Deputy Chairmen of Committees

Lord Pearson of Rannoch Excerpts

Thursday 16th May 2013 Lords Chamber

[The Chairman of Committees (Lord Sewel)]

In moving the 27 Motions standing in my name on the Order Paper en bloc, I remind Members of your Lordships’ House that if there is an objection to any single Motion, I will be more than happy to move all 27 Motions separately.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

My Lords, I rise again to query the usefulness of our proposed European Union Committee, and especially of its six sub-committees. I do so against the background of our Liaison Committee’s recent review of our committee structure, which was debated in your Lordships’ House on 21 March. This revealed that there were requests for no fewer than 28 ad hoc committees from your Lordships, of which only five could be accommodated. We could not even find the resources for a foreign affairs committee, which was widely supported, nor for a committee on preventing religiously based gender discrimination in arbitration and mediation services, which was supported in writing by 70 Peers.

I will very briefly repeat the case against this committee. First, its composition remains heavily, if not uniformly, Europhile, as it has been for the past 20 years, and therefore does nothing to reflect the growing Euroscepticism of the British people. Secondly, its findings are almost entirely ignored by Brussels, which routinely overrides our scrutiny reserve. That is the agreement whereby successive Governments have promised they will not sign up to any new EU law in Brussels if it is still being examined by the Select Committee of either House of Parliament.

Between January 2010 and June 2012 the scrutiny reserve was overridden 212 times in the House of Commons and 191 times in your Lordships’ House. Furthermore, the new “yellow card” system, whereby Brussels has to reconsider one of its new laws if eight national Parliaments object to it, is proving to be just as fraudulent as subsidiarity, as some of us forecast. If the Chairman of Committees does not agree with me, can he say what has happened to the proposals by Brussels for gender equality on company boards? Indeed, can he tell your Lordships of any new Brussels law that has been avoided by a yellow card?

I am aware that noble and Europhile Lords will claim that our reports are taken very seriously in Brussels and that Eurocrats can be seen reverently devouring our reports as they go about their unhelpful business, but the Government can point to hardly a single worthwhile case where our recommendations have been passed into European law—witness their Written Answer to me on 10 April. We are told that our committee has inspired the long-overdue reform of the criminal common fisheries policy, but if you put your ear to the ground in Brussels, you learn that this was inspired more by Mr Fearnley-Whittingstall’s television exposé than anything that our committee may have said. In passing, the answer is not to reform the CFP but simply to leave it and reclaim our great fishing industry.

Be all that as it may—and it is—I have to ask why we have seven EU sub-committees when so many subjects go uncovered by your Lordships’ acknowledged wisdom. Your Lordships’ committee reports on every other subject are respected by our media and of value to our people. I have to ask why we do not redistribute the resources of the six EU sub-committees and place them at the disposal of new ad hoc committees, for which there is a genuine need. I look forward to the noble Lord’s reply.

[The Chairman of Committees]

My Lords, it is reassuring to know that in these changing times there are some certainties about the nature of debate in your Lordships’ House. It is that time of year again.

First, I welcome the endorsement of the noble Lord for the new ad hoc Select Committees that have been established and I hope that we will be able to develop even more ad hoc Select Committees over the years ahead. However, that should not be at the cost of the EU Select Committee and its sub-committees. Indeed, I see a slight—to be generous—illogicality in the noble Lord’s position: given his views on the EU, I should have thought that he would have wanted bigger and better scrutiny of EU matters by your Lordships’ House. Therefore, the case is made for maintaining the present number of sub-committees.

Motions agreed.