EU: Recent Developments
Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts(12 years, 10 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Howell of Guildford)
My Lords, I hope that noble Lords will welcome the opportunity for a European Union debate in the light of the very rapid changes and developments in the European Union, and that we will be able to bring to bear the accumulated wisdom of your Lordships' House on how we should proceed in the interests of this nation and of European strength and unity in the coming weeks and months.
Although the global pattern of influence, power and wealth is fast changing, Europe remains our neighbourhood and our largest immediate market. Obviously it is in a stable, prosperous and vibrant neighbourhood that we want to live within the European Union, on terms of close co-operation and friendship with our neighbours. It is therefore in Britain’s clear, immediate interest to see our neighbours’ problems sorted out, notably the present eurozone tangles. These are having a chilling effect not just on the eurozone but on our economy and the global economy, including even the great new markets of the emerging world on which we increasingly depend.
Addressing the eurozone problems in a realistic and sustainable manner is one of the best ways in which the conditions for renewed economic dynamism can be found and secured, both here and across the whole European economic space. The package of measures agreed by the European eurozone states in October last year set out the immediate steps that must be taken if the eurozone is to hold together and endure. Europe's banks must be properly capitalised; the uncertainty in Greece must be brought to an end, which we hope will happen soon—and without utterly destroying that noble country; and a firewall must be built that is strong and high enough to deal with the full scale of the crisis.
In the longer term, much more will be needed. Proper fiscal discipline built into the system will be the only path that goes forward for the eurozone. This is the inevitable consequence of the decision taken in Maastricht in 1992 to set up the single currency area, to which the United Kingdom did not sign up, and outside which we thankfully remain. For those inside the area, it was always the hope that, following monetary union, greater fiscal discipline would indeed somehow follow and be achieved. It was deviations by several states from this hoped-for path of fiscal discipline that built up into the current eurozone crisis, for which new rules on closer fiscal integration aimed at trying to correct the problem had to be hastily hammered out over recent months.
At the December European Council, the issue was whether these new rules aimed at closer fiscal union should be incorporated in the European Union treaties or implemented through an intergovernmental agreement. My right honourable friend the Prime Minister went to the European Council prepared to agree a treaty of all 27 countries, but only if there were proper safeguards in place to ensure that the integrity of the single market was preserved. They were not an opt-out for the UK, as some have suggested; they would have applied to the European Union as a whole, ensuring that the basic building blocks of the single market—that is, a level playing field upon which competition takes place—were properly protected in all member states. These safeguards were not acceptable to some, and so the Prime Minister vetoed the proposal to have a treaty change for all 27 member states. To have incorporated the changes in the intergovernmental agreement into the EU treaties as a whole now without proper safeguards would have been the effect of signing up in December.
Lord Lea of Crondall
I am sorry to interrupt so early in the noble Lord’s introduction, but he mentioned safeguards. Some parts of the Government seem to say that those safeguards were solely to do with the City of London. Does that mean that the rest of what was agreed on closer economic and monetary integration would have been quite okay?
Lord Howell of Guildford
Not necessarily. I would like to give a straightforward answer to the noble Lord, who follows these things, but there are a number of qualifications and details that I want to come to in my speech. I have tried to set them out most carefully because I know your Lordships’ detailed interested in them.
I was saying that to have incorporated the changes in the intergovernmental agreement, the fiscal union agreement, into the EU treaties now without the proper safeguards, which would have been the effect of signing in December, if my right honourable friend had gone ahead with it, would have risked changing the character of the European Union profoundly. It would have strengthened the euro area, but without corresponding balancing measures to maintain the integrity of the single market at 27. I shall come to the nature of those safeguards in more detail and why we felt they were not present.
As a result of the December meeting, eurozone countries and others are making separate arrangements outside the treaties for strengthening budgetary discipline, including by ensuring that there are much tougher rules on deficits. The Governments of 25 member states, so far, have indicated that they intend to sign up to the intergovernmental agreement reached in January.
This is a treaty outside the European Union. We are not signing it, we are not ratifying it and it places no obligations on the United Kingdom. It does not have the force of European Union law for us, European Union institutions or even the countries that have signed it. European Union legislation can be agreed only in the European Union Councils of Ministers, and we are a full member of them. There will be no inner group of European countries distorting the single market from inside the EU treaties. That is the protection that the Prime Minister secured in December, and that protection remains.
There has been much comment about the use of the European Union institutions, and I want to come to that. The new agreement sets out limited roles for the European Commission and the European Court of Justice. The legal implications are complicated and hinge upon how the agreement is implemented. It is for this reason that we have reserved our position.
We have been clear that we will not allow the institutions to be used in any way that would undermine the interests of the 27, in particular, the single market, and that we will insist that the EU institutions continue to work for all 27 nations of the European Union. Indeed, those institutions are established by the treaty, and that treaty is still protected. The intergovernmental agreement is absolutely clear that it cannot encroach on the competences of the EU and that measures cannot be taken which undermine the single market. As my right honourable friend the Prime Minister made clear to colleagues at the informal January European Council, we will be watching closely the implementation of this new intergovernmental treaty, and we are able to take action if our national interests are threatened.
We want to see a reformed and strengthened European Union better able to cope with the new international pattern of powers and influences. I agree with the comments that I read, made by the noble Lord, Lord Mandelson, that the EU model needs “dramatic reform”—I think those are his words—but we do not want to be part of a fiscal union. We do not want to be part of the eurozone, and we have made clear that the British people have a say before any further competence can be transferred to the European Union.
Having said that I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Mandelson, I slightly disagree with his suggestion that it is the European social model that should guide us, as I believe we should have confidence that we can develop potentially our own model, especially based on wider capital ownership, and wider ownership and distribution on a fair and balanced basis in our society, and that is what we should think in terms of.
Nevertheless, as I have said, it is in the UK’s interests that the eurozone sort out its problems. The UK’s attitude is supportive and constructive. We are involved in discussions on the implementation of this agreement and, as ever, in the machinery of building a prosperous and competitive Europe and a good single market. These remain our aims. The view that the only way to exert influence in the European Union is through surrendering more sovereignty and control to Brussels is, frankly, outdated.
The EU is not monolithic. It contains flexible arrangements such as the single currency and the Schengen agreement, and it is right that the European Union should have,
“the flexibility of a network, not the rigidity of a bloc”,
as my right honourable friend the Prime Minister said in his speech at the Guildhall last autumn. The UK is at the forefront of efforts in Brussels to develop our union according to this model, which we believe to be the right one.
Britain’s agenda in Europe is to promote growth, competitiveness and jobs. We have said repeatedly that the best way in which the European Union can drive growth and create jobs is to complete the single market, establish trade deals with the fastest growing parts of the world—which we are seeking to do on many fronts—and cut the regulatory burdens on business.
Last year the European Commission estimated that growth in the Union this year would be 0.6 per cent. The IMF now projects minus 0.1 per cent. Competitiveness remains Europe’s Achilles heel. More than half of EU member states are now less competitive than they were last year. It is essential that countries across Europe take bold action to recover their economic dynamism, get to grips with their debts, and secure growth and jobs for the future.
