Estates of Deceased Persons (Forfeiture Rule and Law of Succession) Bill

Debate between Lord Grenfell and Lord Lamont of Lerwick

Wednesday 15th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

I have not heard that there is not going to be a referendum on legislation for the House of Lords; I have heard many people speculating that amendments may be moved. We shall see, and I shall see how I vote on the interesting suggestion made by the noble Lord.

It has been said that this debate has at times been something of a Second Reading debate on many of the amendments. That is because the Bill has been misrepresented in several of the debates in an exaggerated way. The noble Lord, Lord Howell, has made it clear again and again that we are not going to get a plethora of referendums, for several reasons. First, changes in competences and powers tend to come in packages, in treaties. Secondly, we have been assured many times that we will not have more great treaties. The fact that certain vetoes and certain competences remain after we have had Lisbon, Nice and Maastricht shows that there are very good reasons why national Governments wish to retain them. No Government are going to invest a huge amount of political capital in pursuing some relatively minor matter. That is not how these things operate; they tend to come in packages.

People talk about these issues being trivial. We are talking about competences and powers. We are talking about vetoes, for example. The noble Lord, Lord Kerr, referred to the amendment very well proposed last week by the noble Lord, Lord Davies—I think it was Amendment 22A—about exempting defence procurement from the requirements of the internal market. He said that that is something that could advantage the country, and surely we ought to have the flexibility to move to QMV. Actually, I think it is important to be able to buy certain types of defence equipment and certain weapons, or produce them where you want to, and not have them subject to the full rigour of the market. In the previous Government, Des Browne himself—now the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton—said that he regarded that as a vital power to be retained by the British Government. Judging by the previous Government and what the former Secretary of State said, that is an extremely important power for this country to retain.

The noble Lord said the Bill was otiose because the Government were not intending to hold referenda in this Parliament. As the noble Lord, Lord Howell, said, the Bill will apply in this Parliament. It is not otiose any more than the Act giving effect to the Maastricht treaty. It had an opt-in for Britain to opt into the euro, but it was made very clear that we were not going to opt into the euro in the next Parliament. That did not make it otiose.

Then we have heard the argument that we are legislating for future Parliaments, but of course it is perfectly open to any future Government to repeal the Bill. With great respect to my noble friend Lord Jopling, we would be getting the worst of all worlds if we enacted the Bill but then said that the whole floodgates could be opened again without any specific intention at the beginning of each Parliament. I can think of nothing that would inflame public opinion more and get the tabloid press—about which we have heard a lot in this debate—going again than if, without any specific intention, a Government decided at the beginning of each Parliament to open the floodgates to the reversal of this legislation. We are told that it will lead to inflexibility in negotiations. However, other countries have procedures that take a long time and they have certain provisions on which they have to hold referenda. We have seen how it takes time for some of these treaties to be legislated for in other countries. Therefore, I do not think that the position of Britain’s negotiators would be any different from that of other countries.

What has been confusing in these debates is that this legislation is about competence and powers, whereas people try to make it about issues and policies. Nice, Lisbon and Maastricht have all given a tremendous amount of power and transferred sovereignty to the European Union. What in terms of power and competence do the Opposition and those opposed to the Bill think the European Union needs? What is the issue? What is the European Union not able to deal with at the moment? We have had many changes in recent years. The United States constitution has had only 27 amendments since coming into existence but we produce endless changes. The European Charter of Fundamental Rights was written in very dense language and was much longer than the Universal Declaration of Human Rights or the charter of the United Nations.

The noble Lords, Lord Kerr and Lord Hannay, have certainly enlightened our debates with their enormous expertise and very abstruse knowledge of difficult and complex issues. However, when I listened to them I was reminded of what Winston Churchill said when he became Chancellor of the Exchequer. He came out of the Treasury and said, “These chaps speak Persian. I prefer generals and admirals”. Of course, the contributions of the noble Lords, Lord Hannay and Lord Kerr, have been extremely important and enlightening in these debates, but I think that with some of these abstruse issues—the language used and so on—there is a real problem of connection between ordinary people and the European Union.

What has not been recognised enough by opponents of the Bill is the tremendous crisis that is taking place in Europe over the European Union. We have seen dramatic changes in public opinion on European integration in countries such as Finland. However, I would particularly single out what has happened in Holland. Throughout my life, Holland has been the most pro EU-integrationist country in Europe; now, it is the most obstructionist. It is strongly opposed to the bailouts of Greece, Ireland and Portugal and it wants to dismantle the Schengen provisions as well. The Bill draws a red line to say that in this Parliament, and beyond if this Government are re-elected, there will not be a transfer of powers. It seems to me to be sensible legislation and we should be determined to carry it forward. I think that the red lines we are drawing will go some way to restore some trust in the European Union.

