Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference 2015

Baroness Williams of Crosby Excerpts

Thursday 26th April 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

The noble Lord is absolutely right about the concerns. Obviously, we welcome the signs that Russia and the United States, which after all hold 95 per cent of these weapons—although other countries certainly have dangerous weapons as well—are moving towards some further resumption of the START negotiations. That would be very good. Over and above that, we continue to take the lead in the P5 process. Disarmament is one of the key three pillars of the NPT regime, along of course with non-proliferation and peaceful use of nuclear energy, and our full emphasis and efforts are applied to it. But obviously the big reductions in numbers must come through Russian and American action, which we greatly welcome and support.

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

My Lords, while accepting what my noble friend has just said, does he not agree that the number of weapons in the arsenals of the non-NPT nuclear powers is growing very fast indeed, particularly in Pakistan, and as far as we know in Israel and India? Can he suggest any way in which we could raise at the prep con the issue of including the non-NPT nuclear powers within some structure of, for example, longer warning periods, because this is beginning to undermine the confidence in the NPT itself?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

That, as my noble friend points out with her considerable experience, is the danger: that the non-signatories to the NPT—the non-state parties—will carry on on their own path. We must and intend to work, both at this preparatory conference and at the next review conference, to urge these countries to sign up to the NPT and observe the necessary responsible actions to join in the world movement to reduce nuclear weapons. It is very difficult and there are all sorts of political subcurrents, as my noble friend knows. There are many complications, of which the imbroglio over the Middle East, the position of Iran and Israel and many other issues are a part, but we keep working at it.

Hungary

Baroness Williams of Crosby Excerpts

Monday 30th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

Of course we should. Certainly speaking for myself, one of the turning points in my lifetime was when these countries, which were in effect enslaved under communism, came into freedom in the latter part of the last century. That was a wonderful thing. We played a good part in bringing it about and we must continue to fight for those freedoms. I agree with the noble Lord.

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

My Lords, given that there are prospects for further enlargement of the European Union—we have had much discussion about Turkey and other countries—would it not be appropriate to take a very strong line indeed with Hungary? Its Prime Minister has, in fact, played games with nationalism and democracy for quite a few years now, even before he became Prime Minister, through his party. The more clearly that the Council of Europe can give an indication that this is not acceptable for a member of the European Union, the more likely it is that other countries will look very carefully at it before deciding whether to move towards membership.

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

My noble friend is right that there is concern here, and it is a matter that both aspiring and current members of the European Union should closely follow and be engaged in. Hungary is a nation of many virtues and has been through many difficulties. We want it to continue and prosper as a free nation and not to be constrained by undesirable and unsavoury laws. We recognise that, and we have to work very hard on that basis.

European Union Bill

Baroness Williams of Crosby Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Triesman]

My Lords, I want to associate this side of the House with what the noble Lord, Lord Williamson, has said. The matter will not be pressed today but I would ask the House to understand the reasons in the briefest sense for why this was argued and why I think, even in the earlier example of devolution decisions in the past, people were keen to see some sort of threshold. The proposal for a 40 per cent threshold is not a benchmark which would be insisted on for every kind of vote in every kind of circumstance, although some people might in many circumstances wish to see that figure exceeded.

We are talking about changes in quite fundamental constitutional arrangements. It seems quite reasonable to say that there should be some degree of consensus that is visible and substantial when a major constitutional change is to take place. These changes in relationships with Europe would be significant constitutional changes, which is precisely why this legislation is before the House in the first place. It would be wrong to say that it is not simply a matter of how many turn up to vote because whatever the proportion was you would still have to win the vote as well in order to achieve the result.

To conclude, a number of constitutional changes are before your Lordships’ House in this parliamentary Session. We have had them on constituencies, on AV and in this Bill. We will probably see some in any Bill about reform of your Lordships’ House. In introducing piecemeal constitutional change, always with the possibility of it being adopted without there being real and genuine safeguards, we will end up with a set of jig-saw pieces from different jig-saws all shaken into the same box and without prospect of being joined together in any realistic way or without people making realistic decisions about the overall impact of what we are doing. We deny ourselves the safeguard today and, once again, I suspect that we will regret it.

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

My Lords, I consider that the very strong and articulate arguments put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Williamson of Horton, and very carefully considered by this House, deserve a little more than the rather supercilious dismissal of the whole argument by the other place:

“Because the outcome of the referendum should be determined by those who vote in it and should not depend on how many do not vote”.

One might say that that is almost contemptuous. I support what the noble Lords, Lord Williamson of Horton and Lord Triesman, have said, although I do not expect them to press the matter to a vote.

--- Later in debate ---

The noble Lord pointed out that this was just for the duration of the Parliament; it would have to be renewed in future Parliaments and would be suspended only temporarily, but if you suspend a particular provision temporarily and give away the power under the temporary suspension of that provision, you have given it away permanently. There is not much use in having the power back after you have given away the power that you originally wanted to protect. This is very dangerous. It is far-reaching and would give rise to a very cynical reaction among the public if carried.

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, always argues very effectively and has done so yet again. He invariably falls back on logic and argument rather than on attempts to raise emotional feelings of one kind or another that are inappropriate, but I want to put to him a rather different point. He said, which was fair enough, that this kind of sunset clause often applies to emergency legislation, in particular to emergency legislation that leads, for example, to exceptional powers being taken by a Government that need to be looked at later in a rather less heightened atmosphere in order to decide whether they should remain on the statute book. Many of us will know that emergency legislation passed back in the 1940s still sits on the constitutional pattern of far too many countries that use it to suppress human rights, so one has to be very cautious about that kind of thing.

There is another very different factor about this legislation. It is highly speculative legislation. It makes assumptions about the kinds of issues that are likely to come up over the next few years. We know enough from what we are reading even today that major issues are likely to come up. These go all the way, as John Major said at the Ditchley Foundation only a few days ago, to the question of how one changes eurozone practices—whether one will look again, for example, at the tendency towards an increased or enhanced stability pact. These issues will have the greatest impact on the UK, even though we are not, of course, a member of the eurozone. In this respect the noble Lord, Lord Radice, was absolutely right to say that we cannot know what might arise. The whole point of the sunset clause as we are presenting it is that it gives the British public, in the broadest sense of the word, an opportunity to see what the impact has been of this speculative legislation, which some say will make it very difficult for our representatives in Brussels to represent our own national interests. That is an untested statement. The other untested statement is how far they will feel heavily dissuaded from expressing British national interests for fear that it might set off a referendum.

The great beauty of the sunset clause is that it will unquestionably turn the Bill into a general election phenomenon—an issue that will have to be considered at the next general election—which is, in the mind of many of us, exactly what it ought to be. The British public will be able to consider in the round whether it is wise or unhelpful legislation and to do so in what will undoubtedly be a very substantial turnout, and because this will be an issue about whether this legislation will continue, it will come at the right moment and in the right way before the British people so that they can decide.

[Lord Empey]

My Lords, I said on Third Reading that the proposal for a sunset clause was ill conceived. I believed that to be true then, and I believe it to be true now. While I was not present for the debate in the other place, I did read it today and unfortunately a lot of unkind things were said about this House, which is unusual. A consistent theme throughout the discussion on the amendments was that a number of them were wrecking amendments. That is how this amendment was seen by a number of Members in the other place. The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, said that only a small number were there, and that was undoubtedly true, but to some extent that makes the point, because if Members in the other place were actively supportive of the decisions of your Lordships’ House some weeks ago, why did they vote with their feet and not turn up to debate some of these amendments? They obviously did not see merit in them. That is the only reason I can think of why they would abstain in such a way.

European Union Bill

Baroness Williams of Crosby Excerpts

Thursday 23rd June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

That is a very clear view from the noble Baroness, who, as a former Minister for Europe, knows about these things. However, I have to say that, in the age in which we live, that is a heroic position. We are now living in the information age of instant communication. Referenda are being used in every country, not at the expense of parliamentary debate and sensible diligence by elected representatives but as a further extension of the consolidation of the people’s trust in the processes of government. They are being used everywhere.

