European Union Bill

Debate between Lord Stoddart of Swindon and Baroness Williams of Crosby

Monday 23rd May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

My Lords, I do not believe that the noble Lord, Lord Radice, was suggesting that there should be a legal obligation on Ministers to say nice things about the European Union. What he was trying to do is to get at long last a more balanced perception of the pros and cons of our membership of the European Union, for which I profoundly commend him.

Of course there are many things wrong with the European Union, as there are with the United Nations, with our special relationship with United States and with many other aspects of international institutions, one recently mentioned being NATO. Nobody argues with that; we live in a world of real politics where it is clear that most institutions have substantial flaws. Nobody denies that the same is true of the European Union.

But what I find so sad is that, for 40 years now, this country has gone on missing opportunity after opportunity to lead and profoundly to influence the European Union because of its obsession with constantly trying to run it down, even when it does things which are obviously in the interests of this country, of the European Union itself and of the world. Neither your Lordships nor I have got time to go back at great length, but such an attitude dates from our refusal to have any part in the Coal and Steel Community of 1951, our refusal to take part in the 1957 treaty of Rome, with our dismissal of the enterprise as being unlikely to succeed, our failure to recognise the astonishing achievement in bringing Spain, Portugal and Greece, all of them dictatorships, into a framework of democracy which has been sustained, undoubtedly with some difficulty, right up to the present time—which is an amazing achievement—and our total lack of interest or great concern with the European Union’s extension eastwards into central Europe, the Baltic states and elsewhere, countries for which the European Union, alongside their membership of NATO, were the guarantees of their future democracy and stability. They still have a long way to go, but they have come a very long way since 1989 when the Soviet Union collapsed.

We turn aside time and again from the fact that the European Union is the single greatest giver of aid to developing countries, exceeding any other country on the same scale such as the United States, China or India. We take very little notice of the tremendous efforts made by the European Union to do something serious about emissions, greenhouse gases and the environment. At the most parochial level, when we look at the cleanness of our beaches and at the fact that the Thames river now has salmon all way up to the Pool of London, we see that that is due directly to European Union directives, though nobody is ever prepared to say it very loudly in this country. I could go on—I shall not—but what I find so sad is that we in this country have failed to give a constructive lead to the European Union and spend almost all our time carping about it. We are right to criticise it—yes—but to carp, to sour and to change and distort the facts in the way that happens in the British press is astonishing and not copied in France, Germany, Spain or most other major countries of the European Union. It is a unique aspect of a certain kind of British moaning about the great opportunities that it has decided not to follow up.

The noble Lord, Lord Radice, spoke about the Murdoch press and Associated Newspapers. Those newspapers do not simply produce balanced and constructive criticism of the European Union; they continually emit a series of distorted statements, falsified facts and false scandals which rarely come home. One should compare them with the one newspaper that I think everybody in this House would recognise does not grind very strong party axes and attempts seriously to devote itself to society and the public good, in providing the nearest thing to truth that can be provided—I refer, to your Lordships’ surprise perhaps, to the Financial Times. The indications, the outlines, the descriptions and the analysis in the Financial Times of what is actually going on in Europe are unique in being genuinely international, genuinely global and genuinely objective in a way that most newspapers do not pretend or even try to be. One reads in that newspaper lots of criticisms and worries about the eurozone and so on, but it provides a picture of what is happening that is far better balanced than that which one gets from most of the other major tabloids or even for that matter, sadly, some of the major broadsheets.

Our future as a country lies in working closely with the European Union. It is not just me who says that; it is people such as President Obama and the leaders of China. Our major neighbour nations recognise that the UK’s future as a serious player on the world stage is very closely linked to the extent to which we can co-operate with our neighbours in Europe. That is very strongly the view of the United States; it has been over several presidencies—I do not doubt that we shall hear anything very different when the present President of the United States comes here on Wednesday. Should we not at least give a moment’s pause for some of our closest friends and best allies when they say to the United Kingdom, “Please, think constructively about what you can contribute to the future, and think about how the Commonwealth and Europe together could create a world of greater peace and greater balance”? Just for once, let us move away from the negative position that we in this country so often take and look at the prospects for our children and grandchildren. Let us notice that they inevitably require us to work, not uncritically, but thoughtfully and constructively, with our European neighbours to make the world a somewhat better place.

