European Union Bill

Lord Dykes Excerpts

Tuesday 26th April 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Rawlings]

My Lords, I sense that it is the feeling of the Committee that the Question on Clause 3 stand part should be debated with this grouping of Amendments 16A and 16B, as suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr. I therefore invite the Committee to proceed on that basis.

[Lord Dykes]

My Lords, I think that the Committee generally will very much welcome the Government’s suggestion.

[Lord Stoddart of Swindon]

My Lords, on the point that the noble Baroness raised, I do not think that I heard a loud voice saying that we should not debate Clause 3 stand part. So if anybody wishes to debate Clause 3 stand part, when the Question is put to the Committee, any Member can get up and speak to it. Is that not right?

[Lord Stoddart of Swindon]

Good. Thank you.

[Lord Dykes]

The Committee can now benefit from the correction provided by the Independent Labour Member on the Cross Benches. It enables us to make progress because, in a way, the linkage between Clauses 3 and 4 is dangerous, to use the word of the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, and the more we think about it the more dangerous it becomes. It is quite astonishing to reflect on the fact that Clause 4—even if it was included and referred to the Article 48(6) differences—would have been better as a brief clause of perhaps five lines at the most, without the long and lethal list of possibilities for passerelles and other areas of quite routine procedure within the European institutions which have to be automatically referendable in this system.

We forgive the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, for the length of his speech on 5 April, because on that occasion he said some very pertinent and welcome things that will help us to improve this Bill if the Government accept that improvements are necessary, as I hope they will. Perhaps the noble Lord will forgive me for quoting his own material, but towards the end of the last but one paragraph in col. 1634, he put a question on which there has, as I understand it, been total silence despite a two and a half week Recess and time for the Government to give at least a provisional indication. I am ready to be corrected if it is not true that no answer has been given. Briefly, in that last but one paragraph, the noble Lord said:

“Therefore, it seems to me that the references to Article 48(6) and simplified revision procedure in the Bill are otiose. The only other explanation for them could be that the Government envisage referenda on EU issues where no transfer of powers or sovereignty is envisaged”.—[Official Report, 5/4/11; col. 1634.]

If that is so, are they doing it because of a small number of active anti-Europeans in this country who hate the European Union? There is no indication that the public in general are very excited except by the concept of the remoteness of Brussels. That is certainly an issue, but it is an issue that the European Union is trying to address through various measures such as the Lisbon treaty and other means which are gaining ground.

The number of visitors to the European Parliament is massive compared with the numbers visiting even those national parliaments, such as this one and the German Bundestag, which get the most visitors. The number of people visiting the European Parliament has increased massively over the past 10 years, and especially over the past 20 years, and the vast majority of responses from those visiting the European Parliament —from people of all political persuasions and orientations and from people of none, who visit for all sorts of reasons—show that people are gaining a greater understanding of how the institutions of the Union work in a complicated matrix. There are now 27 member states of the Union, as opposed to six when it first started, and complicated machinery is inevitably needed to deal with all the possibilities and ramifications.

It seems to me to be a pity that the Government are persisting obstinately in not entertaining the idea of any substantial or far-reaching amendments, particularly to Clause 4 and the end of Clause 3. I share what I perceive to be the general approbation for the amendments, including the two new additions at the beginning of this cluster proposed by the Labour Front Bench today. We need to spend some time on this, aware as I am that there is a Statement coming along about a very important subject—Libya and the Middle East.

There are three conditions: the referendum condition, the exemption condition and the significance condition. The end of Clause 3 deals really with the significance condition but partly with the exemption one and Clause 4 gives an exhaustive and dangerous list of referendable items. By reversing the whole process and putting back into the list deliberately virtually all the Clause 4 list the Labour Front Bench and others who are in favour of these amendments, and Amendment 28 as well, can show the full absurdity by widening out fully ministerial discretion on everything so eventually nothing in Clause 4 would need to be subject to referendum apart from the very significant matters mentioned in one or two of those paragraphs—not very many of them, I hasten to add.

The clause does direct damage to the existing competences under the treaties and prevents any member state even responding within the powers already granted by treaty. That is the most extraordinary thing, hence the anxieties of the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, and of my noble friend in front of me who expressed fears about an Act of Parliament then being overturned by a referendum. My noble friend Lord Goodhart emphasised that in the first Committee sitting, and I hope that he will have a chance to emphasise it again as this one proceeds.

