European Union Bill

Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne Excerpts

Monday 16th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I do not want to sound critical of the noble Lord, who has had such experience in these things, but I have to ask where he has been because this Bill is about the present and the future. It is not saying that we can unravel the Lisbon treaty or that we should revert from QMV back to unanimity on a vast number of things where there is QMV. This Bill does not take back any competences or powers, although there are people in this House and another place who would like to consider that some of the powers are somewhat out of date in the central situation and should perhaps be revisited. It is not about that at all. This Bill is about further treaty changes and further transfers of power.

Here I agree with my noble friend Lady Williams. I suspect that most people—not the noble Lord, Lord Pearson—think that we are right to be good Europeans and to be effective in the EU, that we have given the European Union enormous powers and that almost anything we want to do can be achieved within those powers and with legislation within the existing competences, but that the case for allowing a further expansion of the powers and competences without consulting people who feel that time and again they have not been consulted is a very weak case. The case for not allowing people is very weak, and the case for allowing them is extremely strong. That is what this Bill is about, so I do not understand the noble Lord’s intervention about the past. It just does not add up.

[Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne]

Does the Minister not agree that the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, is in fact a misunderstanding of the purpose of this Bill and that his remarks and the remarks of so many of those who oppose this Bill still relate to overwhelming ownership by government of all these decisions? The purpose of the Bill is to bring the British public and the voter into that decision-making process. The focus of the Bill is in fact quite different.

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

My noble friend puts the matter with wonderful clarity. The truth is that not only is it not in our interest to remove the locks on so many aspects that the noble Lord finds so difficult but that many member states, not all of them, like us want no such thing as a removal of the veto in so many areas. Indeed, this explains why most of the areas requiring unanimity are in the treaty in the first place, remain in the treaty and are in Clause 6 and Schedule 1.