Brexit: European Arrest Warrant (European Union Committee)

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

Thursday 8th February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, this House is no stranger to debates about the European arrest warrant. It is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, because when, as the then chair of the Sub-Committee on Home Affairs, I worked with the noble Lord, Lord Bowness, on the issue of protocol 36 and the opt-out and opt-in, in which the European arrest warrant was the jewel in the crown, she gave me a lot of helpful advice from her then position on the Justice Committee of the European Parliament.

This House has been much involved. I believe it was the report produced by the Joint Committee that the noble Lord, Lord Bowness, and I chaired, endorsed by the EU Select Committee, which marshalled the evidence that showed just how crucial the European arrest warrant is to law enforcement in this country and thus to our internal security, and which gradually helped to convince an initially sceptical Home Secretary in the coalition Government, one Theresa May, that it was in the national interest to retain the European arrest warrant in operation here even if one had, as we then did, the right to opt out of it. Apparently, that remains the view of the present Government, faced with the prospect of Brexit, and that is welcome indeed. Late converts are often the most convincing of advocates.

Today’s debate on the report of the EU Select Committee on judicial oversight of the arrest warrant, should Brexit take place, has been excellently introduced by my noble friend Lord Jay. It is remarkably timely, as negotiations are about to get under way in Brussels tomorrow, as I understand it, which will require this issue to be addressed. It is also timely because judicial oversight is one of the most sensitive and knotty issues that we will have to resolve if the operation of the arrest warrant is to survive Brexit at all. It is sensitive, above all, as several noble Lords have said, because it will involve not only disputes between Governments but the rights of individuals to have recourse to a judicial procedure if they wish to contest a warrant.

Behind and underlying today’s debate, it is important to remember, as has been stated, that if we leave without a deal, the European arrest warrant will simply cease to exist on that day. There is no plan B available here, as there is, for example, for trade in goods where, as we all know, there is the fallback of World Trade Organization rules. There is nothing for extradition other than a long, agonising effort to negotiate bilateral extradition rules that would, as the evidence we took in 2013-14 showed, replace an effective and rapid system with one that was slower, more costly and less effective.

Remember the years it took us to extradite from this country the terrorist who bombed the Paris Metro. Remember the fugitives from our justice system who lived in the style to which they were accustomed in the south of Spain, and the deeply politicised procedures that occurred when any attempt had to be made to bring terrorists in Ireland to justice. My noble friend Lord Jay spoke at some length about that so I will not go into detail, but it is a very important aspect of this issue. When the Banquo’s ghost of no deal flits through this Chamber, as it will, probably quite a few times, during 2018, I hope that those who are talking about it will just remember some of these facts.

The Government’s response to this report seems reasonably satisfactory as far as it goes, but frankly it does not go terribly far. One point on which I would be grateful if the Minister would speak is the following. On the standstill arrangements that the Government are about to start negotiating, which will follow immediately after our exit and will fill about two years after we leave, they seem to assume that this will automatically preserve the arrest warrant during that period. Will the Minister say whether that view is shared by the Commission? The many years it has taken to extend the European arrest warrant to Norway and Iceland, both third countries, seems to cast some doubt on that because, after March 2019, we too will be a third country.

The criticism of the Government’s response for not going very far relates, above all, to the lack of specificity on the dispute settlement procedures that we could contemplate. There are a lot of words but not much substance, as the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, brought out. Why are the Government not prepared to say straightaway some of the approaches they may be prepared to contemplate? We have heard about the EFTA Court with a British judge sitting in that court. Could that be an acceptable route to follow? Perhaps the Minister can say whether there are acceptable routes, and if so, what they are. The excuse that we do not want to reveal our hand is really wearing a little thin, as the clock ticks on. In this context, I have to say that I suspect very strongly that the Government are more concerned to conceal their hand from their own supporters, nurtured for many months on a diet of the demonisation of the European Court of Justice than they are to conceal it from their negotiating partners in Brussels. That cannot continue much longer.

Complex this issue may be, but there are matters of major importance at stake. I wish the Government well in their negotiations in this area. It is in all our interests that they succeed in preserving the European arrest warrant system from damage or impairment. Only those who believe in Brexit at any cost, as an article of faith, not a matter of choice, can think otherwise. The disappearance of the European arrest warrant system will be to lose control, not to take it back.

Brexit and the EU Budget (EUC Report)

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

Thursday 6th April 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow my noble friend Lord Butler. I am even more delighted that, unlike him, I will address the vexed legal issue, because that avoids a situation in which we might disagree, which we seldom do.

I should begin by declaring an interest: over many years of my professional career, I struggled with the intricacies of the EU budget: during our own accession negotiations in 1970-72, when this issue was at their heart, and then during the late Lady Thatcher’s five-year- long battle to secure and entrench a two-thirds rebate on our net contribution—that was from 1979 to 1984, when I was her principal Foreign and Commonwealth Office adviser. In the negotiations of what was subsequently called the Delors package, in 1987-88, when for the first time an overall framework for EU spending priorities and policies began to take shape, I was the permanent representative to the European Union. So I bear the scars of these endeavours and I did acquire, I think, some familiarity with the subject of the report we are debating today.

The report before the House is a valuable one, in my view, and I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, on having chaired the committee during its production. It has much useful material and detail about the issues that will confront our negotiators during the negotiations that are about to take place. For the most part, with one exception which I will return to in a minute, I have no hesitation in endorsing it as a genuinely useful background brief on a subject that will inevitably come up before this House again and again as these negotiations progress.

