European Union Referendum Bill

Debate between Lord Lamont of Lerwick and Lord Lea of Crondall

Monday 23rd November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

By interrupting, the noble Baroness illustrated exactly my point. She just said that it is more complicated than I had said. I am saying that government by fax is an oversimplification as well. These things are not capable of a single interpretation; they cannot all be reduced to numbers. In this debate, we have a series of people with different motives putting forward different lists that they think would help their case.

The noble Lord, Lord Lea, had an interesting exchange with the noble Lord, Lord Grocott. The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, responded to the reference of the noble Lord, Lord Lea, to various rights that existed, and made the point: could not the UK Parliament just legislate for each of those rights? I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Lea, did not answer that question satisfactorily.

It reminded me of a conversation I had many years ago with a friend before we joined the European Economic Community. My friend was an enthusiastic supporter of joining; I was a bit sceptical. I voted to join and made my maiden speech in the House of Commons in favour of joining, but I objected to the argument that my friend put forward for joining the EEC, as it then was. He said, “The reason for joining the EEC is that we can irreversibly freeze into law capitalism, free markets and deregulation”. That is how the EEC appeared at the time: it was something that appealed to economic liberals.

Of course, the whole nature of the EU changed as it involved and we had what the noble Lord, Lord Lea, referred to as the Delors doctrine, which was that you would enshrine permanently in EU law certain social rights. That is why the TUC changed its mind over membership, I think. The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, was quite right to say that you can have all those lists put forward in different amendments, but actually the UK Parliament is perfectly capable of implementing whatever rights or limitations on rights it wishes. That is one of the fundamental points about the EU and one of the fundamental objections to it: it is so difficult to repeal legislation because it is enshrined almost in aspic.

[Lord Lea of Crondall]

My point was that employers would not be happy to do that just as one country because they would become less competitive; they want to do it as a continent. I know that the noble Lord will not think that a good argument, but that was the point being made.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

I know that the noble Lord made the point about acting together, but I do not think that it really answers the point made to him by the noble Lord, Lord Grocott. These lists are highly selective. In the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, all right, some items stand on their own, but let us take paragraph (e) in Amendment 24C, which covers,

“law enforcement, security and justice in the United Kingdom and in the devolved jurisdictions”.

Of course there will be arguments both ways. One noble Baroness referred to the European arrest warrant as though that were self-evidently all in one direction, but a published analysis of it might give rise to a lot of argument about the rights of people who are wrongly prosecuted, or of the innocent who are extradited.

Many people have anxieties about the whole theory of parity of esteem of the justice systems of different countries in the EU. Can anyone really say that the justice systems of Bulgaria or Romania are equal to ours—that we have as much confidence in them as we do in our own UK system—and that therefore there should be automaticity of extradition? I say that because the idea that these things can be reduced to simple formulae, to black and white or to one particular viewpoint is not correct.