This is why the UK has been arguing for a pro-business agenda in Europe. We are pushing for the completion of the single market in services, where there are still 4,700 professions across Europe to which access is regulated by government, and in the digital area, where there are over a dozen separate copyright regimes. Together, these measures could add more than 6 per cent to European Union gross domestic product within 10 years.
We are also committed to reducing regulatory burdens, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises and microenterprises, and pushing forward a patent package to support innovation. This has been discussed in Europe for over 10 years and decisive progress is now at last being made.
We are also actively pushing for decisive action to get trade moving. We want 2012 to see significant movement on EU free trade agreements with major partners such as Japan—which has been going for many years—India, Canada and the United States. Completing all the deals currently on the table could add an estimated €90 billion to Europe’s GDP. An agreement between the EU and the US could have a bigger impact than all of these put together.
For countries outside the European Union, the UK remains the gateway to the largest single market in the world. Of the 1,200 Indian firms operating in the EU, over half have their headquarters in the UK. Britain is a world-class destination for international business, and the most attractive foreign direct investment destination in Europe, and remains so. Being outside the euro does not affect that.
My right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary has emphasised that we need to develop our commercial, economic and political presence in fast-growing, emerging markets. We certainly do. At the same time, Europe is our neighbourhood and our biggest market. It is full of innovation and potential for the future. More than 40 per cent of our exports go to EU eurozone member states—more of course to Europe as a whole. Trade with the EU allows us to specialise in what we produce best and to run trade surpluses with other countries, such as the US and Australia. Our aim is to use this position to expand our exports to fast-growing markets in addition to our existing exports—not as an alternative or instead of them but, I repeat, in addition.
The Commonwealth is one such area. It is one of the great networks of the future. It provides a gateway to many of the great, new markets. It includes some of the world’s fastest-growing economies, with members showing democratic values and similar legal and accounting systems. These provide solid foundations for doing expanding business and a platform for trade, investment, development and, in turn, prosperity. Trade within the Commonwealth totals more than—
Lord Lamont of Lerwick
Possible. What I was about to say was that politics is more accurately described as choosing between the utterly impossible and the utterly incredible. That is the situation in which Greece finds itself. The package that has been proposed is extraordinarily far-reaching—a 20 per cent cut in public sector salaries on top of a 20 per cent cut previously, and a 22 per cent cut in the minimum wage. The Greek economy has contracted by 6 per cent in the past year. It has been in recession for five years. Yesterday, someone who described himself as the Minister for Public Order in Greece—a rather Robespierreian title, but I believe it was genuine—appeared and said that Greece was absolutely at the limit of what people could and would be able to tolerate. That seems very probably to be the case. It seems to me unlikely that Greece will ever be able to implement what it is being asked to do. Even if by some miracle it was able to achieve what is being demanded, it will get debt to GDP down to 125 per cent of GDP only by 2020, and so more austerity will be demanded of it, even after 2020. It seems a certainty that Greece will leave the euro. It would probably be more honest and dignified if that happened now, rather than later, after money has been lent to Greece. It will eventually have to make that choice. It will be very difficult in the short term, as it was with Argentina when it ended its currency link and currency board.
The point I want to conclude on is that Greece is not unique. Italy, Spain and Portugal are in a similar, not so bad, situation, but are two years in arrears. Italy, if it is to comply with the fiscal union pact, will have to run a primary surplus of 5 per cent. To get growth, Italy will have to lower its real exchange rate by 20 per cent to 30 per cent without being able to alter its nominal exchange rate. It will have to achieve levels of inflation 2 per cent below those of Germany. This is the prospect that faces Spain, Portugal and Italy. Greece, therefore, is not unique. It is an extreme example, but it is the canary in the mine. Members will remember that miners used to take down a canary into the mine as a warning of the dangers to come. I fear that what the eurozone faces is a very bleak future, and several countries will have to face unrest and discontent—as, indeed, Mario Monti has recognised. The sooner that that is recognised about the euro as a whole the better. Europe is not the euro, and the euro is not the European Union either.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My apologies to the noble Lord but the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, has sat down, and it is time to move on.
Lord Lea of Crondall
Is this a new doctrine? It is quite normal to intervene if the noble Lord has not actually sat down. That is the convention of the House. Is that not the case? Can the Whip say whether it is not normally case that before the noble Lord has actually sat down, one can say, “Before the noble Lord sits down”?
Baroness Garden of Frognal
It is also the case that no Member who is speaking has to give way to an intervention. It is up to the Member who is speaking. I think the noble Lord made it clear that he wished to finish his comments and sit down.
Lord Lea of Crondall
The noble Lord indicated that he was about to sit down. I intervened in the normal way. There have been some very rude interruptions from the Conservative Benches and I will take this further in a different form. I am very sorry to be discourteous to the Liberal Democrat Whip but I do not think she will find that the doctrine she has now enunciated is correct.
Lord Lea of Crondall
My Lords, I am quite happy to believe everything that the noble Lord, Lord James of Blackheath, has said. I will be very disappointed if the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, is unable to explain how this is all a conspiracy by Brussels. Will the Minister confirm that if you want to buy up the whole world you need a quadrillion? That is the latest figure.
This debate began with a presumption that what happened on 9 December was something of a mystery. It remains a mystery. In answer to the question posed by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, as to why we walked away on that fateful night, I can only assume, because no other explanation has been offered, that in the middle of the night David Cameron’s phone was being hacked into by Rupert Murdoch. The events of that night provided quite useful bulldog headlines for the following day’s newspapers, including the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail. The bulldog in question, cited by the chairman of the 1922 Committee, was, of course, Winston Churchill. It is worth quoting against that background of bulldogs from volume 3 of Churchill’s A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, which he wrote in the late 1930s although it was published only in 1956. He said:
“But the Tories were now in one of their moods of violent reaction from continental intervention”.
That is where we are at the moment.
The noble Lord, Lord Lamont, had sat down when I intervened on him—we all know about the problems with whether you have sat down or not in this place—but I would have asked him a key question. He said that the people of Greece were suffering an enormous cut in their living standard and asked whether they would not be better off outside the euro—I think that that is a reasonable précis of what he said. My question was going to be: what devaluation would not make them even worse off? If the devaluation was by 30 or 40 per cent, would they not be even worse off? Now is not the time for the noble Lord to wish to answer—he looks as if he might spring up, but I think not—but what the living standard of the Greeks will be if they leave the euro is the question. Why they got there in the first place and why we were so tolerant in those days was down to some falsification—although it was not on the scale that the noble Lord, Lord James of Blackheath, referred to—of the accounts in Athens. One reason for the Germans perhaps being over-intrusive now is that we were led by the nose by the Greeks those years ago.
I was intrigued by a remark made by the noble Lord, Lord Risby, who said that the single interest rate was never going to work. That is so often said. I disagree and I will say why. If you join at 50 per cent of the average GNI and you remain at 50 per cent of the average GNI, your real wages are 50 per cent of the average GNI. In what sense is it prima facie obvious that you cannot live with that position? Naturally, we hope that countries will improve their relative positions and not deteriorate in terms of their competitiveness and productivity. But I do not think that that has anything to do with the interest rate.
