Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill

Baroness Kennedy of Shaws Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 20th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

My Lords, as has been said, this Bill is flawed, poorly drafted and damaging. It is likely to have a detrimental impact on the UK’s ability to protect and promote human rights around the world. It is, in certain respects, inconsistent with our obligations under international law, it will stifle free speech and protest, and it will take powers long exercised by local authorities into the hands of the Secretary of State. It is also likely to lead to an array of illogical outcomes.

The Minister sought to make it clear that although the Bill has general application to all material decisions by public bodies, it is really directed at the boycotting of Israel. In the Bill, the Occupied Territories and the Occupied Golan Heights are seen as part and parcel of Israel, when in fact, as we know, international law makes it very clear that that is not the case and that Israel has been in breach of international law in occupying those territories.

The Bill prohibits boycotting. We know that there can be exceptions in certain circumstances if sanctioned by the Secretary of State, but in no circumstances whatever can Israel be excluded. It gets a free pass; that one nation is wrongly singled out. That is seriously worrying at this time. I think particularly of the allegations of hypocrisy that there will be, and the ways in which this will be so enraging to many in the global South.

All public bodies are already prohibited in law from pursuing policies or taking any actions that are directly or indirectly anti-Semitic. I make it clear that the rise in anti-Semitism that has taken place since 7 October has been really horrifying. I was shocked myself when I heard from a young Jewish woman that she got on the bus early in the morning and saw, engraved on the frosted windows, a swastika. Seeing that she and her friend were upset, somebody went and cleared the window. But these things, which are intimidatory and aggressive, are being experienced all the time. I walked over a bridge close to where I live and saw that posters had been put up of those who were hostages. Each face had been obliterated with black aerosol paint and, only a few days later, the posters had even been torn down. It questions what people are seeking to do in denying that hostages have been taken.

Fortunately, law does exist which can be used to confront these things, and not only against individuals but public bodies. These protections are found in our common law and in our statutes, as well as in the European Convention on Human Rights. All are enforceable in our courts. So I urge on this House that there are tools which should be used more actively to counter anti-Semitism, and that there is much more to be done. However, I cannot believe that this Bill is the right way to do it: not at this time, when there is this grievous conflict taking place which is costing so many lives. We have already had the events of 7 October, followed by the deaths of many children, the displacement of so many people, the reduction of homes to rubble and the acts on the West Bank which have led to the sanctions which our Foreign Secretary described to us the other day. In the midst of all that, to pursue this Bill seems to me to be inept politics, crass diplomacy and another blot on our reputation internationally.

It is also inconsistent in policy. This Government strongly endorse the use of economic power to mark disapproval of foreign state conduct. We have done it all the time in relation to the war in Ukraine and dealing with Russia and are looking at doing it more so now. It is a way in which we express a sense of horror and raise global standards. The Global Human Rights Sanctions Regulations 2020 introduced a very tough sanctions regime in the Magnitsky sanctions.

Turning to Clause 1, Richard Hermer, a colleague at the Bar, described it as being so badly drafted that

“it is far from clear what the ambit of the prohibited conduct actually is”.

Like others in this Chamber, I was very active in the anti-apartheid movement, calling for divestment in South Africa. I was very proud when my city, Glasgow, led the way as a local authority in taking a stand against what was happening. Those were the early days, so when people say, “Oh, but South Africa is so different from what is happening in Israel or other places”, all I can say is, “Sometimes it starts small and then becomes something that really does create change”.

This Bill would, at a stroke, preclude public bodies from taking into account a range of deplorable conduct by a foreign state. We have heard how it can be used. The Secretary of State can intervene if it is about the national interest or human trafficking, but what about genocide? What about unlawful military invasions? What about war crimes, other crimes against humanity or racial discrimination? The Bill would preclude a council from refusing to purchase goods from Russian-occupied Ukraine. I am very anxious to see us stop buying Chinese cotton goods. I want local authorities to say that they are not going to buy it for the uniforms for their staff, boiler suits, overalls, school uniforms and towels. People must be able to do this.

So I say finally that I do suspect the reason for this. I suspect that sticking with this Bill is to set a trap for the Labour Party in opposition. It is to say that if you do not vote with this Bill, we will accuse you in the hustings of being anti-Semitic. That is what this is about, so let us not pretend that it will effect any real change in ending or limiting discrimination of an anti-Semitic kind. The key provisions of this Bill are deeply troubling from a domestic and an international law perspective, with absolutely malign intentions behind why it is being put before this House at this time. It is why I really hope that the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, will seek its withdrawal before long.

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, even, or perhaps especially, when we disagree.

I want to focus on Clause 3(7), which provides in effect that a future Minister seeking to permit public bodies to boycott Israel would have to do so by way of primary legislation and not secondary legislation. The question has been asked: why is Israel treated differently by being singled out in the Bill? The short answer is that Israel is already treated differently and singled out—by international institutions and by too many public bodies here in the UK. That differential treatment and singling out has real effects, not only on the State of Israel but—and this is my focus—on civil society in the UK.

This Bill puts Israel into a special category because Israel is put by others, both internationally and nationally, into a special category. I will look first at this internationally. Last year, the United Nations General Assembly condemned Israel 14 times. The rest of the world put together: seven. Since 2015, the score stands at Israel 140, the whole of the rest of the world put together, 68. The UN Human Rights Council has a standing agenda item, item 7, which is focused on Israel —and only on Israel. This is the same UN Human Rights Council that, just two days after the 7 October massacre, held a minute’s silence to mourn, to quote from its own website,

“the loss of innocent lives in the occupied Palestinian territory and elsewhere”.

“Elsewhere”? For 2,000 years, the Jewish people had nowhere. Now, according to the United Nations Human Rights Council, they have an “elsewhere”. All of this is not because Israel is wicked, let alone uniquely wicked. It is because, internationally, Israel is treated differently and singled out.

Secondly, Israel is also treated differently and singled out by public bodies here in the UK. In 2020, the Welsh Government brought out a new national procurement note singling out Israel—and only Israel—for potential sanctions. A decade earlier, West Dunbartonshire Council adopted a policy of boycotting Israeli—and only Israeli—goods, including even books printed in Israel. So the sermons of Jesus printed in totalitarian China were permitted, but they were banned if they were printed in the place where he actually delivered them.