I heard the very eloquent views of the noble Lord, Lord Deben, who is not in his place, that he is against all—

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

I am grateful to my noble friend. I simply want to make it clear that my support for referenda is limited to major amendments to treaties. It does not apply, as the Minister knows very well, to the list of issues set out in the schedule to the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Williamson of Horton]

I did not intervene earlier because I got the impression that this was not only Third Reading but probably fourth, fifth and sixth reading, given the many points that were made that did not appear to relate in any way to Clause 18. I shall be extremely brief in saying that it is correct that the Bill that now goes to the House of Commons is different because we have fully considered it and made changes, and we look forward to a serious and positive response from the other House.

I will make only one further point. If the Bill becomes an Act, I share the view of the Government on one important point; I hope that it will seriously improve the possibility of a better connection between the people and the European Union. That is the primary intention of the Bill and, however much it has changed, it is still very important that we should seek to achieve that.

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

My Lords, I, too, add my warm thanks to the Ministers for the extremely gracious and thoughtful way in which they have responded to issues in this House. In particular, I thank the Minister for his willingness to spend some time meeting people personally to discuss their particular problems when he is an extremely busy man with a heavy ministerial list, as indeed is his colleague the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire. I do not want to detain the House either, beyond thanking them very much and saying one other word following the noble Lord, Lord Williamson.

There are issues in the amendments that this House has passed which would improve the Bill very considerably. I hope that the Ministers will think quite carefully before trying to oppose them completely, because they would bring about a degree of consensus across the House that would be extremely valuable for our future relations with Europe, about which the Minister has already spoken eloquently. We welcome what he has said about that. I hope that the Government will take away from this at least a willingness to consider whether it might not improve the Bill to accept some of these amendments.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we are on the edge, between being in order or out of order. Perhaps I might repeat my noble friend’s request that the noble Lord, Lord Lea of Crondall, might now care to withdraw his amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, rightly pointed out that we are edging away from Third Reading and into Bill do now pass. I therefore suggest that we allow my noble friend to move the Motion that the Bill do now pass.

European Union Bill

Baroness Williams of Crosby Excerpts

Monday 13th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Willoughby de Broke]

My Lords, I think that this is rather a sad amendment. It demonstrates the Europhiles’ lack of confidence in their case in trying to put into the Bill a requirement for Ministers, frankly, to propagandise. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Radice, says that it is not propaganda but let us look at the words of the amendment. It says,

“must have regard to the desirability of promoting the United Kingdom’s membership of the EU”.

That sounds exactly like a recipe for propaganda to me. There is no balance there whatever—it requires Ministers to promote our membership of the EU. Like the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, I find it extraordinary that the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, should keep saying that the only reason for Euroscepticism is the Murdoch press or the Barclay press or whatever. They have absolutely nothing to do with the rise of the new Finn party, for example, or of Euroscepticism in France, Germany or Hungary. I am afraid that there is a growing realisation that Europe is going the wrong way and that the desire for more and more integration is not what people in member states want. To put this amendment in the Bill would be absolutely contrary to what people in this country think is right.

The noble Lord, Lord Dykes, said that the noble Lord, Lord Howell, had encouraged him in some of the things that he had said. I have listened to many speeches by the noble Lord, Lord Howell. He is extremely balanced in his view of the EU. He takes a critical but on the whole positive approach, which is right; Ministers in the Government will always do that. There is absolutely no need to put this sort of demand for propaganda in the Bill, and I hope that the Government will reject the amendment.

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

The noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke, has perhaps underestimated some of the forces out there that make it difficult to explain what the European Union is doing. I shall speak briefly. Despite the fact that we have been, as my noble friend Lord Trenchard said, citizens of the European Union for 50 years, we have never spoken about it or taught it in our schools in any adequate way. We are almost unique in Europe in the fact that our syllabuses carry very little information about the common market and very little understanding of this additional citizenship, which is part of the law of the land.

This is an issue now with a new Education Bill that is considering what should be in the syllabus for English children. Ministers should encourage the idea that if we are part of the European Union—and we still are—there should be at least a limited level of education about Europe in our schools so that our children know what we are talking about and are capable of making critical judgments about statements made in the press and deciding whether or not they agree with them.

I will give a second example. There was a good deal of discussion in the House today and on previous occasions about the level of distrust in the European Union. The noble Lord, Lord Liddle, made powerful points about the level of distrust in Parliament and in the whole democratic process. The distrust is part of the atmosphere of the present time; it is not specific to the European Union but much wider and in many ways more disturbing.

My final point is that we have some of the responsibility in this Parliament for the level of distrust. I will give just one example; I will not go into the expenditure crisis and so on. We heard much earlier in the debate about the number of occasions on which the scrutiny reserve imposed by Members of this House in the European Scrutiny Committee on the mandate given to Ministers in the European institutions has simply been brushed aside and disregarded. That has not been the act of the Commission or even of the Council of Ministers; it has been the act of our own Government in our own Parliament, despite the efforts of Parliament to persuade them to show caution or not to go ahead with a particular measure in Brussels.

We have to accept that our own Governments—I am not pointing at any particular one—have been part of the level of distrust created by a consistent disregard of Parliament expressing doubts and concerns about pieces of European policy pursued by those Governments. We have many times disregarded Parliament's doubts. That is not a way to build trust or to build a sense that Parliament has real power over what happens in Brussels, because often we have let that power disappear by failing to recognise what Parliament has urged us to take very seriously.

This is an important amendment. I do not terribly like some of its drafting; it should be much wider and, rather than referring simply to a referendum campaign, should concern the whole attitude of British citizens toward Europe. However, I commend the noble Lord for moving it.

[Lord Radice]

I would prefer the amendment to be much wider, but it would then be out of order.

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

I will always take instructions from my former colleague, the noble Lord on the other Benches. I commend him on the pressure that he has brought to bear on the issue, which is of immense importance.

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

My Lords, when my noble friend Lady Williams speaks about the need for strengthening the teaching in schools and in citizenship classes of Britain's role in, and relationship with, Europe—and dare I say in the Commonwealth generally and in the new landscape that is building around us—it strikes a chord with me. She is absolutely right that the quality of teaching needs a considerable uplift in this area.

I will begin with a tiny bit of propaganda for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. We have supported the Hansard Society in producing a new booklet to help citizenship teachers teach secondary school pupils about the European Union and our role—our very effective role, despite some minor criticism in the European Union and in Europe generally. We are taking action to improve the resources available, as citizenship teachers asked us to do. That is the kind of way forward that we should all work towards instead of spending a lot of time sitting around talking down our nation and its extraordinary talents and abilities to adjust to the new world situation.

I wish I could say such enthusiastic things about this amendment. It strikes me as a bit curious because it seeks to place a statutory requirement on the new Bill that, during a referendum held under the provisions of the Clauses 2, 3 and 6, or in implementing any of the other provisions of this legislation, the Government of the day should have regard to the benefits of the UK’s continued membership of the European Union. This sounds as though there is a desire to switch on a light at this particular moment rather than concentrate on the broader issues reflected in the observations of the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, and of the noble Lord, Lord Radice, that these matters cannot just be switched on and off but require sustained and effective narrative—not propaganda but an effective story to show how we fit into, how we contribute to and how we are able to draw strength from associations in the European Union and elsewhere.

As the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, candidly admitted, the past record has not been too brilliant, to put it mildly. If one just looks at those who have been in government over the last decade—which happens to be one party—one can see that they have not achieved a dazzling success in uplifting public support for, or even public awareness of, the role that this country has played, is playing and is capable of playing in the future in the European Union. When we discussed this amendment in Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Radice, said that the EU Bill was,

“based on the wrong premise about our membership",

and that instead,

“we should recognise that the sharing of responsibilities with our partners has been good for Britain and good for Europe”.

