Europe Day
Lord Dykes Excerpts(13 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Howell of Guildford
The noble Lord speaks of silly gestures, but the idea that flying flags is any indication of the policy of commitment, in our case to the European Union, is frankly absurd. If we flew the flag for every relationship with every multilateral organisation, we would be for ever hoisting flags and taking them down again. There is frankly no relationship between our activist and forward position on the European Union—we are playing a major part, as demonstrated by the Prime Minister over the weekend—and the actual flying of flags, which is not the intention of 10 Downing Street.
Lord Dykes
I thank my noble friend the Minister for his renewed commitment to Europe, which he has just expressed. Is it not a pity that we do not fly the European flag a little bit more? The only European flags within the vicinity of this place and Whitehall are on the Slovenian embassy and the former headquarters of the Conservative Party, which is now the European Commission and the European Parliament. That historical irony could now be built on if the Government were bold enough to fly the European flag alongside the union flag, which is the routine of all other member states.
Lord Howell of Guildford
Some departments and some public institutions do fly the flag if they wish to do so. I repeat to my noble friend that the flying of flags is not connected with the very strong policy we have in relation to the European Union, in which we are paying a very active part and dare I say a slightly more successful part in some areas than was the case under the previous Government.
European Union Bill
Lord Dykes Excerpts(13 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Howell of Guildford
We have debated this at length. I have enjoyed some of the noble Lord’s interventions—not all of them—and this one is based on a total fallacy and misunderstanding of the Bill which I have tried to disabuse him of. Clearly I have not succeeded. There is no question of having referenda on 56 different items. As we have debated at enormous length, the items included in Schedule 1 and Clause 6 all relate to a handful of very big, so-called red line issues which the people of this country do not want to be dealt with other than through popular consultation. That is the reality. The 56 story is a wonderful myth. It should be utterly dismissed and I hope that we do not hear anything more about it.
Perhaps I may return to the amendment. Clause 18 would not alter the rights and obligations of the UK by virtue of our membership with the European Union.
Lord Dykes
I apologise for intervening and shall be very brief. First, I genuinely thank my noble friends Lord Howell and Lord Wallace for being helpful, whenever they could be, in responding to many of the points made at previous stages. However, accepting that a transfer of powers of sovereignty can be used as a technical description of our membership of the European Union, is it not better psychologically for the public to have an expression which represents the reality that, by apparently agreeing to things in the European Council, we increase not only our own national sovereignty but the collective sovereignty of the whole Union? That also applies to our membership of NATO, the UN and other international bodies.
Lord Howell of Guildford
First, I thank my noble friend for those words of thanks—I was going to say “condolence”—for the efforts that we are putting into explaining the Bill. He makes an extremely valuable point: where Britain’s national interests are to be promoted by further involvement under treaties or otherwise in international institutions, that is an important matter on which the Government should certainly seek support through popular consent. The argument that we cannot make progress in any of these areas of international and multinational organisations because the Government somehow fear that the people will not agree is very weak and defeatist. On the contrary, if we are to pursue the national interest in a robust way, I think that the present Government and future Governments will have no fears at all about persuading the people to give popular support and consent to the steps forward.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch
My Lords, I hope that your Lordships noticed that my noble friends and I withdrew a number of amendments in Committee and forbore to table any on Report or, again, at Third Reading. We did this to reduce by several hours the inordinate time it was taking for this Bill to pass through your Lordships' House, and so, with the leave of the House, I shall speak very briefly now on the Motion that this Bill do now pass.
The first thing I want to do, and it is not much fun, is to recall what I said at the start of my Second Reading speech on 22 March and now to regret that noble Lords in receipt of a forfeitable EU pension, with one honourable exception in the shape of the noble Lord, Lord Williamson, did not declare that interest during our debates. As I said at Second Reading, it is not helpful to members of the public or those who read our debates if they are not told of noble Lords’ past experience of the subject under debate or where those noble Lords are coming from. That omission skews the whole tone and understanding of our debates, quite apart from anything else.
Although I and those noble Lords who feel as I do on this subject have received no support on this matter from your Lordships' nomenklatura, in the shape of our Committee for Privileges, I am grateful for the public support which we have now received in the national press: from this country’s leading and most amusing diarist, Mr Quentin Letts, on 26 March in the Daily Mail and from the political editor of the Mail on Sunday, Mr Simon Walters, on 19 June. For those who wish to go into the detail of this unfortunate situation, I again recommend my debate in your Lordships' House on 19 July 2007.
As we now look back over our debates and divisions on this Bill, the situation is even worse than a mere failure to declare such an obvious financial interest in debate. Three amendments were carried against this Bill—
Lord Dykes
In view of the importance of these matters, would the noble Lord also undertake to the House to work very hard indeed, since he is getting such support from the many owners of these newspapers, particularly the tabloids, who support his campaign against Europe, to ensure that they pay UK direct taxes as quickly as possible?
Lord Pearson of Rannoch
I am not sure that that intervention is entirely on target. I thought the noble Lord was going to berate us about the Murdoch press, and I do not think that the two newspapers to which I referred belong in the Murdoch stable. I am quite happy to collaborate with the noble Lord on that if he will collaborate with me on getting the BBC to fulfil its duty to explain to the British people how the European Union works.
I think I got as far as saying that three amendments were carried against this Bill which together emasculate it entirely and deny the British people any chance of a meaningful referendum on our relationship with the failing project of European integration, which they do not like.
The point I now want to make about those amendments is that they were largely proposed by noble Lords in receipt of a forfeitable EU pension, most of them undeclared, and they were all carried by the votes of noble Lords who did not declare their interest. I can but suggest that the Privileges Committee revisits this subject before the Bill returns from the Commons and does the obvious thing.
As the Bill now leaves us, there is one other regret that I would like to record. It is that the Government did not respond to a question about the background to this Bill which I put to them twice. The Government’s excuse, no doubt in their mind when they designed the Bill, may be that the Bill should not have allowed us to discuss the EU’s real defects: its common agricultural and fisheries policies, its wasteful and fraudulent use of vast sums of taxpayers’ money and its entirely undemocratic and secret law-making process which now controls so much of our lives. The question I put was this: given that even our political class is beginning to see that the euro was and is designed for disaster—
European Union Bill
Lord Dykes Excerpts(13 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Risby
My Lords, I very much agree with some of the underlying sentiments of the noble Lord, Lord Triesman. There are powerful reasons for us to be part of the European Union and to have a positive view of it. Of course that is the case. Sometimes that is completely lost in the wash, which is regrettable and unfortunate. However, on promoting the desirability of our membership, I just point out that we have to take great care over what we do in this respect. One of the most extraordinary episodes under the previous Government was their attempt to explain the euro. We had the exceptional sight of the then Europe Minister, Mr Keith Vaz, going round in a white van to various market towns, handing out literature explaining why the euro was a very desirable thing. The net effect of this risible campaign was to cause support for the euro to diminish, so we have to undertake these things with great care.
