EU: UK Membership

Lord Marlesford Excerpts

Thursday 13th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I thank the noble Lord for his usual extremely constructive contribution. Of course we are discussing co-operation in police and judicial matters with the Germans, as we are discussing all other matters.

[Lord Marlesford]

Does my noble friend agree that bilateral discussions are one thing, but negotiations on the future of the EU are another? When do the Government expect negotiations to start and with whom?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the European Union is a continuous process of negotiation. We are pursuing a multilateral reform agenda and, indeed, in the past few months a number of things on that agenda have been achieved. We were committed to containing the growth of the European Union budget and the multiannual financial framework agreement has achieved that. We have been committed, as indeed were the previous Labour Government, to extensive reform of the common fisheries policy; that has now been more or less achieved. We were committed to an EU patent court; that is now here. There is a range of further items that we wish to pursue and we will do so with like-minded member Governments, many of whom share our concerns, through the processes of multilateral negotiation.