[Lord Grenfell]

My Lords, after so many Second Reading speeches at a Report stage, it may well be sunset before we reach a decision on this amendment. I have only one thing to say following the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Lamont. My experience in this place has been that your Lordships’ House has always been quite reluctant to call for sunset clauses—we do not do so lightly. They are a very important instrument and one has to treat them with great respect and care. The noble Lord, Lord Lamont, asked: if we have one on this Bill, why not have one on a number of other pieces of domestic legislation? I agree with him. I would not want to see a sunset clause on those pieces of legislation that he mentioned. However, there is a big difference between those and this piece of legislation.

This Bill has huge constitutional implications, but it is a step in the dark at the moment for us because we do not quite know what they will be. As it is of such huge constitutional importance, I feel that there should be the safeguard of a sunset clause because the next Government will be in an experimental stage of having to see how this legislation will be implemented. I do not think you can group this piece of legislation with other kinds of legislation and say that if you want a sunset clause on this, you should have it on the rest. This is a special case. It needs to have a sunset clause in order to be sure that when we step out into the darkness—it will be dark when the legislation first starts to have an impact—we can, if necessary, draw back from the brink.

European Union Bill

Debate between Lord Grenfell and Lord Lamont of Lerwick

Tuesday 3rd May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

I think the stress tests refer to capital rather than liquidity, which is a slightly shorter-term issue. I agree with the noble Lord and Willem Buiter that we need proper stress tests. However, the previous stress tests that were applied within the EU were revealed in all their nakedness as thoroughly inadequate.

As the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, said, we should remember that the regulations that govern these issues are not only European but worldwide. The BIS has a crucial role—in fact the lead role—in determining the capital ratios of banks. I do not think that the argument about the failure of the banking systems is an argument per se for why the UK, which is outside the eurozone, ought to contemplate further integration in this field than has already been provided for. This area has to be addressed internationally and through many agencies.

The main point that I want to make about the debate is this. We have had some amazingly excellent speeches but there is confusion, or insufficient distinction, in these debates between the European Union acting to legislate or make a policy decision and it altering its own constitution—if I can use the word “constitution”; I know people who might object to that—or its own rules. People have made eloquent speeches about human trafficking, piracy and the environment, but not all the speeches have distinguished between the EU’s ability to act and to have a policy and its need for more powers.

The noble Baroness, who made a tremendously moving speech about human trafficking, did not actually demonstrate that more powers were needed. More agreement might be needed, and might be achievable within existing powers, but she did not demonstrate that more powers were needed. Equally, the noble Lord, Lord Davies, spoke about piracy but did not demonstrate that we could not have an EU policy on piracy within the existing competencies and powers of the EU. I appeal to the Minister to make that distinction when he addresses all these areas.

Where there are political and human problems—piracy, the environment, energy, human trafficking and all the other issues listed in the amendments—can the Minister distinguish between the EU’s ability to act, to legislate under its own rules and, quite separately, the need to change its own constitution? The people speaking for the amendments ought to have argued for a change in the European Union’s rules. With great respect to all those who spoke so movingly on the issues that mattered to them, not all of them made the case for a change in the rules of the EU. That seems to be the crucial point in this group of amendments.

[Lord Grenfell]

I hesitate to intervene at this late hour but what the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, has just said provokes me to do so. He has, maybe inadvertently, hit the nail on the head. This Bill is about trying to prevent the European Union acquiring more powers in ways that the Government feel would be wrong. The noble Lord spoke about the difference between powers and agreement. In fact, the effect of the Bill is to prevent and make far more difficult the reaching of agreements within the European Union. That is what it is all about. It is not about power but the ability of the European Union to reach more and better agreements.

We have had an interesting debate that has covered an enormous number of topics. We have talked about the Monetary Policy Committee, the environment, piracy, human trafficking—all very interesting for those of us who respect the views of those who know what they are talking about. However, I am not sure that the coalition Government and those on this Front Bench are at all interested in this debate. They have already made up their minds; the integrity of Clause 4(4) has to be defended at all costs. They are not prepared to give way on any of this and do not want any additions to the clause. One wonders what this debate is all about.

I do not want to belittle the powers of this House to be able to persuade Governments to change their minds, but on this particular issue I am a pessimist. We are not going to be able to do so because if these excellent amendments are accepted, one of the central pillars of the whole Bill collapses. When that pillar collapses, the whole edifice begins to crumble, so I am sure the Government are going to stick firm on this. It will be extremely hard for us to persuade them to accept any of these amendments. That depresses me greatly because these amendments are vital. I suggest that we make every effort to persuade the Government, but I am a pessimist on this. The case has been well made by my noble friends Lord Triesman and Lord Liddle to get these amendments through, but if the Government are not prepared to accept them this bad Bill becomes even worse.