NATO Summit 2018

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Davies of Stamford

Tuesday 26th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

I am most grateful to the noble Lord. I have to correct him: the Ministry of Defence, in which I then served, did think very long about this. I was very much in favour of adopting the catapult approach to carriers so that we could be interoperable with the Americans and the French. I am sorry to say that I lost that battle, but the argument was certainly had and went on for a very long time.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I thank the noble Lord. I think that that might strengthen my point.

The Prime Minister has declared the objective of a deep and special partnership in foreign policy and security, as well as in trade, with the European Union after we leave, which is to be formalised in the treaty. I ask the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, whether she can tell us a little more about that, since the Prime Minister has given us only the heading and not yet any of the detail of what this rather important—indeed, fundamental —aspect of British foreign and defence policy might be. The Prime Minister was undermined yet again by the Foreign Secretary when he referred to European Governments last week as the enemy, when she is, after all, talking about them as our closest partners.

The debate about whether we are in the top tier or not is, in a sense, yet again about whether we think we are superior to the French and the Germans, out there in the Pacific Ocean going back east of Suez, or whether we accept that we are, as the Duncan Sandys report suggested very nearly 60 years ago, a leading power of the second rank. When the report came out in the 1960s, the Daily Mail attacked all the members of the committee for suggesting that Britain was not a global power. We have not changed since then. I spent last summer looking back at some of the things that Jo Grimond—the leader of the Liberal Party when I joined—had written in the late 1950s about Britain’s place in the world. He said that the whole idea that we had to stay east of Suez, that the Commonwealth was a long-term continuing asset, and that we were separate from Europe and should stay out of European integration was a mistake. That could almost be written again today, because we are still stuck in this endless argument about how special we are. Indeed, the Henry Jackson Society’s briefing for today’s debate suggested that being able to project power to the Indo-Pacific region was key to Britain’s future. One of the reasons why the Wilson Government reluctantly decided to retreat from east of Suez was that the cost of maintaining naval forces east of Singapore, or even east of Aden, was such that it was more than we could bear. The Foreign Secretary has again boasted that we are returning east of Suez. The cost of that and the extent to which it will overstrain our limited capabilities seem enormous.

Lastly, I wish to warn everyone that if we are talking about spending more on defence we have to realise what this means for the British economy. It is now growing more slowly than it has for several years. It is likely, as we leave the European Union, to grow even more slowly, which means that tax revenue will not increase. There are those, such as Liz Truss, who said two days ago that we should not contemplate tax increases. Jacob Rees-Mogg in the Mail today is quoted as saying that he does not think there should be any tax increases to provide more money for health.

If we are going to give a lot more money to defence, we have to raise taxes or cut expenditure elsewhere. We have cut local authority spending by nearly 40% over the past few years. I see when I walk around Bradford how much that has damaged local communities. We have cut spending on prisons and probation by 40%. We have cut spending on the police by a third. If you are saying we should cut into some of those issues more deeply in order to be able to fund defence, then I suspect you are not going to get any more money for defence unless you are prepared to argue for a higher level of taxation. Let us therefore be realistic and recognise that we are now in a hard place as we leave the European Union, and we have to cut our coat and our global aspirations according to the limited cloth we have.

Brexit: Irish Border

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Davies of Stamford

Tuesday 5th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords—

[Lord Davies of Stamford (Lab)]

My Lords—

[The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Evans of Bowes Park) (Con)]

My Lords, it is the turn of the Liberal Democrat Benches.

Strategic Defence and Security Review

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Davies of Stamford

Tuesday 18th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I cannot of course commit the next Government in terms of managing the business, but there is time for this House to have a debate on one or two of these issues before then. Since the 2010 SDSR was published, we published in 2011 a cybersecurity strategy, in 2012 a climate change risk assessment and in 2013 the Ministry of Defence’s report on global strategic trends. We are keeping pace as far as we can with all the expected and unexpected developments that the noble Lord mentions.

[Lord Davies of Stamford (Lab)]

Has it occurred to the Government that the cuts by many NATO countries in defence expenditure, in which this Government—our Government—unfortunately led the way, might just have had something to do with the much more aggressive policies pursued by Mr Putin over the past couple of years?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

That is a slightly unfair question in many ways. Britain remains the second largest member of NATO in terms of the amount spent on defence. We are currently deterring Russia through the use of sanctions at least as much as through defence. So when we talk about national security we do not only mean defence in strict terms.

Afghanistan

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Davies of Stamford

Thursday 30th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I will have to write to the noble and gallant Lord about that. I am not entirely up to date on where all the Tornados are.

[Lord Davies of Stamford (Lab)]

My Lords, when we give educational aid to Afghanistan, is it the Government’s policy to insist that a fair portion of it—half of it—is spent on the education of girls? Will the noble Lord tell us about the progress of extending education to girls in Afghanistan?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, there are now 2 million girls in education in Afghanistan, and 4 million boys. That is remarkable progress from where we were 10 years ago. We are very much committed to improving the status of women and girls throughout Afghanistan, and that is part of what our priorities represent.

European Union: Reform

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Davies of Stamford

Tuesday 10th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what are their specific objectives for the reform of the European Union.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, the UK’s chief objective is to reform the European Union so that it is more competitive, flexible and democratically accountable, and works fairly for those both within and without the eurozone. As Her Majesty said at the State Opening of Parliament, the Government are working to promote these reforms together with other Governments, including strengthening the roles of the national parliaments of member states in the functioning of the EU.

[Lord Davies of Stamford (Lab)]

My Lords, that is a very nebulous and unspecific response. Will the Government be guided in these negotiations by an honest and evidence-based assessment of the national interest? If so, is it not the case that such an assessment might well throw up opportunities for repatriating powers but equally well throw up areas where it would be better in the national interest for more powers to be concentrated or given to the Union at the Union level? Will the Government remain entirely pragmatic and open-minded about that or will they reject out of hand, or shy away from, conclusions of that kind?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I thank the noble Lord for his complimentary response, as usual. I merely emphasise that reform is a process. We are negotiating with other like-minded Governments. I am sure that the noble Lord has seen the reports from the Dutch and Danish Governments on EU reform. As you know, the Prime Minister is in Sweden talking with his Dutch, Swedish and German counterparts today about a reform agenda. We are therefore working with others to change the EU so that it faces in the sort of direction that we need. Of course we are not spelling out exactly what we would want and what we will say no to unless we are given everything we want, because that would lock us into the sort of negotiation that would be one against 27 rather than a collective multilateral negotiation, which is what we need.

European Union Committee: 2012-13 (EUC Report)

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Davies of Stamford

Tuesday 30th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am conscious that I now stand between noble Lords and what the noble Baroness, Lady O’Cathain, called their buckets and spades, although in my case it is my punnet and hoe. I failed to pick rather too many of our raspberries and a large quantity of our blackcurrants last weekend, so I look forward to getting back as soon as possible to provide my wife with them to process.

I declare an interest as a former member of the House of Lords EU Committee and a former chair of one of one of its sub-committees. I had thought that perhaps when I step down from government, it would be very pleasant to sit on the committee again. However, what I have heard today suggests that it is all extremely hard work, which is the last thing my wife would want me to do when I have finished working absurdly hard in government. We appreciate how much extremely valuable work the Lords EU Committee and its sub-committees do. The Government certainly have no intention to reduce the number of sub-committees. I remind Members that the number of sub-committees and the allocation of committee resources in this House is a matter for this House and its authorities, not for the Government.

