European Union Bill

Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne Excerpts

Monday 13th June 2011 Lords Chamber

The third negative point is that nothing in these amendments cuts across or undermines any commitments by any of the major parties in the last election or those contained in the coalition agreement. None of those texts envisages the “Heinz minus one” number of referendums; they all envisage a broad statement that when the treaty is going to be changed, there will be a referendum. That is preserved by these amendments because if there is the normal treaty reform process, that is what will happen. For all those reasons, we are trying to introduce a bit of the proportionality which noble Lords on various Benches have called for in the last few weeks of debate on the Bill. We have done something to limit the damage to the system of representative parliamentary democracy—which all of us, not only those who tabled these amendments, hold dear—if this Bill passed unamended. I hope that, after debate, the House will support the amendments. I beg to move.

[Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne]

My Lords, I shall comment briefly on the important set of amendments which the noble Lord, Lord Hannay of Chiswick, has put forward, and focus on two important points. The first concerns Amendment 15, in which the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, recommends that after “defence” we insert the words,

“that permits a single, integrated military force”.

As I understand the amendment, this would trigger a referendum. The second point concerns Amendment 16, in which the noble Lord recommends that decisions on common defence and security policy be referred back for an Act of Parliament.

It is immediately of interest that the supporters of this amendment, led by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay of Chiswick, have, in a sense, given a concession: they have agreed that if Amendment 15 is incorporated, there should be a referendum on a single, integrated military force. However, in their second amendment, Amendment 16, the noble Lord has ceded that although the issue of common defence and security policy is very important, it should be referred back to Parliament, in contrast to the purpose of the Bill, which is to seek the approval of the British people.

I should like to comment first on this welcome opening-up as regards the potential for a referendum on the single, integrated military force. My problem, however, is that I cannot really understand what that phrase means. I do not find “a single, integrated military force” a phrase that is commonly—or ever—used in treaties or Acts of this nature. In fact, I have not been able to recall it at any time during my decade or the decade previously in the other place. I cannot help but wonder precisely what it means. Does it mean, for example, the single, integrated military force that I saw and worked alongside in the south of Iraq in 2003 to 2007, when we had a number of military forces that co-ordinated themselves under UK command? We had the Poles, who were superb; we had the Italians—a little bit more questionably perhaps; we had the Romanians, who were very fierce fighters; the Bulgarians, over whom hung a little bit of a question mark; the Danes, who were superlative; and one or two others. On top of that, of course, we had Australia and the US.

What does a single, integrated military force mean? Does it mean a command under one structure, leader and nation state? Does it mean all 27 member states? Well, I think that that is unlikely. Mercifully, the ones that do not belong to NATO are now very few, but they are very unlikely to offer troops for a single, integrated military command. Does it mean, say, the Franco-British military command, which is getting stronger and whose strength I and others most warmly welcome? I may be correct in saying that at least until recently we had had at least 32 different actions going on with the French on the ground somewhere, some of which were training. We are strengthening that duality in military terms all the time.

Although the referendum proposed here for a single, integrated military force is a welcome admission that a referendum for the British people on common defence and security policy matters, at least in this perspective, is of high value—high enough for the proposers of the amendment to accept that a referendum would be required—none the less, the phraseology is with great respect too loose, too weak, too open and too imprecise to allow this amendment to be adopted.

In Amendment 16, on the other hand, the common defence and security policy is important enough to the proposers of the amendment to bring it back for an Act of Parliament. But how does that differ from now? Parliament has primacy in any event; if we wish to have an Act of Parliament on anything to do with EU legislation or policy, we can do that now. We have the primacy; it has been restated in Clause 18 and it has been there since 1972. The purpose of this Bill, which I support, is to put it to the people, which is why I cannot accept Amendment 16, which brings it solely back to an Act of Parliament. That is no different, in essence, from the situation that we have today.

Another amendment that the proposers have put forward, led by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and the last on which I will comment, contains the proposal that we should lose our potential veto for the multiannual budget. Is that truly sensible? I draw noble Lords’ attention to a highly possible situation, whereby in Brussels there could easily be today a time, not far distant, when the discussion on the multiannual budget was about the 40 per cent of the common agricultural policy expenditure. Noble Lords will know how difficult it is to get reform; it is almost possible—it has so far proved impossible to grasp the common agricultural policy by the tail and pull it into the reform network. It is rather like The Hunting of the Snark; it just has not been possible.

