European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Lord Deben and Lord Judd

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Monday 26th February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, one of the themes that has come through in the debates on many of the amendments so far is that the Government are enthusiastic about where we are, keen on continuing the links and determined that we shall not in any way fall out from those, but unwilling to commit themselves to the obvious solutions. We have heard in this debate tonight an exact repetition of what we have had before.

In other words, some of us are saying that these things were achieved with great difficulty. The European arrest warrant caused enormous argument and could be a really dangerous thing if it were not properly protected by the European Court of Justice. Like everyone else, when I became a Member of your Lordships’ House I was asked what subjects I was particularly going to speak on. The first was the environment, the second was Europe and the third was human rights. Therefore, when the legislation that we are now part of was going through in its various forms, I was very concerned that it was properly protected. However, I was very aware, as is the House, that crime does not know any borders, particularly the type of crime that the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, was talking about.

We need the protection that the warrant gives. When we were kids and we read stories of derring-do, we all knew that the first thing that people would try to do was to get across the channel because then they would be out of the reach of British law, and indeed of the law in many ways. I believe strongly that first of all we have to recognise that what we have we did not get easily and did not arrive simply. To suggest that somehow or other we can produce a different system and call it something else, because that would be convenient to the people who are ill informed enough to want to leave the EU, seems extremely dangerous. We should recognise that this took a lot of doing.

The second point, which has been made very interestingly, is about the nature of mutual recognition. Very often we are divided by not understanding the words that we use. There is an attitude in Britain that suggests that we get it right and other people do not, and therefore they had better do it our way because we know best. That has been our besetting sin throughout the period of our membership of the EU and, if we leave, we will get even worse at it. In other words, we are very keen to teach other people but not frightfully good at learning from them. One of the things that we have learned—I think by accident; certainly not by design—in having to co-operate on these issues is that we have understood much more clearly the problems, difficulties and solutions that others have had in our European home. We have to recognise that understanding mutual recognition is not easy, and the idea that we can suddenly create a different mechanism for doing it is very far-fetched.

On my third point, I have great admiration for the Prime Minister. I do not understand how every morning she wakes up and thinks, “God, I’ve got another day of this”, and deals with some of the people that she has to deal with—I will not list them but we all know which ones I mean. However, it is not good enough to have good intentions and show generalised support. My noble friend who is answering for the Government has given us a great deal of good intentions and noble views but no actual support for real policies and actual determinations. This is not something that we can pass off by merely having good intentions, because it is very hard and we have to be tough about it. We have to say to our friends, “We actually want, and will have, exactly what we have today on these matters because there is no alternative that is better and there is no way that we are going to invent one”, because crime will not wait.

This is a rather important amendment. All it says is that the Government have to move from intentions to reality before they can move. That is not an unreasonable thing for the House which is responsible for our constitution to ask.

I hope that my noble friend is not going to say how important all these things are, how valuable they are, how much the Prime Minister is in favour of them, but that just at the moment, because it is all part of the negotiation, he cannot go further than that. If he does, perhaps for all our debates he might just turn on the recording. That is evidently the answer we are going to have on everything, because that is the answer we have had so far today on everything. If it goes on like this, this House will have to ask whether the Government intend to have a debate or discussion about things that matter, about the future of our nation and our people. Are they going to have a discussion about the things that protect our people, the policing which has to cover areas beyond our borders? Above all, are they going to have a discussion about how this affects Ireland? We have for too long taken for granted the fact that the Irish situation is, at least to a large extent—much less so than the newspapers would have us believe, but still to a large extent—peaceful. We must none of us forget that.

I have to tell my noble friend that it will become increasingly difficult for the Government to uphold their position unless they are prepared to take seriously this House’s demand that they tell us what they want. How can you negotiate with people unless you can say very clearly what you want on crucial issues, and what could be a more crucial issue than this?

