European Union Bill

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Wednesday 25th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dobbs]

My Lords, I had intended to intervene for the very first time on the Bill to make a passionate denunciation of the idea of a sunset clause—on its inappropriateness—and I understand that if I do not intervene today I might have trouble intervening at a later stage. Given the pressures of time, I hope that the House will give me leave to not make that intervention today, but perhaps to intervene at a later stage.

[Lord Liddle]

I think we should thank the noble Lord for that, so that we can get on to our quick lunch and then to President Obama.

This debate on sunset clauses has been important. Amendment 63 is in my name. Frankly, I would happily support any of the amendments, because in this long Committee stage the Government have failed to make the case for the detail of the Bill as it stands. Because they have not done so, we are legitimate in proposing a sunset arrangement. Of course, on this side of the House we accept that there is a genuine issue about the popular legitimacy of the European Union. That is a matter for regret from our perspective, but it has to be addressed. The best way in which it could be addressed in this country is by establishing a cross-party consensus in favour of our membership of the European Union and for all parties to speak in that way. I do not think that the Bill is going to do much to establish that cross-party consensus, but it is an opportunity to address anti-Europeanism in our country. The rise of populist parties in other parts of Europe is also a matter of great concern. Britain is not alone in facing this legitimacy question.

We need to do something to strengthen the EU’s legitimacy, but do we need this Bill? There are features of the Bill that the Government have put forward that we are prepared to accept. They represent a strengthening of parliamentary accountability and of the circumstances in which referenda might be held. We now accept, which was not the case when the Lisbon treaty was ratified, that most of the things that come under passerelles and other consequentials of the Lisbon treaty should require a full Act of Parliament. I say to the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, that this side supports strengthening parliamentary accountability over what decisions the Government take in Europe. On that, we are agreed. We also accept the codification in statute of the political consensus that we would have to have a referendum to join the euro and that referenda should be considered on issues of major constitutional significance. As I said earlier in Committee, a major constitutional treaty that, for instance, led to the direct election of the president of Europe would be that kind of constitutional change that would require a referendum. There is also a strong case to be considered for referenda should we wish at some stage in our national interest to surrender our border controls or to establish a common defence force. These are very big issues which could be suitable for referenda.

This Bill does not do that. It does not focus on the simple, straightforward case that in most issues you should strengthen parliamentary accountability and then on really big issues you should accommodate the possibility of referenda. Instead, it puts in place multiple referendum locks. We count 56, although I am not quite sure whether that number is right. This is a wholly new constitutional innovation on which many Members on all sides of the Committee have expressed severe reservations. In the course of the Committee, we have tried to reduce the number of referendum locks. We have argued, again with the support of a broad range of opinion in this Committee, that Ministers should be able to exercise judgment about which matters are significant on many of the minor changes and minor treaty revisions on which this Bill imposes a referendum lock. We have argued for a parliamentary process—a Joint Committee of both Houses—to consider where referenda might be necessary. We have supported amendments that would simplify Clause 6 and boil down the number of referendum locks to the really big issues.

We have had no give from the Government on any of those issues through this long Committee. That is why we come back to say that the Government have not been prepared in any way to consider the wide range of opinion in this House that the Bill needs substantial amendment, so it is right to suggest that if it is to stay as it is, the whole thing should be sunsetted. I do not blame the Minister for that; I think he has very little freedom to make concessions in this House. The only time we will get concessions from the Government is if, in voting on Report, we can make changes to the Bill. We have no intention of pressing the issues to a vote today. The whole Bill rests on the misjudgment that the leadership of the coalition has made that Europe is somehow a dead issue in our national politics; that the Lisbon treaty was, as it were, Europe's last gasp in terms of changes in its constitutional architecture; and that the Bill is therefore a cheap bone that can be thrown to the many Eurosceptics on the Benches supporting the coalition in the House of Commons.

That is a great shame for a couple of reasons. First, as the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, said, no one can precisely foretell now how the European Union might have to adapt in future. Therefore, the warning of the Council’s former legal adviser, Jean-Claude Piris, that Britain might find that others go ahead and Britain is marginalised, is likely to prove correct were the Bill to last for the longer term. It could have that very damaging long-term effect on Britain's position in Europe. That is a shame, because the coalition Government, in their day-to-day policy on Europe, are trying to be positive. They present the Janus-faced stance of appealing to the anti-Europeans with this disgraceful piece of legislation on the one hand; and yet, when they go to Brussels, they try to present a positive picture of Britain's role in Europe. They signed up for the defence treaty with France. They have argued for deepening the single market. I would not disagree with a word of the speech to be made today by David Lidington, the Europe Minister, which was trailed in the Financial Times this morning. The Government are being positive, but the truth is that, were the coalition to stay in power—of course I would not wish for that—or the Conservatives to be in power for the longer term, if they wish to pursue a positive European policy, because there will need to be adjustments to the rules over time as well as to decisions, they will find their Bill increasingly an albatross. I think that it was my noble friend Lord Davies who described it as the handcuffs of the multiple referenda.