As regards falling behind generally, a lot of inaccurate things have been said. I will not personalise this, but there has been so much loose talk about the EU falling behind somebody here or somebody there. We must be consistent in our language. Are we talking about per capita or gross product? In Europe, we are three times bigger than China. If people mean by falling behind that when your children are aged 10 you have fallen behind when they reach 15, well of course you have in relative terms if you are the parents. But it is a ridiculous way of describing falling behind. We have been growing at a lower rate than China and India: that is true. But that is what we spent donkeys’ years trying to do in the international development movement in Africa and Latin America—to make them grow faster. It is a ridiculous objection to make to what has been happening.
As regards divergence within the EU, here are all the statistics for 10 years and 20 years, where the median equals 100. It is not as simple as saying that there is the north and the south. There is obviously the east and the west apart from anything else. I will read out some numbers. We begin with 1995 and we cut off at 2010. The median in every year is 100. In 1995, Denmark was 131: the 2010 figure is 127. Germany was 129: the latest figure is 118. Estonia was 36: the latest figure is 64. Ireland was 103: the latest figure is 128. Greece was 84: the latest figure is 90. Those are 2010 figures, which we all know are the latest figures. Spain was 91: the latest figure is 100. France was 116: the latest figure is 108. Italy was 121: the latest figure is 101. I will not go through them all.
Lord Lea of Crondall
Okay I will. The UK was 113: the latest figure is 112. This will read much more easily in Hansard. Switzerland was 152: the latest figure is 147. Those are all relative to the EU median which equals 100. The United States was 159 in 1995 and 148 in 2010. Those are the GNI figures. I may be in an eccentric minority in thinking that numbers are the only way to debate these matters, but there we are.
I go along with those people who do not like the fiscal pact. We cannot, if we are Keynesians, ignore international trade imbalances, which is where the analysis of the 1930s was begun by Keynes at Bretton Woods. These trade imbalances put the eurozone on the road to macroeconomic difficulty. External imbalances led to high indebtedness, excessive borrowings and sudden stops in lending. Co-ordinated adjustment, which spreads the burden of adjustment on deficit in surplus countries, is the only way out. That would mean demand expansion in surplus countries to match demand contraction in deficit ones, thus sustaining aggregate demand and growth for the eurozone as a whole. In saying that, I think I am agreeing with the noble Lord, Lord Tugendhat, but he may not agree.
In my last one and a half minutes I must say that I very much agree with what the very noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, said about young people. We see so much of the opposite claptrap in our newspapers, but it is worth saying that many young people want more Europe rather than less. They are fed up with paying 10 per cent, 8 per cent or 6 per cent depending on how you measure it when you change your money at Heathrow Airport and all the rest of it. Having a single market and single money is pretty obvious. At a popular level—people say that you cannot get anywhere near the demotic in this debate but of course you can— I think that will be a growing trend of public opinion.
One very specific point I wanted to challenge—if I have got his ear—was that made by the noble Lord, Lord Kakkar, when he complained about the effect of the working time directive on the hours of doctors, surgeons and consultants. He mentioned two fatalities. I was very disappointed that he chose those statistics so selectively. I have already given this quote to the Minister, but the noble Lord, Lord Darzi, a very distinguished surgeon, said in this House that in the United States, which has no restrictions on working hours:
“The evidence is quite clear … In 1999, between 44,000 and 98,000 people died in hospitals from adverse effects. The single and most important contributor is sleep deprivation and fatigue”.
This is what we are talking about, among surgeons—human error by doctors. He went on to say:
“The reduction to 48 hours a week is to enhance patient safety”.—[Official Report, 29/6/09; col. 2.]
That is why we have a much better and safer set of hospital arrangements in this country. Perhaps at some point the noble Lord, Lord Kakkar, will look at that and not be so selective.
Finally, I mentioned to the Minister yesterday that I wanted to mention the EU’s role in Madagascar. I am the chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Madagascar, where there has been a very bad cyclone in the past two days. The EU co-ordinator has done a good job in Antananarivo and I would be very happy if the Minister could tell us what the EU mission there has been able to do to help.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch
My Lords, I hesitated to put my name down to speak today because I have already said most of what I have to say about the European Union—some of it several times, thanks to your Lordships’ enormous patience over the last few years. Most recently, I addressed the crippling economic costs of our EU membership on 25 November last year, at the Second Reading of my Bill to secure an impartial cost-benefit analysis. I dealt then with the Europhile propaganda, which confuses our membership of the EU with our access to the single market by claiming that we need to be in the EU to trade in the single market and by claiming that by being in the EU we influence its policies and benefit from its negotiating strength in the World Trade Organisation. As I tried to explain then, none of this stands up to rational examination and I regret that we have heard so much of it again today from noble and Europhile Lords.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch
Yes, I would not remove their nobility. That Bill passed through your Lordships’ House unamended and was killed off in the House of Commons by the Government, presumably because they do not want the British people to understand that we can no longer afford our membership. Nowadays of course, all eyes are focused on the euro and the suffering it—and it alone—is causing to the people of Greece and, soon, elsewhere. Much has been said about that today, so I will say no more, except that I am with those who favour Greece’s orderly return to the drachma, after which it could be supported by the IMF and return to growth with its own interest and exchange rates.
However, I will have another try at getting your Lordships and the Government to see that it is not just the euro that is designed for disaster. It is the whole project of European integration. I repeat, yet again, the big idea that launched it all: that the nation states of Europe had caused two world wars and much bloodshed over the centuries, so they and their unreliable democracies had to be emasculated and diluted into a new form of supranational government run by technocrats. That was the big idea that underpins the whole project. This well meaning but misguided experiment was supposed to bring peace and prosperity to Europe. Indeed, the Eurocrats still airbrush NATO out of history, and even have the nerve to justify their expensive and unaccountable existence by claiming that the EU has brought peace to Europe since 1945 and still does so today.
Surely, though, we can all now see that that big idea has gone wrong. The EU has instead brought austerity, slump and civil unrest, and will go on doing so. Apart from the tragedy of the euro, the debate in this country focuses on whether we should stay in the European Union, or on whether there should be a referendum to decide that question. However, I want to take the debate one stage further to its logical conclusion, as I have tried to do in Oral Questions without getting a satisfactory Answer: now that the idea that spawned it has failed, what is the point of the European Union at all? We clearly do not need it for our trade or jobs, it has been irrelevant for peace and it is now causing violent unrest. Can the Government tell us why the planet needs it?
For instance, do the Government think that the EU’s vast new foreign service is a help or a hindrance? Did we not have an adequate Foreign Office before? Why do we need the EU’s common agricultural and fisheries policies, with the immense suffering that the CAP has inflicted on the developing world? Why does Brussels need to have overall supervision of our vital financial services? Could we not do all these things, and much more, better by ourselves?
Why do we need the 70,000 expensive and unaccountable bureaucrats in Brussels with little to do but misspend our billions and strangle the European economies with their endless overregulation? Why should they blight the democracies of Europe with their interference in our immigration, rubbish collection, post offices, light bulbs, herbal medicines, car premiums, pension funds and working times? I think noble Lords know that I could go on with that list for a very long time; it now includes every aspect of our lives. Are the democracies of Europe not perfectly capable of deciding these things for themselves in friendly collaboration and free trade?
