Economic and Monetary Union (EUC Report)

Earl of Caithness Excerpts

Wednesday 9th November 2016 Grand Committee

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, we are all extremely grateful to the noble Baroness for introducing this Motion, and I also thank her for the way she chaired the committee. It was a great honour and privilege to serve on the committee; we certainly learned a lot and, I think, produced a very worthwhile report, although the circumstances in which we made the report were slightly different from what they are now. I also thank Professor Iain Begg for his advisory work and our clerk and his team for their support.

We are having an unusual debate today: I do not think I have ever taken part in a debate on an EU report where most of it is now under changed circumstances. None the less, I was a little disappointed by the Government’s reply; more could have been written on the back of a postage stamp than what they gave us, and the Commission’s reply was not as detailed or specific as I would have hoped.

Despite the Brexit vote and the fact that the UK is going to leave the EU, the euro is of huge importance to us: the EU is our next-door neighbour and the eurozone is the second most important currency in the world after the American dollar. What happens, therefore, across the 22 miles of the English Channel is as relevant to us in the UK today as it was six months ago. To put this report into context, we should remember that it is the second report on EMU in the past four years: in 2012 we had the Genuine Economic and Monetary Union report, and I sat on the committee that produced the report on that. Three years later we have the report we are discussing today; next year we will have the White Paper; and I have no doubt that there will have to be further reports on EMU in the fullness of time.

Turning to the report, I start by taking up a point mentioned by the noble Baroness, about fiscal rules. There is no doubt that it is a weakness within the eurozone that fiscal rules are not followed in a fashion that most of us would comprehend. Too much is done on an ad hoc basis and, since we wrote the report, both Spain and Portugal have missed their deficit targets under the stability and growth pact and have not been fined by the Commission. Does that give us more confidence in the eurozone? I do not think that it does; it leaves us still wondering where that strength and consistency in fiscal rules—which is so much needed—is going to come from. In paragraph 54 of our report we welcomed the recently set up European Fiscal Board, but can the Minister tell us why it took so long for the Commission to set it up? They normally set these boards up quite quickly, but this one was rather long in gestation, for not very good reasons.

I move on to paragraph 143 of our report, where we talked about the European deposit insurance scheme. That is an old friend, part of banking union, which fell by the wayside, so perhaps it is second time lucky for the Commission on that. I hope so: when we wrote our report on genuine economic and monetary union those of us taking part were disappointed that the three-legged stool on which banking union was going to be based had become a rather wobbly two-legged stool, and EDIS is badly needed if there is to be a strong structure in banking union, albeit that the UK opted out of it.

Moving on, we looked at fiscal union. We were surprised by the number of definitions there were of that. I looked forward to the Commission’s response to our report to see what it might say to enlighten us, but I did not think its reply was terribly constructive. It did not help us—and there is a big weakness here in the EU. Until fiscal union is defined in a structured and sensible way that everybody can agree, there will always be areas for doubt and manoeuvre, which will lead to continued weaknesses.

The noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, also mentioned in opening the debate the need for,

“appropriate and accountable eurozone-level decision-making structures”.

We use those words in paragraph 194 of our report; they are increasingly important, given what is happening in many developed countries and the reaction by large groups of people to how Governments have behaved.

The noble Baroness refused to comment until the last moment on the USA election and I shall get in a little before the last moment. It was depressing to read today that the French ambassador tweeted:

“A world is collapsing before our eyes. Dizziness”.

That shows a view that is totally out of touch with what real people voted for and the change they want. For the German Foreign Minister to say that it was not the result that he or Germany wanted equally shows a disconnect with his own people.

Let us return to accountable and eurozone-level decision-making structures. These need to be altered and strengthened. At present, the House of Lords is considerably more democratic than the European Commission. We have 90 elected hereditary Lords, of which I am proud to be one. We are distinctly more democratic than the European Commission, and that needs to change for credibility in future.