[Lord Judd]

My Lords, at the end of all these proceedings, some months down the road, there will be a vote in Parliament. At that time, it will be essential that we know exactly what we are voting for. That is why the speech by the noble Lord, Lord Deben, is so important. There is a fundamental difference between good intentions and concrete policy, there to be implemented. As in our previous debate, the issues are too big; there is no room for an interregnum or period of doubt. We must be able to move from what we have to what is necessary overnight. We must have firm policies and firm decisions that follow from them.

I served on the Home Affairs Committee under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, when we were having that dry run, and very interesting it was, too. What I found very telling was that virtually every witness working in the field, when the question, “Will your work become more difficult if we leave the European Union than it is at the moment?” was put directly, said unequivocally yes, they needed the European Union to meet the challenge of the job. Forgive me if I repeat myself, but it is terribly important. Crime is international; it does not recognise frontiers. That is true of trafficking and, as my noble friend said, of drugs. It is true of terrorism. These things do not know national frontiers. Therefore, you must co-operate and work closely with others who face the same difficulties.

The other point I want to make is that, more recently, serving on the Justice Sub-Committee under the chairmanship of my noble friend Lady Kennedy, it has become very clear that we have underestimated—it is rather tragic that the British people have not understood, or begun to understand—how much British lawyers and British legal expertise have been contributing to the strength of European law, which is in all our interests. British lawyers have made a terrific contribution and they are very much respected. In taking evidence from practitioners in this sphere—the chairman is here to strike me down if I am misquoting—they told us over and over how the law is improving under the present system. The overriding authority of the European Court is crucial, however, because it provides a context in which everyone can have confidence in the necessary reciprocity. These amendments are very important, and I hope the Government will take them seriously.

Growth and Infrastructure Bill

Debate between Lord Deben and Lord Judd

Wednesday 27th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd]

My Lords, perhaps it is appropriate at this stage in our proceedings that I remind the House that I am a resident of a national park, a vice-president of the Campaign for National Parks and a patron of the Friends of the Lake District.

In Committee, my noble friend Lord Adonis very powerfully put on the record how well national parks had done in planning matters. Rereading what was said at that stage of our deliberations, it does not seem to me that the Government tried to refute the case that he put forward so convincingly. I am not altogether clear about what the rationale is for the specific exemptions listed in the Bill. Why these alone in the Bill? What is really the case for them? I hope that, in dealing with what I am about to say, the Minister may have an opportunity to leave the House wiser on this point.

If there are to be exemptions, I believe most strongly that the case of the national parks is outstanding. Why? Repeatedly since the parks were originally created in the post-war era, successive Governments of different persuasions have put on the record their determination that these parks are very special parts of the United Kingdom. To those who would say that this is an emotional argument and not a practical one, I would say—I made this point in Committee—that that is utter nonsense, because a healthy, effective nation needs space to regenerate physically and mentally and the parks make a direct contribution therefore to the well-being and operational efficiency of the nation.

We all want economic development—it would be hypocritical to pretend otherwise; I certainly want it—but these very special areas must be protected in the context of our commitment to still better economic performance, because they contribute to the well-being of society and help to underpin the whole nature of the society that we are trying to achieve our by our economic performance. Economic performance cannot become an end in itself; economic performance is so that we can have a decent United Kingdom, and these special areas are absolutely central to that.

It is important to recognise that we in both Houses of Parliament have had a very important role as guarantors of this reality. Since the national parks and the Broads were established, it has been recognised not only by government but by Parliament repeatedly that they are the most important areas for natural beauty and for the opportunities they provide for public understanding of their special qualities. The Government’s national parks circular of 2010 explains why it is important for national park authorities to retain a planning function in order to deliver these statutory functions. The Government’s National Planning Policy Framework restates that they are to be afforded the highest levels of protection and that major developments within or affecting a national park therefore need to be given very careful consideration.

