 Welcome to the 10th meeting of 2015 of the European and External Relations Committee. I'm going to make the usual request that mobile phones and electronic devices are switched off on airplane mode. We've got quite a good agenda this morning, and we've always got a good agenda, but a busy agenda this morning. Agenda item 1 is decision on taking agenda item 3 in private, which is discussion on our deliberations this morning. Agenda item 2 is a new topic for us. It's the UK's future relationship with the EU. On the back of the announcement last week, there will be an out referendum who said that this committee wasn't reactive and topical. We are delighted to have with us this morning back with us Professor Michael Keating, who's a Professor of Politics at the University of Aberdeen and the director of the ESRC Centre in Constitutional Change. Our erstwhile adviser on the white paper, Dr Daniel Kinnealy, is a lecturer at the University of Edinburgh Academy of Government. What is for the first time and welcome, David Frost, who is the CEO of the Scotch Whiskey Association and a former diplomat. Good morning to you all, gentlemen. We're delighted to have you here this morning to open up discussions on this very interesting and exciting topic. What I wanted to do was to give you all—I thank you for the written evidence of givness, but to give you all just a few moments each to not so much a formal opening statement, but a few moments each to explain your thoughts and feelings on the impact on Scotland of an out referendum, and I'm happy to start with whoever's first to open their mouth. Since my first appearance, thank you convener and thank you for asking me to come. Can I just say briefly before beginning that if I have something relevant to say for this committee, I think it's probably primarily because of my experience as a diplomat and in particular as the foreign officer's EU director a few years back and as the lead trade negotiator for the UK to late in months ago. So please take my remarks as drawing on that experience and in that personal capacity, and obviously where I'm representing in SWA position I'll make that clear, but I think you can take it that the SWA is a strong supporter of EU membership and the trade benefits that come with that. Can I just say perhaps the three things very briefly? What are the key issues for reform and the referendum? I think first it's the UK's national interest to stay part of the EU. We benefit economically from it very much, so I think the key issue is how does the government put itself in a position to win that referendum and keep those benefits. Second, I would say this is a big opportunity as well as an important moment. The UK has probably not been amazingly comfortable in the EU over the years. There's been more domestic political tension here than in other member states, and I think the big prize for the government is can it settle that? Can it enable us to be a comfortable EU member going forward? Finally, I think this uncomfortableness is reflected in the polling. The majority for staying in is thin and ambiguous. The majority for staying in a reformed EU is really quite strong according to the polling. The PM's task I guess is how to convince people, how to persuade them and how to get real reform and convince them that something significant has changed. I think that he's got to carry off the difficult task of bidding high enough to convince them that there's been change and to get it low enough to make it negotiable. I guess that's what he's trying to do at the moment in this first round of contacts and at the European Council later this month. We'll find out where the opening pitch is. Yes, I should say first of all that within our centre we've got a line of research that is looking at this. Over the next year, we'll be looking in some depth at the European debate, the prospects for the referendum and particularly the impact on the devolved territories of all of this. At the moment, picking up on what David said just in his last remark, it's very difficult to know where to begin because it's not at all clear to me exactly what the UK's negotiating position is other than there will be negotiations and there will be a referendum at the conclusion. The UK government has been very clear it wants to keep the single market but it wants some kinds of reforms within the more general apparatus, decision making apparatus and policy competencies of the European Union. The problem is that the single market more or less drives everything and this became apparent when the UK government had its balance of competence review. This was between 2012 and this year. There were 32 studies looking at various aspects of the European Union. Lots of evidence, some very interesting work done, some very interesting analysis but they didn't really find any competencies that could be appropriately repatriated to the United Kingdom or where there was a serious problem or competencies that could indeed be detached from the logic of the single market. Now that review of the balance of competencies is available on the web but you have to dig and find it. I had to google it this morning because it's not up front on the government's website. It's more or less just disappeared and this is curious but it does indicate that the government didn't really find anything seriously wrong with the relationship with the European Union that it could have used as the opening gambit in negotiations. So we've had various things coming out of this government and the previous coalition government but mainly of course it's the Conservative Party who are concerned about this. There was talk about the social dimension of the European Union being excessive. At one point they were talking about the social chapter which doesn't actually exist because the social provisions nowadays are scattered throughout the treaties but there is a concept of social Europe which is mostly to do with labour market regulation and protection of rights at work which is controversial because of its economic impact. That seems to have disappeared into the background now or it's become simply an argument about regulation. There's excessive regulation in the European Union and this is hampering competitiveness and there's a certain amount of sympathy in other countries for that position there. But then the government focused on free movement of labour. Sometime last year this became the central issue because of public concern about migration and opinion polls showing that there was a great deal more concern about migration in the UK than there was about the European Union itself and about free movement of labour and the arrival of migrants mainly from the new member states of central and eastern Europe. This was perceived as a problem whether it is or not is another matter but free movement of labour is itself one of the pillars of the single market. You can't just opt out of that and keep the other bits of it, the free movement of goods services and capital. That then became an argument about welfare entitlements. Maybe our welfare entitlements are too generous. Maybe people are engaging in welfare tourism or migration. The review of balance of competence, the look to that, didn't find any evidence that there was such a problem of abuse. But nevertheless it's something that's always on the table but it's not clear to me whether trying to curtail welfare benefits for EU migrants is about trying to deter migration or addressing a problem of welfare abuse. We really need to decide which it is before thinking what the appropriate remedy might be. We know that a lot of the welfare bill in this country is caused by the fact that we've got an economy with very high levels of unemployment but rather low wages. This is the development over the last few years and these are topped up by lots of in-work benefits. That's a peculiarity of the British system. Low wages are compensated by in-work benefits and credits. It's not quite clear how you can disentangle those from other questions to do with the labour market. When it comes to welfare entitlements we don't quite know what the issue is and we need to decide what the issue is before we can examine what might be done about it. Then there's been some talk about protection of the United Kingdom from Eurozone rules since the UK opted out of the Euro. The Eurozone countries themselves started doing things themselves because they need to do certain things in common. That might have an impact on non-Eurozone countries. I'm not sure whether anything could be done about that because the Eurozone countries are always free to do things outside the treaties but nevertheless that's something that the Government has signalled. Then there's the question of whether treaty change would be required for whatever the outcome of the negotiation would be and if treaty change is required this creates all manner of complications because not only would all the other 27 member states have to agree but some of them would have to have referendums and some of them would use the opportunity to put other things on the agenda so I'd anticipate that the Government would try and avoid treaty change and the other member states would also and that restricts how much you can do. Then just briefly as far as Scotland is concerned there is a pro-European consensus amongst political parties and civil society generally in Scotland stronger than there is in England. Public opinion is slightly less Eurosceptic here but consistently so. The Scottish Government has adopted a different position on migration saying that it's not a problem and that for demographic, labour market, economic reasons Scotland needs migrants that's the present Scottish Government and its predecessor have agreed upon that. Scottish Government's European papers have indicated that they are in favour of a social dimension which the Conservative party tends to... Well it's not happy about, let's just put it that way. There's the whole question of whether Scotland could adopt a distinct position in these negotiations or whether it just goes along with the United Kingdom. There were negotiations last year about justice and home affairs where the Scottish Government started out by seeming to have a different position but eventually fell in behind the UK position but if Scotland does have a different position what you do about it does Scotland have a different vision of Europe generally from that of the present UK Government then there's the question of what the role of Scotland would be in these negotiations. The