European Union Committee Report

Lord Boswell of Aynho Excerpts

Monday 26th November 2012 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Lord Boswell of Aynho]

That the Grand Committee takes note of the Report of the European Union Committee on its work in 2010 (1st Report, HL Paper 13).

[Lord Boswell of Aynho]

My Lords, today’s Motion invites us to consider the committee’s report on its work during the long 2010-12 Session of Parliament. The committee has produced regular reports on its work since 2003 but this is the first time for many years that we have invited the House to debate one. During that Session, the committee was of course under the expert chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Roper, and I am delighted to see him here today. I pay tribute to his excellent leadership. It is also gratifying to see so many other Members of the committee here. It enables me to thank them and also our excellent committee staff for their hard work.

Effective parliamentary scrutiny of EU matters must not be the preserve of a small number of specialists. We must spread it among active Members of the House. In that spirit, I feel that we are building on a strong base but we should always be ready to examine how we can do things better. I hope that today’s debate will range widely and that Members will feel free to address recent developments in the European Union. I also hope that this Committee will look forward and consider how the House as a whole and the committee appointed by the House to examine EU matters can most effectively scrutinise it. That scrutiny of the EU is one of the core activities of our House. European Union legislation affects the people, businesses and other organisations of this country in many different ways. Whatever view one may take about the desirability of this—there are differing views in your Lordships’ House and on our committees—it is nevertheless crucial for the United Kingdom Parliament to play a full and effective part in this scrutiny.

During the two-year Session in question, around 1,800 European documents were deposited in Parliament. Of these, the chairman of the committee referred over 700 either to the Select Committee or one of the then seven sub-committees for close examination. In the course of examining these 700 items, the committee sent over 1,200 letters to Ministers. The committee has produced 34 full reports, ranging from major cross-cutting issues such as the single market and the euro area crisis on the one hand to more specific policies, such as the mobility of healthcare professionals in the EU and the EU drugs strategy, and foreign policy matters such as the European Union and the situation in Sudan. The aim of all this work is for the family of House of Lords European Union committees to play their part in parliamentary scrutiny of these matters by influencing and holding to account the United Kingdom Government; influencing and scrutinising the European Commission and other institutions, such as the European Parliament; engaging with stakeholders at home and abroad; and informing the House of Lords as a whole and contributing to a wider public debate about important European Union policies.

I hope that the scrutiny process is extremely open. It certainly benefits greatly from the input of people and organisations affected by the policies that we examine. In preparing our reports on this Session, we sought out evidence from around 400 people and organisations in writing and from more than 300 witnesses in person, so in this short speech I can give only a broad overview of the Committee’s work. I hope that others, who are in good numbers here, can give further specific examples in support.

I would like, however, to draw out two examples of effective working. First, on a very specific issue: at a meeting in September the Minister for Europe explained that the committee’s 2011 report on the EU police mission in Afghanistan, which highlighted the need to focus on gender issues and human rights, to encourage the recruitment and training of female officers and to invest in literacy, had been accepted by Her Majesty’s Government and the Commission and followed up by the Afghan Government. Secondly, on the major and multifaceted policy of the multiannual financial framework, whose outcome is not yet determined, the Select Committee co-ordinated two major inquiries into that framework for 2014 to 2020. It of course sounds highly technical and even a bit rebarbative, but at heart this is about our taxpayers’ money that the European Union intends to spend over the next seven years and how it intends to fund that spending. At a time of austerity, yet in the light of the critical need to support economic growth, the next framework will be the most important of all.

The committee took advantage of the expertise residing in each sub-committee and made a comprehensive analysis of the Commission’s initial proposals. We broadly supported the United Kingdom Government’s call for much greater restraint than the Commission proposed but we also called for greater attention to the quality of spending, with proportionately more directed towards programmes that offered potential to support economic growth and less towards agricultural maintenance. We also noted that the British rebate remains justified while spending is so skewed towards agricultural support.