A number of English councils implemented BDS against Israeli—and only Israeli—products, including Leicester in 2014 and Lancaster in 2021. In 2014, Birmingham City Council threatened not to renew a contract with Veolia because of its activity in the West Bank. Perhaps the now insolvent Birmingham City Council should have focused rather less on the West Bank and more on its own bank.

My third point is that it is not only the fact that Israel is treated differently. Anti-Israel resolutions and boycotts have a different and dramatic effect on civil society. The correlation is clear and unambiguous. When Israel is targeted, it ends up with attacks on Jews. I am not saying that all anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism—although a lot of it is, especially when Israel, and only Israel, is singled out for condemnation and boycott. You can support Israel but oppose its present Government, as do many of my friends in Israel. The Opposition Benches in this House demonstrate that you can critique a Government but support the state.

But let us be clear: when you chant “From the river to the sea”, you are not critiquing the Israeli Government; you are calling for the destruction of Israel. We are increasingly seeing anti-Israel rhetoric blurring into demonising and attacking Jews. “Zionists” is being used as a code word for Jews.

It is a code word, because who are these Zionists? The overwhelming majority of Jews, both in the UK and around the world, are Zionists because of our history, ancient and modern. We have prayed for, and facing, the land of Israel for thousands of years. We know the cost in Jewish lives from not having a State of Israel and the price paid in lives for having that state. Many of us have family there, in what is now the world’s largest Jewish community. When Israel is singled out, the inevitable effect is that Jews, regardless of their passports or politics, are also singled out in commerce, culture and education.

In commerce, when Sainsbury’s removed kosher food from its shelves after giving in to anti-Israel protesters, it was Jews who could not buy food—a scene repeated in the Republic of Ireland only last week.

In culture, two weeks ago, a Jewish member of the audience at the Soho Theatre was sworn at by Paul Currie, an anti-Semite masquerading as a comic, because he would not stand in respect when a Palestinian flag was unveiled on stage. Much of the rest of the audience joined in the chanting against him. Another London theatre cancelled an event hosted by a UK Jewish charity raising money for Israeli students, because the staff refused to come into work.

In education, the Jewish chaplain at Leeds University is now in hiding with his family, because he has been targeted by protesters, who also daubed anti-Israel slogans on the Jewish society building. When students marched through Birmingham University with a banner reading “Zionists off our campus”, what they meant, in practice, was “No Jews here”. The vast majority of Jewish students, like the overwhelming majority of the Jewish community, believe in an independent Jewish state. That is what Zionism is. If, like His Majesty’s Government, you support a two-state solution, which calls for a safe and secure Israel alongside a Palestinian state, you are a Zionist too.

All this is a problem for Jews, but it is a tragedy for everyone else. A society that permits anti-Semitism is a society suffering from a terminal illness. That is an iron rule of history: anti-Semitism destroys any society that harbours it.

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

I just want to read the noble Lord a quotation from the Israeli National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir. He says that to encourage the exodus of Gaza’s inhabitants and the influx of Israeli settlers to the Gaza Strip would be a “correct, just, moral … solution”. When it comes to people speaking in language that is exclusionary and discriminatory against the other side, I am afraid that some of it comes very strongly from extreme right-wing Jewish settlers.

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

I loathe Itamar Ben-Gvir and his rhetoric and want to see that sort of rhetoric out of Israel and out of everywhere. But let us be real: when people opposed apartheid, they were opposing a policy of the South African Government. What BDS wants is not to change the policy of Israel, but to change the existence of Israel by destroying it.

The Bill singles out Israel because Israel is always singled out. It is quite right, therefore, that, if a future Minister wants to change that policy to allow people to boycott Israel and give succour to the world’s oldest hatred, he or she should have to account for their actions at the Dispatch Box.

I have no doubt that improvements can be made to the Bill. I look forward to working with many others in doing so, especially on the international law point, but, for the reasons that I have given, I give the Bill my full support.

Conversion Therapy Prohibition (Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity) Bill [HL]

Baroness Kennedy of Shaws Excerpts

Friday 9th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

My Lords, back in 2020, I was asked to chair a legal forum on this very issue. It involved a number of parliamentarians and leading lawyers, and it was sponsored by the Ozanne Foundation. It produced a report, called the Cooper report, named for a very distinguished lawyer who unfortunately died suddenly, still young, of a heart attack—Jonathan Cooper. He was the founder and instigator of many of the changes that we have heard discussed today to basically remove the terrible discriminations faced by the LGBT community.

The Ozanne Foundation is led by a woman called Jayne Ozanne, who is an evangelical Anglican and Christian of deep faith who campaigns for LGBTI inclusion and does a lot of incredible work with faith organisations across the piece. She herself has written and speaks very powerfully about her experiences of being treated to the most terrible form of conversion therapy within her own evangelical community. She was to be cured of her perversion, which had terrible consequences for her mental health—and as a young woman, she had a breakdown. She is an impressive advocate for change, as is the noble Lord, Lord Herbert. I know that he knows her. She has shed the shame that she was filled with, and she can give much of the evidence, to which he referred, of the terrible damage done to young gay people and young people questioning their gender identity by virtue of the sort of therapies that we have heard discussed.

One of the key purposes of law is to prevent harm, which is not confined to physical harm. It is interesting that we have introduced the whole understanding of coercive conduct into domestic violence and abuse and recognised that it does not have to be about battering someone—but noble Lords would be surprised at the number of domestic violence and abuse cases that involve the first beating for being gay coming from a member of the family, from fathers outraged at the horror of their sons possibly being gay, and indications of that, or from older brothers or other family members, or from schoolmates or others in the community. The shame that carries with it lives on, at huge cost to the individual and to society as a whole—that self-loathing that has been described.

The mental health consequences are very real. I could give you case after case of research projects conducted on young people, and their suicidal thoughts, their attempts at suicide and self-harming, and how it is a much greater problem than it is for ordinary children in our communities, who already show higher signs of it in these days of social media. We cannot possibly deny that there are problems around this issue. I am in the Butler-Sloss school on it. We have to do something about it. However, I also pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Herbert, for his speech; I echo his important sense that we have to stop the business of there being sides to the argument. I have argued and fought for women’s rights all my life, but I also did the first transgender case—or transsexual case, as it was called then—in 1995 before an international court. The case was to end discrimination in the workplace against transgender people. I have lived alongside people and, over the years, have acted for people who have transitioned their gender and have gone on to experience the most vicious assault, including rape. Let us not minimise the consequences of cruelty in our society in our efforts to find ways to deal with it.