The committee will have seen the Government’s written response to this report and the Minister for Europe welcomed it.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

On the very important point of the allocation of resources to permit the committees to do their work, we have, of course, recently been subject to reductions in our travel budget. That is bizarre, because the work requires us to keep in close touch with our continental partners and in particular with the institutions in Brussels. Do the Government have a view on the matter of the resources that should be allocated or the reduction in resources that is being imposed on the committees here?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am simply not briefed on that. However, I can assure the noble Lord that as a Minister I travel with Ryanair and easyJet to various places around the outer fringes of the European Union. We also do our best to economise where we can. I remind the noble Lord that this is the leanest Government that Britain has had for many years because we have cut the government car pool very substantially—we have to walk everywhere.

This is a very timely debate. I recall our previous debate on the annual report, which took place rather later than this one, and in the Moses Room, although we are now here in the Chamber. I also recall it because the noble Baroness, Lady O’Cathain, criticised me very sharply on that occasion for not having read every single report that the committee had produced in the previous year. I can assure her that I have read at least the summary of every report that the committee has produced this year.

There are, of course, many examples of the way in which the committee has fed into the Brussels process and the work of other Governments, as well into the debate within Britain. We are concerned at the criticisms that the committee has made of the untimely provision of Explanatory Memoranda, and in particular of the role of the Treasury. We very much take on board what the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, said about the importance of timeliness in terms of subsidiarity. I will take all the points back, and we will discuss them in the Cabinet Office, the Foreign Office and various parliamentary branches of the relevant departments, to make sure that they are fully taken on board. I am an enthusiast for the development of the use of the yellow card mechanism. We have to make sure that we are given all the resources we can manage so that we will be able to use that to its best ability.

I have been heavily involved in the balance of competences review for six months, about which various comments have been made. Perhaps I may stress that those reports were not intended to have policy recommendations at the end. They were intended very much to feed into a better informed debate in the United Kingdom. I hope that the first six reports have done so. I look forward—although perhaps not entirely—to three more rounds of very careful assimilation of a large amount of evidence presented into another collection of reports.

I say to the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, that the balance of competences exercise is very much in parallel to other aspects of what is going on in government. We have welcomed his committee’s report on the justice and home affairs opt-out. The balance of competences exercise is proceeding in parallel with a whole range of other negotiations and the order of reports was drawn up some time ago, with other dimensions in mind.

We are attempting, both within the balance of competences exercise and in the work of this and other committees, to provide space for a reasoned debate within the European Union about our interaction with the European Union. We all recognise that over the next nine to 12 months that debate may be constricted in some ways as we move towards the next European elections. We are also conscious, particularly so over the past week, that the press is not always favourable to a reasoned debate. The Leveson report remarked that in press coverage of the European Union—as with press comment on women, minorities and Muslims—its attitude is that it is quite acceptable to invent stories without any source whatever.

I was very struck to see this story in the Mail the other day:

“Revealed: The shadowy lobbyists waging war to keep Britain in Europe”,

I read it with great interest, only to discover that it was actually talking about British Influence, which is an entirely public body. I think that the Mail had lifted this story from a Eurosceptic blog, which said that British Influence was a deeply dangerous organisation funded by the secretive Bilderberg Group. Oddly enough, the Mail did not include that bit.

I was also quite worried by the article by Peter Oborne in the Telegraph last week, saying that:

“The 1975 referendum was a fair poll in the same sense that the elections due to be held in Zimbabwe next Wednesday will be fair … The sense has lingered that we were hustled, against our will, by an anti-democratic elite, into an organisation whose true aims and nature were hidden from us until too late”.

The BBC, of course, was playing a role in the deceitful agenda.

On Saturday, the Telegraph’s Brussels correspondent, Bruno Waterfield, told us that,

“the European Union is planning to ‘own and operate’ spy drones, surveillance satellites and aircraft”,

under the control of the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton, in,

“a major move towards creating an independent EU military body with its own equipment and operations”.

I was therefore very pleased to receive this morning an invitation from King’s College London to a debate in October on how to ensure that we have impartial reporting on the European Union, at which Bruno Waterfield will be one of the speakers.

I say this partly to demonstrate that getting reasoned debate based on evidence about Britain’s involvement in the European Union is not easy and that this committee plays an immensely valuable role in helping to widen that debate. I hope that noble Lords have read the balance of competences review papers so far and I hope that they feel that they have drawn in evidence-based policy with which perhaps to counter the emotion-based policy, the prejudice-based policy and the conspiracy-oriented allegations which so often cloud out rational debate in Britain. All parties must contribute to this effort.

I say to the noble Lord, Lord Judd, that I very much look forward to hearing a speech from the Labour leadership comparable to the speech made by the Prime Minister in January. The leader of my party, the Deputy Prime Minister, will make a major speech on the European Union in October. I very much hope that we will hear a constructive Labour contribution to an EU reform agenda that keeps Britain in the European Union. This is what the Prime Minister was talking about, and I confirm to the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, that that is what the coalition Government are pursuing, rather than unilateral repatriation intended to lead to an exit, which is what the Telegraph, the Mail and a number of others on the fringes of conventional politics very much want us to pursue.

I turn to various issues that were raised in the debate. The sub-committee on foreign affairs produced a very valuable report on common security and defence policy. I have noted that on scrutiny we have shifted very often from major reports to follow-on reports and continued scrutiny. As we approach the December European Council, which will have European defence very much on its agenda, I trust that the sub-committee will continue to monitor the way in which the British Government and others approach this. As everyone knows, there is a tension between those who are interested in institution building and others who are interested in practical conflict prevention and conflict resolution under that dossier.

Similarly, on banking union, it would be immensely valuable if the sub-committee responsible for that continues to monitor the ongoing debate. Having read its report and various other—mainly German—documents, I think that I understand the various different definitions of banking union that are floating around. However, because there are so many different definitions of banking union—with maximum, minimum et cetera—clearly we need to contribute to the debate. As the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, and others rightly said, we need to think also about where in the debate the interests of Britain and of Britain’s financial centres are at stake.

On the workload of the European Court of Justice, I take on board what has been said. We have now moved on the question of—

European Union: Recent Developments

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Davies of Stamford

Monday 17th December 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

I am afraid I must insist. I am very sorry. I would love to give way to the noble Lord. I believe in debate in that sense, but we cannot do it consistent with having a time limit imposed on us.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, if I may read from the Companion:

“A member of the House who is speaking may be interrupted with a brief question for clarification … Lengthy or frequent interventions should not be made, even with the consent of the member speaking”.

That suggests that we should allow the noble Lord to finish his speech.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

I am grateful. The noble Lord, Lord Pearson, made another classic error in his speech; it was about our bargaining power. He said that a certain amount of our trade—50%, or whatever it is—is with the rest of the EU but that nevertheless we buy more from them than they buy from us, and that therefore we have greater bargaining power. I am afraid that that is a logical fallacy. Bargaining power depends not upon the size of the stake but upon the importance to each party respectively of doing the deal. I hope that the noble Lord recognises this because he would be in terrible trouble in any negotiation he is involved in if he does not.

In other words, what is important is how important the particular deal under negotiation is in relation to the total of a party’s interest. As the noble Lord recognises, we have 50% of our trade with the rest of the EU. That is pretty much a life-or-death stake to have but from the point of view of the rest of the EU, which has 17% of its trade with the United Kingdom, it is much less of a life-or-death stake—so we have much less bargaining power, as they have much less need to do a deal than we have. On that basis, one can be a great deal less sanguine about any such negotiation that might take place than Eurosceptics are inclined to reassure the British public that we might be.

