European Union (Referendum) Bill

Lord Balfe Excerpts

Friday 10th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, I support the Bill and look forward to it passing. However, I also look forward to campaigning for a yes vote in the inevitable referendum. Although some people have said, “This isn’t the right Bill”, there is an undercurrent that there should be a referendum, and there is, again, a need to get the will of the British people expressed. That, of course, is one of the inconveniences of living in a democracy—from time to time you just have to let the people say what they want to do. This Bill is a vehicle for that.

I spent 25 years in the European Parliament and the overwhelming impression I got was the failure to understand and to engage between both sides. As an MEP I constantly felt—having, of course, the joy of serving in both parties—that neither party knew what to do with its MEPs. They felt that they were a bit of a nuisance and a bit of an irrelevance. However, seriously, if you look at other European member states you find a much better level of integration between what is going on in Brussels and what is going on in the member state than you do in the United Kingdom. We have consistently failed to engage, and that comes down to very petty things. When do you ever see an MEP wandering around this House? I see the former leader of the Opposition, who will know the Danish Parliament well, and if you go to the Danish Parliament you will often find MEPs wandering around it because there is a structure for them to relate to it and be there. Therefore we need to settle quite a lot of things.

We also need to look at what would happen if people vote no. The question will be, “Do you want to be in the European Union?”. That would start a long process of disengagement, which would be messy. On this side of the House our Conservative Party is not best served by not being in the European People’s Party, which contains a lot of people who have influence. We need to be in a position of influence, because if we were on the path to withdrawal—and I sincerely hope that we are not—the European Parliament plays a very central role in the settlement that is reached, because there will be a huge number of financial overhangs.

I still serve as president of the European Parliament Pension Fund. If you look at the liabilities towards European public servants, they are considerable and would have to be met. Other liabilities that would have to be untangled are also considerable—and, with all of them, the European Parliament would have budgetary authority. My noble friend Lord Tomlinson is much more of an expert than I am on that matter, and he will know that the European Parliament would have a considerable say in what happens.

I draw attention to the role of European civil servants. We sometimes bemoan the fact that British nationals are not getting their fair share in Europe. But what are we offering them in terms of a career? We are saying to the brightest and best of our graduates, “Well, yes, if you go to Europe we might help you and we might not—or we might withdraw tomorrow”. Is that how you get people to the top? There was a time when we held the general secretaryship of the European Commission; indeed, the noble Lord who held that is a Member of this House. We held the general secretaryship of the European Parliament, with the distinguished Sir Julian Priestley, for many years. We have held the general secretaryship of the European Economic and Social Committee. Today we hold no senior positions in any European institutions that would be worthy of the weight of this country; we are slipping behind.

We are always talking about numbers, but this goes beyond numbers. Britain has a moral duty in Europe to lead and to join. There is a long queue of people wanting to join; there is only a small queue—and then not a representative one—of people who want to leave. Our job and our duty is at the heart of Europe, campaigning and helping the emerging democracies in the European Union, setting an example, bringing them forward and welcoming them into the family of European nations. We should not be going on in the xenophobic way that the British press has been so fond of recently, which frankly I feel ashamed to be associated with, when I read it. We need to pass this Bill, we need a positive yes vote, and we need a full and thorough engagement with the European Union.