European Union Bill

Debate between Baroness Williams of Crosby and Lord Empey

Wednesday 13th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[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.