those in the drink trades.

Our economic destiny instead rests on global events, and on the wider financial conduct of the UK government. Of course the sub prime crisis started in the USA, and some of the worst strains in the system are in the US banks. If the US authorities are successful with their policies of slashing interest rates, pumping liquidity into the parts of the money markets that most need it, and offering substantial tax cuts to keep the consumer spending, that will help all of us. The banking problems do not stop on the Eastern seaboard of the US. The only serious run on a bank so far after all occurred in Newcastle, not in New York. The global banking system is interconnected and feeling the pressures throughout. The UK is so constrained by the size of its own annual government borrowings, that it cannot afford to make the tax reductions the US has been able to offer to stop the downturn getting out hand. UK inflation is so entrenched, in part owing to public sector costs like rail fares and Council taxes and charges, that the Bank of England dare not cut interest rates as strongly and quickly as the Fed.

To give us more room for manoeuvre the government needs to get a grip on its own spending. This year has seen billions more in spending overruns, as weak Ministers just present the larger bills to Parliament and borrow the money. If the government were not borrowing so much it would be able to keep off the higher taxes. If it were not borrowing so much we might justify lower interest rates.

If you truly want to run a stable economy then you have to avoid borrowing at all in the good times, even pay some off, to leave you space to borrow in bad times. Unfortunately this government took advantage of an easy credit binge worldwide to spend as if it were going out of fashion. It is time to sober up, and quickly, before it gets hit by its own higher drinks taxes.

You couldn’t make it up.

Two weeks ago a Government Minister told parents whose children do not have places at their first choice school to appeal, in areas where the allocation was made by lottery!
The whole point of the lottery (sadly) was to stop parents who care about their children’s future, or who live near to one of the better schools, from automatically getting a place there. This was the Government’s cruel solution to the fact that there are not enough places at good state schools to go round.

Instead of tackling this underlying problem – too few places at good schools – they decided to tackle what they think is the problem – “middle class” parents gaining the places at the better schools for their children.

Had he cared about consistency, the Minister would have said that he was delighted so many parents had failed to get their children into the school of their choice – because it shows the lottery system is working. He should have told them there is no chance of their winning on appeal, as all those places in the popular schools have been earmarked for children whose parents did not covet them, to be awarded by lottery and government fiat.
I oppose a lottery scheme because I believe in choice, and I think that people should be able to improve their lot in life and the lives of their children. I want a government that uses choice, and frees the schools more, to drive standards up generally. If money follows parent choices, more children will go to better schools. As it is, parents and children in the lottery system are fed up, and the Minister himself cannot live with the grim reality of his own policy.

Parliament had a bad week. Most of the MPs were there, and we were allowed to work late for a couple of days as there was a huge amount to fit in to the end of the Commons committee stage debates on the EU Constitutional Treaty. However, when it came to the big debate on a referendum on the Treaty, time was too short to allow all those who wanted to make speeches to do so.

During the course of the debates the government and their Lib Dem allies told us that nothing significant was being given away in the new Treaty. They stressed that it will reduce the number of Commissioners and allow member states who want to leave the EU a way to do so. They accepted that 50 vetoes are being given away, but pointed out that some of them only apply to Eurozone members and others are relatively minor. They pointed out that the shape and length of the document is different from the Constitution it replaced.

Those of us who oppose the Treaty have shown line by line that some of those 50 vetoes matter a great deal. This Treaty gives the EU more power to make decisions in criminal justice, foreign affairs and defence, and encourages the Union to play a more prominent role in these areas. It will result in a President of Europe who will want to strut the world stage, and a High Representative in Foreign Affairs who will often be a more important visitor than the British Foreign Secretary and who will wish to corral us into a common policy on the main issues. It removes our veto over energy matters, where the UK’s interests as a substantial oil and gas producer can be very different from those of the consumer nations on the continent. Our famous red lines – which were supposed to protect the UK’s national interests – are not nearly as strong or as good as simply keeping our vetoes. It is true the Constitution has been recast, but as many a senior continental politician has been honest enough to point out, the result is almost identical to the Constitution. All they have done is replaced a document which rewrote all the old Treaties with a document which amends the old Treaties to get them into virtually the same shape as the Constitution!