What lessons do I draw from my experience negotiating on budgetary matters in the European Union? First, I suggest that you should never think that you know enough about this subject to allow you to make sweeping assertions about it in advance. Just do not do that. If you do, all too often a black hole will open under your feet as soon as you have done it and you will have to revise everything you have said. When I heard a former Minister of the Crown—a Minister who was actually responsible for the largest spending department in the UK, Mr Iain Duncan Smith—musing that perhaps the European Union would end up owing us money, I could barely avoid grimacing at his woeful ignorance.

Secondly, do not establish in advance, and do not let anyone know, what overall figure you might settle for. Lady Thatcher never did that and she was right not to. You must retain a degree of flexibility. Then, never say that no deal is better than a bad deal. Lady Thatcher also never said that. I had hoped that the Government had stopped saying it when it went missing from the letter to Donald Tusk, but, alas, it then popped up within a week in the White Paper on the repeal Bill. If you want the other side to move their figures, they have to believe that if they do so, you might strike a deal with them. If you start saying that you are not going to strike a deal with them, they will not move.

It follows from what I have just said that I believe that the Commission has already made one fundamental and egregious error by allowing an unsubstantiated figure of €60 billion to slip into the public domain. I believe that it will come to regret it, because that will not be the outcome, but also because the only way to reach any agreed settlement is for both parties to the negotiations to work their way, painfully and painstakingly, through the detailed components of any overall figure. That is the work of the coming months; it cannot be done in advance, unilaterally, by one of the parties to the negotiations.

Now for my beef, which is paragraph 135 of the report. I do not believe that the committee should have accepted so uncritically and endorsed the legal opinion that in the absence of any deal the United Kingdom would have no financial obligations to the European Union. To put it mildly, that is only one legal opinion among many. It could only be settled in a court of law and it would be exceptionally unwise, in my view, if the Government went down that road, because the collateral damage to the United Kingdom from doing so—economic damage, trade damage and political damage—would be massive. That is, no doubt, why the Government are so coy about telling us what the consequences of leaving without a deal might possibly be. Unfortunately, this conclusion—the one in the report about the legal liability—is all too likely to encourage those of the Government’s supporters who are, in any case, showing many signs of wishing to leave without a deal to believe that they have a “get out of jail free” card. They do not; this would be a “get out of jail very expensively” card. I am glad that the Government show no signs of being tempted to go down that road. The Tusk letter certainly implied that they do not wish to do so.

We in this House surely need to ensure that that distinctly contentious and dubious legal opinion is not available to be hung around the neck of the Government, like the dead albatross around the neck of the Ancient Mariner, when the Government return one day, as we must hope they will, with an agreement for us to consider and approve. How it can best be done that the House does not continue to support that legal opinion I leave to the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, who may perhaps take a shot at it—she tiptoed up to it in her introduction—when she replies at the end of this debate. I do not believe that we should either credit it or allow it to stand.

Higher Education and Research Bill

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

Report: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 13th March 2017 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

150: After Clause 85, insert the following new Clause—
“Students and academic staff at higher education providers
(1) The Secretary of State has a duty to encourage international students to attend higher education providers covered by this Act, and UKRI must take every possible opportunity to encourage and facilitate the maximum co-operation between British higher education and research establishments and those based outside the UK, in particular with projects and programmes funded by the European Union.(2) The Secretary of State shall ensure that no student, either undergraduate or postgraduate, who has received an offer to study at such a higher education provider, be treated for public policy purposes as a long term migrant to the UK, for the duration of their studies at such an establishment.(3) Persons, who are not British citizens, who receive an offer to study as an undergraduate or postgraduate, or who receive an offer of employment as a member of academic staff at a higher education provider, shall not, in respect of that course of study, or that employment, be subject to more restrictive immigration controls or conditions than were in force for a person in their position on the day on which this Act was passed.”

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, Amendment 150 is in my name and those of the noble Baronesses, Lady Royall of Blaisdon and Lady Garden of Frognal, and of the noble Lord, Lord Patten of Barnes, whose absence from the Chamber today, due to a health problem, both he and I deeply regret. When we debated these issues relating to overseas students, academic staff and global research co-operation in Committee, there were four amendments in my name. It has now been possible to telescope them into one, Amendment 150, which we are discussing now.

In summary, the amendment, first, places a duty on the Secretary of State to encourage overseas students to come here for their higher education. Secondly, it urges UKRI, the new organisation co-ordinating research, to encourage and facilitate the maximum international research co-operation, in particular with EU projects and programmes, which may be less easy to do after Brexit than it has been as a full member—which we still are. Thirdly, it seeks to put an end to the policy of treating students for public policy purposes as long-term economic migrants. This subject has been debated many times in the House without anyone, except the lonely person on the ministerial Bench, expressing a contrary view. Fourthly, it seeks to ensure that no further restrictive immigration rules, beyond those that currently exist, are placed on undergraduate and postgraduate students with the offer of a place to study here, or on academic staff with an offer of employment. I underline the word “offer” because it is not intended that they should have free movement rights to come here and look for these things; they would need to have the offer.