We have no difficulty with that. As I tried to make clear in Committee, we fully recognise the benefits of EU membership and the flow both ways of advantage of our being a key member of the European Union. This Bill does nothing whatever to alter our current commitments within the European Union, nor our current active engagement within the existing powers and competences of the EU, which are very extensive, nor indeed our positioning to reform and equip the EU for the 21st-century challenges that lie ahead, because, just as we are trying to adjust the position of this country to the new landscape, so everyone recognises that the European Union as a whole needs to do the same.

The noble Lord, Lord Radice, also said,

“according to public opinion polls, the British remain reluctant Europeans and fairly ill informed about the EU”.—[Official Report, 23/6/11; cols. 1626-27.]

That just about sums up the key concern that this Bill has been crafted to focus on. It is that reluctance that the Bill seeks to address by making clear to the public that they will have their say over any future transfers of power and competence and that a future Government will have to make the case as to why such changes are in the national interest. That is the aspiration of this Government for the future. It is nonsense to say that it binds future Parliaments, which we cannot do, but that is our aspiration. This is a construction, an architecture that will be sustained and built to help the EU in the future.

Let me remind noble Lords that for a referendum to be held under the terms of this Bill, both the Government and Parliament have to be in favour of the proposed treaty, as many of my noble friends and indeed almost every speaker have recognised. That is the starting point for any referendum activity. Otherwise, if the Government did not like the measure, they could block it at the European Council, or Parliament could simply legislate against it. Parliament would be fully in control. Therefore, the change in question would have to be considered by the Government to be in the national interest before it could be put to Parliament. That would be the necessity, the sine qua non. While the referenda provisions will help address the reluctance that exists in Britain and that must be faced, no one is claiming that they are sufficient to address the general lack of information on, understanding of and enthusiasm for the European Union. Clearly, that cannot be done just when action under the Bill is needed. The oddity of the amendment is that it so inadvertently implies that action is switched on only when there is activity under the Bill, not least because the EU Bill focuses on future changes to the treaties and does not call into question our membership of the European Union.

European Union Bill

Baroness Williams of Crosby Excerpts

Monday 13th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

My Lords, from these Benches I support the view that most of us believed that these amendments were taken together for the convenience of the House. We had a very long debate, which ranged over the whole group of amendments. I have to say to the Chief Whip, for whom I have great admiration—she is a person of great ability—that most of us took that vote to be about the whole group of amendments taken together. I find it difficult to see how we can explain to the world outside that this group of amendments has now somehow got lost when it seemed clear that, admittedly by a relatively small majority, the House chose to support these amendments.

[Lord Elton]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Howe of Aberavon]

With great respect to my noble friend, who always has a more ruthless and intellectual analysis of these questions than I do, it is broadly speaking the same thing. It was important, while that was the question, whether or not we joined the monetary exchange system; it is even more important whether we join the euro. Either way, we have reached the point where there has been a general acceptance of the need for a referendum on our accession to that currency. That arises not within the context of this Bill or this debate alone but has been on the agenda for a long time. The only question that we are actually debating now is the rather technical one of when precisely it should be required in the context.

I see my noble friend Lord Howell looking at me. When I reflect on his wisdom over many years, I am sure when he comes to wind up that he will recognise that is the flavour of the decision. Perhaps he is not winding up—he may be too nervous to handle this issue.

I am more than content to follow the wisdom and enlightenment of that splendid retired principal private secretary sitting over there. It was quite fun when we were together and I was presiding over the realignment of the European monetary system. It was quite nerve-wracking. We had one marvellously exciting day when it was agreed between the Germans and the French that there should be a 9 per cent realignment between those two currencies—2 per cent up and 7 down, or 3 per cent and 6 per cent down. That question, unhappily, for the first and only time, ran into a time when the currency markets were open on a Monday morning. That was our only failure. Apart from that, I am confident to give my backing to the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of—I can never remember the other half.

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

My Lords, I am reluctant to intervene, even briefly, in this marvellous ballet of Chancellors, which has taught us all a very great deal. I apologise for having stepped in before the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, because I am sure he too will have a major contribution to make.

I want to raise one other issue before we move on to what one hopes will be the final remarkable occasion of this ballet, which we will all appreciate much. I want to talk for a moment, if I may, about being straightforward about the implications of this amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Kerr, talked with a degree of technicality I am incapable of following, and I am sure that he is probably right. It looks as if his former Chancellors, all of whom he managed to be a mentor to, will give him the full support that he needs on this amendment.

My point reflects more on our debate up to this point. We are showing an inclination to look more at the ways in which we can escape from some of the consequences of the growing interdependency of the world economy of which we are part. Quite simply, we all know that it is highly unlikely that there will be movement under this Government towards the eurozone or the euro. It will be important to take account in the future of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Kerr.

We will not be able to escape the presence and the problems of the euro by not joining it. I recognise that most people in this Parliament and probably most people in the country at the moment would not wish to join the euro. However, I also recognise that the euro’s future and its strength are of crucial importance to this country whether we join or not. We now do something like half our trade with the eurozone. The positions taken by the eurozone are of major influence in global financial meetings. Therefore, although we may not belong to it we do not escape all the consequences of it. We should make it quite clear as we continue to discuss this part of the Bill that time and again we will be caught in the gradually increasing interdependency of the economic world whether or not we happen to already belong to some of its institutions.

Why did we help to support the Irish in the desperate situation that they encountered last year? Quite simply because there were so many British interests—banking interests, shareholder interests—affected by what happened to the banks of the Republic of Ireland that we felt it irresponsible and unwise to stay out of the discussions about it. In just the same way, we will find it irresponsible and unwise to regard the possibility of a major crack in the eurozone between its richer and poorer nations as if it did not in any way affect us.

We know already how close this is. Already there is much closer investigation of the European stability pact, with the possibility of mounting greater surveillance on those who are within it as well as the possibility of moving towards some degree of control over the group of countries within the eurozone. I will not go into all that now because there is not time and it is not appropriate, except to say very directly that this is bound to have implications for Britain as well. We simply cannot stay wholly outside these things.

When my noble friend Lord Goodhart was talking earlier about the European prosecutor’s office, one of the things he might well have pointed out, though he was too nice to do so, was that already we in this country had been caught up in the OECD’s Financial Action Task Force very directly on the issue of when we moved and finally passed the bribery convention. We cannot escape from some of the massive international institutions—the G20, the OECD and many more—which are bound to affect our sovereign right to do as we will. To pretend that we do not live in such a world, that it is not becoming more and more that kind of world, is to live in a world of illusion which we cannot possibly afford to. I simply make the point on this discussion on the euro that we have to look all the way through at how the United Kingdom will survive, strengthen and prosper in a world which, like it or not, is becoming increasingly global, increasingly interdependent and increasingly without room for people taking pure sovereign attitudes because those are no longer possible, whether you live in China, the United States or anywhere else.

[Lord Martin of Springburn]

I thank the noble Baroness. I have listened to her not only here but in the other place and I have always had great respect for what she has to say.

I recall when we spoke here about the help that we would give Ireland, a country of which I am very fond, and everyone in this House, to their credit, supported that move. However, there is a big difference between helping out a friend and neighbour and taking on the same currency as that neighbour. The men and women, particularly in the west of Scotland, which I know well and which is so near Ireland, hear the stories of how difficult things became for Ireland when they entered the euro and gave up their punt. Those stories will have a big impact on any decision. I do not think that anyone, any Member of Parliament in the House of Commons, would want to join the euro at this particular stage.

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Martin, but I think he misunderstood my point. I was not advocating that we join the euro—indeed, I went so far as to say that I saw no possibility in the near future of our doing so or even wishing to do so. My point was that we cannot walk away from the plight of Ireland because we do not happen to belong to the euro. We have to address those issues whether or not we belong to the euro, and that is an issue on which I would have thought the noble Lord and I would find ourselves sharing a very strong sense of agreement.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

My Lords, I hope the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, will forgive me if I do not entirely follow her down the road of her argument and her thoughts. Of course I agree that what happens to the euro has a profound impact on us and I certainly want to see the crisis resolved in as orderly a manner as possible.