European Union (Approval of Treaty Amendment Decision) Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Davies of Stamford

Wednesday 23rd May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

I am most grateful to the Minister for giving way. He said that it was the intention that the ESM should now enter into force next month. Indeed, we support the urgency of that, as I understand it. Therefore, why are we taking so long to ratify this? If we really support the initiative and recognise its urgency, why cannot we ratify it as soon as Parliament has approved this Bill?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I do not think that it has been the usual practice of this House to interrupt Ministers in the middle of their opening speeches, when they are also winding up and when the interrupter has his chance to take part in the debate afterwards. These are questions that the Minister can answer in his wind-up speech.

Queen’s Speech

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Davies of Stamford

Monday 14th May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I was just coming to the issue of Commons primacy. The issue of primacy is partly a matter of whether one wishes to have a written constitution or one operates on the conventions of an unwritten constitution through restraint and reasonable behaviour. Of course we acknowledge the view of the committee that Clause 2 is not capable in itself of preserving the primacy of the House of Commons, which a number of noble Lords have cited, but we should listen to the committee in full when it said:

“A majority, while acknowledging that the balance of power would shift, consider that the remaining pillars on which Commons primacy rests would suffice to ensure its continuation”.

The primacy of the Commons rests on many pillars. These include the conventions governing the relationship between the two Houses, the Parliament Acts of 1911 and 1949, and the fact that the Prime Minister and most of the Government of the day are drawn from the House of Commons. The whole of the House of Commons will be renewed at each election, and that will clearly be the election in which the Government are chosen. The second Chamber will have, as the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, termed it in her interesting speech, a “different sort of legitimacy” as the second Chamber. The relationship between the two Houses is not a zero-sum game.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. How can the Parliament Acts possibly be a defence for the primacy of the House of Commons when all the legal advice that the House has heard on the subject makes it quite clear that the Parliament Acts would cease to apply if the House of Lords became an elected House?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, there is room for a discussion and a concordat between the two Houses. We have also seen in the evidence that there is some resistance to putting into statute a further codification of the relationship between the two Houses because, as I have heard many noble Lords say, the jurisdiction of the courts and litigation would not necessarily be desirable. The Government did notice and will consider the recommendations of the Joint Committee with regard to initiating preliminary work on a concordat between the two Houses, but such work ultimately would be the responsibility of the two Houses rather than of the Government, as it would be concerned with constitutional conventions.

I want to make one other brief point. I was puzzled to hear a number of noble Lords say that this Chamber is not part of the legislature. Erskine May has been quoted on several occasions. On the first page, chapter 1, page 1, paragraph 1 states:

“Parliament is composed of the Sovereign, the House of Lords and the House of Commons. Collectively they form the legislature”.

Armed Forces Bill

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Davies of Stamford

Wednesday 6th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

I am very well aware of that. The Armed Forces Bill is designed to give the Executive branch the right to have our Armed Forces. We therefore need, before we give them that right, to discuss how they are treating our Armed Forces at the present time, and what they propose to do with them in the future. It is absolutely elemental. I cannot imagine why there should be a constitutional requirement for Parliament to give this power to the Executive branch unless we discuss those two very important matters, so I do not in any way regard myself as being offside in the matters that I have decided to raise in this debate. I can well understand the Conservative Party feeling embarrassed by some of the things that I am saying. That is not my fault; that is the fault of the Government that they support.

As I said, the situation is worse because of the hiatus in procurement at the present time. All of us who have been defence procurement Ministers—there are several in this House, and at least one who I can see in the Chamber, the noble Lord, Lord Lee—have always taken great pride in delivering what is required today for our Armed Forces. However, we know that during our time in office we will be procuring some long-term things, and that although we will not be around in the MoD when they are required, they are vital for the nation’s future. None of these decisions has been taken at all over the past 14 months. I cannot remember how many major projects I was responsible for—I suppose I could if I thought about it—but my successor has not had any at all. It is not his fault. Indeed, I can all too well understand the frustration and pain he must feel about the situation. This means that we are simply not providing for the future in this way. The Prime Minister has recognised that in order to deliver the capability that the strategic defence and security review promises in 2020—even the limited capability, greatly reduced from our own White Paper of 1998—it will be necessary to increase defence expenditure in real terms from 2015. But the Treasury has not been told that is the case and is not allowing the MoD to make any of the long-term procurements which would be necessary to achieve that capability goal and would assume an increase in availability of resources from 2015. The Government have to make up their mind; the Prime Minister has to play straight. Are we going to have more for resources after 2015 and are we going to take seriously the capability projected in the defence and security White Paper, or are we not? Let us be honest. At the moment, the Government are not being entirely straight with the public about this very important matter.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I apologise for interrupting but I would simply like to point out, although I know this is rather off the subject of the Bill, that after 2015 we may have another Government, and committing ourselves to long-term defence commitments beyond 2015 is something that we have to consider in rather a different way. Perhaps the noble Lord is assuming that it will not be a Labour Government after 2015, or he is committing a Labour Government to increasing expenditure substantially after 2015. I was not aware that that was yet Labour policy.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

The noble Lord will know, I am sure, that defence procurement requires spending money now for capability that will come forward in 10, 15 or 20 years’ time. If you do not spend money now, you do not get that capability coming forward. We spent a lot of money exactly on that basis, as the noble Lord should know, in a naval building programme, in projects for which I was responsible—the A400M and the Typhoon tranche 3, and so forth. That continuum has now stopped. It is exactly like a business that needs to invest every year, which suddenly stops investing. It will pay the price for that five, 10 or 15 years down the road.

Finally, I want to say a word or two about operations and about the use by the Government of the Armed Forces that Parliament allows them to have. I am not going to say anything about Afghanistan, as we have had a Statement on that very important subject this afternoon and I have expressed myself on one aspect of that. But I shall say a couple of words about Libya. First, it appears that the cost of keeping our Tornados in the south of Italy some hour or two away from their targets, with a requirement to provide in-flight refuelling is at least as great or maybe greater—perhaps the Minister will answer the question and tell us which it is—than the cost of continuing with the Harriers and “Ark Royal”. We all knew that the decision would be disastrous over the long term, but it looks as if it may not have been a very clever decision in the short term. The French are using the “Charles de Gaulle” air carrier and they are only half an hour away from their targets. As a result, they do not need any in-flight refuelling capability. The Harriers did incredibly well, as the Minister knows—he knows a lot about these things—in Afghanistan, in ground support and ground attack roles, and could have done extremely well in Libya. That is my first point; I would be grateful if the Minister could respond to it.

Secondly, I am very much afraid that in Libya our Armed Forces are being asked to undertake an operation in which they are being denied all the traditional military means for success. They are operating under two resolutions, 1970 and 1973, which we of course promoted and which mean that we cannot provide arms to the rebels or opposition—our side, apparently the good guys, whom we are trying to support. They cannot put troops on the ground and they cannot provide any support to the operations of the rebels or the opposition—fire support of anything of that kind. It is a strange and worrying situation when we find ourselves asking our military to perform operations in difficult circumstances, although circumstances are almost always difficult when Armed Forces are deployed, but when the obvious military means are not available to them. I simply point that out. I am a great believer that once our forces are engaged, we should support them, and I am not querying this operation. But I would like the Government to think very carefully about undertaking operations under the aegis of resolutions from the Security Council of this kind, which so inhibit our own flexibility and our ability to deliver the desired result.