--- Later in debate ---

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

My Lords, for the second time I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and to my noble friend Lord Lucas for providing your Lordships with an opportunity to discuss the issue of international students. I also send my best wishes to my noble friend Lord Patten, who cannot be with us today. I say at the outset I am left in no doubt about the passions expressed in this debate by noble Lords around the Chamber. As I have previously indicated—and as the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, indicated—we have indeed said this before. But I will say it again so that the House is in no doubt. The Government very much welcome the contribution that international students and academics make to the United Kingdom’s higher education and research sectors and we have sought to nurture and encourage that.

I will deal first with the amendment from my noble friend Lord Lucas. I entirely share its goal of ensuring maximum transparency. I am pleased to say that there is already a wealth of information in the public domain about the contribution of international students. Provisions in the Bill will add to this. As I have previously indicated, the Bill already includes provisions requiring the Office for Students to monitor and report on the financial health of higher education providers. This can be done only if the OfS understands the types of students and the income they bring to the sector. Clause 9(1)(b) requires all registered providers to give the OfS such information as it needs to perform its functions. This will ensure that the OfS has the power to gather the information it considers it requires on international student numbers.

Furthermore, the Higher Education Statistics Agency already publishes detailed information about international student numbers, along with a breakdown of the countries they are travelling from. We envisage that these arrangements will continue. This amendment would also require information about the proportions of visas granted when set against the total number of applications submitted by each institution. The Home Office already publishes a breakdown of tier 4 visa applications, including the number granted and the number refused.

As I explained in Committee, I do not support providing this information broken down by institution. If there is an institution which, for any reason, has seen its visa refusal rate rise, that does not necessarily make it a failing institution. Provided that it passes the Home Office’s basic compliance assessment, and there are no other compliance issues, no action will be taken against it by the Home Office. But I am sure that the institution concerned would want to make any changes to its system that it deemed appropriate out of the public spotlight. I dare say that any institution that finds itself in that position would support the Government’s position on this.

My noble friend and I both support transparency and the publication of as much information as possible. Much of the information that he seeks is already available and published, and the Bill will strengthen those arrangements. There are small elements of his amendment where, for the reasons of practicality or commercial confidentiality that I have given, I would not favour publication of the data in question. However, those cases are very much the exception, and I can assure my noble friend that the information in which he is interested will be collected and published for all to see.

I turn now to the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Hannay. These topics, as the House will know, were covered at some length in Committee and I do not propose to repeat all that I said then. However, it is important that I put on record again that there is no limit on the number of genuine international students whom educational institutions in the UK can recruit. I make no apology for repeating that. Equally importantly, the Government have no plans to limit any institution’s ability to recruit international students. Likewise, as recently emphasised by the Prime Minister, the Government are committed to ensuring that the UK continues to be one of the best places in the world for science and innovation.

I previously pointed out that the United Kingdom has a very competitive offer when compared to other major recruiters of international students, whether you look at speed of visa processing, proportion of successful applications, work rights during study or post study opportunities. While, of course, there is no room for complacency, the United Kingdom continues to be the world’s second most popular destination for international students and we have welcomed more than 170,000 international students to the UK for the sixth year running.

The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, spoke eloquently, backed up by statistics, about the importance of overseas students to the UK. We continue to look for ways to promote the UK as an attractive place to come to study and we have a very generous offer for international academics who want to come to work in UK universities. The Chancellor’s recent Budget acknowledged that the continued strength of UK research and innovation depends on access to world-class skills, ideas and talent. It set out how the UK is investing in our industries of the future and that the Government have committed to invest more than £100 million over the next four years to attract the brightest minds to the UK. This will help maintain the UK’s position as a world leader in science and research. It includes £50 million ring-fenced for fellowship programmes to attract global talent and more than £50 million from existing international funds to support fellowships that attract researchers to the UK from emerging research powerhouses such as India, China, Brazil and Mexico.

In the tier 4 visa pilot, four universities are involved in a trial which involves less paperwork surrounding applications and a longer period of post-study leave. The noble Lord, Lord Bradley, mentioned a similar issue. This is an excellent example of taking sensible steps to try to ensure that the UK is as welcoming as possible for international students. It covers exactly the ground in the first limb of the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Hannay. I do not believe that a general statutory duty, which would be impossible to measure and bound to give rise to litigation, is the way forward here. The noble Lord, Lord Green, stated that these were not matters appropriate for legislation.

I turn now to the second part of the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, which seeks to stop students being treated as long-term migrants. Incidentally, I have noticed that the noble Lord has moved from the description of “economic migrant” in his amendment in Committee to “long term migrant” now. However, I fear that, whatever the terminology, the difficulties with what he proposes remain the same.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

I am sorry to disappoint the noble Viscount, but the reason I changed the wording was because he asked me to in Committee. I think a word of thanks might be in order.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

I do not believe that was made clear in the noble Lord’s speech, but of course I thank him for that.

A “long term migrant” is defined by the United Nations and the OECD as someone who moves to another country for a period of more than a year. That is the definition that the Office for National Statistics, the UK’s independent statistical authority, chooses to follow. As such, virtually all of those who come to the UK on work visas are long-term migrants. These are people who, like students, come for a time-limited period and intend to return home at the end of their visa.

I remind your Lordships of the key features of our work visa regime. People are issued with time-limited visas, which specify the terms on which they can come, including their right to work and whether they can bring dependants. On the expiry of their visa, they are expected to return home. All of these are equally important features of the visa regime for international students. As a result of this amendment, we could potentially be unable to apply basic visa checks, such as pre-issue security checks, or impose conditions, such as the right to work or a time limit, on a student visa. I am sure your Lordships will see why this is not a sensible approach.

