Queen’s Speech

Lord Elton Excerpts

Monday 14th May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Elton]

My Lords, I do not know whether I was more surprised by the Queen’s Speech or by the debate that has so far followed it. Perhaps I can resort to metaphor. Your Lordships’ House is used to thinking of the constitution as being the house in which we live, where we are kept warm and dry and safe from our foes. It seems to me that both the Government and most of your Lordships’ House have spent their time in the sitting room, arranging how it should look so that it is a bit more efficient, without looking out of the window and discovering that we are no longer in a mansion standing in its own grounds. We are not even in a semi-detached; we are incorporated in a vast condominium which, in part, overlaps the structure in which we are living and the roof of which hovers over our heads as I speak. I was astonished to find that out of the 48 people who have so far spoken in this debate, only two have regarded Europe as significant to our constitution. But Europe is almost in flames. The wing at the other end of this row of apartments has serious subsidence and, very shortly, may burst into flames and disappear. It is the same structure. We cannot start rejigging the sitting room until we know whether we can keep the building in which we are used to living intact and efficient.

Why is there a rush to do this? We are deeply affected by what is going on. We said at the beginning that, if there is a currency union and if it is to work, you have to have a fiscal union. That has been proved. The structure will either disintegrate or there will be fiscal union in Europe in the next month or two, or certainly in the next year or so. To make matters worse, there will be a political structure; we are within sight of a federal Europe. Do we want to be Switzerland? Do we perhaps want to be Hong Kong? Or do we want to be part of Europe? It is a frightening choice. Many of us have dithered—some of us have dithered right through this debate—about what we want and about whether we want to be in or out. At a time when the nation needs leadership, I could see no mention in the Queen’s Speech of where the Government are heading. Where will we follow? Will they lead us anywhere? A host of questions arise.

In order to get out of this mess and structure a new Europe, there will have to be a treaty, or maybe several treaties, and under the present system treaties cannot be made without the signatures of all the members. That puts us on an equal bargaining basis with every other country in Europe. As the situation is desperate, there will be very serious negotiations ahead. I would like to know, as I think your Lordships would like to know, what the Government’s aims are. What powers, if any, do we intend to repatriate? What part of our sovereignty do we regard as inalienable? What formula do we propose to limit the net amount of money that we pay to our neighbours next door? How will we define, or redefine, those things that are our concern only and not the concern of bureaucrats in Brussels? How will we engage those bureaucrats with some of the realities of the things that they are regulating so that fewer absurdities come from there?

All that is trivial compared with the question of fiscal union and federalism, both of which will necessarily, and the latter essentially, affect our constitutional position. I do not know how the present Bill can be drafted to take that on board when the ball has not yet hit the pitch in front of the crease. I do not wish to mix my metaphors. I was warned a moment ago when the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, suggested that the Government should look for an exit from the box on which they had impaled themselves. I am still trying to work out how one can impale oneself on a box, unless it is a very odd shape—so I will drop my metaphor before I get into similar trouble.

I remind noble Lords that Europe and Britain are entirely different creatures. Europe has a revolutionary history and constitution; ours are evolutionary. Europe has a secular constitution; our constitution embodies—usually more visibly than it does now—the Church of England. Europe’s courts are based on Roman law, ours on common law. We are a monarchy. Europe—I must not say “they” because I would pre-empt my position—is a republic with a number of monarchical enclaves, including ourselves. European countries are recent; Germany was not 60 years old when I was born. Incidentally, unification started with a customs union, which is exactly what started the European process. That is why a few of us historians said at the time that this would be where it all finished. However, I had no idea that it would be such a mess.

We the Government have a duty to lead the British people, who are not awake to the precipice on the edge of which Europe is standing—as the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, accurately described it—to a safer place. If we do not do it, we shall be blamed. Elected or not, we shall be answerable—and the Government will be particularly answerable.

I have asked questions and pointed out dangers. Now I will add, in case my UKIP friends begin to scent a convert, that there is a deep motive for preserving Europe. I will illustrate it briefly and dramatically by reminding noble Lords that it all began with the European Coal and Steel Community, which was invented simply to tie Germany and France so closely together that they could never fight again. My father fought in the First World War, and lost two-thirds of his male friends. He was the only survivor of the sixth form of Rugby School, of which he was head boy in his final year. We do not want to risk anything like that happening again—not only now but perhaps after an awful, shambolic slide into chaos over 20 years. Who knows what will happen? We need a strong Europe.

That is the premise for what I will say briefly about the constitutional house that is at present in danger. I cannot help repeating myself in one or two particulars. I remind noble Lords that Parliament was invented to control government, and for no other reason. I remind them that in 2005 the then Government proposed to lock up British citizens on the say-so of one Secretary of State and the advice of one chief police officer. We can imagine the power that that would have given a corrupt Government—and it would have applied to all Governments still to come. The measure was taken repeatedly through the House of Commons and rejected repeatedly by this House—although it was anathema to noble Lords in the party opposite.

How was it that the Government got it through the Commons and could not get it through here? What was the difference? It was that Members of the other place not only had a great interest, because of their terms and conditions of employment, in maintaining their places there, but could only maintain them if they were not deselected. In other words, Members of the House of Commons do not have secure tenure and we do. I do not want to denigrate anybody, but I can see the power that a Chief Whip would have if I had a mortgage and children and no other profession to which to turn if I lost my job. That is the situation there.

Now the proposal is that we should have an elected House. At present it is proposed that the term of election should be 15 years. I would prefer it to be 20. Also, for the reasons that I have made clear, if anyone retired early they should be debarred from any government appointment, government employment or employment in any organisation receiving government funds until the expiry of the term that they had been elected for, and thereafter there should be a moratorium of another five years. The noble and learned Lord looks extremely surprised, but I hope that he is encouraged. What I am talking about is incredibly important. Parliament took power from government in the 13th century and government has been taking it back ever since. The only turn of the ratchet in the other direction in my lifetime was when Norman St John-Stevas, as he then was, got departmental Select Committees in under the wire before Margaret Thatcher—the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher—got the disease that all Governments get and thought that what we needed was more power to run the country.

I could go on at great length, but I beg your Lordships to realise that what we are talking about are two important things. One is the future of this country in relation to Europe—we really have to get that sorted in the next 18 months at the latest. The other is that we are preserving the electorate from a Government who would overrule the people who elected them. That is why I stayed in 1999. I admit I enjoyed the place tremendously; I would probably have stayed anyway, but my justification and main motivation was that I reckoned that this was coming. There would be a day when we had to recognise that there was nothing substantial between the domination of politics by a single party for the whole term of a Parliament and quite possibly beyond if it had absolute control.

We are planning not for the reasonable people we see around us—most of us are very reasonable—or for the reasonable and honourable people in another place. We are planning for how things may turn out in 10 or 15 years after the control and the safety lock have gone. To have a power such as the derogated detention powers as they were originally sent to us from the House of Commons in the Government’s hands would lead to the most terrible pressure on individual liberty. It is a fascist provision. That is what we are here for, that is why I stayed, and I hope that your Lordships will bear that in mind in the months to come.