I ask the Government again: would Europe not be a happier and more prosperous place if the EU simply were not there—if we got rid of it altogether? What is the EU now for? I look forward to the Minister’s reply.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
We will continue to disagree.
The noble Lord, Lord Kakkar, raised the working time directive and asked a number of other questions. We are working to ensure that it retains a secure economy-wide opt-out. We would welcome more flexibility on the areas of on-call time and compensatory rest. On the General Medical Council and the overinterpretation of language testing, I am confident that that is also an issue on which the British Government are actively engaged. I will write to the noble Lord further about that.
Lord Lea of Crondall
It is not the case that we have a general opt-out on the working time directive. I do not know what the Minister is referring to.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
As I understand it, there is an individual right to opt-out voluntarily from the working time directive. That is precisely what I was explaining. I am sorry that the noble Lord misheard.
On the clinical trials directive, we are working with the Commission on revising the directive, and the Commission will publish proposals this year.
On other matters, the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke, suggested that the European Union is forcing regulations on the UK. In terms of climate change, the coalition Government, like the previous Government, are committed to climate change and work through the European Union. It is not Brussels forcing that on the United Kingdom.
In other areas, noble Lords may well be aware that some of what comes back from Brussels—the zoo regulation, for example, and a lot of the animal welfare stuff—has been promoted in Brussels extremely actively by British lobbies and is intended to implement and enforce new rules on other Governments across the European Union. That is the way in which democratic politics takes place to some extent above the national level.
The noble Lord, Lord Monks, talked about rebalancing. There is a good case for rebalancing competences between the European Union and its member states, but this would require the agreement of all 27 member states on the basis of negotiation and agreement. It would not be achieved through a unilateral decision.
The noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, asked a number of questions about the Balkans and Africa. Briefly, we are strongly in favour of Serbia finding its place within the European Union. We all understand the conditions which are required for that. We also support Kosovo coming into the European Union, but it will be a slow process for all the remaining Balkan countries. We have to make sure that they meet the criteria.
On the question of co-operation with China in Africa, the EU and the United Kingdom are working very closely on that. I hope the noble Lord noted Andrew Mitchell’s visit to China, during which he persuaded the Chinese to take part in the conference in Korea on the quality of aid. That is the basis on which we hope to find a closer partnership with the Chinese.
The noble Lord, Lord Newby, raised the issue of procurement. In December 2011, the Commission published new proposals to modernise the procurement rules, and I will write to the noble Lord in more detail on that.
The noble Lord, Lord Lea, asked about the Madagascar cyclone. The European Commission humanitarian office has provided nearly €20 million over the past five years for humanitarian response and disaster risk reduction, including cyclone-related support. Any future UK support is likely to be through multilateral channels, notably the European Union, UNICEF and the International Committee of the Red Cross.
I recognise that I cannot have covered all the points raised, but I will conclude by saying that the European Union as a whole is not in an easy position, as we all recognise. We are caught in a financial crisis that is also partly a fiscal crisis and which has contributed to a wider economic recession. We have to work together to resolve these crises—each member state is hobbled by its own domestic politics and the myths that float through the different national debates. It is not at all easy, facing successive rounds of domestic elections, for Governments and political leaders to rise above immediate interests and provide enlightened European statesmanship. The noises coming out of the French presidential election campaign this week illustrate that well. All of us, in all political parties, need to navigate carefully and reasonably between the pressures of our own domestic opinion and the obstacles created by domestic opinion in other countries. That is the task we all face and must all share.
Christians in the Middle East
Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts(13 years ago)
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Lord Carey of Clifton
My Lords, we are all in the debt of the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury for initiating this important debate. It is timely but it is also complex. I am grateful for the thorough way in which he outlined the issues.
For hundreds of years, Christianity has flourished in this region, which was central to its foundation and where it has made an important—indeed, a transformational—contribution to life. On the whole, in modern times, Christian communities have got on happily with their more numerous Muslim and Jewish neighbours. Sadly, it is in recent years that things have changed. The problems are manifold. There are, of course, the many attacks on Christian communities in Egypt, Iraq and elsewhere. However, I do not want to linger on the violence, as others have detailed it and, as I said, it is not as straightforward as many outside this Chamber believe. There are political reasons, as the noble Lord, Lord Wright of Richmond, has outlined, but we also know that violence against religious people is by no means only against Christians, though that is our immediate concern in this debate. We should remember that on Wednesday this week a Shia mosque in Afghanistan was blown up on a Shia holy day. The episode reflects the terrible and unnecessary war going on between violent people in both Sunni and Shia forms of Islam.
What all these terrible events have in common is that they all stem from the same lethal combination of fear and intolerance, fomented in most cases by inadequate understanding and education on the one hand, and inaudible authentic religious leaders on the other. It is the lack of true understanding that results in vulnerable minorities being exploited by those with political ends.
What contribution can our debate make? Wringing our hands may bring a little relief, but will not help those who have the courage to hold on to faith when all the worldly circumstances might suggest to young Christian families in the region that it would make sense to abandon it, especially for the sake of their children. The lack of a secure future is a major reason why many Christians are fleeing the Middle East for the West, and it is rumoured that already well over 100,000 have fled Egypt alone this year. We should remember too that 5 per cent of the population in Syria is Christian and, with a civil war now under way, what will happen to them? The landscape of the Middle East is at grave risk of losing a vibrant Christian presence that has been a vital part of its history and culture, and the region will be hugely the poorer for that loss.
There are many responses that we might offer to the problem, but one thing should be very clear. Everybody should enjoy equal treatment as citizens in the Middle East. Discrimination and legal impediments against Christians cannot be right, yet we know that there is much discrimination in practice, ranging from discrimination in employment through to the fact that in many places it is very difficult to get permission to build, or even to maintain, churches.
There is also a cogent argument that the long-term solution lies in improving and standardising the quality of education, and requiring that much of what is taught about other faiths is accurate and promotes mutual harmony. This will help to create future generations who respect diversity and seek harmony.
However, although the situation is alarming, the story is not all doom and gloom. I hope that a message might go from this Chamber to the vibrant Christian communities, be they Chaldean, Roman Catholic, Anglican, nonconformist, Coptic, Syrian Orthodox or from any of the other churches, that we salute their bravery and want to support them in the days ahead. I also want to salute organisations such as SAT-7, a Christian television broadcast service that is helping at the educational level. Other groups are involved as well.
We should also recognise the support of Muslim and Jewish leaders, who are as concerned as we are about the situation. I know from my relationships with the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, the Chief Mufti and the Chief Rabbis of Israel how concerned they are, as are religious leaders in this country.
However, I have two practical suggestions that I should like to offer. First, I note that valuable work has been done under the mandate of the United States Congress for an annual freedom of religion report. I suggest that some formal process might be considered whereby our Foreign Office and embassies also present an annual assessment of the degree to which the right to freedom of religious belief and practice has been respected and enhanced in the Middle East. Indeed, some kind of assessment of the impact of religion in general on their work might be very helpful.