The final part of the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, would prevent any more restrictive conditions being applied to international students and academics than currently exist. I pointed out in Committee the difficulty that could be created if there were changes to Immigration Rules that everybody agreed were desirable but could be seen as more restrictive. The noble Lord’s suggestion was that, in such circumstances, there should be further primary legislation, but I remind your Lordships that Immigration Rules are already laid before Parliament and can be debated, if appropriate. That seems to me the best way to accommodate those minor changes to our immigration system that are, from time to time, required and a more proportionate way of dealing with them than fresh primary legislation.

The effect of this part of the amendment would also mean that no future changes could be made to the rules as they relate to citizens of the European Union and therefore set in stone in perpetuity free movement rights for EU students and academics. As your Lordships know, we have indicated that future arrangements for students and academics will be subject to negotiation with the EU and need to be considered in the round, rather than that a particular approach be written into legislation now.

International students consume services while they are here, so it is right that, in line with international norms, they feature in net migration statistics. I reassure your Lordships that, as I have explained, that has not led, and will not lead, to the Government seeking to cap numbers or restrict institutions’ ability to continue to attract students from around the world. The Government want our world-class institutions to thrive and prosper. International students and academics will always be welcome in the UK. However, I do not believe that we can pass an amendment which would be likely to make operation of the visa system impossible.

Before I invite the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment, I want to respond to a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, who said that a report is held by the Home Office showing that only 1% of students overstay. I am afraid that we do not recognise that 1% figure, which was cited in the media. Over time, the data obtained through exit checks will contribute to the statistical picture and the ONS data on net migration figures, but it is too early to draw conclusions. I ask the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

My Lords, this has been a most interesting debate, and I would like to thank all those who participated in it with splendid brevity—I think that we have beaten some of the records for having brisk, clear interventions. I find enormously heartening the support from all quarters of the House for this amendment. It really is a great place to be when one can get a confluence around the House such as we have had today when discussing legislation. That is splendid.

There is of course one exception: the noble Lord, Lord Green, who has to be thanked for being the grit in the oyster which I hope will shortly produce a pearl. I will not bother to take on his arguments, because the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, did it far better than I can, except to say that if he really believes that there is a clear separation between policy and legislation, he has led a very sheltered life. I do not know what we have been doing for the past five weeks if we have not been trying to make policy. I think that it is the Government’s intention to make policy, so here is another bit of policy. The time has come now to test the opinion of the House.

Soft Power and the UK’s Influence (Select Committee Report)

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

Tuesday 10th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, it would be pretty justifiable to complain rather vigorously that it should have taken so long to bring forward this important report and the Government’s response to it for debate on the Floor of the House. The fact that we are debating it in the final weeks of the Session after the Session in which it was tabled surely tells us something about the adequacy or inadequacy of our procedures for allotting priorities. The only off-setting benefit is—here I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Howell—that the intervening events have brought many of the findings of this excellent report into sharper focus and given them greater urgency. The background now is not so much one of a Britain that prides itself on punching above its weight as of a Britain that is beginning to punch well below its weight. This is the view of a number of recent reports from committees in the other place and many distinguished commentators; I share that view. That should be, I fear, a worrying coda for the outgoing Government and an alarm call for whoever takes office after the election on 7 May.

The report, which was so skilfully chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Howell, and so eloquently introduced by him this afternoon, deserves much praise. It has taken the concept of soft power, first identified and defined as such not all that long ago by Professor Joseph Nye of Harvard University, and disassembled that concept to examine its component parts so far as this country is concerned. It has done so with commendable thoroughness and, in doing so, it has avoided falling into the trap of seeming to argue that soft power can in some way replace or compensate for the absence or inadequacy of hard power. It cannot do that. A country’s soft power and its hard power are indissolubly linked, so in debating Britain’s soft power today we must not lose sight of the crucial need for important decisions to be taken early in the next Parliament on Britain’s hard power resources—on Trident replacement, equipment and the size of our Armed Forces—which will affect our soft power, too. If we continue to shrink those resources, we shall as a country have less influence over events. When all is said and done, effective national influence is the combination of soft and hard power.

The report’s identification of our main soft power assets is comprehensive and compelling. I would put the BBC World Service right up there at the front of the assets; I wish that I was more confident than I am that it will be sustained there. The decision to switch the World Service’s funding from the Government to the licence fee was, let us face it, a gamble, and it is too soon to say whether it will prove a successful one. However, there should surely be some ring-fencing of the resources available to the World Service within the BBC’s assets and some clear government involvement in defining the World Service’s strategy, though not its operations. This issue needs to be looked at again in the context of the next charter review in 2016. It is no coincidence that radio, television and digital communications bulk so large in other Governments’ soft power strategies. If you want an example, you could look at RT, although admittedly it owes more to Dr Goebbels than to Lord Reith. We need to bear that example in mind when we consider how adequate the resources for the World Service are.