European Union Bill

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Davies of Stamford

Wednesday 8th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we all understand that events happen—although I believe that what Harold Macmillan said was, “Events, dear boy, events.” We also understand that in a crisis Governments get together and take the necessary decisions to deal with that crisis. The noble Lord, Lord Triesman, rightly said that we cannot envisage what sort of crisis we might be facing in five to 10 years’ time or even in two years’ time. The G20 is a very good example of the sort of body which has come to operate relatively effectively, as a form of consultation about a number of global problems. However, the G20 is of an entirely different quality from the European Union. If there were a crisis, the relevant Governments would necessarily get together and have to act, but they would undoubtedly act by consensus. That would be different from agreeing to change the structures and competences of a European Union, which is not simply an international organisation but a structure of law, a semi-confederal institution of which we have become a co-operative member.

Having had some informal conversations across the table with the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, I note that Article 48(6) states—

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

I thank the Minister for giving way. Is not the argument that he is adducing one that entirely excludes even the theoretical possibility that the European Union might turn out to be the best instrument for addressing the crisis that we are talking about? If the crisis can be dealt with by consensus with other Governments—the G20 or whatever—that is well and good, but what the Government are doing in the Bill is excluding the possibility that the European Union may be the most effective instrument for solving the problem and might need additional powers for that emergency.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the Bill in no way excludes the European Union from being the appropriate body to respond. It is entirely appropriate that bodies such as the European Council and the Council of Ministers in its various forms should take decisions. How those decisions are taken, and what their legal implications will be, are matters probably best not dealt with in an emergency. Where there might be a transfer of competences, one should consider it not under emergency conditions but rather more coolly.

I was about to quote Article 48(6), which states that the decision under the simplified procedure,

“shall not enter into force until it is approved by the Member States in accordance with their respective constitutional requirements”.

That is why urgent decisions will take 18 to 24 months to get through the various constitutional requirements, and why the question of what we mean by urgency does not limit the British Government.

It is of course very difficult to foresee what sort of crises we might face, or how and in what framework we and others would respond. The European Union exists as a framework and therefore may very often be used as such, and we and others would work through it. It has plenty of competences and the ability to take decisions by consensus in response to a crisis. However, that does not transfer powers and competences. That is the difference between taking urgent decisions and changing the nature of procedures, structures, powers and competences. With respect, I say that the urgency question is not an important part of the Bill. There would be sufficient time to complete the processes set out by the Bill, by an Act of Parliament and, where required, a referendum of the British people.

The second part of the condition is that the treaty change should be in the national interest. My noble friend Lord Howell said, when debating a previous amendment, that the national interest is not an entirely objective concept. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, agrees that the coalition has come together in the national interest and is acting in what we think is the national interest—although he may have a different view of the national interest from members of the coalition. Politics revolves around our contesting views of Britain's best national interests. Therefore, the concept is not an entirely objective one that we can usefully write into the Bill. No Government would agree to any treaty change at EU level if they were not of the firm belief that such a move was consistent with the national interest. No Administration would ever agree to a treaty change if they considered that it would be against the interests of the United Kingdom. Therefore, I assure noble Lords that the national interest, as we see it, is at the heart of every major decision that this Government take on EU matters—as I assume was the case with the previous Government and will be for any subsequent Government.

Having answered those questions, I urge noble Lords to withdraw the amendment. We have had a useful but general debate about what might happen in a hypothetical crisis that none of us can yet quite envisage, let alone consider what immediate changes in powers or competences it would require.

European Union Bill

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Davies of Stamford

Wednesday 8th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendment 7. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, will regard this too as a major concession by the Government. These two amendments are intended to address a point raised by a number of Peers during our debate on the first day in Committee some weeks ago on what the noble Baroness, Lady Symons of Vernham Dean, described as a probing amendment. The noble Baroness, along with the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, raised the question of the correct interpretation of Clauses 2 and 3 with respect to the application of the referendum provision to Gibraltar. They raised the concern that the provisions as drafted could result in the need to hold a referendum in the UK even if the proposed treaty change happened to apply solely to Gibraltar and not to the United Kingdom. They said that this would be nonsensical. I agree that in such unlikely circumstances it would be nonsensical.

As your Lordships’ House is aware, the Bill concerns only the future transfer of competence or power from the UK to the EU. As I promised at the end of that debate, we have reflected further on this issue. Our view remains that the requirement for a referendum to be held in Gibraltar under the provisions of the EU Bill is not self-standing but is dependent on three things: first, that there is a treaty change which applies both to the UK and Gibraltar and, secondly, that the treaty change would result in a transfer of competence or power from the UK to the EU. Then and only then does the third condition arise; namely, whether the treaty change would also represent a transfer of competence or power from Gibraltar to the EU.

That said, we recognise that it is important to be as transparent and clear as possible. That is the Government’s intention. Consequently, we have tabled these two simple amendments to Clauses 2 and 3 to make sure that the meaning is clear beyond doubt. The amendment makes explicit that only if a treaty change were to apply to both the UK and Gibraltar, and the referendum is to be held in the UK, would that referendum also be held in Gibraltar. I beg to move.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

I hoped to intervene before the Minister sat down but I missed my cue. I shall be very brief. As the noble Lord and his colleague, the noble Lord, Lord Howell, have been courteous enough to mention me in the context of our debates on these matters in Committee, it would be wrong of me not to say that we on this side appreciate that the Government have genuinely reflected on the Committee stage debate on these two matters, relatively minor though they may be. That is encouraging for us and the hope that we can all take part in improving this legislation and that the result of our labours will not be entirely nil. Does the noble Lord have in mind any specific contingency in which there might be a proposal involving the transfer of powers from Gibraltar to the EU, or is this whole subject merely theoretical? Have the Government provided for it as a purely theoretical possibility, or do they have any issue in mind that might be triggered by this clause?

[Lord Triesman]

My Lords, I appreciate the tabling of these two amendments by the Government. I share the view of the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, that they will probably not be thought of as huge concessions almost anywhere. He put that rather generously and he is quite right—they will not. More to the point, they are wise amendments. It may well be that on some future occasion he will wish to land in Gibraltar. He would not want to receive the sort of frosty reception that he would receive if he had done anything to the people of Gibraltar other than what appears as a result of these two amendments. It is a helpful clarification. We are satisfied with it and thank him.

European Union Bill

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Davies of Stamford

Wednesday 25th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

Noble Lords may laugh, but it is an absurd idea that the answer regarding the British interest is always going to be no. But if the British answer is not always going to be no and we need to think about it intelligently, and sometimes it might be yes, then does it make any sense to paralyse ourselves, to tie ourselves up, to put handcuffs on ourselves? I do not think it can. That is my fourth proposition: that the way that the Government are going forward with the Bill is profoundly not in the national interest.

At the end of the Committee stage, a lot of us on both sides of the House evidently feel very strongly that serious damage could be done to the national interest. It can make no sense whatever to say that, for the rest of time, the British answer to everything must be no; or that the British answer to everything must be a referendum, because there will not be referenda so that comes back to saying no. The Government say, “No, in fact, if we have this lock on ourselves, the compensation will be that the British public will have greater confidence in the European idea”. The implication of that argument, which we have heard several times from the noble Lords, Lord Howell and Lord Wallace, is that at some point in the future we will not want these handcuffs on us. We will want to revert to normality and be able to take a pragmatic view as issues come up of where our interests lie and whether we should go ahead with colleagues in a greater degree of integration, have the normal arguments, use our veto when we want to, change the procedures and set up QMV where we think that that is in our interests, and so on. The implication of the Government’s argument is that we do not want to tie ourselves in for ever; we do not need to; it is a temporary problem, which they think will be resolved by the passage of the Bill. That is a matter of judgment; I will not go back over that; it is obvious to the Government that most of us are not persuaded by that argument, but they could be right.