That is a great pity, because far from Europe being a dead issue, we are at a turning point in our national affairs where, in economics, we have in this country to search for a new economic model. We have to rebalance our economy, which can be done only through rebuilding our export strength. Nothing is more important for that than our full engagement in the European single market, and therefore we have to be as co-operative and positive as we can. In terms of our role in the world, we should heed what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe, said in his speeches both today and a couple of days ago. As Asia emerges ever stronger, Britain is more dependent on the influence it can multiply through the European Union to have a role in the world. These are big reasons for showing our full commitment to Europe and why we have to be prepared to be flexible in our dealings with our partners rather than lock ourselves out, which is what the impact of this Bill will be.

In conclusion, like the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, who quoted from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, on this side of the Chamber we believe that the European Union is a lasting dream, but this Bill is a nightmare and should be sunsetted at the Report stage.

[The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Howell of Guildford)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have participated in this debate, sometimes colourfully. There have been a lot of references to William Shakespeare, which I was rather glad about, having spent many years as a director of the Globe Theatre. I have sat through some Shakespeare which, frankly, I could not understand, but in other plays I have heard some wonderful, inner-illuminating phrases, so I am glad they have come into our debate. The noble Lord, Lord Kerr, has led the way in that. As to whether he is Prospero doing such things as cannot be described, whether he is King Lear, or whether he remains in his midsummer night’s dream, I do not know. Perhaps I should leave Shakespeare there.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, for his presentation of his party’s position. I listened carefully to him, and if I may put this in a non-derogatory way, I would say that his speech was constructive in parts. He is right that we are at a turning point in the European Union. Indeed, one of my criticisms of some of the comments made during this long Committee stage is that we seem to be discussing the EU of yesteryear, a sort of pre-Lisbon world. Not only are we in a post-Lisbon world, we are moving into an entirely new international landscape where power is distributed in different ways. We have all said this to each other, and I know that your Lordships are acutely aware of it, possibly more than other bodies are.

There is a new international scene that requires new policies and approaches by both the member states and the European Union itself. The noble Lord was therefore right to say that we need to build a new consensus in support of the European Union and our role in it, but I must say that he has failed utterly to convince me in his various interventions, including this one, that the flexibility which Her Majesty’s Opposition seem so keen on and so anxious to see, would not turn out to fill the Bill with holes and undermine all our efforts to create consensus and restore the confidence and trust of the people so that they do not feel that the political class—Governments and Parliament—was not undermining their position in a stealthy way. This seems to me to be a contradiction that is not yet clear.

We will come to Report after the Recess. A great many wise and useful things have been said by Members on all sides in our Committee debates, and of course the Government will consider everything that has been said. My colleagues and I shall certainly do so before we reach the next stage. That almost goes without saying. For the moment, however, I must address the amendments before us, all four of them, about the idea of a sunset clause. It will not be much of a surprise to your Lordships when I say that the coalition Government, for which I am the mouthpiece today, oppose the proposal for a sunset clause. Although I know I shall not get full agreement, I shall try to set out as precisely and as clearly as I can why we do so.

Let us start with the general proposition of including a sunset clause, and why it would be absolutely unprecedented and extraordinary to include one in this kind of legislation, which is constitutional legislation—there is no disguising that—and intended to build a consensus to improve and enlarge our democracy in the modern world, in the midst of this informational revolution that has transformed the whole nature of public domain and decision-making, and to give the British people a greater say, which they clearly want, over important decisions on the future direction of the EU.

I do not at all share the view that these are obscure and arcane issues that no one discusses. On the contrary, particularly the much-maligned Schedule 1 issues, and indeed many others in Clause 6, are highly contentious so-called red-line issues which both Parliament and the public have stormed over—and the media have often joined in in ways that some of us find unattractive and not suitably calibrated. However, these are red-hot issues. The idea that they are not absolutely central to the concerns of the British people—to how we govern ourselves, position ourselves in the European Union and conduct our domestic affairs—seems to me not to be of the real world.

These are very serious and central issues. The truth is that a sunset clause of the kind proposed—we are dealing with a number of different aspects, which of course I want to come to—would seriously undermine our attempts to reconnect the British people with the European Union in its changing form and the decisions taken in their name. Here I would say that I do not think that the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, will accept—but I ask him to accept—that I am very tempted to have a lovely debate on the eurozone in all its aspects, but I do not think that this is quite the opportunity or even the time to do so.

Let me return to this general idea that there should be a sunset clause in a Bill such as this. There were no sunset clauses, of course, in the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 or, indeed, the European Communities Act 1972, and there is a very good reason for that. Such clauses would be a recipe for uncertainty where certainty is most needed, namely in the framework by which our democracy works. This Bill belongs to the family of certainty-building and not to the family of those who wish to experiment and say, “Let’s just try this measure once and then close it down again”. It would hamper our efforts to rebuild the trust of the people that has been lost in recent years. Why? It would hamper them because we as a Parliament, and the Government as well, would be saying to the British people, “You can have a say on future transfers of competence or power from Britain to the EU, but sorry, it’s only for a limited period unless the Government decide in their wisdom that the right should continue”. That seems to me to be completely the wrong way to go about the purposes, which even the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, seemed to share to some extent, behind the Bill. It would of course also absolutely guarantee the further alienation of Government and Parliament from the people whom we are supposed to serve and whose support and understanding of the values of our effective membership of the European Union we want to increase. It would be a retrograde step in the whole battle—