There is then the higher education sector, the significance of which as a soft power asset continues to grow. Not only are our universities one of our most successful sources of invisible exports; they are creating soft power for Britain for many decades ahead. Who doubts that those overseas students who flock to our universities will carry with them, through their professional lives, values and links that will be of benefit to this country? Yet the Government, by clinging obstinately to a net migration target that includes students as its largest component, and by piling new costs and visa complexities on to those students, are, for all their protestations to the contrary, putting that at risk. It is surely high time that all the main parties stopped regarding and targeting students as economic migrants, as this report rightly recommends.

The Diplomatic Service continues to be squeezed in successive rounds of spending cuts, which is surely a false economy. The sums involved are small, but over time the soft power losses will be real—all the more so if we continue to put disproportionate emphasis on what our overseas posts can reasonably be expected to do in trade and investment at the cost of their ability to be our eyes, ears and interpreter of events in an ever more rapidly changing world. A purely transactional, mercantilist approach to foreign policy is not likely to be a winning formula.

My one major criticism of the report relates to its handling of the European Union dimension in our soft power. It underestimates that dimension. In many areas of external policy—in trade and the environment, to give just two examples—the EU dimension is our soft power. If we had to do without that dimension following an in/out referendum that supported our withdrawal from the EU, we would have to start from scratch. We would be a bit player in a complex world. My experience in the closing stages of the Kennedy round in the 1960s, which was the last occasion when Britain negotiated separately in a major trade round, does not encourage an optimistic view of how much influence we would have.

An odd view that we should aspire to have a role distinct from a collective EU one has also crept into the report, but collective EU endeavours have to be agreed by us in the first place. How can we hope to benefit or be trusted if we first agree to the EU’s collective role and then strike out on our own? I was glad to see that the Government’s response to the report declined to sup from that poisoned chalice.

I do not wish to end on a critical note. I agree wholeheartedly with the report’s recommendations that the Government need to report regularly to Parliament on Britain’s soft power, and that both Houses need to examine and debate such reports and express their views. I hope that the Minister, when he replies to the debate, will undertake that these recommendations will be taken forward and responded to after the election.

Israel and Palestine

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

Thursday 5th March 2015 Grand Committee

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, I shall necessarily speak in telegraph-ese in this absurdly truncated but remarkably timely debate, for which I thank my noble friend Lord Luce. I will make four salient points.

First, it is frequently asserted that the two-state solution is dead or dying. I disagree. No one has yet put forward a viable alternative to it that has any chance of assuring Israel’s future security, the rights of the Palestinian people and the peace of Israel’s Arab neighbours. The international community needs to persevere with that approach, however unpropitious the circumstances.

Secondly, over many decades I have in good faith argued with my Arab friends that they should give absolute priority to the peace process and not pursue status issues which might damage the prospects for such negotiations. I no longer hold that view. The Netanyahu Government have tested it to destruction by their policy of expanding settlements and by their abuse of their undoubted right to self-defence through disproportionate use of force in Gaza. I believe that Britain should support, not just abstain on, the recognition of Palestine’s status. It is the only viable way of promoting the legal, practical and political case for a two-state solution.

Thirdly, Mr Netanyahu has, with the help of Republicans who should know better, ridden roughshod over every convention of international diplomacy by pursuing his election campaign in an overseas legislature. I shall reciprocate and say that I hope that the Israeli people, in their wisdom, in this month’s election will choose a new Prime Minister and a new Government who will be ready to revive the negotiating process.

Fourthly, I trust that whatever the outcome of those elections, and whatever the outcome of our elections, our Government will work tirelessly with our European partners and the US to revive the peace process and will not be discouraged by all the difficulties which will inevitably arise. To neglect this issue or to relegate it to the “too difficult” slot would be to court a subsequent painful reminder that the Middle East will never be at peace without a solution to the problem of Palestine.

Tehran: British Embassy

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

Monday 2nd March 2015 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government when they intend that the chargé d’affaires to Iran should be operating from a reopened British embassy in Tehran.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, the Government remain committed to reopening the British embassy in Tehran once we have resolved the outstanding steps required to bring the embassy back to a functional level and conclude the arrangements for re-establishing a visa service in Tehran. We are in ongoing discussion with the Iranian Government to identify solutions for both sides.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that somewhat opaque reply. Do the Government agree that the case for establishing, on a continuing basis, a voice and a presence in Tehran is more compelling than it has ever been in the light of the ongoing negotiations on nuclear matters, whichever way they come out? Either they will be successful, in which case they will probably lead to a loosening of sanctions and considerable commercial opportunities for British businesses, with which they will need help, or Tehran will become the centre of one of the most dangerous world situations. We surely need to be there, raising our voice and reporting about what is going on.

Georgia

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

Wednesday 14th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, a number of Georgian Ministers and officials visited Britain in late November for a dialogue—the Wardrop dialogue—chaired by the Minister for Europe. It included the Georgian ambassador-at-large for human rights. Therefore, we and other Governments are engaged in an active dialogue and we are offering all assistance that we can provide. Unfortunately, one of the factors that one has to be aware of in Georgia is that although we are deeply uneasy about what appear to be political prosecutions of members of the former Government, these are actually quite popular within Georgia itself, as far as one can see from public opinion.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, does the Minister recognise that there is a long and bad story in Georgia, and it needs help to get out of it? The present Government were voted into office because of the revulsion of Georgians at the treatment in jail of prisoners by the previous Government, many of whose members—and it is right that we should ensure this—are now being treated properly under the rule of law. But it is a long story and the country is under considerable pressure, like some others in the former Soviet Union, and it needs our help as well as a bit of chivvying.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we are all aware of the very delicate circumstances in which Georgia has to operate, with two regions that have broken away and are under, effectively, a close relationship with Russia. We are also aware that it is unusual in that Mr Ivanishvili, the richest man in Georgia, has close but now unofficial relationships with the current Government. Georgia is a very fragile democracy and we are doing all we can to provide help.