[Lord Stoddart of Swindon]

The amendment refers to the failure of Governments and Ministers to promote the European Union; what we have had is a debate about the pros and cons of the European Union. I could speak for a very long time on that, but I shall not. However, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Radice, that he is wrong in his view that Ministers of all Governments have not promoted the European Union or the European ideal. In fact, we have progressed—if that is the right word—from what was supposed to be a common market to what is now, almost, a new country called Europe. We need to understand that all the way along, ratchet by ratchet, treaty by treaty, Governments have promoted our memberships, first, of the Common Market and now the European Union. They have done so in the belief that things should be done better by a group rather than by individual nations. That is not what the British people think; they believe that Britain should remain a self-governing nation.

The Single European Act transferred huge tranches of power to the European Union. It was followed in 1992 by the Maastricht treaty, which promoted even more powers to the European Union. That process culminated in the latest treaty, the Lisbon treaty. There is virtually no policy area where the European Union is not now involved. It is even involved in taxation and the control of our financial institutions. It takes the lead in foreign affairs and virtually all issues of British policy now have, in part or as a whole, a European Union basis. That is all I want to say for the moment, but I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Radice, will withdraw his amendment, which is ill conceived.

House resumed. Committee to begin again not before 7.01 pm.

European Union Bill

Debate between Lord Stoddart of Swindon and Baroness Williams of Crosby

Tuesday 17th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

I will not be lured very far by the noble Lord, who is always very polite in the way that he attempts to broaden out the debate in Committee. I do not think that is what most people want to do. I will simply say that we have clean beaches in Britain. We have clean rivers. We have cleaner air. The first two of these owe a very great deal to the European Union’s requirements, which we should meet.

[Lord Stoddart of Swindon]

I understand exactly what the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, is saying and I can understand the reasons why she is saying it. However, the reason we have this Bill is because of the betrayal—if I might use that strong word—of promises which have been made and not kept.

I refer first to the promises that were made by the Government and, indeed, by the Opposition about having a referendum on the constitution, later to be known as the Lisbon treaty. There is very little difference. Even Giscard d’Estaing says that there is very little difference. However, I do not want to get into that argument. I want to try to explain why I believe we have reached this point where such detail has been put into a Bill. It is because people join political parties and have an influence on them. So many times promises have been made, such as on the five red lines that were all crossed, and not kept. Increasingly, people in this country have lost trust in the Government’s promises that we are not, ratchet by ratchet, going into a federal European state.

European Union Bill

Debate between Lord Stoddart of Swindon and Baroness Williams of Crosby

Monday 16th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[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.

European Union Bill

Debate between Lord Stoddart of Swindon and Baroness Williams of Crosby

Tuesday 3rd May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

In the case of prostitution, quite a lot of the entries are from eastern Europe. Indeed, some of the more disagreeable people have exploited the fact that the eastern Europeans are not aware of where they are going. They are offered jobs in the catering trade—hotels and so on—and then find out that they have been sold into prostitution. They are not aware of how to deal with the situation or of the safeguards that should be open to them. However, that is not the case with the other two examples I gave of domestic slavery and agricultural exploitation. In those cases, most of them come into this country, rather amazingly, straight from third countries and not by way of other member states of the European Union.

[Lord Stoddart of Swindon]

On the first intervention, I got the impression that the noble Baroness thought that all five groups of amendments were being taken together. Is that correct? If we are taking all five groups together we will be here for a very long time and noble Lords will miss their dinner. Could we have clarification on this?