I shall be extremely brief. I am not intervening in this debate simply because two other Chancellors have spoken, although I did feel under a certain obligation, like both of them, to speak when the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, had tabled this amendment—not only tabled this amendment but talked to me, dare I say it, incessantly in the bars about it and written me a letter about it. I have the greatest respect for the noble Lord, Lord Kerr. In fact, he, I and, above all, the Prime Minister, John Major, all worked hard over the piece of paper that we are debating now: Protocol 15 of the Maastricht treaty. Although I spent a large part of my life poring over this, I have spent what seems an eternity this afternoon poring over it again trying to work out what on earth it means and trying to work out how some parts that seem to contradict it actually come together. Of course I owe it to the noble Lord to consider very seriously what he said, because he gave me great support when I was Chancellor, although when I knew that the noble Lord was putting forward this amendment, the story of Talleyrand came to mind—having been told that someone had died, he asked whatever had he done that for.

I confess that even having thought about this a little, I am not entirely convinced that there is a massive difference between the way that the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, wants to tackle it and the way that my noble and learned friend Lord Howe wants to tackle it. My noble and learned friend said that he was quite sure that I and my noble friend Lord Lawson needed no reminding that joining the ERM was in our manifesto in 1979. I confess that it was only when I became Chancellor that I expressed exasperation about the whole thing and the Permanent Secretary at the Treasury reminded me that it had been in our manifesto. It did not come quite so easily to my memory as to that of my noble and learned friend Lord Howe.

I turn to the subject of the debate. An extremely important point is that the referendum should not be about the exchange rate. Anxiety has been caused by whether Article 143 would give rise to a situation in which the actual exchange rate at which we joined the euro—perish the thought that we ever did—would be on the ballot. It is my understanding, and I hope that the noble Lord will be able to confirm this, that it does not follow that it will have to be on the ballot paper. It is an option but not essential. As I understand it, the Government are proposing a package approach. They are intending that the negotiation of the draft content of the Article 143 decision should take place before the Government formally notify the Council that it intends to adopt the euro; that is, that the negotiations should take place first. I do not see that as a great problem and I think it can be done that way. This is something which, as I understand it, has happened before.

European Union Bill

Baroness Williams of Crosby Excerpts

Wednesday 25th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

The noble Lord may find my remarks inconvenient, perhaps because they are entirely on target. I am explaining why the British people do not want these amendments and a large part of that is because of the damage that the euro has done, and which they can see it is doing. Could I also ask the noble Lord, Lord Howell, to respond to the delicate little point that the big idea behind the whole project of European integration is also proving to be misguided? I asked him that earlier.

This is essential to the amendment, as I hope even the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, will agree. That big idea, as I never tire of reminding your Lordships, was that the nation states—the democracies of Europe—were responsible for two world wars and the long history of bloodshed. They therefore had to be emasculated and diluted into a new form of supranational government run by bureaucrats. The whole project of European integration, with its attendant euro, has at its heart the destruction of national democracy and its replacement with the anti-democratic structure that is the EU. That is why the unelected Commission still has the monopoly of proposing all EU legislation in secret, which is now the majority of our national law. That law is then negotiated by bureaucrats from the nation states in COREPER and then passed, still largely in secret in the Council of Ministers from the nation states, with your Lordships’ House and the House of Commons having virtually no influence—in fact, no influence.

When you tell them this in Washington, they simply cannot believe it. I wonder how many of the good people travelling here today with President Obama are aware of it. I imagine that he may pay some tribute today to the European Union, and I wonder whether he will know what he is talking about if he does.

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

Would the noble Lord acknowledge that American Presidents repeatedly, from President Eisenhower on, have urged the United Kingdom to work more intensively with the European Union, or the European Community before it, to offer it leadership and to play a major positive part in its development?

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

My Lords, of course I am aware of that. I also remember Henry Kissinger saying that he rather liked one telephone number to ring in Europe. I have to tell the noble Baroness that Mr Kissinger changed his mind when he read Mr Christopher Booker’s book, The Great Deception, after which he said, “Oh, at last I understand the thing”. We can come and go on that one, but time is pressing.

The British people are waking up to the truth of all this, and they do not like it. Eighty per cent want a referendum on EU membership. They want their democracy back and they will want any chance to be heard in any referendum, which touches on the huge deception that has been practised on them by their political class, which is their entrapment in the European Union. These amendments would deny them that opportunity, so I trust that the Government will not accept them.

European Union Bill

Baroness Williams of Crosby Excerpts

Monday 23rd May 2011 Lords Chamber

My question to the Government is: are they quite sure that Clause 7(4)(c) should find a place in the Bill? Again, I admit that I may not fully have understood its import but it seems paradoxical. The Minister has spoken to us at length about transfer of powers. I understand his reluctance to see moves to qualified majority voting. However, we are talking here about a move to unanimity by exception—clearly in an emergency. The Government should reflect on that and whether this paragraph should be included in the Bill. That said, having registered these three points, I do not intend at the moment to oppose Clause 7 standing part of the Bill.

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

My Lords, I follow the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, by asking similar questions. The phrase “or otherwise support” appears in clause after clause of this section of the Bill. If my fellow Members of this Committee look at Clauses 7, 8, 9 and 10, they will see that the phrase “or otherwise support” appears again and again. It is important that we are all completely clear about what it means. The noble Lord, Lord Kerr, is a distinguished civil servant. He has raised some of the issues that flow from this in the case of negotiation in Brussels, at the Council or in another European Union institution. I speak as a former Minister of the Crown. I, too, have concerns that deserve a little consideration by the Committee and my noble friends who will respond to this debate. I will be brief.

In Clause 7(3) we have the phrase,

“or otherwise support ... unless the draft decision is approved by Act of Parliament”.

That is to say, before a draft decision is approved by Act of Parliament, the Minister of the Crown is not free to vote in favour—that is absolutely fair and perfectly clear—or otherwise to support it. That really puzzles me. He or she is unable to support in discussions in the Council a view that may be in the interests of this country, and that he or she genuinely believes to be in the interests of this country, because he or she is expressing that support before a draft decision has been approved by Parliament. A Minister of the Crown—this is even odder—is unable to express support in the whole run-up to that draft decision being taken. It is not even clear whether he or she can speak in Parliament’s discussions on the draft decision. Certainly, the wording does not suggest that. You could have the very odd situation of a Minister whose Government think that what he is trying to do is right, and who himself believes that what he is trying to do is in the national interest, not being able to speak out and say so.

I ask noble Lords to consider for a moment or two what will be the effect of 24/7 press and media coverage. Heaven knows, we in this House have heard enough about it in the past few days. The Minister of the Crown cannot express to the media support for what will now be put to Parliament in a draft decision on behalf of his own Government. The media will undoubtedly line up to ask him where he stands, where he is going and what grounds he has for supporting the decision. He can, I presume, say only, “I am not free to say anything”. That is in some ways a ludicrous position. Surely, at the very least we should remove the words “or otherwise support” and let the whole case rest on voting in favour, where the position is clear, strong and constitutional.

My second point about the role of the media is that the very draft decision that Parliament is being asked to make—the decision of approval—will turn to a great extent on how the issue is discussed in advance of Parliament making that decision. However, under the wording here, unless I misunderstand it, the person who knows most about it—the Minister of the Crown—simply could not take part in that argument. I ask Ministers either to explain why the wording does not mean what it appears to mean, or to explain how they will bar a Minister of the Crown from speaking about an issue that could be of considerable national importance. Incidentally, this is not an issue of being for or against the EU, as such; it is about what we say to Ministers who are negotiating on our behalf in Brussels. I strongly suggest that the wording as it stands is not clear. It is profoundly ambiguous and could be rather absurd and very hampering if there is an attempt to interpret “or otherwise support” as broadly as it is left open by the wording of the Bill.

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[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

My Lords, I would like to speak briefly to a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, specifically on Clause 7(3). He mentioned the coalition agreement. I think that on day five in Committee we discussed the coalition agreement and what it said about passerelles. Does he agree that the coalition agreement is clear on this particular use of passerelles, as it says:

“We will amend the 1972 European Communities Act so that … the use of any passerelle would require primary legislation”?