Scottish Government and this Parliament what role would they would have there because whereas the Scottish Government is represented in the UK delegation to the council of ministers on a number of matters it's not quite clear what the devolved administrations role would be in constitutional negotiations. They certainly don't have the same position that they have in regular policy matters and that's something that would have to be resolved fairly quickly. I don't know what the discussions are. I'm talking to people in government next week and may know more but it is important that the devolved administrations should have a place there and finally there's the question of public engagement in forming the general public about what is going on here. We've got the experience in Scotland here of the referendum where there was a massive public debate and a huge degree of engagement and it would really important to try and build on that experience to get genuine information and engagement of the general public to carry them along with whatever the decision might be. Just briefly add on to what Mike said. I think it is tremendously uncertain at the moment so everything that we're going to say this morning is caveated and hedged because we don't know precisely what the set of demands might be, what the negotiation strategy might be, picking through various speeches, statements, manifestos and so on from the Prime Minister and from the Conservative Party. I've kind of, and it's sort of in my written evidence as well, focused in on four areas that seem to be of concern. I think Mike mentioned at least three of them, possibly actually all four of them. One is the issue of EU migrant workers coming to the UK and what their kind of access to benefits system, the welfare system is. To me that's the kind of main part of the meal and the rest is sort of seems to be garnish on the side. To various degrees, quite symbolic I think a lot of these garnishes. One of which of course is the phrase ever closer union. We've heard quite a lot from the Prime Minister but other ministers to the Foreign Secretary that we'd like an opt out or some sort of revisiting of the phrase ever closer union. Maybe that's something that we can discuss. I'm still not entirely clear what that would actually mean. It's part of the preamble of the treaty. It doesn't have any direct legal effect. It actually was inserted into the treaty in its new form by a Conservative Government at Maastricht specifically to guard against what was seen to be a sort of centralising or the fear of a centralising Brussels bureaucracy. They changed ever closer union to ever closer union amongst the peoples of Europe as opposed to the states and so on. That seems to be one of the garnishes on the side. Then the Prime Minister has also talked about strengthening the role of national parliaments to be able to block European legislation. Now that would build on a system which already exists, the so-called yellow and orange card system which is little used but does exist. So there's the possibility for additional power for national parliaments there somehow. Then there's the issue of Eurozone voting and as Mike was alluding to the idea that a block of Eurozone members might vote in a certain way according to their interests and the non Eurozone members might end up sort of almost permanently disadvantaged. There's precedent around the European Banking Authority in the way that was set up to look at sort of double majorities for that. Although if you wanted to change the system of voting on the single market that would require a very significant treaty amendment and I think that would be near impossible although you never say never. So to me there the kind of four areas is migration, ever closer union, stronger role for national parliaments and this issue of making sure Eurozone members can't outvote non Eurozone members on a sort of systematic basis to pursue their interests. Then we've got to think about the mechanisms through which any change, any of those changes might be delivered and I think we can think of this on a sliding scale from the less difficult to the more difficult. The least difficult thing to do is to amend your own domestic legislation that is to do things differently at home. And I dare say in a lot of the issues around sort of welfare and so on things could be done differently at home whether that's minimum wage, whether that's tighter restrictions on advertising, jobs only abroad so to speak or offshore, whether it's pushing the envelope a little bit more on what we consider to be a job seeker for EU purposes. There's things that could potentially be done differently at home that's the easiest in a sense thing to do. The next easiest or the next most difficult I suppose thing to do is to seek legislative change in Europe. So not the treaties but you change directives and regulations that govern free movement of citizens and free movement of people and that would require obviously to get the consent of the parliament and it would require a majority, qualified majority of votes in the council. So a higher threshold you'd have to negotiate, you'd have to build a coalition and then the most difficult way to do this, the highest burden, the highest barrier is treaty change and I think from previous inquiries around the white paper the committee's well aware of how difficult treaty change is and the different ways it could be done. I dread to mention article 48 again but that's where we would have to look if we were going to talk about treaty change. Then just come into the issue of Scotland's interests in particular. I think the First Minister in her speech this week made it clear that it wouldn't have been a Scottish Government priority to pursue a referendum and actually I thought it took quite a strong stance actually on what Europe means to her and what Europe means to a lot of people and in terms of her discussion in that speech of the need for movement forward on the digital single market, the single market in services, these are things that could be accomplished, they don't need treaty reform, they just need ongoing work, coalition building and so on in Brussels to pass new legislation and to surpass new laws. What I thought was interesting in that in terms of the Scottish dimension of this is welfare. If we imagine hypothetically that there will be changes somewhere down the road to for example the benefits that EU migrant workers or job seekers can claim in the UK, there's then a question of whether or not Scotland could treat those same people differently if they lived and worked here and that brings us quite squirly to the provisions of the Smith commission so I think there's linkages here. The way I read that at the moment, the way I read the Smith commission which is by no means the definitive reading of it, if a Scottish Government in the future wanted to give different benefits to EU migrants here that were effectively denied to them for a certain period of time, four years has been mentioned by the Prime Minister, I think there'd need to be an amendment to the current draft legislation around Smith. Smith allows for the creation of new benefits in devolved areas, it allows for the top-up of non-devolved benefits but this would be an issue of actually allowing access to benefits to people who in the UK system wouldn't have that access for at least a certain number of years and to me that's qualitatively different so there could be a specific Scottish interest there although this is all obviously caveated and hedged because we don't know what the Prime Minister is going to actually ask for. The last thing I'd say in terms of Scotland being able to pursue its interests in this particular area, I think that the inter-governmental system, the JMC machinery is certainly the hidden wiring so to speak of this, there is a push at the moment and again this is partly a consequence of Smith to strengthen the inter-governmental relations system and to strengthen the concordates, to turn them the JMC from less of a kind of talking shop into a forum where actual deliberation and decision making takes place. I'm not sure whether those changes will be done quickly enough or be received positively enough by the UK government to make a difference to these negotiations that are going to happen over the coming months and years but that's something to be watched as it evolves. Other than that I think the public forum, the public engagement, I think it'd be very welcome if we have Scottish ministers and Scottish opposition politicians as an added voice so to speak in presumably the yes campaign to stay in the European Union, I think that's a healthy thing but I think an awful lot of the interests that the Scottish government might wish to pursue will have to be done through sort of public pressure and an attempt to raise issues and raise awareness because as far as I can see it the issues that the Prime Minister seems likely to push on really don't touch particularly on devolved competences so it's hard to see a formal mechanism other than persuasion through the JMC system and so on that those interests could be pursued. The last thing I'd say is obviously the issue of the double lock which has come up. I mean in terms of how can Scotland secure its interests if Scotland effectively controls has a veto on whether or not the UK can leave and Wales and Northern Ireland effectively have a veto and I suppose you could argue their interests would be secured because they just whichever way they voted would be the outcome. I've written in my evidence that I'm not in favour of that system which I think should be more accurately called a quadruple lock really not a double lock because it's giving a right to four people four constituent units of the country to block an exit and I've set out the reasons why I wouldn't be in favour of that proposal but obviously it's an issue in the air and it's a position that the First Minister has taken that would allow Scottish interests to be secured. Thank you very much for the really detailed information and very different information from all of you. Before I move to open in questions I just wanted to draw the committee's attention to the written evidence we've had from Dr Eve Hepburn who's not been able to join us this morning. She's unwell and we sent her our best wishes for a speedy recovery but I wish to just draw committee's attention to to Eve's written evidence which is it takes a very very strong lines on the migration and immigration aspect of this whole debate. Open