EU: Prime Minister’s Speech

Lord Williamson of Horton Excerpts

Thursday 31st January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Williamson of Horton]

My Lords, I declare an interest, which is in the register. I want to say one word first about the exercise on the balance of competencies currently being worked on by practically all government departments. Evidence and opinions have been called for in a wide consultation, with a deadline of 28 February for sectors including foreign policy, the internal market and animal health and welfare. This seems to me to be a valuable initiative and highly relevant to the negotiations foreseen in the Prime Minister’s speech, for which it will provide raw material. It is also highly relevant to the question of whether the principle of subsidiarity is being respected, which will no doubt feature in any future settlement or negotiation. Is subsidiarity being respected? We may doubt it.

In his speech the Prime Minister called for “fundamental, far-reaching change”, and the next Conservative manifesto will ask for a mandate from the British people for a Conservative Government, if elected, to negotiate a new settlement with a view to an “in or out” referendum. The Prime Minister states that power must be able to flow back to member states. He wants an EU that is competitive, flexible and fair—don’t we all? Of course, we cannot set out our priorities in detail now because we have to probe the opinions of other member states. In particular, we need to assess whether our priorities are more likely to be achieved by opt-outs or by decisions of the member states as a whole—that some issues could now be left to them. I think that there may some possibilities by the second route. Although a referendum of the British people provides the essential reassurance it is also legitimate to question how the end game will turn out. There could be much dispute on whether the result was good enough, which will make it difficult for the British people to take a clear-cut position on the referendum.

Finally, it is extremely important that we have a better and fairer presentation of European issues to the public, which is not always the case now. I can think of many cases in the media almost every day. Where do we go from here? Forwards, I hope, but I commend an opinion poll in last week’s Sunday Express which showed that 63% of the public considered that the EU issue was a distraction from the real concerns about the economy as a whole and a great majority thought that the United Kingdom would be in the European Union in 10 years’ time. That sounds like the voice of the British people.