European Union Subsidiarity Assessment: Electoral Law of the EU (EUC Report)

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Thursday 4th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Boswell of Aynho]

My Lords, we are now, as it were, in the Chamber and we need to take the argument as it goes. However, for the avoidance of doubt—I hope this reassures the chair of the sub-committee—if any noble Lord is minded to take the temperature of the House, I am very much inclined to defend the sub-committee’s recommendation. I put that on the record.

However, let us take that as past. I add two other points. We have a Motion for a reasoned opinion. We have good reasons for asking for that. Indeed, we made it clear in the report we prepared some years ago for your Lordships’ House on the role of national parliaments—that has already been touched on in relation to the current European negotiations—that a reasoned opinion deserves a reasoned response. In entering a reasoned opinion we seek to enter a dialogue with, and gain an explanation from, the European Parliament, not with the purpose of subverting this move but of getting it into the right order with the right conclusion—no more and no less than that.

That leads me to my final point. When we debated this matter in the Select Committee, I was concerned to make it clear to its members that I would not like it to be seen as an oblique or indirect attack on the European Parliament itself. Some people in these Chambers seek to downplay the role of the European Parliament and even, occasionally, to question its legitimacy. I do not share that view. My view of parliamentary sovereignty is that it is better to have two levels of application and scrutiny than only one. I think that we have a joint and complementary role. I would not claim any great virtue in it but I have laboured long and hard to try to dispel any illusion that we are in any sense at war with Members of the European Parliament and its leadership. This is, I hope, a friendly discussion about procedure and a slightly more substantive one about the levels at which we take this argument forward. It is not a declaration of war or an attempt to create difficulty. I very much commend our report to the House.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (LD)]

My Lords, I had not planned to speak in this debate but the intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford, provoked me to add my tuppence worth. I should clarify to the House that I speak in my capacity as the chairman of another sub-committee of the EU Select Committee—the sub-committee on financial affairs. It is true that the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford, holds original, interesting and enormously important views, from which certainly my sub-committee benefits every week—week in and week out—and we are very grateful for his presence there.

I, too, was not present when this matter was discussed and when I saw it on the Order Paper I took it upon myself to find out what it was about. I came to the view that—as the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, and the chairman of the EU Select Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, have said—it was not a provocative gesture but the utilisation of a mechanism that has been hard fought for by this Parliament. This mechanism should improve dialogue and make us co-operate better, because it is an early warning system. It allows us to say, “Hang on, there is an issue here and we need to discuss it”.

I am slightly disappointed that the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford, did not suggest to me that he had opinions on this. I would, of course, have fed them into discussions with the noble Lord, Lord Boswell. Speaking only for myself, but as a member of the EU Select Committee, I absolutely support the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws.

[Baroness Neuberger (CB)]

My Lords, I speak as a member of the EU sub-committee on justice. I, too, pay tribute to our chairman, the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, and to our advisers, who have been brilliant. There is very little to add to what has been said but I want to say something about why we felt this was so important.

One argument worth adding is an emotional one. A degree of irritation was felt at the report coming out just before Christmas at a time when parliaments were going in to recess around Europe and there was not time to respond. We have heard that both Dutch Houses did not get it, as far as we can see. We did get it but with very short notice, hence the rush to bring it to your Lordships’ House. So I think there is a degree of irritation.

This is a procedural issue. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, I am rather sympathetic to the report—at least to the matters within on gender equality. I think that that is great but it is not the point we were looking at. It is important to emphasise that we all felt that at a time when there is considerable criticism of the European Parliament and of European institutions more generally, it would have been better—hence this iterative process we hope to engage in—had they stuck to their procedures so that we could stick to ours. We were unanimous on this and I think that for all of us that was the strong argument. Therefore, I think that this should be supported.