As regards his other more general points, the report of the Constitution Committee, which discusses Clause 7, concludes at paragraph 41:

“We agree with the re-balancing of domestic constitutional arrangements in favour of Parliament”.

Both those statements point in a different direction from that proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr.

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

I hope that my noble friend will forgive me for breaking into her remarks but I find it hard to understand why that encompasses the words “or otherwise support”, given the arguments that have been made. I do not believe that the noble Lords on the Cross Benches, or I, are for one moment arguing that there should not be an Act of Parliament. The issue is about the run-up to the draft decision that Parliament will make, and whether that run-up should include a proper debate involving Ministers of the Crown.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

I was getting to that. Whoever said that EU legislation was dull and boring should see the enthusiasm of Members of this House to make sure that we examine every sentence. I was going to refer to the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, on “or otherwise support”, and I shall do so now. Clause 7(3) states:

“A Minister of the Crown may not vote in favour of or otherwise support”.

However, that has to be read in the context of the following words:

“a decision to which this subsection applies unless the draft decision is approved by Act of Parliament”.

My interpretation of the words,

“or otherwise support a decision”,

is a slightly more legalistic one. Will the Minister clarify that point? I see “or otherwise support” as meaning to give assent to “a decision”—meaning a law. In other words, that is a decision as seen in the category of regulations, directives and decisions—in this case, a decision taking immediate effect. That is why supporting —in other words, giving assent to—the making of a law would not be possible, but the Minister would have to come back with a draft decision, and subsequently go back and support it. This might be a rather legalistic view of the issue, but I should be grateful if the Minister can confirm whether that is right. If it is, the words are entirely sensible.

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[Lord Dykes]

Briefly, my Lords, I strongly support the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard—and, indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Bowness—because this would be a great opportunity for the Government to consider his specific suggestions; namely, that some elements of Clause 7 should be reintroduced in Clause 10, which has that lighter procedure framework. In other words, it has the construction of a Motion to be passed rather than anything stronger in respect of matters where the Government might, later on, quite understandably regret the tangle into which they have got as a result of decisions whose details would look quite routine. We are thinking here, obviously, of things that start as unanimous decisions and end up as QMV, depending on the specific terms and articles being used for any measure in this field.

There are those other cases, too, where the UK might not be in favour of a decision that was subject to QMV yet the country and the Government would be bound by it because of the very reality of the voting in the Council of Ministers, or whichever relevant council it might be. The Government could regret that later on because it would create quite an onerous obligation for them to go back into full procedure in Parliament—although in general terms we are all in favour of that intrinsically—on matters which really should be dealt with quite easily and expeditiously. In the new spirit of co-operation which has been breaking out in this, the seventh allotted day of our Committee of the whole House, where the Government are now listening—the whole House is grateful for that—I hope that before we terminate the Committee's proceedings, today or later this week, there will be some promise to reconsider this vital area as well.

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

My Lords, my point is even briefer. Can the Minister give a little explanation of the Motion being “without amendment”? For example, if there were to be a relatively small, technical amendment, would it in fact mean that parliamentary approval was withheld? Perhaps the Minister could say a little more on that point: why the stress on “without amendment”?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, perhaps I may start by answering the noble Baroness, Lady Williams. If I am correct—I am not an expert on parliamentary procedure—I think that on SIs we have to approve a Motion without amendment. I will take advice and write to her on that subject but I do not think it is a major issue.

Clause 10 is a proposal for light-touch parliamentary scrutiny of decisions taken in the European Union. The requirement for each House to pass a Motion is either an invitation for each House to accept that this is not significant, or so clearly in Britain's national interest that we should let it go by, or it is an invitation for the scrutiny committees to pay some attention and then bring a Motion to each House.

On the question of proposals for judges and Advocates-General, these matters have been covered by an excellent report from the House of Lords Scrutiny Committee, to which Her Majesty's Government will reply in good time. We do not see that this in any sense provides a greater obstacle to a decision one way or another; it merely underlines the desirability of Parliament being aware of what is happening and being required to say either, “Yes, this is fine”, or, “We’re not entirely sure and we require an explanation on each of these various administrative and other issues”.

Having I hope reassured the House on that, I hope that the House will accept that Clause 10 should stand part.

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[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

The noble Lord has made a very good case for the weakness of referenda. However, I ask him to consider a little further back in history. He may recall that in 1975 there was a referendum in this country, which was carried by a substantial majority, on whether we should stay in the European Economic Community, as it then was. Less than five years later the Labour Party, then in opposition, voted at its conference to leave the European Community. This is not quite as clearly somebody else’s problem as the noble Lord suggests.

[Lord Willoughby de Broke]

I do not think I suggested that it was somebody else’s problem. This deals particularly with this country and the Bill in front of us. I simply want to make sure, as far as possible, that we do not have the situation that has arisen so lamentably and so frequently in the European Union, whereby the results of referenda are immediately reversed because the EU elect do not like the result. The Bill contains the referendum lock. This amendment will add unpickability to that lock. I hope the Government will consider it in that spirit. I beg to move.

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[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

My Lords, obviously I do not support this amendment. I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Radice, was present in the Chamber on 3 May when, as reported at columns 398 to 400, I thought I made a pretty good fist of destroying the usefulness of the single market. I will not repeat those arguments now, but any student of these matters can look up the case against the single market and why his famous 3 million jobs are not worth much against the 4.5 million jobs which they have through making things and exporting them to clients in this country. I also discussed why we can trade with a market of 350 million people through free trade in the same way as 63 other countries around the world do at the moment, now moving towards 75 countries. There is really no advantage to our membership of the European Union which we could not enjoy through free trade and friendly collaboration. I will not go down that obvious and inviting route.

What I will do is produce some statistics and facts to show that the wicked Murdochite and Desmondite et cetera press is more than balanced by the BBC in this country. It is not as the noble Lord, Lord Lea, suggests. In 2005, thanks to continuous monitoring by the organisation Mediawatch-UK, the BBC was forced to hold its first ever independent inquiry into some of its political coverage, in this case its coverage of the European Union and our relationship with it. The whole of that story can be found on the Global Britain website. That independent inquiry, chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Wilson of Dinton, found unequivocally that the BBC’s coverage of our relationship with the European Union was inadequate and biased. The BBC responded in November 2005 and made one clear promise: to explain to the British people how the institutions of the European Union work, how they interact, and their effect on our British way of life.

I trust that the noble Lord, Lord Radice, agrees with me that it is a great pity that the BBC has never fulfilled that promise. It would be helpful to the debate between us, because obviously we are never going to agree, if the BBC did conduct such an unbiased debate and at least told the British people what they are voting for when they vote for the European Parliament. They do not have a clue what the European Parliament is, or where it fits into the European law-making process, that of laws being proposed in secret by the unelected Commission, negotiated in secret in COREPER and passed in secret in the Council. The people do not know that. I think that if the BBC were to explain all that, Euroscepticism in this country would rise. The noble Lord, Lord Radice, and other noble and Europhile Lords presumably think that public opinion would swing in favour of the European Union.

I have one devastating statistic from the BBC’s coverage. Over the past six years, the “Today” programme has devoted only 0.004 per cent of its coverage to any discussion about withdrawal from the European Union. That figure, which has not been bettered anywhere else in the BBC, has to be set against that of the roughly 25 per cent of the British people who voted for a withdrawalist perspective in the last European elections, and roughly 5 per cent at the last general election. We have a British public who are massively more interested and massively more Eurosceptical than the BBC gives them space for.

Whatever else the noble Lord, Lord Radice, and I do not agree on, surely he would agree that all these matters could be laid to rest not only if the BBC did its stuff, as it should do according to its charter and guidelines, but also if we had a genuinely independent cost-benefit analysis of them. I cannot understand why the Government go on refusing to do that. I hope that we can agree, and I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Radice, will accept that the answer to his amendment is not that it should be seen through, but that there should at least be a genuine economic cost-benefit analysis of our EU membership. We can leave aside the constitutional disaster of EU membership; let us just look at the money.

