European Union Bill

Lord Stoddart of Swindon Excerpts

Monday 16th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stoddart of Swindon]

My Lords, I oppose the Motion on the basis that it is completely unfair to bring on a major Bill at 8.05 pm, when, presumably, the House is to rise at 10 pm tonight. This is supposed to be the fifth day of consideration on the Bill. It is certainly not the fifth day, although it is a fifth of a day. That is unseemly and unfair to all noble Lords who have taken part in discussion on the Bill so far and who wish to do so at a proper hour in future.

We were given notice that the Bill would be considered again today only on Thursday. Until then, I think that everyone who was interested in the Bill had the impression that the next consideration would be tomorrow, instead of which it is coming on at 8.05, after Report of a major Bill and the previous debate. Frankly, that is not good enough. It is treating this House with contempt.

That is exacerbated because, as I understand it, there has been virtually no consultation with those who have been concerned with the Bill. The usual channels have just said, “Oh well, we'll give it a run on Monday. Never mind the arrangements that people might have made to do other things. We will put it on. No one will object”. I am objecting now, and objecting strongly.

I was unable to be here on Thursday. When I saw this appear on the business, I made inquiries about what time it was likely to come on. I was told that it would be at 6 pm. Even on the basis of information available on Thursday, we have lost a further two hours. To embark on a Bill now with major amendments is unbecoming to the Government and the usual channels. As I said, there has been complete disregard of the convenience of noble Lords who wish to speak to the Bill.

It is not as if there is an urgency about the Bill. We do not need the Bill tomorrow or next month; we do not need it next year. The Government have said that we do not need it in this Parliament, because none of its provisions will be operative in this Parliament. What on earth are we doing here at 8.10 pm embarking on the so-called fifth day of an important Bill? It is completely wrong and the Government ought to be ashamed of themselves.

Of course, the situation is even worse than that. Tomorrow, when we will embark on the Bill again, another major Bill will be debated before it—the Postal Services Bill, and God knows how long that will go on for. I shall almost be tempted to speak on it myself so that we talk out tomorrow’s discussion on this Bill.

Therefore, tomorrow we will have only half a day, if that, to spend on the Bill. The Committee is being cheated of the time that it was promised, which I believe was six days. Bearing in mind the time that we lost on previous days, we will certainly not have anything like six days. In any event, as this Session goes on until next May, why on earth do we want to start debating a Bill at this time of night? I hope that the Government will reconsider their decision to take the Bill into Committee tonight and agree to oppose the Motion before us.

[Lord Triesman]

My Lords, I cannot recall an occasion yet when the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon, and I have been in complete accord but we are this evening. I share the view that it is absolutely extraordinary that most of us should have stood by ready to start debating this Bill at 6 pm only to find that it has started, even with a few minutes’ intervention from the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, way past 8 pm. I do not believe that that is helpful to the government Front Bench, let alone to both parties opposite or, indeed, to us. I shall not repeat what the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, said at any length, because he made the point very forcefully. It is extremely hard to understand what is so pressing as to mean that we should discuss absolutely critical issues about constitutional arrangements between our Parliament and Europe on this type of timescale. We are shoe-horning it—that is the only way that I can describe it—into tiny pockets of time very late in the day with the prospect of holding debates extremely late at night, when we all know that proper justice is not done to the matters that we need to discuss.

I take the Bill very seriously, just as the House took the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill seriously this afternoon. They are big constitutional issues by any standard. As I said, I take this Bill very seriously, although I have a very different view from that of the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, for example, on a number of its provisions. However, that is neither here nor there. We either take it seriously or we do not. I think that we are being asked to perform a serious job in a trivialised way and I cannot believe that the House will find that acceptable. I hope that the Front Bench opposite will have a credible answer and a credible timetable.

--- Later in debate ---

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, all noble Lords know that business is organised by the usual channels. I agree that the House is working very hard at present and I can think of few noble Lords who work harder than the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon. However, we have plenty of time to undertake valuable work on the Bill. In fact, we still have an hour and three-quarters, and it is not an unusual time of day to be considering such legislation. I do not believe that the House or the general public would understand if we went home an hour and 45 minutes early, especially if they worked out the cost of doing so. Therefore, I hope that noble Lords will agree to go into Committee.

[Lord Stoddart of Swindon]

We have an hour and three-quarters. Is this to be considered a day of Committee?

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I very much doubt that the usual channels would consider an hour and three-quarters to be a whole day. However, I shall pass on noble Lords’ views to my noble friend the Chief Whip, who is not too far from me, and I am sure that she will take that into consideration in her discussions with the usual channels. However, I strongly suggest that we go into Committee on the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Dykes]

I think that there have been examples of much larger figures when money has been offered by newspapers, although on this occasion the Daily Express at least had the grace not to offer any money. We know that the whole thing is got up by the British press, a small number of headbangers in the parliamentary Conservative Party in the Commons, UKIP, the BNP and other entities like that—not many people. I am returning to the amendment as quickly as I can, but I am quoting the Daily Express’s remarks to show the background to the whole campaign. Clause 6 would directly affect the status of all the provisions in it and make them subject to referendums. It has nothing to do with the common sense or logic of it.