National Parliaments (EUC Report)

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

Monday 15th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, it is customary in these debates to applaud their timeliness. I am afraid, unfortunately, that this debate is not timely. It is behind time by quite a long way. It should not have taken the Government three months, as opposed to the regulation two months, to reply to the report, although clearly the imminence of a parliamentary recess has acted as a magnetic pull. It should not have taken this House nine months to organise a debate on a report that can legitimately be described as one of the most significant and potentially consequential to be issued in recent years. It owed much to the skill and persuasiveness of the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, whose admirable introduction to the debate we have just heard and whose leadership I particularly appreciated when I served on the committee as this report was being prepared.

The noble Lord, Lord Boswell, set out some of the main recommendations of our report, which represent a wide-ranging menu of reforms to the role of national parliaments in holding their Governments to account and in shaping EU legislation. Those are the two broad thrusts of the role of national parliaments and there is no need to repeat what he said. The noble Lord, Lord Davies, suggested that asking the new Commission to take it as part of its duty to deal with national parliaments was nugatory and impossible to fulfil. In fact, with video conferencing and other such techniques, it is possible to do that with reasonable economy of time.

In the previous Commission, there were still commissioners who would openly say, in a quite aggressive way, that they had no responsibility at all to national parliaments: their sole responsibility was towards the European Parliament. That is not a correct interpretation of the Lisbon treaty, which gives them a distinct role. People who held those views would say: “National parliaments, you look after your own Governments; you do not have any control or influence over the Commission”. We have to break down those barriers. The recommendation, which was contained in the report and which I suspect the new Commission, with Vice-President Timmermans, is going to honour very considerably, was worth making.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. I am sure that he will recall that I said that if you can get this particular proposal, which was made in the report, so much the better. I personally thought that it was slightly unrealistic. However, my proposal of a rule that each commissioner should meet on a regular basis, at least once a year, with the members of the departmental select committees or commissions in the national parliaments on his subject of responsibility, would directly address the point just made by the noble Lord. It is important that commissioners should formally recognise a role for national parliaments and make sure that they take them seriously.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

If I may say so, that is an addition to but not a substitute for the recommendation we made. It is important, when one of the sub-committees of your Lordships’ House is preparing a report on a particular issue, that it takes evidence from the commissioner responsible at that time, not just once a year. It is normally possible to do this and co-operation is pretty good, on the whole. However, there have been occasions when it has not been and we suggested that it should never be that way again.

Suffice it to say that we did not need to go back to first principles when we started to write this report, because the Lisbon treaty settled once and for all that national parliaments have a role to play in shaping European legislation. They have a collective role to play through such procedures as the yellow card. We did not really have to argue that case: we just took it from there.

However, the evidence we took established that that role—which has existed since the Lisbon treaty came into force in 2009—was not being exercised very effectively, so far, and that reforms were needed if it was to be so exercised. That is not some British Eurosceptic fad; it is the view of many other national parliaments which we consulted when we were compiling our report. In the years to come, strengthening the role of national Parliaments needs to be one part of any positive reform agenda worthy of the name. I notice that both the Government, in their response to our report, and the European Council itself, in the strategic agenda for the next five years, refer to the need for that role to be developed.

I do not intend to dwell long on the Government's response to our report, which was broadly very satisfactory and supportive. However, one point requires comment. The noble Baroness, Lady Quin, referred to it and I shall do likewise, but in slightly less polite terms. In their response to paragraph 15 of our report, the Government stated flatly that national parliaments were,

“the main source of democratic legitimacy and accountability in the EU”.

That is a pretty odd remark to make, 35 years after the European Parliament became directly elected and when it has wide-ranging powers of co-decision with the Council on EU legislation. Tactically, it was aberrant to say this, since nothing is more likely to frustrate any effort to reform the role of national parliaments than it becoming a food fight between them and the European Parliament. Yes, “a main source”—national parliaments are that—but not “the main source”, which is surely getting it a bit wrong. There is no good argument that cannot be spoiled by exaggeration.

The Commission’s response to our report is a good deal less satisfactory than that of the Government and falls far short of what is needed. Fortunately, that response was made by the outgoing Barroso Commission and not the Commission that is now in office. We can therefore hope that the first Vice-President of the new Commission—Frans Timmermans, whose name has been mentioned several times in the debate and who is responsible for relationships with national parliaments—will take a more enlightened and flexible view as matters move forward.

It simply is not good enough to say, flatly, as the Commission did, that it would require treaty change to allow national parliaments more than eight weeks to submit reasoned opinions under the yellow card procedure. It is not good enough to say that to allow those reasoned opinions to contain consideration of the proportionality of the Commission's proposals is not possible without treaty change. The Commission could perfectly well take political decisions to accommodate both those reforms. Let us hope that it can be persuaded to do so.

