Foreign Languages: European Institutions

Lord Brittan of Spennithorne Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warsi]

There are a number of reasons why we have problems in relation to that kind of recruitment. One is availability; graduates here are just not as aware, as they are in other European countries, that there are these great opportunities in the EU institutions. Therefore, we have spent a huge amount of resource and energy in 2011 and 2012 in having a road show at graduate fairs to encourage people to apply for these jobs. That has included ministerial involvement. We are investing in language schools, as I have said, and we have also set up an EU staffing unit, which specifically brings together civil servants from across Whitehall, not just the FCO—the FCO hosts this—who can be trained to fit into these institutions. When people get beyond the first stage, we provide some intensive training to get them through to the second stage.

[Lord Brittan of Spennithorne (Con)]

Does my noble friend agree that it would be helpful if, in the course of speeches made by Ministers on European issues, the availability of such positions in the European Commission and other institutions was mentioned, as a ministerial reference would carry much more weight than just making it available on paper?

EU: Recent Developments

Lord Brittan of Spennithorne Excerpts

Thursday 16th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brittan of Spennithorne]

My Lords, the dramatic unfolding of the eurozone crisis, in particular the inevitable focus on the handling of the Greek situation, risks obscuring the more fundamental underlying debate about the eurozone that, in my view, has to take place. That debate is over the extent to which, for a monetary union to work, it needs to be accompanied by a fiscal union, and what the nature of such a fiscal union has to be. I am quite sure that the fiscal agreement reached by 25 of the 27 members of the EU is only a staging post in that debate.

The Government are absolutely right to say that not only is it in our interests that the problems of the eurozone should be resolved, but more specifically, as my noble friend Lord Sassoon said in this House last week,

“this intergovernmental agreement, which goes to the heart of strengthening the fiscal arrangements within the eurozone, is a necessary but not sufficient part of what we hope to see”.—[Official Report, 7/2/12; col. 124.]

I am also glad to note that the Government have backed away from what they appeared to be tempted to do—trying to block the use of EU institutions in the application of the new intergovernmental agreement—and have merely expressed what one might call generalised potential anxiety, saying that we will watch very carefully how that develops and reserve our position. This view was reflected in what my noble friend Lord Howell said in opening this debate.

With regard to the agreement that was reached, no one has been able to explain convincingly—to me, in any event—what that agreement, if we had signed up to it, would have forced us to do that we do not want to do or what it would have prevented us from doing that we do want to do. Leaving that broader question aside, at least we have backed away from trying to torpedo the agreement by preventing the use of the European Union institutions in its application. That not only would have caused us huge ill will but would have risked damaging the very interests that we have been trying to protect. The financial services industry is but one example. Now, why is that so? It is because for decades, under existing treaties, European legislation on, for example, financial services, can be passed by qualified majority voting. Not agreeing to the latest agreement has not changed that by one jot or tittle.

However, there has been an almost universal recognition of the very special importance for us of this sector and we have not been outvoted on any matters of great importance for us in the financial area. On the other hand, I vividly recall when I was in Brussels seeing Mr Tietmeyer absolutely fuming on one occasion when Germany was outvoted on such an issue. If we had sought to torpedo the new intergovernmental agreement, could we guarantee that the restraint by our partners would have continued to be exercised in the future? I very much doubt it.

Leaving aside our particular concerns, where should we stand on the debate on the extent to which monetary union can only work if accompanied by fiscal union? No one could disagree with the broad proposition that on the fiscal side the policy that is needed is budgetary austerity to reduce public debt, combined with structural reforms to boost competitiveness. However, to what extent does all that need to be enshrined in European legislation? The creation of the European stability mechanism does not answer that question, as that is a bailout mechanism to deal with a crisis, not a constitutional mechanism to create the degree of fiscal union needed to prevent a crisis arising.

Of course, the term fiscal union can mean many different things. Assuming agreement on the broad lines of the fiscal policy that is needed, fiscal union can range from organised peer group surveillance to broad rules on the permissible extent of budget deficits to the highly intrusive imposition of limits on national spending and taxation. If the authoritative article in last week’s Financial Times is to be believed, the German position is that national taxes should be co-ordinated or even harmonised with national budgets supervised by the European Commission, with the EU able to insist on certain spending priorities designed to ensure that the competitiveness of growth targets are met. In addition, it has been proposed that a commitment to balance budgets should be required in national constitutions. If all those were agreed, it is suggested that Germany might then be prepared to agree to the issue of Eurobonds. Of course, it is possible that all that is a deliberately tough negotiating position floated to the Financial Times.