The amendment implicitly reflects concern about the lack of popularity—
Lord Dykes
I am most grateful to my noble friend for giving way, but has he not left out the vital fact that a lot of support for Europe grew out of Mr Keith Vaz having learnt the trick of taking Mr Eddie Izzard round with him on the campaign?
Lord Risby
I discussed this episode with Mr Keith Vaz and I am not sure that he felt it was one of the high points of his political career, but we can leave it at that.
The amendment implicitly reflects our concern about the EU’s lack of popularity, but I fail to see the point of it. It is completely unnecessary. To have a referendum the Government need to have agreed the relevant treaty in Brussels in the first place, and Parliament will have enacted an Act of Parliament, having debated and scrutinised it. I entirely agree that a referendum campaign should educate the public in the fullest sense of the word. Presumably, having decided on a referendum, the Government would like to win it. The notion that they would somehow be against the EU, implicitly or explicitly, makes a nonsense of the whole situation. Why waste money on such an exercise? The case for membership is explicit in the whole referendum process. The way to change the view of the desirability—
Viscount Trenchard
My Lords, I am afraid that, although I listened with great interest to my noble friend Lady Falkner, I cannot agree with her that the amendment makes much sense. I listened carefully to the noble Lords, Lord Triesman and Lord Radice, in putting forward the amendment. It is an odd amendment. What does it actually mean? Any referendum that might be held under the Act is not going to be a referendum as to whether our membership of the EU is or is not a good thing. By definition, if the Government want to put a referendum event to the people, it follows that they must already have decided that it is a good thing, so to get the result they want in the referendum, they will obviously explain the benefits as energetically and positively as they can.
There is something strange about the language of the amendment, because the desirability of promoting the United Kingdom's membership of the EU sounds rather as though we are not a member but perhaps should be. We are a member, so obviously Ministers must explain what being a member of the EU means and must honour the obligations of being a member. I fear that that is rather subjective.
Furthermore, under the Bill, a referendum other than one which the Government wanted to win might be triggered. There are many ways in which a referendum can be triggered under the Bill, as noble Lords have said. Ministers of the Crown might be obliged to put a certain point to the country but they might not necessarily want the result to be yes. The noble Lord, Lord Radice, said that Ministers have not positively made the case in public for membership of the EU on a continuing basis. I suggest that that is because many Ministers of the Crown have felt that our membership of the EU is no longer so clearly wholly beneficial as they had thought it was, or as people thought it would be 10 years ago, or longer ago than that.
The amendment does not add anything to the Bill. It is somewhat subjective and I cannot support it.
Lord Dykes
My Lords, I agree very much with the earlier utterances and express regret that I cannot agree with what the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, said. I do not think that there is any evidence that Ministers have become less enthusiastic about our membership of the European Union. That is irrespective of the colour of the Government. That applies to both parties in power in recent times and, as far as I can detect, definitely applies to the coalition—very positively so in respect of the first part of the coalition statement about their aspirations on Europe.
I am sure that it is because of what the noble Lord, Lord Radice, mentioned and what the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, hinted at less directly: because of what the British press say. It is mainly the tabloids—the comics that masquerade as newspapers in Britain. They are more and more like magazines rather than newspapers. That is affecting the broadsheets as well, particularly those with owners living in tax havens overseas, not normally living in the UK and not paying UK direct taxes themselves, mainly the Murdoch press, but all of them anti-European and attacking our membership of the European Union in a most extraordinary and vicious way, which has not been seen in any other member state that I can think of.
I have to declare an interest as I also live regularly in France at weekends whenever possible. The French press are not at all like that. My colleagues in politics in Paris express astonishment that we allow the overseas-based owners of the press here who do not pay UK direct taxes themselves to attack our fundamental membership of the European Union in such a way. That has been the reason.
The most astonishing contrast that I noticed was just at the moment of the IMAX launch by the new Prime Minister Blair, with his new Government, still very, very popular, not quite walking on water but pretty close to it in those early days and causing a lot of inspiration and enthusiasm among the British public for the new Labour Government. That launch was the beginning of the decline in the new Labour Government's support for Europe in atmospheric and psychological terms. That was tragic. Britain in Europe was destroyed by it. So was the European Movement—although it still exists, it is struggling along as a very truncated body doing noble work but very much at the fringes of British life.
It is a tragedy for this country that we have had this nonsense for so long: politicians refusing to stand up bravely and correctly for the benefits of our membership of the European Union. Therefore, I very much welcome the proposed new clause. It was debated in Committee and therefore we need not go into all the arguments now. We particularly thank the noble Lord, Lord Howell, for repeating that the purpose of the Bill is to oblige Ministers to promote the cause of our membership of Europe in what he would describe as a more correctly balanced sense because the public would have much greater participation through the referendum mechanism. Like the noble Lord, Lord Deben, I do not agree with that because I am against referendumitis and the populism that comes from it, but I can see his arguments. The proposed new clause would be a good thing, as we would return to promoting our membership—not in a propagandistic sense but in the practical sense of reassuring the public, explaining in detail many of the complicated matters and getting away from the dreadful xenophobia that is being allowed to develop because of the insouciance, nervousness, recalcitrance and hesitation of British politicians. There is a danger that that will start to affect the coalition if it continues, and I hope very much that it does not.
I do not want to take up too much of the House’s time but I conclude with an issue that may seem small, although it is very important. I refer to the display of flags—one of my favourite subjects. There is only one European flag within the vicinity of Westminster. It is on the Slovenian embassy building and we thank the Slovenians for their courage in daring to show it. It is the only one, apart from the one displayed on Europe Day in Parliament Square each year. All other major countries, together with some of the new ones, routinely proudly display the European flag alongside their patriotic national flag. Our national flag should be alongside the European flag on government buildings, as is routinely the case in France. When President Sarkozy makes a television broadcast, he always has the European flag alongside the tricolor. Why have all parties in this country been so hesitant and pathetic about this in the past? It is now time for the matter to be corrected. I have been encouraged by the words of the noble Lord, Lord Howell, on previous occasions in these debates and believe that the Government should accept this imaginative new clause.
Lord Hamilton of Epsom
My Lords, I have heard my noble friend Lord Dykes say on previous occasions that the only cause of Euroscepticism in this country is the Murdoch press, but I find that very difficult to go along with. I always reckon that to some degree the press has to reflect the national mood and, if it does not, it does not sell any newspapers. I also have a slight problem with the fact that Euroscepticism is growing at a pace in Germany, where I am not aware of the Murdoch press owning any newspapers. Therefore, I think that it is a little too simple to blame the whole thing on the Murdoch press.