questions Jamie McGrigor. Thanks very much. Well the Prime Minister has consistently said that he is looking for reforms which would benefit not just the UK but other countries in the EU as well and he also spoke about the different preferences of different countries within the EU. I mean for example Germany looks after a car industry. France is very keen on supporting her culture. The UK I think one of the most particular things is the financial services industry which of course is vital for Scotland as well and Edinburgh particularly. So I suppose my question I noticed Mr Kinnealy that you said it would be useful if the Scottish Government could be clearer about what if any distinct and specific interests Scotland has in this process as opposed to repeatedly calling for a multiple veto lock and then you go on to say for the Scottish Parliament to be able to effective scrutinise performance of the Scottish Government in this area would be useful if the cabinet secretary could explain clearly what the objectives being pursued are and via what mechanism they are being pursued. So I suppose my question to you is how I mean there are some things like for example you know everybody seems to complain about the visit to Strasbourg as being a waste of money but that is going to be very difficult to change as far as I can see because it's such a sort of basic part of the treaty in the first place which was insisted upon by the French and I don't if that's something that could be but you talked about moving directives and I mean is it in your view possible for the UK and for Scotland to do something about supporting the financial services industry which is which really would be reform that would matter to this country and Scotland in particular. Could you expand a little bit on what you said about the cabinet secretary making clear what Scotland actually wanted? Absolutely, well I think just from the principle of accountability I think it would be useful if it's difficult to hold somebody to count something if you don't know what their aims are and you don't know what their objectives are so I mean all I'm saying simply in the evidence is that it would be helpful if we could have as clear a statement as possible as to what the aims are but that would be true of the UK government I would say at the moment as well as the Scottish government. I think you know the First Minister's speech this week obviously my evidence was written before that was given so I didn't have sight of it went some way I actually thought it was quite a clear statement though that you know we wouldn't be having this referendum it was up to us we don't think it's a priority but given that it is here's what we think about it and we don't think for instance that migration is the key issue we wouldn't be making this a priority and so on we're more concerned with with pushing forward on a digital single market a single market in services and so on cooperation in energy and so on all of which could be done through the kind of if you want the normal business of Brussels that doesn't require us to sort of stop and renegotiate anything so I think we've gone some way this week into seeing you know what what potentially the interests of the Scottish government has distinct from or the interests of Scotland has distinct from the rest of the UK might be in these negotiations I mean in terms of specifically you asked about say sort of financial regulation I mean I think again piecing together statements and speeches and you know it's fair enough you don't publish as a government you don't publish your entire negotiating strategy up front that would be a rather bizarre thing to do so we're all working trying to sort of piece together different statements and speeches and paragraphs from things here and there but in terms of financial services and financial regulation it seems to be that that the concern is that eurozone member states might for instance do things that are in their interests which possibly aren't in the interests of the non eurozone states and so what I've seen is a suggestion I've seen a suggestion from from the UK government that we need to move to a system in that area where we have a basically a double majority system so you have to have a majority or qualified majority of eurozone members but yours have to have a majority of non eurozone members to move business forward so that one can't output the other so if we want to move forward on that you see that would be to me something which would require treaty change you were asking for instance if you could do this through directives I think if you really wanted to hardwire a different mechanism of voting in the council to govern these sort of areas you'd have to be looking to the the treaty to do that but there's precedent for it I think now you know that the other member states have shown a willingness to have this kind of double majority system around the european banking authority which was set up so the precedent seems to be there I'm not saying it's impossible I'm just saying that I think to really hardwire a change in voting in the council you'd really need to look at treaty change it's interesting what you say about the eurozone and the non eurozone and because it appears to me that you know if the prime minister has allies and in some of them are well there's the Dutch but there's the Finns the Danes and the Swedes who I think are all outside the eurozone aren't they certainly the Swedes and the Danes are but but you know that they seem to be coming on as allies for reform I would say whereas some of them have probably you know are still to look at this and see what what possible reforms there could be which might benefit the whole of the the EU do you think that this is a debate that has to go on within the other EU countries in order to get a proper perspective on it? Yeah I suspect so I mean first of all let me just be very clear I'm not suggesting that the UK government is going to Brussels with absolutely no friends to talk to on these issues at all I mean we've already heard statements from I think the German government and as you said the Dutch government around particularly the area of of welfare and access to the benefit system of their countries for EU migrant workers so we're not pushing on I don't think the UK government will be pushing on entirely closed doors on all of these fronts but yes there'll have to be a process presumably of building up alliances and support for whatever the specific lines that the UK government wishes to pursue are and in terms of for instance there are yes there are other non-urazone members who probably would be interested at least in having a conversation about whether we need to look more closely at that voting rules my expectation is that the debate that we're about to have in this country about our membership will have a knock-on effect in other states I mean Mike mentioned in his opening statement that one of the dangers of opening the treaties is well everybody comes forward with things that they don't like about the European Union and it's kind of politically difficult to imagine that the other 27 states would say okay let's open up the treaties and we'll just do it for you and we'll just do it to address your grievances that to me is theoretically possible but it doesn't seem politically very imaginable so I would imagine our debate would trigger discussion and already is triggering discussions in other member states about where they'd like to see reform so yes I think is the very short answer to your question. Mr Frost have you got a bit of an insight in just the conversation that's gone on there? Well thank you just a couple of points perhaps I agree with a lot of what's been said but perhaps just on this question of allies I guess you know what we've seen happen I think in the EU in the last month really is that the British problem probably before our election was a kind of second order issue for most in the EU they could see it coming but it wasn't yet live since the election it now is live and I think it's now regarded as a first order problem on the same level as the eurozone and Greece and so on collectively so I'm absolutely confident everybody is thinking very hard about this and actually they have been for some time and I think one of the useful things about the Prime Minister's agenda as we understand it at the moment is that it is designed to tap into sympathy around the EU there actually is quite a lot of sympathy for the greater over national parliaments for more liberal economic reform in some places for more openness more trade and so on particularly across northern Europe that's that's probably quite widespread opinion now you know will they want to sort of spend a lot of effort writing it into treaties is different but I think there's definitely a constituency there to move some of this forward that we you know should be tapping into if you want this to succeed thank you and good morning gentlemen and Professor Kitty you mentioned migration in the passing and also you've mentioned benefits as well now the First Minister's later stall in which she's suggested that immigration perhaps might not be that high up in her agenda however will never the less immigration is an issue migration is an issue and what would you think would happen if we tried to pursue this separately from the United Kingdom while still being a part of the UK? Well it is entirely possible for Scotland to have a more well-opened community to to migrants within Europe because neither Scotland nor the UK government control that issue so it's simply a matter of how welcome you are what opportunities you provide for migrants what benefits there are available and there's a certain amount that Scotland could do and is doing to realise a pro more welcoming attitude to to migration think about housing policy education policy health policies the competence that it controls can be used to integrate migrants better to to anchor them better and provide the kind of support that migrants need the other issue that Dan mentioned and which has mentioned in his paper is about what discretion there would be providing different kinds of welfare benefits and I think he raises a really important point there but Dan is right that we don't quite know what's going to come out of Smith but at the margin at least one can imagine that there would be a more generous attitude towards social entitlements of various sorts in in Scotland than there would be in England recognizing that migrants make a net contribution