There are people calling themselves therapists, healers, counsellors, even hypnotists, and they promise a cure. Be very clear: we are not talking about praying so there is no temptation, we are talking about people promising a cure. Often, people are urged to go to these people and their numbers are passed along to them, and no efforts are being made to prevent the faux therapy or quackery that is involved.

The House should also be aware that people from minority communities are sent abroad—just as we discovered happened in FGM—to have conversion therapy. When we say we do not hear about any of it, it is because it is closeted. We do not hear about it because it is kept closely under wraps. We should be clear that it is a serious problem. I want to take part in debates around health issues, research that needs to be done about the possible consequences or hormonal treatments and so on—these things should be discussed. However, they are separate issues from whether we should allow people to be faced with this kind of disgraceful and punitive so-called treatment.

Finally, I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Hunt. I thought her speech was moving, affecting and she delivered it with great humanity and compassion. Let us find our humanity and compassion. Let us not be divided on the issue. We must find the best ways to prevent people from being harmed: that is what it is about.

Elections Bill

Baroness Kennedy of Shaws Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Committee stage
Thursday 17th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, I wish to follow the themes that the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, and other noble Lords have alluded to. I came to this Bill slightly worried but with open ears to hear where it was going. As we have got more into Committee, the more worried I have become about a level playing field for elections. Regardless of the colour of a political party, a level playing field is what is required. With Part 4 and Clause 25 along with other clauses, it is becoming more worrying.

If you were to say to an ordinary person outside this House that the Bill would put the Electoral Commission more in the pocket of the party of government, regardless of its colour; to limit organisations, which at the moment can campaign 12 months out from a general election and spend £20,000 before they have to register, to £700; and that the stroke of the Secretary of State’s pen—that is what we are talking about—decides what type of organisation or individual is deemed to be allowed to campaign, I think most of the British public would say that was not a fair and equal way to carry out an election.

I come back to the central question that a number of noble Lords have asked: what is the problem that this clause is trying to deal with? How big is that problem? As someone who has been involved in elections since the age of 15, I am not clear what the problem is that requires my third question: what is it that requires the speed and the secrecy of the Secretary of State’s pen to deal with it? Those are the three questions that I ask the Minister. I hope that he will give detailed and, as he normally does, reasoned answers to what the clause is trying to solve, how big the problem is and, if he can explain the first two, why the only option is a Henry VIII power for the Secretary of State to decide what type of organisation or individual is deemed legal to campaign in such a way.

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

My Lords, I too express my deep concerns about the ways in which the Bill contravenes the Human Rights Act and indeed our constitutional commitments. I have canvassed the views of human rights lawyers and constitutional lawyers, and I am afraid I find it very difficult to see where the Government’s advice has come from that this complies with our commitments and obligations under our own legislation and constitutional commitments. When people say, “Let us think twice”, it is a reminder to this House about our role in causing hesitation when something of such significance in our democracy is going to interfere with the fundamentals. I call upon us to hesitate before going down this road, and to question what its purposes really are.

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, I would like to say a word of caution as well. When I look at a piece of legislation, I invariably say, “How would this work if the political parties were changed—if, instead of us implementing it, the party opposite were doing so?” If it passes that test because it is a fair piece of legislation, then I think that is within the Government’s right.

My concern here is that we are unbalancing the structure and that a Secretary of State—from a party, my party, that clearly is not well known for its love of the trade union movement—could exercise these powers, which may need exercising but not in this way by these people. We have to be very careful with the Electoral Commission because it is in all our interests for it to be seen as fair, independent and trustworthy. I am not going to make lots of speeches on this Bill because they would all be essentially the same, but I am afraid I am concerned about the way the Bill is tipping things.

I clearly have no interest in funding Labour Party campaigns, but I have an interest in there being a level playing field and people being able to campaign. My personal view, which I will mention in debate on another clause, is that party financing has got completely out of control and needs fundamental reform. You cannot run a democracy on selling games of tennis. When we say, “We have a great democracy and we’re really proud of it”, we are asked, “Oh yes? How do you fund it?”, and we have to reply, “Well, the Prime Minister plays tennis with Russians, and we get quite a bit of money in from that.”

When I came into politics, which was a long time ago—about 60 years, to be exact—the great joke was that you could not have a party function without a raffle and you could not run an election without at least a couple of jumble sales. When I was eventually disposed of by the Labour Party, which in retrospect was actually not a bad thing, I joined the Conservatives—

UK Democratic System: Interference by Russia

Baroness Kennedy of Shaws Excerpts

Monday 2nd July 2018 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure that the United Kingdom’s democratic system is resilient against Russian interference.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, the Government are alert to the threat of subversion and other means of seeking to manipulate the electoral process or undermine democratic institutions. They are committed to defending the UK from all forms of malign foreign state interference, whether from Russia or any other state. We have systems in place to defend against electoral fraud at all levels and have seen no successful interference in UK democratic processes, but we are not complacent.

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

My Lords, there is increasing evidence that there has been interference in 19 elections across Europe and in the United States. That evidence is gathering a head of steam. It shows encouragement of extreme parties across Europe, the funding of them and interference using cyber and other mechanisms to undermine processes. While I am grateful for the reply that there is no complacency from government, I want to hear whether we are going to use sanctions against supporters of Mr Putin who live in this country and make use of it, and whether the Magnitsky Act laws that we have now introduced to deal with money laundering, sanctions and so on will be used. Have any steps been taken to use them? Will we see lists of people who will have sanctions used against them? Will we know which Ministers will handle the Magnitsky Act?

Digital Forensic Services

Baroness Kennedy of Shaws Excerpts

Monday 12th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The noble and learned Lord raises a very important issue. Where a laboratory is suspected of having fallen short of standards, procedures will be under way to ensure that retesting takes place. I understand that that is happening as we speak. I will draw to the attention of the Attorney-General the suggestion the noble and learned Lord just made.

