European Union Bill

Lord Lamont of Lerwick Excerpts

Monday 9th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

I am grateful for that intervention, but I must say to the noble Lord—I think that he will agree in principle—that it is a very bad excuse for a Government, when bringing forward legislation, to say, “This may be bad legislation with bad wording, but we copied it from a previous Government”. That is not the way that legislation should be brought forward in this or any other House. All proposed legislation should be justified on its own merits and on its own text; the Government of the day should be prepared to defend the texts that they bring forward and should not say simply that they are reproducing what may well be the errors of the past.

I move to the text before us. It would be useful to have on the record a clear statement from the Government of what this is intended to mean to Ministers. If the Act is passed, Ministers will need to know what scope they have for taking part in discussions. If the noble Lord says that they will be allowed to say, in the example that I quoted, “I personally am in favour of this, but I do not have support yet from my colleagues so I will take it back to them”, that would be useful to know. If they will be allowed to say, “The British Government are in favour of this in principle, but we need an Act of Parliament and a referendum”, that would be a very reasonable thing to say if this Act was passed. However, it is extremely important that we get this clear.

I will explain to the noble Lord why it is so important. There is an issue of good faith. We are parties to the treaty of Lisbon. The noble Lord probably voted for the treaty, and his noble friend Lord Howell probably did not. Nevertheless, we as a country are committed to the treaty of Lisbon, and we are therefore committed to the clauses of the treaty—including Article 31(3) of the TEU, which we will debate in a moment—which provide in certain circumstances for a decision by the Council to go to qualified majority voting to reach a decision. The treaty of Lisbon provides for these possibilities, but we are coming along with a proposed Act of Parliament—a Bill—that is designed to prevent Great Britain from ever being a party to mechanisms that we signed up to when we agreed to the treaty of Lisbon. If it appears that we are going to be censoring Ministers and saying, “You cannot take part in good faith in debates and discussion, you cannot have a normal exchange of views, you cannot make statements that you are in support of things and so forth”, this would constitute a determination to make sure that our contribution in the Council will be extremely negative and unproductive.

This is a matter of good faith and is about whether the Government—we had this discussion in another context during the debate on the Bill—want to bring about deliberately a degradation in the good relations between this country and our EU partners. I trust that they do not. The noble Lord, Lord Wallace, said on a number of occasions that they do not and that it was quite wrong for me to harbour that black suspicion. I hope that it is quite wrong of me, but it is therefore very important to see what kind of constraint will be imposed on Ministers. I am grateful for the noble Lord's intervention, which has gone some way to explaining the practical effect on a Minister of the Crown who takes part in the Council of Ministers. Anything further that he can add would be of great practical importance when Ministers find themselves in difficult situations in future discussions where they have to have regard to the Act, if it is an Act by that point.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

My Lords, when the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, moved his amendment, he was careful and modest enough to say that it was a probing amendment, following which it was possibly unwise for the noble Lord, Lord Davies, to go in feet first when it was explained to him that the legislation was repeating what had been in previous legislation—apart from the referendum—and say, “That does not excuse it because it is bad legislation”. However, all the arguments that he applied about lack of flexibility surely would have applied before if his arguments were right.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, understood what I said. I stand by it, will repeat it and will ask him whether seriously he disagrees with it. This House and any serious legislature or democratic assembly anywhere in the world should look at the text of Bills proposed to it on their merits. It is no excuse simply to say, “We are just repeating mindlessly some formula that already exists”, without being prepared to justify it.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

Yes, but the noble Lord's criticism might have been a little modified in the light of the explanation that the Minister gave, rather than being put forward in quite such an aggressive manner.

In an equally probing spirit—because I, too, would like to understand this—perhaps I might ask the Minister two questions. Is he saying, first, that there is a distinction between a draft decision and a full decision, and that a Minister could indicate an agreement in principle to a draft decision? That was what I understood happened when we debated the European financial stability mechanism—the first of the three bailout funds, if I may call them that, that were arranged—when my noble friend Lord Howell clarified a certain amount of confusion in the House. Some noble Lords thought that we were making a final decision; he made it clear that we were not, that Parliament would have to decide on the principle of the matter, and that there would be another debate later. If that is the correct example of how this operates, we can see that there would be plenty of time for flexibility and consideration.