to taxation that's the point that's that that is being demonstrated on numerous occasions so it's not as though we're giving something away it's recognizing the contribution they're they're making it might be important then that scotland would be able to get the tax benefits the tax payments that these people are making rather than that going to to london but that is also on the agenda at Smith and the income tax receipts will will come to Scotland following the Smith recommendation so I wouldn't say this being a major issue or affecting the flow of migrants in a big way but at the margin that could that could be quite significant and it's something that Scotland could do a little bit differently. Adam Ingram. Thanks very much convener. I just wanted to pick up on Mr Frost's comment that the Prime Minister's objective is to secure EU membership. It seems to me to be a funny way of going about it by focusing on immigration and the free movement of Labour, which is surely a fundamental part of membership of the European Union and would require treaty change if there was anything substantive to be to be done about it. Now I'd just like to tease out your own thoughts with regards to what actually could be done in terms of altering the current arrangements for the free movement of Labour to satisfy, on the one hand, what the Prime Minister's political objectives are, which I assume are to deal with the Eurosceptics and the UKIP approach on the one hand but on the other wouldn't require a treaty change which other countries wouldn't entertain. Thank you. I'll do my best and as I said before it's a personal view and I'm giving you here based on the work I've done on the single market and so on over the years. I think it looks as if the Prime Minister and the UK government have shied away at the moment from some of the more ambitious attempts to constrain free movement and really attacking the kind of fundamental principle of it as one of the four freedoms. It doesn't look as if that's their objective at the moment anyway and so we have this debate about welfare and essentially issues at the margin around free movement and I'm not really an expert in that particular aspect of the single market but it does seem to me possible to amend some of the rules around free movement through secondary legislation if there's a political consensus around this without fundamentally attacking the principle and you know the analogy I would draw from an area I know a bit better which is free movement of goods and free trade is that you know a few years back 10 or 15 years back there was a direction of sort of court opinion and legislation which was going in the direction of saying virtually any difference between a member states kind of terms of trades like opening hours of shops or something like that was a disguised restriction on trade because it made it more difficult for non-members to trade in and if that had been pursued you know you would have seen virtually every difference sort of eliminated over time and implicitly and bit explicitly members say it's the court and others said you know hang on a minute we don't really intend to go that far you know we're not sort of obsessive about implementing this principle right down to the very farthest limit and so to me that's the kind of parallel for free movement you know it is possible to take sort of pragmatic view at the margins about how you implement this principle without critiquing the basic way it works and it seems to me that's what the government is trying to do and I think it's being done before in other areas without hitting the single market as such. I suppose the question I would have for Professor Keating and Dr Kinnelly would be would that satisfy what we see as a political opposition to the EU and to the free movement of labour within the EU or have we opened a Pandora's box here? I suspect it wouldn't but we've got a window of opportunity here which may be one reason why the government seems to be wanting to get the referendum over earlier rather than later, past 3 2016 rather than 2017, in which David Cameron has got a political momentum because of his unexpected election victory. He's got a majority in Parliament albeit a small one. He's got the attention of other member states. He's started talking to them and they've started talking to him which was not the case over the last two years. Relationships have really deteriorated. The UK has been regarded as an awkward partner by the other member states. Now they've engaged into debate. They're elaborating an agenda which seems to be about incremental reform. They're opening up the question from beyond the UK getting powers back to what can be done to reform the EU as a whole and public opinion is turning because it's more pro-European and recent months the polls have been turning. That could easily disappear and we could get a return of the strong Eurosceptic tendency. There's nothing that will satisfy UKIP at the Charter Withdrawal. Within the Conservative party there's a Eurosceptic wing which is also in favour of withdrawal but they're not very vocal at the moment. This is an opportunity within the next few months to get that right and get a package that can be taken through a referendum but it drags on for two years and I think it all fall apart. Certainly what the Government is talking about at the moment will not satisfy the die-hard Eurosceptics. If you want out then you're not interested in these rather small changes. I would agree with most of what Mike said. I think there's just specifically about the issue of free movement and this issue of access to the welfare system. The background of this seems to be the European Court of Justice has been on a little bit of a journey, I would argue at least of late, where after years of being really quite expansive in its rulings on what the rights of EU citizenship were they've just slowly started to pull back on that a little bit. They've gone from having a bit of a tinnier on it to being a little bit more politically attuned perhaps and the so-called the German benefits tourism case from last year the Dano case was something which got a lot of high profile in that regard. I think what we need to understand crucially is this is the key relationship between EU legislation, the EU treaties and the court and without knowing specifically what the Prime Minister may wish to or not wish to pursue amending legislation if that EU legislation if it's underpinned by a provision in the treaty would still give the European Court the right to come in at some point in the future and say well that's no we don't accept that amendment we don't consider that legal that that violates the treaty and so if we look in the treaty is the provisions around equal non-discrimination and equal access and so on for for EU workers but also for job seekers then changing the directive or changing the regulation might get you might buy a little bit of time potentially but if you change it in a way that doesn't satisfy the European Court and you haven't changed the treaty they will eventually someone will take a case to them they will come back to you and say well that's no good and you're back to square one so there's an interaction between the legislation and the treaties and the role of the court and that is really significant one thing that could be done for instance with the status quo that we wouldn't need any real change excuse me is the issue of transition controls and I think if we're thinking about potential a package of reforms that can be sold if we just think about it purely politically for a minute a package of reforms that can be sold as serious change you know this idea of transition controls so a new member state joins in for a number of years or until it's GDP is at a certain level of average wages or at a certain level free movement doesn't kick in you could do that through the next accession treaty you wouldn't need to change the European Union treaties if you could if you could get well you wouldn't even need to get agreement because accession of new member states is done through unanimity so the UK could seek to win more people in Europe around to that idea of transition controls but actually it could exercise vetoes on new membership if it wasn't happy with the terms so there are some things that could be done I only mentioned that because it has been specifically mentioned by the Prime Minister this idea of transition controls that could be done as is but elsewhere when you get into the issue of welfare the interaction between the directives and the treaties gets really really complicated thank you very much rod just kind of following on from that panel the other 27 member states they're trying to protect their citizens in relation to welfare benefits apart from kind of litigation the european court of justice what other practical steps can they take if they want to oppose some of the moves that might take place here sorry did you not hear I didn't catch the middle basically for the other 27 member states apart from obviously going to the european court of justice or maybe they that that will be an important part what other steps can they take to try and protect the interests of their citizens against the adverse consequences of kind of welfare changes in the UK well that would be the principal mechanism trying to think off the top of my head I mean they could of course they could simply block whatever proposals come forward from the UK if they don't like them I mean if you have to change a directive or pass a new one you'd need a majority in the parliament you need a qualified majority in the council so if enough of them didn't like it they could simply kill it dead at that point if it was a change that needed to be underpinned by treaty change for instance they'd all have a veto on that because that would be unanimity so they could stop it that way but if for instance again I'm trying to imagine scenarios if they agreed to something and then they didn't like the way that it was potentially playing out in reality after the directive had been amended short of going to the court or one of their citizens going to the court to challenge the UK government I can't think of another mechanism but that doesn't mean there isn't one just means I can't think of it at the present time at any of the 27 member states what their view is on that on kind of proposed welfare changes of any of these 27 governments expressed vocally views on the issues well the the the Dutch government and the German government have expressed