European Union Bill

Debate between Lord Lamont of Lerwick and Lord Goodhart

Monday 9th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[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?