Lord Lea of Crondall
Could the noble and right reverend Lord comment on what has always concerned me—that is, the connection, if any, between high-level declarations and the realities on the ground? He had the experience of drawing up the Alexandria and Abuja interfaith declarations some time ago. Am I right in my recollection—which conforms to my experience of being in different countries, including going from Abuja to Kaduna in Nigeria—that, instead of thousands of people being killed, as predicted, after the publication of the Danish cartoon, only a score of people were killed? This was because a hotline arrangement had been drawn up. Is it not important that we look into how we can help that sort of thing so that realities on the ground can change and it is not just a case of “We love you and you love us” at the top level?
Egypt
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Lord Howell of Guildford
The Egyptian Foreign Minister, Mr Amr, told my right honourable friend that the lower house elections would go ahead in November and the presidential elections would be next year, possibly next summer. I agree totally with my noble friend that it is in nobody’s interests for these elections to be further delayed. We have made it absolutely clear to the Egyptian Ministers and authorities that the sooner we get forward with the sequence of the return to full democracy the better, and early presidential elections are very much part of that.
Lord Lea of Crondall
My Lords, we have a virtually insoluble dilemma about Britain in any sense directly addressing the question of rights on behalf of the Coptic Christians. The revolution is fairly recent, but let us look ahead to the reconstruction of Egypt, whether it is in relation to its infrastructure, investment, social policy, tourism or anything else. Is it not reasonable to visualise, as we have done with a number of countries, that the dialogue with Egypt—which would have to be carried out under the European Union because it cannot be accused of imperialism in the same sense as Britain can, but that is arguable—would have to include a wide range of social and religious freedoms and human rights questions? Would it be more useful for the British Government to help stimulate discussion fairly soon about the forum for dialogue so that the whole of Egyptian public opinion can be brought on board as part of that dialogue?
Lord Howell of Guildford
I think I see what the noble Lord is getting at. Certainly our support and help—I repeat, not interference with the affairs of the Egyptian nation—is geared to that kind of development. We are backing non-governmental organisations that are promoting think tanks and discussion groups to try to widen the political diversity, to support the role of women in the political process and to develop a number of other activities to support the evolution of sensible, balanced party politics. This is what we are seeking to do in addition to substantial aid through the Arab Partnership in various other social areas. The general thrust is, I think, in line with what the noble Lord was saying.
Arab Partnership Initiative
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Lord Howell of Guildford
Yes, it most certainly can. There are Arab Partnership funds for Iraq but they are on quite a modest scale because—as I know my noble friend is well aware—Iraq is potentially a rich country with gigantic resources of oil, phosphates and so on. Money is not the main problem; the problem lies in technical and administrative support. The Arab Partnership is involved, for example, in the development of broadcasting and accountable institutions and upholding human rights. We are working with the Government of Iraq across the whole field of energy, education and health. There is active engagement in ensuring that this potentially brilliant country comes back to the full comity of nations.
Lord Lea of Crondall
My Lords, British Arabs are not unaware of the meaning of the Arab spring, yet there are none of them in this House to give us the benefit of their advice. That is despite the fact that there are 200,000 or 300,000 British Arabs—the census will give the exact figure in due course. Does the Minister agree with me that rectification of this anomaly—it is rather an invidious position—is long overdue, not only on its own merits but in terms of the perception of Britain in the Arab world?
Lord Howell of Guildford
That is not actually a matter for me. However, it gives me the opportunity to say that your Lordships' House is already much more representative of this various and variegated nation of ours than people often give us credit for, and it could certainly become more so. I agree with the noble Lord that it is a valid point.
European Union Bill
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Lord Pannick
My Lords, I too support this amendment, because I see it as a considered response to the views of the other place. It supplies a criterion which identifies when it is appropriate for a referendum to be held. Since mention has been made of the views of the Constitution Committee of your Lordships’ House, of which I am a member, I will remind your Lordships of the three points that the committee made in its report on this Bill.
First, we noted that, in our earlier report on the use of referendums, we concluded that if referendums are to be used they should be confined to fundamental constitutional issues. Secondly, we noted that this Government had expressed agreement with that criterion in the context of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act. Thirdly, we concluded that it could not be said that every treaty change which would, under this Bill, require a referendum, would involve a fundamental constitutional issue.
My answer to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Blackwell, is that I understand this amendment to impose a duty on the Minister in good faith to consider whether the issue is one of economic or constitutional significance, and if so to lay a Statement before Parliament. I do not accept that this leaves matters entirely to political judgment: it imposes a criterion, it is a considered response to the Commons view, and I hope we will support the amendment today.
Lord Lea of Crondall
My Lords, I support the amendment. The main consideration is that if the Government do not relent on this question they will be in denial on issues to do with the workability of the scheme. I will give some examples.
First, it is proposed that these referenda be mandatory on the Government. Secondly, it was said by the noble Lord in a previous session that it might be rather inconvenient if there were a whole string of different referendums and so they could be grouped together in some way for the purpose of having them on a certain date. The issue of EU energy taxation being extended or some other legal question on an industrial matter might be put together for the purpose of the referendum day. This taxes the imagination. I have tried to imagine that I am sitting listening to a conversation in a pub in Burton-on-Trent. After all, this is the demotic that we are all being asked to say is so much more important than parliamentary democracy. So, I am sitting in a pub in Burton-on-Trent, and after a discussion on what is running in the 2.30 at Newmarket, Fred says to his mate Alec, “What are you doing on this thing that they want us to vote on tomorrow?”. “No idea, Fred, it’s all Greek to me”, replies Alec.
How do we know that the people want all these referendums? How much time would elapse in Brussels if we simply, as the awkward squad, sat for several months on a whole string of items until the famous day when they could be brought together? That looks so totally unreasonable that people in Europe—they are friends of ours, presumably; we are in a Community—might say, “If you are a member of a club, you ought to be more co-operative than that. If you carry on as you are, you might as well get out”. If we held a referendum on staying in or getting out, I am pretty confident that the staying in vote would win. There might be consensus on that, but it is not the subject of this amendment. This is a vicious circle. If you want to be a member of a club, you have to co-operate. If I carried on like this in my tennis club, it might be suggested that I joined another club more suited to my temperament. The Government do not have the candour to say what they want to do because I do not think that some of their members would agree with that position. However, they want to go as near as they can to implying what they want to do.
In practice, this amendment meets the test set by the Constitution Committee. I think that there is consensus in the House on it.
Lord Taverne
My Lords, I will be very brief. I do not think that it can be disputed that the Bill in its present form makes it infinitely more difficult to stick to the constitutional principle announced by the Scrutiny Committee that referenda should be restricted to matters of fundamental constitutional significance. Why would a spread of more plebiscites be so dangerous? It is because the system of parliamentary government has been far superior in preserving certain rights, particularly minority rights, than would be the case with referenda and plebiscites. For example, one can imagine the populist propaganda that would pour out further to restrict asylum seekers and make this a less civilised country. That would apply also to those suspected of committing terrorist offences. We have heard some examples of that. However, this goes beyond minority rights and individual rights. What about protectionism? “British jobs for British people” was Mr Brown’s ill advised slogan. If protectionism had spread throughout Europe or throughout the world after the crash, we would be in an infinitely worse position. As regards tax, is not the example of California, which is now a bankrupt state, a very good reason for not allowing the spread of referenda?
