European Union Bill

Lord Empey Excerpts

Monday 13th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dobbs]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Davies, has tested our memories, and I ask noble Lords to test theirs. I did not intervene in Committee because to do so might have delayed the Whitsun Recess. Never have I received such a warm reception for a speech that I did not make.

I have been reluctant to intervene on this Bill because it has so much detail. I have been prompted to change my mind by two things. First of all, sitting here last week listening to proceedings for many hours, I heard language that I did not think did the argument justice. I heard Members of another place called “rather nerdy people” simply for being persistent and consistent. I do not know whether it is my job as one of the newest Members here to say that that sort of language in a debate helps neither the debate nor the reputation of this House.

I also thought that I should not intervene because, frankly, there are so many big beasts of the European jungle here—some very big beasts. Looking around this Chamber I can see that many of them are waiting to pounce, although where they were last week when the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, and I defended the honour of this place in the Commons versus Lords tug of war, I do not know. I wish they had been there. For those who do not know, we came a very close second.

Listening to this debate, I often feel as though I have dropped into the scene of that wonderful film, “Casablanca”, right at the very end when the wicked deed has been done, the fog is swirling, the body is lying on the ground and the police captain instructs his men:

“Round up the usual suspects”.

Having sat through this Bill for so many hours, I am beginning to recognise some of those usual suspects. If they will forgive me, I think it is not I who have missed the point but they. We have heard the blandishments of compromise that the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, has put forward so eloquently today, and we have heard the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart. Apparently we cannot afford a referendum on these issues. We have just had a referendum on AV, which no one seemed to want, so why can we not afford referendums on matters that people so clearly want?

This debate has tried to bury the point in details rather than address the fundamental purpose. This amendment, like so many of the others that we shall deal with today, is yet another excellent example of that. The details are of course important, but the fundamental purpose of making the EU responsive to the people is far more so.

Europe is unpopular and is growing ever more so. No institution that claims to be democratic can sustain itself in the face of continued popular hostility. That is the huge challenge that this Bill aims to meet. We have heard it called a process of reconnection, but that language is insufficient. This Bill is much more than that; it is an attempt to save the European Union from itself.

It is my firm proposition, and, I believe, that of the Bill, that the people know best. To suggest, as so many of the amendments do, that there is nothing wrong with an institution that asks to be taken on trust yet embraces accounting practices that would have any company director thrown in jail is hopeless. Some might even argue that it is pretty shameful. Ministers have been accused constantly of not listening. Well, your Lordships will forgive me if I say that it is the usual suspects who have not been listening; they seem even afraid to listen. If they had listened more, perhaps we would not need this Bill. The Bill is a mark of their failure, a failure to recognise the need for change.

There is nothing inherently wrong or evil in the European dream. What so many ordinary men and women object to is the way in which that dream has been put into practice, imposed from the top down rather than built from the bottom up, so that it has now become so top-heavy it is in danger of toppling.

The face of Europe has changed over these past 40 years, whether the people accepted it or not. Often, little has changed perhaps from day to day; just a small change here, a little adjustment, a nip or a tuck there—a bit of bureaucratic Botox for which the EU is so well known. However, as with any ageing process, the face has ultimately changed beyond all recognition. It needs rejuvenation, and the only way to do that is by re-establishing the pre-eminence of the people in its deliberations. That will not harm the European dream; it will save it. The great irony of this amendment and all the amendments that we will discuss today is that, if they are pushed to a vote by their proposers, it is a vote that they will deny the people whom we were sent here to serve.

[Lord Empey]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford, referred to the argument about Parliament and said that the party positions had changed. However, I said at the beginning of my remarks on the Bill last week that we are nothing if not consistent in our consistencies. This House voted so that people such as me in Northern Ireland would have a referendum on our constitutional future and that we would decide. As recently as on a visit to Northern Ireland last week, the Prime Minister said that the decision about its future lay with the people there; he did not say that it lay with Parliament. If we want to take the argument to its logical conclusion, that Parliament decides everything, why did Parliament provide for referenda in the first place? If you are going to be consistent in saying that such matters are a decision for Parliament, you do not have referenda. However, we do have referenda. We had one in 1975, and we have had a number since. Therefore, the argument that Parliament always takes the decisions is simply not true.

Edmund Burke was quoted again. He is very popular in this debate, but we are talking about the 18th century and things have moved on. Life has changed. We have a totally different world in which people are, thank God, educated and able to participate in a meaningful way and no longer require people who can read and write to interpret things for them. As a new Member, it has struck me from the very beginning of our debates on the Bill that it is hard to construct an argument that we support the Bill in broad terms, inelegant though it might be, without automatically being deemed to be someone who does not want to have anything to do with Europe. I refute that. There are positive things about Europe, but, as the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, said, in the view of the British people Europe has been systematically salami-sliced.

I think I understand why that is. There is a small group of people at the heart of Europe who, for perfectly legitimate reasons, believe ultimately in a large superstate to rival the United States. We saw an example of that last week when one former Prime Minister said that we now need a leader. I am not speculating on who he thought that person might be, but the implication is that the nation state is not held by some people to be the fundamental building block of the European Union. Indeed, the nation state is merely in transition towards something else.

[Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne]

I apologise for interrupting the noble Lord, Lord Empey, but the facts are very firmly against him. I ask him to accept that the very architecture of the European Union is one of the most decentralised architectures of a large bloc of countries coming together that the world has witnessed in modern times. It is a highly decentralised, very diffuse organisational structure, and I beg him to recognise that point despite his excellent oratory.

[Lord Empey]

I thank the noble Baroness for her comments. I understand the argument for subsidiarity. I was part of a European institution that practised it in the days of bringing decisions ostensibly down to the lowest level at which they can be taken. However, the practice is somewhat different. It is all very well to push things down, but setting the envelope within which those bodies can take decisions and determining the size and shape of that envelope centrally, which is what happens, goes against the argument.

The point I am trying to develop is that I believe in the nation state and in nation states coming together in common cause where that is in their national interests. However, I do not believe in a push by some people to transform those nation states into a collective within a larger body that in effect has all the characteristics of a state: its own President, its own Foreign Secretary, its own system of justice, possibly even its own army. The people of this country are not ready for that argument. Those who for economic, political or security reasons push that argument are pushing against the tide and undermining the people of this country’s view of Europe. They are therefore undermining their own argument.

I hope as we go forward with this that we will recognise that confidence in the principle of a European Union in this country will be re-established only if people feel that they are in charge. Indeed, its standing, with pages filled with people claiming for Kit Kats and all sorts of things, has been undermined and has suffered colossal damage. It may take a generation to repair it, but in the mean time this Bill, with all its downsides, can at least begin the process of saying to people, “You are now in charge”. Yes, Ministers and Members of Parliament will play their role, but in a modern democracy with modern communications and an educated electorate, who says that it is incompatible to have parliamentary democracy on the one hand and on the other hand, for certain defined purposes, a referendum in which the people can be specific? When they vote for a Member of Parliament, they vote for myriad policies covering everything from defence to social services—the whole gamut of government. Constitutional matters are much more precise, and, with an educated electorate, why should the people on occasions not be able to tick the box that they feel is appropriate?

[Lord Richard]

My Lords, to follow the argument advanced by the noble Lord, Lord Empey, on referenda, the last few sentences of his speech seemed to indicate more than anything else a decision or a desire to support the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and not to vote against it. Referenda are scattered throughout the clauses in the Bill on almost any given issue on which it is quite absurd that there should have to be a referendum.

Will the noble Lord consider again the provisions of Schedule 1 and apply them to Northern Ireland? Is he seriously suggesting that in Northern Ireland there should be a referendum on,

“provisions concerning passports, identity cards, residence permits … minimum rules on criminal procedure”,

or a

“decision identifying other areas of crime”,

or on the, “European Public Prosecutor’s Office”? Is he suggesting that there should be one on,

“police co-operation … cross-border operation by competent authorities … harmonisation of indirect taxes”,

in Northern Ireland, or on the,

“approximation of national laws affecting internal market”?

I could go on and on about this.

The point about the Bill is that if it was enacted you would have to have referenda on those issues. The noble Lord is saying that once we have crossed the bridge and accepted referenda in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, why do we not accept them in this Bill? One does not accept them in this Bill because these are not proper and fit matters to be put to a referendum. They are matters for a Government to decide.

I cannot believe that the noble Lord would advocate having referenda on the issues set out on Schedule 1 if they were to apply only to Northern Ireland. It is absurd; it could not be done. It is exactly what Parliament is there to do. You do not to consult people on issues of that sort; you govern. The amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, specifically confined the issue of referenda, which he accepts—and we accept—to certain major constitutional issues. I totally accept that. If the Bill confined it to those issues, no doubt there would be much less difficulty in getting it through. When it is as absurdly worrying as it is here, it does not make a great deal of sense.

[Lord Empey]

The noble Lord, Lord Richard, caught me as I was sitting down. I think he has misunderstood the point that I made at the beginning of my remarks about what the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford, said—that the argument was that Parliament should effectively decide. I made the point to him that we had been required to have a referendum whereby the people in that referendum were taking a decision outwith Parliament. I was not suggesting for one moment that referenda would be held in Northern Ireland alone—in fact, the issues that the noble Lord, Lord Richard, listed are United Kingdom-wide. Tax harmonisation and the rest are very important matters but they are United Kingdom-wide not Northern Ireland-specific.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

My Lords, I have been on a steepish learning curve for the duration of this Bill and one of the more amazing things I have learned this evening is that my noble friend Lord Goodhart is actually a supporter of the Bill. For some reason I got the impression that he did not really like this Bill at all. I am very encouraged to hear that he supports it, but I find it rather extraordinary that someone who is trying to support the Bill puts their name to an amendment which will mean that a whole lot of things that were going to be subjected to referenda will not be subjected to referenda any more.

As we know, the way in which the EU has operated for a very long time is that it never does anything in a great big bang: it is always “grandmother’s footsteps”, it is always one bit after another. It is very unlikely that at any stage the EU would introduce something saying that there should be a single, integrated military force. That would be much too large and dramatic a step. They would do it incrementally, bit by bit, until we ended up with a single, integrated military force.