Nor is it good enough for the Commission to duck—as it did in its response—our recommendation that it should commit itself to withdrawing or substantially amending any proposal that actually triggered a yellow card. The outgoing Commission’s response to the yellow card triggered by its proposal for a European public prosecutor’s office has been referred to already in this debate. It was, frankly, scandalously inept, amounting simply to saying that 14 national parliaments had got it wrong and the Commission, as usual, had got it right. That sort of approach simply will not do.

When the Minister replies to this debate, I hope that he will concentrate not so much on the Government’s response to our report—after all, if we have taken the trouble to read Command 8913, we know what that is—but rather on what the Government are going to do about the many ideas in the report with which they say they are in agreement. What contacts have the Government had so far with other member states about the need for these reforms? What progress have they made towards building coalitions to carry them forward? What dealings have they had with the incoming Commission to persuade it to take a more flexible approach than that of its predecessors?

Anyone reading the recent speeches by the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary could be forgiven for thinking that this part of the reform—the issue of powers for national parliaments—was as evanescent as the smile on the Cheshire Cat. If so, that would be a major error. If we are to make progress, we surely need a broad-based, positive reform agenda that takes account of the views of all member states—not one that is tailor-made to the pressures from the UK Independence Party, which, in any case, is not the slightest bit interested in anything that leaves the UK as a member of a reformed European Union—and a reformed EU is, after all, the Government’s proclaimed objective. I hope that the Minister can give us a feel for the answers to those questions.

Sri Lanka

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

Monday 24th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the British Government and others are talking about the best way in which to make sure that there is effective monitoring of the elections. We will of course be raising such issues with the Sri Lankan Government.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, can the Minister say what progress is being made with the United Nations Human Rights Council inquiry into the behaviour of all parties, including the Tamil Tigers, and if the Government of Sri Lanka are giving any signs of co-operation with that at all?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

As the noble Lord is aware, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has just reported that he is not receiving the co-operation which he needs from the Sri Lankan Government.

European Union Committee: Report on 2013-14 (EUC Report)

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

Thursday 24th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, annual reports such as the one we are debating today are all too easily dismissed as routine matters going over familiar ground. In this case at least, that would be a considerable error because the report we are considering reveals that your Lordships’ EU Select Committee has been breaking some interesting new ground, and has produced a report on the role of national parliaments in the shaping of EU policies and legislation which addresses an issue of major topical concern right across Europe and provides elements for reform that could be of real value in months and years ahead.

I begin by paying tribute to our chair, the noble Lord, Lord Boswell of Aynho, whose patient and perceptive leadership contributed so much to the work of the committee in the period we are discussing, and to my former colleagues on the committee, from which I stood down in May.

I shall say a short word about the new ground. We have all become aware through our work on EU issues that too often the valuable scrutiny work of national parliaments comes too late to have much influence on the final outcome. Too frequently, the proposals on which we comment are pretty well set in concrete by the time our views are known. To be fair to the Commission—not an entirely fashionable thing to be on this side of the channel—it has been saying for some time that it wishes that national parliaments would intervene more upstream of it making formal proposals. Vice-President Šefcovic said that to COSAC last autumn. We agree and we have begun to do that, for example, in a report that my sub-committee produced on the strategic objectives for justice and home affairs, which we debated on 22 July to reasonably good effect, since the decisions reached by the European Council on 27 June bore a striking resemblance to the recommendations that we made. Another example of new ground being broken is instances where we question whether the European Union is taking seriously a really important Europe-wide challenge. In this case, I refer to the report on food waste, which the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, produced and to which she referred. Let us hope that all EU institutions will study that report with care and will draw some conclusions on how best to reduce that shameful waste.

I want to concentrate most of my remarks today on our report on the role of national parliaments, an issue that I am glad to say figured on the strategic agenda for the European Union’s next five years, which was adopted by the European Council on 27 June. It said that the credibility of the Union will benefit from greater involvement of national parliaments. That is precisely what we said in our report. Now they need to get down to it and do it. Our report contains a large menu of possible reforms to that effect, which would not require the complexities and pitfalls of treaty change. I will discuss a few examples.

First, there is the yellow card system, under which national parliaments can submit reasoned opinions that argue that a Commission proposal has not met the subsidiarity criteria in the treaty. That is clearly not working as well as it should. It is not hard to see why. The eight weeks provided for the submission of reasoned opinions is grossly inadequate—neither the Commission, the Parliament, nor the Council operates within such a short timeframe. Why on earth, then, do they think that national parliaments can and should? One of our suggestions is that the Commission should change the time limit to 12 or 16 weeks. That would enable national parliaments to consult each other and concert their views, which is virtually impossible under the present eight-week cut-off.

Secondly, there is clear evidence that the outgoing Commission has not been treating the yellow card procedure with respect and seriousness. The first time the yellow card was triggered over the Monti II proposal, the Commission withdrew its proposal but explicitly went out of its way to say that it was not doing so because the yellow card had been invoked. The second time it was triggered, over the proposed European Public Prosecutor’s Office, it resubmitted its proposal within three weeks, unchanged, and did not explain why it was doing so to the national parliaments, which had introduced reasoned opinions, until several months later. Presumably it took that time to work out why it had done what it had done within three weeks—not, frankly, a good way to handle things. It simply will not do. The new Commission, when it takes office in November, should make it clear that when a yellow card is triggered it will either withdraw the proposal or amend it substantially.

Thirdly, the Commission should make clear that it will, in future, accept that reasoned opinions can address the issue of the treaty-based principle of proportionality as well as the arguments about subsidiarity. The current distinction between the treatment of these two criteria is neither logical nor defensible.