Clearly our government thinks we were all born yesterday. All they have to do is to examine the results of the ballots, organised in ten marginal seats where the incumbent MP decided to rat on his or her promise to vote for a referendum in Parliament, to see that they have been rumbled. 88% of those voting want a referendum. They have not been persuaded the Treaty is sufficiently different. 89% want to vote against the treaty, because they do not wish to see more power passed to Brussels. I was pleased to be able to cast my vote for the referendum I always said we needed. I was pleased to be vote against the Treaty itself, and pleased to co-sponsor amendments and New Clauses which if passed would have strengthened democratic accountability here in the UK.

My regrets are twofold. It was sad to see Parliamentary debate on many of the important issues prevented by the government’s timetabling decisions, and sad to see such an easy victory at the end for those who are now against the very referendum they promised in 2005. These matters now go to the Lords. They doubtless will be given some time to pick up some of the points we were prevented from tackling, as well as having their own vote on a referendum. Neither Labour nor the Conservative Party have a majority in the Lords, so there will be keen interest in how all the other peers are going to go as they will decide the result. Labour peers will, on the whole, be against a referendum and Conservative peers will, on the whole, be for one. The Lib Dem and cross bench peers can decide the matter. I fear they will prove no friends of a democratic vote, but would love to be proved wrong.

Out and about talking to people over the week-end, the clear message was “We’ve had enough”. Council Tax bills, income tax, threats of higher green taxes and public sector charges, energy bills and food bills – the squeeze is on, and much of it results from wasteful government.

We live under rip off government. They have piled high the parking charges, the fuel duties, the pensions tax, the extra National Insurance, postal charges and rail fares. Never has so much money been spent by so few to so little effect.

Polls show the public were prepared to pay more tax a few years ago. They wanted to believe that just a bit more tax would lead to better hospitals, and more successful public sector schools. No-one minded paying a bit more to have more police on the local beat, and more nurses and doctors.

Instead people were asked to pay hugely more, only to see the money dissipated on a stunning array of extra officials, more regulations, bloated quangos, more management consultancy contracts, big computer schemes and large pay rises all round for the senior people in the state sector. As a final dose of salt in the wounds, people discovered that the MPs appointed to oversee good value for public money were themselves keen to test the elastic In their system of allowances and expense payments.

In the last few weeks we have seen a government gorged on wasteful spending blow another £100 million or so on financial advice about Northern Rock, only to conclude that the taxpayer has to stand behind all £110 billion of its liabilities, guarantee the jobs and the pensions and agree to pay any losses from here. People in the North-west voted against regional government, so we are still lumbered with it throughout England. It means we are one of the most over-governed countries in the world, with Parish, District, County, regional, national and EU government in many places. Layers on layers of officials write to each other and pass the blame around.

Some asked me if it would be the same under the Conservatives. They were alarmed by the comments of Mr Lansley, misconstrued by some in the media. Let me explain why I am not concerned.
The Conservatives have said that in office they would share the proceeds of growth between extra spending and tax cuts. Let us assume the economy produces £1.5 trillion of output in election year. Every one per cent of growth means an extra £15billion of income, and an extra £6 billion of tax revenue on that activity.
If the economy grows at its trend rate of say 2.5%, that is an extra £15 billion of tax from just one year’s growth. So the Conservatives could decide that say £10 billion of that was needed for increases in spending in priority areas like Health, and £5 billion was available to start tax cutting.

The Lansley remarks said that by 2023, if Labour’s plans went ahead, the NHS would take 11% of national output, instead of the 9% today. He did not promise to increase it to that level. Nor, over that time period would such a level necessarily pre-empt tax cuts. If at the same time the civil service was cut by natural wastage, regional government abolished in England, ID and other computer schemes scrapped and the quangos cut back to size, it would be possible to spend much more on health and pocket some much needed tax cuts.

More importantly Andrew Lansley pledged that a Conservative government would work with the NHS to raise quality and productivity – we need to get more for what we are already spending. People may say, they’ve heard such promises before. The truth is that any sensible government now should work hard to achieve just that. Everyone is fed up with a system that gobbles the cash without delivering the results.

