Scotland Bill

Debate between Baroness Rawlings and Lord Kerr of Kinlochard

Wednesday 28th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Rawlings]

My Lords, I remind your Lordships that on Report a Member may speak only once, excepting for a short question of elucidation to the Minister, as I have said.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard]

I understand the noble Lord’s point. My principal argument would be about timing. I do not think that the politics of this in Scotland would play well. Personally, I go with the prediction made by the noble Lord, Lord Steel, about what is likely to happen—perhaps rather more slowly than he suggested, but that is the direction of travel. That direction is not objectionable, but my worry about it is that it does not make sense to wait until after 2014, as he was implicitly accepting, to define what this further devolution of tax-raising power is. I think that one ought to do this in advance. That was my twofold worry about the Prime Minister’s speech in Edinburgh. It is unwise to offer the measure; it is certainly unwise to offer it undefined and suggest that it can be defined only in the light of a referendum result. To me that is the greatest worry about this matter.

European Union Bill

Debate between Baroness Rawlings and Lord Kerr of Kinlochard

Tuesday 26th April 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard]

That seems likely to be the case. I agree with the noble Lord.

The second argument that the noble Lord, Lord Howell, used was about time. Here I have to say that I warmly welcome the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, which brings in the concept of urgency. It seems to me that the situation in which Article 48(6) is likely to be used will be the urgent situation. That is what was in the minds of those who invented the Article 48(6) procedure. The heavy procedure under Article 48(2) to (5)—Clause 2 of our Bill—contains provisions for a convention of representatives of national parliaments and the European Parliament meeting with representatives of the member states. It also contains provisions for doing away with that and concludes with a two-year period for national ratification. These timetable elements, and the reference to the convention, drop out in the accelerated method. The idea of a two-year delay has gone in Article 48(6), just as the convention has gone. People had in mind that there could be crisis situations in which the European Union would need to revise its texts quickly—hence Article 48(6). That makes it a little paradoxical that we are insisting on adding a referendum requirement.

More than that, we are—as the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, pointed out at the start of our first day—doing something that we have never done in this country before: we are providing for an Act of Parliament to be overruled by a referendum. That is literally unprecedented, and we would be doing it in relation to matters, if they were under Article 48(6), where we had voted in the Council for an urgent change, since nothing can be done other than by unanimity in the Council. Everybody has voted for it; it is sufficiently urgent to justify the accelerated procedure; it goes through the House of Commons and through the House of Lords; but under this Bill it then requires a referendum which could overrule an Act of this Parliament. That is why I think that there is something really dangerous in the Bill, not just in terms of our position in the European Union but in terms of our basic constitutional position in this country. I really do worry about it.

I come back to the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Liddle. It must be right to introduce the concept of urgency and to make the tests not cumulative. It seems to me that Amendments 16A and 16B deserve our support. However, even if they were included in the Bill, I would still argue that Clause 3 should not stand part of the Bill, because in logic you do not need different procedures depending on how it started over there. The procedures you follow should be decided by the significance of the measure itself.

[Baroness Rawlings]

My Lords, I sense that it is the feeling of the Committee that the Question on Clause 3 stand part should be debated with this grouping of Amendments 16A and 16B, as suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr. I therefore invite the Committee to proceed on that basis.