European Union Committee on 2014–15 (EUC Report)

Baroness Morgan of Ely Excerpts

Wednesday 15th July 2015 Grand Committee

[Baroness Morgan of Ely (Lab)]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, and his team for the incredible amount of work they have done over the past year. The quantity and quality of the work is worth marvelling at, and it is clear that it is having a significant impact, not just in terms of the accountability of the UK Government on EU matters but in informing debate across the whole of the EU. Yes, EU issues are foreign issues, but they are also about domestic issues, something that needs to be underlined.

Prior to coming to your Lordships’ House, the only contact I had with this place was through giving evidence as a Member of the European Parliament to one of the committees that came over to Brussels. Your Lordships were a formidable bunch then and are a formidable bunch now. The clarity of the work was deemed absolutely invaluable, not just by politicians in the EU but by the administration. The one comment I had at the time was that your Lordships’ brilliant work did not have the impact that it should have, because the committee was generally retrospective in its investigations and so it could not inform debate prior to a position being taken. That meant that a lot of the work was going to waste. The committee has addressed that concern to an extent, particularly in relation to Council meetings. The fact that the committee has implemented these pre-European Council evidence sessions means that difficult questions can be put to Ministers prior to negotiations rather than the committee dealing with a fait accompli with no prospect of influencing the debate. I congratulate the committee on this initiative. I suggest that it is about looking at what is coming down the pipeline. That is really important. That is the best way to influence debate.

The committee has also taken active steps to broaden the number of means by which it reports on its activities. This is an extremely welcome development. I am afraid that I was one of those people who were unaware that the committee had a Twitter account until I read the report. That probably says something. It is quite interesting that somebody like me is not aware of it; nor am I aware of when the committee meetings take place and who is giving evidence. Of course, I could go and look for this information but it would be quite useful to have some kind of push mechanism to let interested people know what is coming up so that if we were interested in attending those debates we would be able to do so.

The EU is undergoing the most fundamental challenges it has had to face in the past few decades. The direction and understanding of the European project—what it is all about—is being played out not just here in the UK but across the whole EU. That scrutiny role is essential in this time of increased uncertainty. This week we have all been absorbed in the Greek financial crisis and the question of where responsibility lies for the country’s debts and how and when democracy should be honoured. The crisis on the Mediterranean shores is testing the understanding of what is meant by social Europe and undermining that responsibility of burden-sharing.

Of course, the UK is now committed to holding a referendum on EU membership with these really difficult issues as a backdrop, and we are doing this at a time when there are political upheavals across the whole continent, with extremist parties gaining ground on both the left and right. One of the issues that the Prime Minister has put on the table in relation to British renegotiation is national parliamentary oversight, which does seem slightly hypocritical because this year the Government have pushed for more scrutiny overrides than has hitherto been the case. It seems very odd that the Government in charge of that negotiation, insisting on further domestic parliamentary scrutiny, are not respecting the current system of oversight to the extent that perhaps they should. Does the Minister think that each department should put in place mechanisms to ensure that, as far as possible, there will be an absolute minimum number of scrutiny overrides? As we have heard, BIS seems to have learnt its lesson and we want to know when the other departments will be following suit.

There are many examples of excellent inquiry work carried out by the committee. We have debated many of those reports: the one on the relationship between the EU, Russia and Ukraine on the Floor of the House; and the devastating inquiry on the balance of competences review, which did not suggest that a single policy area should be repatriated. We have discussed the role of national parliaments on the Floor of the House. I am a little sorry I was not involved in the debate on energy in the EU. I do not know if that came to the Floor of the House. I specialised in that area in the European Parliament so I am sorry I missed it.

We are aware that the Conservatives are deeply divided on Europe but I am afraid that the debate has started on the left as to whether the left and the centre-left should continue to support EU membership. I would like to take the opportunity, while we are discussing the EU, to outline why we should nip this debate in the bud and determine that we should fight for a reformed Europe which works for the people of Europe. The first thing to note is that despite the dreadful austerity and pain being imposed on the Greek people, Syriza, Alexis Tsipras’ party, has repeatedly said that it wants to stay in the EU and the euro—even the left in Greece has a subtle and refined understanding of how important the EU is to it as a nation.

The cause of Greece’s plight is not the EU or the euro but corruption, tax evasion and bad accounting, as suggested by Thomas Piketty and other distinguished left-wing economists recently. Of course, you would need a heart of stone not to empathise with the innocent people of Greece, who are suffering untold misery, but the leadership of the country must take its share of responsibility for the situation. Let us not forget that half of Greece’s debts were written off three years ago. It also had the biggest loan in international history. It was interesting to hear the Prime Minister today suggesting that a measure of debt relief for the country may be necessary.

The EU is not some kind of sinister self-contained planet doling out cruel and harsh austerity measures to innocent hard-working Greeks just for the sake of it; its decisions are taken by the democratically elected Governments of 28 member states. All bailout measures decided under the European stability mechanism have to be approved by the national Parliaments of the eurozone countries, so this talk about a massive democratic deficit at the heart of the EU is simply not borne out by the facts.

Without the EU, the UK would have little protection from a Government intent on diluting hard-fought workers’ rights which have been given extra protection due to our EU membership: health and safety, increased paid holidays, improved maternity rights, protection in redundancy and transfers, equality rights and protection from discrimination in addition to equal treatment for part-time, fixed-time or agency workers. This is particularly important at a time when the trade union movement is being challenged in such a fundamental way in this country.

The EU is the world’s largest donor of development aid. The EU is at the front of defending human rights and minorities nationally and internationally. Of course, EU institutions are not perfect, but rather than whingeing from the side-lines and spewing out grossly simplistic accusations which are not grounded in fact or evidence, the left and centre-left in Britain should be championing a modern vision of a progressive economy based on our traditional values of fairness, tolerance and social justice. Any retreat into isolationism and cheap denigration of our potential allies in Europe would carry a heavy risk in the longer term.

I concur with the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, that this is no time to take your foot off the scrutiny pedal. The European Committee of the House of Lords understands more than most that the EU has its flaws. I dearly hope that this time next year, when we are assessing the work of the committee, we will not be doing so for the last time. The consequences of leaving the EU would be devastating for our economy, our status in the world and the protection of our citizens.