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European Community (Right of Residence) 8 FEBRUARY 1990
[Mr. Nigel Spearing]
The Minister kindly wrote to me again on 9 January and I will put what he said on the record. He has dealt with us scrupulously on this matter, and I want to emphasise that. He said:
"At the IMC on 21 December it was noted that neither Danish nor United Kingdom Parliamentary scrutiny procedures had been completed; there was further discussion, but no final agreement, on the question of legal base; and a number of other, minor, issues remained unsettled. As a result, no vote was taken on any of the Directives. The Presidency recorded, however, that political agreement on the substance of the texts had been reached, subject to the completion of Danish and United Kingdom Parliamentary procedures, and suggested that the IMC should give further consideration to the draft Directives at its next meeting on 22 February."
In his opening remarks the Minister told us that that expectation was to come, the expectation that the treaty base will be changed. But of course that does not really alter the fact that at an earlier stage the Government were willing to go ahead-maybe justifiably, maybe not- before a debate in the House, and that the issue of trading -these are the words we used-treaty base in substance has in our judgment probably occurred.
Therefore, the Committee issued another report, which I hope hon. Members have been able to get from the Vote Office, on 17 January, HC II-VII of this Session, which says:
"The Committee was therefore surprised to learn that political agreement was reached on the substance of the proposals at the Internal Market Council on 21-22 December, subject to United Kingdom and Danish scrutiny reserves, and that the only remaining issues for consideration are the appropriate legal bases for the Directives and a number of minor matters. In effect, the Government appeared to have agreed to the substance of the proposal, albeit with a Parliamentary scrutiny reserve, without securing agreement on its preferred choice of legal base."
I interpolate here a reference to what the Minister said at the beginning of the debate, which was that that was expected, and of course it could well be part of the political agreement to which he referred.
The report continues:
"The
Explanatory
Department's Supplementary Memorandum makes it clear that the Government now accepts that it is reasonable to interpret Treaty provisions on freedom of movement for persons as applying to non-economically active as well as to economically active Community nationals. It is also content that amendments to the proposal have strengthened the understanding that beneficiaries should not become a burden on host Member States. The Committee notes the Government's view that the draft Directives do not pose any major or unacceptable policy implications for the United Kingdom, and its position on the relevance of Article 235 as the appropriate Treaty base in each case. Nevertheless, the Committee maintains its recommenda- tion for the early consideration of these proposals.
The Committee remains disappointed that the Government has not found it possible to afford the House the opportunity to consider these proposals in the decade since the original recommendation until after substantive decisions on their content had been taken. It also reiterates its concern that the Government should have regarded, in this or any similar circumstances, the choice of Treaty base as being negotiable in a similar fashion to the substance of a Commission proposal, given the possible legal implications of adopting Community legislation on inappropriate treaty bases.
In view of the intrinsic importance of the draft Directives, and the circumstances which led to political agreement being reached at the Internal Market Council, the Committee
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considers the debate which it has recommended should be held on the Floor of the House, and not in a Standing Committee on European Community Documents." There was a motion down for this batch of documents to be sent to a Standing Committee, but representations were made and that is why we are here now. I place that on the record for the judgment of hon. Members as to the relative importance of this matter-whether it be of substance or procedural, and whether it should have been debated on the Floor of the House or in committee.
The amendment put down by the hon. Member for Southend, East (Mr. Taylor) is entirely on the matter of procedure. Whatever his own views may be on substance, and he has not told us them—not that I necessarily expect him to be here--his amendment reflects absolutely the view of the Select Committee. It has not been selected, and I make no complaint about that, but I wish to put it on record that the unanimous view of the Select Committee is in line with the sentiments expressed in that amendment.
The womb of law in the United Kingdom has been until fairly recently this Chamber and that of the other place. We are now, of course, in a completely different situation and the linkage between what Ministers do in the Council of Ministers and the influence that we can bring to bear on them before they go to the Council—the extent, to use an in phrase of the moment, of pre-legislative glasnost—is very important. I can only hope that the rather lengthy and perhaps tedious quotations that I have had to put on the record this evening will assist to improve visibility in these matters in the future.
10.29 pm
Mr. Roger Knapman (Stroud): I am particularly grateful to my hon. Friend the Minister for setting out so clearly and carefully the full effect of the draft directives in relatively few minutes, and I shall try to be brief.
I appreciate the full importance of the EC as a trading bloc, and its necessity to our future prosperity, but I should like to make a few comments on these fairly wide-ranging measures-especially wide-ranging for a Thursday night.
I understand the three draft directives to some extent. I certainly understand the first, which concerns students, and the second, which concerns employees and self-employed pensioners. However, the third directive causes me some concern. It involves the rights of residence for nationals of member states who do not enjoy this right under other provisions of Community law and members of their families. I thought that my hon. Friend mentioned that this amounted to only a few groups of people, in which case, I must be, as usual, totally naive, because I looked at the directive again and again and I come to the conclusion that it could apply to everybody.
As the directive concerns only a few groups, can my hon. Friend say whether he has any idea of the potential numbers of people involved, particularly in view of paragraph 23 of the explanatory memorandum, headed "Financial Implications", which says:
"there should be no direct increase in costs as a result of these proposals."
If that is so, presumably no great numbers of people will be involved. Once we know the number, perhaps we will be able to say what effect it might have on the housing situation, because in this country we have a greater