Conservatives need to promise service improvements that can be delivered, not large sums of money for any particular budget. If you let people know in advance there are large extra sums available, they will work out ways of spending that money as quickly as possible without pausing to think if that spending is both necessary and likely to bring worthwhile results. Similarly, it is not easy to carry out a successful pay negotiation, ending in fair settlement, if you announce in advance that you have plenty of money to meet more or less any request.

For too long we have watched as Ministers have failed to engage with the difficult managerial issues that dictate how well run a service is and how much it costs to run. Their fascination with media events and spin, and their strange belief that they are at the beck and call of media, has left them short of time and energy to chair the meetings, lead the officials, encourage the machine to deliver more for less. The private sector has been under the remorseless cosh of intense competition. Everyone in manufacturing knows they have to do more with less to stay in business. The worst parts of the public sector have got used to doing less with more. No wonder we all feel over taxed and overcharged.

I hope you all feel better about being a part owner of Northern Rock than I do. Last week we had but little time as the Government whisked through the Nationalisation Bill to take over £110 billion of liabilities and all the staff, property, and contracts of Northern Rock. This amounts to an average commitment of £2,000 for every person in the country.

I am very nervous for the North East. Northern Rock is the most important business in the area. It is a big employer in its own right and has been a generous donor to the local community during its profitable private sector days. I fear for it in public ownership, as the record of nationalised industries has not been good.

Many of you will know that I am no great fan of nationalisation. I have come to this conclusion by seeing all too often nationalised industries put up prices by more than is acceptable, slash their numbers of employees by more than is desirable, deliver a poor quality service, and cost the taxpayer a fortune. I have seen and heard nothing from current Ministers in their approach to Northern Rock that gives me confidence that it is going to be better run in the public sector than it has been by private sector shareholders.

Wokingham has its fair share of problems from our current batch of nationalised industries. One of the oldest and biggest is the Post Office. Many people have petitioned against the closure of the London Road and Barkham Road sub-Post Offices. Many people think that the stamp price has been put up too much by the current management, regret the passing of two deliveries a day, and dislike the fact that the one delivery in the day often does not turn up before they have gone to work.

I don’t think Labour Ministers arrived in office ten years ago wishing to close lots of Post Offices and looking to make the service worse. They, after all, believe in the joys of nationalisation and would have told us, in those happy days before they got into office, that under them the Post Office would go from strength to strength, improving its service and providing a good deal. So, what went wrong?

Ministers decided to cancel a lot of Government business that had been transacted across Post Office counters. The loss of this business and revenue undermined many of the smaller Post Offices around the country. The Government had to ask taxpayers to pay more tax in order to subsidise the Post Office network. The losses escalated, and the new management the Government brought in decided on a series of measures that have proved very unpopular. They have put up prices by much more than inflation. They cut back on service levels. Now they are embarking on a large closure programme in a desperate effort to balance the books.

When I have asked Ministers why it was that the nationalised Post Office had cancelled a lot of its contracts with the partially nationalised railway, and transferred letter haulage from rail to road, I have been told it was because road offered a much cheaper and more efficient answer. Ministers told me this with no sense of shame, and with no suggestion that they might do something about it. Surely a semi-nationalised railway industry should show more fight than that, and try and temp bulk freight like the post back from the roads to the tracks?

Which brings me to the railway. I have gone hoarse explaining to the nationalised Network Rail and to Ministers above it that in Wokingham the use of railway land as a development site near the station could free the money needed to improve or replace our substandard station. They listen politely. They often agree with me, but absolutely nothing ever happens. There is no spirit of enterprise, no get up and go, no sense of responsibility that makes Network Rail want to grasp the opportunity and improve that important first impression of Wokingham for the rail travelling public.

It is a great pity that our nationalised industries are not more responsive to the public good. I hope our representations to the Post Office will make them think again about the closure of sub-Post Offices in Wokingham, but I have my doubts. I wish my representations and those of the Council to Network Rail would finally result in them seeing the need to renew their station, but I am not expecting anything to happen in the foreseeable future.