Of course, a national park authority is highly likely to receive far fewer major applications for development than other planning authorities. A consequence of this is that the percentages for major applications determined within 26 weeks, and the percentage success rates on appeals—the criteria which are proposed by the Government for determining poorly performing authorities—can shift quite markedly from one year to another. The Government’s Planning Guarantee Monitoring Report, published in September last year, highlights that six national park authorities received three or fewer major applications in 2011-12 and that, of those, two received only one application. This surely demonstrates that the statistical problem of relying on percentages as far as they relate to national parks is a dangerous game. I recognise that the Government have issued a consultation paper that deliberates on the criteria they will use to determine poorly performing authorities. Although the period over which this is to be assessed seeks to address large variations from year to year, it is important to understand that this potentially raises very serious considerations for the parks.

Before I conclude I shall go over the basic statistical realities again. Leaving to one side the South Downs National Park, which was designated during the year in question, in the year ending 2012, the eight national park authorities and the Broads Authority received 5,000 planning applications. They granted approval for 89% of applications, which is higher than the English average of 87%. They received 53 applications for major development, of which 91% were granted approval. For major development, national park authorities compare favourably with other local planning authorities for speed of determination. They approved 60% of applications within 13 weeks, compared with the English average of 57%. It is absolutely clear to me—and I would have thought to everybody—that the national park authorities have a good track record in planning performance and a number are, for example, part of the Government’s front runner programme for promoting neighbourhood planning. If there are to be exemptions, I urge the Minister to look seriously at whether, even at the final stages of consideration of the Bill, she could include the national park authorities alongside the other designated authorities, although, as has been said, it would helpful if we could have a bit more information on the overall rationale for the authorities mentioned in the Bill.

This is an important issue. It is important to keep the factual side under consideration all the time. However, I am not ashamed to say that it would be very easy to introduce a new culture in which the parks have to justify their existence rather than anyone who wants to undermine their special character having to justify why they are doing that. When we introduce legislation of this kind, it is crucial to remember that we are dealing not only with the Ministers of the day. I am convinced that the Ministers of the day are quite civilised on these issues. They have a very enlightened approach. They want to help, I think, in many ways. That is encouraging, but they might not always be there. Another Minister coming along could very easily see this as the thin end of the wedge and that the door was being pushed open, opening up all sorts of new opportunities which could very easily lead to the complete destruction of the special nature of the parks. I beg to move.

[Lord Deben]

My Lords, I hope very much that my noble friend will resist this proposition. It seems to me to be really unacceptable. If it is necessary to have a fallback power for circumstances in which it is necessary to take to the centre decisions that would otherwise be done locally, I find it very difficult to understand why the national parks should be excluded.

There are two reasons for that. First, it says something about everybody else. It says that those people are perfectly safe, but the other people have to be subject to this rule. Speaking on behalf of everybody else, I do not think that that is a very good argument. Secondly, I was Secretary of State responsible for these matters, and I can think of one national park which ought to have been under this rule for quite some time, because its planning attitudes at the time were utterly indefensible. It is no good saying that they are always perfect. If what the noble Lord, Lord Judd, says, is true—I am sure that it is—and the national parks have a remarkable record over recent years because of the fantastic speed with which they deal with plans, nobody will do that to them. If the record is as good as that, they will be the last people to be subject to this.

I have to say to the noble Lord, Lord Judd, that I find it difficult to believe in the infallibility of the national parks. Indeed, I have good reason to believe that we have made a huge mistake in making the South Downs a national park. I have opposed that all my life; I still think that it has been a disaster; it is not what should have been done and it has alienated local authorities in areas where it would be much better for them to have worked as they had worked before. I think that the same is true of the New Forest. That was an historic, political decision to do with the 1930s rather than anything to do with the 2000s, but there we are: we have done it. It has not been as damaging as it might have been, but it was not sensible.