There are plenty of other ideas in the menu we set out in our report on national parliaments: the possibility for national parliaments to initiate proposals—the so-called green card; ways in which COSAC could help national parliaments strengthen their scrutiny of draft EU legislation while respecting every parliament’s different procedures based on constitutional differences in each member state; the strengthening of links between national parliaments and the committees of the European Parliament, which often simultaneously consider the same Commission proposals; and the need for the new Commission to engage closely with national parliaments and be ready to give evidence to them.

The Government have certainly not hastened to respond to this report. They overran the two-month limit several times and were in fact two additional months behind earlier this week when they finally produced their response. Clearly, they did not find it easy to make up their mind. However, this issue of the role of national parliaments is a crucial part of the positive reform agenda which the EU as a whole needs to grasp and press forward. Perhaps the Minister when he replies to this debate will be able to throw some light on the Government’s thinking and how they intend to carry the matter forward. In any case, we will in due course be able to debate the matter fully on the basis of the EU Select Committee’s report on national parliaments and the Government’s somewhat belated response.

This evening, I will make only one remark about the Government’s response, which can perhaps be regarded as a taster for the full debate to come. In their introductory response, the Government stated flatly that,

“the real source of democratic legitimacy in the EU lies with national parliaments and national governments”.

Throwing down the gauntlet to the European Parliament in this way is tactically crass and strategically wrong. How on earth can one say that a parliament elected by universal suffrage is not a—I do not suggest it is “the”—real source of democratic legitimacy? Your Lordships’ Select Committee made no such claim. Indeed, we made it clear that in our view national parliaments and the European Parliament shared the task of shaping EU legislation. If the Government wish to ensure that any proposals they make for strengthening the role of national parliaments are dead on arrival, I can think of no better way of doing that than organising a food fight between national parliaments and the European Parliament. There is, after all, no good argument than cannot be spoiled by exaggeration.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

We all understand that that is part of the problem and the pressure, and we are doing our utmost to look at that as well. I also take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, that effective scrutiny necessitates the earliest possible engagement with developing areas of policy, looking at work programmes and strategic views.

I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, feels that the Government’s scrutiny performance has improved somewhat in the last year. It is one of those things on which we all have to maintain the pressure. Civil servants are always very busy and Ministers always have too many things in their in-tray, but we have to keep up the pressure on all that.

The noble Lord, Lord Bach, asked whether the Government’s evidence on the abuse of free movement rights could be shared with the House. Much of that is in the free movement of persons paper that was published on Tuesday. Having been very closely involved in negotiations over that paper, I might say that the evidence is not always entirely clear; that is part of the problem in discussing questions of free movement of persons and labour and the abuse of free movement rights. That is partly because we do not have exit controls in this country and partly because we do not collect all the central evidence. For example, I questioned at one stage an academic study that suggested that there were 40,000 British citizens receiving benefits in other states in the EU. That is an academic estimate, but nobody is entirely sure whether that is an exact figure. So there are many problems in addressing that very complicated issue.

The noble Earl, Lord Caithness, asked whether the UK had been diffident in its approach to the financial transaction tax. The Government have been very closely engaged with this issue since publication and, indeed, took a case to the European Court of Justice on that issue to raise the question of how far it would be appropriate for the European Union to move on that subject. We remain actively engaged.

The noble Lord, Lord Tugendhat, talked about the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. That will be a central but extremely difficult issue for the coming year; we know that there will be lobbies not just in France and elsewhere but in this country that will want to raise negative issues about TTIP. That is something that we will clearly have to follow.

May I say, as spokesperson for the Cabinet Office and therefore dealing with a lot of data sharing issues, that I would welcome the European Union Committee looking further at aspects of the digital single market as well as data sharing and data protection? Some months ago, I asked for a briefing within Whitehall on the digital single market and officials from five different departments came to brief me, demonstrating just how complicated an issue it is. After all, this is all one issue in a complex, multi-levelled set of issues for government that is driven by the speed of technological change. I am constantly struck by how much faster technology is taking us down the road to online, cross-border transactions than we previously understood. The digital single market is a major priority in the Government’s drive for EU reform and it is part of the extension of the single market to services, as services and manufacturing intertwine and overlap. It will be a difficult issue also in TTIP, as data regulation, the cloud and the role of the US service providers hit the issue of data protection.

I am conscious of the time. I hope that I have answered most of the issues, but I see that there are one or two questions still to come.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

Before the Minister sits down, I understand why he is in some difficulty in addressing the point that I raised about the claim that national parliaments are “the basis” for real legitimacy in the European Council, not in the European Union, not “a basis” for it. Of course he cannot take back the words that, alas, have been written in the response to the national parliament role report, but we are going to debate it again and I hope that he will report back to his colleagues the dangers they are taking if they turn the question of strengthening the role of national parliaments into a contest with the European Parliament. They will not get anywhere if they do that. It has to be pursued as a matter in which both national parliaments and the European Parliament have a role in assuring the democratic legitimacy.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I very much take that point. The new European Parliament is a rather more difficult body with which to co-operate than its predecessor, but I think it is extremely important nevertheless that we do co-operate. I am in the middle of making arrangements to go out myself with one or two others in September to talk to new Members of the European Parliament, British and others, with whom, of course, we must co-operate.