Lord Lea of Crondall
The noble Lord spent many years in the House of Commons. Is it not the position that the Labour Party was looking at the Bill, as amended by the House of Lords, and that it was not incumbent on the Labour Party to do anything along the lines he suggests?
Lord Stoddart of Swindon
It was not incumbent on the Labour Party to do so, but it had the opportunity to do so and did not. If it believed, as the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, said when he moved his amendment, that this should be its policy, why did Members not do it when they had the opportunity in the House of Commons? That is the question that has to be answered. I assure the noble Lord that I know the procedures in the House of Commons. I was a Whip in the House of Commons and I have sat on a number of committees dealing with amendments that have come from the House of Lords. The House of Commons was perfectly entitled to move an amendment but it did not do so.
Lord Lea of Crondall
I am going to put the matter right for the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart. It was a Bill that had been amended in this House, which is what the House of Commons was considering.
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.
European Union Bill
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“(2) This section does not affect the United Kingdom’s commitments set out in—
(a) the European Communities (Amendment) Act 1986 giving effect to the Single European Act,
(b) the European Communities (Amendment) Act 1993 giving effect to the Maastricht Treaty on European Union,
(c) the European Communities (Amendment) Act 1998 giving effect to the Amsterdam Treaty,
(d) the European Communities (Amendment) Act 2002 giving effect to the Nice Treaty, and
(e) the European Union (Amendment) Act 2008 giving effect to the Treaty of Lisbon.
(3) This section does not affect—
(a) the European Communities (Greek Accession) Act 1979,
(b) the European Communities (Spanish and Portuguese Accession) Act 1985,
(c) the European Union (Accessions) Act 1994,
(d) the European Union (Accessions) Act 2003, and
(e) the European Union (Accessions) Act 2006.”
Lord Lea of Crondall
‘I will not detain the House for more than a few minutes. This amendment is an addition to the words now incorporated in the revised Bill at the end of revised Clause 18—those being the words in the amendment moved last week by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern. My amendment, which in the words of the Companion is clarificatory, states that all the Acts of Parliament which flow from the famous or infamous EU treaties following on from Rome—Maastricht, Lisbon, et cetera—should set out in a straightforward way the list of the United Kingdom Acts which are the basis on which Parliament here in Westminster has enacted laws to give effect to EU legislation in this country.
One of the reasons for believing that the Government’s intention is to pre-empt any rethink is the feed from the office of the Foreign Secretary, the right honourable William Hague, to the Financial Times last week, which appears to throw down the gauntlet that the Lords should be put in their place and get back in their box. That is surely not the height of courtesy when we have not yet completed Third Reading of the Bill.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, who cannot be here today because he has to preside at an awards ceremony in Cambridge, but to whom I spoke yesterday, mentioned at Report that a list approach could additionally be considered. On another aspect, he indicated at col. 804 of Hansard that he could indeed visualise clarificatory amendments at Third Reading. I could not speak to the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, because he is in China.
So far as directly applicable law is concerned—where one of the confusions arises—as adumbrated by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, it would be a brave man or woman who would try to encompass that in one declaratory yet legally watertight sentence, and it is now becoming increasingly clear that it does not work. The problem is that Ministers wish to make a political point and officials are trying to make it work technically. Trying to kill two birds with one stone is rarely a good idea. There is, indeed, no simple political point that can be made about UK law which can define this in a few words, for the reasons which the exchange on 15 June between the noble and learned Lords, Lord Mackay of Clashfern and Lord Wallace of Tankerness, amply demonstrated. Assuming that I am correct about the Government’s intentions, it would be ludicrous to go into ping-pong in blinkers—ultimately, no doubt, the Lords would submit to the will of the Commons—when the resulting assertion in the Act would still be clearly erroneous, and in effect admitted to be such by Ministers.
On the Government’s contention so far as directly applicable law is concerned, we have the position as set out on page 2 of the Explanatory Memorandum that all we are looking for is a declaratory sentence. Therefore, I put this amendment forward for consideration. I do not see why it should not be accepted on all sides of the House. I will not press it to a Division but I hope that the issues I have raised will be ventilated this morning and that the amendment will in due course be accepted in the spirit in which I have put it forward. I beg to move.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, we are on the edge, between being in order or out of order. Perhaps I might repeat my noble friend’s request that the noble Lord, Lord Lea of Crondall, might now care to withdraw his amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, rightly pointed out that we are edging away from Third Reading and into Bill do now pass. I therefore suggest that we allow my noble friend to move the Motion that the Bill do now pass.
Lord Lea of Crondall
I thank the Minister for his reply. I will say for the record that I am taking it from what he has said that we will not have a blinkered or blindfolded ping-pong on the basis of asserting the primacy of the House of Commons. I hope not to be disabused of this but, reflecting on what the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Crosby, has just said, I hope that these things will be considered very carefully. We are a mature democracy and there is a lot of mature thinking in this House. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
European Union Bill
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Lord Risby
I discussed this episode with Mr Keith Vaz and I am not sure that he felt it was one of the high points of his political career, but we can leave it at that.
The amendment implicitly reflects our concern about the EU’s lack of popularity, but I fail to see the point of it. It is completely unnecessary. To have a referendum the Government need to have agreed the relevant treaty in Brussels in the first place, and Parliament will have enacted an Act of Parliament, having debated and scrutinised it. I entirely agree that a referendum campaign should educate the public in the fullest sense of the word. Presumably, having decided on a referendum, the Government would like to win it. The notion that they would somehow be against the EU, implicitly or explicitly, makes a nonsense of the whole situation. Why waste money on such an exercise? The case for membership is explicit in the whole referendum process. The way to change the view of the desirability—
Lord Lea of Crondall
I am most grateful to the noble Lord for giving way, but I am rather intrigued by his clear statement that the Government will want to win a referendum. Is he absolutely sure that they will not do a Pontius Pilate in some cases in a referendum?
Lord Risby
If a Government have got that far and want to test public opinion, it is very unlikely that they would behave as the noble Lord suggests. It is not likely that a Government would embark on a referendum if they thought that they were going to lose it. That is not the natural course of political events, but perhaps the noble Lord—
European Union Bill
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Lord Flight
I thank the noble Lord for giving way. It may be that he was more involved at the time than I was, although we are roughly the same age. However, I remember being organised by the Conservative Party at the time to go out and preach on voting in the referendum for the Common Market—indeed, I voted for it—specifically on the grounds that it would be a good economic prospect for this country. We had lost an empire and we needed to belong to something where we could trade. I was not even aware of the idea that I was trying to market something about political unification—fool though I may have been at the time.
Lord Lea of Crondall
I am sorry—I do not know who is speaking and who is intervening here.
Lord Davies of Stamford
Perhaps I may resume my remarks and then of course I will give way to my noble friend Lord Lea. Given that the noble Lord, Lord Flight, brings up his personal reminiscences of the 1975 campaign, I can respond only by saying that I did indeed take part in it. I actually became chairman of the City in Europe committee—I had been working in the City only for a year or two at that time—that organised the campaign in the City, and I chaired a meeting attended by 600 or 700 people at which Edward Heath spoke effectively. I remember that very well. I say with great sincerity that then, as now, I was committed to the long-term agenda explicitly set out in the treaty of Rome, which I had taken the trouble to read—even in those days. I believe that I knew what I was doing and that those who campaigned with me knew what we were doing. We made it absolutely clear to the British public what was intended and what we had in mind. I am very proud of that campaign.
