Dr Charles Tannock, MEP for London and Conservative Foreign Affairs Spokesman in the European Parliament, argues that whilst MPs have less responsibility for legislation than MEPs we get our money's worth from them in other ways.
I created a bit of a stir back in February on ConservativeHome writing about why we should take the European Parliament more seriously. It's an argument I repeated in the Telegraph last week. I have had trouble convincing people that my stance is not born of vanity or europhilia but simply a de facto logical reaction to the many people I encounter who, mainly from ignorance, dismiss the European Parliament as a useless and ineffective talking shop. Think what you will of the European Parliament but it is responsible for co-legislating with the Council on a significant proportion of legislation applied in the UK. The figures vary considerably depending on whom you talk to but there seems to be a consensus around two thirds.
My Telegraph letter was seized upon the following day. One correspondent asked quixotically: 'What is the point of MPs?’. Another suggested that the logic of my claim was that MPs, supposedly responsible for the remaining third of our laws, should have their pay docked proportionately. It's an argument Peter Lilley MP seems to have some sympathy for, but one that I totally reject.
I don't agree that an MP's role is diminishing in importance compared to the role of an MEP. For a start, Peter himself made the point that the powers invoked by Brussels to pass laws on us are powers ceded from our own parliament at Westminster. But just as MPs can cede sovereignty to the EU, so too can parliament reclaim those powers and reassert its own sovereignty - ultimately if it so chooses by voting for Britain to leave the EU. That supreme power has always remained with our MPs: indeed, one of the ironies of the now surely defunct Lisbon treaty is that it set out, for the first time, a clear procedure for withdrawal.
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