European Union Committee: 2012-13 (EUC Report)

Lord Bowness Excerpts

Tuesday 30th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bowness]

My Lords, I too thank the noble Lord, Lord Boswell of Aynho, for so comprehensively introducing this report and for his leadership of the Select Committee during this past session. I am delighted, too, that this is the second year running that we are debating the committee’s annual report. I am pleased that it is not purely historic on this occasion, but includes a chapter setting out the future work that the committee and sub-committees will undertake.

I hope that this practice will continue, that the debate on this report will become a major occasion in your Lordships’ House for debating European Union matters and that Ministers will want to contribute. Indeed, I hope that the usual channels might find another time, when the minds of Members are on other things, rather than the fact that this is the last day—and almost the last hours—of the Session before the Summer Recess.

I do not wish to repeat what has already been said, so perhaps noble Lords will forgive me if I make some personal observations on this report and pose some questions. I particularly want to underline the importance of our participation in the inter-parliamentary meetings, and of building relationships with members of the European Parliament and the Commission. This gives us an opportunity to make our views known and find out what other people are thinking: not just members of the European Parliament from the United Kingdom, but those within the Parliament who occupy important positions in the particular committees. It gives us an opportunity to do that and it is particularly important in the codecision process.

I am also grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Corston, for her review of the work of Sub-Committee C and her kind comments to me. I wish the noble Baroness, my successor as chairman of the sub-committee, well for the coming Session and thank those members who served with me in the past, as well as the staff for their considerable assistance. The noble Baroness referred to the three reports that were carried out in the past Session. I will make one or two brief comments on each. On the follow-up report on the workload of the Court of Justice, I am delighted that the Government have now been persuaded of our view that additional judges are needed in the general court.

We know that it has stalled because agreement cannot be reached on how to determine which countries have more than one judge; but I hope that the Minister will assure us that the Government are keeping this very much at the top of the agenda. Equally, I hope that if cash—money, lest I be misunderstood—seeks to intrude on this matter, a Written Statement made to the House on 2 July by my noble friend Lady Warsi will be borne in mind. While the amount that the UK contributes to the budget of the Court of Justice of the European Union is not clear, on the basis that we meet some 11.5% of the cost of the European Union, our share of the court’s budget would be £32 million. According to that statement, we put £25 million into a variety of other international justice organisations, including the International Criminal Court and the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, and made voluntary contributions to a lot of other international tribunals. Given the importance of the Court of Justice, I feel that this puts its relative cost into perspective.

The other inquiry dealt with preventing fraud against EU finances. As the noble Baroness, Lady Corston, said, we were particularly disappointed with the apparent lack of engagement by both the Government and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. I particularly regret the rejection of the suggestion that one department, or one office within Government, should be responsible for our efforts against fraud on European finances. More contentiously and on a personal note, I regret the outright rejection of a European prosecutor’s office even before any proposal had been made. That seemed to me somewhat ill judged. It now looks as though this may form part of the revised Eurojust proposal; and although separate from the proposal for a European prosecutor’s office, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Corston, referred, there are likely to be close links. I ask the Minister: will this lead to the Government not opting in to the new Eurojust proposal? Eurojust has been identified by the Government as being very important, as shown by their desire to reapply to rejoin in the present format. How workable will rejoining in the present format be if we do not join in the revised Eurojust?

The other important inquiry that was carried out has already been mentioned. I refer to the joint inquiry carried out by the home affairs sub-committee under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay. I do not propose to rerun last week’s debate. Suffice it to say that it was the failure of the Government, I am sorry to say, to consult on timing and the form of the Motion as promised which led to the difficulties—which, I am glad to say, were solved by my noble friends Lord McNally and Lord Taylor of Holbeach and their revised Motion. However, the status of that Motion and what difference a Motion in your Lordships’ House and one passed in the other place makes to the mandate and the decision-making process is far from clear.

The Explanatory Memorandum which formed the Command Paper is also far from clear. It must be an outstanding candidate for an award for being the least helpful and most confusing Explanatory Memorandum ever produced. However, having said that, the Motion that came before the House did not solve the problem for those of us who wished to express a deeply held belief that it is a mistake to opt-out but wanted to make it quite clear that, if we did, we should rejoin at least the 35 measures that were listed. It was a dilemma I could resolve only by not voting.

With this in mind, the European Union Select Committee was quite correct in not becoming directly involved with the Government’s competence exercise. Let the committee comment when the deeds have been done by government or in the course of an inquiry when relevant. The interests of government and Parliament are not always the same even if the same words are frequently used. For Governments, parliamentary co-operation tends to be the support of the Executive by Parliament on a whipped vote. That is not the tradition of the evidence-based, considered reports on which we in this House act.

I also note, from an exchange at Questions yesterday, that my noble friend Lady Warsi, in her Answer to a Question by the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, said that,

“the Prime Minister regularly discusses a range of EU issues with his counterparts, including changes needed to make the EU more competitive, flexible and democratically accountable. These discussions include the substance of reforms and the means to achieve them, which range from legislation to treaty changes”.—[Official Report, 29/1/13; col. 1533.]

This must inevitably raise the question of how these discussions are taking place before we have seen the publication and the results of the competence review. On what basis are these discussions taking place? I do not expect the Minister to tell us but it is a question that inevitably forms in our minds.

I appeal to the Minister to confirm that, as it is the stated desire of my noble friend the Prime Minister for us to remain a member of the European Union, there will be a major drive on the part of Ministers to emphasise the benefits and desirability of remaining a member, and that this message will be made just as clear as the message that the public are to be given a chance to decide whether or not to stay in the European Union.