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

My Lords, I do not believe that the noble Lord, Lord Radice, was suggesting that there should be a legal obligation on Ministers to say nice things about the European Union. What he was trying to do is to get at long last a more balanced perception of the pros and cons of our membership of the European Union, for which I profoundly commend him.

Of course there are many things wrong with the European Union, as there are with the United Nations, with our special relationship with United States and with many other aspects of international institutions, one recently mentioned being NATO. Nobody argues with that; we live in a world of real politics where it is clear that most institutions have substantial flaws. Nobody denies that the same is true of the European Union.

But what I find so sad is that, for 40 years now, this country has gone on missing opportunity after opportunity to lead and profoundly to influence the European Union because of its obsession with constantly trying to run it down, even when it does things which are obviously in the interests of this country, of the European Union itself and of the world. Neither your Lordships nor I have got time to go back at great length, but such an attitude dates from our refusal to have any part in the Coal and Steel Community of 1951, our refusal to take part in the 1957 treaty of Rome, with our dismissal of the enterprise as being unlikely to succeed, our failure to recognise the astonishing achievement in bringing Spain, Portugal and Greece, all of them dictatorships, into a framework of democracy which has been sustained, undoubtedly with some difficulty, right up to the present time—which is an amazing achievement—and our total lack of interest or great concern with the European Union’s extension eastwards into central Europe, the Baltic states and elsewhere, countries for which the European Union, alongside their membership of NATO, were the guarantees of their future democracy and stability. They still have a long way to go, but they have come a very long way since 1989 when the Soviet Union collapsed.

We turn aside time and again from the fact that the European Union is the single greatest giver of aid to developing countries, exceeding any other country on the same scale such as the United States, China or India. We take very little notice of the tremendous efforts made by the European Union to do something serious about emissions, greenhouse gases and the environment. At the most parochial level, when we look at the cleanness of our beaches and at the fact that the Thames river now has salmon all way up to the Pool of London, we see that that is due directly to European Union directives, though nobody is ever prepared to say it very loudly in this country. I could go on—I shall not—but what I find so sad is that we in this country have failed to give a constructive lead to the European Union and spend almost all our time carping about it. We are right to criticise it—yes—but to carp, to sour and to change and distort the facts in the way that happens in the British press is astonishing and not copied in France, Germany, Spain or most other major countries of the European Union. It is a unique aspect of a certain kind of British moaning about the great opportunities that it has decided not to follow up.

The noble Lord, Lord Radice, spoke about the Murdoch press and Associated Newspapers. Those newspapers do not simply produce balanced and constructive criticism of the European Union; they continually emit a series of distorted statements, falsified facts and false scandals which rarely come home. One should compare them with the one newspaper that I think everybody in this House would recognise does not grind very strong party axes and attempts seriously to devote itself to society and the public good, in providing the nearest thing to truth that can be provided—I refer, to your Lordships’ surprise perhaps, to the Financial Times. The indications, the outlines, the descriptions and the analysis in the Financial Times of what is actually going on in Europe are unique in being genuinely international, genuinely global and genuinely objective in a way that most newspapers do not pretend or even try to be. One reads in that newspaper lots of criticisms and worries about the eurozone and so on, but it provides a picture of what is happening that is far better balanced than that which one gets from most of the other major tabloids or even for that matter, sadly, some of the major broadsheets.

Our future as a country lies in working closely with the European Union. It is not just me who says that; it is people such as President Obama and the leaders of China. Our major neighbour nations recognise that the UK’s future as a serious player on the world stage is very closely linked to the extent to which we can co-operate with our neighbours in Europe. That is very strongly the view of the United States; it has been over several presidencies—I do not doubt that we shall hear anything very different when the present President of the United States comes here on Wednesday. Should we not at least give a moment’s pause for some of our closest friends and best allies when they say to the United Kingdom, “Please, think constructively about what you can contribute to the future, and think about how the Commonwealth and Europe together could create a world of greater peace and greater balance”? Just for once, let us move away from the negative position that we in this country so often take and look at the prospects for our children and grandchildren. Let us notice that they inevitably require us to work, not uncritically, but thoughtfully and constructively, with our European neighbours to make the world a somewhat better place.

[Lord Stoddart of Swindon]

The amendment refers to the failure of Governments and Ministers to promote the European Union; what we have had is a debate about the pros and cons of the European Union. I could speak for a very long time on that, but I shall not. However, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Radice, that he is wrong in his view that Ministers of all Governments have not promoted the European Union or the European ideal. In fact, we have progressed—if that is the right word—from what was supposed to be a common market to what is now, almost, a new country called Europe. We need to understand that all the way along, ratchet by ratchet, treaty by treaty, Governments have promoted our memberships, first, of the Common Market and now the European Union. They have done so in the belief that things should be done better by a group rather than by individual nations. That is not what the British people think; they believe that Britain should remain a self-governing nation.

The Single European Act transferred huge tranches of power to the European Union. It was followed in 1992 by the Maastricht treaty, which promoted even more powers to the European Union. That process culminated in the latest treaty, the Lisbon treaty. There is virtually no policy area where the European Union is not now involved. It is even involved in taxation and the control of our financial institutions. It takes the lead in foreign affairs and virtually all issues of British policy now have, in part or as a whole, a European Union basis. That is all I want to say for the moment, but I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Radice, will withdraw his amendment, which is ill conceived.

House resumed. Committee to begin again not before 7.01 pm.

European Union Bill

Baroness Williams of Crosby Excerpts

Tuesday 17th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

My Lords, I support what my noble friend has said, and I promise to keep entirely within order. My speech will be directed to why Clause 6 should not stand part of the Bill.

As my noble friend said, we have had a string of amendments trying to limit the scope of Clause 6. I shall not go through them all. We all know them and they have been tabled by various Members of the Committee. We now have another group of such amendments relating to Schedule 1. Again, they cover a very wide range of issues which at least some Members of the Committee feel should not be subject to the referendum lock procedure. I want to draw the Committee’s attention for a moment or two to one particular aspect of this, as it goes far to show how difficult the Bill will be to carry out in practice.

Earlier today, we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Marland, about a carbon emissions programme. At the very beginning of his Statement, he said—I wrote it down—that we would need to keep in line with the targets of the European Union. Why, some Eurosceptic might ask? I am not currently addressing the noble Lords, Lord Pearson of Rannoch or Lord Stoddart of Swindon, because I do not have the eloquence of a Pericles and, even if I had, I do not suppose that I would persuade them. However, the reasons why we want to stay aligned with the European Union environment targets are quite straightforward: if we do not, others will compete with us and override us by cheating on those targets. Therefore, we have a profound national interest in ensuring that the targets are maintained by all our European Union partners. The UK is trying—and I think that most of us feel very pleased that she is—to be the greenest state in Europe. If there were no such EU understanding, the UK, instead of carrying others with her, would simply be competed into the ground by other countries which decided that they would not be bound by such targets, and, not being bound by them, they would be more competitive in energy-intensive industries. This is the most central national interest. If we are to address the single most troubling problem that confronts us—that of climate change and greenhouse gases—we desperately need to have agreed targets that the whole EU will buy into.

However, what do we find when we look at the list of Schedule 1 proposals? We find the amazing proposal under Clause 6(5)(g) that a decision that would replace the ordinary legislative procedure with a special legislative procedure would be subject to the referendum lock. I ask Members of the Committee to consider for a moment a referendum question which asked, “Do you agree that if the special legislative procedure replaces the ordinary legislative procedure, there should be a veto on this?”. Frankly, I do not think that one person in a thousand, however intelligent or thoughtful they might be, would have the faintest idea about the difference between the ordinary and the special legislative procedures. However, in Clause 6(5)(g) we find that that is subject to the lock. It would not be in our interests if that were agreed because, as I have already explained, on issues such as the environment we have a profound interest in finding common ground for the basis of our targets and practice.