Secondly, are the words “or otherwise support” meant to cover also a position where abstention on a decision occurs? Where there is a requirement for unanimity, abstention cannot stop a proposal going through. It may be that that, too, is covered by the words. I have seen the words of Mr Murphy that the Minister quoted, and I think that that was one of the points that he was making.

[Lord Blackwell]

My Lords, I oppose the amendment for the opposite reasons to those that the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, and others gave for promoting it. It is important that it is very clear that the UK Government are not enabled to support or enable moves to go forward in Europe that imply a treaty change or a substantive shift in competences, without it being very clear that the UK Government must have support in a referendum.

The issue for me is that if the words “or otherwise support” were removed from Clause 6(1), the only restriction would be on a Minister of the Crown voting in favour. As the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, said, there are many situations in which a vote may neither be required nor be part of the procedure. Simply by sitting still or abstaining, Ministers may enable something to happen that would have binding consequences for the UK. To remove the words “or otherwise support” would completely nullify the provision. The discussion has led me to wonder whether the wording goes far enough, or whether we need additional text stating “to otherwise support or allow by default” a decision to which the provision applies. I would like an assurance from the Minister that this will catch all those situations where abstention, sitting on the hands or complicity would enable decisions to move forward.

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[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Pearson. Unless I misheard again, the noble Lord did not end his remarks with a question, so I am not going to respond except to say that the Strasbourg court is, of course, elected by parliamentarians. I do not think that the Strasbourg court has anything to do with this discussion, which is about the European Court of Justice, but I am grateful for the words of apology from the noble Lord.

I turn to Amendment 30. Here in Clause 6 we are in a different part of the forest. We have abandoned treaty land and treaty amendment by any form, and now we are into decisions of various kinds and the mandatory referendum requirements for those decisions. By definition we have therefore left coalition agreement territory because we are not talking about treaties any more. We are now dealing with the 56 categories of decision on which a mandatory referendum could overturn an Act of Parliament. As the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, pointed out at the start of the Committee, that would be unprecedented. These referenda are entirely unnecessary because a Government, if they wished, could always choose to say no in the Council. The law requiring referenda is particularly unnecessary because, as the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, pointed out during the third day of debate, not having a reference in the Bill to a particular requirement for a referendum does not mean that a Government could not, on the day, choose to say that they wanted to have one. All this does is tie the Government’s hands, which of course some would want to do.

Why have we got into this curious mess in these extraordinarily detailed thickets—and we have not yet looked at Schedule 1 where mandatory requirements are to be imposed? I can think of only two rationales. The first was the one that the noble Lord, Lord Lamont of Lerwick, talked about in a different context during the third Committee day. It might be called the Odysseus rationale. We would have a British Minister, let us say the noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, sailing past Brussels and insisting that he be tied to the mast so that he cannot be lured by the siren voices with their seductive song. He wants to be able to say, “Look, guys, I have nothing against what you are saying, but I can’t possibly agree with you. If I did, we would have to have a referendum back home”. It is the wax in the ears and tied to the mast provision—the Odysseus provision. I think that it is very pusillanimous. I would have found it very hard to brief Mrs Thatcher, as Prime Minister, on this point. Mrs Thatcher thought that if you disagreed with something, you disagreed with it. You said no. You did not say, “I am terribly sorry. There is nothing much we can do about this because we would have to have a referendum and we do not want one”.

It is insulting to our negotiating partners to turn up tied to the mast. They expect to do serious business, but the Brits cannot do so because of this Act on the statute book. The Brits therefore cannot take part in negotiations. It will feed the temptation and tendency for people to do things in smaller groups without consulting us because we are such a bore.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

I am most grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. According to his argument, Ministers will be put in a position where they have to say, “I cannot agree because we will have to have a referendum”. Why is he assuming that a referendum cannot be won? Why is it not possible for a Minister to say, “I agree to the draft decision. We will put it to the people and we hope and intend to win”?