some concern about welfare there was this decision that Dan referred to with a Romanian woman was denied welfare benefits in Germany this was upheld by the court those have been the main cases and then some people in Spain are unhappy about the health benefits that British citizens are drawing on the on the costus which is a very substantial amount of amount of money so if Britain starts trying to restrict things there would certainly be reciprocal action against British citizens elsewhere on that point that I think this is one of these areas where it kind of member states are only now tuning in to the specifics of what the UK has been asking the debate has been quite highly political and in the next few months that's going to change and I think you know there is a degree of understanding is my impression of the the fact that where you have different welfare systems in different countries they they generate different incentives and outcomes and the fact that the UK has got a some non-contributory system and in work benefits system is not the same as some of the others that does generate you know different degrees of access to benefits of different times for migrants to to different member states and I think that there is a bit of understanding that is a technical problem that you know if it's generating political problems for member states does need to be addressed you know is there sympathy for a significant attack on free movement no I doubt it very much okay separate question do you have a view as to the pros and cons of going early or late in terms of referendum on the outcome of these negotiations well ideally there should be a proper debate about this and the public should be informed and it distracts me that a year may not be enough for that secondly if the idea is to have a fundamental change in the relationship between the UK and the EU which was the language that was used last year that would require quite a bit of time but things seem to have changed very rapidly since the election and the idea now seems to be to have rather minor changes what is reminded even of Harold Wilson I remember this back in 1975 although the eurosceptics are on the lookout for that when very minor changes were put through and then there was a referendum that's probably going to happen it would be in many ways a pity not to have a debate about the UK's relationship with the European Union in general whatever the outcome is to decide whether we want to be in or out because we've never made up our minds in 40 years to really have a big public debate I would like to see that happen whatever the outcome would be because then the outcome would be legitimate it would be informed and the referendum would resolve things for a very long period of time but I suspect we're not going to have that I suspect we're going to have something that's done very quickly in which the UK will probably vote to stay in but but not with the conviction that it might have if there was a proper and informed debate anybody else to comment sorry thanks I would agree that yeah the longer would be the better I think this is a complicated issue and I think it needs as as Mike said a longer more informed debate what I would hope is that that is recast as slightly more of a dialogue I think I think the stomach for the longer debate might depend on how it's framed and what the tone is of it politically and if it's if it's the UK in a dialogue with Europe about reforming the European Union for the benefit of everybody where other interests are brought in and so on then I think the public might have a more of an appetite for a longer debate as opposed to if it's presented as this is a battle with Europe in which case that's going to be the way it's pitched probably better to get it over with quickly rather than than let it carry on and so for the seeds of resentment if it's pitched as a fight you know between us and them what about the impact of domestic politics for example in Germany on the timetable possibility of agreeing something with Merkel for example that might not be available or a new German Chancellor yes I think 2016 is is one of the windows of opportunity when there are not elections in the major European countries I can't remember who's voting when but I know France and Germany are voting in 2017 and Spain is voting this year and so on so 2016 might be an opportunity in the electoral calendar to to do it which would be another reason for having it next year 2017 then there are elections in France and Germany and domestic politics would then put a huge amount of pressure on the leaders of those countries and it could make life difficult and just to add I mean I I don't have a view really on the date so I think you could see arguments in both directions and I think a lot depends on you know how the negotiation actually goes and how long it takes but from the point of view of relevant factors that affect timing the other one apart from national elections of course the UK is only your presidency in the second half of 2017 and you know I'm guessing but I can imagine that you know it could be awkward for the UK government to be holding a referendum and running the presidency at the same time that may be a factor in the planning and we know for sure that that's going to happen then thank you can you touch on something that I feel is a very very fundamental importance and it's about the tone of this debate and I don't I mean commentators for me have you know it's been distilled down to these two things welfare and migration immigration and the migration immigration thing has been conflated I think you know possibly deliberately to to you know to create an issue that is possibly not there but it's the tone of the debate that I'm really really really interested in and for me if we're having a debate on Europe which we are that debate should be much wider than just those two distilled points it should be about the type of Europe that which we want to be citizens of it has to be about you know the support that we give to people who risk their life coming across the Mediterranean it should be the support we give to people and especially young people to have the best opportunities they have and whatever part of the EU that they decide to take their education or their work or their lifetime experience to and if we forget some of those key fundamentals of the social contract as it was called many years ago of the EU and just distill it down to you know a couple of you know points and some numbers actually does not us you know an injustice but also the actual foundation of the European Union and injustice and I just I wonder if you've got any comments I know you're all political scientists and you've all got you know experience and and Dr Dan we so remember article 48 49 and article 50 we are probably the most educated committee in the world on those articles but for me they don't mean as much unless people are at the heart of that and whether it's a Europe that underpins everything that it does in the ECHR with domestic human rights legislation in national parliaments that's the things that really matter and if we can you know have a debate that's got that tone I wonder if you know give me your impressions on you know that type of debate and is that the debate that we should be having or have I got it completely wrong I think that's absolutely right which is why I said it would be useful in this country to have a debate about Europe and what kind of Europe we want not just whether we want to be in or out or whether we want to opt out of the bits of it that we don't like. Euroscepticism is on the rise everywhere in Europe because of the crisis but in most other countries it's about the kind of policies that's coming from Europe it's not the principle of Europe itself apart from the right wing populist parties but the mainstream parties it's what we're getting from Europe the new parties the Syriza and the Podemos and these kinds of parties they're not anti-European they're anti this particular European policy mix that we're getting and that's an important debate to have you mentioned the migrant crisis in the Mediterranean and Europe's abject failure to respond to that which is exactly the sort of thing that Europe could do the broader question of migration and how Europe can handle that there's the question of austerity and unemployment particularly amongst young people so there is another European reform agenda which is about how we can address these deficiencies in Europe to cope with these big big big problems and it would be important to have that side of the argument there as well and the danger here has done said this becomes an argument about us and them that that's extremely dangerous but an argument about what kind of Europe we should have because there are different visions of Europe here I think that would be extremely helpful and that's the kind of argument if you go to other European countries they have even though they grumble about the Europe the whole time they don't say it's them doing things to us it's about what kind of Europe we want we don't like the way that Europe is going whereas in this country it's always they're doing things to us and I think is that what worry framed not only would that be healthy for the democratic deliberation but it would also enhance British influence in Europe if we talked about what we can do for Europe as well as what they're doing to us. I agree with you convener but that my inner realist is sceptical that I don't think however this debate is conducted that and I know that you didn't say this but I'm just saying however this debate is conducted I don't think the sort of culture of the way the UK interacts with Europe is going to be transformed I think if that's what we hope then we're setting the bar unfortunately too high maybe that's just me being overly cynical but what I think it could do is potentially just take the edge off that kind of them and us mentality look what's being done to us by Europe and that will depend I agree with you on how the tone of the debate progresses but also how the campaigns might be structured I mean it's easy you know we're now here in for example that there won't be potentially a unified yes campaign there'll be there'll be multiple campaigns that kind of talk to each other and broadly put push in one direction and then who the spokespeople for those campaigns are and what kind of tone they set will be really important so in a sense I think the the politicians across the across the scale across the spectrum need