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

My Lords, it is probably not something that many in the House know, but the vast majority of cases coming before the criminal courts involve looking at social media for the assistance it gives in prosecutions and, indeed, in defence. It is often a signifier of the nature of relationships and often shows the extent of contact. Sometimes it shows that there is contact with certain people immediately before the commission of a crime. The quality of that assessment is very serious. It is clearly the position that there are just not enough people with the technical know-how being recruited to resource and to do this work to assist the prosecuting and defence authorities. We are talking about a serious piece of work being done in our universities and so on to create forensic skills for this purpose. As we now know, technology is widely used. Will the Minister tell us what efforts are being made to find recruits for this purpose?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The review I referred to, asked for by the Attorney-General, will identify solutions to some of the problems that the noble Baroness just referred to. It is the case that in recent years there has been an explosion in the use of social media in court cases. This has put enormous pressure on the digital forensic services. The regulator is aware of these issues. I hope that the review I have outlined, which is looking at these very issues, will come up with proposals and solutions that the Government can then take forward. I entirely agree that no one should be convicted because inadequate research has been done into relevant email and social media sources.

Brexit: European Arrest Warrant (European Union Committee)

Baroness Kennedy of Shaws Excerpts

Thursday 8th February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a great privilege to take part in this debate. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Jay, for the wonderful work he did when the chairman of the European Union Select Committee was ill. He stepped into the breach and chaired the committee wonderfully, and I thank him for all his hard work. I also thank him for opening the debate so succinctly. I have great concerns about the loss that there could be for law enforcement if we do not find an adequate way of having judicial oversight of the European arrest warrant.

I will start by reminding noble Lords of why we have it. I have practised at the Bar long enough to be able to tell your Lordships that one of the great problems with extradition to places outside Europe is how long it takes. The procedures are such that people often wait for a very long time in custody. The process often involves delay—sometimes, it is alleged, deliberately. The procedures were never very efficient or effective. The Euro warrant was created for that reason: to make collaboration across Europe more effective.

When it was first introduced I posed questions and was anxious to be sure that it would operate with due process. But I have come to see its operation as being of huge significance in answering international cross-border crime. My heart has been changed in many ways by seeing how it has worked. The underbelly of the market, as we all know, is the black market. We have seen all the things that have benefited from the creation of markets, globally and of course across Europe. We have all the business of the electronic transfer of money and all the things that ease the connections that enable markets and trade to operate well.

However, I am afraid that there is also an awful lot of trade in bad things, including arms and drugs. There has been a much greater amount of this coming before our courts than there was when I was a young woman starting at the Bar. There are a large number of cases now that are being dealt with using the Euro warrant, for example involving trafficking across Europe in human beings, including women and children for different purposes. The trafficking is not just in arms and drugs but in extraordinary things such as fissile material, human eggs and babies for adoption. All manner of things happen involving cross-border crime.

Last year, for us, it involved 200 requests and returns of people here to stand trial, and one of the cases was a very significant trafficking case. But we have also had it in the other direction, in that we are able to get rid of people who are international criminals. This is one of the things that the general public have expressed concern about. There are people here who are criminals from other parts of the Europe, and this is an effective way of returning them to places where they can be brought to book for serious crimes. If only the general public had some sense of how important this has been, and of our collaboration with Eurojust. It is another of those issues. I have seen cases come up where someone is arrested in Germany and decisions are made very closely about whether it might be better to prosecute here or in that country, depending on whether evidential reasons mean the case might be better suited to Germany’s criminal justice system or ours. Those mutual arrangements that operate across Europe depend on reciprocity.

I would hate to think that we would have to recreate this in treaties with 27 countries, but putting it in place without having, at the apex, a place to which you can go when there is a dispute would be problematic. I received the Government’s response to the report today—it was a long time coming—which recognises that there is a challenge for the Brexiteers. What do they do about that? Everyone says, “Bring it all home”—but you cannot bring home things that depend on reciprocity. There has to be a court that is not of one or the other side in a dispute. What kind of court can it be? They are talking about all manner of arbitration systems, tribunal systems and so on, but we are dealing here with the liberty of the subject—something more pressing than trade arrangements or disputes where you fall out with your trading partner because they do not deliver the goods. This is about crime, and the consequences of crime are that people are put on trial and end up being sent to jail. So high standards come to bear in such cases, which is why you need a proper court.

I chair the European Union Justice Sub-Committee. We had before us recently the former president of the EFTA Court, who had just stepped down. I know that we have been looking at the possibility of the EFTA Court and having some docking arrangement that would mean that we could somehow make use of the facilities of the EFTA Court. But we should be clear that the EFTA Court does not deal with the Euro warrant, Eurojust or any of these criminal matters: it deals purely with trade disputes. The president made it very clear that that was absolutely not within the remit of the court. I asked him, as a very distinguished judge of many years’ experience dealing with matters across Europe—mostly trade disputes—what his view was about whether it would be possible for us to still have the benefit of being party to Eurojust and the Euro warrant without being part of the European Court of Justice. He said that in his view it was not going to be possible.

So I give a warning to those who are negotiating on our behalf that this is one of those problems where drawing a red line was absolute folly. It cannot be said strongly enough that we are not going to be able to get an agreement on this without accepting that the European Court of Justice is essentially the best arbiter for this when there are disputes, because it goes to the difficult question of states taking people’s liberty away from them. When we are dealing with high-level crime, where we want collaboration, we want to see people who are guilty of those crimes ending up in jail.

I emphasise to the House how important this issue is, and I hope that a message will be taken back. I think a prize for creative writing should go to whoever drafted this response; it contains a lot of blather but not an awful lot that is solid on what we are going to do about this problem. It is a wicked and difficult problem, and I am sorry that the Minister is going to have to reply to this because I am sure that he will not have the answer. I am telling your Lordships that the only answer is a proper court at the apex—and we already have one, and it is doing its job very well.

Government-commissioned Research

Baroness Kennedy of Shaws Excerpts

Wednesday 28th June 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I certainly agree that research should be released as soon as possible and it would be wrong to suppress it for political reasons. As I said a moment ago, Sir Stephen said he found no indication that research had been indefinitely suppressed. However, he went on to say that delay could be damaging or unfortunate. The protocol that I referred to gives advice to departments on the timing of the publication of research. I will do what I can to make sure that is adhered to.

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

Is the Minister aware that there is public concern about the failure to publish the report on the funding of terrorism, which is particularly in our minds now in light of recent events? The concern is that the delay may be to cover our commercial interests, perhaps in parts of the Middle East where we have been selling arms. Is delay operating as suppression in this area?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I say with respect to the noble Baroness that I am not briefed on that report, but in the light of her question I will of course make inquiries and let her know the answer to those representations.