Our work on the MFF demonstrates some good examples of our committees engaging effectively with others. We launched the report in April 2011 with a seminar hosted by the Centre for European Policy Studies, at which my predecessor, the noble Lord, Lord Roper, talked through our findings with a range of stakeholders including some from overseas. He was subsequently invited to act as a rapporteur at a mini-convention on the MFF convened by the Polish presidency, the Commission and the European Parliament last November. This demonstrates well that, although the MFF is only now making headlines in United Kingdom newspapers, the House has been involved throughout and played an important role in the debate that shaped the policies and is still being listened to.

Debates on the committee’s reports enable all Members of the House, whether or not they are members of a European Union committee, to engage with important policies. The committee helps the House as a whole to a greater understanding and engagement on European matters. Like all serious work in Parliament, it is sometimes a challenge to get our messages across through the media. However, as the report notes, in the first week of May 2012 the committee published three major reports, which were the subject of 19 articles in national and regional papers, over 20 reports in online and specialist media, and coverage in the broadcast media. More recently, the topical report on women on boards was covered in international media, including the New York Times.

A new feature is that the Lisbon treaty has given specific duties to national Parliaments particularly to examine legislative proposals for proportionality, and whether they comply with the principle of subsidiarity. If at least one-third of national Parliaments issue a reasoned opinion that a principle does not comply with subsidiarity, a yellow card is triggered, which requires the Commission to reconsider its proposal. During the 2010-12 Session, the House of Lords, acting on reports by the European Union Committee, issued two reasoned opinions, although in neither case was a yellow card triggered. However, in this September, we learn that the subsidiarity check by national Parliaments could have a definite impact on European legislation. A yellow card was then triggered on a proposal on balancing the right of free movement and a right to strike, and the Commission has now withdrawn it.

The Commission is making strides in improving its dealings with national Parliaments, and I have been impressed with Maros Sefcovic, who is the responsible commissioner. We are, however, working to improve the timeliness and level of detail that the Commission provides in response to concerns raised by national Parliaments. There is a general appetite for greater intensity of activity in that area.

At the end of this long Session, the House decided to reduce the number of EU sub-committees from seven to six. This was decided before the House appointed me to the chairmanship. Many Members of the House regret that decision. For my part, I understand the pressures on the House and on other committees, and I do not currently propose to reopen this matter, although we will of course keep it under review in the light of our workload.

Looking ahead, I would like first shamelessly to plug the Select Committee’s current inquiry into the further enlargement of the European Union. The committee is examining whether the Union should continue to expand and, if so, what principles should underpin that expansion and how they should be translated into action. What effect will the long economic crisis have on the prospects? The committee intends to publish its report before the end of the session.

I turn to the role of the Government in facilitating effective Parliamentary scrutiny of EU matters. The scrutiny reserve resolution, by which the Government undertake not to agree to proposals in the Council of Ministers unless their scrutiny by the European Union Committee has been completed is an important element of this. From July 2011 to June 2012 there were 87 overrides of scrutiny. For our part, the committee will try to avoid unnecessary overrides. But, for their part, all departments must provide us with information quickly and fully and allow us to carry out our scrutiny work effectively before proposals come up for decision within the Council. Government as a whole must be firm not to allow itself to be railroaded into premature agreement to proposals without allowing proper time for parliamentary scrutiny.

Over the summer the committee, and our counterpart committee in the Commons, became embroiled in an entirely unnecessary row with the Government about whether a report from President Van Rompuy about further economic and monetary union should be deposited in Parliament for scrutiny. It was deposited, after a short delay, and I hope that the Government have learnt their lesson and fully accept that their role is to facilitate rather than inhibit effective parliamentary scrutiny.

Scrutinising European documents provides a good starting point, but we must make sure that we do not become document-obsessed. Appointing subject-specialist sub-committees is a good way to ensure that the House acquires and makes use of the existing expertise in key European Union subjects, ensuring that it does not over-fixate on this or that document and at the same time is nimble enough to contribute to major policy debates at an early stage. Recently, the Internal Market, Infrastructure and Employment Sub-Committee investigated the issue of quotas for women on boards—I have already mentioned media coverage of that—and was able to produce a detailed report on the matter before the Commission had even managed to agree on its own proposal. In what I suspect is a record for the House, the report was debated two working days after it was published.