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard]

That is a fair question in relation to, say, the euro, which is the subject of Amendment 30. If we were to decide that we wished to join the euro, it would be totally reasonable for the Minister—I would like to see the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, in this role—to say to his ECOFIN colleagues, “We would now like to join the euro, but this is a big one and I am afraid that we will have to have a referendum on the issue”.

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[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, that it is a pity that so many of these amendments have been lumped together; it would have better if they had been somewhat disaggregated. We are talking more about Clause 6 than about Schedule 1, and whatever the objections in general to the Bill and the things listed in Schedule 1, I find it difficult to understand why people do not regard Clause 6 as eminently reasonable. That clause is about a substantial increase in competence and transfers of power.

All the areas listed are where Britain has special arrangements or opt-outs. It is true that they do not require treaty change but they are none the less significant and affect us in different ways, so, given the Bill, it is logical that they should be subject to the referendum provisions. Those issues include the euro, the European army that was referred to, border controls and the European public prosecutor. I listened to the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, with great respect, as I always do, but I think that the establishment of the European public prosecutor is actually a very big issue, one that would be suitable to have a referendum on. I shall say a bit about that in a minute.

An argument was put forward from the Benches opposite that in having Clause 6, which deals with the passerelles, we were going against the Lisbon treaty after it had been ratified. That is not really the case; although those passerelles exist and were in the treaty, they say that we “may” do this, not that we “will” do this. These are significant changes.

I may add that I am told that the Germans have altered their treatment of passerelles to give more say in any ratification of parliaments in future, so this does not go against the Lisbon treaty. In any case, the argument that the passerelles represent the will of Lisbon may sometimes be true, but sometimes passerelles were put in the treaty simply because countries could not agree; one group of countries wanted to go ahead faster while another group did not, so they decided to compromise and have a passerelle to leave the issue for a later date. I remember it being reported that one of the Finnish participants in the Lisbon treaty said, “The passerelles were where we failed, where we couldn’t agree”.

[Lord Dykes]

When my noble friend referred to the Germans, he would accept, wouldn’t he, that, like us and other member states, they are very keen to enhance the involvement of the national parliament in European decision-making at various different levels, including therefore making that process easier for the parliament to be involved in, but at the same time with the expectation in Germany, which is natural there, that the parliamentarians will be voting enthusiastically for any changes if they come to a vote? In the mean time, the basic law repeats the important clause on continued European integration.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

I think that it is common ground that we are all in favour of increased national involvement in treaty changes and changes in the competences and the power of the European Union. That is a point that the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, has gone out of his way to emphasise. That is common ground; the argument is about where there should be referenda. My argument is that, whatever the general arguments about the Bill, these provisions, particularly the European defence policy, the euro, our borders and the European public prosecutor are suitable projects on which to have a referendum.

I said that I had listened carefully to the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, and that I always do. I was with him on a committee that considered the European arrest warrant, and I was in a small minority in expressing strong reservations about it. Some of the arguments that were put forward then were, “Well, it’s going to apply only to a few criminals”, “It won’t apply to very many people”, and, “Why should people be worried about appearing in a court?”. Many of us would argue now, though, that it was a hugely significant transfer of powers that has now worked out in the way that it was intended to. There have been many examples of injustice, certainly several that are known to me personally, and it is something that I very much regret. I hope that we might return to that subject and amend the arrangements that exist.

Article 86 of the TFEU, which refers to the possibility of the public prosecutor, talks about,

“offences against the Union’s financial interests”.

Fair enough if we are talking about offences against the Union, as the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, has often emphasised, but one wonders in what ways those words might be stretched. One notices that subsection (4) says:

“The European Council may, at the same time or subsequently, adopt a decision amending paragraph 1 in order to extend the powers of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office to include serious crime having a cross-border dimension”.

I know that the noble Lord said that he was not in favour of that extension, but this is a big area and one that is suitable to give great consideration to. Peter Hain, Britain’s representative at the convention leading up to the constitution that never was, strongly opposed participation in the EPP. He said:

“Criminal prosecution should be essentially a national responsibility. Our national prosecutors must be accountable to national courts and ultimately to our national parliaments. The European Public Prosecutor would be accountable to neither”.

It is true that these are not treaty changes but they are big increases in competence, brought about through the passerelle, which we do not have to endorse. In ratifying Lisbon, we were not endorsing that we would automatically let these things go through. For that reason I am strongly against the amendment.