Those are my personal reminiscences, and I am delighted that at the time the noble Lord had the right views on the subject. Perhaps he will come around to the right views again one day. Both of us took part in an interesting campaign. I give way to my noble friend Lord Lea.
Lord Lea of Crondall
I am most grateful to my noble friend. Perhaps I may give an even more telling example that gives the lie to the other contention. I recommend to the noble Lord, Lord Flight, that he looks at the 1971 White Paper. Mr Heath was Prime Minister, although he was not necessarily the favourite Conservative Prime Minister of the noble Lord. The first page refers to going towards ever-closer union. That is not a phrase that I particularly like, but I invite the noble Lord, Lord Flight, to read that White Paper, which is in the Library, and see whether he wants to keep reiterating this falsehood—I am sorry, I withdraw that—or, rather, this error.
Lord Davies of Stamford
My Lords, the second point to which I wanted to draw attention is a theme that has come through in all these debates. All I shall say in a few sentences is to try to make explicit in Hansard what should be implicit for anyone who reads our proceedings with any degree of attention. A clear difference is emerging between those of us who are in favour of the Bill and those of us who are against it as regards the role of Parliament and our view of Parliament’s constitutional importance, functioning, efficacy and efficiency. It is clear that the coalition Government and those who support them in this Bill do not really believe in Parliament in the same way that those of us on the other side of the argument do. That is a sobering thought, because until now, for hundreds of years, there has been no distinction between the parties about Parliament and the fact that it is the best way of taking complex decisions on behalf of the country. That is why most of us came into politics and public life in the first place. It was because we wanted to be part of that process and to influence it in one way or another. All parties in this country and all of us who have stood for public elected office have always believed that Parliament was the best possible mechanism for achieving good governance and for making sure that complex arguments had been viewed from their different perspectives and debated, and that we came to a mature and considered conclusion on difficult issues. I am very proud of being here in the mother of Parliaments.
Now half our Members in this House this afternoon—perhaps more than half; I do not know, but we will see what happens in the vote—are sceptical about Parliament. They pay lip service to it and, no doubt, see some role for it, but they are clearly very sceptical indeed about Parliament. They do not think that Parliament is mature enough or sufficient for the purpose of deciding complex questions in the future. They want to go back to this Napoleonic concept of the plebiscite or referendum as a mechanism that is superior to that of parliamentary government. That is a sobering thought. I will not go further into the constitutional implications or the historical significance of that because it would take me well outside the amendment we are debating. However, it has been a theme which, unambiguously, has emerged from the debates we have been having on this Bill. It is something that we should all reflect on carefully because the long-term consequences of such a split in what has always been a constitutional consensus in this country are to my mind very sobering indeed.
Lord Kerr of Kinlochard
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Garel-Jones. I was Private Secretary to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe of Aberavon, when he used to chair EMS realignment conferences as Chancellor of the Exchequer when we were not a member of the EMS. The standard form is exactly as the noble Lord, Lord Garel-Jones, lays down. One tries to avoid a market rumour on a Friday—that would be quite difficult if we had held a referendum on the Thursday—ECOFIN would meet on the Saturday, and one would have a decision on the rate very early on Monday morning or late Sunday night as the Japanese markets open. In this case it would be highly desirable to move fast after our referendum because there would be a lot of movement in the market. However, if you have decided that the rate is to be a matter for an Act of Parliament and a referendum, you are stuck with several months of volatile movement.
Lord Lea of Crondall
I wonder if there is a special case in this. Some of us approach this question from the hypothetical case that in a few years we might join the euro when it has parity with the pound. It might be relevant to the referendum that people might think, “If you can’t beat them, join them. It’s been around a long time—you might as well join”. Frankly, that is the way referendum decisions are probably made—in the pub. We are talking about making something quite technical into a demotic sort of fact.
Might the discussion in the press get a debate going? Something like the new clause proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, might be relevant, maybe with some adjustment, to the idea that we need to have the proposition about parity with the euro as part of the question. Could somebody enlighten me as to how that scenario—it is probable rather than possible; it has some common sense about it—would fit with this Bill and with the amendment?
Lord Howe of Aberavon
Since my name stands on the Marshalled List below that of the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, it is right that I should intervene at this point. There is a certain diffidence about my approach, because I am in the presence of two propositions with which I have been closely familiar for a very long time indeed. I refer personally to the noble Lord. As he has already hinted, our relationship with each other is antique. I first came across him as a bright young man in my early days as Chancellor of the Exchequer; he did not necessarily appear to know a great deal about the Treasury or economics at that stage. I learnt that he was on secondment from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. He was already serving me very well in the more sophisticated Treasury environment and therefore in due course became my principal private secretary in that department. He continued in that job to serve my noble friend Lord Lawson. I do not think that he lasted in that humble job for long enough to be with my noble friend Lord Lamont. Certainly, we came to establish a respect for each other and a familiarity.
The noble Lord is a young creature in my memory, who has already made a lucid and compact presentation to this debate, which is frankly not a hugely politically controversial one. It is a debate directed to the ostensible, practical way of approaching this particular proposition —our accession to what used to be called the European monetary system. That also is a symbol of my antiquity. My two noble friends Lord Lamont and Lord Lawson, who are alongside me, will not need much prompting to remember that our manifesto for the European 1979 election, preceding our own manifesto for the general election later on, had this quotation:
“We regret the Labour Government’s decision—alone amongst the Nine—not to become a full member of the new European Monetary System. We support the objectives of the new system, which are currency stability in Europe and closer co-ordination of national economic policies, and we shall look for ways in which Britain can take her rightful place within it”.
I am still looking, with an enthusiasm that has fluctuated over the years, as the stability of the currency has fluctuated as well.
In this context, I support the amendment. Although my relationship with the ERM, as it was then called, has been insecure, it was the cause of the less than friendly relationships between my noble friend Lord Lawson and myself and our noble friend Lady Thatcher before the Madrid summit, where our paths certainly divided. Remarkably, not many months after I had been subsequently moved on from the Foreign Office to become Leader of the House of Commons, a decision was taken for us to enter the European monetary system—
European Union Bill
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Lord Willoughby de Broke
I am sorry, was that an intervention or not? The idea that Government Ministers should be under a legal requirement to propagandise for the European Union really is too odd for words. It is absurd. On the one hand we have the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, saying rather sadly that no one speaks up for the EU so nobody knows how wonderful it is, while only a few moments earlier the noble Lord, Lord Radice, observed how often the noble Lord, Lord Sassoon, has said how wonderful our membership is. The noble Lord, Lord Howell, has frequently reminded us of the manifold benefits of paying £15 billion a year for the EU and running a £20 billion trade deficit. He is quite right to do so.
