European Union Bill

Baroness O'Cathain Excerpts

Tuesday 26th April 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Liddle]

There is a lot with which I agree in what the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, has said. I agree with the basic analysis: that the question is of how the powers of the Union, as granted by the Lisbon treaty, should be used. What the noble Lord glosses over in his defence, as it were, of the Government is that the Lisbon treaty covers much of the ground that we need to cover but this Bill is designed to cramp the flexibility that it contains. That is the fundamental issue which noble Lords from around the House are trying to address. We are saying: “Look, we're not asking for a mandate for vast new powers for the European Union. That isn't what the argument is about”. We are saying: “The Lisbon treaty? Fine—but there is flexibility within it. Why are the Government ruling out using that flexibility where we, as the United Kingdom, think that it is in our national interest and where the British Government support it?”. Those are the conditions which would have to be met.

I am not a great expert on the European Court of Justice, unlike other noble Lords who may be in the Chamber. However, in its analysis of that Court your Lordships’ own committee, under the noble Lord, Lord Bowness, pointed to the possibility of the need for some change in the treaty. We ought to be open to that possibility and to a little bit of give on this kind of thing. If the Bill is to have a less troublesome Report stage than it looks as if it might otherwise have, the Government have to find a way of accommodating the view that we need more flexibility on some of these more detailed provisions.

[Baroness O'Cathain]

The noble Lord stated that the Bill seeks to cramp parts of the Lisbon treaty. Does he not agree that if you look at it in a dispassionate way—I know it is very difficult to look at this Bill in a dispassionate way—and use the word “moderate” it might actually be more acceptable. If you felt that this was to moderate rather than to cramp, it is not a physical thing of trying to stop but one of trying to get an acceptable level of agreement throughout. I just wish we could pursue this on that basis.

[Lord Liddle]

The noble Baroness has made a helpful point. My fear in all of this is that what we are doing through adopting this very restrictive position is putting British Ministers in a position where they would want to agree things that they regard as being good for Britain and they are going to have to say no because they believe that the referendum lock would apply. That is not very sensible where the issues are not of great concern to the public, where there is not real competence creep and where the benefits of change could be quite considerable.