European Union Bill

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean Excerpts

Monday 13th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stoddart of Swindon]

Of course, I have listened to the noble Lord, Lord Richard, for longer than 20 years, and I know that he is an absolutely committed Europhile. He is right to say that I am very much in favour of parliamentary democracy, but I am trying to explain that in relation to the European Union we do not have a proper parliamentary democracy. All the amendments made to the European Communities Act 1972 were made by treaty. Under those circumstances, the Government agree to the treaty and sign it. One former Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs said, “Now that I've signed the treaty, perhaps I'd better read it”. Therefore, we cannot be sure that even those who sign the treaties know what they are about. Nevertheless, the treaty then comes before Parliament and Ministers come to the Dispatch Box and say, “You must pass this treaty because we have agreed to it. If you do not, the country's standing in the world will be damaged and we will never be trusted again”. Governments put Parliament in an almost impossible position. If Parliament rejects the treaty out of hand, the Government will say, “My God, we have no further influence in the world because Parliament has declared that it does not agree with the treaty”.

[Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean]

I was the lead Minister on the Amsterdam and Nice treaties. I stood at the Dispatch Box and argued for them. I do not recall ever saying to the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon, that we would not be trusted again. We argued on the merits of the treaty. It is important that we stick to the merits of the treaty in this argument today. I would not like the noble Lord's arguments about what was said from the Dispatch Box to stand on the record without being challenged by the person who stood at the Dispatch Box.

--- Later in debate ---

The difficulty in reversing European legislation and in making it more flexible needs to be addressed. We are going to have an argument about a sunset clause later, but when did we ever have a sunset clause in any European Union legislation? It is so difficult to bring the rights of the House of Commons to bear on European Union legislation that we have to be very careful about all these areas where power can move away from our country. Once it is gone, it is gone beyond recall.

[Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, has gone to the heart of the issue in many ways and I applaud him for what he has said. I do not agree with a lot of what he said, but at least he was dealing with the issues and not with the bland assertion that has come from some on the Benches opposite that this side, or those who are putting forward this amendment, the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and his supporters, have somehow not got the point of the Bill, either out of deliberate perversity or just plain ignorance. The fact is that we simply disagree. We have to argue through that disagreement and Parliament is the right place to have the argument. In so far as that was the point that the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, was making, I agree with him wholeheartedly.

I say to the noble Lord, Lord Flight, that putting forward amendments in this way is not a tactic. It is part of a reasoned argument. Much of it has come not from the political side of these Benches, but from noble Lords on the Cross Benches, who have put forward well-reasoned amendments, although, of course, he may disagree with them. The noble Lord, Lord Flight, says that he sat through what he called “an elected tyranny” in the other House. Well, that “tyranny” was elected in 1997 and the British people, in whom he places so much faith over referendums, re-elected that “tyranny” in 2001 and again in 2005, so perhaps not so jolly tyrannical after all.

[Lord Flight]

Does the noble Baroness agree that there is a difference between how people vote at elections and what happens in the House of Commons? I was simply making the point that when any party has a large majority in the House of Commons, under the British system since it was changed by Walpole from the originally intended system in the Act of Rights, I am afraid that when there is a large majority it does function as an elected tyranny on either side.

[Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean]

The fact that there is a difference in Parliament from what happens at elections is precisely what we are discussing. The fact is that after the passing of the Amsterdam treaty the British people re-elected a Labour Government and after the passing of the Nice treaty the British people re-elected a Labour Government. They had the opportunity to get rid of the Government on those occasions and they chose not to do so.

The noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, made a very interesting argument. He said, with passionate conviction, that the British people know best. Do we therefore extend that argument to a referendum on the current health proposals that are dominating our headlines and are probably far closer to the hearts of the British people than a lot of what we are discussing here? Did it occur to the Benches opposite to have a referendum on the increases in university fees?

[Lord Dobbs]

Does the noble Baroness accept that I was trying to make the point that there should be moderation and a sense of balance in all this? That is what so many parts of this argument lack. It is not a matter to be taken to extremes; it is a matter of balance and common sense. Had we pursued that with the British people, they would be far more onside than they are.

[Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean]

My Lords, of course it is a question of balance and common sense. Where do we find arguments about balance and common sense but in another place and, especially, here? It is here where we have those arguments and can argue out what is in a Bill.

The noble Lord said that the British people know best—he did not qualify the sentence that he uttered—in making his argument about how important referendums could be. I merely suggest to him that the British people would perhaps have liked to have had a referendum on the increases in university fees.

[Lord Stoddart of Swindon]

Will the noble Baroness give way?

[Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean]

I will give way in a moment. Perhaps it would be pertinent to suggest that there should be a referendum on the future of the nuclear deterrent.

[Lord Stoddart of Swindon]

I am most obliged to the noble Baroness for giving way. Would it not have been more pertinent if the Labour Government who introduced university tuition fees had had a referendum? That would have saved them from betraying everything that the Labour Party ever stood for.

[Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean]

No, my Lords, of course that is not the case. The point about what has happened in the very recent past is that not only did one of the parties in the referendum say in its manifesto that it would not raise fees but its members signed individual pledges to their electorates to say that they would not increase them, let alone put them up by three times. I do not take the noble Lord’s point on that; it was rather a weak one.

I return to the noble Lord, Lord Waddington. We understand that he has very robust views, as do many of his noble colleagues, but I hope that the Conservative Benches have listened to what I thought was the generous support from the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart. There can be no doubt where he stands on the European Union and yet he and the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, are willing to compromise on this issue. They are willing to acknowledge some of the points that have been raised on the Conservative Benches—and I make the point that it is very much the Conservative Benches, with one or two exceptions on the Liberal Democrat Benches. The noble Lords, Lord Goodhart and Lord Hannay, and others are willing to support referendums on the really important issues. That is the point. We are not saying no; we are saying, “Let’s listen to what our own Constitution Committee, with its representatives from the Conservative Benches, has said unanimously on this issue”, and it has said that referendums must be kept for the really important constitutional issues. If we do not concentrate on what is important, where we should be concentrating the British public’s attention, then indeed we do have a big argument about the role of Parliament and we do start to get into the fundamental constitutional issue of what Parliament is here to do.

It has been said that people will really want to have these referendums. I put it to your Lordships that we all know that is not true; of course they will not want them. They would want them on the euro; if we decided that we were going to leave the European Union; on Schengen issues, because immigration is such a major issue; and on whether or not there should be a European army. Those are the fundamental issues that have been at the centre of most of the arguments in this House in the whole time that I have been here, listening as we went through them over and over again. I suggest to your Lordships that going through the long list in front of us will do nothing to make the British public more confident in what we are doing here. Frankly, it will make them think that we have been dealing with trivia instead of with the important issues that face us.

[Lord Maclennan of Rogart]

My Lords, perhaps I may intervene briefly at the end of a fascinating debate. Those who are opposed to Amendment 14, which I strongly support, and the other amendments in the group have been at pains to suggest that what the British people really want is to stop the European Union taking decisions. My noble friend Lord Lamont made the point forcefully that one of the reasons for the unhappiness about the European Union is that it makes decisions in a cumbersome and not very transparent way. It does not actually always intervene to deal with the problems that occupy the British public most closely. It seems that the matters on which the Bill suggests that there should be referenda before decisions are finally taken would in fact make that doubt about the effectiveness of the European Union much stronger. It would make it more difficult for the Union to be able to answer the problems of banking, which are uppermost in many people’s minds at this time. It would make it more difficult for the Union to deal with problems of cross-border immigration and it would make it more difficult for the Union to take action on the environment, which many regard as the top priority today.

The noble Lord, Lord Lamont, talked about the indirect democracy of the European Union. Yes, I agree with him that that is a suitable characterisation. Of course all democracy is indirect in a sense, and the kind of cutting of agreements between interest groups within a Cabinet is comparable with what he described when decisions are taken at the European level. However, it is not altogether true that treaties are unamendable. We have had many treaties since we entered the Common Market which have endeavoured to make the decision- making process more democratic, open and expeditious, and I think that most of those treaties have gone through without any hostile reaction from the public. This Bill seems to have been designed to put a drag anchor on the process of improving decision making within the European Union. I do not accept the view expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, that decisions taken in the Union are irreversible. Even among those who are full members of Schengen, discussions are going on about the need to look at immigration in the light of the probable influx from Arabian countries. It is not impossible that steps will be taken to respond to that.

If we want the European Union to be more appreciated for what it does, we should not be putting rocks in the road that make it more difficult for its institutions, including the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission, to come up with legislative proposals to tackle the perceived difficulties that we all share within Europe. Most of our interests are common interests in the areas for which the European Union has responsibility. Certainly, ideologies will divide people in all countries, but because of the fact that so many of our interests are common, we do want to improve the democratic processes. Requiring referenda to be held on some of these matters by one out of 27 or 28 countries would be seen as a block on progress, democratisation and modernisation not only by other countries, but also by many people in this country who are conscious of the value of the work that the European Union has done over the 60 years of its existence.