Eurozone Crisis

Debate between Lord Pearson of Rannoch and Lord Grenfell

Tuesday 17th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grenfell]

My Lords—

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

My Lords—

European Union Bill

Debate between Lord Pearson of Rannoch and Lord Grenfell

Tuesday 17th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grenfell]

Perhaps we could finish on that point. It would be very interesting, if we made just a little more publicity about the value that we derive from the assessments that we pay to many international institutions. The noble Lord has talked about the importance of trade. If we were not paying our way with many of the international institutions that are enabling developing countries to develop their ability to trade with us, we would be the losers. There is always a benefit to be had from this, but what I find extraordinary is that the noble Lords should limit this to one institution, and our membership in it, which they do not happen to like. It does not make a great deal of sense.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

My Lords, perhaps I could try to make it make sense for the noble Lord. There are some huge differences between the money we pay to the European Union and the money we pay to the other institutions that he has mentioned. There is, of course, the question of quantum; without a cost-benefit analysis, we will not agree the figures, but from what I said today and on 3 May, we are looking at a cost of EU membership possibly in the region of £100 billion a year.

There is also another very important point. These other institutions that the noble Lord has mentioned do not make our law. They do not make the majority of our national law—it may be—in secret. They do not have laws proposed by the unelected Commission in secret, negotiated in secret by COREPER, passed in secret by the Council and imposed on the people and this Parliament by the European Union. These other institutions certainly are not in the same class. If we are having referendums, I do not think that it would be a bad idea to have one on NATO and other institutions. The British people would probably agree them, for the reasons that the noble Lord gave. The one that they will not agree is the one on the European Union.

European Union Bill

Debate between Lord Pearson of Rannoch and Lord Grenfell

Tuesday 5th April 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

I am afraid that I do not find them very convincing. The drift of all treaty changes, starting in 1972, has been to remove power from the nation states and to pass it to Brussels. Therefore, when we assume that under this clause provisions will come forward that do not transfer power from this country to Brussels, that really is the triumph of hope over experience.

[Lord Grenfell]

The noble Lord keeps referring to removing powers. Would he not accept that there is a principle of pooling powers, which is very different? It means that we share authority so that we can find results for the common good of Europe. Of course, when you pool powers you are not simply saying, “I give up all authority”; you are saying, “Together we will use our individual powers to find a means of pooling it for the common good”.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

The noble Lord brings me nicely on to my next point, which was also raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, when he said that we ought to have confidence in the other member states. Of course I accept that under Article 48(6) the Government of the day have the power of veto, but as I understand it, that is not what we are envisaging here. We are envisaging a Government of the day that have not used the power of veto and something has come forward which the British people might not like. I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, that pretty much anything put in front of the British people on matters European will be voted down in a referendum, and that the supporters of these amendments seem to be very fearful of the judgment of the British people.

When I say that the other member states, Brussels and the whole machine simply cannot be trusted to follow the treaties, I speak with history behind me. I would mention, for instance, Article 308, about which I have regaled your Lordships over many years. This article was put into the treaty to allow the Council of Ministers, by unanimity, to make small adjustments to the original Common Market and so on. I could take noble Lords through the abuse of Article 308 and all the powers that have been passed to Brussels under it, but I will not do so.

Let us take the abuse of Article 122 as recently as June before last. That article, which clearly allows member states to help each other in times of natural disaster, was taken under qualified majority voting—the British Government did not have a hope of stopping it—to force us to sign up to some 14 per cent of £50 billion for the European financial stability mechanism.

I really do not think that those of us on the Eurosceptic spectrum, of whom there are a few in your Lordships’ House, can accept that all this is going to follow properly in the Council of Ministers. I will not respond now to the noble Baroness, Lady O’Cathain, about roaming charges, but I think there was another one that had something to do with audio-visual equipment. That was in response to a long line of Questions for Written Answer from my noble friends Lord Tebbit and Lord Vinson. I am afraid I have to stick to my guns. With all due respect to noble Lords who sit on our European Union committees, I really do not think that they have made enough difference over the years to justify their existence.

So there it is. I think that this part of the Bill is reasonable if we envisage a British Government after this Government are no longer with us—this Government can veto anything, and they have said that they are going to, so this is not going to happen for five years —who have agreed to something in the Council of Ministers that ought to be put in front of the British people. I simply do not accept that the treaty will be obeyed, as it has never been obeyed in the past.