National parks do a wonderful job. They are a fantastically important part of our structure. I think I have a long enough record of defending the countryside and working for country people and the nature of the British rural society not to be maligned by the suggestion that in some way I have a wicked desire to concrete over the countryside. Indeed, I have been pretty critical of the Government’s proposals on the basis that I do not think that it is necessary to build on greenfield sites. I happen to think that we can build all the housing we need on brownfield sites. It is an easy way out for developers to build on greenfield sites. They must be forced to build on brownfield sites because otherwise all they will do is build on greenfield sites and then wait until they have more greenfield sites. That was my experience from four years as Secretary of State. I hope that no one will criticise me for that.

If we are to have the clause—I have shown myself to be not altogether happy about the need for it—it must cover national parks and the Broads Authority like everybody else. It is hemmed around with all the Minister’s careful comments—she has been very clear that it would not be used except in certain extreme and specific circumstances. She has laid down some new mechanisms by which we can receive greater comfort about it. I still wonder in my heart whether it is utterly necessary, but, having done all that, it would be preposterous to leave the national parks out. It would be extremely rude to some other excellent local authorities, which will never be affected by the regulations because they, too, do the job as well as a national park.

I hope that my noble friend will resist this elegant, polite, romantic proposal, which the House should not support.

Localism Bill

Debate between Lord Deben and Lord Judd

Wednesday 12th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd]

My Lords, passion perhaps not, but I know that my noble friend's commitment is outstanding on these issues. I welcome his amendment because while I support all the arguments that he made about brownfield site priority, one other important point which is sometimes overlooked is that if we give priority to brownfield site development we have a chance to improve the character of our urban areas. There is a chance to do imaginative things with housing and the rest in the middle of our urban areas.

I should declare an interest as president of the Friends of the Lake District, which also represents the CPRE in the whole of Cumbria. I am also vice-president of the Campaign for National Parks, but they are not really central, as the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, explained, to our concerns tonight. The Government have made it pretty clear, which is very reassuring, that they have a commitment which they fully intend to honour to the national parks and the areas of outstanding natural beauty. That is a terrific undertaking from the Government and we look forward to seeing them fulfil it not only in the detail but in the spirit.

The noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, recaptured history very well. I was just entering my teens when the new planning legislation became operative. As the noble Lord, Lord Tope, knows very well, I was born in what was then Surrey on the edge of London and grew up in that area. I remember the concern among my family and many others as we saw many of the rich rural areas of Surrey near London being eroded by road building, ribbon development, new housing and the rest. It was a great sense of relief when this legislation came in. Some beautiful parts of the county of Surrey were preserved very near to London.

I know how important that was to me in my upbringing because as an active Boy Scout and keen walker I was always out in those areas, and so were many other people. Of course, these areas of beauty and of rich natural inheritance near to our urban centres are of special importance. It would be unforgivable if we were to let those slip and let further erosion develop.

We must remember something else. This idea about planning and the preservation of the countryside did not just come out of an elitist brain: it was something forged strongly in the context of the Second World War. We were fighting for the survival of Britain and we wanted Britain to be a decent place. We wanted it to be a better place and we could see that the countryside was central to that. If we are not careful we will lose that commitment, of which the noble Lord himself gave good evidence—passionate commitment in the best sense—to quality in our society.

The noble Lord kept stressing the inherent importance of the countryside—its inherent natural beauty being worth preserving in itself. Of course I go along with him 100 per cent on that argument, but it is not just about that. It is about our people. We had had the war and hard economic times before the war and people could see the importance of the countryside to those from urban areas as something to which we should all pay attention. Pressures may be different in character now but they are strong. People are under tremendous stress in urban existence. The economic pressures are increasingly acute, and therefore all those arguments about space and the opportunity to regenerate, to be recreative and to improve one's physique by enjoying and participating in the opportunities of the countryside remain at least as important as they have ever been. That is crucial and I was reassured to hear the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, saying what he said, because across the House and across the political divide I think there is a great deal of agreement about quality and not just quantity.

