Subsidiarity Assessment: Seasonal Workers (EUC Report)

Lord Pearson of Rannoch Excerpts

Wednesday 20th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

My Lords, like my noble friend Lord Stoddart, I never thought that I would have the pleasure of supporting a report from your Lordships’ European Union Select Committee; but I do so now, and will be happy to support the Motion in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Roper. I hope they will not be too embarrassed if I go further and congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Hannay—who I am sorry to see is not in his place to hear this—and his Home Affairs Sub-Committee on the brevity and clarity with which they have put their case.

This report is perhaps a cause for even greater celebration. As far as I am aware, if your Lordships agree with the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Roper, this evening, it will be the first time that your Lordships' House has voted to prevent a power being passed from this Parliament to Brussels since 30 January 1997, when the House supported a Bill in my name to withdraw from the European Union altogether. So, on the face of it, this report and the vote tonight should be good news for Eurosceptics and the country. I hope it will not detract from what I have said if I ask the noble Lord, Lord Roper, and indeed the Government—I am not quite sure who will be replying—the question: a quoi bon? What chance have we got of actually keeping control of the admission of third country nationals as seasonal workers? What happens next?

As I understand it, and as the noble Lord, Lord Roper, mentioned, I think we are supported in our opposition to this directive by only five other houses of parliament in the EU: the Austrian lower house and both houses in Holland and the Czech Republic. I gather that unhappy noises have also been made in other houses of parliament, including the House of Commons, which has not had the time, or perhaps the inclination, to debate the matter. I hope I am being pessimistic; and so I would ask the noble Lord, Lord Roper, and/or the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Jones, who is to reply for the Government, to tell us how they see the directive proceeding from now on. For instance, can the Minister remind us how many member states’ houses of parliament are required to object to this directive before the Commission has to take action? Not much action though—as I understand it, it merely may have to reconsider it and then decide to proceed on its merry way anyway.

Noble Lords will appreciate that I ask this question against the background of Brussels and the Luxembourg Court’s long history of dishonestly interpreting the treaties to allow the EU to take ever more power at the expense of the member states. Perhaps the best example of this has been their use of Article 308 in the original treaty of Rome, which became Article 352. This allowed Brussels to exercise powers that the treaties did not grant, but only,

“in the course of the operation of the common market”.

So, it was designed to facilitate minor tariff adjustments and so on in the original Common Market. Yet over the years this clause has been used: to grant food aid to developing countries; to promote urban renewable in Northern Ireland; to provide assistance to economic reform in Mongolia; to co-ordinate our social security systems; to establish the EU's Agency for Fundamental Rights; to fund a £235 million propaganda campaign; to allow Brussels to get involved in the prevention and aftercare of terrorism and in the control of civil emergencies; and, for good measure, to regulate glucose and lactose. I will say no more now, but students of the EU’s ability to abuse the treaties for its power-seeking purpose will find a fuller account of it in your Lordships' Hansard for 18 June 2008, cols. 1073-76.

The situation after Lisbon becomes worse, because Article 308,—now Article 352 in the Lisbon treaty—now replaces,

“in the course of the operation of the common market”,

with,

“within the framework of the policies defined by the Treaties”,

which gives new space for the judicial activism of the Luxembourg Court, and no doubt it will continue to use it.

Before I sit down, in the same vein, could I ask what has happened to the finding in the committee’s 14th report in the 2008-09 Session, The future of EU financial regulation and supervision? That finding was that EU supervision of our financial affairs was not legal under the treaties. It required a treaty change, yet such supervision is proceeding apace and, as far as I am aware, the treaty has not been changed. I ask the Government whether the committee was wrong or whether its views are simply being ignored by Brussels as usual.

In conclusion, I fear the question becomes this: even if the committee is right that subsidiarity should legally apply in this case—and the committee clearly is right—what chance is there that Brussels will go along with its own law? I look forward to the Government’s reply.