As, sadly, I do not think that we will be able to defeat the Bill—I would like to; I do not disguise that fact; I have never disguised that fact from anyone—is not the sensible solution simply to say, “Let the Government have the Bill for this Parliament. Let them have it for four or five years. Let us see whether they are right and that there is some improvement in national sentiment towards the EU as a result of the Bill being enacted and being part of the law of the land”? Let us hope that over just a few years no cataclysmic damage is done to the national interest by preventing us from taking rational decisions in the way that I just described. Is that not a sensible compromise? I think it is. At this stage of the proceedings, it is probably one that we could all bring ourselves to live with, coming from different points on the spectrum and different parts of the argument.

I commend noble Lords—the noble Lord, Lord Taverne, in particular—on the amendments and I hope that they end up enshrining the solution which this House brings to this complicated problem.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

Does the noble Lord accept that there is a clear distinction between changes in the rules of the EU and decisions in the EU? The Government's case is that extensive competences are provided within the Lisbon treaty. There is already extensive QMV within the treaties. The Government’s case is that there is plenty of opportunity for us to say yes, as we have done on a number of opt-ins and day-to-day decisions. We do not always have to say no in Brussels, nor do we always say no in Brussels. The question is one of competences. There is plenty of room for competences. At some point, there may be a need for further treaty change. That will have to be negotiated. But the time for further treaty change is not now or in the foreseeable future.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

I was invited to comment before I sat down, so I shall. I am grateful for the Minister’s intervention and, in particular, for his comment, which is now on the record and which many of us will be pleased to hear, that he does not exclude treaty change in future. As he knows, the drift of my argument this morning has been that it is wrong to make the distinction between changes in decisions and changes in voting procedures. Often the best way to get the right decision will be via a change in the voting method. That is exactly the argument that I was making. I do not need to repeat myself, because I know that the noble Lord always listens to my comments with the greatest attention.

European Union Bill

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Davies of Stamford

Monday 9th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

My Lords, for the purposes of this very narrow amendment, we accept that the Minister of the Crown cannot agree anything without a draft decision being approved by an Act of Parliament and the referendum condition being met. That means that in the case provided for in Clause 4 there is a referendum if necessary and the referendum result is positive. Most of us on this side of the House think that that is a monstrous situation to put the country in. Nevertheless, for the purposes of the amendment, we accept that and that the Government will not be able to agree to any of those decisions without a referendum or an Act of Parliament, and in many cases both.

The amendment is designed to question the words “or otherwise support”. That is why I am just as shocked as my noble friend Lord Liddle that the Government cannot accept it. What is the purpose of including “or otherwise support”? Surely, throughout the Bill the Government have been arguing to prevent this country acceding to or being party to any decision on constitutional change, such as the introduction of qualified majority voting, without going over these thresholds of Acts of Parliament and a referendum. The words “or otherwise support”, as in the text, imply that it is an additional restriction. What does that mean? We would like specific answers from the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, if he is summing up the debate on the behalf of the Government. Does it mean that a Minister would not be able to say, “I personally support this but I need the agreement of my colleagues before I can go along with it.”? Is the text designed to prevent that sort of conversation taking place? Is it designed to prevent the Minister saying, “The British Government support this, amazingly, but we’ll have to have a referendum because we have imposed this Act on ourselves”? Is that what “or otherwise support” means? Does the Minister want to intervene and perhaps answer my questions?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, perhaps it will help the House if I read the wording in Section 6 of the European Union (Amendment) Act 2008. It states:

“A Minister of the Crown may not vote in favour of or otherwise support a decision under any of the following unless Parliamentary approval has been given in accordance with this section”.

In addressing that clause and in resisting the amendment of the MP for Wells, Mr Jim Murphy said:

“If the European Council sought to come to a decision based on consensus, the provision in clause 6 would mean that we would have to vote to break that consensus by not abstaining. That is the important protection contained in clause 6(1)”.—[Official Report, Commons, 4/3/08; col. 1669.]

All that we are doing is repeating what the previous Government put in the Act that ratified the Lisbon treaty.

Perhaps it will help if I go on to explain that this does not in any way mean that a Minister or their officials cannot express support for a decision in principle, pending the completion of the process of approval provided in Clause 6.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

I am grateful for that intervention, but I must say to the noble Lord—I think that he will agree in principle—that it is a very bad excuse for a Government, when bringing forward legislation, to say, “This may be bad legislation with bad wording, but we copied it from a previous Government”. That is not the way that legislation should be brought forward in this or any other House. All proposed legislation should be justified on its own merits and on its own text; the Government of the day should be prepared to defend the texts that they bring forward and should not say simply that they are reproducing what may well be the errors of the past.

I move to the text before us. It would be useful to have on the record a clear statement from the Government of what this is intended to mean to Ministers. If the Act is passed, Ministers will need to know what scope they have for taking part in discussions. If the noble Lord says that they will be allowed to say, in the example that I quoted, “I personally am in favour of this, but I do not have support yet from my colleagues so I will take it back to them”, that would be useful to know. If they will be allowed to say, “The British Government are in favour of this in principle, but we need an Act of Parliament and a referendum”, that would be a very reasonable thing to say if this Act was passed. However, it is extremely important that we get this clear.

I will explain to the noble Lord why it is so important. There is an issue of good faith. We are parties to the treaty of Lisbon. The noble Lord probably voted for the treaty, and his noble friend Lord Howell probably did not. Nevertheless, we as a country are committed to the treaty of Lisbon, and we are therefore committed to the clauses of the treaty—including Article 31(3) of the TEU, which we will debate in a moment—which provide in certain circumstances for a decision by the Council to go to qualified majority voting to reach a decision. The treaty of Lisbon provides for these possibilities, but we are coming along with a proposed Act of Parliament—a Bill—that is designed to prevent Great Britain from ever being a party to mechanisms that we signed up to when we agreed to the treaty of Lisbon. If it appears that we are going to be censoring Ministers and saying, “You cannot take part in good faith in debates and discussion, you cannot have a normal exchange of views, you cannot make statements that you are in support of things and so forth”, this would constitute a determination to make sure that our contribution in the Council will be extremely negative and unproductive.

This is a matter of good faith and is about whether the Government—we had this discussion in another context during the debate on the Bill—want to bring about deliberately a degradation in the good relations between this country and our EU partners. I trust that they do not. The noble Lord, Lord Wallace, said on a number of occasions that they do not and that it was quite wrong for me to harbour that black suspicion. I hope that it is quite wrong of me, but it is therefore very important to see what kind of constraint will be imposed on Ministers. I am grateful for the noble Lord's intervention, which has gone some way to explaining the practical effect on a Minister of the Crown who takes part in the Council of Ministers. Anything further that he can add would be of great practical importance when Ministers find themselves in difficult situations in future discussions where they have to have regard to the Act, if it is an Act by that point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am very willing to reflect on this point and see whether we can return to the House with any words of comfort, but I fear that we are chasing headless chickens around the yard a little. I will leave it to others to decide whether the eggs are headless as well.

To conclude, we are not the only Government who—I will give way once more to the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, but I hope that if he wants to criticise me in future, which he is very welcome to do, he will do so on the basis of what I actually said and not on what I have not said. I did not rubbish the Government of whom I was proud to be a member; I said that this was a general principle that applies to the Minister today and that applied to me when I was a Minister. If you bring forward a Bill in this House or the other House, you must be expected to defend the text on its own merits. It is no excuse to say simply that you are replicating text from the past. That was the point that I made. I made no normative statement about the text at all in that context; I simply made that general principle clear.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I thank the noble Lord for making that so wonderfully clear.

