Queen’s Speech

Lord Bowness Excerpts

Thursday 17th May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bowness]

My Lords, on 29 March this year, addressing the lord mayor’s Easter banquet, my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary said, in a speech that ranged over most of the world:

“Britain is a transatlantic nation and a European nation. But our … interests go beyond that to be global. We have to forge new partnerships beyond our traditional alliances … This in no way means we are moving away from our indispensable alliance with the United States and our deep partnership”,

with Europe. He continued:

“Our ties within Europe are also vitally important. Despite Europe’s current economic”,

problems,

“the extension of … democracy is a success few dared to hope for thirty years ago”.

This is a message we hear frequently; we heard it from my noble friend Lord Howell of Guildford in opening today. We should indeed cultivate the wider and developing countries. We should embrace the Commonwealth as an important forum and network but, at the same time, remember that its members—which now include some who do not share the common history—have diverse interests in different parts of the world. It is not, nor is it likely to be, a substitute for the European Union as a political, trading or defence organisation.

The Foreign Secretary could have added, as a European Union success, the peace that Europe has enjoyed and which cannot be attributed solely to NATO—peace not only among historic enemies but in the peaceful changes from dictatorships and communism, inspired by the prospects of membership of the European Union. When critics count the cost of the European Union, perhaps we should count what it has saved the continent in other ways. My fear is not that our wider interests are being neglected by too great a concentration on the European Union but rather that we are taking the relationship with the European Union and its achievements for granted.

The gracious Speech, at a time of economic and political turmoil, contained only two references to Europe: namely, Bills to deal with the accession of Croatia and legislation to deal with the European financial stability mechanism, which we have already approved but now have to do again because of the European Union Act of last year. Despite being delivered in the middle of a deepening and widening crisis, there is no statement of intent to work constructively with our partners in the union to find a way through. We need to give leadership, as my noble friend Lord Taverne said, not merely lecture others to give leadership because their problems are hurting us. What other solutions do we offer, since the EU solutions and those of Chancellor Merkel, to date, are based very much on our own economic policies?

What leadership is the United Kingdom prepared to give over the crisis in Greece? The problem is not just for the eurozone. Truly, in this instance at least, we are “all in it together”, and the calls by the popular press to let our European partners stew in their own juice or lie on the bed they made will not change that. It is no good saying that we will not be involved in any solution because, in the past, we told you that the euro would not work and that the structures to make it work were lacking or flawed. Maybe if we had not been so hands-off in the beginning, some of the mistakes would not have been made but we are where we are, however wise we may now be after the event. The stability that we have taken for granted is now threatened, and we see the rise of nationalism and worse in Greece and elsewhere. Some states, specifically Greece, will undoubtedly need help to come through their present problems. Yes, they have lessons to learn, reforms to make and deficits to reduce but, without some investment and help to earn and grow, the downward spiral will not end and the consequences will be felt by us all.

We have made commitments in the past to help people in other parts of the world when their problems were not necessarily of our making. Does the resistance to being seen to help flow from antipathy to the European Union and the euro? I hope not. What is our attitude to help through the IMF, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development or the European Investment Bank? What do we propose to help stave off not just financial meltdown but a social breakdown that could have consequences as yet unforeseen? Britain has never been able to stand aside from the problems of Europe and we must ensure that we do not leave it too late on this occasion.

Leadership is also required in other areas. We were willing to lead some of our EU partners in Libya, but what of other areas of great concern in our own backyard that are in serious need of attention and need to be brought up the political agenda? It is a long list: Serbia and Kosovo; Ukraine, which has been mentioned already today; Moldova; Transdniestria; Bosnia-Herzegovina; and Macedonia, where Greece alone is holding up progress on that country’s candidature for the EU. Membership of the EU for the states of the western Balkans is supposed to be a key element of our foreign policy.

What about the problem of Cyprus, where we are not only a partner EU state and a fellow Commonwealth state but one of the guarantor powers? Unresolved, that problem creates problems within NATO and between NATO and the EU, and with claims about the entitlement to possible oil rights off the coast of Cyprus there is the potential for even more tension in a region where, without help, one state faces a possibly disastrous future.

Governments of all persuasions like high-profile world-stage foreign policies. It is eye-catching to be photographed with victorious forces or powerful, iconic figures in foreign parts. I accept that there are not too many front-page photo opportunities in the problem areas in Europe that I have just mentioned. We disregard our own immediate neighbourhood at our peril, but unfortunately successive Governments have failed to give a lead to the British people, and have not explained that the EU is more important than just a trading bloc but has achieved a great deal as a unique institution created voluntarily by its individual member nation states. They have failed to advise people of the EU’s advantages for fear of upsetting the Eurosceptic minority. That policy has totally failed—the real Eurosceptics will never be appeased—and, as a consequence of the failure of leadership and the generally lukewarm enthusiasm for the EU, we see the rise of UKIP.

The Chancellor famously has said of the Labour Party on a number of occasions that it failed to fix the roof while the sun was shining. To pursue that analogy, I fear that the desire to have a magnificent front door on the wider world and a large doorstep on which to pose, secured by state-of-the-art locks and security devices, is leading to leaving our own back door to Europe dependent on a rather badly maintained rim lock. We should get it fixed before it is too late.