To make Ministers legally responsible for what is frankly propaganda is absurd. Surely the arguments have been made. People have now grown up and there are all sorts of means of communication. We have the internet, the hated Murdoch press which, of course, is balanced by the BBC and other spokesmen for the EU. I do not see how the Government have any role to play in this whatever. I hope that the Committee rejects the amendment without further debate.
Lord Lea of Crondall
My Lords, perhaps I may add just one dimension to the idea that referendums are neutral so far as the press and broadcasting are concerned. The BBC is not the other side of Murdoch. If you look at your BlackBerry each morning, you can see that what the papers and all the BBC programmes do is report what the Daily Mail says, followed by what the Daily Express says, followed by what the Times says and followed by what the Sun says; and so it goes on.
My noble friend Lord Radice is absolutely right to say that in the populist environment of the red tops, along with a lot of money from the foreign exchange markets and people with a particular interest in the City of London, it is difficult to see how a referendum could be conducted on a level playing field unless we do something. I am reminded of what the then Labour Government did in about 1967, which by common consent was quite useful. We had a counterinflation campaign. There was indeed government information, which could be called propaganda, which explained the economic necessity for doing what the country needed through social partners—a term much derided by people who did not know trading from an elephant. We were able to win the support of the majority of the people of Burton-on-Trent precisely because factual information was put forward.
We can go back to the referendum in 1975, but as a shot across the bows of those people who think that all the referendums will be a doddle because we have the Murdoch press going wild all the time, it is in fact because the Government are running scared of their own Back-Benchers. That is what it is all about.
European Union Bill
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Baroness Falkner of Margravine
My Lords, I will briefly address three issues. The first is whether we need this clause in the Bill. I completely agree with the noble Lords, Lord Armstrong and Lord Kerr, and with my noble and learned friend Lord Howe that the clause is probably redundant, not only because it is declaratory but because it does do what it sets out to do. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke, that if one reads carefully the House of Commons European Scrutiny Committee report, one sees very clearly that the committee does not think much of the clause. Paragraphs 82 to 86 of the report state:
“Clause 18 does not address the competing primacies of EU and national law … evidence suggests that clause 18 is not needed … if the legislative supremacy of Parliament is under threat, it is from judicial opinions in other areas of law … Clause 18 is not a sovereignty clause in the manner claimed by the Government, and the whole premise on which it is included in the Bill is, in our view, exaggerated”.
That is the view of the European Scrutiny Committee.
In case the Minister convinces the House that the clause has merits that are not instantly evident to most of us, I will say a word or two about Amendment 59. We have spent hours and days in Committee trying to gain clarity where there was ambiguity in the Bill, and a level of certainty where there was obfuscation. Therefore, it is odd to see that Clause 18 is as ambiguous as it is. I have a great deal of sympathy with my noble and learned friend, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, and my noble friend Lord Lester of Herne Hill, whose amendment seeks to replace an Act of Parliament with the European Communities Act 1972. This would be a welcome move.
As regards Amendment 57, I suggest that the noble Lord, Lord Hannay of Chiswick, looks at paragraph 61 of the House of Commons European Scrutiny Committee's report, in which Professor Tomkins says that it does not deal with the primacy issue, but only with the source issue, which is not really a question of sovereignty. On careful reading, the report leaves one almost as confused as when one started, because it seems to say everything to everybody, and seems to want to placate several constituencies in one go. It is also clear when one reads the evidence in the Notes that different legal experts offered different ideological interpretations of the Bill. Therefore, I would not die in the last ditch to defend the report. However, it is interesting that it is fairly clear that the sovereignty issue is not addressed by the Bill.
In conclusion, I find it rather peculiar that paragraph 115 of the Explanatory Notes states:
“This clause has been included in the Bill to address concerns that the doctrine of Parliamentary sovereignty may in the future be eroded by decisions of the courts”.
This is slightly curious. Perhaps the Minister will give us clarification.
Lord Lea of Crondall
My Lords, it might be convenient if I spoke to Amendment 58. It is not in this group, but it is very much part of the balancing act with Clause 18. My purpose in tabling Amendment 58 is to persuade the Government that it would be helpful to have a clause to balance Clause 18. Both the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong of Ilminster, and I would be happier if Clause 18 was not there, so that there would be no need for what one might call a balancing affirmation. However, I suspect that if we wind up with Clause 18, the majority of the House would be happy to have it along with a balancing affirmation. I am not going back into the theology of declaratory clauses, although in different ways, I half infer from a range of speeches, including, to some extent, that of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, that declaratory clauses are not without value if there is a balance.
I hope the Government will not look askance at the idea that I am trying to do them a favour. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Howell, is an honourable man, and I hope I am, and I think this would be helpful. It would avoid the impression that this Bill is simply about giving credence to the idea that everything that comes from Brussels is horrible and that we have to watch like a hawk and have referendums in various places. This is the tone of the Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Howell, made an excellent statement—I am reflecting what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, and others—but it is hardly the picture that is coming across of the role of the European Union in this Bill.
I have taken the liberty of writing out the major pieces of legislation that constitute the framework of where we are in Europe. It is quite significant. I have not even put in all the jargon of the acronyms—TEU and so on. We have the European Communities Act 1972, the amending treaties and the Single European Act 1987. We all remember that these were not little jigsaw pieces. We have the Maastricht treaty of 1992, the Amsterdam treaty of 1997, the Nice treaty of 2001 and the treaty of Lisbon of 2007, which were concluded in the context of the European Union having a dynamic of development with new EU competences side by side with the successive enlargements of the European Union and new competences in fields agreed to be necessary for Europeans to act together. If we are in the business of declaratory clauses, I think that would be a good one and might reflect the views of the majority of the Committee if Clause 18 remains in the Bill. It needs balance.
The only other point I shall make is that we have here an affirmation of what the Government claim to be their position. The Minister says that this is the Government’s position and that far from trying to introduce an opt-out from Lisbon via the back door of referendums and so on, they accept responsibilities from the framework of all the signatory nations in implementing this framework and that they will look pragmatically at any new proposals under these treaties in the usual way through the Council, the Parliament and the Commission.
I am leaning over backwards. I hope it is not a posture that looks too ridiculous, but if you are going to have Clause 18, a balancing affirmation like this would be very desirable.
Lord Lea of Crondall
“( ) This section does not affect the United Kingdom’s commitments set out in the European Communities Act 1972 and subsequent Acts enacting subsequent amending treaties (the Single Market Act (1987), the Maastricht Treaty on European Union (1992), the Amsterdam Treaty (1997), the Nice Treaty (2001) and the Treaty of Lisbon (2007)), and the treaties concluded to enable successive enlargements of the European Union as part of the dynamics of EU development, with new EU competences in fields agreed to be necessary for Europeans to act together.”
Lord Lea of Crondall
I will make just one point. Will the noble Lord, Lord Howell, include in his consideration that there is a demand for a rewrite of Clause 18? The noble Lord has said that the Government respect all of the seven statutes that we are committed to implementing in the United Kingdom. To use the vernacular, you could have fooled me. In the tone of the Bill there is very little that acknowledges the weight of this great structure that has been prepared as a framework. That is the ghost at the feast at the moment. No other country in the EU is raising the bar as high as we are with all these referendum arrangements. It would be very valuable, to say the least, if something more positive could be incorporated into this declaratory clause.