EU: Subsidiarity Scrutiny

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Tuesday 5th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wigley]

My Lords—

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

My Lords—

[The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Hill of Oareford)]

My Lords, we have already had two questions from Cross-Benchers, so it is the turn of the Liberal Democrats.

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

My Lords, does my noble friend agree with the European Union Scrutiny Committee when it took evidence from Professor Dashwood who, in respect of arguing before the European Court of Justice, said that,

“the subsidiarity principle was most useful in the state of law-making rather than at adjudication, at which point it was ‘largely inoperable’”?

In other words, as the noble Lord, Lord Hannay of Chiswick, has said, we need to build alliances in good time rather than wait to go to court.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the principle of subsidiarity is in many ways a difficult concept to get hold of, and of course it is highly political. There are those here who think that a number of things should be dealt with in Wales and Scotland and not at the national level, while I wish that the principle of subsidiarity was better applied in England than it is at present. This is part of the way we play politics between different levels of government.