However, let us get to the basis of the amendment and, for the sake of argument, start at the beginning, which seems to be a useful place to start. The Government will bring forward a measure to be put to a referendum of the people of this country only if they think they will win it. I do not accept the view of my noble friend Lord Trenchard that the Government might put something forward to be addressed by the country in a referendum if they want to lose, as I think that they can only possibly want to win it. If they do want to win it and if, as I think the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, said, this is an opportunity for UKIP to say, “Ah, we don’t want anything to do with the European Union at all. We must pull out”, then of course the Government will be compelled to argue the virtues of remaining in the European Union, and all his problems will be answered by the referendum. For that reason, the amendment is completely otiose and I shall not support it.
Yemen
Lord Dykes Excerpts(13 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Howell of Guildford
Our general position is strong support for the Gulf Cooperation Council’s plans, which have been brought forward with considerable detail and support from the neighbouring countries and the whole region. We believe that, for the moment, that is the best plan on the table. I certainly concede to my noble friend that it is not working well at the moment, but that seems to be the best possible avenue through which one could begin to see some kind of settlement emerge. That is all that I can say at the moment, beyond the fact that, of course, the United Nations remains very interested and is watching the situation closely as well.
Lord Dykes
My Lords, does the Minister agree that it is essential for the British Government to be even-handed in their attitude to all the countries involved in the Arab spring revolution and to wish the local population well in that process? Should that not also include Israel? Have the Government taken steps to ask the Israeli military to exercise restraint and not to shoot at unarmed civilians?
Lord Howell of Guildford
This Question is about Yemen. We certainly aim for even-handedness in pursuing our own principles and values but, unfortunately, as every country has different situations that require delicate and different handling beyond the general principles, we have to appreciate, respect and understand the inner workings of these countries to be effective.
European Union Bill
Lord Dykes Excerpts(13 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Kerr of Kinlochard
I am sure that Burke was not thinking of the situation of the EU Bill which is before us. The noble Lord is absolutely right. He may have been thinking of a situation in Ireland which developed in ways that bore some resemblance to that during his lifetime, but I am sure that when he was addressing the Bristol electorate his concern was simply with explaining to them how he saw the role of Parliament and the sovereignty of Parliament. It is because I think that he was right about that that I think that we should vote for the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Williamson, which I hope he will press to a vote. It does not restore full parliamentary sovereignty, but in a situation where—in his words—a derisory turnout had voted, the question of whether Parliament’s will should be overruled would be raised. That is a little bit of Burke that would be rescued from the mess of Rousseau that we are in.
Lord Dykes
I rise briefly to speak enthusiastically in support of this amendment and to thank the noble Lord, Lord Williamson, for his remarks—I agree with them all. I was, like others may be, a little startled when the noble Lord, Lord Tomlinson, began to say that he rather agreed with the first part of the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Waddington. But I understand what he was getting at. The beauty of the amendment is that it can appeal to a whole range of Members of this House in deciding, irrespective of their own particular views on the virtue of referendums, or referendumitis, or the danger of referendums, or whatever, that this would be a good way of making more respectable a given referendum result with a turnout requirement—following the wisdom of the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, in a totally different context—and would make sure that we were not trivialising the exercise in a way that would disconcert the public in a big way. The beauty then is that, if the threshold is not reached, the power goes back to Parliament and the Government as the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, would always wish.
On 5 April, in the early stages of the Committee of the whole House, the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford, in referring to Schedule 1, said:
“if we present to the electorate the sort of issues in Schedule 1 and ask them … to turn out at the polls”—
in referendums—
“we are being not only completely unrealistic but deeply insulting to them”.—[Official Report, 5/4/11; col. 1694.]
I have left out a few of the smaller words, but essentially that is what he said.
The electorate would say that that is what they elect parliamentarians to decide. We could easily have participation rates of less than 20 per cent, and we would return, therefore, to the Vernon Bogdanor example. I believe that this matter is important for parliamentarians in both Houses, but particularly here, as this House has an opportunity to improve the Bill in a way that government Ministers have already started to do with their generous amendment. We must work hard to restore public faith in the public’s ownership of first-rate parliamentary standards of tradition, work and devotion to the public good. My personal view is that I am very fearful of referendumitis and this Bill would deliver a lot of it in the future if the situation were allowed to get out of hand.
Most sensible citizens are highly intelligent and quite rightly regard subjects other than mere politics as far more important and crucial. I often do. I would cite family and children, the local community, jobs and job prospects, football and—even better—rugby, holidays, the kids’ results at school and music. Very many of those things are more important than politics. The public want to enhance political quality by leaving the political decisions to their elected representatives, even if some of them in the other place are sometimes rather nerdy people, like Bill Cash or John Redwood. We have to remember the warning words of my noble friend Lady Williams when she spoke of the disastrous example of California, which had become a bankrupt state as a result of excessive referendumitis and foolish populism. This amendment provides a pragmatic way of making the results of referendum—if there has to be one—more respectable. I hope that this House will support it.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon
My Lords, I wish that the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, would not describe people who oppose his points of view in such terms as “nerds”. It does not enhance debate and it is quite unnecessary to lampoon one’s opponents.
The amendment has a certain superficial attraction, but we need to be extremely careful what we do. If you say that a decision on an item on which a referendum is to be held can take effect only if 40 per cent of the electorate vote, you could say that about almost every election we have. People are elected to the House of Commons—certainly in by-elections—on a turnout of less than 40 per cent of those entitled to vote. Why on earth should that be legitimate and a referendum on a matter which is to be transferred to European governance not be accepted? We have to be very careful not to create a precedent here which might be used in other circumstances that may be inconvenient to Parliament and certainly to local authorities, where the turnout is very often far below the 40 per cent of those entitled to vote.
The noble Lord, Lord Tomlinson, talked about the various alternatives that might be put on the ballot paper. If you pass this amendment, there is another alternative which is that you can campaign for people not to vote. That is good democracy, is it not? Or is it? If you encourage people not to vote to get the decision you want, that is extremely bad democracy. I do not want to delay the House any further, but I believe that before we vote we should be very careful about what we are doing.
European Union Bill
Lord Dykes Excerpts(13 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Liddle
My Lords, I hope not to detain the House long on this. In a sense, with this amendment we are trying to skin the same cat in a different way. It is designed to extend the scope of the significance clause in order precisely to give our Government, because we want to support them and make them effective in the European Union, the flexibility to cope with the unforeseen. We have made this point many times in these debates. Basically, the Government point-blank refuse to accept its validity. They argue, first, that all the red lines and every issue in the Bill is of constitutional significance, including the full list of issues in Schedule 1, and that therefore any move on these issues should require a referendum. That is the Government’s position on my first point.