Another letter, to the noble Lord, Lord Flight, on his points, was sent from my noble friend Lord Howell, who has kindly sent copies to other participants on these debates. The very acceptable reply gives ample intellectual and practical cover for the notion of the Government now having the imagination to remove some of the other sub-subsection areas from the classification of being subject to a referendum. We therefore concentrated on the three, four or five areas which could be retained—we differ on those, although some people say we differ only on the euro—starting with euro inclusion, which is generally regarded as the most important, as already supported widely in the Chamber in recent debates. We will therefore reduce the future nightmare for hapless Ministers suffering agonies of confusion in the Council of Ministers and receiving the wrath of their counterparts for paralysing the Union on literal trivialities.

When a Bill is complex and incomprehensible, and far too verbose and heavy because it has to cover so many points, I feel sorry for the government draftsmen who have to assemble it—in quite a short time, I imagine. They would probably regret it, and wish to look at it again. When you feel it is complex and incomprehensible, you turn to the Explanatory Memorandum, but that does not help at all. In respect of what the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, was saying when he was particularly concerned about subjection (5)(i) and (j) of Clause 6, paragraphs 78 and 80 on page 18 of the Explanatory Memorandum show once again how obnoxious Clause 6 is compared to the earlier clauses. I will not go into detail, or I will take too long. However, the last part of paragraph 80 refers to moving from unanimity to qualified majority voting:

“This is in line with the provisions of subsection (5)(b) above. Such a move would not require a referendum, however, if a referendum had already been held to approve a decision to move from unanimity to qualified majority voting in accordance with subsection (5)(i) in the same area of enhanced co-operation. To do so would in effect mean holding a referendum on whether to change the role of the European Parliament or not, and would not be a transfer of power or competence”.

I suppose that you might say that that would be literally true, subject to carefully re-reading it again. However, the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, talks about throwing the key through the window. That would not, of course, be a good idea because some sensible pro-European pragmatists would pick up the key. They would find it in the street, come back in and unlock the secrets. You have to put it down a hole to ensure that the whole thing is abandoned. An explanation like that shows the bad quality of a badly drafted Bill, particularly this clause.

[Lord Stoddart of Swindon]

I probably would not have risen except for the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, to which I will return in a moment. As for the amendment, at this time of night it is confusing and difficult to understand what its result would be. As far as I can see, it attempts to introduce parliamentary control over the items which might well attract a referendum. I hope that that is right, because I am of course always in favour of better parliamentary scrutiny. The problem is that all our experience so far shows that, one way or another, the Government manage to evade parliamentary scrutiny. For example, last week they overrode the European Union Committee’s reserve on the matter of patents. They did not do so on any reasonable grounds, except that the Hungarian presidency wanted them to do so. The Government overrode the parliamentary scrutiny of the House of Commons.

[Lord Roper]

But not the House of Lords.

[Lord Stoddart of Swindon]

No, I specifically excluded the House of Lords. It was the House of Commons. The House of Commons had before the meeting of its committee a Member of this House, who tried to explain exactly why the Government acted as they did. I hope that when the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, winds up, he will assure me that this would be better parliamentary scrutiny than what is contained in the Bill.

I come back to the noble Lord who was excoriating all the people who are opposed to further European integration. He well knows that I was never in favour of joining the EEC or the Common Market, as it was. I still believe that this country would be better off out of it. The Daily Express has been trying to give people the opportunity to have a say whether we should remain in. I noticed in last Sunday’s Sunday Express that one of Nick Clegg’s most senior advisers—Mr Tim Farron, the president of the Liberal Democrats—had called for a referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union. He said that Britain’s relationship with the EU has become so poisonous—poisonous, mind you; I have never used that sort of language—that voters deserved a chance to express their views in a referendum on membership of the bloc. Those are not the words of any Liberal councillor; he is the president of the Lib Dems. The noble Lord presumably excludes his own president from his excoriation. He will have to be careful whom he excoriates in the future.

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

The president of the Liberal Democrats is very well known to me. He is a supporter of the European Union. He simply believes that the only way to end the misrepresentation of what the European Union is doing and the attempts to get us out without directly facing the question of “in or out” is to have an “in or out” referendum. He believes, as I do, that such a referendum would be likely, in the end, to confirm that we should stay in. The trouble, as the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, knows even better than I do, is that within less than five years of the previous referendum, which gave a clear decision in favour of staying in Europe, the Labour Party officially decided to leave the Union. That does make referenda look a bit less strong than one might like to believe they are.

[Lord Stoddart of Swindon]

I remember the 1975 referendum very well. I took part in it myself. If Mr Farron believes that we should have a referendum because our relationship with the European Union has become poisonous, he is right and I agree with him. However, it is not only UKIP—there are Labour Members who are opposed to our membership of the European Union and, indeed, quite a lot of Liberals. When he believes, rightly, that our relationship with the European Union has become so bad that we need a referendum, I would hope that people, particularly from the Liberal party, would stop criticising those who believe that, after 50 years or so, it is time the British people had another chance to say whether we should stay in or get out.