I hope I have managed to persuade your Lordships that there is no sinister intent behind these words. They are not part of a dreadful right-wing Conservative plot, so there is no need to add the qualification that Amendment 32A would require. May I also say, since the Daily Express has been running a range of quite absurd stories—the latest being that government buildings are being forced to fly the EU flag—that we must recognise that we are operating in a world in which, for many years, previous Governments have failed to stand up to some of the complete nonsense that has spread through the British press. Unfortunately, we now find more and more nonsense spreading, and part of what this coalition Government intend to do is to spell out the advantages to Britain of being in the European Union in order to get back at some of the nonsense put out by the Daily Express, which unfortunately, as noble Lords will know, is no longer part of the Press Complaints Commission process and so the commission has very few controls over what it puts out, but that is another matter.

We will take this matter away and look at it again. However, as I say, the words used in the Lisbon treaty amendment Act were there for a good reason, and the words used here are also here for a good reason. On that basis, I hope that the noble Lord will be willing to withdraw his amendment.

European Union Bill

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Davies of Stamford

Tuesday 3rd May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I apologise if the noble Lord thought I was scowling at him. I was looking at him in some confusion. The question of how one deals with piracy off the coast of east Africa is rather different from how one might deal with piracy within the territorial waters of the European Union. Among the ships dealing with the anti-piracy patrols off the east coast of Africa are some very effective Chinese and Indian ships. The complications in co-ordinating ships from a large number of countries are considerable. How one should treat pirates whom one captures off the east coast of Africa is a large question in international law, but not under EU law since the EU does not extend to the Indian Ocean.

I was delighted to hear the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford, spell out his conspiracy theory. It is useful to know which conspiracy theories underlie different views. I encourage him to compare his conspiracy theory with that of the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch. They run in opposite directions. The noble Lord, Lord Davies, thinks that we are working secretly to undermine Britain’s membership of the European Union, while the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, thinks that we are not working hard enough by half to undermine it. The two of them could have a very enjoyable dinner together.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

I am grateful for the noble Lord’s contribution. I said that it was how some people felt. That was the formula I used; I did not myself endorse the conspiracy theory. The implication was that the conduct of the Government was such as to make it possible for constituents to develop that conspiracy theory. In relation to his most recent remarks to me, I accept that piracy is a matter for international law. Piracy has always been against international law. There should not be a problem there. His implication was that we needed to co-ordinate with the Indians and the Chinese, which we do to some extent. We might need to co-ordinate with them more. That is true and I acknowledged it explicitly in my recent remarks. I said that in this context, as in others—I suspect the noble Lord used to teach this to his students—it is much more effective, if we want international agreement and consensus on a matter, to act as the European Union rather than as one country or as 27 different countries. That is the point I was making.

However, there is a third point that I must make in relation to the noble Lord’s comments to me, which is that I was specifically addressing the need for powers to make it an offence to make ransom payments. I think that he, and anyone with any knowledge of the world, will agree that the chances of getting 150 or 193 countries to legislate identically for anything are virtually zero; that is not going to happen. If you wish to make it a criminal offence to transfer such payments, to collect money for the purpose of paying ransoms, to provide money for the purpose of paying ransoms, to make ransom payments, and to enforce those criminal offences, you need to obtain agreement throughout the European Union as an essential starting point. That is not a matter of international law; it is very much a matter of European law. If we do not have the powers to do that at present, it is very desirable that we should develop them. However, if we needed to develop them, we would run into the issue that, if the Government succeeded in passing this Bill, Article 48 would no longer be usable in that context if Great Britain were to be included.

European Union Bill

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Davies of Stamford

Tuesday 3rd May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, in that case, perhaps I may give the Government’s response on this group. We will then be able to break for dinner and return to the others later. All afternoon this has been a rather untidy debate. I almost congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, on actually mentioning in his speech the amendment under discussion. In the previous debate he did not mention the amendment we were supposed to be discussing. We are in a Committee stage debate at the moment in which one is supposed to address one’s remarks to the Bill under discussion rather than to the state of the world, the wickedness of the EU as such and all the other things he touched on in his interventions.

The noble Lord, Lord Triesman, raised large questions about global markets and global governance. As we address these amendments, we all recognise that what the EU does in competition policy, in negotiating on world trade and so on is part of a rather complex system of different intergovernmental organisations, of which the EU is one. I remind the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, that money laundering is largely dealt with, for example, under the financial action task force, which is more closely associated with the OECD than with the EU. It does it rather well. Indeed, I have read a volume by one of the noble Baroness’s close relatives which refers to how well the financial action task force does in this respect. The EU is not responsible for all of the issues involved in managing a global market. However, it has a number of extensive powers, some of which have been discussed on this occasion.

This group of amendments and the ones that follow seem, in general, to contain a number of assumptions about the Bill, the EU and what the Government think about the EU which, I repeat, are erroneous. First, the EU has competencies in all of these areas. We are not talking about extending competencies. Opting in to the human trafficking directive does not extend competences; it merely uses the available competencies in a more effective way. The treaty of Lisbon provides ample scope for EU action in the areas cited in the amendments tabled under this group and the group that follows. The assumption that the United Kingdom is tying itself up in knots and is thus unable to act and that we are the only Government who wish to go through constitutional procedures of the kinds listed in the Bill is also erroneous. As we have said, the UK Government are in the forefront of pushing for new policies in a number of areas. As the noble Baroness said, we have just signed up to the human trafficking directive.

On the Doha round, it is not the EU that is causing the problem, as the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, knows. Incidentally, when Britain first joined the European Community as it then was, one of the first things that I and many others learnt about it was Article 113 and the 113 committee, and the exclusive competence of the European Community in external trade. I am not sure what one can provide more than exclusive competence —perhaps super-exclusive competence is needed next.

We are now negotiating on services as well. The assumption that the EU is unable to act in all of this is part of the misunderstandings that others are raising. There is also the question that if the European Union suddenly found that it lacked these powers then it could rush through a treaty change in two months. Actually, we have discovered that urgent treaty changes take somewhere between 18 and 24 months. That is part of the process we have gone through. The noble Lord, Lord Empey, rightly pointed out that in a crisis you are better off negotiating rapidly in an ad hoc framework, as we often find ourselves having to on a global level—G20 has emerged as part of this—rather than attempting to go through all of these very complicated programmes.

On competition policy, the European Union has now emerged as one of the two most important forums for competition policy in managing global multinationals. Until the EU developed its competition competence, the United States effectively managed the competition policy of multinational companies and operated through extra-territorial jurisdiction in imposing its judgments on multinationals operating elsewhere. The record of the EU in competition policy has on the whole been very good. The noble Lord, Lord Triesman, is quite right to point out that innovation constantly raises new problems. That is true for all jurisdictions and there is a constant race between one international organisation and another. So far, the EU has managed as well as the federal United States in that respect.

On the lack of competences, I have looked at what used to be Article 113 and is now Articles 206 and 207. There are two areas of reserved competence in Article 207. One is on audio-visual and cultural relations—not inserted by the British but by the French—and the other is on limitations on negotiations in health, welfare and social services—not inserted by the British but by the Germans. We are not always the ones who are hesitant about giving way on sovereignty; it is often others. On the single market and global trade agreements, the EU is well supplied with competence.

