European Union Bill

Lord Blackwell Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Liddle]

That is because the argument for British membership of the Union has not been made forcefully. That is why we need to do that in future. However, we are not going to do that as a result of this Bill. That is where noble Lords opposite are wrong.

All our political institutions suffer from major distrust. If, again, you consider the polling evidence on trust in Parliament or trust in the Government, you will find that there is as much mistrust in the British Government, the British Parliament and the British political parties as there is in the European Union. Of course, one does not underestimate the degree of scepticism among the public, but it is ironic that we are discussing the question of Europe today when the Murdoch press is in such difficulty in its relations with the British people. I do not know how many noble Lords in this House have received mail and been approached by members of the public because of the amendments that we carried when the Bill went through the House before, but I suspect very few. The real public anger today is directed at the media—particularly at the Murdoch press and at News International, which more than other organisation has used its position to obstruct positive British policy in the European Union. By going along with this Bill we are sacrificing representative democracy and Britain’s ability to pursue an effective policy in Europe.

I do not think, as I say, that is why the proposers are putting this Bill forward. I think that the Liberal Democrats are rather embarrassed by this piece of legislation, despite what the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, has told us.

It may upset the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, greatly but I have a lot of friends in Brussels. One of them passed on to me a letter that Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, had sent to Andrew Duff MEP about this piece of legislation. Towards the end, it says:

“In addition, any referendum to ratify a Treaty change covered by the EU Bill’s referendum lock must first be preceded by an Act of Parliament in order to provide Parliamentary approval and to make provisions for the holding of a referendum”.

We all agree about the Act of Parliament. He goes on to say:

“This would, for example, enable a future Parliament to decide that the provisions in the EU Bill should not apply by amending the Treaty change Bill to that effect”.

The only way I can read that statement is that the Deputy Prime Minister believes that the provisions of what would become the European Union Act 2011 would not apply if, in future legislation ratifying a European decision or a European treaty, a clause was inserted that the question was not constitutionally significant and therefore did not justify a referendum. I would very much like to know whether the Minister agrees with that interpretation of the Deputy Prime Minister’s letter; whether he agrees and accepts that in any future Act ratifying an EU decision a Minister could insert a clause rather along the lines of our amendment; and if so, why the Government refuse so adamantly to accept this sensible amendment? I beg to move.

[Lord Blackwell]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, called his amendment sensible. We should be clear that it is a wrecking amendment. It requires the Government to assert that a proposal is of major constitutional and economic significance. The noble Lord himself said that no Government voluntarily submit to a referendum. No proposal would come into the scope of this Bill unless the Government had supported it and had voted in favour of it in the European Union, so we can take it that the Minister and the Government would be behind whatever proposal was being put forward. We are then asking the Minister to volunteer to put a referendum through the terms of his amendment. As he said, no Government will voluntarily do that. We have the example of the Government’s record on the Lisbon treaty, which by every measure should have been put to a referendum but which the Government solemnly told the House did not require one. It is partly because of that that we have the mistrust to which the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, referred.

Because of the Lisbon treaty we now have a treaty that allows many changes to the fundamentals of our treaty relationship with Europe, including the removal of vetoes on a whole range of policies covered by Clause 6, and amendments to the scope of the institutions and the powers of the European Union itself through the passerelle clauses. All are to be done through the agreement of Governments without the need for a treaty change, and therefore without the need for a referendum on a treaty change. That is why we need Clause 6: because the Lisbon treaty enabled those changes to be made without a treaty change, and Clause 6 ensures that that is picked up. The noble Lord’s amendment would completely destroy that provision and overturn the view of the other place.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

My Lords, as the person who tabled most of the amendments that are the subject of this debate, I should say a few words. One is meant to rejoice when a Minister eats a large quantity of humble pie. I have to say, I am not rejoicing at listening to the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, eating humble pie for having helped to lead his party to the various majorities that confirmed the Lisbon treaty. Frankly, it is a sad day when the Liberal party recants from the policy that it has pursued for so many years, saying that it is out of touch with the people and has not taken sufficient account of their views.

Leaving that to one side, I took the trouble to listen to the debate in the other place. I think I was the only Member of your Lordships’ House who did so. It was rather a sad occasion, much less well attended than this one. I am glad to see a wonderful cross-section of the views held in this House, which will no doubt be vigorously debated in the minutes or hours that follow. There was practically nobody there. When the noble Lord says that the decision was adopted by consensus, it was the consensus of around 15 or 20 people. They were mainly the people who went into the Lobby against the Government on Clause 18 and managed to muster 22 votes. They are therefore people who, by their own admission, would much rather than Britain was not in the European Union. That is a perfectly respectable position to take; it is the position that the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, takes.

On the matter that we are discussing now, I support the amendment. No one, including me, is persisting with the amendments that we tabled to the Bill and were voted on in this House. They would have reduced the number of referendums substantially, though not to only three. The amendment did not affect the provisions that would have required a referendum if any general constitutional treaty, such as Lisbon, Nice, Maastricht or the Single European Act, had come forward. That was not covered by the amendment that was rejected by the House of Commons. Only the numerous provisions that provide for 56 other referendums were covered.

I should like briefly to make three points in favour of this amendment. First, on marginalisation, given the problems with holding a referendum at particular moments in our parliamentary cycle, there is a risk that people may be minded to vote for reasons that have nothing to do with the question on the ballot paper. Therefore, a British Government would be compelled to reject a change in Europe that they believed to be in the British interest and wished to support because they did not feel able to go to the country in a referendum. This is exceedingly serious. That is why we should all listen rather carefully to someone I respect enormously, Sir John Major, who said at Ditchley in the annual lecture that he gave last Saturday that Britain was at risk of being a semi-detached member of the European Union. I know that is not the object of the Government. I have heard many government spokesmen flatly deny that and say how active we are. However, they should take this risk seriously.