European Union Bill

Debate between Lord Lamont of Lerwick and Lord Stoddart of Swindon

Wednesday 13th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stoddart of Swindon]

The House of Commons is entitled to amend amendments that we have made in this House, but did not do so. The Labour Party did not do so because it did not want people outside to get the impression that it was against consulting them about losing further powers to the European Union. That is the real reason behind it.

I know that the House wants to get on, but I just want to say that the noble Lord, Lord Davies, referred to Greece. Of course, it is very clever to do that because we know the appalling state that the eurozone is in at present. He made the reasonable point that if it were a unitary state the Commission would have examined the accounts of the Greek Government. It had the opportunity to do so before Greece was admitted to the eurozone, but it did not do it because it was a politically driven decision. It wanted as many countries in the eurozone as possible, whether they were broke or, like Germany, prosperous. We should be very careful when using the present crisis to undermine the Bill. I would like it to go further but it is the best we are going to have, and I hope that the House will not insist on the amendments on this occasion.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

My Lords, I had not intended to speak in this debate and I will be extremely brief. I rose to speak only because so many of my noble friends have made rather powerful speeches, but ones with which I disagree. I take very seriously the point made about moving too far in favour of plebiscitary democracy. One has to agree that that is a real danger. Balanced against that has to be the fact that the seeping away of the power of Parliament to the European Union is also an extremely serious issue. I agree in general that referendums should be held largely on constitutional issues because they are a good way of settling how we live with each other and how we are governed.

We had quotations from the side opposite and from Cross-Benchers in earlier debates from Edmund Burke and the judgment of members of the legislature. One might quote back at them Tom Paine, who argued that constitutions belong to the people: that it is not for politicians to decide the rules by which government is conducted—sovereignty comes from the people. While I think that referendums should be on constitutional issues—important constitutional issues, as has been said—the totality of our relationship with Europe is a huge constitutional issue. It is therefore right that referendums should play a part in that.

That poses the question: is it right that we should have in this Bill so many different powers and so many different issues all rolled into one that might, as has been said, give rise to a flood of referendums on trivial issues? I do not believe that that will be the consequence of this Bill. That has been said before in our proceedings on the Bill, so I shall not go on about it at any great length. I will say, however, that that will not happen because: first, these measures are likely to come in packages; and, secondly, there are reserve powers—reserved to the nation state and left out of the previous treaties of Lisbon, Nice and Maastricht—because individual countries in the past have wanted to preserve them, and not necessarily Britain. There are other countries in the European Union, and one can look through the minutes of the constitutional convention leading up to the Lisbon treaty to see how some other countries in the past have argued for the veto to be preserved in certain areas. This is not just at the insistence of British politicians.

European Union Bill

Debate between Lord Lamont of Lerwick and Lord Stoddart of Swindon

Wednesday 8th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stoddart of Swindon]

My Lords, I wish that the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, would not describe people who oppose his points of view in such terms as “nerds”. It does not enhance debate and it is quite unnecessary to lampoon one’s opponents.

The amendment has a certain superficial attraction, but we need to be extremely careful what we do. If you say that a decision on an item on which a referendum is to be held can take effect only if 40 per cent of the electorate vote, you could say that about almost every election we have. People are elected to the House of Commons—certainly in by-elections—on a turnout of less than 40 per cent of those entitled to vote. Why on earth should that be legitimate and a referendum on a matter which is to be transferred to European governance not be accepted? We have to be very careful not to create a precedent here which might be used in other circumstances that may be inconvenient to Parliament and certainly to local authorities, where the turnout is very often far below the 40 per cent of those entitled to vote.

The noble Lord, Lord Tomlinson, talked about the various alternatives that might be put on the ballot paper. If you pass this amendment, there is another alternative which is that you can campaign for people not to vote. That is good democracy, is it not? Or is it? If you encourage people not to vote to get the decision you want, that is extremely bad democracy. I do not want to delay the House any further, but I believe that before we vote we should be very careful about what we are doing.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Williamson, as always, made a very careful and thoughtful speech which places me in a slightly awkward position. I find it surprising that there is so much enthusiasm for this amendment from those who accuse the Government of obstructing the process towards greater European integration. They have said that the Government have been putting locks on moves towards further European integration. Here they are putting a padlock on the lock; they are putting another obstacle in the way of European integration. Let us not forget that one will get a referendum only when the Government are proposing to acquiesce in a step towards European integration. Therefore, I find it a little strange that those who are enthusiastic about more integration and think that the Government are being obstructionist about this want to put up another obstacle.

I do not accept the argument of the noble Lord, Lord Williamson, that there is a danger that we will have lots of referendums on trivial subjects such as the number of advocates-general or the voting system for having advocates-general. There are several reasons, which we went through in Committee, why we will not get a whole series of trivial referendums. First, these sorts of changes tend to come along in packages after major treaty revisions and we have been assured there will not be major treaty revisions. It seems unlikely that any one country is going to invest a huge amount of political capital pressing for a change in the voting system for choosing advocates-general. If some power has not been given to Brussels even after the Lisbon treaty and the Maastricht treaty—the series of constitutional treaties we have had—if powers are left to individual countries, there is a very good reason for that. Obviously in previous negotiations countries have not wanted to cede those powers. The idea that we are going to get a lot of referendums on trivial matters is unrealistic and is a chimera. If that was the basis of the noble Lord’s argument I would not accept it. There are many subjects that are by no means trivial, such as our borders and our criminal justice system, where it would be wholly appropriate to have a referendum. That is why I am broadly a supporter of the Bill.

I said at the beginning that the noble Lord, Lord Williamson, places me in a slightly awkward position because I was, as some of my noble friends will remember, a very strong supporter of the 40 per cent threshold for the referendum on AV. Indeed, I voted twice against my party on it. I do not like to make personal comments but I got to my feet largely because of my noble friend Lord Dykes, who I have known for many years. On the AV question, my noble friend was a very firm opponent of the 40 per cent threshold to which he has put his name on this occasion. As I am placed in an awkward position and he is also exposed in an awkward position, I am prepared to do him a deal. If he will not support this amendment, I will vote for it.

European Union Bill

Debate between Lord Lamont of Lerwick and Lord Stoddart of Swindon

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.