[Lord Grenfell]

My Lords, the noble Lord said that the European Union Committee has never made any difference—I declare an interest as I was its chairman for some years. Perhaps I may quote to him one fact. Many years ago, when Mario Monti, the Commissioner, set about a big review of the competition regulation, we got off the mark very quickly. We got hold of the Green Paper and did an extensive inquiry into it. We interviewed the Commissioner and presented our conclusions to Her Majesty's Government before they went in to negotiate in the Council. They said that they thought that what we said was extremely useful. They advanced their arguments, and it had an impact on the final result. So it is a little unfair to say that those 90 Members of your Lordships' House who work week in, week out on those committees do not make an impact—they certainly do.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

My Lords, I really do not mean to offend the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, or any of the other 90 noble Lords who sit on those committees. I merely point out—for instance, on the scrutiny reserve—that successive British Governments have over many years given an undertaking, which unfortunately is not legally binding, that they will not agree to any new piece of Euro-power-grabbing in Brussels if either the Select Committee in your Lordships' House or in the other place is still considering it and if it has not been debated. The latest Written Answer to me on this—I may not have got the statistic quite right—indicates that the scrutiny reserve has been broken no fewer than 434 times in the past five years. That is 434 pieces of European legislation that were under scrutiny by our scrutiny committees when the Government went ahead and signed up to them, because there was not time or because Brussels had moved ahead—all sorts of excuses.

My final word on your Lordships’ European Union Select Committee should be that perhaps one committee and a couple of sub-committees would do the job very well, and the resources could be freed up to do the work in committee which your Lordships' House does extraordinarily well. That is pretty well everything else apart from its European work. I oppose the amendments.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Pearson of Rannoch and Lord Grenfell

Monday 24th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

My Lords, I have given notice that I again wish to propose that we do not continue with these proceedings at all. I hope for a more helpful answer today than the one I was given last Wednesday. I have been encouraged to try again by several noble Lords who have told me that the brush-off that I was given last week was really most unsatisfactory and not at all in accordance with the convention of your Lordships’ House that the Government at least try to answer questions; they should at least make a fair stab at it, even if they do not like the answer.

My question last week was simply whether it was it was sensible to break our traditions and spend so much time and energy debating the method by which Members are elected to Parliament when so much power has been passed to Brussels that they can do very little when they get there. My question today goes further, and I touched on it in the first Oral Question today: if we are to have a referendum on anything, why is it not to be on what the British people have been promised, which is whether or not we want to stay in the European Union? After all, such a referendum was given as a cast-iron guarantee by the Prime Minister during the run-up to the Lisbon treaty. The leader of the Liberal Democrats, and this sews up the coalition Government quite nicely, actually walked out of the House of Commons—some would say flounced—because he was not allowed a vote on whether we wanted to stay in or leave the EU. Such a referendum was also in his party’s manifesto.

Why are we wasting so much time on a referendum to which the public are supremely indifferent while denying them one that they have been promised and which 85 per cent of them say they want? Surely the Deputy Leader of the House must agree that this sort of procedure, together with the regrettable filibuster that is clearly being mounted by Labour Peers, can do nothing but harm to the reputation of your Lordships’ House. Can it do anything but make the British people despise their political class even more than they do at the moment? Here I entirely share the sentiments and the words of the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza.

I add my thanks and those of my party to all the staff in your Lordships’ House, who are behaving with such amazing fortitude and courtesy throughout these regrettable proceedings. I fear that we do not deserve such service if we continue.

[Lord Grenfell]

My Lords, I have not taken part in the debates on the many amendments that have been before us because, to be honest, I have not wanted to contribute to the length of the proceedings.

I have listened carefully to what the noble Baronesses, Lady D’Souza and Lady Williams of Crosby, have said. However, I have to reject the accusation of filibustering. The House must understand the frustration that is felt on this side of the House that a matter of such constitutional importance arrived in this House without a White Paper or a Green Paper, and that the issues in the second part of the Bill are of fundamental interest to the public because they concern the constituencies. I agree that at times we on my side of the House—I will get no accolades from the Front Bench for saying this—have gone too far in discussing the amendments and that maybe it would have been better if they had been discussed more briefly. However, they were and remain important amendments, because this is an incredibly difficult issue to deal with.

The real problem that faced us, as we all know and have discussed many times in this House, was the fact that there were two parts to this Bill when there should have been two Bills. What has happened to irritate the House, and maybe the public at large, has been due to the fact that the second part of the Bill would have been a much shorter exercise if it had been a second Bill. As my noble and learned friend on the Front Bench has said many times, we would have had no problem about meeting the date of 5 May if it had been debated and dealt with separately. However, a matter of such great constitutional importance as changing boundaries and all that that involves in reducing the number of Members of the House of Commons deserved a separate Bill.

All I say to Members of the House is: please understand the frustration of those on these Benches. It is not a question of trying to hold anything up but of trying to get proper scrutiny of a major constitutional issue. If only there had been two Bills instead of one, we might have avoided this unfortunate situation. I now agree that we should try to move forward as fast as possible, but I beg noble Lords to understand that where there are amendments that are absolutely essential to the second part of the Bill—to make sure that it is a good Bill in that second part—we retain the right to discuss it fully, as a scrutinising and revising Chamber should.