That is why I am pessimistic about the future of nationalised Northern Rock. That was why I spoke against the Bill and voted against it last Tuesday. I fear taxpayers are going to suffer from taking onto the books such a large and expensive mortgage bank. The Ministers I see day-by-day in the House of Commons do not show any signs that they understand either the magnitude of what they have taken on, nor what has to be done to create a flourishing business again.

The debates about the EU Constitutional Treaty was another sorry coda to our long and distinguished history of Parliamentary democracy. As I sat through or watched the days of debate, I felt so sad that the Mother of Parliaments had come to this.

Our constitutional history prior to the federal Treaties was a proud one. Three important movements came together to create a democratic nation.

There was the continuous pressure of Parliament to gain the right to censure and control the executive. The governments of Kings and Queens were made to listen, to deal with grievances, to ask before they imposed taxes. Later the royal government evolved into Cabinet government formed from the elected members of the Commons. The whole process revolved around the principle of no taxation without righting wrongs.

There was the growing pressure as the centuries advanced for more and more people to gain the right to vote, so they could have a say in how they were governed and who governed them. We moved from a franchise of rich men to all men, and from older women to all women coming to enjoy the right to vote. The principle involved was no taxation and new law without representation.

There was also the movement to enlarge and unite the United Kingdom, with Wales joining in 1485, Scotland in 1707 and Ireland in 1800. After the formation of the Irish Free State we arrived at a United Kingdom where the majorities in each part of the country were volunteers to be part of the Union and to stay in it. It is a Union based on popular support, and one which could be reduced in size should any majority emerge in any substantial part of the UK that wanted independence.

These three great movements are all threatened by the passage of the EU Treaty of Lisbon. The EU’s encouragement of regionalism will help split countries and encourage new loyalties. The EU’s wish to decide so many things through European Court of Justice decisions is inimical to government by representatives answerable to the electors. The EU’s wish to concentrate more and more power in the unelected government of the Commission takes away accountable power from Parliament.

The debates about the Treaty of Lisbon were at their heart debates about where power should lie. Those of us who believe in Parliamentary democracy believe the power should rest in Parliament, to be exercised by MPs on behalf of the people. Once every few years the people can then decide if that group of MPs have exercised it well in the people’s name, or if they need replacing. The people lose their power if Parliament loses its power. Neither Parliament nor people can control what the Commission does, what the European Court of Justice does, what the EU president will do.

Day after day during the Lisbon “debates” we were allowed just one and half hours to discuss a fistful of important amendments and complex issues about the government’s wish to transfer major powers to the EU and to put European duties into our law codes through adopting the Constitutional treaty. The government allowed four and half hours for a general debate each day, in order to prevent MPs getting into the important line by line analysis of the 358 Articles and 327 pages of the “Consolidated texts of the EU Treaties as amended by the Treaty of Lisbon”. Several MPs each day were unable to make the speech they wished to make on the first group of amendments. Subsequent amendments on the order paper languished without debate, thrown into the dustbin of history without word or vote.

This is a constitutional outrage. All previous governments have allowed substantial time for proper debate of constitutional bills on the floor of the House. Much of the time the House has met in committee, which means MPs have time to move amendments and speak to them. Some move probing amendments, to test out what Ministers think the words of the legislation they are recommending mean and will do. Some are important amendments designed to change the bill, to correct errors or remove harmful clauses and provisions.

Bill Cash invited a number of us concerned about the legislation to implement the EU Constitutional Treaty to meetings before the debates began in the House. We all agreed that we needed to move a series of amendments to strike out the varying parts of the Treaty and Bill which transfer substantial powers from the UK to the EU. Bill Cash kindly produced a wide ranging series of amendments which we co-signed and lodged. I am grateful to him for his hard work in producing them. Anyone who values a democracy in the UK should be glad he took the trouble and set out to make a fight of it before these powers are lost, as an adjunct to the full rejection of the Treaty offered by the official Opposition.
The government turned down the official Opposition’s request for 20 days of consideration. We were offered 12 in committee, plus a day on Second Reading to discuss the overall picture, and a day to discuss the so-called timetable motion. The Official Opposition argued passionately against the whole Treaty, and we voted against it on a three line whip. We all argued passionately against the very restrictive timetable, and voted against that on a three line whip. Needless to say we lost both votes, because there were too few Labour rebels. The Lib Dems sided with the government on the Treaty.