to lead kind of by example on on on this point I doubt politicians of certain parties will do that because they obviously vehemently opposed to the EU and they they they present an image of the EU which is very loosely connected if at all to reality I don't think that's going to change but I think the other parties that's why I said at the beginning I would see Scottish participation in this debate the fact that we have a europe minister in Scotland a shadow europe minister in Scotland who can be spokespeople for that that positive campaign that you're talking about I think that's a good thing and that that's not about division within the country that's not about Scottish ministers and MSPs treading on terrain that they shouldn't that's about making the case which matters to all of us in our communities and so on so I agree with you the other last thing I'd say about this is and this has been a great disappointment of mine for a number of years with the europe debate is we don't ever seem to put it in the context not really not explicitly of Britain's role in the world if we decide to leave the european union on the back of a rather narrow and potentially nasty discussion about migration and access to benefits which as Mike said all of the evidence says EU citizens who come to work here are a net contributor to our economy if we end up leaving the european union because of that that will be the single biggest foreign policy decision potentially since since Suez and to do it on a to not put that debate in that broader context of what country do we think we are in the world how do we interact with our neighbours how do we balance our historical connections with the commonwealth with our historical connections to europe with the transatlantic bridge to not put it in that context i think would be quite dangerous and a missed opportunity so in addition to the people side of it i'd like more discussion about you know what we see the future foreign policy of our country as yes so you just covered their committee we're europe and external affairs mr frost i think yeah just just a couple of points on that really i mean i i certainly agree that you know when we get to the referendum you know i hope it is a real debate about everything that the europe offers and we've you've mentioned quite a few of those things i mean i would add the single market and the single trade policy to that and all their estimates vary about you know how much wealth the single market generates for the uk since we joined it's probably in the order of five six seven eight percent uplift gdp you know for somebody on an average salary that's about 1500 pounds a year and most people think that's that's worth having and i think when you put it in those terms there's there's a very clear benefit that because we don't see it every day we've kind of forgotten about it but but it is there and we begin to lose it if we weren't part of it just one other comment kind of picking up what colleagues have said i think it's possible to be sometimes a bit self-critical of the uk and the way we we we attack these problems and of our debate here and i always sort of jokingly called it laurence stern syndrome when i was in the foreign office from his his book the sentimental journey and the first line is they order these matters i said better in france and i think it's this tendency to think that others always do it better and you know if you look at policymaking around the eurozone that the uk has not been involved in at all i think it's hard to argue that that's the kind of model of good policymaking and domestic engagement either so i think it is possible to be too self-critical about this we all in europe face problems in in different ways and i think what what we're going to have to find in the next few years whether it's through this renegotiation or other things is a way of reconciling them and finding states as a membership that we can all be be comfortable with and i think that's a lot of what this is about thank you thank you very much really coffee thanks very much convenient and good morning to you could ask you about what the the UK government's negotiating position might be and how it might develop that do you see any evidence that the UK government at the moment or plans to embrace the scotish welsh in northern island assemblies in terms of thinking about what to present to europe as a case for remaining in europe fully united kingdom or do you see it very much as a a case fully conservative party and what their issues are it's not quite clear to me i said just picking up davis's last point there that the UK in fact in europe has historically been a rather effective operator it's been it's been rather good at negotiation and well focused that's just in contrast with the rhetoric that seems to surround it so that would give rise to some optimism i don't know what the role of the devolved administrations is going to be they'll certainly be consulted but they were consulted over the balance of competences reviewed but they went involved in the decision making process and this would imply getting all the papers being fully informed being part of the working parties preparatory to negotiation meetings scotish ministers even participating the way that they do in the council of ministers i i don't know what the proposal is for that but i haven't seen any evidence that there will be a foreign corporation of the devolved administrations but as i said at the outset that's something that is important to get right very very quickly before these negotiations start in earnest we've just had rounds of preliminary discussions but before these negotiations start in earnest we'd want to know what the decision of the devolved administration is in the entire process yeah i'm similarly i've not to my knowledge there's been no formal briefings yet by the uk government to the devolved administrations on what how how the negotiation line is developing i suppose we've got the jmc europe on the 15th of june i think from memory it's coming up um and that to me would be the you know if we're going to move quickly on this and we're going to start to table things in the european council this year then that would be the moment to seek clarity on that and hopefully the jmc has become a little bit more transparent over recent years but there's still a lot of work to be done there i would argue to make it more transparent in terms of what goes on inside it and what the conclusions are but that would be the moment to to as mike says i think clarify just exactly what the involvement would be my understanding is that the permanent representative the uk permanent representative in brussel is keen to ensure that devolved officers devolved representations in brussels are co-ordinated are involved are can fully streamlined into this process but of course that brings up the distinction between how officials interact versus how politicians interact and they can be quite different to the sticking point may may be at the ministerial level more so than it is at the official level so it seems from what i've heard that uh at least in terms of the uk permanent representation in brussels there is a willingness to to do this um in an open and inclusive way but the tone for that is obviously going to be set by by by the uk government ministers they're involved and then on the other side the scottish government welsh government and more than irish ministers uh one thing uh that we almost was shouldn't forget is that the devolved assembly is the devolved administrations should and could work collectively on this i know the first minister met yesterday with the welsh first minister and again from what i'm hearing there is a plan to to not sort of secret plan or anything but a plan to co-ordinate amongst the devolts because this is this is an important issue that they have distinct interests in but as mike said um you know i don't think any of us have heard anything yet to suggest that there's going to be a radically different type of interaction between the uk and the devolts on this on on this particular issue i just um i guess i would distinguish relations between devolved governments administrations and devolved parliaments and i think that there are different ways of dealing with them you know within governments um and administrations obviously jmce is the formal basis uh for engagement um like most cabinet committees it's it's kind of um to some extent dignified rather than efficient and a lot of the the kind of um uh real interaction about policy takes place in different ways and the brussells interaction as well as between the four capsules within the uk will be an important part of that so i wouldn't exaggerate the significance of jmce and making it work between governments i think all the administrations need to to to make an effort to to collaborate and i would imagine that's that's happening i don't know but i think it would be pretty essential um parliamentary angle i think is is is different and um we uh we haven't talked about it but i imagined that and again i don't know but i would imagine the uk government's thinking about some way of involving the europe committees of the commons and of the lords and making sure they know to some extent what's going on in this renegotiation and how they're they're handling it um i wrote an essay you may have seen it for open europe back in february where i said that i thought the government ought to give some consideration if they were doing that for the uk parliament they ought to think about how they did that with the scottish parliaments and the other devolved parliaments as well and i don't know whether that's a suggestion that's found any favour but i would have thought it was pretty important to engage parliamentary opinion um in a explicit way as well as the government to government relations you see ultimately the uk is going to go to the table with a set of requests requirements demands if you like xyz how can that possibly be reconciled with for example on migration by the scottish government's position you can't seriously present a uk position on that to europe it's going to be a it's going to be a conservative party position in my view how can you have both of those positions represented fairly to europe you can't well ultimately i mean they'll be they'll be i don't want to start speculating on the future because we we don't know what what what what the demands or what the negotiating line of the uk government might be but presumably there will be opportunity to discuss and