European Union Bill

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Tuesday 26th April 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Flight]

My Lords, I am not quite clear what the amendment is intended to achieve. If it is intended to block any real transfer of power to the European Court of Justice, those of us who believe that it is inappropriate obviously could not support it. However, it seems to me that that is not quite what it is saying; indeed, I am not entirely clear what it is saying. I would therefore be grateful if the noble Lord could in due course be a little more specific about his real objective.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

Having heard the explanation of the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, I wonder whether my noble friend might be able to tell us whether the powers required by the ECJ, were any transfer contemplated, would be covered by the significance test. My understanding is that they would be.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I welcome a debate in which we are discussing the amendment in front of us rather than having another Second Reading-type debate as I felt at some point this afternoon we were doing. I can see where this amendment and the other probing amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, are going, but they are based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the purpose of the Bill. The Bill does not intend to tie a British Government hand and foot to prevent them co-operating within the terms of the treaty.

The coalition agreement accepts the Lisbon treaty. That is, after all, a major step forward. The Lisbon treaty includes a substantial extension of competencies. As the noble Lord, Lord Mandelson, said in his very useful speech before dinner, the task that the European Union now needs to pursue is to use effectively the competencies that it has to make good decisions and then to implement worthwhile policy within those existing competencies. I have been struggling, with this and a number of the other probing amendments that the noble Lord has put down, to discover what particular difficulties these will cause for the British Government.

The European Union, as we all know, has often preferred—or at least those enthusiasts and habitués of Brussels have—to spend time writing new laws and devising new institutions rather than getting on with implementing policies. Part of the hole that we now find ourselves in and the mistrust we have across the European Union is the result of 25 years of treaty amendment, from the Single European Act, through the Maastricht treaty, the Amsterdam treaty, the Nice treaty, the Convention and the Lisbon treaty. They have provided very substantial competencies for the European Union, many of which have not yet been used.

My noble friend Lady Hamwee produced a very interesting paper the other week on the number of powers that the previous Labour Government had acted to put into the law, which have not yet been implemented. There was this great feeling in that Labour Government that when something happened, you passed a new Act or created a new criminal offence. There is now, as a result, a huge list of things on the statute book that have not yet been implemented and which I rather hope that this Government will get around to repealing.

As far as the EU is concerned, there are now substantial competencies. There are a large number of regulations in force, many of which unfortunately have not been fully enforced or implemented. I am puzzled by what it is that one needs to do with the European Court of Justice for which Article 256—which I have read, again—does not provide the powers that we need. The noble Lord, Lord Kerr, has said—on at least one occasion and I think more often—that we will need to change the number of judges in the European Court of Justice, which will require a treaty change and therefore a referendum. My understanding on this—and I may be wrong—is that to change the number of judges on the court, which we all know is overloaded, would require unanimous agreement by Governments of the member states in an intergovernmental conference; but in terms of this Bill, that would not involve a change to the treaty and certainly not the provision of extra powers or competencies. Yet again, I fear we may be dashing off after a hare that is bolting rather faster than we did.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Flight]

I am sure that all noble Lords would agree with the basic reason for opposing state aid, as the noble Lord and I did some time ago. My point is simply that the state aid rules have already ended up being interpreted in a fashion that is manifestly not economically sensible. They are damaging the economic interests of this country and, not surprisingly, I would very much like there to be a check on the ability of state aid rules to be yet further misapplied.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

My Lords, perhaps I may stick to the substance of the amendment. As I have not been privy to the debates in the usual channels, I ask why amendments that are similar in terms of the arguments employed have been de-grouped for sequential consideration. It has resulted in the debate being all over the place and we are spending far longer on it than might have been the case. I know that the Minister will not deal with that issue, but I hope that the usual channels will go away, contemplate whether we can make slightly speedier progress on these matters and perhaps have a debate that is more valuable to the rest of us who sit here and listen attentively.

I should say to the opposition Front Bench that I have considerable sympathy with the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, on these amendments; and I say to the noble Lord, Lord Davies, that he is right that a consensus has prevailed in this country over the single market, competition policy, and so on. I pay tribute to the Conservative Party for having taken us there, but today no party here can say that it is a champion of that consensus to a greater degree than any other party. These are valuable probing amendments.

At this late hour, in order not to detain the House longer, I want the Minister to answer the question that he did not answer on the previous amendment. I believe that any treaty changes made to enhance the ability of the Commission, the European Court of Justice and other bodies to enforce EU rules would fall under the significance condition. My understanding is that where a treaty change merely confers additional powers on an EU body or institution to impose new requirements, obligations or sanctions on member states, and when this change is deemed not be significant for the UK, a referendum would not be required. In which case, do we really need to have the amendment? If the Minister gave us an answer as to where the significance test would apply—we debated that at length several hours ago—we would know which side of this amendment to be on. It would be most helpful if we could get some clarification on that.

[Lord Liddle]

The point of these amendments is the reverse of the significance test. We are saying that securing change in these areas—very important changes on the single market or the effectiveness of the European Court of Justice or whatever—could be highly significant, not insignificant, for the UK. However, we would not want to stop British Ministers agreeing to them on the basis that they would fall foul of the referendum test. That is the point.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

Perhaps I may ask for the patience of the Committee for a moment so that I may respond on that very valuable clarification. If it were in the UK’s national interest to pursue the options of the changes proposed, would we not, in the event that there had to be a referendum, expect the British Government to fully support the referendum?

[Lord Waddington]

Surely we are entitled to ask the noble Lord for an explanation as to why the Opposition sought an arrangement whereby the last two amendments were debated separately. The noble Lord has used exactly the same arguments for both amendments and therefore he has wasted a great deal of time. I think that there should be some explanation as to why, when the original grouping put together Amendments 20ZA and 20ZB, we have ended up debating them separately and precisely the same arguments have been advanced by the noble Lord on both amendments.