We were promised by the government “line by line scrutiny” of this massive piece of legislation, as if this were new or a concession. “Line by line scrutiny” of legislation was what we usually had before this government. Most bills went through on no timetable, allowing the Opposition to table as many amendments as they wished and debate them for as long as they liked. Parliament often met into the early hours in the morning to hammer out disagreements on complex bills.

What takes my breath away is the audacity of the government to introduce a constitutional outrage on this bill of all bills. Their decision to allow only one and half hours a day to debate amendments stifled proper consideration. Replacing the time we should have spent in committee with a series of longer general debates was a cynical manoeuvre designed to prevent the Opposition revealing all the danger in the detail as we see it. It implies Ministers are unsure of their ground and their case, that they do not wish to be exposed to the usual cross examination on the wording of each part of this long and complex text. As if denying us a referendum was not enough, Parliament too had to be sidelined.

The debates about the EU Constitutional Treaty have been a sorry coda to our long and distinguished history of Parliamentary democracy. As I sat through or watched the days of debate, I felt so sad that the Mother of Parliaments had come to this.

Our constitutional history prior to the federal Treaties was a proud one. Three important movements came together to create a democratic nation.

There was the continuous pressure of Parliament. The governments of Kings and Queens were made to listen, to deal with grievances, to ask before they imposed taxes. Later the royal government evolved into Cabinet government formed from the elected members of the Commons. The whole process revolved around the principle of no taxation without righting wrongs.

There was the growing pressure as the centuries advanced for more and more people to gain the right to vote, so they could have a say in how they were governed and who governed them. We moved from a franchise of rich men to all men and women..

There was also the movement to enlarge and unite the United Kingdom, with Wales joining in 1485, Scotland in 1707 and Ireland in 1800. After the formation of the Irish Free State we arrived at a United Kingdom where the majorities in each part of the country were volunteers to be part of the Union and to stay in it.

The debates about the Treaty of Lisbon are at their heart debates about where power should lie. Those of us who believe in Parliamentary democracy believe the power should rest in Parliament, to be exercised by MPs on behalf of the people. Once every few years the people can then decide if that group of MPs have exercised it well in the people’s name, or if they need replacing. The people lose their power if Parliament loses its power. Neither Parliament nor people can control what the Commission does, what the European Court of Justice does, what the EU president will do.

Day after day during the Lisbon “debates” we have been allowed just one and half hours to discuss a fistful of important amendments and complex issues about the government’s wish to transfer major powers to the EU and to put European duties into our law codes through adopting the Constitutional treaty. The government allowed four and half hours for a general debate each day, in order to prevent MPs getting into the important line by line analysis of the 358 Articles and 327 pages of the “Consolidated texts of the EU Treaties as amended by the Treaty of Lisbon”. Several MPs each day were unable to make the speech they wished to make on the first group of amendments. Subsequent amendments on the order paper languished without debate, thrown into the dustbin of history without word or vote.

Bill Cash invited a number of us concerned about the legislation to implement the EU Constitutional Treaty to meetings before the debates began in the House. We all agreed that we needed to move a series of amendments to strike out the varying parts of the Treaty and Bill which transfer substantial powers from the UK to the EU. Bill Cash kindly produced a wide ranging series of amendments which we co-signed and lodged. I am grateful to him for his hard work in producing them.

The government turned down the official Opposition’s request for 20 days of consideration. We were offered 12 in committee, plus a day on Second Reading to discuss the overall picture, and a day to discuss the so-called timetable motion. The Official Opposition argued passionately against the whole Treaty, and we voted against it on a three line whip. We all argued passionately against the very restrictive timetable, and voted against that on a three line whip. Needless to say we lost both votes, because there were too few Labour rebels. The Lib Dems side with the government on the Treaty.

There has been all too little about this in the media. These are important debates, whichever side of the argument you may be on. For Parliament to do them justice, we need more time to discuss the very detailed text before us.