[Lord Dykes]

If the result of the referendum was a yes vote, which I believe the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, has suggested would definitely be the case, the noble Lord would refuse to accept that verdict, as he did with the 1975 referendum.

[Lord Stoddart of Swindon]

The noble Lord is absolutely wrong on this. The 1975 referendum was held because of the failure to hold a referendum before we went in. The Labour Party was having great trouble—I remember it well because at that time I was a member of the Labour Party—and to heal the split that had grown up within it, the device of a referendum was put into operation. However, that occurred only two years after our entry into the Common Market and we had not felt the effects of that. Now that we have been in it since January 1973, people have experienced what it means, what it costs and how it affects them. That is why so many people now are beginning to believe, or already believe, that we need to test the view of the British people on the matter. What is wrong with that? People like the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, have said that the European Union is the best thing since sliced bread and that the country is behind it. They said the same about AV but, when people voted on it, they found that they were not with them at all. I believe that they should test the people’s opinion. I promise that if we have a referendum on being in or out of the European Union, and the people say that we must remain in, I shall go away and have a nice retirement. Until then I shall continue to press for a referendum. I hope that eventually the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, and others like him, will come round to the same position as that of his party’s president.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

My Lords, I do not want to follow my noble friend Lord Dykes too far as I am not sure that his remarks were strictly in order. We have tended to have rather a lot of general remarks. I am sure that the Daily Express is highly flattered by the amount of time that has been devoted to it in these debates. Listening to my noble friend Lord Dykes, I remembered Enoch Powell’s remark that politicians who complain about the newspapers are rather like fishermen complaining about the weather. It is not the Daily Express that has caused the rise of the True Finns party. It is not the Daily Express that has caused the Germans to become more sceptical about the euro. It is not the Daily Express that has caused a very considerable dramatic change in opinion in Holland about the European Union generally. If my noble friend wishes to understand why the Daily Express manages to get people to sign these petitions, he ought to read his own speech because it is exactly remarks such as his, abusing the feelings of ordinary people, which increase the number of people supporting these petitions. To seek to deny that there is concern among ordinary people about overcentralisation in the European Union is to neglect public opinion in a rather cavalier way, if I may dare say so.

I want to ask about two points that the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, made in his extremely interesting speech. The first concerns the point about Clause 6(5)(j). If what the noble Lord said was right, this was not about powers but about a policy. He instanced a policy decision and the hypothesis whereby, under enhanced co-operation, the Germans, while not participating in it, might wish to make a financial contribution to it. That is rather an important point because one of the fears one would have in Britain, as a country unlikely to participate in some of the enhanced co-operation projects, is that we might end up paying the bill. That would be one of our natural instinctive reactions. It would be extraordinary if, in fact, Germany wanted to pay part of the bill and that was not allowed without a referendum in this country. I cannot believe that the situation is quite like that, but I very much hope that my noble friend can clarify that point.

Secondly, I wanted my noble friend to comment on the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, about whether one would have to have a referendum on the exchange rate as well as the decision to join the euro. Normally, when I was a Minister, distinguished civil servants such as the noble Lord and his noble friend Lord Hannay, and people of their ability, talent and knowledge, had ingenious ways of solving problems and they could always refer to some obscure part of the treaty to enable us to decide what to do. On this occasion, I regret to say that the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, seemed to be using his ingenuity to make things more difficult, rather than to consider this matter more seriously, which is what he normally does.

I do not believe that it would be possible to put the rate and the decision in principle to join the euro together. I certainly do not believe that the referendum would be about the rate. No one would be remotely interested in that. The referendum would be about whether or not we joined the euro. I do not see, as the noble Lord seems to do, some tremendous market problem because the rate announced on one day would be implemented on another. There was no such problem when the rates for all the individual currencies that formed the euro were announced well in advance—a year or more in advance—of the date on which the currency was set up. It was announced that there would be a date on which the currencies would be irrevocably linked together in a grid. Naturally, the market adjusted to the decision that had been made, rather than the other way round. I do not see the problem that the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, outlined, but I should be grateful if the Minister could reassure me that my understanding and conclusions on that matter are correct.

More generally, I obviously could not support the amendment because in essence, under a disguise, it tries to get rid of the lock imposed by the Bill. While we hear a lot of criticism of the vetoes that will be subject to the referendum provisions, we never hear anything about the 50 vetoes that are left intact, in the sense that they can be abolished without a referendum. There are 50 areas under the Bill where unanimity is still required, and a referendum will not be required if they are removed by whatever procedure. A degree of judgment and selectivity has thereby been exercised by the Government.

We tend to forget in these debates that after Maastricht, Lisbon and Nice unanimity remains on certain articles. They remain there for a very good reason. Many countries, not just Britain, have wanted unanimity to remain and they do not want easily to surrender it, which is one reason why the idea that you will get a multiplicity of referenda on what the Opposition consider to be minor subjects will not actually happen.