EU: UK Membership

Lord Pearson of Rannoch Excerpts

Thursday 13th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we are a coalition Government. However, I remember that during the previous Government there were occasions when Ministers—and special advisers—actively briefed against one another.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

My Lords, as we are the eurozone’s largest trading partner, both for exports and imports, will Germany not do all in her power to ensure that none of our jobs is in danger when we come to leave the failed political construct of the EU itself?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the idea that countries in deficit have the overwhelming negotiating advantage over countries in credit would not be supported by most economic historians. I trust that the noble Lord noticed the Daily Mail story yesterday on the European Parliament, which noted that three of the five most ineffective and absent Members of the European Parliament are members of UKIP and that the most conscientious, dedicated and hardworking group is the British Liberal Democrats.

EU: Reform

Lord Pearson of Rannoch Excerpts

Thursday 16th May 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

Of course, many things require the agreement of nearly 28 member states—Croatia is about to join. There is a great deal that we can achieve without treaty change; the Lisbon treaty has considerable headroom in it. The question of whether we are likely to face treaty change in the next five years is much more to do with what form banking union takes—I am sure that the noble Lord read Mr Schäuble’s article in the Financial Times the other day—and with other areas of management of the eurozone.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

My Lords, as a first step towards closing down the whole ill-fated project of European integration, why do Her Majesty’s Government not propose the abolition of the euro, with all its participants returning to their national currencies? Would that not start to ameliorate the suffering of the Greek, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Cypriot and—soon—French people? Would it not also give us financial and monetary clarity for the longer-term future?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am fascinated by the way in which the noble Lord approaches some very complicated international issues. I am struck by the extent to which European Union regulation and global regulation go together. While the UK is inside the EU, we are playing a major part in negotiating global regulation, for example on tax and on how the global framework for digital regulation will evolve. If we were to leave the European Union, we would lose our influence over the evolution of global regulation—unless the noble Lord is such a free trader that he believes that we should have no global regulation at all.

EU: Salaries

Lord Pearson of Rannoch Excerpts

Wednesday 6th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I have already said that this applies to a large range of other European and global organisations, of which there are a great number. That does not mean, however, that Her Majesty’s Government and their allies in like-minded Governments in the EU are not entirely correct to say that we should be squeezing more efficiency out of the EU institutions and that the Commission has grown rather complacent over the years.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

My Lords, what is the average annual cost to the taxpayer of Members of your Lordships’ House and what is the average annual cost to the taxpayer of Members of the European Parliament, including all the latter’s special perks and allowances?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, it may surprise the noble Lord, but I do not have the exact figures to hand. Of course, any international parliament costs a great deal more because of the travel, dual residence and so on that are involved. Members of this House who also attend the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe or the NATO Assembly also cost rather more than the rest of us.

Referendums

Lord Pearson of Rannoch Excerpts

Tuesday 5th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am surprised that the noble Lord has not also called in aid Mrs Thatcher’s comment in the mid-1970s on the dangers of sliding from parliamentary democracy to plebiscitary democracy. Our political system depends on the principle of parliamentary sovereignty and that is something that we have to cling to.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

My Lords, further to the supplementary question of the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, does the Minister agree that opinion polls consistently show that more than 80% of the British people want a referendum on our membership of the European Union? Perhaps that should be of some significance even to our present political establishment.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I am glad that the noble Lord is such a man of the people in all these respects. I recall that, three months before the 1975 referendum, opinion polls were overwhelmingly in favour of leaving, but that, in the course of the campaign, opinion was informed and thus altered.

EU: Subsidiarity Scrutiny

Lord Pearson of Rannoch Excerpts

Tuesday 5th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, Her Majesty's Government do operate a diplomatic network in precisely that area. I hope that scrutiny committees through COSAC—the Conference of Parliamentary Committees for Union Affairs of Parliaments of the European Union—also now operate actively in this regard. I am told that it has become a much more effective body since I used to attend COSAC meetings many years ago when I was the chairman of a sub-committee. There is now a set of offices in Brussels of national Parliaments which provides a network where national scrutiny committees can get together. I hope that the Lisbon treaty arrangements will allow that network to become more and more active.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

My Lords, remembering that for the past 33 years all British Governments have promised not to allow enactment of proposed EU legislation which is still being scrutinised by our Select Committees here and in the other place, will the Minister confirm Written Answers which reveal that this scrutiny reserve was broken no fewer than 403 times between January 2010 and June 2012? Does that not make 403 pieces of EU legislation that Parliament has not agreed but which have been steamrollered through by the juggernaut anyway?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the noble Lord uses his characteristically robust and colourful language. There is always a tension between the time that national Parliaments wish to take for scrutiny and the pressures that national Governments, including our own, may wish to give to taking decisions. There are those in national Parliaments who regard the eight-week limit for taking a scrutiny decision as unfortunate, but I am informed by those who know the Brussels situation better than I do that the earlier national Parliaments submit reasoned opinions in the process of negotiation, the greater effect they have.

Reasoned opinions in the form of reports issued by the European Committee of this House are widely respected throughout the European Union in other national Parliaments and elsewhere. I recall with delight a Member of the European Parliament being appointed to head a committee in the European Parliament. He was asked by his clerk to start by reading three documents, two of which were reports from the House of Lords EU Committee.

EU: UK Membership

Lord Pearson of Rannoch Excerpts

Monday 22nd October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I read the stories in the Sunday newspapers the other week. I have no idea how authentic they were.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

My Lords, is the answer not that the Government cannot make the case for our membership of the EU because there is now an overwhelming case for us to leave it and thus create a great many jobs by relieving us of its suffocating clutches? Beyond that, is it not time for the EU itself to be wound up, with a similar benefit for the democracies of Europe? What is now the point of any of it? I hope that the noble Lord will not give me the nonsense about peace.

Armed Forces: Housing

Lord Pearson of Rannoch Excerpts

Wednesday 14th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

That is a very good question, and I will of course have to write to the noble Baroness about that. I do not have the accurate, detailed information.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

My Lords—

[Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville]

My Lords, may I remark to my noble friend that my noble friend Lady Sharples asked a question about the Wellington barracks when we were in opposition? It has clearly therefore appeared on the screen of the Ministry of Defence. If the first Duke of Wellington was alive today, I shudder to think what he would have said if it had disappeared from the screen during his lifetime.

EU: Repatriation of Powers

Lord Pearson of Rannoch Excerpts

Tuesday 6th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the Lisbon treaty envisaged that national parliaments should play a much more active part in scrutiny and indeed in insisting on the importance of subsidiarity and resisting overcentralisation. This House currently does it better than the other House. We very much hope that the House of Commons will also improve and extend its scrutiny of EU measures.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

My Lords, given the requirement for unanimity among 27 nation states before a single comma can be retrieved from the treaties of Rome, is not all talk of repatriation a convenient red herring?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

No. There is constant negotiation. The working time directive is currently under review, as the noble Lord will be aware. Sixteen member states, including Britain, currently have opt-outs. Twenty-three member states, not including Britain, are currently under contravention for not implementing the working time directive. There is therefore room for reconsideration.