On financial regulation, the EU is one among many actors. The Bank for International Settlements, the financial action task force and the range of other bodies to which the United Kingdom belongs and in which the UK is a full participant also play a role in this area. Our EU partners play a large role as well. The Government want to see—we will stress this on all these amendments—the European Union using the tools it has under existing treaties and its now very extensive competence more effectively, bringing about the benefits that we want to see the EU delivering for the British people and everyone across the European Union. The noble Lord, Lord Mandelson, made an excellent speech on our previous Committee day precisely expressing those sentiments. Those are sentiments that the Government share. Having said all that, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, will be willing to withdraw his amendment. Then we will return to the next group on similar arguments after dinner.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

I did not want to interrupt the noble Lord’s flow while he was speaking, but I have a rather important question. He referred to Article 207 and the derogation in that from the usual procedures on the common foreign policy that the council needs to act unanimously in these two matters involving, first, trade in cultural and audio-visual services, which he said was a provision put in at the demand of the French, and secondly, the field of social, education and health services, which he said was put in at the demand of the Germans. The noble Lord was really saying that here was a case when the treaty needed to be amended to accommodate the particular requirements of those two countries. They were not our requirements and we would rather have had no derogation in the common foreign trade policy. Let us suppose that the French and German were prepared to remove those two derogations or obstacles to freer international trade. Is it the case that under the Bill we would then require a referendum to allow the Germans and the French to agree to give up concessions which they had previously obtained?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I have spent a good deal of my adult life studying and teaching on the European Union. I struggle to imagine a situation in which the French Government would suddenly decide, on their own and as a single action without asking for any concessions in any other area, to give up that. Hypothetically, in a parallel universe inhabited by the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, and a number of other people, it is always possible that these things might happen. In the practical life of the way that the European Union works, that seems completely inconceivable.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

I am grateful for that response which seems to reveal that there is potential for a complete absurdity, which must also exist elsewhere in the treaty. We would force a referendum on ourselves simply because some other member state was prepared to adopt more communautaire policies in the future and to withdraw concessions that previously they had insisted upon.

European Union Bill

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Davies of Stamford

Tuesday 26th April 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

We are not necessarily on a very tight deadline, but it is customary to move towards a close. However, I was speaking. I thought that the noble Lord was trying to intervene and gave way to him as an intervention. We clearly misunderstood where we were.

I was saying that, speaking in another place, David Miliband also said in November 2009:

“The Lisbon Treaty provides the Union with a stable and lasting institutional framework. We expect no change in the foreseeable future, so that the Union will be able to fully concentrate on addressing the concrete challenges ahead”.—[Official Report, Commons, 23/11/09; col. 273.]

I agree with those pragmatic, practical sentences. We all recognise that there are differences of view within all parties about European matters. The noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford, has moved from one party with a very wide range of views on European integration to another, as he well knows. I shall not respond further to his slightly hobnail-booted references to relations within the current coalition.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

The great joy for me is that, for the first time in many, many years, I find myself in agreement with those on my Front Bench. I assure noble Lords that that makes a great deal of difference.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I return to where we were on the amendment, as on some of the others that follow. Here we have a Government who are playing a positive and practical part within the EU within its existing, but considerably expanded, competences. I have looked at Articles 102 to 106 and Articles 114 and 116. I totally failed to find the relevance of Article 308, which, in my copy of the treaty, is about the European Investment Bank, but perhaps when we get to debate on Article 41, the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, will tell us what that is all about.

European Union Bill

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Davies of Stamford

Tuesday 5th April 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I think the time has come for me to grumble quietly. We have had a range of interesting speeches in what has been a high quality debate, although there was a point, when the noble Lord, Lord Davies, was talking about anoraks, when I thought that a good definition to look for in a political anorak was that of someone who wishes to return after dinner to a two-hour discussion of arcane issues of constitutional procedures and international engagement. We recognise that we are all part of the political anorak class.

We have ranged over parliamentary sovereignty, parliamentary democracy, political trust, the problem of trust in Parliament, and whether we are putting representative democracy at risk, as at least one noble Lord said—I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Hurd. We have to recognise that the concept of parliamentary democracy, about which the noble Lord, Lord Hurd, spoke so passionately, is to some extent at risk. In Britain, as in other European countries—a point made by another noble Lord in the debate—we have more educated but at the same time much less trustful electorates. How the political elite responds to and works with our mistrustful electorates is part of the problem that we all face. I have to say that it was my own experience in the 1975 referendum that referendum campaigns provide an opportunity to focus the attention of a public who, for much of the time, are only really prepared to listen to politicians who can offer soundbites.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. He is a very intelligent man and he has had enormous experience of politics from the academic world and now from the Front Bench in the House of Lords. Is he seriously saying that the way to increase public respect for the political process or public involvement in the European issue is to ask the public to turn up to vote on a referendum on the appointment of judges in the European Union?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am merely pointing out that we all face some rather large structural problems in our democracy. I also note that we face some extremely complex issues in attempting to define what we mean by parliamentary sovereignty, to which we will return later.

We have seen a number of other interesting elements in this debate. I liked the emergence of the Stoddart/Hannay/Kerr consensus. I enjoyed hearing the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, as I think I understood him, emerge as a staunch campaigner for electoral reform. I noted the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, resurrecting the doctrine of the mandate that has reappeared in Labour Party policy as a means, I think, of attempting to argue that the coalition agreement is illegitimate. I would just remind her that, many years ago, when I was giving evidence to a committee on which she sat—I think it was on the Salisbury convention—she asked me about clear mandates in manifestos. I had to point out that the clearest pledge in the 1997 Labour manifesto was to hold a referendum on the alternative vote.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I am sure the noble Lord is as expert on parliamentary sovereignty as I am. No Parliament can bind its successors; any Parliament can overturn a decision of a previous Parliament or even a previous decision of that Parliament. That is part of what we understand by the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty. There is nothing we can do to prevent a future Parliament from undoing what we are doing. That is my limited understanding of all of this.

Perhaps I may quote a greater constitutional expert than myself.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

Before the Minister moves from this point, perhaps I may follow up on the question posed by my noble friend Lord Foulkes following his momentous statement about parliamentary sovereignty. It is important for the House to understand how in practice it would be possible for Parliament to exercise that sovereignty and to disagree with a referendum.

I refer the Minister to Clause 3(2)(a) of the Bill, which states:

“The referendum condition is that … the Act providing for the approval of the decision provides that the provision approving the decision is not to come into force until a referendum about whether the decision should be approved has been held”.

In other words, Parliament would have passed a Bill, turned it into an Act and the electorate would then have voted. For Parliament to be able to exercise its sovereignty in opposition to the decision of the electorate—which the Minister said is a possibility—it would presumably have to repeal the Bill which it passed before the referendum took place. Is that the procedure the Minister has in mind?

European Union Bill

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Davies of Stamford

Tuesday 5th April 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I am happy to do so. I recognise that there are a number of complex judicial as well as parliamentary sovereignty issues at stake, some of which we will return to later, but I offer that assurance to the noble Lord and I hope that I have answered some of the questions raised by the noble Baroness.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

I would have preferred the previous Government to have taken an even more robust line on the Stuart Wheeler case and to have in no way taken account of the judicial review in proceeding with the ratification process or depositing the instruments of ratification. It seems intolerable that there should be any judicial oversight of the proceedings in Parliament. That seems to be explicitly excluded by the Bill of Rights. I would be particularly worried if the present Government went in for a process of slippage, going even beyond the insufficiently robust approach of the last Government and allowing the timetable for the parliamentary consideration of a particular Bill to be affected by proceedings in a court of law.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I foresee that when we get to the debate on Clause 18 we shall have a great many discussions on the exact relationship between the judiciary and Parliament and parliamentary sovereignty. The time for that debate is not now but then.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

It was years ago, as the noble Lord says, but every time that I questioned it in opposition I was referred back to that statement. It says that on a number of occasions, there are a number of blurred edges to the constitutional relationship between the United Kingdom and these islands. I have scars on my back about this. On a visit to Jersey two years ago, I questioned whether the current constitutional relationship was sustainable in the light of globalisation in financial and other arrangements. I was subjected to attacks for a week in the local press, the best of which suggested that both my wife and I were French spies, so attempting to clarify the relationship can get one into deep trouble. I do not recommend that we go too far down that road.