Such treaty competences or powers surely have the reverse effect of what the Tory antis, UKIP and the Independent Labour Cross-Bencher say. In my estimation they enhance the intrinsic sovereignty of both an individual member country and the union. These provisions emasculate this country in these crucial areas but not the other member states. A British Government would have an automatic and hugely burdensome disadvantage built in. A huge ball and chain would be attached to the Minister’s leg every time he or she appeared in the Council chamber, whatever ministerial Council it might be—not just the European Council and the Council of Ministers. It would be the beginning of us being marginalised in the European Union, with the other member states saying, “The United Kingdom already has more grumbling and whining about Europe, more derogations, offsets, excuses, opt-outs, exemptions than any other member state and now it is inflicting this absurd and, indeed, crazy Bill on the body politic of its own country and inflicting it on the Council of Ministers as well”.

The Government are therefore, I suggest, effectively abrogating existing treaty duties even by interposing a new interruption or cancellation procedure which directly damages the capacity of a sovereign member Government to deal with routine treaty additions or changes. Many items in the Clause 4 long list are capable of further rational development in coming years. If we exclude defence, which some people would want to do, and particularly because of the recent bilateral deal with France, then the loss of sovereignty of us doing a bilateral deal with France is axiomatic. It is bound to be, yet there is no objection from the anti-Europeans on that matter. There is no objection from them to us losing our sovereignty seemingly by being ordered by an American general to carry out bombing raids in Libya or a NATO senior commander giving us orders. Why is just the European Union singled out for these absurd and self-imagined fantasies about the loss of sovereignty? What does sovereignty mean in the interdependent modern European Union and the world community at large?

[Lord Stoddart of Swindon]

To assert that those of us who are a bit sceptical about the European Union are quite happy to accept defence arrangements with France and are prepared to take orders from the United States is simply not true. I do not want to take orders from the United States. We take far too many orders from the United States but certainly not with my consent as a European sceptic. There are and would be dangers of having too close an association with the French in matters of defence. What I want and what most Eurosceptics want is for this country to be free to make its own decisions.

[Lord Dykes]

I thank the noble Lord for intervening. I took a chance on including Independent Labour in these grumblings of mine and I should not have done so; he has a noble tradition of wanting us to be a solitary country on our own, making our own “sovereignty” decisions. That is a perfectly respectable view and I respect it. If people want to hark back to the past, however many hundred years ago it might be—maybe even only 50 or 100 years—they are entitled to do so.

[Lord Stoddart of Swindon]

I—

[Lord Dykes]

It would be a bit unfair to repeat the same subject.

[Lord Stoddart of Swindon]

I would not want the noble Lord to misrepresent me. I do not believe that this country should be on its own. I want it to be worldly and to make bilateral agreements; indeed, I want it to exploit the great Commonwealth of nations that we have built up over so many years.

[Lord Dykes]

That is an improvement, then. The noble Lord is now saying that this country should sign lots of treaties with other countries for all sorts of arrangements. Why can they not include the most sensible treaties of all—the treaties of European union and the two treaties listed in the Bill, which enable us to increase our own intrinsic sovereignty rather than reduce it?

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

Because those other organisations do not make our law without the consent of this Parliament or our people. That is the difference.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Dykes]

We do not want to get into a permanent Second Reading debate; I am sure that that would be very irritating for those gathered in the Chamber today. The sovereign Government of this country are asked to go to Brussels, within the international organisation, following the result of the latest general election, whenever that might be, and represent the people. That is the power that the people give to the Government and the Parliament. There is no loss of sovereignty in that process at all. We actually gain in sovereignty.

[Lord Janner of Braunstone]

I—

[Lord Dykes]

I hope the noble Lord will forgive me; he has not been here since the beginning of the debate.

I shall quote from the Lisbon treaty itself. One of the most important clauses of all shows the intrinsic respect for national sovereignty that comes into the treaty as well as the collective obligations and duties that any treaty applies to its members. That is the case in the European Union. It is nothing to be afraid of. One of the most important preambular clauses states:

“Pursuant to the principle of sincere cooperation, the Union and the Member States shall, in full mutual respect, assist each other in carrying out tasks which flow from the Treaties”.

The tasks that flow from the treaties include the long list in Clause 4, the Article 48(6) items and others as well. There is nothing to fear from any of the minor extensions that come from there, and any of the significant ones can be referendable if the Government do not say what any Government of this country always say that they will do, which is to veto an unacceptable proposal in the Council of Ministers, meaning that a treaty obligation therefore lapses and is not carried.

The Lords Constitution Committee said on 17 March that most referendum-lock items would never be covered because of policy decisions. That would make some sense, but can we really rely on the Government being able to stand up to their very vocal lobby of Eurosceptics and chauvinistic characters, particularly in the House of Commons, who have got worse and worse, as we have seen in debates in the Commons on this Bill? If they wanted to maintain sanity in a difficult world, Ministers could therefore issue a non-significant decision every few weeks or months. Would that make sense? Indeed, the unique national British referendum requirement could actually be at odds with international law—but I suppose that we would not mind that too much, least of all the antis.