debate but in political discussion and negotiation through the intergovernmental system yet there's winners and losers sometimes and i guess that's that's that's politics that might be a very simple answer but yeah if there's divergent views then then there's a problem and everything we know about the jmc machinery and the broader intergovernmental relations machinery is that it works least effectively when there is a divergence of interests and you know there's a power asymmetry there at the end of the day the uk government is the more powerful you know of the two actors and if the interests collide then then it's more likely than not that one is going to supersede the other but in terms of restrictions on migration again i think what's likely to come forward i said i didn't want to speculate and here i go uh is likely to be um quite limited targeted changes to access to benefit systems it's not going to be some sort of blanket ban or restriction or cap on who can come here from europe because i think as all of us have said explicitly or implicitly that's just not going to fly that's just that's too contra to the founding principles of the EU it'll be much more targeted around what people can claim how long they have to be here before they can claim it and then we come back to the issue of well how is smith going to evolve because smith could evolve in a certain way that would allow the scottish government of scottish parliament to do things differently but not as i said at the beginning not i don't think based on its current language but that can change this arises all the time of course in relation to european issues through the joint ministerial committee and the delegation to the council of ministers where ultimately the UK government has the last word the difference here is that it's not just devolved matters it's non-devolved matters many of the issues regard to migration are not devolved but of the interest nevertheless have a particular interest for scotland so it would be important that scotland should be represented not just in relation to devolved matters but in relation to things that impact on scotland in a particular way even if they're reserved because just for one week final question on the possibility of treaty changing i think there's some of the discussion suggested that if the changes proposed aren't substantial enough they don't require that don't require treaty change but if they do if the changes are substantial enough and require treaty change some of the member states will have to put that to their citizens in referenda and is it likely then in those circumstances that for example Ireland who's European minister did confirm that that Ireland would have to have a referendum do you foresee the situation where for example the people of Ireland are being asked to vote on treaty change that benefits and possibly disadvantages themselves but benefits the UK can you see the people of Ireland supporting that well the Irish always vote twice once they're given a second chance they're given a second chance but but if if it's there's two types of treaty change one is giving the UK more opt-outs and i don't think that's gonna happen but that was the initial tone we'll opt out of more things you can't opt out of things that are already part of the ackee you cannot opt you cannot go in with this new treaty change never before countries been allowed to opt out so it's more about doing things that affect the whole of the EU and then that would have to be done in such a way you could sell it in the other member states as well and and that's something the government since seems to have realised now you can't just ask for special treatment for the UK because they're not going to give it to you you've got to contribute to Europe as a whole and show that whatever you're doing has benefits for the other member states as well. Doctor Dan, are you in that? Whether it's possible, I don't know. No, I do agree on that and as Mike says yes that they could always have a second vote on it but I think yeah in terms of the welfare in terms of possible welfare changes and access there are things a lot of this is incredibly definitional and the the issue the issue is that the European courts using the language in the treaties and the directives that exist that govern this area of EU law can be very flexible on how they interpret for instance a job seeker I think the exact phrase in the directive is if you have a if you're in the country are looking for work and have a genuine chance of employment now what does that mean that's that's a very loose phrase in terms of how you interpret that and the courts have chosen to interpret it quite expansively over the years. Similarly you can't deny a EU job seeker's access to quote benefits linked to labour market participation but you can deny them social assistance so you can get into arguments in this area and discussions with European partners about well what is social assistance and what is a benefit linked to labour market participation and what you could look to do is tighten up the definitions in those areas for example that would then apply equally across all member states and potentially everybody would be seen to benefit a little bit from it all countries might be able to benefit because they pay a little bit less out in in welfare but actually the workers that are moving round Europe actually might lose a little bit because they're able to take out less in welfare so you could do it in a way that as Mike was suggesting is a bit more you know it would give everybody a little bit of something they could claim that there's been a success here and we've heard from the Germans we've heard from the dutch that there is a desire to try tighten up on this area because we have had expansive court rulings in this area over the years that do stretch the definition of job seeker to what I would consider breaking point to be honest so we could we could try and tighten that up in a way that applies to everybody so we wouldn't get into the situation that you described in your question. On the question of treat change itself I wouldn't comment on the Irish specific case but on the issue of do you need treat change or not I mean my I would personally be astonished if this renegotiation ended with an agreement by all the member states to a particular set of treat changes that went to ratification I just I just don't think that's going to happen for for political reasons at the same time I think you know it feels like the pm is going to need a bit more than a promise to change a few directives in detail down the line if it's going to kind of pass the credibility and referendum test so you know I suspect what we're going to end up is with is a you know typical you know EU fudge where we we kind of you know the the European Council commits to certain principles makes a solemn declaration about it agrees that when I get the next opportunity these would go into the treaties meanwhile we're all committed to them and tries to kind of deal it with it that way so it feels major it feels solemn there's a commitment to change the structure down the line but at the same time doesn't require anybody to to run the risk for referendum in the short run I mean I'm speculating clearly but I wouldn't be surprised if it came out like that okay we're really running up against our timescale here I've got Ann and then a couple of supplementaries for both Jamie and Adam I'll be quick thanks convener just to keep you in the within the area of speculation my apologies for doing that really just to underline what are some of the implications of a no vote what they might be for Scotland it is well everyone's looking at me you know I think you know being being outside the single market being outside single trade policy you know will be fundamentally disadvantageous to to any bit of Europe I mean you gain from being part of a big market if we're part of that if we're not part of that that would be significant would have thought to to prosperity to everyone in Scotland and in the UK that's why I don't think we should be coming out of the single market you know quite apart from the fundamentals you have to think about all the transitional costs all the kind of reorganising things all the kind of change of expectations of foreign investors and so on different perceptions of a country so I think those are the the economic risks if if we were to leave well if the UK were to withdraw from the EU it would have to establish another trading relationship with the EU it would have to put something in place a regime just just to continue trading it would be in a weak position negotiating with the EU and the EU would be in a very strong position if it wanted full market access it would probably have to accept the rules of the single market as Norway does without having a say in the making of of that so that that could put itself in a very very difficult position now there is an alternative strategy which is to diversify trade to open up beyond beyond Europe so I'm not saying the UK could not survive outside Europe certainly it could but would have to negotiate its own position within the global trading order there's not just come out and then life continues something would have to be put in place of the European Union yeah I would agree I mean I think potentially the economic consequences would be quite significant and a lot would hinge despeculation but a lot would hinge on as both my colleagues have said the the relationship that we managed to then re-establish with the European Union because I don't think anybody's suggesting we would want to be completely and totally cut loose entirely I think the idea of a sort of swiss-type multiple bilateral treaties is is is highly improbable I think Europe have done this once and they don't particularly want to do it again and as Mike says if we end up in a situation like Norway we accept an awful lot of the regulations and the provisions without having any say in them and that would include provisions on the free movement of labour so if that's going to be the big if that's the big point if that's the big issue that we're going to end up fighting about a Norwegian relationship to the EU is not a way to resolve that you almost end up worse off thank you thank you I've got quick supplementary one from Jamie and then one from Adam uh yes I'll be as quick as I can um the Professor Keating mentioned briefly the ackee and David Frost mentioned fudge which I think are two interesting things to do with Europe because if you