Lobbying (Transparency) Bill [HL]

Baroness Kennedy of Shaws Excerpts

Friday 9th September 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

My Lords, I, too, thank my noble friend Lord Brooke for introducing this Bill. I agree entirely with him that lobbying is part and parcel of politics and a legitimate and necessary part of any democratic process. I frequently try to persuade Governments of the importance of law, civil liberties and human rights and then Governments often do not listen, but try to persuade me that, for example, bringing back grammar schools might be a good thing. Sometimes we are successful in our persuasions, and sometimes we are not.

However, what we are talking about today moves beyond advocacy. In 2006—10 years ago now—I chaired the Power inquiry, which looked at British democracy and why there was so much disillusionment with politics. It was something I did for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. I had a cross-party body of people working with me. The thing that really concerned the general public was access to the powerful and to those in government that somehow seemed to give special privilege to the few in ways that the general public often felt were detrimental to their own interests. Their concern was not about charities or NGOs lobbying. It was about the power of corporates and big business to affect policy or to reduce the effectiveness of policies in order to improve their financial interests and profitability. There was a strong sense among the general public that this had increased enormously with globalisation. This business of the corporates floating above Governments and wielding this invisible power was repeated to us time and again. One has only to look at the ugliness of the corporate opposition to Obamacare in the United States—if we are embarrassed to look at things closer to home—which showed how big business, from pharmaceuticals to insurance companies, undermined a socially vital attempt to alleviate misery among a huge part of the American population. We know this is a direction of travel that we have to be very careful about. We are seeing an increase in lobbying by the minute. The warning about what is going to follow the Brexit referendum is something that we should have at the forefront of our minds.

The purchase that neoliberal economics now has on politics everywhere in the world speaks to the power of business and banking to influence the very ideas that underpin globalisation. It is now a mantra: small state, privatisation, outsourcing, low taxes, flexible work and disempowered trade unions. Those ideas have fed not just into Governments and political parties but into the World Bank and the IMF. Even my own party swallowed that pill—or, if you like, drank the Kool-Aid—back in the 1990s. This has involved an unpicking of the liberal social consensus that was so much a part of the aftermath of World War II, making sure that citizens had protections and rights. We have seen the permeation of those ideas into government, often through think tanks of the left, right and centre, which were penetrated by lobbyists and by the power of money.

The corporates know the power of language. They do not talk about “lobbying”; they do it through their public relations departments or public affairs units. They use political consultancy firms or professional public affairs agencies. They have learned the negative force of the word “lobbying”. When you hear the word “consultancy”, run for cover, because it usually means there is lobbying lurking there in the background. The professional lobbying industry, as my noble friend Lord Brooke has said, is worth billions of pounds. Businesses spend these sums because it is worth it to maximise their profits.

I often wondered back in those days why we even contemplated the business of mega-casinos, which are basically a great cover for crime, as anyone like myself who is a criminal lawyer knows; they are a magnet for criminal activity. Why do Governments get involved in mad computerisation programmes that cost a fortune and then go belly up, if it is not that they have had their ear bent with notions that do not deliver? Why privatise prisons or security in prisons? Why is there a stealthy movement by the Government to privatise so many aspects of health delivery? Why the pushing of the concept of choice as though that is what we as citizens should want, when in fact we know that it is actually also very valuable to corporate interests?

What the public wanted, and they said it very clearly, was transparency. We recommended something that comes closer to what the noble Lord, Lord Norton, is describing. We said that there should be a register of contacts, but not a register of the lobbying organisations done on a voluntary basis; what we were asking for was a proper record by Ministers, their special advisers and their officials, registering the contacts that had been made that were affecting policy, exactly in the way that the noble Lord has described. What one wants to know and see is where the influence has outcomes. That should be made public, as was suggested, by having it online so that people can see what the contacts have been.

The burden should fall on Ministers. I have heard the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, say what a burden it would be on the world of business for people to have to register all their contacts, but the suggestion has been made that it comes very easily to government officials and civil servants to make a note of the contacts that they have. It might have been very helpful during that business of the Murdoch contacts with the special adviser to the Secretary of State for culture and media at the time, Jeremy Hunt, when the Murdoch empire was trying to expand its remit with regard to Sky. We might have known a little more about that, rather than having to learn about it through investigative journalism. When the Power report was published, we were calling for that public statutory register to exist, setting out what contacts had been made and how they might have impacted on policy.

The other concern was about the business of the revolving door, which the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, described very powerfully in his speech. We have seen it recently. I fear that no political party has been untainted by it. In the past 25 to 30 years, we saw it originally with Mr Hamilton and his brown envelopes and Fayed, then with the business of Jonathan Aitken and Saudis. Then it moved on and, unfortunately, we saw it in relation to Labour in government. It is always those who are in government who become most vulnerable to the business of lobbying. They are enticed by the idea of moving out of government and Cabinet into highly paid jobs which allow them to use their little phone book and contacts. One minute you are on one side of a desk dealing with the privatisation of prisons; a few months later you are on the other side of the desk working for a security company. You have only to be in the Ministry of Defence five minutes to be confident that you can be on the board of an arms company as soon as you are out of government. You have only to be Secretary of State for Health for five minutes and you can look forward to a job in pharmaceuticals or private health if that is what you want.

We know how this works. I suggest that having lobbying on an informal basis is not good enough. I fear that we have seen an erosion of ethics and in the consideration of what is right and proper after being in government. There should be a statutory basis for how long should pass before someone takes a job in the private sector after they have been in government.

Only two days ago, there was a very interesting piece in the Guardian about corporate lobbying in relation to the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, which was a trade treaty but would have meant the grant of new legal rights to corporations. It would have had huge impact on our sovereignty. If Brexiteers are concerned about anything, they should put their minds to some of these big trading agreements, which override national laws and prevent legislation limiting corporate activities. These treaties often involve negating planning laws or laws to reduce the size of overmighty banks, for example. Although TTIP seems to have fallen by the wayside as a result of public outcry, it is now being replaced by a comprehensive economic and trade agreement, in which no doubt we will be invited to take part. Again, it involves overriding national legislation that may protect workers’ rights, for example.

We should be very mindful of how lobbying can be detrimental to the public interest. The public are entitled to know. They are asking for transparency. I am with the noble Lord, Lord Norton, on this: we should know much more from Ministers. The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, asks whether we will all have to declare things. Perhaps we would think twice about approaching a Minister on a matter if we knew that the Minister would be publishing a list of everyone who had mentioned matters that could change government policy. That might make for some different conduct. As the noble Lords, Lord Norton and Lord Bew, said, it is about trying to put a bar on any misbehaviour.