My priorities for the committees themselves are as follows. We must ensure that we engage as effectively as possible beyond the confines of the committees: with the broader House; with stakeholders; with the media and the general public; and with the major EU institutions such as the Commission and the European Parliament. We must doggedly pursue the major policy issues, in particular by following up our key policy reports. European policies often develop slowly, and our subject-specialist committees give us a unique ability to engage with them consistently, over a period of years. We must continue to work hard on our external communications. In recent years, we have held seminars and stakeholder events. Only last week there was a well attended seminar on the new European External Action Service. I hope that we will continue this work in future sessions.

Over the years, the House has built a strong reputation in other parts of the Union for its EU scrutiny work. Shortly after my appointment, I visited Brussels for introductory meetings and was struck by the high level of awareness of what we do. When meeting Vice-President Sefcovic I even noticed a copy of the report we are debating now on his desk. I have also represented this committee at COSAC, the conference of EU committees of national Parliaments. Our reputation there is high and, because of this, I think that there is something of an open door to advancing our levels of engagement further.

I have said that the work of the committee is transparent. However, it is not easy for people with an interest in a particular European Union policy to find all the relevant documents: the proposal itself, the United Kingdom Government’s memorandum and any comments by the scrutiny committee. I hope that we can come together to find a technical solution to permit much easier and better searching of all the material relating to EU matters, which is currently spread widely across the web.

The Session on which we are reporting finished on 1 May. Our report was published at the start of June, but we are only now debating it. Although I am of course grateful for this slot in Grand Committee, it is not quite what one would call “prime time”, particularly when there are European Statements in the Chamber itself. Reports by Select Committees sometimes have to wait longer to be debated, and we need to do some hard thinking about how this can be better organised.

We also need to think how we can encourage as many non-committee members as possible to speak in debates. We want to make sure that our work engages the interest of all Members of the House and is intelligible to them. Equally, we must work the system to facilitate and encourage participation in debates.

In conclusion, I suggest that, at a time of uncertainty and change in Europe, it is more important than ever that this House retains its ability, assisted by the European Union Committee, which now reports, to understand, examine, challenge and influence the European policies of Her Majesty’s Government and the development of European Union policy and law across the whole Union. In that spirit, I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Boswell of Aynho]

My Lords, very briefly in view of the hour, I thank all those who have participated in the debate, including the Minister for his closing comments, and also those Peers who are not members of our committee but have managed to sit in and imbibe some of the interest in what we are doing.

It seems that there are five potential pitfalls, which I will list briefly. First, there is the danger of excessive expectation and that we should think that somehow a single report we make will change the map irredeemably in Europe. It does not usually work like that in a community of 27. Secondly, there is what one might call a kind of arrogant assertion of power. We are not running British foreign policy and should not seek to do so. Thirdly, we should be alert to any producer capture by HMG or anybody else. We retain our independence and will express our views as appropriate. Fourthly, there is the possibility that we will disappear down a mire of detail, though I see no sign of that happening. The detail deployed in this debate has been impressive and very much to the point.

Finally in the dangers is the question of resourcing, which cuts across three areas. First, there is the suggestion the Minister made about international collaboration. We have to find the resources if we are to do that. Secondly, there is what we might be able to contribute to the balance of competences review. Thirdly, there was the universal call across the debate for greater attention to our outreach and publicity. A lot of that can be done electronically and relatively thriftily and economically, but it cannot be done for nothing. However, I take that as the single strongest message that we should be doing it.

In conclusion, we should carry on doing what we have to do but ever more thoroughly and do it further back upstream and further down into implementation. Secondly, we should pay particular attention to making sure that all our stakeholders—of all walks of life, home and abroad, government and otherwise—know what we are doing and feel able to be part of our processes.

Motion agreed.