European Union Bill

Lord Davies of Stamford Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Liddle]

Yes, the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, is right about that.

We are not talking about that but it could be, if we are going to have an effective force for this purpose, that we need to have a much more integrated force posture with common rules of engagement. That is a possibility that member states in these particular circumstances ought to be prepared to consider.

Look at north Africa, where the events occurring mean that the European neighbourhood policy and the Union for the Mediterranean require a complete rethink in their light. We need, as a European Union, to develop a coherent policy which particularly offers those countries in north Africa which are going down the path of strengthening democracy and human rights incentives for going further in that direction. I was interested in a piece that I read—I think it was yesterday—by Peter Sutherland about what might be necessary in order to make that policy happen. It involves tackling very sensitive and difficult issues, such as the need to have more flexible rules on immigration for people from those countries so that they can come and study in Europe, spend time here and then go back there. It requires having more flexible rules on trade so that trade with the European Union can boost their economies and jobs. That would do something about the appalling problems of youth unemployment in those countries. It may require a more common approach to asylum. We are potentially facing having 400,000 people in refugee camps in north Africa, so I read in a newspaper article the other day. These are issues that cannot be addressed in 10 years’ time but on which the European Union needs to develop credible policies, in its own interests, in the next year or two.

Most of the time, we obviously want Europe to use its existing powers under the existing treaties. Yet are we saying that we would not contemplate any change at all? This is the Williamson question which was asked earlier. The Government are getting themselves into a trap here. The coalition has pursued a positive approach to the European Union so far in its negotiations, but if they really believe that they are pursuing a pro-European policy, we urge them to be flexible on these issues and to recognise that we do not want to tie ourselves down with referendum requirements in areas where there is cross-party agreement and a general consensus that we need a stronger and more effective European Union. I beg to move.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

My Lords, the most important theme emerging from the contribution on this side of the Committee to the debate tonight is the need for the European Union, like any businesslike and serious organisation, to retain the capability for flexibility in responding to what are unpredictable and therefore, necessarily, unpredicted situations. That is enormously important and it is quite clear that the Government are, by contrast, saying of the European Union that we should remain rigidly anchored on the existing constitutional arrangements until and unless, by some enormous shift involving a public referendum in this country, there is a sudden, seismic change. That is the fundamental difference between the perception on this side of the House and that on the other side of the way that the European Union ought to be conducted.

Many of us on this side have the considerable suspicion that, because the Government’s attitude is so unrealistic in relation to what would be the requirements of any organisation that expected to survive in the modern world, there is actually a Machiavellian plan deliberately to make the EU inflexible, to cause crises and conflicts and, at some dramatic interlude, to stymie the whole of the EU. We know that many members of the Conservative Party have had that agenda for a long time.

There is a particular issue of flexibility facing me at the moment. As I understand my noble friend, he has suggested that in the interests of the House and of making rapid progress, we should debate in one session all the amendments from Amendment 23C to 23L. I understand that they cannot be formally moved together en bloc, but my noble friend’s suggestion was that they should be discussed and debated as such and I am happy to do that. If I receive so much as an eyebrow signal from either Front Bench that I am doing the wrong thing, I will sit down and try to address the House again under Amendment 23L, which is what I was intending to do. Unless I receive such a signal, I shall proceed to make a few remarks about that amendment against the background of the theme that I have just set out, which is the unifying theme in all the debates that we are having on this clause.

Amendment 23L deals with the issue of piracy. As my noble friend rightly says, this is a grave and serious problem that does not merely affect east Africa but, unless we get this right, could affect large areas of the world because, if piracy is shown to be something that pays and makes a lot of money with impunity, others will inevitably get involved in it. We will return to a situation that we thought we had left behind in the 19th century when the Royal Navy, above all, in collaboration with the navies of other civilised countries succeeded in more or less extirpating piracy, which had been such a threat to lives, to civilisation and to developing world trade, and I do not think anyone wants that to happen.

My noble friend Lord Liddle sensibly said—I agree—that there may be great advantage in trying to review and standardise the terms of engagement of our various naval units and fleets that are off the coast of east Africa at present. It is slightly absurd that we have three task forces there—one American, which we are supporting, one NATO and one EU. That does not seem a sensible way of making progress, but I leave that matter aside.