To conclude, there is the recommendation we made in paragraph 205, concerning member states in the EU that are not part of the eurozone. I am sorry for them that the UK is coming out of the EU as that will make their lives much harder. I hope that they will not be subject to caucusing by the eurozone members. The fact that the president of the eurozone group was a signatory to this report gives me cause for concern.

However, another aspect to this is perhaps more worrying for the future of Europe. We all know about majority voting, but not many people understand that you can have a minority blocking vote as well. Britain not being a member of the eurozone was an instrumental partner in that blocking vote when things headed in the wrong direction. Without our vote, it will be much harder for the non-eurozone members. Germany will have to take a much more proactive line to get a better balance and stop some of the mad extremes that were suggested. We are still members of the EU and I hope that, when my noble friend sums up, he will say that we will still play an active role to the moment that we sign on the dotted line and get out.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, for opening this debate in such a thoughtful manner and for the work that she and other members of the committee have done to produce this report. Every speaker has rightly noted that the political context in which this report was written was very different to the one in which we now find ourselves. Therefore, the tendency might be to dismiss this report and the issues that it raises, as the Government appear to have done in their response to the committee. However, I argue that exactly because of the decision of the British people on 23 June and because of the rightful insistence of the Prime Minister that Britain will continue to be an outward-looking country, it is even more important that we reflect on the five presidents’ report and the recommendations of the Select Committee.

I shall say a little more on Brexit later, but first I address what I regard as the fundamental flaw of both the five presidents’ report and the Select Committee’s analysis. Neither report ever really challenges the euro’s sustainability; it is almost taken for granted. Because of that overoptimistic assessment, the likelihood of another future euro crisis has been discounted. Merely two paragraphs are devoted to the survival of the euro, and I put it to your Lordships that the issue of the euro’s future viability warrants more detailed examination.

[The Earl of Caithness]

I am not certain that that was within the committee’s remit—our remit was to write a report on the report in front of us, not on the future of the euro.

[Lord Tunnicliffe]

Well, my Lords, it is rather difficult to take that view as an outsider coming to the report for the first time, because it mentions the stability of the euro at the very beginning and then goes on to discuss a whole series of measures designed to make the euro stable. From my reading of it—and you can disagree with that—on each point that it brings up to make the euro more stable, it then analyses and notices that it is probably not going to work. If the report was not about euro stability, I apologise, but I read it as such, and as soon as I finish my speech I shall offend you less. I also note that the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, seemed to have an underlying pessimism in his speech about it—although, probably correctly, he did not address it directly. The noble Lord, Lord Giddens, also made a pessimistic speech, although he brought out the paradoxical relationship that Germany has with the euro, whereby it is absolutely crucial to its economy in pulling down the effective value of the currency without it accepting that at the end of the day some sort of wealth transfer is necessary from its overall surpluses. The noble Lord, Lord Butler, as well, who must have misread the report slightly, said that it was a road map for the survival of the euro. Indeed, it was a road map that could be leading to a cliff.

So I do not feel alone in my pessimism, and it took the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, who is ever optimistic about Europe—I wish his optimism had had more impact on 23 June—to introduce optimism. I would have been interested to hear from the impressive array of witnesses that the Select Committee spoke to about how likely they felt another euro crisis is, how much it would affect the UK banking system and, leading on from that, what resources the UK Government and Bank of England have to manage such a crisis. We have an order in front of us in about four weeks’ time that goes to the whole issue of managing crisis. I will repeatedly, at every opportunity, bring up just how fragile the banking systems are in Europe and how important that is to the United Kingdom.

Whatever the outcome of the Brexit negotiations, and whenever that may be, these are questions we cannot afford to overlook. We saw last week how sensitive markets are to any decisions relating to Brexit. Given that, I would have thought that it would be in the Government’s best interests to consider all scenarios. It is evident that there is a lack of institutional planning on the euro’s future across Europe. We must all do better and challenge that conventional thinking.