Secondly, they would argue that the EU has plenty of competences to act already in most situations, which is true, but that does not cover any potential new situations which we cannot foresee, to which my noble friend Lord Triesman referred. Thirdly, they argue that when we talk about circumstances that might occur which would require action, we cannot name any of these circumstances and that it is all hypothetical and nonsensical.
This amendment is on the assumption that it is not hypothetical and nonsensical. We can already see brewing in the European Union the makings of another big step forward towards fiscal federalism being considered at a senior level within the Union. One just has to read the—in many ways wonderful—parting speech made by Jean-Claude Trichet last week when he received the Karlspreis in Aachen. It was about the achievements of the European Union and all Members of the House should read it. He said that as a result of the present crisis, not today but the day after tomorrow, there would be a need for the creation of a European finance ministry and for member states to concede sovereignty over economic questions, particularly when they were in difficulties and failing to conform to European rules. I can understand his frustration in dealing with the situations in Greece, Portugal and Ireland.
If I was still an adviser in No. 10 Downing Street, my reaction would be to say, “Gosh, there’s something potentially quite big here coming down the track. We may well have changes of Government in France and Germany in the next couple of years. We have got to do some hard thinking ourselves about how we anticipate the situation”. I would say to the British Prime Minister that if he wants to avoid another big treaty, he has to think about how, on all the relevant issues—economic governance, supervision of the banks, the structural reforms necessary to make the European economy competitive and the advance of the single market—we can make Europe more effective. If necessary we have to be prepared to look at small changes in the treaties which we could make under the simplified revision procedure that would convince our partners that serious action could be taken that would not require another big leap forward. Therefore, that is what I would be doing.
These issues are likely to be right at the top of the agenda in the next two or three years. On page 14 of this wretched Bill, in Schedule 1, we see how it would inhibit any British Government from considering even the slightest change in decision-making processes in these crucial areas. In Schedule 1(2) we see that referenda would be required on any changes in the approximation of national laws affecting the internal market, any changes in the broad guidelines of economic policies, any changes in the adoption of provisions replacing the protocol on the excessive deficit procedure and any changes in the role of the European Central Bank on prudential supervision. These are precisely the issues that are going to be at the top of the agenda in European Union policy-making in the next few years, yet we are putting a ball and chain around the feet of our Ministers, because we know that Ministers are not going to put forward anything that would require a referendum, and we are preventing Britain from playing the role it should be playing in the next few years on these issues.
Some noble Lords may argue that these issues are nothing to do with Britain because we are not in the euro. I think that that is completely wrong. Although we are not in the euro, the success of the Government’s economic and political strategy very largely depends on the success of the euro area to which a huge proportion of our exports goes. If we are going to get a rebalancing of the British economy into exports and investment, we have to put forward policies for the success of the euro area, because we will not succeed in those ambitions unless we engage constructively in that debate. Yet we are hampered completely from engaging constructively in it because of the conditions of this Bill. So let us be pragmatic. Let us give ourselves the ability to act in our national interests.
Lord Dykes
I am most grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. Is not that point even more relevant when one thinks of the very helpful and positive Answer of the noble Lord, Lord Sassoon, answering Questions on Monday, when he said how important it was to maintain the solidarity of the UK with the eurozone through all the common work that we are doing together? Is that not even more important now that we are going to have the pan-European financial supervisory agency based in London? What if a crisis emerges that needs to be dealt with precipitately by all national Governments together?
Lord Liddle
The noble Lord, Lord Dykes, is so right. I actually congratulate the Government in many respects on their attitude. The Chancellor of the Exchequer made a speech in Paris earlier this year in which he said, “We are not in the euro but by gosh we want the euro to succeed. It is absolutely essential to our interests”. This was what Mr Osborne said. Some Members on the Conservative Benches may not recognise that point but that is where Britain’s national interests lie and we have to have the flexibility to deal with these situations. I do not know what precise flexibilities would be required but we have to have that.
In terms of historical parallels, I am reminded of Harold Macmillan’s wonderful quote, “Events, dear boy, events”. Of course it was Harold Macmillan as Chancellor of the Exchequer who had failed to realise the significance of what was happening at Messina and then woke up later to the reality of the treaty of Rome and the threat that this presented to Britain’s position in the European Union.
Harold Macmillan wrote in his diary—using the language of a man who had fought in the First World War and lived through those experiences in a different age from that in which, thankfully, we are living in—that, “If we were to allow the French and the Germans together to create a united Europe with Britain not being a part of it, we would be sacrificing everything that our men had fought for in two world wars”. That was his view in the 1950s. Our view today should be decided on the basis of a proper calculation of our national interest. We need to be fully engaged in all the questions affecting the European Union. We ought not to have this ball and chain, and we should have some flexibility. That is why I urge the Government, even at this late stage in the consideration of the Bill, to think about how it could be amended to give Ministers the pragmatic flexibility they need in order to represent our national interests effectively in Brussels and in order that Britain can live up to its role as one of the leading partners in the European Union. I beg to move.
European Union Bill
Lord Dykes Excerpts(13 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Triesman
No, my Lords, I do not agree with that. In the process of any kind of discussion, people will say something which either indicates support, or which they hope is sufficiently neutral not to indicate support but others will say that they believe that it does. The moment that anybody drafts anything, it will be seen or thought to be a clear indication of support by the very nature of going through the process of drafting it and putting it into the public domain. In real politics, that is precisely what will happen.
That is all fundamentally unhelpful, and I really hope that in their own interest—because at the moment they provide the Ministers who are taking part in discussions in Europe and elsewhere—the Government will not put themselves in so calamitous a position as to be unable to operate effectively.
Lord Dykes
Is there not a further irony that shows how throughout the Bill, from Clauses 2, 3 and 4 up to Clause 7, which basically deals with the system of passerelles, there has been a problem for the Government of trying to find the correct draftsmanship and making it incredibly complicated as a result? Is it not ironic that the then Conservative Government in the mid-1980s were mad keen on the passerelles to help the Single European Act—that was when the system first started? Subsequently, there were very few, but in the Lisbon treaty, all the member states regarded them as indispensable to allow the Union to move forward on matters which had already been decided in substance—that is Clause 7 in essence—and therefore did not require an intergovernmental conference or a unanimous decision. Why is there so much agony for the government draftsman about this unnecessary clause?
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.
Baroness Williams of Crosby
My Lords, my point is even briefer. Can the Minister give a little explanation of the Motion being “without amendment”? For example, if there were to be a relatively small, technical amendment, would it in fact mean that parliamentary approval was withheld? Perhaps the Minister could say a little more on that point: why the stress on “without amendment”?