take for example the fishing industry the whole of the fishing industry in the North Sea is based on a derogation from the ackee because the ackee says equal access to a common resource but that's actually not what happens at all and my point there is that nobody's changed the treaty to do that there have been derogations for different nation states now it seems to me that the prime minister certainly is moving away from demanding changes on social policy he's more going for safeguarding national interests within the say that the non-neuro zone countries as against things being imposed by the euro zone countries and also giving greater powers to national parlance and ie a sort of lighter style Europe without the great heaving hoof of authority coming down the whole time from Brussels so in order to achieve that I mean the idea of derogations which has been used before could presumably be used again in other spheres outside the fishing industry yes indeed the fishing thing took a very long time to negotiate as you know it took decades and the Spanish had a very strong interest in it but apart from that it was non-euro countries that the Scottish UK fishing industry was was competing with so it's not clear that that could always be taken as a precedent but yes you're right and the other thing that can be done is is greater application of the principle of subsidiarity big preference for example and subsidiarity with john major of course was a great impairment of yeah yeah indeed so so and this has been attempt to apply it by saying that the EU could regulate with a light touch there could be greater scope for variations that the competition policy doesn't have to be as rigorous and rigid as it is applying in situations where there's not really a problem or cohesion policy which still spends a lot of money now mainly in central and eastern Europe that doesn't have to be run so closely from Brussels it can be decentralised I see quite a lot of scope for that and scope for agreement across Europe that maybe Brussels could do things in a much more decentralised way thank you okay Adam that context was not the the contribution that the first minister made earlier on this week very much in in line with that with that kind of approach where she was looking for maybe an easing or or a more flexibility for member states to to deal with issues um I think she mentioned issues like public health for example on the one hand and on the other hand in terms of making regulation a bit more proportional and also to introduce subsidiarity subsidiarity I'm thinking of the fisheries for example um is that not the way to go to engage across the board with our partners in Europe these kind of renegotiations would they not move away from the sort of confrontational aspect of it and really get to the substance of what needs to change in Europe and what reforms are required um yeah I mean I think I've not come across a mainstream UK politician who isn't calling for membership plus reform and that sort of brings me back to where I started it all depends what you mean by reform and and how you intend to to get there and obviously what the first minister said yesterday is very much in the um uh the mainstream of that um although I should probably obviously acknowledge uh that um uh that's you know my official capacity where the plaintiff in the the particular case she alluded to so I probably shouldn't comment uh uh any further on that um but um I guess you know what she said at one point um you know we we wouldn't have had a referendum but now there is going to be a referendum so that's what the debate is about and and I guess I might say you know there might be other ways of pursuing reform but there's now going to be a renegotiation and the question is how do you get that best out of that and conduct it in the most constructive way and I think that's probably the question going forward sorry yeah sorry um yeah just to briefly come back to to to Jamie's question on in terms of the derogations uh for example I mean because you mentioned the strength of international parliaments for example now that's that's something to me if you if you want to strengthen that beyond the current yellow orange card system then you have to do one or two things you either have to get the commission to basically say we promise to whenever a third of national parliaments object to something we take we take the proposal off the table that would be to strengthen the existing provision you wouldn't need to do treaty change you just have to get the commission to effectively agree to a different way of working um but if you wanted to actually again hardwire a red card procedure for instance were a set of national parliaments at a sufficient number can actually say no we we stop this dead this proposal it goes no further then you have to change the protocol which is at the back of the treaty which deals with that issue you can't uh I don't see any other way that you can do that on the national parliament issue and that's because that wouldn't be the UK seeking a derogation from something that's seeking a material change to the way the european union works uh the another member state yes no it might but if you want to strengthen the way national parliaments can coordinate to block legislation then that's not seeking to opt out from something that's seeking to strengthen and reform an existing institutional mechanism and that would mean you have to change the way that mechanism works and that's written into the treaty so you'd have to to do that it was just specifically on the national parliament point but just as a final thing of actually briefly in terms of the articles of the treaty if we look up the front of the treaty articles four uh five and so on these principles are hardwired in there already the principle of conferred powers of subsidiarity of proportionality the idea of the sort of the clunking fists from brussels I mean since 2005 under the refit programme as it's called which I always forget the acronym regulatory fitness is what they call it we've had over 600 regulations repealed by the european union and there's a new system in place now to do much more systemic checks about regulations before they're introduced so I think the idea of the clunking regulatory fist of brussels the fist of brussels is sometimes a little bit oversold and what a lot of this might be about actually is is looking at the principles that are in the treaty around subsidiarity and proportionality and actually making them mean something in terms of how brussels does its day to day business that doesn't require treaty reform as people have mentioned that that just requires that people take subsidiarity and proportionality more seriously when they're doing the day to day business of european union policy making doesn't take treaty reform because the principles are there already okay we are absolutely up against our our clock now I've got one very very quick question we have we have we have strayed into you know a lot of what ifs a lot of speculation some realism and some idealism and hopefully some visionary stuff but one thing we do know is about the franchise in the actual referendum and very very quickly obviously you know the Scottish government and I think many people across this Parliament have called for the franchise to be extended to 16 and 17 year olds and everyone who choose the UK is their home and as much as they had the same rights in the indie ref that they have the same rights in the EU referendum quick thoughts please I'm going to balance idealism with realism for my final comment idealistically and somewhat personally actually on this because my my partner works at the university he's German he's been here for six or seven years won't be able to vote in this referendum and is an encyclopedia of the EU and is passionate about it and I consider that wrong but that's my idealistic response my realistic response is ultimately this is a matter for the UK government it'll be put into the referendum bill the Conservatives have a majority so on this issue it is really a matter for the Conservative Party and the really hardcore bit of realism here is I don't think it would for other European countries for instance you might think we should extend the franchise the last thing that those who are tilting towards the no side might want is to be told by other European states who gets to vote in the referendum so whilst I don't necessarily agree with it on idealistic and principal grounds I would probably just let it run its course and let the UK government decide we have a member of this Parliament who won't be allowed to vote in that referendum either Michael yes well the the franchise for the Scottish referendum was based upon the franchise for the Scottish Parliament it was just taken and that was based upon the existing local government franchise so it wasn't as though they decided to do it it was almost a default and similarly I think the default will be for this referendum it will be the UK parliament franchise there is a question about opening it up to 16 year olds I think that's an idea whose time has come and it will come generally whether you should introduce it just for this referendum I don't know but there's certainly a case for thinking about using this as an opportunity to extend the franchise to 16 year olds but we extended it to everything in Scotland I think maybe the UK should just follow suit on that one David yeah I mean I don't really feel qualified to express a view to be honest this is sort of political constitutional question you know personally I can see arguments in in both directions feels like the argument is not quite closed yet the bill is going through parliament and there'll be further discussion excellent thank you very very much we've I think we've had a very very interesting exchange this morning I don't think this exchange will end at this point if you if you've worked for this committee before you know that that we keep an eye on everything that's happening certainly this this will be one there's a keen interest across committee members we're keen to hear from you as things unfold if there's other opinions or ideas that you have please feed that back to the committee we'd be very keen to hear that and also with any of your colleagues or you know interested parties out there who have got an opinion on this we'd be very keen to hear that too but thank you very much for being at committee this morning and I now close this part of the committee and go into private session thank you