Whether that is so or not, I want to take this opportunity to say that I do not think that it is necessary for fiscal union to go anything like as far as that to make monetary union succeed. I have seen no evidence to support the contrary view. As long as there is an effective commitment to the fiscal policy that I have described and a mechanism of a general kind to enforce that, I see no need or reason to be more prescriptive than that. I believe that the intergovernmental agreement agreed by the 25 member states should and can provide that. I only wish that the United Kingdom had felt able to agree to join it.

If the mechanism can be established to make that agreement stick, I believe that the fiscal component required to make monetary union work would have been adequately provided. That will be necessary, but also sufficient, for the eurozone and the EU as a whole and in the interests of the UK. However, I cannot see why any further harmonisation or co-ordination would be necessary. Of course, we would be in a much stronger position to oppose such further harmonisation if we had been prepared to participate in the much more limited agreement that has the support of 25 out of our 26 partners. I restate that I regret that we were not able to do so.

European Union Bill

Lord Brittan of Spennithorne Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2011 Lords Chamber

The second consequence of this, of course, is that it will give a great boost to the enhanced co-operation agenda in the EU. Our partners will know in advance that there is no point in bringing the Brits into the discussion—because they are paralysed; because they have got to say no; because no Minister could possibly even say yes subject to a referendum, because no Government are ever going to want the referendum. Therefore they will not want the Brits in the room from the beginning: that is quite clear. So, they will say we have got to make progress on this, we have got to take a decision on this, we have to do it ourselves, under the enhanced co-operation procedure—which is now of course available under the treaty. We are going to give a tremendous boost to that. This means, of course, that we will not be present at that discussion. We all know that the European Union is a horse-trading organisation, and agreements are often in terms of packages—a perfectly natural thing in human affairs. If we are not part of the discussion in one particular area, it may make it much more difficult for us to do an advantageous bargain or deal in another context which is very important for us. We are going to be steadily and progressively left out of the mechanism of decision-taking in the European Union. That is a very serious prospect and we are bringing it not only closer but so close that it is a damned racing certainty if we enact this Bill in its present form.

[Lord Brittan of Spennithorne]

My Lords, at this stage in our proceedings we have to do two things. First, we have to decide whether we are persuaded by the arguments put forward in the other place that what we have decided here should not stand up. Secondly, we have to decide, if we are not persuaded, whether we stand by what we have done or whether we acquiesce in what the other House has decided.

My fundamental objection to this Bill and my support for the amendments that we passed is based on a view which has not much to do with European affairs at all, but a great deal to do with the British constitution. Up to now, we have had a constitution in which the referendum, until modern times, had no role whatever. We had sufficient confidence in parliamentary government to believe that the representatives of the people should be responsive to the people but not slaves to the momentary wishes of the people, and that that was the right way in which decisions should be taken. A breach was made, 25 years ago, 35 years ago or more, but one breach and one breach only. This legislation changes the balance dramatically by making referenda, instead of extremely rare, things which could be extremely common.

The amendments that were passed by this House mitigate what I consider the damage to the British constitution a small degree. The question is, are we persuaded by the arguments put forward in the other place that the mitigation that we introduced is something which we should no longer support? I am not so persuaded, because the amendments that we put forward were quite modest, still leaving a Bill which breached—in my view unnecessarily and undesirably—the principle of parliamentary government, but they were mitigatory amendments and therefore we supported them in this House, and we passed them in this House. Nothing that was said in the other House persuades me that we were wrong to do so, because the balance of the constitution in which a referendum is a rare instrument, applied only in exceptional circumstances, is one which I continue to support. I am not persuaded by the arguments put forward in the other House that the modest amendments that we put forward, which would reduce the plethora of amendments and other referenda from a flood to a trickle, were undesirable. I was persuaded last time we discussed this that they were desirable, and I remain of that view now.

[Lord Pannick]

My Lords, I too support this amendment, because I see it as a considered response to the views of the other place. It supplies a criterion which identifies when it is appropriate for a referendum to be held. Since mention has been made of the views of the Constitution Committee of your Lordships’ House, of which I am a member, I will remind your Lordships of the three points that the committee made in its report on this Bill.