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The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Viscount Simon)
We resume on Amendment 55B.
Lord Dykes
My Lords, I apologise to the Deputy Chairman for being rather hasty in beginning. That was partly because of my anxiety to be brief in this important debate. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Radice, on proposing this new clause in his amendment. It is very important. I detect already that it has gone down well in the new atmosphere of the House. Even if the Government persist with the Bill in most of its configuration, there is a spirit and desire also to promote our membership of the European Union. I hope so, anyway.
The noble Lord, Lord Radice, has a distinguished and noble Italian ancestry. As a keen linguist myself, I am prepared to forgive him; he told me once that he did not speak Italian. However, he is an internationalist in every other sense. I had the pleasure of preceding the noble Lord, Lord Radice—I hope he had pleasure in succeeding me—as chairman of the European Movement. I was chair in the first half of the 1990s; it was the noble Lord, Lord Radice, afterwards. Even then when we spoke about these matters we often lamented the extent to which Governments of all colours—the two main parties, anyway—did not defend and promote our membership of the European Community enough. We saw that only in the days of the Edward Heath Government. To her credit, it was also partly true in the period of the Thatcher Government, particularly with the creation of the single market, but by and large it was not.
I compared this to the previous Spanish general election—there is the possibility that another will come along soon. The two great parties in that country fought a tenacious and bitter political battle on all aspects of Spanish domestic and internal policies, but not once did anybody invoke Europe as an anti-cause to win domestic votes. It is a pity that our internal politics has been bedevilled by that phenomenon, as well as by Governments not explaining a mechanism and structure that is in many ways more complicated than just a defence alliance such as NATO, although that is complicated enough. Not enough has been given over the years to doing that. We need to do that even more now because of the way in which various press organs in this country have denigrated Europe excessively.
Therefore, the words of the noble Lord, Lord Radice, should be heeded by the Government to promote a campaign. Indeed, they ought to promote a campaign to defend and explain Europe properly in the objective and neutral sense of the word. It can be done, even when there are referenda to be fought in the future. I hope there will be no referenda, but it is in those terms that one asks the Government to respond positively to this important amendment tonight.
Lord Triesman
My Lords, I welcome this amendment from my noble friend Lord Radice, whose expertise on Europe is well known in the House. Several of the speeches that have been made by Members of the Committee have reflected their own extensive knowledge of Europe and their understandable disappointment that we have been so churlish in the way that we have talked about Europe and the European project over the years. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, I take the point that there are things to criticise. However, that is scarcely a reason for the trajectory on which we have embarked.
In addressing the amendment specifically, it is clear from the beginning of Clause 2 that a referendum would be launched following matters being laid before Parliament and fully debated, a decision being taken by Parliament and a treaty approved by an Act of Parliament. Clause 3 gives essentially the same sequence: Parliament takes a fundamental view, looks at it and decides that a referendum should be held because of the conditions to hold one as set out in the Act. Under Clause 6, a Minister of the Crown must start with a draft decision approved by an Act of Parliament. The referendum condition is then triggered. In all the circumstances in which a referendum condition is triggered—were one ever to be triggered—the reality is that Parliament will have reached a conclusion. Obviously, it will not have done so in secret. It will be a decision that is well known to the public as a whole. Parliament will have decided that the point at which a referendum is required has been reached.
In those circumstances it would be inconceivable that no argument would be advanced to the people who were going to vote in the referendum to account for the decisions that Parliament had taken. It would be an extraordinary set of circumstances in which that decision did not have the visible consent of the Government. If the Government had put a proposition of that kind to Parliament and it had been defeated, it would be a significant blow to any Government. It must be the case that the arguments that had been held in that forum—or forums, taking this House into account as well—would have come to a positive outcome.
I turn to Clause 13. The Electoral Commission,
“must take whatever steps they think appropriate to promote public awareness of the referendum and how to vote in it”.
In other words, it must make sure that people know the referendum is taking place and what they need to do to take part in it. Curiously, under paragraph (b), the Electoral Commission,
“may take whatever steps they think appropriate to promote public awareness of the subject-matter of the referendum”.
In short, it must make sure that everybody knows about the referendum but it may take steps to make sure that people know what the referendum is about. I make this point because if, in those circumstances, the Government or a Minister did not take steps to deal with the policy issues under discussion, it would be the most curious discussion that there had ever been before a referendum, especially if the Electoral Commission itself did not get into the theatre of argument about the subject matter. It seems to me that it is less likely to do that than the politicians who are involved in it.
There is, therefore, a huge amount of good common sense in the amendment of my noble friend Lord Radice. If you look at the specific text of the amendment, Ministers of the Crown are asked to,
“have regard to the desirability”.
This is not a monumental hurdle to have to cross. Ministers are expected to put the argument in a way that at least conveys why Parliament has taken the decisions that it has taken, and to do so in a way that is positive. Does that disbar anybody from saying, “There are issues here. We can see the following negatives”? No, of course it does not. I have no doubt that in any referendum debate people will say what they think the downside of the argument is. However, the amendment would ensure that the upside of the argument is also presented, even in a climate where a large part of the media of this country may not be sympathetic. That is probably the only route to achieving any balance in the discussion that will take place in advance of a referendum. Therefore, I welcome this amendment. One can look back and see how it links with the other clauses, and particularly how it deals with the rather conditional “may take” provision in Clause 13. In my view it would ensure that the argument was well made.
Having made that rather narrow point about the purpose of this amendment and how it would operate against the background of a parliamentary decision, I assert that in a generally extremely sceptical climate it can do no harm whatever to argue the case for the benefits of the European Union in a positive way. No doubt some Members of your Lordships' House do not believe that there are any positive benefits, or that they are so marginal that they should not be referred to because it is a waste of breath. However, a good many more of us believe that there is a very good and strong case to be made in favour of the European Union, and that it is sensible that it is made, as this amendment would ensure.
Lord Dykes
My Lords, I shall be brief. I probably do not have sufficient experience of Committee stages in this House to know whether any noble Lord can introduce their own amendment into a discussion when it has not already been selected. The amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lea, is selected for the next debate on the Marshalled List.
Lord Dykes
It can be done? Thank you for the answer. I was not quite sure.