I will not speak much longer in Committee, in which, if I might say so, some Members have spoken at very considerable length, except to draw the attention of the Committee to two things. First, I commend the noble Lords, Lord Triesman and Liddle, for attempting in our discussions yesterday to put forward a genuine compromise that might enable both sides, probably excluding the more extreme Eurosceptics but including most people of a middle and moderate position, to find common ground. That proposal was for a special legislative committee of the two Houses of Parliaments, which was a serious attempt to narrow down the scope of the referendum and to do it entirely within the spirit of the involvement of Parliament. It received no response of an understanding kind from the Government so that one begins to wonder whether there is any room at all for a meeting of minds over this Bill or whether we are simply wasting time because nobody was persuaded of anything.

This is not good for the United Kingdom. The more that we have a common position in the European Union, the more notable our influence is bound to be. The last election showed that this country is not united on this issue or even on the issue of who should be the majority Government. We do not want to weaken our position in Europe by exemplifying divisions that are not absolutely necessary. I fully understand the Government’s commitment to the referendum lock on the treaty issues. The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and his colleagues have conceded the need for a referendum on the euro as a currency as a gesture to show that they understand the necessity for some tougher turns before agreements are reached. However, it is high time that the Government began to think about whether they could not meet at least part of the way the Members who put this position in Committee. That would mean limiting and narrowing down the number of the issues on which the referendum lock applies, to make sure that it goes in relationship to the most serious issues and to move toward the idea of a stronger parliamentary contribution to what is done over the rest of the exercise.

I say this with due feeling. I do not think that, if what comes out of this Committee is a failure to agree on anything, we will do ourselves or the cause of our position in Europe any good at all.

Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, there are a growing number of us who know that the planet’s climate has been changing for millions of years—and will doubtless go on changing for as long as the planet has left—but have the very gravest doubts as to whether it is changing as a result of man-made emissions or activity. In view of the noble Baroness’s powerful peroration that we have to be in the European Union seriously fighting for these environmental targets and so on, what chance does she think there is of our European partners meeting these targets? Are they not already quite a long way behind? Are they not likely to slip even further behind as time goes on?

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

I will not be lured very far by the noble Lord, who is always very polite in the way that he attempts to broaden out the debate in Committee. I do not think that is what most people want to do. I will simply say that we have clean beaches in Britain. We have clean rivers. We have cleaner air. The first two of these owe a very great deal to the European Union’s requirements, which we should meet.

[Lord Stoddart of Swindon]

I understand exactly what the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, is saying and I can understand the reasons why she is saying it. However, the reason we have this Bill is because of the betrayal—if I might use that strong word—of promises which have been made and not kept.

I refer first to the promises that were made by the Government and, indeed, by the Opposition about having a referendum on the constitution, later to be known as the Lisbon treaty. There is very little difference. Even Giscard d’Estaing says that there is very little difference. However, I do not want to get into that argument. I want to try to explain why I believe we have reached this point where such detail has been put into a Bill. It is because people join political parties and have an influence on them. So many times promises have been made, such as on the five red lines that were all crossed, and not kept. Increasingly, people in this country have lost trust in the Government’s promises that we are not, ratchet by ratchet, going into a federal European state.

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[Lord Flight]

I thank the noble Lord for his, as ever, instructive intervention. The noble Lord, Lord Kerr, who is sadly not here today, was very involved in the convention on the constitutional treaty and therefore, I believe, is the best informed Member of this House about how these issues were left as exemptions qualifying for unanimity in the Lisbon negotiations.

Secondly, with regard to the position of past UK Governments, those were the positions at that time. The point that I am seeking to make is that we have three areas that, whatever the position of past Governments, could result in transfers of power from the UK to the EU. The point of my amendment is, as I said at the beginning, to illustrate that the Bill does not cover every potential transfer of power; it has been limited to that which the Government consider to be the major issues. However, I believe that the noble Lord, having educated us in the history of this, would not deny that the situation is such that, in these three areas, there could be transfers of power without any treaty so requiring them. As I have already said, this amendment is illustrative and I am sure that there are many other areas where this Bill does not put forward requirements for a referendum on matters that potentially transfer powers because those matters are not deemed to be of prime importance.

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

My Lords, I want to address briefly—

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

My Lords, I have the greatest regard for the noble Baroness, but I think no one has spoken from this side of the Committee recently. The noble Lord, Lord Flight, will not be surprised to learn that I rise to speak on the other side of the argument and do not support his Amendment 47A. However, I rise in support or Amendments 45 and 46 and against Schedule 1 standing part. Before I do that, perhaps I could give a word of personal explanation to the noble Lord, Lord Howell. I did say to him that I would not be able to take part in today’s proceedings and I regretted that. I assure him that I made that comment entirely in good faith because, as I explained to him, at the time I had an engagement that I thought I ought to attend but I have managed to extricate myself from it. I hope he is not too disappointed to find that I have returned to the fray here.

I shall speak directly to these amendments, particularly Amendment 46, but before I do I must repeat that the whole progress of this Committee has thoroughly reinforced the conviction which I expressed at Second Reading: that the effect of this Bill, if it becomes law, will be twofold. First, there will not be any referenda. The idea that we are going to have referenda asking the British public to decide on moving from the ordinary to the special legislative procedure in relation to something involving the procurator-general is absurd. It was never going to happen and still less do I think it likely to happen that we are going to have 10, 20 or 30 referenda. The Government, in response to my Second Reading speech, said in desperation that these referenda would be grouped but you cannot possibly ask the British public to answer 10 questions of that kind in the course of one referendum, so there is no doubt about it: there is no intention to have any referenda and there will not be any.

The intention must therefore be, as I have said before, to adopt what I call a frozen policy in the EU. It is quite frightening that this country should adopt a frozen policy in any international organisation of which it is a part. It is not only deeply destructive of the national interest but not at all in accordance with public opinion in this country. Public opinion may well be sceptical in many ways about the European Union but it expects the Government to respond flexibly, pragmatically and intelligently to the challenges of the hour, not to adopt frozen policies.

This schedule has a whole list of absurdities in it. If I dealt with them all, although I should be delighted to do so in many ways, I would take up much too much of the Committee's time. Perhaps I might focus on two, because I want to illustrate how misconceived the approach encapsulated in the Bill is. The first item in Part 2 of Schedule 1 is:

“Article 19(1) (measures to combat discrimination based on sex, racial or ethnic origin, religion or belief, age or sexual orientation)”.

If one looks up the relevant reference, Article 19 goes as follows:

“Without prejudice to the other provisions of the Treaties and within the limits of the powers conferred by them upon the Union, the Council, acting unanimously in accordance with a special legislative procedure and after obtaining the consent of the European Parliament, may take appropriate action to combat discrimination based on sex, racial or ethnic origin, religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation”.

It is, unfortunately, not impossible that there should be problems with discrimination in the European Union, particularly racial or religious discrimination. Racial discrimination is, sadly, not absent from any part of the human race and we have had some disturbing incidents and tendencies in the European Union, for example in Romania and Hungary—and, surprisingly and rather shockingly, in France—in relation to the Roma. We have had racialist remarks made by members of the current ruling party in Hungary and by prominent members of parties in Poland and Latvia who are now partners of the British Conservative Party in the European Parliament.

It seems to me that there would be a great advantage in moving from the special to the ordinary legislative procedure in this area of discrimination, so that once we had done that it would not be possible for one member state to hold out against a clear declaration, legal statement or piece of legislation that made it impossible to discriminate against people on those grounds. There was horror when the French Government suggested that it was a greater priority to get illegal immigrants out of France if they were Roma than if they were anything else. That is exactly the kind of problem that all of us, surely, have an interest in ensuring does not arise and does not disgrace or besmirch the European Union, to which many of us are committed. Therefore, if one had a problem involving a country there would be a real danger of a veto under the special legislative procedure.

I cannot for the life of me think why a British Government who are composed of a Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition should want to exclude the use of qualified majority voting without the block, which we know will never be overcome, of a threatened referendum. So it seems a thoroughly perverse consequence of the Government’s policy in this area.