I welcome the Bill, although I think it could be strengthened, and I hope that the Government are listening. We have not gone far enough, and this is partly about public confidence in government.

Queen’s Speech

Baroness Kennedy of Shaws Excerpts

Tuesday 24th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

My Lords, I have the privilege of chairing the European Union Justice Sub-Committee. I was glad to hear my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer, in his very amusing speech, make reference to the report that came from our committee in the run-up to the Queen’s Speech. It was therefore with some regret that I heard included in the gracious Speech the announcement that the Government would bring forward proposals for a British Bill of Rights. Our committee was of one voice in expressing concern about the implications of such a Bill.

Perhaps I may reiterate what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. This has been a long journey for the Conservative Party. It started off being very resistant to the whole concept of human rights, and we have seen that chuntering away in the background for some while. Then eventually, when there was a coalition Government, the problem was one of being in partnership with a party that was very committed to human rights. A commission was then set up to look at whether a British Bill of Rights would be a good thing, but the outcome of that was rather unsatisfactory. Then, prior to the last election, the Conservative manifesto announced that such a Bill would follow from the abolition of the Human Rights Act and, if necessary, would involve withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights and the remit of the European Court of Human Rights.

That raised questions about whether such steps would create problems not only for our membership of the Council of Europe but for our relationships within the European Union should we remain part of the EU. European law is now imbued with human rights obligations through the European charter of rights. I know that it may be disobliging to some on the right wing of the Conservative Party but human rights are here to stay. They have now become part of the international discourse about how you raise standards and how you have law that is decent.

For many years, many within the Conservative ranks did not understand that it was in fact distinguished Conservative lawyers, led by the Attorney-General at the time, lawyer David Maxwell Fyfe QC, who drafted the European Convention of Human Rights back in 1950 under the guiding political hand of Winston Churchill, who realised that all legal systems had to be measured against a template of rights to guide nations, politicians and judges so as to create a moral climate and prevent a descent into inhumanity, which had just been seen in the Second World War.

Human rights now permeate the whole tapestry of international law and our treaty obligations, and it is time that people came to recognise that. Indeed, those who have followed this journey closely have come to realise it. I have watched as Michael Gove himself, in the role of Secretary of State for Justice, has come to accept that you cannot retreat from human rights. Indeed, even when it comes to commercial law, the Modern Slavery Act, introduced by this Government, is setting out the ways in which human rights obligations rest even on the shoulders of large companies. I noticed last week that a human rights unit has been established in the Pentagon, led by a group of very impressive human rights lawyers.

We have to accept that our generals and police all speak the language of human rights now. Human rights are not going to go away. In our globalised world, they have become the lingua franca of freedom and liberty, and they are the mechanism by which exploitation and abuse are challenged. That seems at least to have been recognised by some but I am afraid that there are still those within the Conservative Party who find the whole idea of human rights anathema.

Because a British Bill of Rights might raise questions about our legal relationship with the rest of Europe, our committee held an inquiry into the implications of withdrawing from the convention. The evidence was illuminating. We heard from former Attorneys-General on both sides of the House, and from judges, including our esteemed former Lord Chief Justice, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf. We heard from academic lawyers and practitioner lawyers, and we heard from Ministers from the devolved Administrations. We even had a communication from the ambassador for southern Ireland. For 15 years, we were warned, we have been developing law under the European Convention on Human Rights legal regime. Although many non-lawyers do not realise this, even before the passing of the Human Rights Act our courts were giving weight to international human rights standards in their judgments. This has become part and parcel of law around the world.

Most alarming of all was evidence that we heard from lawyers in the devolved nations, who pointed out the impact of disrupting the settlements that currently exist. We heard alarm bells about what would happen in relation to the peace process in Northern Ireland. We heard that southern Ireland would say, “We changed our constitution on the understanding that we would make no claim on the northern counties on the basis that there would be human rights protections under the European convention for Catholics who had been discriminated against for so long”. Therefore, it is important that this matter is approached with great care.

Finally, this has become a rather complicated issue for the Conservative Party. We have a Home Secretary saying that we should come out of the European Convention on Human Rights, and we have a Justice Minister saying, “No, no. We’ll stay in the European Convention on Human Rights but we’ll come out of the European Court of Justice”. I think it is time that the Conservative Party got its ducks in a row and understood that human rights are here to stay and that, in fact, being part of the European Convention on Human Rights is fundamental. We have to belong.

European Union Subsidiarity Assessment: Electoral Law of the EU (EUC Report)

Baroness Kennedy of Shaws Excerpts

Thursday 4th February 2016 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws]

That this House takes note of the Report from the European Union Committee on the European Parliament Proposal for a Council decision adopting the provisions amending the Act concerning the election of the members of the European Parliament by direct universal suffrage (7th Report, HL Paper 87).

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall speak to both the Motions in my name on the Order Paper. Before I begin, may I place on the record my thanks, and that of my committee, for the work of the incredible staff who serve the committee—particularly Tim Mitchell, a truly talented lawyer, who drafted this report?

In 2009 the treaty of Lisbon introduced new procedures that gave national parliaments the responsibility of policing the application to European Union legislative proposals of the EU’s principle of subsidiarity. It is a responsibility that I, and my colleagues on the EU Select Committee and its six sub-committees, take very seriously. The draft report that forms the basis of this debate was produced by the European Union Justice Sub-Committee, which I chair, and subsequently approved by the European Union Select Committee.

The report recommends that the House should submit to the European Union institutions, under Protocol 2 of the EU treaties, a reasoned opinion stating that it considers that the European Parliament’s proposal for reforming the EU’s electoral law does not comply with the principle of subsidiarity. This is a rather timely matter, coming just after the recent debate.

This is the eighth time since 2009 that the European Union Select Committee has recommended this course of action to the House. Unusually, though, this is the first time that the committee has recommended that a subsidiarity reasoned opinion be issued against a legislative proposal brought forward by the European Parliament. That has never been done before.

As the report explains,

“The principle of subsidiarity provides that, in policy areas which do not fall within the exclusive competence of the European Union, but where competence is shared with Member States, the Union can act”—

the following words are a quotation from Article 5 of the Treaty on European Union—

“‘only if and insofar as the objectives of the proposed action cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member States’”.