There is a great deal of doublethink and confused thinking here among senior members of the Government, including, I am sad to say, the junior partner—I never thought that I would say that in this House but that is the reality that we have to face—but it is time for the Government to consider these amendments seriously and accept them today.

[Lord Richard]

My Lords, we have had a brisk debate so far, to put it mildly. I want to try to meet an argument that has been put today by two noble Lords opposite about the question of balance. It says that the Bill basically provides a sensible balance between the position that the European Union is not the most popular institution with the great British electorate and what should be done about it. The question of balance is being raised.

Let us just analyse this for two seconds. It applies to Clauses 3 and 4, to Clause 6 and to the schedule. The basis for the so-called balance is that if certain issues arise, the great British public will be reassured because there will have to be a referendum. That is the whole basis of the Bill. Clauses 3 and 4 set out which treaty amendments will require a referendum. I see that under Clause 4(1)(a) to (m) a referendum will be required. Quite how would you frame a question for a referendum on, for example under paragraph (d),

“the conferring on the EU of a new competence shared with the member States”.?

Will you ask, “Are you in favour of this new competence shared with the member states, which the Government have already approved and put to Parliament”? Does that make sense? Is that balanced? Of course not; it is a gross distortion of the whole process.

That is Clause 4—the height of the Bill. Go to Clause 6, which is unbelievable as far as balance is concerned. The Bill gets worse as it goes on but I will just deal with Clause 6, which says:

“The decisions to which subsection (1) applies are … a decision under the provision of Article 31(3) … that permits the adoption of qualified majority voting”.

Look at paragraph (c), which refers to,

“a decision under Article 86(1) … involving participation by the United Kingdom in a European Public Prosecutor’s Office”.

That will demand a referendum. What will we ask? Will we say to the British people, “Are you in favour of the United Kingdom’s participation in a European public prosecutor’s office”? Will it be feasible to have a referendum campaign on that? Will people be lined up on each side of that argument, saying “Yes, I am in favour of a public prosecutor’s office” or “No, I am not in favour of a public prosecutor’s office”? Look at the next one.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I do not think that that would be the case, for the very good reason that the great issues that concern our national interest can be delivered very largely by the co-operation and development of close working within the existing competences of the existing treaty. My noble friend has in her mind some thought that new treaty requirements would indeed come along that would somehow be in the national interest but which Ministers would be reluctant to push for fear that they would have to expose them to the British people. There might well be issues in the future, although I cannot see any countries at the moment being terribly willing to go through the complex treaty procedure for them, which Ministers believe are in the national interest and of value and which can be pursued only by treaty change. In that case, they would rightly be required first to come before both Houses of our Parliament so that it could be explained whether they were significant or not. If they were significant, they would then be required to be put to the test of a referendum, with the Government arguing that these changes, or this package of changes, were necessary to improve the national interest and the strength of this country. That is the kind of debate we should have had over the Lisbon treaty, but of course we did not.

[Lord Dykes]

My Lords—

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

No, I am not going to give way again, I am afraid. We have had enough interventions.

I was concluding by saying that all the long-standing accusations of decision-making behind closed doors without public consent would therefore still hold true if these amendments were accepted and the wider and wider number of decisions were left to the judgment of Ministers as to whether they were significant. There are concerns, as I have said, that creeping power and creeping competence are not being properly debated and explained and not justified as being in the national interest, and have weakened the European cause.

People talk about the need for “reconnection”—that phrase came up. We have to be realistic and accept that reconnection has failed. It is failing here in this country, although we are not the only country in which it is failing. Some noble Lords seem to want to continue as before and seem to be happy to see a continued advance of European treaty changing, competence transferring and power transferring, which are precisely the trends that have so undermined public trust, weakened the European cause and made the European Union today in need of reform and less well positioned to meet the colossal challenges of the future than it should be.

I must say that I hope that some noble Lords who are my noble friends, and noble Lords who I greatly admire, will not be offended if I see them as the last knights or the lost lords of the old Europe, of the Euro elite. They are the ones who want to go back while the world goes forward, and indeed I myself sometimes have the same wish that things could go back, but they cannot. We are now in the information age. In the age of the internet and the website, the age of public empowerment, those ideas are as out of date as the Teutonic knights with their armour and their glories. So I urge the noble Lords who have moved and spoken to these amendments to withdraw them and to understand that we are living in a changed age in which the requirements of a strong and democratic European Union will change in themselves and will require new and agile legislation, understanding, and a new connection with the people of Europe.