[Lord Richard]

My Lords, this is the first time in 20 years that I have spoken in the gap. First, I apologise to the House for that because on the whole I think that debates should proceed in the normal and acceptable way. In my defence, I took the view that this would not be a debate that required a list, but I was wrong.

This is a very strange debate in many ways. I have views on the EU, as most Members of this House will know, and I find myself agreeing with the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, and part-agreeing with the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch. I have to say to him that I find it very strange that he sits behind me. There is a little prickling in the middle of my back every time I know he is there.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

My Lords, I am afraid the Conservatives had me for 12 years, and I understand that the Bishops are not keen to have me either.

[Lord Richard]

The place the noble Lord should be is obviously on the other side of the House.

What is to happen in this instance is very simple. When the issue came before the sub-committee, various members of the sub-committee looked at it and thought that subsidiarity applied and that it was incumbent upon the committee to say so. We could have said nothing about it, fairly reliant upon the fact that the Government were going to opt out, in which case, as far as Britain was concerned, it would be pretty academic. On the other hand, we took the view that since this was the first time that this procedure would ever be used, it was important, on an issue of principle, that we should make our views known and that therefore this novel procedure should be explored.

On the whole, the procedure—and it is process not substance that I really want to talk about—has worked. The sub-committee produced its report, it went to the main Select Committee, which approved the report, and it has now come to the House. If the House takes the view that it is invited to take, there will be a reasoned opinion of this House that will go back to the Community institutions. It is an admirable procedure. The only trouble was that we were out of time. It was no one’s fault, but it meant that when the committees were looking at this, there were about three days before the time limit ran out. The noble Lord, Lord Roper, explained at the outset that there was a choice. Either he could write a letter to the institutions in Brussels or we could get a reasoned opinion of the House and send that to Brussels. That is the view that he took, and I support it.

I again apologise for having taken up the time of the House in speaking in the gap.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

I am saying that we will treat each of these proposals as put forward by the Commission on its merits. I hope that it will be discouraged from putting forward further proposals by the reaction from member states. It does not follow that, because we have taken a view on a couple of these articles, we will take a wider view of the rights of the European Commission or the competence of the European Union in immigration policy.

I turn for a moment to the questions raised by the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch. He asked what was likely to happen next. As a student of these matters, he will know quite as well as I do that if one-third of national parliaments object on subsidiarity grounds, the proposal is sent back to the Commission. That is the yellow card; if a majority of parliaments oppose a Commission proposal, it gets the orange card. I do not know how many cards there are on the table, but we certainly regard this process of showing the European Commission what position the national parliaments take as being an important part of the process—and well said that this is a direct intervention in the legislation process of the European Union.

The noble Lord’s other point was about financial supervision and the progress of what the Commission is doing. I am afraid I will have to write to him on that, as it is not something on which I have been briefed. I think it is something in the purview of the Treasury, but I undertake to write to him.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

I think the noble Baroness rightly said that one-third of national parliaments would be necessary before the Commission had to think again. As I understand it, we have only five houses of parliament, so there is the difficulty of our being a long way from what is required to make the Commission think again, is there not? Riding over and above that, there is surely the question of the law. Assuming that the committee is right—I think that your Lordships are taking that view this evening—my question was: what hope is there that the law will prevail, or will the juggernaut carry on regardless, as usual?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

I would hope, given that this is the first test for the European Commission, that it would take note of the reservations being expressed in a number of parliaments of the European Union, irrespective of whether there are enough for it to be obliged to take notice. There needs to be further discussion in the European Union. If we have one of those situations in which the formal requirement has not been fulfilled but nevertheless it is clear that there are reservations, this is a moment when the Commission should be given pause to think again about the direction in which it is trying to go. I cannot anticipate what the result of that debate might be, but I hope that there would be one.

I can say that, irrespective of what that discussion would lead to, the United Kingdom will not be bound by this directive. We have not opted in and we have no plans to consider so doing after adoption. In the rather unlikely event that there was some consideration of that possibility at a future date, there is no doubt that the Government would take full account of the committee’s view on subsidiarity at that time.