I am very glad that the noble Lord, Lord Lea, brought his points in because they reinforce the need for the basic underlying enthusiasm for membership of the European Union to be reiterated again and again. The speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Howell, at the end of the previous group emphasised the same point, so to that extent one is very grateful indeed. Coming back to the previous discussion on Amendments 57 and 59, like the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, I was not quite sure whether the description should veer between vague and unnecessary or go back to sinister. If we listen to the words of the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke, one might say that it should go back to being sinister, but I am glad to suggest to the Committee—I hope I am not being discourteous—that that is still a minority view of the worth of this country’s membership of the European Union. I always listen with great respect to the things that he espouses when he makes his arguments, even if I do not agree. At the moment, we are still with vague and unnecessary, and that is the crux of the problem. I express enormous appreciation for the very wise words of my noble and learned friends Lord Howe and Lord Mackay of Clashfern.
Returning to my noble and learned friend Lord Howe, one remembers with great affection the riveting extracts that one can still read in Hansard from the debates when the then new Conservative Government were promulgating the legislation. As Solicitor-General, he had the opportunity to re-educate Harold Wilson about the realities of the 1972 Act in general and, specifically, about Section 2, which he did with great skill, I believe. It came back to the reality, as George Brown reminded us continually before and after these events, that he could never quite persuade Harold Wilson to be a really genuinely deep, good European, as he was. It was the best they could do in the circumstances, and the rest of it flowed from that.
The report by the Constitution Committee of the House of Lords, which was published in March, has been much quoted in these debates. It referred to these matters, as my noble friend Lady Falkner said today. The scrutiny committee’s report and this report are very relevant in this context. The very specific amendment tabled by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, would remove the original text of Clause 18 and insert a new clause that would reassure us and dispel the doubts that might arise, such as the one to which paragraph 59 on page 16 of the House of Lords Constitution Committee report refers when it talks about this particular dilemma:
“An argument raised in evidence to the European Scrutiny Committee is that, by seeking to shield the principle of parliamentary sovereignty only in the context of EU law, clause 18 may inadvertently invite questions in the courts about why Parliament did not take the opportunity to seek to reinforce its sovereignty more generally”.
Paragraph 60 of that report concludes in dark print:
“We are confident that if parliamentary sovereignty were to be questioned in any other context, the existence of clause 18 would not prevent the courts from upholding the well understood and orthodox position”.
One may relate that directly to paragraph 118 on page 27 of the Explanatory Memorandum and the Government’s absolute reiteration of the fundamental principle in that lengthy text on Clause 18, which, they say,
“does not alter the existing relationship between EU law and UK domestic law; in particular, the principle of the primacy of EU law. The principle of the primacy of EU law was established in the jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice before the accession of the United Kingdom to the European Communities”.
They then mention the cases that were referred to the ECJ that bore that out.
Amendment 57 is in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and in the names of two other noble Lords, one of whom is unwell tonight and cannot be present—the noble Lord, Lord Tomlinson, who has given his apologies, I believe. The great beauty of Amendment 57 is that it relates back very neatly to the very text of paragraph 118, which I have just quoted, and to the actual words of the insertion suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, on page 12, line 9, at the end of Clause 18, for which we thank him. The Government’s magisterial decision will therefore surely be to accept the amendment in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, with its much more precise and unshakeable reference to the 1972 Act and his inserted words that underline the fact that EU law has primacy and that would therefore dispel the doubts and restore the Government’s authority on European Union matters.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon
My Lords, I oppose all the amendments, and indeed the clause itself, because of a simple proposition that people will understand. Like the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong of Ilminster, I cannot claim to have any legal background in these matters. I do know, however, that during the whole of my political life, which has been a very long one, I and everyone else understands that the British constitution is based on the proposition, and indeed the law, that one Parliament cannot bind its successor. That you must hold to. It is indivisible, and once you start qualifying it you undermine the whole concept. That is why I oppose all the amendments and Clause 18, because they all seek to qualify that absolute part of our constitution.
That is such a simple proposition that all ordinary people understand what it means: that Parliament is supreme, and that what Parliament does can be undone. It is absolutely true that things can be sorted out by repealing the 1972 Act. The only problem so often is that people go on to say that that is inconceivable, but it is not. There are circumstances in which this country may wish, and indeed may have the duty, to withdraw from the Community. I know that that sounds as though it is out in the clouds. Nevertheless, there are circumstances in which it would be desirable, and perhaps essential, not to be bound by the European Communities Act, and it can be repealed. That is the essence that we have to stick to: the fact that that Act is simply an Act of Parliament that can be repealed by any Parliament in the future or in the present. I agree with those who say that letting go of that could be a dangerous course.
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The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Howell of Guildford)
My Lords, I want to be brief, too, but I am not sure that I will succeed. This has been an immensely interesting and wide-ranging debate, as is often the way with European Union issues. All sorts of aspects have come into the debate, which are raised by the contents of Schedule 1, which we are debating. The noble Lord, Lord Liddle, has described it in various critical terms—was it mishmash? I cannot remember.
I shall attempt to explain exactly why the things in Schedule 1 are there, and I think that I will be able to show that this is not quite the random selection or lottery that has been implied. I appreciate that there are obviously a number of views on the existence and scope of the provisions in Schedule 1. I have obviously looked very carefully at the amendments tabled and at some of the arguments that have been used this evening, as we have done with all amendments tabled in Committee. I do not accept the censorious view that these matters have not been addressed seriously. Every single item in the Bill has been considered very seriously, particularly all the items in Schedule 1, just as there is a long list of less significant issues where there is unanimity at present and a veto could be removed, which are not even in Schedule 1.
The idea that there has been no consideration of these matters is not really representative of the reality. There has been immensely detailed consideration of every one in Schedule 1. Last night we went over some of the implications, which are huge, behind the nature of the different groups of items in Schedule 1. We did not go over the many other items that are not in Schedule 1, where a veto could be lifted. It is thought that although that is significant it would justify just an Act of Parliament and not the deterrent of the referendum lock. I must address the central issue—again, this will take time—put by the noble Lord, Lord Williamson. He asked whether there was any one item that one could remove from the referendum lock category down to the parliamentary Act of Parliament lock instead, or maybe even to a lower lock of merely approval of the two Houses—the sort of not very secure lock that has existed in the past over many areas. I understand that opposition spokesmen are saying that they now want to move on from that, and found not so much difficulty as they did in the past with Acts of Parliament.
Can one think of any of these areas and why the present list in Schedule 1 is as it is? It is not just the random British view of a whole series of things that people want to keep unanimity for. Many of these items are there because during the discussions leading up to the negotiation of the Lisbon treaty, which many noble Lords are very familiar with, a whole range of countries insisted that they should stay at unanimity. All kinds of other matters were moved away to QMV in the Lisbon treaty and in previous treaties, but people argued at the time—we all remember it—that the Lisbon treaty was, as it were, the high point and that many issues had been moved to QMV, but that in the national interest of many member countries a certain range of matters should be kept at unanimity, and that the veto should not be surrendered for those countries. That in itself explains why Schedule 1 exists in the form it does.