That, of course, is the principle of subsidiarity. In this way, in order to comply with the principle of subsidiarity, European Union action must be both necessary and add value, as compared to action at the member state level.

The European Parliament agreed this particular significant legislative proposal on electoral reform on 11 November, and sent it to the UK Parliament on 11 December. The intention behind the proposal is to reform the European Parliament’s electoral procedures before the 2019 elections. To this end, the European Parliament has proposed a number of new rules and a range of amendments to the existing EU legislation governing elections to the European Parliament. Somewhat surprisingly, given the power in the treaty under which the proposal has been brought forward, it also includes provisions seeking to clarify the Parliament’s role in appointing the President of the European Commission.

The proposed legislation has been brought forward by the European Parliament under a specific legal basis in the EU treaties calling on it to do so. In late November, as required by the treaties, the European Parliament sent its proposal to the Council. The member states must now agree to the proposal unanimously. Therefore, national vetoes will apply. Key aspects of the proposal are summarised briefly in paragraphs five and six of the report.

In addition to the committee’s two substantive subsidiarity concerns, to which I will turn in a moment, a number of important procedural requirements have not been followed by the European Parliament. These include a requirement to communicate legislative proposals to all national parliaments. This, in turn, sets the timetable for the issuing of reasoned opinions by national parliaments. But it appears that the Dutch Tweede Kammer, the House of Representatives in the bicameral Dutch Parliament, has only very recently received notification of this proposal—indeed, in the last few weeks. Therefore, the application of the usual eight-week window within which national parliaments can issue reasoned opinions is unclear. Does it date from then or back to the date when we, the UK Parliament, received it? Nevertheless, in the interests of issuing a reasoned opinion in the time, we are proceeding on the basis that the deadline expires tomorrow—5 February.

In addition, the European Parliament has failed to accompany its proposed legislation with a,

“detailed statement making it possible to appraise compliance with the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality”.

That detailed statement is a requirement by the subsidiarity protocol to the treaties. To our mind, that is a significant omission and makes it very difficult for individual national parliaments to undertake their treaty-imposed obligation to assess the compliance of EU legislative proposals with subsidiarity. I say that as someone who is supportive of the European Union, but it really does fail to live by the standards it has set itself. The absence of a detailed statement should be a matter of real concern to this House.

The assumption underpinning the principle of subsidiarity is that decisions to legislate should be taken as closely as possible to the European Union citizen. The report notes:

“Any departure from this presumption should, therefore, be justified with sufficient detail and clarity so that EU citizens, and their representatives in national parliaments, can understand the”,

reasons for EU action. The Parliament’s failure in this instance makes any assessment virtually impossible. That was the view taken by my committee and endorsed by the full EU Select Committee of this House.

The report argues in paragraphs 12 to 15 that,

“this omission constitutes a clear failure to comply with the essential procedural requirements in the Subsidiarity Protocol”.

The report notes that such a procedural failure is also,

“a ground for judicial review under EU law”.

The report addresses, further to these procedural matters, two aspects of the proposal that my sub-committee believes are difficult to justify in subsidiarity terms—a difficulty exacerbated by the Parliament’s procedural failures. The proposed rules governing the selection of candidates for election to the European Parliament, in particular the imposition of a gender balance requirement, have caused us some reflection. I should make it clear that most of us are wholly supportive of gender balance and want to see that come into being, but this is not the power in the treaty with which to do it. In our view, it really should not be done at the European Union level but by member states in a way that is appropriate for the different nations.

The other matter of concern is the proposed expansion of the existing right to vote in European elections for all EU citizens resident in the EU, to encompass all EU citizens regardless of where they live—in or outside the EU. This seems to be creating an unlimited right to vote in the European Union for citizens, wherever they live in the world, for ever. As we know, European Union citizens who are nationals of a member state are usually confined to a 15-year limit when living abroad to exercise the right to vote. We feel that that incredible extension should be taken at the national level.

The report argues that the European Parliament’s failure to produce the requisite detailed subsidiarity statement, taken in conjunction with the two provisions I have just mentioned, justifies this House’s conclusion that the proposal does not comply with the principle of subsidiarity. Once the preliminary issue of subsidiarity has been concluded, my sub-committee will soon begin its formal scrutiny of this proposal.

[Lord Garel-Jones (Con)]

What is the opinion of the noble Baroness—I am not sure of this myself, which is why I am asking the question—on the process of renegotiation the Prime Minister is currently involved in, whereby what is now called the yellow card would be substituted by a red card? Would it mean that national parliaments could block this proposal if they deemed it the right thing to do?

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws]

The situation is difficult to imagine. What should be happening here is very clear: a statement should normally be made explaining the justification, but subsidiarity is the primary principle that should be applied. Our concern was that not only was there a failure in terms of the normal proprieties, but that some of the proposals did not fit with subsidiarity at all in any event. We have not moved on to the second stage, but for the moment, I would rather leave the question of whether introducing a red card would somehow mean that one would be able to prevent it automatically. I am sure that my advisers would have an answer to that. We feel that this is precisely the kind of failure that gives the European Union a bad name. We are calling them on it, because if anything upsets citizens in the member states, it is the failure of the Union itself—here, it is the Parliament—to live by its own rules. Really, it is about conforming to the rulebook and that is the reason for this Motion today.

Once the preliminary issue of subsidiarity has been concluded, we will scrutinise the proposals in the normal way. But we are really concerned about the EU’s failure to live up to the standards it has set itself. That is the sort of thing that discredits the Union and causes alarm to many people within the United Kingdom just now—and I say that as someone who is a great supporter of the European Union.

I commend this report to the House and I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Lord Bridges of Headley) (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, did not ramble at all. He was very eloquent. I thank the European Union Committee for its report and, much more importantly, for its work in the round. The list of your Lordships who devote time and energy to its work is long, but I thank them all, in particular my noble friend Lord Boswell and the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws. This committee is a shining example of this House at its very best, picking to pieces legislation and exorcising the devil from the detail.

Before turning to the specific details of this issue, I shall put it in context—context of critical importance. Over the weekend, I reminded myself of public opinion of the European Parliament, since this seems to be the nub of the issue that the proposals are trying to address. The European Parliament is, according to the Parliament itself, suffering from a problem: declining participation rates in its elections. In the early 1980s, voter turnout was over 65%; in the last elections, it had fallen to beneath 42%.

