EU: UK Membership

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

Thursday 13th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the European Union is a continuous process of negotiation. We are pursuing a multilateral reform agenda and, indeed, in the past few months a number of things on that agenda have been achieved. We were committed to containing the growth of the European Union budget and the multiannual financial framework agreement has achieved that. We have been committed, as indeed were the previous Labour Government, to extensive reform of the common fisheries policy; that has now been more or less achieved. We were committed to an EU patent court; that is now here. There is a range of further items that we wish to pursue and we will do so with like-minded member Governments, many of whom share our concerns, through the processes of multilateral negotiation.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that one of the best ways of ensuring that great concerns are not caused by British European policy would be to accept the sage advice of the Foreign Affairs Committee in another place? In its report published earlier this week it said that the way to proceed is through a broad, positive reform agenda for the EU as a whole and not by devising new cut-outs for the UK. In the effort that the Government are making to talk at all levels with the German Government, which I strongly welcome, please do not forget—and I hope that the Minister will say that he has not forgotten—about the need to talk to France, too, because unanimity is needed to get many of these changes.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we have certainly not forgotten about France or the other 25 members of the European Union. Bilateral discussions and multilateral negotiations are a constant process. We welcome the report from the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee and I recommend it to Members of this House.