European Union (Referendum) Bill

Debate between Lord Wigley and Lord Giddens

Friday 31st January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wigley]

My Lords, after speaking to Amendment 75 in my name, I shall come back to the interesting points put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Williams. Amendment 75 is simple and I would have thought that, if the owners of this Bill were in a mind to accept amendments, this would be the sort of amendment that should be built in. It purely and simply makes provision—were the Scottish to vote for independence in the referendum, and we do not know whether they will—to take Scotland out of the Bill. That may not be what the majority of noble Lords in this Chamber want, but it could happen, and it strikes me as being a little short-sighted to put through a Bill that does not make provision for one of the eventualities that we have spent considerable time discussing, including just yesterday in this Chamber. I therefore put this forward as a constructive amendment to be considered at the appropriate stage—if not now, in fine-tuning the Bill—to meet that eventuality.

The amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Williams, touches on some pretty sensitive areas. I, like the noble Lord, want to see all parts of the United Kingdom voting yes to remain within the European Union. Certainly, there need to be changes to the European Union, but I want Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and England—the UK, as it is now—to be members of the European Union. That is my starting point and that is what I will be campaigning for.

However, issues arise in the context of the referendum because the interests in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are, to some extent, different from the mainstream interests in England. For example, in Scotland, there is the question of fisheries. A lot of attention has been given to that in recent months and the Government have made some progress on some issues. But Scotland always wants to have its Ministers associated with any UK team. The problem at present is that, within the UK ministerial team negotiating in Brussels, Ministers from the devolved Administrations have to follow the lead of the UK Minister.

That is fine if there is unanimity of view on these issues, but there are occasions on matters such as fisheries where there may not be. Whatever our relationships are with each other in the United Kingdom over the coming years, our relationship with the European Union must develop in a way that allows flexibility to take that consideration on board. That must arise in countries such as Spain as well, where Catalonia or the Basque country may have a slightly different view from Madrid on some issues. If the European Union insists on being a totally centralist organisation, which I do not believe in its essence it has to be if the principle of subsidiarity works through, then the European Union must work towards an ability to take these variations from area to area on board.

I mentioned Scotland and now I come to Wales and the farming regime, which I mentioned earlier. On the sheep-meat regime, particularly as sheep are the greater part of the Welsh agricultural economy, there have been times when the Minister from the Government in Wales spoke in the UK team in Brussels on these matters. But if there is an idea that the well-being of vital sectors such as fisheries in Scotland and sheep farming in Wales is going to be lost, swamped by the English vote in a referendum, that can build up tensions. This needs to be thought through. I do not think that the noble Lord, Lord Williams, necessarily sees this as the formula to provide all the answers, but he is raising the questions and these are questions that should be raised.

They should also be raised in the context of Northern Ireland. We are all a little sensitive of treading into Northern Irish matters but, quite clearly, the co-operation that has developed over the past 15 years or so in Northern Ireland has grown to some extent because of cross-border movement, which is so easy. If the Irish Republic were in the European Union and Northern Ireland were out, I fear that there could be a winding back of the clock and that some people would want to do that.

I realise that these amendments go much further than the intention of the Bill. None the less, the issues are worthy of consideration. As we move forward, not just in the context of the European Union referendum but in the context of what happens to the United Kingdom in the wake of the Scottish referendum, these considerations must be taken on board, one way or another.

[Lord Giddens]

My noble friend Lord Williams raises a significant set of issues. There plainly could be big discrepancies in patterns of voting across the United Kingdom and these will be consequential for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. It would be interesting to hear from the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, how the Government would deal with a situation where the English basically settled the vote in such a decisive way that you could argue that the voices of other parts of the country were eclipsed. It will be interesting to hear what the noble Lord has to say on that issue.