European Union Bill

Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne Excerpts

Wednesday 8th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard]

I do not think that is what the treaty says, but yes, it is likely that that is the case. Of course, any treaty amendment requires ratification by whatever the national procedures are. I am talking about an emergency situation in which most people think, “We have to do this pretty fast”.

We could still have our referendum. If the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, were accepted, there is nothing to stop the Government of the day saying to Parliament, “Despite all the risks of delay, we actually think this is a sufficiently serious matter to justify having a referendum”. That is entirely open to them, if the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, is accepted. However, that amendment would remove the present danger in the text, which is that there would be an absolute requirement to have a referendum because there is no potential let-out for an emergency, even though that is the most plausible scenario for a treaty amendment and everyone, including us, would have agreed that it was an emergency and therefore justified the accelerated procedure. That is why I support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Triesman.

[Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne]

The noble Lords opposite will not be surprised to hear that I find it very difficult to accept this amendment. Coming from the Brussels angle, I remind noble Lords that in Brussels the word “urgency” relates to the French word “urgence”, which means of powerful importance. I recall that week after week, month after month in Strasbourg and Brussels, we had urgency debates which took place many days, weeks and sometimes months after the activity in question, such as a revolution somewhere or the Arab spring. It took me a while to realise that the English meaning of the word “urgency” is quick or hurry up whereas in French it means something that counts, something that is valued and something to which we should pay special attention. It is rather like high representative which does not mean high at all, but important.

I suggest that the transfer of sovereignty falls into the French “urgence” category—it is something of powerful importance—but inevitably Brussels life advances at the pace of a snail; it is very slow. Rather like the mills of God, Brussels grinds exceeding small and it takes a very long time. I have never known anything of importance, high-value, “urgence”, to happen at any speed in Brussels. Nor do I think that the transfer of sovereignty, important as it is, should be done in haste. I honestly cannot anticipate Brussels not taking maybe a decade over something of real value, such as the transfer of sovereignty.

When I joined the other place in 1980, I found myself dealing with a very important piece of legislation on intellectual property. It was data protection and intellectual property in computer software. When I arrived in the House of Lords, a decade later, I found that the Bill had been to Brussels and come back to the Lords and it was still in an active, first-step, consultation process. Two years later, when I arrived in the European Parliament, being lucky enough to be elected there in 1999, I found the Bill was in the European Parliament. It was just about to leave the European Parliament when I left a decade later. Powerfully important things such as that take a considerable length of time. How much longer do we imagine that the transfer of sovereignty would take?

During the past decade, we in the United Kingdom have very actively supported the enlargement of the European Union. It now has 27 states and more are coming in: Croatia tomorrow and the Balkans the day after. As a result, quite properly, the slowness has increased tremendously. It is no longer possible to put things through even at a reasonable speed; now things are slower than slow. That is why I do not see a referendum coming our way even if this Bill goes through in its entirety, which I hope and pray it will, for maybe at least a decade. Brussels is simply not able to think that way. The confusion of the euro, combined with the continuing enlargement, has made the whole system so slow, and I do not think that we will see a referendum in the next 15 years or so. Urgency, in English terminology, is simply not available.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

I am getting signals, quite rightly so, from my Front Bench so I really must not respond to the substance of that because I shall be turning this into a debate—which we ought to have in this House on these important matters—on fiscal and monetary issues in the European Union at present. I hope that the Government take note of the obvious interest on their own Benches in having the opportunity to discuss this matter and exchange our various perspectives on it. I wanted to intervene really just to support my noble friend’s excellent amendment. If it is accepted by the House, it will get rid of a large amount—80 or possibly 90 per cent of the damage—that could be done by this Bill. If this amendment goes through, Clause 3(4) would then read:

“The significance condition is that the Act providing for the approval of the decision states that … the decision falls within section 4 only because of provision of the kind mentioned in subsection (1) of that section, and … the effect of that provision in relation to the United Kingdom is not significant”.

In other words, the only exemption from the need to have a referendum would be in relation to matters that were not significant for the United Kingdom. Surely, to accept this particular amendment is a cost-free concession on the part of the Government. I cannot believe that the Government actually want to provide for having a referendum on something that is not significant for the United Kingdom. Am I perhaps wrong about this?

We need to probe the Government’s logic a little here, because what an extraordinary thing it would be if the Government want to take through Parliament a Bill providing for the possibility of having referenda on issues that are not significant for the United Kingdom. The Government cannot turn around and use the argument that what is significant or not might be a subjective and difficult matter to determine at any one point, because they have already accepted in this Bill, as it stands, the need to make a distinction between significant and non-significant. That argument cannot be made. The only argument that can be made is that we need to provide for having referenda on something that is not significant, which does not make the slightest sense. I ask noble Lords to envisage a scenario in which we have a referendum in this country on something that everybody accepts is not significant for the United Kingdom. We ask the electorate to focus their mind on a difficult, technical and perhaps rather abstruse matter—maybe a whole package of such matters, which is what the Government have been suggesting recently; to take the time to master the relevant briefs or at least make up their minds on this matter; and to take time off from their work or from their leisure activities and go to the polls on something that they are told in advance is not significant for the United Kingdom.

[Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne]

Since the noble Lord has such confidence in the judgment of Ministers that he wishes to recentralise the possible decision-making that would come through referenda, why does he not have confidence that the judgment of Ministers would be that something inessential would not come to Parliament in the first place? There is an illogicality in his circular argument.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

There is no illogicality at all. There is no need to provide for a referendum on something which is not significant for the United Kingdom unless the Government believe that they might, at some point, wish to have such a referendum, which I regard as an utter absurdity. It would be an insult to the electorate; it would be treating the whole electoral system of this country in a thoroughly frivolous way. I have to ask the Government: what is the purpose—what is the logic, because it is not clear to me at all—in providing for the possibility of referenda on non-significant subjects? It would be an utter contradiction in terms.

I have to mention to the House a matter which I must not go into in any detail for fear of breaking the relevance rule. I shall not do that, but I need to refer to the fact that a week or two ago the Government published a Bill on reform of the House of Lords which provides for fundamental changes to this House, and therefore to the legislature of this country, without providing for a referendum at all. So we have a situation in which the same Government are saying, on one hand, “We have to change the House of Lords in a fundamental way and we cannot have a referendum on it”, and at the same time saying, “We have to have referenda on changing the rules on qualified majority voting on taking decisions about the future of the public prosecutor’s office in the European Union”—something idiotic like that. Now they come forward and say, “No, actually we need to provide for referenda on explicitly non-significant matters”. What an extraordinary contradiction.

I see that, for once, I have the agreement of the noble Lords, Lord Flight and Lord Hamilton, as well as other distinguished Members opposite. Maybe the Government, in responding, should not just turn to me; they should turn to their supporters on their own Back Benches. They certainly need to turn to the country to explain the logic of the Bill, because, whatever it is, it does not appear to be coherent or something that has been properly thought through. I am sure that it is not deliberate hypocrisy—I would not dream of accusing noble Lords of that. Maybe it is some kind of confusion, but we need to know what it is, because what they are bringing forward seems to have no sense at all either from the rational or the pragmatic point of view, or to be credible in any way.