For these reasons, as the noble Lord spelled out so well, I hope we can get an absolute undertaking from the Minister tonight that the Government will preserve their commitment to the countryside as something very rich and relevant to the needs of the British people—something beautiful to preserve in itself, but also something that is indispensable in terms of the psychological and physical health of the British people.

I just hope we do not allow the arguments of growth in its economic dimension alone to squeeze out the thought of spiritual growth, spiritual development and a fuller life for the British people. I congratulate the noble Lord most warmly on his amendment. I am glad to be associated with it, and I am very glad indeed that my noble friend has put down his amendment as well.

[Lord Deben]

My Lords, I was for 30 years a Member of Parliament for a country constituency, and for part of that time I had the honour of representing the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, so I speak with some trepidation after he has put so valuable a contribution to your Lordships' House.

Over those 30 years, I think I have spoken more often and been more concerned with the rural scene than most politicians. Sadly, very few of our constituencies are now rural enough for one to be able to say truthfully that one represents a rural area. It is one of the mistakes, in my view, of the way in which constituencies have been drawn, and of course the changes in your Lordships’ House have meant that rural society is much less well represented than it once was.

I started out with a huge amount of sympathy for the campaigns. I did not like some of the people who were behind them. Some of the newspapers that were proposing them were not newspapers that I normally felt had the better interests of society at heart. But still they were making a great deal of fuss. I did notice, though, that some of the fuss happened before the Government had actually published their document, which suggests a certain predisposition to worry about the Government.

I am not as worried as some because the first thing to recognise is that if we are going to have localism then the local plan becomes absolutely crucial. One of the things that we in Suffolk have felt over the years—I can only speak for my own much loved county—is that we know more about our county than people outside. We wanted a situation in which our local plan could represent the way in which you keep a living, working countryside, and not merely preserve it like with taxidermy. It is one of the things your Lordships might remember, and I am sure many here will understand this. There are problems in our countryside about the livelihood of ordinary people. Increasingly, villages have become middle-aged and middle class. Even in the time during which I have lived where I live—35 years—the whole population make-up has changed. There are several reasons for that, but one is that we have tended to believe that any development, excepting those villages designated by somebody else as key villages, is unacceptable. We have argued that because the country council does not want to run a school bus to a small village, but wants people to be concentrated so they can deal with them more efficiently, these small villages should not be treated properly. Indeed, many are referred to by that offensive phrase “scattered settlement”. I am happy to say that I live in one. I have never heard anybody say, “I live in a scattered settlement”. They tend to say, “I live in a village”, because that is actually where they do live, and that is what they feel it is.

Therefore, we start with huge sympathy for the Government’s view that we should have local plans. Many villages want to have a few homes, because they know that that is the only way in which they can keep their amenities and revise and revitalise the village community. It is the only way in which they can stop the community becoming an entirely one-class society. Therefore change is crucial for the life of our villages; we want a working countryside and not merely a Marie Antoinette kind of rural idyll. So I am concerned sometimes when I read descriptions of the countryside that do not understand the need for it to be workaday, and particularly do not understand that our landscape is as it is because of work. Our landscape in England is almost entirely artificial in the sense that it is created by man’s work. That is not true in the wilder parts of Wales and Scotland and some parts of northern England, but most of us live in that sort of countryside. What we love most about it is very often something that human beings have co-operated on with the Creator to make something particularly special.

Not only do we have to think about keeping the countryside workaday, or sometimes returning it to being able to be workaday, but we also have to remember that there is poverty in the countryside that is very often unnoticed. Poverty comes thatched in the countryside, and so people think that it is a bit twee. But I knew poverty in my constituency. Someone said something about that earlier on—how bad the housing was in some parts of the world, very different from East Anglia. I could take people to village housing in my former constituency where poverty was real and the housing conditions were appalling. We must not hide from ourselves the fact that we need economic development in our countryside if it is to be both real and to meet the needs of the poor and if it is not to allow the countryside to become a mere dormitory for the old and those about to retire.