European Union Bill

Lord Bowness Excerpts

Monday 23rd May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard]

I have nothing to say except to point to the words “or otherwise support”. I will say no more than that. Those words are there in the first line, and I hope that the next time we look they will have vanished.

[Lord Bowness]

My Lords, I should hate to delay the Committee, bearing in mind that this clause stand part debate has been introduced so briefly. I have not spoken in these proceedings since Second Reading when I expressed my concern about certain aspects of the Bill, which I have to say remains. As chairman of the Justice and Institutions Sub-Committee of the European Committee—although I am not speaking for the sub-committee—I am concerned as to the effect that the provisions will have on matters relating to judicial and police co-operation. I fear that our ability to act flexibly will be compromised.

I have a question for my noble friends on the Front Bench, of which I have given notice to my noble friend Lord Wallace of Saltaire. This sub-committee has just had before it a proposal for a Council regulation under Article 352, the subject of this clause. It is about a matter as mundane as the publication of the Official Journal, which noble Lords will know is the source of the authentic versions of EU legislation and other documents. At the moment, Article 297 provides that the authentic version is the published and printed version. The proposal for this regulation is that the electronic version should become the authentic version.

I am advised that if this regulation does not become law before the passing of this Bill—if that is what should happen—an Act of the United Kingdom Parliament will be required to implement it. I have read very carefully Clause 8 and the various proposals and clauses with which this clause would comply. One such is the Act of Parliament and the other is if it is a matter of urgency, which would probably be stretching a point—my noble friends would be accused of stretching a point if they were to say that—or an exempt purpose. I do not read it as an exempt purpose, although I am open to be corrected. Do we really propose to have an Act of Parliament to implement matters as mundane as this?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, those of us who have been around the European communities are familiar with all the problems of Article 352 in its previous formations—Article 308 and even Article 235. It was the competence creep article that the forebears of the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, complained of many years ago. The ECJ and this article were the basic problems of the competence creep about which they so often complained, which is why Clause 8 is in the Bill.

On the specific question asked by my noble friend Lord Bowness, it is not yet clear whether the process of Article 352 will be used to switch the Official Journal from written to only electronic form. But if it were used, both in the German Bundestag and the British Parliament, there would have to be parliamentary approval. As noble Lords will know, when the clause says an Act of Parliament, it may be a clause within another Act of Parliament but it would have to be subject to parliamentary approval. This is a hard, technical case and I suspect that when it comes to it, other means will be found of approving this measure than Article 352.

Article 352 will now be used a great deal less often than its predecessors, again because the Lisbon treaty provides in so much more detail for so many other competences which the EU now has. Although during the period 2004-09, the predecessors to Article 352 were used a good many times, most of the purposes for which it was used during that period would now be covered by specific articles in the treaty. I hope that I have satisfied noble Lords with that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Stoddart of Swindon]

Did I understand the noble Lord correctly when he said that the proposal is that the Official Journal of the European Union should only be published online? If so, that is quite a serious proposal because not everyone has online access.

[Lord Bowness]

My Lords, I do not wish to take up the time of the Committee. The proposal as I understand it is to continue producing the printed version. It is a question of which version the courts will recognise. The courts have said to date that only the printed version is the authentic one. If this proposal goes through, they will be able to accept the electronic version. The noble Lord will not be disfranchised by not being online.

Clause 8 agreed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bowness]

My Lords, I take this opportunity to support the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard. I deny absolutely the title “learned”: I do not think that even calls for our Standing Orders, but I thank him. Nevertheless, given the state of the Court of Justice and the need for speedy resolution of disputes in it—as indeed in any court—it is extremely important, as I said, that we should not make the procedures so cumbersome that delay follows. If your Lordships look at this list, you will see, among other things, amendments to the statutes. Many people think it not unreasonable for the rules of procedure, at least those of the courts, to be determined by the courts themselves. They should not be a matter for the Council of Ministers, still less a matter for debate in both Houses of this Parliament. Again, I appeal to my noble friends on the Front Bench to face the prospect of some flexibility in matters relating to justice and co-operation in judicial and police matters. As I said on Second Reading, we do not know where many of these things are going and, in many instances, we need to make decisions quickly rather than later.

[Lord Dykes]

Briefly, my Lords, I strongly support the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard—and, indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Bowness—because this would be a great opportunity for the Government to consider his specific suggestions; namely, that some elements of Clause 7 should be reintroduced in Clause 10, which has that lighter procedure framework. In other words, it has the construction of a Motion to be passed rather than anything stronger in respect of matters where the Government might, later on, quite understandably regret the tangle into which they have got as a result of decisions whose details would look quite routine. We are thinking here, obviously, of things that start as unanimous decisions and end up as QMV, depending on the specific terms and articles being used for any measure in this field.

There are those other cases, too, where the UK might not be in favour of a decision that was subject to QMV yet the country and the Government would be bound by it because of the very reality of the voting in the Council of Ministers, or whichever relevant council it might be. The Government could regret that later on because it would create quite an onerous obligation for them to go back into full procedure in Parliament—although in general terms we are all in favour of that intrinsically—on matters which really should be dealt with quite easily and expeditiously. In the new spirit of co-operation which has been breaking out in this, the seventh allotted day of our Committee of the whole House, where the Government are now listening—the whole House is grateful for that—I hope that before we terminate the Committee's proceedings, today or later this week, there will be some promise to reconsider this vital area as well.