I agree with what my noble friend said about the probable need for greater operational co-ordination. I am not sure whether that raises the issues of the Bill in relation to changes in the competences or powers of the European Union, but I have a suggestion to make to the House. I listened with respect, as I always do, to the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, when he commented the other day that, by saying that in future the EU might need some particular power and it would not be sensible for us to deprive ourselves in advance of the opportunity of granting the EU that power in the interests of us all, I was raising hypothetical issues. He said that I did not actually come up with concrete scenarios or specific cases. I hope that I have his attention now because I am coming up with just such a specific scenario.

Anyone with a business or economics background will always look at the demand side before they look at the supply side, on the grounds that the supply side emerges only when there is a demand for something. I put it to the Minister that one of the big problems with piracy is that, on the demand side, people are prepared to pay the money. That issue has not been addressed at all. I have to tell the House that every week ransom payments are paid amounting to millions of pounds. Sometimes they are paid through banking channels, and sometimes they are paid literally with cash dropped out of chartered aircraft on to the coast of Somalia that is then picked up by pirates. As a result, some individual or ship is released from imprisonment by the pirates who have illegally hijacked them. This happens the whole time; I repeat, it happens every week. Every year tens of millions of pounds are paid in this way; indeed, the figure may well be getting into hundreds of millions in the course of a year. I have spoken about this to underwriters in the City of London, who confess that to pay ransoms to pirates is becoming quite a normal part of their business.

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[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I apologise if the noble Lord thought I was scowling at him. I was looking at him in some confusion. The question of how one deals with piracy off the coast of east Africa is rather different from how one might deal with piracy within the territorial waters of the European Union. Among the ships dealing with the anti-piracy patrols off the east coast of Africa are some very effective Chinese and Indian ships. The complications in co-ordinating ships from a large number of countries are considerable. How one should treat pirates whom one captures off the east coast of Africa is a large question in international law, but not under EU law since the EU does not extend to the Indian Ocean.

I was delighted to hear the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford, spell out his conspiracy theory. It is useful to know which conspiracy theories underlie different views. I encourage him to compare his conspiracy theory with that of the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch. They run in opposite directions. The noble Lord, Lord Davies, thinks that we are working secretly to undermine Britain’s membership of the European Union, while the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, thinks that we are not working hard enough by half to undermine it. The two of them could have a very enjoyable dinner together.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

I am grateful for the noble Lord’s contribution. I said that it was how some people felt. That was the formula I used; I did not myself endorse the conspiracy theory. The implication was that the conduct of the Government was such as to make it possible for constituents to develop that conspiracy theory. In relation to his most recent remarks to me, I accept that piracy is a matter for international law. Piracy has always been against international law. There should not be a problem there. His implication was that we needed to co-ordinate with the Indians and the Chinese, which we do to some extent. We might need to co-ordinate with them more. That is true and I acknowledged it explicitly in my recent remarks. I said that in this context, as in others—I suspect the noble Lord used to teach this to his students—it is much more effective, if we want international agreement and consensus on a matter, to act as the European Union rather than as one country or as 27 different countries. That is the point I was making.

However, there is a third point that I must make in relation to the noble Lord’s comments to me, which is that I was specifically addressing the need for powers to make it an offence to make ransom payments. I think that he, and anyone with any knowledge of the world, will agree that the chances of getting 150 or 193 countries to legislate identically for anything are virtually zero; that is not going to happen. If you wish to make it a criminal offence to transfer such payments, to collect money for the purpose of paying ransoms, to provide money for the purpose of paying ransoms, to make ransom payments, and to enforce those criminal offences, you need to obtain agreement throughout the European Union as an essential starting point. That is not a matter of international law; it is very much a matter of European law. If we do not have the powers to do that at present, it is very desirable that we should develop them. However, if we needed to develop them, we would run into the issue that, if the Government succeeded in passing this Bill, Article 48 would no longer be usable in that context if Great Britain were to be included.