In that sense, thinking about the need for growth is not inimical to the protection of the countryside. It is part of making sure that our countryside is alive. But I must say to my noble friend that she is not helped by the traditional view of the Treasury. Not to embarrass anybody, I hope I may quote the housing report by Kate Barker, who put forward the totally improper suggestion that the reason why we are short of houses is because we do not have enough land on which there is planning permission. This is absolute nonsense. Housing is entirely driven by the ability to sell the houses that you build. If it is difficult to borrow money to buy a house, builders do not build. What is more, builders are quite clever at making sure that they do not build any more than keeps the price at the sort of price that they want. I have to say that under the previous Government, builders did better than they have done under any previous Administration. The return on capital and the profits of the building companies were clearly extremely well organised. I fear that that is part of the reason why we have such very low numbers. I do not want to argue with the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, but the fact is that in most years of the previous Government the number of houses built were worse than at any time since the First World War. It was an appalling history. Some years it was 100,000, and we need 300,000 to meet the needs. The fact is that in no year of the previous Government’s administration did we build enough houses to meet the increased need for that year, leave alone get enough to make up for the 5 million that people pretended were not needed. The noble Lord, Lord Prescott, proceeded to suggest that we did not need it. Then, year by year, he, like everybody else, discovered that we did. So we have a very bad background to this, and I understand why the Government are very concerned about it.

I hope that my noble friend will not tell us that you get houses by having more planning. There are many planning permissions that are still not fulfilled, and the reason is that people do not think that they can sell the houses that are on it. So do not think that that is how we are going to get the extra houses that we need.

In this Bill it is quite clear that we have to build on brownfield sites, or at least those which are of least environmental value. The trouble is that there are some bug-filled brownfield sites which it would be a pity to build on. But we will build on those first. That is what the whole mix is supposed to do. Therefore the Minister may well say, “It’s all there”, and I agree with her. You do not need to change either the Bill or indeed the planning proposals to achieve what we want to achieve. But there is a problem in that an awful lot of people out there do think, “You need to change it”. In other words, we have a real problem of perception now, and it is therefore very important that we listen carefully to my noble friend Lord Marlesford. If he thinks that these dangers arise, then he is speaking for a wide range of people, and we have to make sure that people do not get this wrong. I personally have no concerns except the concerns that people out there have, and therefore I hope that my noble friend will be prepared to help in language, so that people really understand that the statements of the Government are carried out as the noble Lord, Lord Judd, said—in practice, clearly, and without peradventure.

The example for me is an earlier one. I used to talk about the planning guidance—PPGs—when I was the Minister responsible, and I was very keen on not building on greenfield sites. I was the first person to enforce the brownfield site concept, because I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, that builders like building on flat and green fields.

I notice that the previous Government changed planning guidance to planning statements. We were already moving to the position in which people were being told what they shall do, and I therefore also understand that many people really resent the fact that others outside are telling them. We have to get this balance right. I had hope that we had got it. It is probably true that my noble friend will have to ensure that everybody knows on the face of the Bill, or at least in the planning strategy, that what we have said as a Government is actually there, and no one can object to it.

The reason I say this is very simple. I am afraid that there are a lot of people in this world who put their own profits and interests before national and local interests. They say, “Oh, that bit of land there won’t really matter, because I own it and I can make some money out of it” or “I’m only filling over there. I can do a bit on the edge there”. We need to make sure that they recognise, right from the beginning, that we are not having that.

For me, the real problem with the present situation is that I have no fears at all, when the local plans are in place, because I think localities will make the right decision. There will be a few that do not, but that is the price you pay for real democracy. There will be the odd, but the generality will in fact make the right decisions. My problem is between now and then, and it is at that point that people have a real concern that until you have the local plans in place, the presumption of sustainable development sounds as if it would allow people to do things which they ought not to do.

