European Union: United Kingdom Renegotiation

Lord Boswell of Aynho Excerpts

Thursday 4th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I have huge respect for my noble friend and for his position and views on Britain’s relationship with the European Union. He has been involved in lots of negotiations in Europe over a significant period of time. From my perspective as a relative newcomer to this kind of thing and as a member of the Government, I look at what the right honourable David Cameron, our Prime Minister, has achieved. Let us not forget that it is Donald Tusk who has published this set of draft proposals, not the Prime Minister. Let us look at what he has come forward with. The Prime Minister has achieved something that nobody before him has achieved. On ever closer union, we will see for the first time institutions in Europe that we have criticised time and again for using the treaties and their preambles to try to extend the scope and power of union no longer able to do that. I think that is a massive step forward.

[Lord Boswell of Aynho (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, as chairman of the European Union Select Committee, I shall focus on the role of national parliaments. The text proposes that the Council will discontinue consideration of draft legislation in the event that reasoned opinions are sent representing more than 55% of the votes allocated to national parliaments. That is certainly welcome, as far as it goes. How will the new procedure interact with the existing reasoned opinion procedure, which will be considered by the House in its next business today? How can it be ensured that this new tool is of practical as well as purely symbolic value? What steps will be taken to put in place an effective mechanism for national parliaments to work together?

Last week in evidence to my committee the Foreign Secretary stressed the need to establish a more effective support machinery to co-ordinate the work of national parliaments. Can the noble Baroness confirm that the Government will actively work on such developments alongside this draft agreement?

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

The noble Lord is right to point out that the next business of your Lordships’ House is on a reasoned opinion, using one of the mechanisms that currently exist for sovereign parliaments to make their views known. The draft text proposes that parliaments have much greater power, with a red card, than they have currently. Clearly, a lot of the detail is still to be sorted out on mechanisms that would be used and how the red card would interplay with the yellow card. I think it is safe to assume that having at parliaments’ disposal a power that they do not currently have to block legislation would be a strong incentive to them to be more active than they might have been when they had at their disposal only a yellow card. My right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary is right to suggest that there might be greater co-ordination between parliaments across Europe to ensure that they get to the minimum level to have real and dramatic effect with the use of this new power.