European Union (Approvals) Bill [HL]

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Monday 6th July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing this Bill, the substance of which need not detain us terribly long. It is obviously useful if Macedonia becomes an observer in the work of the Fundamental Rights Agency. Is any progress being made on the name of Macedonia? I have not heard anything recently on that. FYROM is clearly not a name that will inspire a sense of identity. We have been on that issue for a very long time. Where are we in trying to make the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia simply Macedonia?

Regarding the tripartite social summit, I believe that the European Commission has decided not to take this opportunity for any fundamental changes in its remit or design, so this is just some tweaking in the light of the Lisbon treaty. Clearly, there is no reason to oppose or resist this in any way.

On process, can the Minister say whether this is required to be primary legislation under Section 8(3) of the European Union Act 2011? I did not have the pleasure of taking part in the debate on that legislation when it was going through, as I was a Member of the European Parliament at that point and was disqualified from sitting or voting in this House. Was it anticipated that this kind of issue would require primary legislation? Clearly, there were some meaty issues within the scope of the EU Act 2011, not least the one about a referendum if there were any significant transfers of powers to the EU. However, we now find that we are required to legislate under primary legislation for two matters such as these which have either cleared scrutiny beforehand in 2014 or would perhaps not even have required scrutiny. In fact, I am not clear whether they would even have required secondary legislation or just notification to the scrutiny committee. How necessary is it to have primary legislation now on these measures, and how many other such instruments might we expect in a year, for instance, to have to legislate on as opposed to clearing through scrutiny or even having secondary legislation? This almost makes a mockery of EU affairs and of the EU Act 2011.

I would be grateful for answers to those few questions about process. On the substance of the matter, there is no objection from these Benches.