It is easy to imagine that reforming the common agricultural policy would be an expensive business. How might that be paid for? Suppose that it would be paid for by the British rebate. It would be very hard indeed to obtain a majority against that for the United Kingdom. We might not be in a minority of one: others who are net contributors and who also wish the reform of the common agricultural policy, such as the Netherlands and Poland, would perhaps be with us; I am not sure. But as sure as eggs is eggs we would lose France. In fact, we would have lost France before the argument began because France—great ally as it is, net contributor as it is—would have been arguing for just that. The loss of the British rebate as a payment for a partial reform of the common agricultural policy would be enormously attractive.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Empey]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford, referred to the argument about Parliament and said that the party positions had changed. However, I said at the beginning of my remarks on the Bill last week that we are nothing if not consistent in our consistencies. This House voted so that people such as me in Northern Ireland would have a referendum on our constitutional future and that we would decide. As recently as on a visit to Northern Ireland last week, the Prime Minister said that the decision about its future lay with the people there; he did not say that it lay with Parliament. If we want to take the argument to its logical conclusion, that Parliament decides everything, why did Parliament provide for referenda in the first place? If you are going to be consistent in saying that such matters are a decision for Parliament, you do not have referenda. However, we do have referenda. We had one in 1975, and we have had a number since. Therefore, the argument that Parliament always takes the decisions is simply not true.

Edmund Burke was quoted again. He is very popular in this debate, but we are talking about the 18th century and things have moved on. Life has changed. We have a totally different world in which people are, thank God, educated and able to participate in a meaningful way and no longer require people who can read and write to interpret things for them. As a new Member, it has struck me from the very beginning of our debates on the Bill that it is hard to construct an argument that we support the Bill in broad terms, inelegant though it might be, without automatically being deemed to be someone who does not want to have anything to do with Europe. I refute that. There are positive things about Europe, but, as the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, said, in the view of the British people Europe has been systematically salami-sliced.

I think I understand why that is. There is a small group of people at the heart of Europe who, for perfectly legitimate reasons, believe ultimately in a large superstate to rival the United States. We saw an example of that last week when one former Prime Minister said that we now need a leader. I am not speculating on who he thought that person might be, but the implication is that the nation state is not held by some people to be the fundamental building block of the European Union. Indeed, the nation state is merely in transition towards something else.

[Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne]

I apologise for interrupting the noble Lord, Lord Empey, but the facts are very firmly against him. I ask him to accept that the very architecture of the European Union is one of the most decentralised architectures of a large bloc of countries coming together that the world has witnessed in modern times. It is a highly decentralised, very diffuse organisational structure, and I beg him to recognise that point despite his excellent oratory.

[Lord Empey]

I thank the noble Baroness for her comments. I understand the argument for subsidiarity. I was part of a European institution that practised it in the days of bringing decisions ostensibly down to the lowest level at which they can be taken. However, the practice is somewhat different. It is all very well to push things down, but setting the envelope within which those bodies can take decisions and determining the size and shape of that envelope centrally, which is what happens, goes against the argument.

The point I am trying to develop is that I believe in the nation state and in nation states coming together in common cause where that is in their national interests. However, I do not believe in a push by some people to transform those nation states into a collective within a larger body that in effect has all the characteristics of a state: its own President, its own Foreign Secretary, its own system of justice, possibly even its own army. The people of this country are not ready for that argument. Those who for economic, political or security reasons push that argument are pushing against the tide and undermining the people of this country’s view of Europe. They are therefore undermining their own argument.

I hope as we go forward with this that we will recognise that confidence in the principle of a European Union in this country will be re-established only if people feel that they are in charge. Indeed, its standing, with pages filled with people claiming for Kit Kats and all sorts of things, has been undermined and has suffered colossal damage. It may take a generation to repair it, but in the mean time this Bill, with all its downsides, can at least begin the process of saying to people, “You are now in charge”. Yes, Ministers and Members of Parliament will play their role, but in a modern democracy with modern communications and an educated electorate, who says that it is incompatible to have parliamentary democracy on the one hand and on the other hand, for certain defined purposes, a referendum in which the people can be specific? When they vote for a Member of Parliament, they vote for myriad policies covering everything from defence to social services—the whole gamut of government. Constitutional matters are much more precise, and, with an educated electorate, why should the people on occasions not be able to tick the box that they feel is appropriate?