It is worth noting, too, what voters think of the Parliament. Over the weekend I spent a few hours looking in the bowels of the European Parliament’s website. According to its November Eurobarometer survey, while seven out of 10 voters think that it plays an important role in running the EU, just one in four voters has a positive view of the Parliament. Those who do not trust the European Parliament outnumber those who trust it. The main reason given for not trusting the European Parliament is that it is,

“too far away from ordinary citizens”,

as the noble Lord, Lord Judd, said. I say this without any glee or satisfaction, but this is the worrying backdrop to the proposals for the reform of European law that the Parliament has itself proposed.

As has been said, these are proposals from some of those in the European Parliament. They believe that this voter apathy and mistrust can be tackled in part by changing how the elections themselves are conducted. They are perfectly entitled to their views and I do not wish to impugn their motives. It is always worth considering whether voter engagement might be improved by changing electoral processes. However, I question, gently, as did the noble Lord, Lord Judd, whether this should be the priority of the European Parliament now, with all the other enormous problems that we are facing.

Consider what voters across Europe have told the European Commission are their priorities. According to polls conducted for the Commission itself last year, immigration, the state of the economy and unemployment are voters’ top three priorities. A relentless focus on identifying credible solutions to these problems in a way that respects national sovereignty is the way to increase public engagement and trust in the European Union.

This brings me to the proposals themselves. As I was reading them, the wise words of the Dutch Government,

“European where necessary, national where possible”,

were ringing in my ears. It is not necessary for Europe to micromanage the system for European elections, whereas it is both possible and desirable for national governments to do so. Unsurprisingly therefore, the Government do not agree with these proposals as they stand. For example, there is no public support for details of European political parties to appear on ballot papers, or for harmonised quotas of women candidates at European elections. Such provisions on electoral law should be a matter for national parliaments and individual political parties.

The Government therefore share the concern of the committee that the proposals do not comply with the principles of subsidiarity and that the issues that they are designed to address should be decided at a national level and not at European level. As the members of the committee have pointed out, there are concerns with the level at which the action is proposed, concerns on whether the measures suggested are proportionate to the issues being addressed and concerns as to their added value.

I shall focus briefly on two particular proposals that the committee has highlighted. The European Parliament has proposed that the lists that the political parties put forward at European elections should ensure gender equality. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, the Government believe that democratic institutions make the best decisions when they have a mix of people with different skills, backgrounds and experiences from across the country. We must ensure that women are better represented across all walks of life. The proportion of women in the British MEP group and that among MPs at Westminster have risen steadily over the years and I hope and expect that they will keep rising in the future. The Government do not, however, consider that it would be right to mandate a legal quota in order to effect change. Nor would it be right to install a one-size-fits-all solution for all countries and all political parties within them.

It is also proposed that EU citizens, including those living or working in a third country, should be able to vote in European elections. Of course, UK law already provides that British citizens living abroad—whether in another member state or otherwise—may register to vote in European elections in the UK for a maximum of 15 years after they were last registered to vote in the UK. The same time limit applies to voting in UK parliamentary elections. The Government are committed to scrapping the rule that bars British citizens who have lived abroad for more than 15 years from voting and will introduce stand-alone legislation to deliver this as a permanent change in due course. However, the Government share the committee’s concern that this sort of issue should be decided at a national level.

I shall also comment briefly on the European Parliament’s proposed changes to the way that the President of the European Commission is selected—the so-called Spitzenkandidaten process. The position of President of the European Commission is obviously important, so changes in this area need to be forensically scrutinised. If there are to be changes to the way the President of the Commission is selected, these changes must be seen as wanted and necessary by all member states. Consensus among member states is absolutely vital. The Government remain of the view that selection of the Commission President should remain a European Council decision and based in current EU law. The European Parliament has the right to draw up proposals under Article 223(1) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union regarding the election of its members and it is within its rights to propose measures relating to that. However, it is the scope of these measures, both individually and as a whole, that is problematic where they breach subsidiarity.

Finally, there is the issue of the veto. All member states would need to approve the proposals in order for them to take effect. Perhaps anticipating some nations’ opposition to these proposals and their tenor, draft Article 14 proposes to remove the veto for these matters. This, too, is unacceptable, as it would be wholly inappropriate for issues such as these to be decided by QMV.

Therefore, the Government wholeheartedly share the committee’s concerns on subsidiarity, both in terms of the content of the proposal and as regards procedural aspects. An important part of ensuring compliance with subsidiarity is the requirement for EU institutions to provide a robust assessment and justification for why an objective can be better achieved at EU level. As the committee has highlighted in its report, the case has not been made.

It is worth noting that the UK Government are not alone in having reservations regarding these proposals. During early discussions, other member states have expressed concerns on these proposals. Some 16 chambers from 10 member states have signed a letter to the European Parliament expressing their concerns on procedure regarding national parliaments. Similarly, a number of parliaments are considering issuing reasoned opinions on these measures.

All too often, the EU has exercised power in areas where decision-making could and should be done at a national, regional or local government level without interfering with the operation of the single market or the effective functioning of the EU. The EU must respect the layers of government that are closest and most accountable to European citizens, and national parliaments have a key role to play in ensuring that happens.

In conclusion, politicians across Europe wish to increase political engagement and trust in politics. This Government believe that the way to do this is by strengthening the role of this Parliament and of all national parliaments. Europe should focus on advancing our prosperity and security—the issues that citizens care about. For these reasons, the Government cannot and will not support the draft proposals that the committee has so expertly scrutinised.

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws]

My Lords, I thank all my noble friends for their participation in this debate. We have learned a lot about the importance of dialogue, which is the message that comes through from the Motion.

My noble friend Lord Davies mentioned to me last night that he would be opposing the second Motion. We did not have any discussions about it, because I was speaking to amendments to the Immigration Bill and it was not a time when I could enter into a discussion with him. However, I hope that, having been absent from the discussion in the Select Committee, he has been persuaded after having had the benefit of hearing the good reasons why we reached the conclusion that there should be a reasoned opinion and why the report was created in the way that it was.

As the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, said, this is not about being antagonistic towards the European Parliament but about pointing out why procedure matters. It is very important for the relationship between member states and the Parliament in the European Union. These ways of working are important and it is how you inspire trust. I hope that the House will support the Motion and that my noble friend Lord Davies will, too.

Motion agreed.