Overview of the Bill

The European Union Bill currently before Parliament is divided into three parts. The title of Part 1, ‘Restrictions on Treaties and Decisions Relating to EU’, provides that, in future, a referendum would be held before the UK could agree to an amendment of the Treaty on the European Union (‘TEU’) or of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (‘TFEU’); or before the UK could agree to certain decisions already provided for by TEU and TFEU if these would “transfer ‘power or competence’ from the UK to the EU.”

Part 1 also deals with other subsidiary issues: who would be entitled to vote in referendums; the questions that would be asked; and public education programmes to be organised by the Electoral Commission in the event of a referendum.

It stipulates that an Act of Parliament would be required before the UK could agree to a number of other specified decisions, either in the European Council or in the Council of the European Union; and that yet other decisions would require a motion – rather than a full Bill – to be agreed without amendment in both Houses of Parliament before the UK could vote in favour of them in either the European Council or the Council.

Part 2 of the Bill provides for UK approval for the Transitional Protocol on MEPs agreed at an Inter-Governmental Conference held on 23 June 2010. This Protocol would lead to the UK gaining an additional MEP. The means of returning this MEP is provided for by Part 2 as well.

The most significant clause in Part 3, Clause 18, seeks to place on a statutory footing the common law principle of Parliamentary sovereignty with respect to directly applicable or directly effective EU law. It is intended to provide that directly applicable and directly effective EU law is given effect in the law of the UK only by virtue of an Act of Parliament.

As will be discussed later, this clause, with its impact only upon applicable and directly effective EU law, is circumscribed in its scope and has failed to satisfy many of those within the Conservative Party it is most intended to please.