Let me take another, very different, example, which shows how we are shooting ourselves in the foot if we pass this Bill. It is an area which I know a bit about, having been Minister for defence procurement for a while before the general election. The penultimate item in the list under Part 2 in Schedule 1 is:

“Article 346(2) (changes to list of military products exempt from internal market provisions)”.

In the relevant governing article in the Lisbon treaty, Article 346 states that,

“any Member State may take such measures as it considers necessary for the protection of the essential interests of its security which are connected with the production of or trade in arms, munitions and war material; such measures shall not adversely affect the conditions of competition in the internal market regarding products which are not intended for specifically military purposes … The Council may, acting unanimously on a proposal from the Commission, make changes to the list, which it drew up on 15 April 1958”.

What the Government are saying is that they cannot change that and move from unanimity to qualified majority voting without a referendum. Let me explain what this clause does. It is a derogation from the single market in relation to military goods. It is a protectionist measure, which I believe was insisted upon by France at the time the original treaty of Rome was signed. For many years it was Article 46 of the treaty, but it has been overtaken by events. It is contrary to the interests of the British defence industry, which is the largest—that is not a value judgment but a fact—by volume of any defence industry in the European Union and, I think, the most competitive. It therefore suffers from this protectionist measure, which in my experience and to my own knowledge has often been abused.

Member states have argued that vehicles used for military purposes are military equipment and therefore have to be manufactured in that particular country—Italy, in this case. There are arguments the whole time about whether something is genuinely military equipment. This can sometimes be resolved, but the effect is a major derogation in the single market. I thought that it was a matter of consensus in British politics—certainly involving all three major parties—that we are in favour of a single market and we want to get rid of obstacles to it. Yet this Government are placing an obstacle in the way of extending the single market. This Government are using a referendum to block the removal of a derogation from the single market legislation. In effect they are supporting a restriction on the possibility of the British defence industry expanding its exports within the European Union. This is a crazy, crazy policy, there is no doubt about it. I do not know whether the Government have thought this one through. If they have, I hope that at this 11th hour they will think about it again.

I am proud that, as defence procurement Minister, for the first time I abolished protectionism. I said that Britain should buy the capability it needed, where it could get it best and at the cheapest price. I made that absolutely plain. There are certain areas where for defence purposes and strategic security reasons we would not buy military equipment. We would not buy from Russia or China, for example, because we would not know what was in it. If there was any software, we would have to be very wary indeed of allowing it into the country. Nevertheless, where security and defence considerations did not apply, we would buy equipment from the best and cheapest source.

I placed a contract for an armoured vehicle, the Warthog, in Singapore and I am glad I did. I have a record, if I may say so, of being liberal in defence procurement and it is deeply shocking to me that we have a Government who are trying to go against that liberalism and damage an important British industry. The defence industry, probably together with pharmaceuticals, is the manufacturing area in which we have the greatest international competitive advantage.

I hope that, as a result of the debates in this House—unfortunately these matters will not be explored properly in the House of Commons—the country as a whole, including, in this case, the manufacturing and defence industries, will be alerted to what is going on here. If the arguments that we bring forward from these Benches, and those of others with reasonable views on Europe on the other Benches, do not prevail, maybe the voice of British industry might be heard. If it is not heard soon, a very important piece of damage will be done. It will be extremely difficult for us to find a rational solution to this problem if we continue to have enforced unanimity in this area of single market legislation, because that is what it is.

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

I shall quickly follow the noble Lord, Lord Davies, but I shall not detain the Committee for more than a few moments. I plead particularly to those Members of the Committee who are women. Article 19, the provision to which the noble Lord, Lord Davies, referred, concerns discrimination on the grounds of sex, religion, sexual orientation and so forth. The effect of what we now see in Schedule 1 is that a referendum would be needed to move from unanimity to qualified majority voting. I ask my colleagues to give a moment’s thought to a position where the discriminator is one of the members of the Council.

That was exactly the example in the case of the Czech Republic when it sought to join the European Union. It discriminated viciously against the Roma; in some cases they were assaulted in small Czech towns and, in one or two cases, burnt. The attempt to say to the Czech Republic that discrimination against the Roma must end would have been impossible had there been a requirement for unanimity—in other words, no movement towards qualified majority voting. In those European Union members where there is clearly discrimination against women—Romania is one example of that—it would be possible for that country effectively to veto an attempt to rule out such discrimination. I cannot believe that that is what the Committee wants to see.

Essentially, one of the great achievements of the European Union—one that the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, totally fails to recognise—was the extension of human rights and democracy to central and eastern Europe. It is an astonishing achievement. In any country except Britain it would be recognised as such. The consequence of that, in practice, is that the Copenhagen criteria—laid down in 1993 at the European Council meeting in the Danish capital—specifically said that for a country to join the European Union it must meet requirements about human rights, democracy, the independence of the courts and the proper, non-corrupt provision and maintenance of the rule of law, all of which are fundamental pillars of democracy. All of these depended on the wishes of these countries to join the European Union, and the requirement on them to meet those political conditions in order to do so.

The success, in extending democracy to that huge part of Europe, has a great deal to do with the respect that many of us have for the European Union. I spent nine years as the head of an organisation based in Harvard University called Project Liberty, which argued time and again with the Governments of eastern European countries that they could not join the European Union unless they put right laws that were discriminatory and corrupt. I know this because I was involved at first hand. It was an extraordinarily powerful weapon.

I conclude by saying, first, that nobody in this Committee should underestimate the astonishing impact that Europe has had on democracy in this continent and beyond it. Secondly, to try now to limit opposition to discrimination by obliging it to be unanimous would be a huge step back for the European Union, and one for which I, for one, would hate to see my country be responsible.

[Lord Liddle]

My Lords, we have heard many fine speeches in this short debate. I shall be brief and focus on what I regard as the central problem with Schedule 1. The Government need to accept that there is a central problem, and they have to agree to some amendment to the Bill that addresses this issue.

European Union Bill

Baroness Williams of Crosby Excerpts

Monday 16th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stoddart of Swindon]

No, I specifically excluded the House of Lords. It was the House of Commons. The House of Commons had before the meeting of its committee a Member of this House, who tried to explain exactly why the Government acted as they did. I hope that when the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, winds up, he will assure me that this would be better parliamentary scrutiny than what is contained in the Bill.

I come back to the noble Lord who was excoriating all the people who are opposed to further European integration. He well knows that I was never in favour of joining the EEC or the Common Market, as it was. I still believe that this country would be better off out of it. The Daily Express has been trying to give people the opportunity to have a say whether we should remain in. I noticed in last Sunday’s Sunday Express that one of Nick Clegg’s most senior advisers—Mr Tim Farron, the president of the Liberal Democrats—had called for a referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union. He said that Britain’s relationship with the EU has become so poisonous—poisonous, mind you; I have never used that sort of language—that voters deserved a chance to express their views in a referendum on membership of the bloc. Those are not the words of any Liberal councillor; he is the president of the Lib Dems. The noble Lord presumably excludes his own president from his excoriation. He will have to be careful whom he excoriates in the future.

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

The president of the Liberal Democrats is very well known to me. He is a supporter of the European Union. He simply believes that the only way to end the misrepresentation of what the European Union is doing and the attempts to get us out without directly facing the question of “in or out” is to have an “in or out” referendum. He believes, as I do, that such a referendum would be likely, in the end, to confirm that we should stay in. The trouble, as the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, knows even better than I do, is that within less than five years of the previous referendum, which gave a clear decision in favour of staying in Europe, the Labour Party officially decided to leave the Union. That does make referenda look a bit less strong than one might like to believe they are.

[Lord Stoddart of Swindon]

I remember the 1975 referendum very well. I took part in it myself. If Mr Farron believes that we should have a referendum because our relationship with the European Union has become poisonous, he is right and I agree with him. However, it is not only UKIP—there are Labour Members who are opposed to our membership of the European Union and, indeed, quite a lot of Liberals. When he believes, rightly, that our relationship with the European Union has become so bad that we need a referendum, I would hope that people, particularly from the Liberal party, would stop criticising those who believe that, after 50 years or so, it is time the British people had another chance to say whether we should stay in or get out.