The Government have to assure us that that will not be the case. I think they can do so, but I hope my noble friend will understand that this is not antagonism towards the Bill, but a response to a national campaign which has a good deal of fault in it, but which has left people concerned, and it is part of the duty of government to meet those concerns.

European Union Bill

Debate between Lord Deben and Lord Judd

Tuesday 3rd May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Deben]

That would mean that we had no common trade policy. Every country could say that this decision was contrary to their national interest. The French have managed to make the sale of Orangina contrary to their national interest. What the noble Baroness suggests would destroy any possibility of the scheme. It would not touch their sovereignty. They would not have to use the electricity. All that they would have to do was not prevent someone else using the electricity. It is otherwise a curious definition of national sovereignty.

Secondly, if we do not do that, my national sovereignty is being infringed, because my climate is being changed. Unless we find ways of using non-fossil fuels, my climate will be changed. This is a question on which we have to accept that our national sovereignties are all imperilled—but I do not want to go further down that road, or someone will suggest that I am not keeping to the amendments.

There is a whole series of issues here where the Government are making it more difficult to stand up for Britain's interests within the European Union by setting this entirely unnecessary and manufactured way to enable them to say to the rest of the world, “We are not going to be pushed around”. I think that the Government are perfectly capable of not being pushed around without the Bill. I think that my noble friend is quite wrong to apply Canute to a bit of the Bill. The whole Bill is a Canute Bill. It suggests that you can in some way stop the necessity of the nations of Europe working together by setting in train a system which makes Britain uniquely unable to play its part in the European Union. It is all right saying that other people have all sorts of methods, and the rest of it, but they have been much more careful in writing their legislation, and they do not have a situation where even the simplified system is called into question, which is the way that this legislation operates.

I want to say just two more things. The first is that if ever there were a policy that needs change, it is the common fisheries policy. It is hugely important, and it is based on a European competence, but there are some things on which the European Union does not have competence. For example, it does not have competence to enter member states’ ports with European inspectors, but there is no way to have a sensible common fisheries policy without that. Who has been against that? We do not want people entering our ports. I cannot understand why, because we try to keep the law, but evidently we will not allow that. If we were to do that, we might do something about the very policy which is, for most of us, the least satisfactory of European policies. That is why, given the environment, it will be very important. Evidently, we are not going to do that unless we have a referendum asking people whether they are prepared for French inspectors to come into English ports. Of course, they will say no to that, because the question does not say what I want it to say: are we prepared for British inspectors to go into French ports? They would say yes to that. It depends what the question is. That again comes back to the danger of having referendums.

My last point is that the trouble with this bit of the Bill, unless it is amended as we suggest, is that, as the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, rightly said, it gives the opportunity for anybody who does not like the European Union, who has an obsessive belief that somehow it is the epitome of evil instead of being our most exciting and remarkable peacetime achievement, to find any change, any aspect that is altered, any suspicion or scintilla of alteration proof positive that there should have been a referendum. Therefore, instead of doing what the Government think will happen under the Bill, instead of ensuring that people feel happier about the European Union, it will give endless opportunities for the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, and others to suspect that there is something much deeper, much worse, much more wicked. Frankly, it is like the Jehovah's Witnesses. It is a perversion of the realities and the truths. Once you have caught it, you cannot see the realities and the truth except through that prism. The Bill helps that. The bit which does not allow the European Union to take proper steps to strengthen its effectiveness in mitigating the effects of climate change and pollution is particularly damaging, and it is especially damaging for the nation that leads in these matters—Britain. I want Britain to lead in these things and not to say to the rest of Europe, “Frightfully sorry, old boy, we can’t manage this because it means a referendum and we’re within two years of an election”.

[Lord Judd]

The noble Lord is absolutely right. That was a powerful argument, well put, and one with which I found myself completely in agreement. These amendments go to the centre of what is wrong with this lamentable piece of legislation. It is not just a question of a lack of vision; it is a matter of selling the British people short. If there is one fundamental reality in relevant politics, it is that we live in a totally interdependent world. The job of government is to help the British people to find a place within the reality of that interdependence and to work out how the interdependence can best be handled. That should be central to our education system and to the whole message of politics.