Lord Dykes
I apologise for making a brief intervention, but is that not an extraordinary suggestion? Why then are the UK Government including some of those items if they are not particularly interested in them, because they came from other countries? What about innocuous articles such as Article 155? Why is that in this long, provocative list of items? It is an extraordinary proposition.
Lord Howell of Guildford
The noble Lord used the word “innocuous”. I do not believe that any of the matters in Schedule 1, which were put there with very careful evaluation and judgment, are innocuous. As I tried to explain last night, there are other areas of unanimity in which a veto could be removed that could be put in the less significant, if not the totally innocuous, category.
The list in Schedule 1 is not there by chance, accident or lottery; it is there because each has been evaluated and covers very sensitive issues where there would be a transfer of power. If the opportunity were taken to remove our veto in these areas—not to act, be active or develop policies in the areas—that would surrender an important power, which might greatly damage this country’s future national interest. I appreciate the sensitivity of the issues concerned.
I do not want to raise any hopes, but I do not think that the amendments, some of which have been advanced with great clarity and feeling—I shall come to specific amendments in a moment—are an appropriate opportunity to remove items from the schedule. I want to set out as clearly as I can, and as seriously and in as detailed a way as I can, why that is so. Of course, I shall continue to reflect on the points raised in today’s debate. As I said last night and in earlier Committee sittings, I am very happy to meet colleagues who want to discuss and analyse this or any other aspect of the Bill.
As ever, I have carefully listened to the Opposition’s wish—I believe it is a central theme—that they want more flexibility. I say “more” flexibility because there is flexibility in the whole pattern, as we discussed earlier. In Clause 4, there is flexibility, through the significance provisions. There is flexibility in the sense that all kinds of issues are not in Schedule 1, and those that are included in it are there for very careful reasons. As we shall learn as our discussions in Committee proceed, there is also flexibility in that a number of issues will be suitable, if changed, for an Act of Parliament rather than the application of the referendum lock. That is the flexibility theme that the Opposition have developed. They want, as I understand it, to lift the lock on some matters of competence and power. I do not want to make a cheap debating point—the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, possibly seemed to be indirectly reproving me—but I am not 100 per cent clear where, after all the work in the Lisbon treaty and the huge range of competences that exist in vital areas, about which the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, spoke so graphically, they want us to further extend the EU’s powers. My noble friend Lord Goodhart made it crystal clear, as usual, with the clarity of a fine legal mind—I say that with envy, because I wish I had the same sort of legal mind—where he wanted unanimity to be given up. I want to address his points specifically; he urged that unanimity should be given up—he used strong words, one of which was “absurd”, about there being any resistance to abandoning the veto in these areas. It was obviously not resistance to operating in these areas—we all want to see all sorts of operations—but resistance to giving up any veto.
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Lord Liddle
I have the greatest affection for the noble Baroness, but I think that her attempt to justify the fact that the terms of the coalition agreement have not been met in this case is neither muscular nor robust. I think, therefore, that our friends on those Benches have something to think about. What I am suggesting that our friends on those Benches think about is the merits of the amendments that this side is putting forward. We are offering a mechanism by which a lot of the unacceptable trivia in the Bill could be assessed in a proper way by an independent committee that would advise Parliament about whether they were fundamental or matters that would not require a referendum.
I suggest that there is possibly a germ of consensus in the coalition agreement. We on this side have moved our position from when Labour was in government because we now believe that matters such as passerelle clauses and simplified revisions of the treaty should be approved by a proper Act of Parliament. That is a significant move on this side of the House towards greater parliamentary accountability. I should have thought that the Lib Dems ought to seize that as an advance in accountability. We should confine referenda to these fundamental issues that your Lordships’ Constitution Committee said needed to be defined. An independent committee would be a good way of doing this.
I am sorry to have gone on at such length—
Lord Dykes
I intervene only briefly and thank the noble Lord for giving way. Is he not perfectly correct in general and in the specifics he mentioned? There is no apparent transfer of power, notion or concept built into the EPPO proposals. That is the European Union being allowed by the sovereign member Governments to deal with matters to do with any financial misdemeanours affecting Union finances. There is no extra transfer of power there at the margin at all. Why are the Government so obsessed? My noble friend the Minister kindly and co-operatively said at the end of the previous Committee session that he would focus on the important areas that the noble Lord has emphasised today in his remarks. However, he then goes back to say, “Ah, we must have the whole list as well. They are important as well”. There is no logic to it, particularly with the EPPO proposals.
Lord Liddle
I think the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, is right on that subject. The problem is the people who believe in the thin end of the wedge, but the way to deal with that is to have a proper process for deciding what is significant and requires a referendum and what does not in the form of an independent process that people will respect. That is what we are proposing in these amendments. It is a sensible compromise for the way forward that I hope the Government will consider seriously. It would resolve an awful lot of the big problems that people have with this Bill. I beg to move.
Lord Dykes
My Lords, I wish to intervene briefly on these matters. Although the amendments have been described as probing, I hope that the Government will be able to give a considered response to this interesting set of ideas, particularly the second amendment, which needs attention from the Government. On the most recent Committee day, hopes were expressed that the Government would respond to the constructive suggestions made in a raft of amendments. I hope that the Government will respond in that way today.
Ministers are definitely responding in the sense of having discussions outside the Chamber about what might be parts of the Bill in future. I hope that that will continue and people would be grateful for that. Any answers that could be given in the Chamber to take us further forward to make the Bill more sensible, more proportional—to use that important adjective—and more balanced would be very welcome.
As an example of messages sent by my noble friends the Ministers, I appreciate that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, kindly sent me a copy of the Daily Express attack that was mounted on his correct and sensible words in the previous Committee session. This is relevant to these amendments as well. I will not quote every word that Mr Patrick O’Flynn wrote in the Daily Express on Saturday 14 May because it would take too long, but he said that perhaps Mr Clegg’s ambition of changing the House of Lords would be justified after all. Although the Daily Express would not normally support that kind of thing—I am paraphrasing—on this occasion he was attracted to Mr Clegg’s ideas because he had just discovered that,
“the current way of selecting peers—appointing establishment time-servers—has turned it into a hotbed of European federalists”,
referring to the debates in the most recent couple of Committee sessions. He continued:
“The Lords is now full of people I have always regarded as ghastly pro-EU creatures … turncoats such as Lord Davies of Stamford and Lord Dykes”,
Ministers,
“such as Lib Dem Lord Wallace and returnees from the Eurogravy train such as Labour’s Lord Tomlinson. Much of the time they spout rubbish about paying homage to Brussels. They were at it again on Monday”—
that was 9 May—
“turning their guns on this newspaper’s crusade to get Britain out of the EU. Lord Wallace complained about the opposition of the Daily Express to the flying of the EU flag from British public buildings … Pearson reminded the pro-Brussels coven: ‘Millions of people in this country actually welcome the campaign to leave the EU which the Daily Express has started’”.