[Lord Goodhart]

The noble Lord is right to say that the European arrest warrant has not worked out as properly as it should have done or as we expected it to at the time. However, this matter wholly involves people who are concerned with international crime. How does the noble Lord see that it could operate to the damage of ordinary citizens of this country, who make up the vast majority of those who find themselves in court?

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[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

I am very sorry that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, is not here; he was here earlier. I read what he said the other day. If I have in any way misrepresented his views, I am sure he will correct me. I read that he was very firmly one of those in the previous Government who took the view that the best way of dealing with international crime was not by the creation of new international authorities but through co-operation between national authorities. That was his very firm view. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, for what he said about the European arrest warrant. I know he felt it should have been combined with a system of European bail, which would have made it very different.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

I want first to address some of the general points that have been made in this debate and then focus on Amendment 42, with which I thoroughly agree. I very much support the arguments of the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, on that. Several general points have been made. Some of this debate has been a bit of a Second Reading debate, which is a very good thing. These issues are extremely important and I accept that many of these amendments cut across the thrust of the Bill itself. They force the Government to explain exactly what their purposes are. That is a most important aspect of this evening’s proceedings. We are making some progress. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, for recognising that we on this side of the House are very much in favour of enhanced parliamentary scrutiny of European Union decisions. If the argument was about that, there would not be an argument. We would be pretty much in agreement and would have put the Bill to bed long ago. The issue is entirely about referenda, and whether it is sensible, practical and ever seriously intended to have referenda. It is important that, as a result of the proceedings of this Committee, we elucidate that point.

The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, said that he thought it was a sick joke—strong words, but justified—to suppose that the Bill would in any way enhance our relationship with our partners in the EU or enhance the British public’s support for our membership of the EU. I do not cast aspersions on the sincerity of any Member of this House. I am sure the people who say that they believe that the Bill will somehow enhance the British public’s understanding of and support for the European Union have genuinely persuaded themselves that that is the case. However, it is quite difficult to follow that argument, which is so obviously contrary to the historical facts. We all know what those are: Mr Cameron offered this Bill to his Eurosceptics as a sop. It was put to them as being a victory for the Conservative Party in the negotiations that led to the coalition agreement. Indeed, Mr Cameron and his Whips have been going around the Back Benches of the Tory party, as I know, saying, “You must be pleased with us now. We have at least brought forward this Bill, which stops any further growth in powers for the European Union and preserves parliamentary sovereignty”. That is an aspect we will come to later in the Bill. That is historical fact. That is how it has been presented and the way it happened. There is no question at all of anybody saying, “Let’s see what we can do to enhance the British public’s understanding of and support for membership of the Union”, and then coming up with this Bill. That is not how it occurred.

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[Lord Triesman]

It is terribly tempting to go into experiences of Swiss referenda in the cantons. Sadly for the House, I have some experience of them. That is what tells me that I should not retell it here because it is not exactly what the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, thinks it might be. I hope that the House is not misunderstanding my point, which is not that people are unable to grasp complex ideas or are uninterested in them. It is that, in general, I believe they have a sentiment which suggests that the really critical things should be put before them but that there is also a responsibility on parliamentarians to do a high level of detailed work and to get some of that work done.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

The noble Lord says that he has never been asked on the doorstep about Article 312(2). Of course not, but if he called it the European budget people would understand exactly what he was talking about. Is it not the case that subsection (5) refers to all these different provisions in the TFEU by their complicated numbers but they actually come down to about five or six simple areas that are perfectly comprehensible, like a European army, a public prosecutor and our borders? If the noble Lord thinks that it is appropriate to have a referendum on a complicated issue like the single currency, why can we not have one on the European army?

[Lord Triesman]

That may well be one of the substantive issues that people might concede was necessary, but it is also true—and I was grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, when he made the point about the interest that we rightly take in the defence of this country—that we already undertake a great deal of what we do in the defence of this country inside alliances about which the British people are not asked at all other than in general elections. They are certainly asked in the context of whether we are willing to sustain an independent nuclear deterrent—another issue that had ramifications inside the Labour Party, I readily acknowledge—