European Union

Baroness O'Cathain Excerpts

Wednesday 16th May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness O'Cathain]

My Lords, I hesitate to disagree with my noble friend Lord Tebbit, but there are occasions when the workings of the sub-committees and the Select Committee have actually borne fruit. We have done a number of reports where we put the consumer first, as well as the management of money.

Only recently we had huge success in dealing with the issue of the roaming of data when abroad. That might not sound important to a lot of people but with the growth in the use of iPads, I can assure noble Lords that it is. I spent a night in a hotel in Ireland recently with my iPad—I mean, reading my two newspapers on my iPad in the morning; sorry about that—and it cost me £30. I just could not believe it. We then made our report in a very short exercise—and I see members of my sub-committee agreeing with me—and we got huge acres in the techie press of agreement that this was the way to go, and I am sure that something will happen. It is only a small thing but it is something to convince my noble friend that in fact we are achieving something.

[The Chairman of Committees]

My Lords, I had anticipated an amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, although not the one that actually emerged. He has put me in something of a difficulty. I do not know whether to respond to his amendment or to his speech because the two seem to be somewhat disconnected.

As the noble Lords, Lord Hannay and Lord Grenfell, have pointed out, the noble Lord fundamentally misunderstands the function of the committee. The committee’s job is to scrutinise Her Majesty’s Government’s response to European initiatives. It also takes on the role of inquiry into particular policy areas. This is where the argument about effectiveness is cited.

The noble Baroness, Lady O’Cathain, has already pointed out with regard to roaming how the committee is able to influence the development of policy. I have previously pointed out with regard to fisheries policy that if you look at the proposals coming forward from the Commission on the reform of the common fisheries policy, they are heavily drawn from the report of our own EU Committee. That is the sort of influence that can be brought to bear in a positive way.

Finally, on the issue of preparing an annual report, the committee already has the power to issue an annual report if it so wishes. Again, listening to the words of the Deputy Chairman of Committees, it seems that he—and the committee—would be quite happy to look at whether something like an annual report could be produced. On that extremely helpful note, I invite the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.