The trouble with the Bill, as we said powerfully at Second Reading, is that it does not provide any flexibility. Here I slightly differ from my noble friend Lord Liddle, who is doing a formidable job on the Bill and makes me very proud to come from the same county in England. However, it is not simply flexibility that we are talking about but leadership of the British people in meeting the realities that confront us. The trouble with the Bill—and we all know it—is that it is an effort to reassure the British people that government will protect them against the European Union. Instead of asking how we can strengthen the well-being of the British people through the part that we play in Europe, and instead of coming out of negotiations and saying, “My God, look at what we have achieved for the people of Europe and therefore for ourselves in this context”, we come out saying, “Look at what we’ve managed to hold off in looking after British interests”. That kind of argument is all tactical and totally lacks strategy. From that standpoint, it seems to me that these amendments are central. Not one issue is mentioned in them that can possibly be carried forward on behalf of the British people within the context of the nation state alone. They require international solutions.

In responding to my noble friend’s very important intervention on piracy, kidnapping and ransom, the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, seemed to suggest that these are matters of international law. Of course they are, and they are absolutely central to the future of my children and grandchildren. Of course we have to get the international and global policies right, but surely the noble Lord does not want to align himself with the argument that establishing firmly in the European Community a stepping stone towards making that wider international policy effective is somehow unnecessary. It is vital, and we have done it with, for example, arms exports. It was in the context of the whole issue of arms exports and the damage they could do that we saw the establishment of the European code on arms exports. A lot of work is still to be done on it but it is a starting point. It illustrates to the world what can be done and it enables us to move forward practically to a wider, more successful policy within the United Nations.

The issue that we must come back to is that these amendments are vital because they try to ensure that we bring home to the British people that their interests lie in strong collective action at the international level. I repeat that the trouble with the Bill is that it faces in the opposite direction. It is saying, “We will make some concessions to Europe where necessary, but we do not see our future in international co-operation and effective international instruments: we see these as something that reluctantly we have to concede from time to time—and, my God, we will insist on the opportunity always to test public opinion if we are asked to take an obviously sensible step”.

These amendments deal with the heart of the Bill. It is a sad day in British history when we have this wretched piece of legislation before us.

Energy Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Deben and Lord Judd

Tuesday 8th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd]

My Lords, we live in an age of communication, but I was in a meeting at the other end and there was no Lords screen; it was just intuition that brought me back. The amendment is intended to raise on Report a matter that we discussed in Committee. The aim is to put the parks and broads authorities on the same footing as local authorities in being able to develop alternative energy possibilities in the national parks and in the broads authority area, and to feed back into the national system. That has been made possible by legislation for other local authorities, but somehow these authorities were not included. The purpose of the amendment is simply to ensure that they are put on an equal footing.

I will make two points. First, the park authorities are very keen to do this. They have found all sorts of imaginative ways in which it could be done, and which would be very much in keeping with the purposes, environment and character of the parks. Small projects done appropriately by park authorities could be a great generator of interest in the possibilities that could be undertaken by other people; they could have great demonstrative value. For all these reasons, I hope that we will get some firm reassurance from the Minister that we will see the possibilities opened up for the park authorities without further delay. I beg to move.

[Lord Deben]

My Lords, having been rather critical of the national parks in the past, I support the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Judd. They should be accepted with one small caveat; namely, that the national parks ought in these circumstances to do everything in their power to make sure that others who are in the national parks should be able to play a part in this, and do things independently as well. My one concern is that the national parks should not feel that this is something only for them. It should be something for everyone who lives in the national parks, and when it is more suitable for other people to do something, I hope that they will be able to do it. Not all, but one or two national parks are inclined to believe that only what they do is acceptable. With that caveat, I hope that the Minister will help the House to agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Judd, seeks to do.