European Union (Referendum) Bill

Lord Turnbull Excerpts

Friday 10th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Turnbull (CB)]

My Lords, there are many features of the EU and our relationship with it that are beneficial, but there are also many that are objectionable, beginning with the complacency of the Brussels elite, exemplified on the radio this morning. There is the contempt for popular opinion; the driving ambition for ever closer union; the relentless expansion of the EU competences; the extravagance over buildings and expenses; the waste within EU programmes such as the CAP, overseas aid and the common fisheries policy; the hypocrisy of demanding a 6% real-terms increase in the EU budget while imposing harsh austerity on national budgets; the economic illiteracy of many of the regimes, such as the euro, the Social Chapter and the working time directive; and the damage to competitiveness in seeking to decarbonise in only 35 more years, largely on the basis of renewables. There is also the jealousy and hostility towards London as a financial centre. Finally, there is the abject failure of the Lisbon agenda, agreed in 2000, to make Europe the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world.

It is not surprising that many people have become exasperated, but does that justify this curious Bill? It does not in my view. To make a rational and informed choice on EU membership, one needs to start with an analysis of the status quo of EU membership—its costs and benefits—and then compare that with not one but two counterfactuals. First, what would life be like as a member of the EU on revised terms? Secondly, what would life be like outside the EU? Current government policy at least attempts to address the first. That is, after a period of negotiation the results are to be put to the people for a decision. However, this still fails to deal with the nature of life outside the EU.

The Bill deals with neither of these cases. Leaving the EU cannot be treated like deciding not to renew one’s subscription to a golf club, which has no lasting consequences. The decision to leave the EU would leave a host of important issues unresolved, including citizenship and rights of residence affecting millions of people who have moved one way or another within the European Union; ownership of property; employment; trade in goods and services; recognition of intellectual property; the operation of cross-border businesses; study at European universities; and many others. We would need to know how many of the favourable aspects of EU membership, such as free trade, we could retain through bilateral agreements, and how many of the unfavourable elements we could jettison.

This is a defective Bill as it does nothing to address these issues and help the people to make an informed decision of a very major kind. It is also, I believe, a pointless Bill as it will not settle the question of whether or when there will be an “in or out” referendum. That will be determined by the outcome of the next election, in the next Parliament, which can endorse, amend or repeal this Bill.