European Union Membership (Economic Implications) Bill [HL]

Earl of Liverpool Excerpts

Friday 25th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Liverpool]

My Lords, in a typically powerful and persuasive opening speech, the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, referred to the fact that this is the fourth time that this Bill has come before your Lordships. The noble Lord has been steadfast in his advocacy of the need for what one might call a cost-benefit analysis of our membership of the EU, and a number of faithful foot soldiers in this House have followed him every step of the way. My family motto is “Be Steadfast” and I am proud to be one of those foot soldiers.

Today, with a full blown euro crisis on our hands, a real prospect exists of a fragmentation of the eurozone. My noble friends Lady Noakes and Lord Ryder and others referred to that. Indeed, it was reported recently in one of the broadsheet papers that the Chancellor and the Treasury are so concerned that they have set up a committee to look at how we might best manage an orderly exit from the EU. I wonder whether the Minister can throw any light on that. It is an important question because, if that is indeed the case and the findings can be made public, much of the work that the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, envisages being carried out by the committee set up under his Bill will already have been done.

We have heard about the latest Pink Book figures and the £28 million leaving our shores every day. Our countrymen are growing restive and the situation is becoming indefensible in the teeth of this recession. There is now a real possibility that we may be called upon to part with many more billions to try to shore up the doomed euro. We have a duty to explain how we are getting value for money and, if a satisfactory and convincing explanation cannot be found, we should leave the project. That is what around 70 per cent of our population believe.

No one is able to say exactly what level of corruption exists within the EU. My noble friend Lord Risby mentioned, I think, £4.6 billion, but I have heard figures as high as £5 billion or even £6 billion. In any event, as we know, the EU has been unable to close off the accounts for the past 17 years. It seems unbelievable to me that we can keep pumping ever increasing amounts of taxpayers’ money into this sadly corrupt organisation. One day, I believe that the newspapers will get on to the ever increasing gravy train of MEP and Commissioner salaries, pensions, housing and travel expenses. What effect that will have on an already sceptical British public remains to be seen. There will come a time when even the Europhiles will have to stop defending the indefensible.

On which note, I was very heartened to read Sir Max Hastings’ recent Damascene conversion. As a self confessed pro-European all his adult life, he now admits that the EU is a disaster affecting every aspect of British life. In a full page article in the Daily Mail on 13 September this year, he said:

“The cost of Brussels has become insupportable. If we continue to burden employers and wealth generators, large and small, with its Utopian vision, only relentless decline can lie ahead”.

He ends the article with these words:

“if Britain’s government cannot find the means to retrieve some part of our lost control of vital national interests, we shall find ourselves mere fellow passengers”,

with our EU partners,

“aboard a waterlogged hulk, while the Chinese, Indians, South Koreans and Singaporeans power past in their glittering speedboats, leaving us bobbing in the wake”.

He could also have included the Russians and Brazilians in their speedboats. Anyway, that is not a future I wish to see.

I believe that the real elephant in the room is the democratic deficit. Self-governance and retaining our sovereignty are now far-off dreams. If proof were needed of that, one need look no further than a recent report of a discussion said to have taken place between President Barroso and our Prime Minister when he was reported as saying that we must be prepared to agree to further federalist and fiscal integration within the EU or accept the imposition of a financial transaction tax which would have such a devastating effect on the City of London. Perhaps the Minister can either verify or refute that this ultimatum was given.

In any event, one has to ask how anyone can pretend that democracy is alive and well when some 72 per cent of our laws are imposed on us by directives and regulations emanating from non-elected Commissioners in Brussels. The argument that it is only by staying full members that we can have a seat at the top table and influence events just does not wash any more. We have tried and failed in that endeavour in the past, and qualified majority voting, among other things, ensures that we shall never achieve that dream however devoutly it may be wished.

There is an alternative. We could become like Norway and Switzerland, restoring our own democratic powers, regaining control of our borders and applying quotas. This could be achieved in a spirit of friendship and good neighbourliness; our trade would not suffer because their trade with us, as we have already heard, is greater than ours is with them, and neither party would wish to lose those markets. Our attractiveness to major international companies would, I believe, increase rather than diminish, and we could benefit by becoming, in effect, the Hong Kong of Europe. Of course there will be an initial upheaval but I believe that we would see in the years that follow a significant increase in jobs in this country. I do not think that that is as fanciful as it at first sounds.

In any event we need a reality check, and we need it now. I give my full support to this Bill. I hope that it will soon progress to its further stages in your Lordships’ House.