Made in Britain
From Denis MacShane Sir: ‘Today, the Mother of Parliaments has lost half its power, with Brussels making half of British laws,’ says Anthony Browne (‘Parliament of eunuchs’, 30 April). My Conservative opponent in Rotherham goes further. His election address says that 70 per cent of UK law is now made in Brussels.
The truth is more modest. According to the House of Commons Library — an impartial all-party outfit — in a report produced in March, less than 9 per cent of UK law originates in Brussels.
Confusion seems to have arisen because under the EU’s Single Market there are common rules applying to all European business — many of them imposed by Lord Cockfield when Margaret Thatcher sent him to harmonise EU legislation and about half of business regulations in all 25 member states now come from Brussels. No member state has a national agricultural regime any more, and many of the UK laws fixing agricultural rules, prices, etc. stem from Brussels.
But the MPs swearing their oaths in the Commons next week will find they are debating made-in-Britain law. Anthony Browne’s points about the need for better parliamentary scrutiny of EU business is fair, and I hope MPs will support proposals which government ministers and others like Sir Digby Jones of the CBI have put forward to improve parliamentary debate and examination of what Brussels proposes.
Denis MacShane
Foreign & Commonwealth Office, London SW1
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