If a treaty were to affect Gibraltar alone, we would certainly have some interesting questions but it is difficult to imagine a situation in which such a treaty change might happen. As the noble Baroness rightly suggests, there is a range of issues where the different, semi-independent entities around the European Union are affected. Monaco, Andorra and the départements and territoires d'outre-mer, or DOM-TOM, have a rather different relationship with the European Union from ours. As the noble Baroness will recall, we chose to encourage our overseas territories to fund themselves through becoming offshore financial centres rather than getting them to a closer association with the EU so that others could fund them. That might possibly have been a mistake but it is where we are.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

I think that I heard the Minister say that if an issue affected Gibraltar alone, some very interesting questions would arise. That implies that the Minister wants to leave the legislation as it is currently drafted without those interesting questions, as he describes them, being addressed. Surely he would agree that it would be completely barmy for the people of the United Kingdom to have to vote on a referendum on a matter that affected Gibraltar alone. So why can we not simply change the text of the Bill in a common-sensical way so as to exclude that possibility completely? It would be very easy to do.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I think that this is the point where I should refer to Protocol 3 to the 1972 treaty of accession to the European Union under which Gibraltar chose to become a member of the EU and the other Crown Dependencies chose to become non-members of the EU but with a number of associated areas. That is another complex area. I find it impossible to envisage a situation in which there would be a treaty change that applied to Gibraltar alone. Ultimately, this is a hypothetical question, but I see that the noble Lord wishes to pursue it further.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

I ought not to be satisfied by that; when we are drafting legislation in this place, we should try to make it as complete as possible, just as one should with any legal document. We are after all talking about the laws of the land. The Minister may be brave enough to say that he himself cannot anticipate this possibility, but we know that possibilities can arise that were never anticipated even by the most brilliant minds. Surely we should just have legislation that makes it clear that there would never be the absurdity of the people of the United Kingdom having to vote in a referendum on a matter that affected Gibraltar alone.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I have scars on my back from the extent clause. I have tried on previous occasions to raise the question of the extent clause and the conditions under which UK legislation applies to the Crown dependencies. This is a very arcane area.

European Union Bill

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Davies of Stamford

Tuesday 22nd March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, this has been a vigorous debate—sometimes passionate and often lengthy. On one or two occasions I remembered the time when the noble Lord, Lord Shaw, was just beginning to get to the heart of an argument as he entered the 25th minute of a speech in the Committee stage of an EU Bill. We look forward to an equally vigorous Committee with, I hope, slightly shorter speeches, as we examine the Bill in detail.

As we have discussed the Bill, I have on various occasions said to people, “Please understand that unless I can explain to the noble Lords, Lord Kerr and Lord Hannay, what exactly this particular clause means, life may be difficult for us”. I hesitate to remind the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, that he has benefited over the years from a great many cigarettes that my wife has given him. I trust that this is no longer a trade that is necessary. At this time of night I need to leave many of the detailed issues until we reach Committee and will deal here with the underlying themes of the debate, which are the political contexts for the Bill, developments in the European Union, the constitutional implications of the Bill and the implications for the UK’s position within the EU.

I expected that my noble friend Lord Howell and I would be fired at from both sides and forced to stand back-to-back like the Gloucester regiment at the Battle of the Nile. I have been surprised to discover in this debate that the concentrated fire has only come from one side. From the other, it has been scattered and rather inaccurate. I wondered if the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, had forgotten he was involved in a battle against the EU Bill and gone off to shoot ducks—or, perhaps, EU pensioners. There were some wonderful flights of fancy. If I understood the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford, correctly, there is a danger that Conservatives will fan the flames until they roast the Euro-sceptic penguins. Was that correct?

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

I did not mention flames.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

You did. I am glad to see that the Labour Front Bench is beginning to enjoy the freedom of opposition. Some weeks ago, a former Labour Minister said to me, “William, opposition is so much more fun than being in government. You get to ask lots of questions and you do not have to give any answers”. We then went on to discuss how mischievous one can be in opposition. The noble Lord, Lord Sewel, agreed that mischief is great fun and that that is what he wants to be engaged in on the Bill, as he was on the AV Bill.

The Bill addresses a problem of public distrust that the coalition Government inherited from their predecessors. The noble Lord, Lord Tomlinson, said that we are missing the real issues but popular consent is a real and central issue and cannot be ignored. The noble Lord, Lord Liddle talked about the real world. This Chamber is part of the real world but is not entirely the real world. I remember someone once saying to me, “William, you are much too much of an academic. You do not go to enough football matches”. I have to say that in the past few weeks my wife and I have been to rather too many dinners and other occasions in Yorkshire where the conversation from everyone from businessmen to teachers about what they assumed to be the state of the European Union was horrifying, and made the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, occasionally sound like a moderate.

Popular suspicion of the European Union has risen. In 1997, 35 per cent of the British public thought that British membership of the EU was a good thing; in 2009, that had dropped to 30 per cent. However, on the subject of polls, I should perhaps remind the noble Lords, Lord Pearson, Lord Stoddart and Lord Willoughby de Broke, that in the Daily Mail online poll—perhaps noble Lords have failed to vote so far—on whether there should be an in-out referendum, 71 per cent have said that they were against such a referendum. So there is either some very good lobbying going on or public opinion is not as strong as noble Lords thought.

Under the last Labour Government there was no concerted effort to carry the British public with the Government into a positive engagement with the European Union. I remember the St Malo Franco-British treaty on European defence co-operation. There was still then a degree of co-operation between the Liberal Democrats and the Government on foreign policy and defence, so I was involved in many of the meetings. But as soon as the Daily Mail labelled European defence co-operation as leading to a European army, the Prime Minister went silent.

The British case in Brussels depends, as we know, on steady recruitment of British officials, but the last Labour Government closed down the European fast stream and it is up to the coalition Government now to reopen it. The noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, asked whether the Liberal Democrats were prepared to fight for the European Union. Well, I would say yes—far more than the Labour Government ever did, and I regret that. It is one thing that I deeply regretted about that Government.

Of course, there is a longer history of governmental failure. When John Major became Prime Minister, he said that he wanted to take Britain to the heart of Europe, and he was driven back, and in many ways James Callaghan produced the greatest failure after the success of the 1975 referendum when he said that it was more important to let the wounds within the party heal than to build on that to argue a positive case for long-term European engagement.

The noble Lord, Lord Radice, said that they would like to hear more about what the EU has achieved over the past 20 to 30 years, and he seemed to think that this Government had failed to tell us about that. We would like to have heard that from the Labour Government, too, especially from Gordon Brown and his advisers, who included the young Ed Miliband.

Middle East and North Africa

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Davies of Stamford

Monday 14th February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

My Lords—

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

If we are very quick we might get three speakers in. The noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, has been trying to intervene since the beginning.