I think that the total number of people who supported the Daily Express’s dodgy little campaign was 370,000, which is one and half times the average size of a London borough, representing the whole nation. That shows how few people actually read the Daily Express. Mr O’Flynn then concluded that the noble Lord, Lord Pearson,
“challenged Dykes to admit ‘that the absence of the European flag on most of our public buildings reflects the wishes of the British people’”.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch
My Lords, before the noble Lord continues with his line on the Daily Express, when he mentions those 370,000 people, does he realise that that is the most successful newspaper campaign of this kind that there has been? Each one of those people took the trouble to take a pair of scissors, fill in the form, cut it out, put it in an envelope with their own stamp on it and send it to the Daily Express. He should not dismiss this campaign so easily. It is growing, it is going to go on and it is going to win.
Lord Dykes
I think that there have been examples of much larger figures when money has been offered by newspapers, although on this occasion the Daily Express at least had the grace not to offer any money. We know that the whole thing is got up by the British press, a small number of headbangers in the parliamentary Conservative Party in the Commons, UKIP, the BNP and other entities like that—not many people. I am returning to the amendment as quickly as I can, but I am quoting the Daily Express’s remarks to show the background to the whole campaign. Clause 6 would directly affect the status of all the provisions in it and make them subject to referendums. It has nothing to do with the common sense or logic of it.
Another letter, to the noble Lord, Lord Flight, on his points, was sent from my noble friend Lord Howell, who has kindly sent copies to other participants on these debates. The very acceptable reply gives ample intellectual and practical cover for the notion of the Government now having the imagination to remove some of the other sub-subsection areas from the classification of being subject to a referendum. We therefore concentrated on the three, four or five areas which could be retained—we differ on those, although some people say we differ only on the euro—starting with euro inclusion, which is generally regarded as the most important, as already supported widely in the Chamber in recent debates. We will therefore reduce the future nightmare for hapless Ministers suffering agonies of confusion in the Council of Ministers and receiving the wrath of their counterparts for paralysing the Union on literal trivialities.
When a Bill is complex and incomprehensible, and far too verbose and heavy because it has to cover so many points, I feel sorry for the government draftsmen who have to assemble it—in quite a short time, I imagine. They would probably regret it, and wish to look at it again. When you feel it is complex and incomprehensible, you turn to the Explanatory Memorandum, but that does not help at all. In respect of what the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, was saying when he was particularly concerned about subjection (5)(i) and (j) of Clause 6, paragraphs 78 and 80 on page 18 of the Explanatory Memorandum show once again how obnoxious Clause 6 is compared to the earlier clauses. I will not go into detail, or I will take too long. However, the last part of paragraph 80 refers to moving from unanimity to qualified majority voting:
“This is in line with the provisions of subsection (5)(b) above. Such a move would not require a referendum, however, if a referendum had already been held to approve a decision to move from unanimity to qualified majority voting in accordance with subsection (5)(i) in the same area of enhanced co-operation. To do so would in effect mean holding a referendum on whether to change the role of the European Parliament or not, and would not be a transfer of power or competence”.
I suppose that you might say that that would be literally true, subject to carefully re-reading it again. However, the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, talks about throwing the key through the window. That would not, of course, be a good idea because some sensible pro-European pragmatists would pick up the key. They would find it in the street, come back in and unlock the secrets. You have to put it down a hole to ensure that the whole thing is abandoned. An explanation like that shows the bad quality of a badly drafted Bill, particularly this clause.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon
I probably would not have risen except for the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, to which I will return in a moment. As for the amendment, at this time of night it is confusing and difficult to understand what its result would be. As far as I can see, it attempts to introduce parliamentary control over the items which might well attract a referendum. I hope that that is right, because I am of course always in favour of better parliamentary scrutiny. The problem is that all our experience so far shows that, one way or another, the Government manage to evade parliamentary scrutiny. For example, last week they overrode the European Union Committee’s reserve on the matter of patents. They did not do so on any reasonable grounds, except that the Hungarian presidency wanted them to do so. The Government overrode the parliamentary scrutiny of the House of Commons.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon
I remember the 1975 referendum very well. I took part in it myself. If Mr Farron believes that we should have a referendum because our relationship with the European Union has become poisonous, he is right and I agree with him. However, it is not only UKIP—there are Labour Members who are opposed to our membership of the European Union and, indeed, quite a lot of Liberals. When he believes, rightly, that our relationship with the European Union has become so bad that we need a referendum, I would hope that people, particularly from the Liberal party, would stop criticising those who believe that, after 50 years or so, it is time the British people had another chance to say whether we should stay in or get out.
Lord Dykes
If the result of the referendum was a yes vote, which I believe the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, has suggested would definitely be the case, the noble Lord would refuse to accept that verdict, as he did with the 1975 referendum.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon
The noble Lord is absolutely wrong on this. The 1975 referendum was held because of the failure to hold a referendum before we went in. The Labour Party was having great trouble—I remember it well because at that time I was a member of the Labour Party—and to heal the split that had grown up within it, the device of a referendum was put into operation. However, that occurred only two years after our entry into the Common Market and we had not felt the effects of that. Now that we have been in it since January 1973, people have experienced what it means, what it costs and how it affects them. That is why so many people now are beginning to believe, or already believe, that we need to test the view of the British people on the matter. What is wrong with that? People like the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, have said that the European Union is the best thing since sliced bread and that the country is behind it. They said the same about AV but, when people voted on it, they found that they were not with them at all. I believe that they should test the people’s opinion. I promise that if we have a referendum on being in or out of the European Union, and the people say that we must remain in, I shall go away and have a nice retirement. Until then I shall continue to press for a referendum. I hope that eventually the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, and others like him, will come round to the same position as that of his party’s president.
Lord Willoughby de Broke
My Lords, I should like briefly to return to what the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, said when he saw fit to expatiate on the Daily Express’s anti-euro campaign. At an earlier stage in our debates, he said that he had examples of 125 anti-euro headlines in the hated, Murdoch-ite, Barclay-ite and Desmond-ite press that some eminent think tank had proved to be wrong in every respect. He promised to let us have those figures and the factual debunking of those 125 stories. I wrote to the noble Lord about 10 days ago and asked for those figures, and still I have not received them. Can he provide them to the House or just to UKIP Members?
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Howell of Guildford)
My Lords, I have a feeling that we have reached the stage in the debate when we could leave the press and the Daily Express, and move to the precise issues and amendments in the debate.