First, we noted that, in our earlier report on the use of referendums, we concluded that if referendums are to be used they should be confined to fundamental constitutional issues. Secondly, we noted that this Government had expressed agreement with that criterion in the context of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act. Thirdly, we concluded that it could not be said that every treaty change which would, under this Bill, require a referendum, would involve a fundamental constitutional issue.

My answer to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Blackwell, is that I understand this amendment to impose a duty on the Minister in good faith to consider whether the issue is one of economic or constitutional significance, and if so to lay a Statement before Parliament. I do not accept that this leaves matters entirely to political judgment: it imposes a criterion, it is a considered response to the Commons view, and I hope we will support the amendment today.

European Union Bill

Lord Brittan of Spennithorne Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brittan of Spennithorne]

With great respect to my noble friends Lord Waddington and Lord Lamont, I do not think that they are correct in this case. The test of what is codification and is therefore excluded from a referendum provision is an objective one. It does not depend on the procedures used to achieve the codification; it depends on whether there has been actual codification or something going beyond it. Codification, in the normal use of the word in English law, which is how the provision would be construed, means not a change in the law but the assembly in a convenient form of existing law. Of course there can be room for argument as to whether in a particular case there has been a change or merely a codification in the sense of an assembly of existing law, but the test is an objective one, not what procedure has been—

[Lord Waddington]

I—

[Lord Brittan of Spennithorne]

Just one moment—not the way in which that has come about either in this country or elsewhere. In the last analysis, the test of whether what has happened is codification and is therefore exempt from a referendum would be applied in the normal way by the British courts applying common-law principles.

[Lord Waddington]

Is not my noble friend at loggerheads with the noble Lord, Lord Hannay? The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, was arguing a short time ago that there was an existing competence. It was not at that time enshrined in treaty law but, as the result of an intergovernmental agreement, there was a competence. Clause 4(4)(a) refers to the codification of a practice in relation to the present exercise of an existing competence, so I think that I am right and that my noble friend is in error.

[Lord Brittan of Spennithorne]

I do not think that that is the case. The question is: is it codification or not? That is the question, not how it has come about. If it is not codification but the creation of a new law, the provision exempting the requirement for a referendum does not apply. If it is codification, which will be determined by an objective test applied by British courts in accordance with normal common-law principles, it applies. That would mean that there has been no change in the law of England, however that may have come about.

[Lord Waddington]

Is my noble friend therefore saying that in the new article inserted in the treaty by Lisbon there was in fact no codification, although it was stated to be a codification?

[Lord Brittan of Spennithorne]

I am not making any statement about whether or not any particular provision was codification. I am talking about the correct interpretation of this provision in this Bill with regard to the future, which determines whether or not a referendum is called on the question. The test is an objective one: whether what occurs in future amounts to a codification, however it has been achieved, or goes beyond a codification and involves a change in the law. It is as simple as that.

[Lord Blackwell]

This is the one amendment this evening with which I confess that I have some sympathy. My interpretation of Clause 4(4)(a) is that it talks about the codification of practice under an existing competence. It does not talk about the codification of an existing competence but the codification of practice. As my noble friend Lord Waddington said, the EU has a history of stretching the practice of exercises of competence to take on ways of applying it that may not have originally been envisaged by those who agreed to the competence in the treaty. The example burnt in my mind is the notorious use of the health and safety provision to legislate from the EU on UK employment law a decade or so ago.

[Lord Brittan of Spennithorne]

I assure my noble friend that whether or not that is a good thing or a bad thing—I have a lot of sympathy with the view that excesses happened there—by no wild stretch of the imagination could that be described in English law, and we are in the process of creating a British statute, as codification. It might be wonderful; it might be disastrous; it might be neither; but it is not codification and therefore the provision would not apply.

[Lord Blackwell]

I said that I had some sympathy with the amendment, and I very much hope that the Minister will be able to reassure me. To my mind, that was an example of a practice coming into effect which could then be claimed was an existing practice that simply needed to be codified. I am not a lawyer, but if something can be done under an existing competence, why does it need to be codified? The EU already has the power to do what it needs. If something is then codified, the danger is that it creates a new base, or ratchets up the base, from which we can then have further ingenious development in practices. I am therefore very nervous about allowing codification of this sort to take place when, if the EU is already doing it, codification does not seem to be needed. I would very much welcome the Minister explaining and perhaps thinking again about whether that exemption is required in the Bill.