European Union Bill

Lord Lamont of Lerwick Excerpts

Monday 16th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stoddart of Swindon]

The noble Lord is absolutely wrong on this. The 1975 referendum was held because of the failure to hold a referendum before we went in. The Labour Party was having great trouble—I remember it well because at that time I was a member of the Labour Party—and to heal the split that had grown up within it, the device of a referendum was put into operation. However, that occurred only two years after our entry into the Common Market and we had not felt the effects of that. Now that we have been in it since January 1973, people have experienced what it means, what it costs and how it affects them. That is why so many people now are beginning to believe, or already believe, that we need to test the view of the British people on the matter. What is wrong with that? People like the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, have said that the European Union is the best thing since sliced bread and that the country is behind it. They said the same about AV but, when people voted on it, they found that they were not with them at all. I believe that they should test the people’s opinion. I promise that if we have a referendum on being in or out of the European Union, and the people say that we must remain in, I shall go away and have a nice retirement. Until then I shall continue to press for a referendum. I hope that eventually the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, and others like him, will come round to the same position as that of his party’s president.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

My Lords, I do not want to follow my noble friend Lord Dykes too far as I am not sure that his remarks were strictly in order. We have tended to have rather a lot of general remarks. I am sure that the Daily Express is highly flattered by the amount of time that has been devoted to it in these debates. Listening to my noble friend Lord Dykes, I remembered Enoch Powell’s remark that politicians who complain about the newspapers are rather like fishermen complaining about the weather. It is not the Daily Express that has caused the rise of the True Finns party. It is not the Daily Express that has caused the Germans to become more sceptical about the euro. It is not the Daily Express that has caused a very considerable dramatic change in opinion in Holland about the European Union generally. If my noble friend wishes to understand why the Daily Express manages to get people to sign these petitions, he ought to read his own speech because it is exactly remarks such as his, abusing the feelings of ordinary people, which increase the number of people supporting these petitions. To seek to deny that there is concern among ordinary people about overcentralisation in the European Union is to neglect public opinion in a rather cavalier way, if I may dare say so.

I want to ask about two points that the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, made in his extremely interesting speech. The first concerns the point about Clause 6(5)(j). If what the noble Lord said was right, this was not about powers but about a policy. He instanced a policy decision and the hypothesis whereby, under enhanced co-operation, the Germans, while not participating in it, might wish to make a financial contribution to it. That is rather an important point because one of the fears one would have in Britain, as a country unlikely to participate in some of the enhanced co-operation projects, is that we might end up paying the bill. That would be one of our natural instinctive reactions. It would be extraordinary if, in fact, Germany wanted to pay part of the bill and that was not allowed without a referendum in this country. I cannot believe that the situation is quite like that, but I very much hope that my noble friend can clarify that point.

Secondly, I wanted my noble friend to comment on the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, about whether one would have to have a referendum on the exchange rate as well as the decision to join the euro. Normally, when I was a Minister, distinguished civil servants such as the noble Lord and his noble friend Lord Hannay, and people of their ability, talent and knowledge, had ingenious ways of solving problems and they could always refer to some obscure part of the treaty to enable us to decide what to do. On this occasion, I regret to say that the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, seemed to be using his ingenuity to make things more difficult, rather than to consider this matter more seriously, which is what he normally does.

I do not believe that it would be possible to put the rate and the decision in principle to join the euro together. I certainly do not believe that the referendum would be about the rate. No one would be remotely interested in that. The referendum would be about whether or not we joined the euro. I do not see, as the noble Lord seems to do, some tremendous market problem because the rate announced on one day would be implemented on another. There was no such problem when the rates for all the individual currencies that formed the euro were announced well in advance—a year or more in advance—of the date on which the currency was set up. It was announced that there would be a date on which the currencies would be irrevocably linked together in a grid. Naturally, the market adjusted to the decision that had been made, rather than the other way round. I do not see the problem that the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, outlined, but I should be grateful if the Minister could reassure me that my understanding and conclusions on that matter are correct.

More generally, I obviously could not support the amendment because in essence, under a disguise, it tries to get rid of the lock imposed by the Bill. While we hear a lot of criticism of the vetoes that will be subject to the referendum provisions, we never hear anything about the 50 vetoes that are left intact, in the sense that they can be abolished without a referendum. There are 50 areas under the Bill where unanimity is still required, and a referendum will not be required if they are removed by whatever procedure. A degree of judgment and selectivity has thereby been exercised by the Government.

We tend to forget in these debates that after Maastricht, Lisbon and Nice unanimity remains on certain articles. They remain there for a very good reason. Many countries, not just Britain, have wanted unanimity to remain and they do not want easily to surrender it, which is one reason why the idea that you will get a multiplicity of referenda on what the Opposition consider to be minor subjects will not actually happen.

[Lord Willoughby de Broke]

My Lords, I should like briefly to return to what the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, said when he saw fit to expatiate on the Daily Express’s anti-euro campaign. At an earlier stage in our debates, he said that he had examples of 125 anti-euro headlines in the hated, Murdoch-ite, Barclay-ite and Desmond-ite press that some eminent think tank had proved to be wrong in every respect. He promised to let us have those figures and the factual debunking of those 125 stories. I wrote to the noble Lord about 10 days ago and asked for those figures, and still I have not received them. Can he provide them to the House or just to UKIP Members?