[Lord Deben]

My Lords, it might encourage your Lordships’ House to hear that I do not intend to talk about piracy; I seek to talk about the amendments that deal with the environment and climate change. These differ from earlier amendments. I disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, as it seems to me that most of the areas that he covered were unique competences of the European Union, whereas we are now talking about a number of areas where there is joint competence. I say to my noble friends that if we were arguing that the British Government felt that we had sufficient powers in the European Union to do most of the things that we wanted to do, if we saw no reason to extend powers, and if the Government were going to commit themselves not to do that, I would have real sympathy with that.

If the Government went on to say that there might be occasions on which we have to go along with things that seem to be sensible extensions, I would have sympathy with that too. However, I find entirely unacceptable the concept that we cannot go along with anything unless we have a referendum. I find that unacceptable with regard to the environment, for the reason that I gave when I interrupted the noble Lord. Many of the issues about which we are talking are almost incapable of admitting a question of the kind of which a referendum admits. I do not like referenda. As the Committee knows, I am opposed to referenda on any grounds in any circumstances. I am a believer in parliamentary democracy. One of the sadnesses of this Government is that they have betrayed what seems to me to be a fundamental part of our constitution.

Referenda have always been used in partial circumstances for particular reasons. Napoleon III was the best user of referenda before General de Gaulle. This is a foreign activity much disliked by sensible people in the United Kingdom. I yield to no one in my dislike of referenda. They are always partial and always undertaken for a particular reason. The provision that we are discussing is included because the Government want to make it difficult to do anything in this area. The noble Lord, Lord Pearson, thinks that this is not so. The difficulty is that the Government speak in different ways to different people. They say to some people, “This is a wonderful step forward for those who are Eurosceptic”, and to other people, “This does not matter very much anyway because we are not going to need it”. Therefore, I find it very difficult to take this debate seriously. However, it is crucial with regard to environmental issues.

I have one or two suggestions as to why that is the case. For example, we are going to have a real issue with the transfer of electricity across the European Union. The superconductor systems, which will enable us to pass electricity very fast without losing power, will be very important in enabling us to meet our energy requirements and the requirement to cut the damage we do to the atmosphere and to mitigate climate change. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, does not believe in climate change. He is a sceptic on a wide range of subjects. It will not therefore worry him, but it worries me considerably if we cannot do something about this

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[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

The noble Lord and those of his view have been saying this now for 30 years. It has not happened and it is not going to happen. The solution for this country is to leave the common fisheries policy and take back our waters to the median line and whatever we had before in territorial waters into our own control. Then, when our own fishing industry, which has been decimated by the common fisheries policy, has been rebuilt, we can share any surplus and lease it out to people who want to buy it.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

I do not know in which amendment the common fisheries policy arises, but I have to tell the noble Lord that if he is interested in that policy, he will rapidly find that the only explanation consistent with the facts is that the common fisheries policy suffered from an excess of member state sovereignty and an insufficiency of federalism. At every stage the European Commission, being the regulatory agency, has proposed quotas that, if they had been accepted, would have preserved the stocks. It is the member states pursuing their own individual interests that have always resisted those proposals on the part of the European Commission. As a result, the quotas have never been sufficiently tight and all these waters have been overfished. Under all circumstances, whether we had our own fisheries policy or not, it would be necessary for us to have regulation, quotas and some effective enforcement mechanism. If we disbanded the European Union, the next day we would need to set up a new common fisheries policy by agreement with a set of quotas and a common enforcement policy.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

My Lords, when we leave the European Union, we will not do as the noble Lord, Lord Davies, suggests. We will take back those waters that were our waters, take back those fish that were our fish and re-establish our national fishing industry. That is what we will do. As the noble Lord has mentioned, this was not actually in the amendments but as the noble Lord, Lord Deben, mentioned it in connection with me, I thought that I would just touch on it in closing.

The noble Lord assumes, again, that some form of European common energy policy is in any way necessary for this country. We simply rebuild our own energy supplies. We do not let the European Union close down our coal-fired stations, as my noble friend Lord Willoughby de Broke has mentioned, but build new ones. We might even consider incineration of landfill. We certainly consider nuclear power. We therefore supply our own energy. If we then wish to go on buying Russian gas through France, which is what we have to do at the moment, then we may be able to, but I entirely agree with my noble friend that this pursuit of wind power is madness of a dimension that only the political class could be guilty of. I think that that covers everything that I had to say to the noble Lord, Lord Deben, and I shall sit down.