That being said, I reaffirm my thanks to the Select Committee for undertaking this investigation. I would not wish the noble Baroness and the other members of the committee to take my remarks as a reflection of my views on the entirety of the report. It was a detailed and considered analysis of the challenges that Europe and monetary union face: for example, the continued procyclicality of the European financial policy, the concerns about the effectiveness of the capital markets union in a crisis—an issue I know the committee highlighted in a number of recent reports—and the lack of detail surrounding key interpretations and accountability. Indeed, one thing that came out as an amateur reading through the report was the avoidance of seeking common definitions of important issues.

However, the issue I wish to pick over in more detail—before turning to the implications of Brexit in our interpretation of the report—is chapter 3. This sets out the immense set of challenges associated with marrying two seemingly contradictory concepts: risk reduction and risk sharing. As paragraph 99 of the report states,

“the suggestions in the Five Presidents’ Report propose a means of pooling the risks facing certain Member States, but that resistance to them reflects others’ concern that they would face an unreasonable burden of responsibility for those risks”.

It is clear that the European Union ideal would be a balance between the two—but is that possible? At present it certainly does not seem that there is a desire to share risks across the eurozone. The report notes that:

“Germany, the Netherlands and Finland, have supported more risk reduction measures before any risksharing begins”.

The report hits the nail on the head when it states that,

“large macroeconomic imbalances in the euro area will … continue to be a source of instability”,

for as long as the reluctance to transfer wealth across the European continent remains. This remains a fundamental weakness of the euro and the key reason I am less confident than the committee or the EU. It would be naive to ignore the possibility of more uncertainty surrounding the European Council.

I finish by addressing the unprecedented climate we now face. I noted at the beginning that, because of the decision of the British public to leave the European Union, it is even more important that we take heed of the warnings this report identifies and the conclusions it makes. While it could be said that European and monetary union is no longer our business because we have no long-term influence over it, it is our business because it will still influence us. I am wary about bringing up the negotiations on Brexit in fear that I get the same, stock answer from the Minister as the rest of my colleagues: “There will be no running commentary”. However, it is simply not possible to fully engage in the report today and do justice to the hard work put into producing it without considering what our future relationship with Europe will look like. For example, will we remain part of the single market? We do not have enough time today to go into the detail, but there is little doubt that single market access is strongly favoured by businesses of all sizes across the country. However, if the decision is taken to stay in the single market, how can we be sure that we have a strong voice advocating British interests?

We also have to consider that the better deal we secure for the City, the more exposed we will be to shocks. Whereas now we have the ability to direct and advise, without guarantees and safeguards Brexit could leave us powerless. I will give just one example from the report which highlights the point I am making. Commenting on the banking union, the completion of which was a key component of the five presidents’ report, Andrew Bailey, the then deputy governor of the Bank of England, noted the relationship between the banking union and the UK banking system as follows:

“Where a bank branches from a country in the euro area to the UK, as it can do under the passporting regimes in the single market, the deposit protection for the depositors in that branch in the UK comes from the home state, which is wherever it is branching from … the solvency of a national deposit protection scheme depends upon the solvency of the sovereign of that country. They are inevitably inextricably linked. We have had incidents where the solvency of the banking system of the home country is a direct product of the solvency of the sovereign, and when both of those are called into question, you then get a situation where you say, ‘Do the depositors in the UK really understand where their deposit protection is coming from?’”.

Taking passporting as a particular issue, the same problem remains: membership and influence. Can Ministers say whether the Government plan to ensure passporting rights for the UK-based banking sector? If full compliance with EU financial regulations is the price required to retain passporting rights, in accepting that price, how do the Government propose to influence the direction and detail of future regulations?

In this short debate, we have barely scratched the surface of what the report touches on or its wider implications. But from the range of questions raised, one cannot help but be seized by the sheer scale of the task ahead of us in the Brexit negotiations and our relationship with economic and monetary union within the EU.