European Union Bill

Lord Goodhart Excerpts

Monday 16th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

The Maastricht treaty and other treaties make clear that common defence means common control and common finance. There may be all sorts of arrangements short of that with some aspects of existing competencies already available to the European Union for all kinds of co-operation. I am going to come particularly to the question of enhanced co-operation and other military aspects in a moment. The noble Lord is splitting hairs. In the treaty it is perfectly clear what this step would involve. He says that there might be just one small step and it will be all right because we can have adjustments later on; that is not how it really works and certainly not how it works in law and under the treaties.

Let me move on, as I have plenty more to say on the other areas that were apparently described as trivial. Those included abolishing border controls—I feel it absolutely extraordinary to put that in the trivial category, as it is a major issue. Joining the European public prosecutor system, which is already in the treaty, or extending its powers when we had joined it is a very serious issue affecting the whole of our judicial system. Then we come to—

[Lord Goodhart]

Is my noble friend aware that the EPPO would have virtually no effect on litigation or law in the United Kingdom? It would affect only a few elements which involve entirely cross-border matters.

--- Later in debate ---

There is a very good example of this. If Germany agreed to pay for someone else's defence activity, would we need a referendum before we could agree to anything in Schedule 1? No, of course we would not. Schedule 1 is not about decisions taken on these legal bases, but about any question of giving up the right to say no if a proposal is not in the national interest. That seems to be a perfectly reasonable item to include in the Schedule 1 list of vetoes that we do not want to give up, and which it would not be in the national interest to give up. The more one goes through these far-from-trivial, and in fact highly important, issues—each one would be likely to trigger a major debate in this nation—the more one is left wondering why anyone should want the United Kingdom to go for QMV and throw over unanimity in any of these areas. It is very hard to understand why anyone would want to do that.

[Lord Goodhart]

Again, is it not distinctly possible that QMV would have considerable benefits for the United Kingdom? With unanimity, things that we want to do can be blocked by another member state. Is it not best to have the decision about whether to go for QMV taken by Parliament?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I have always found this argument very curious. To go to QMV requires a unanimous decision by those involved in taking the decision. The suggestion is that a country that is anxious to protect its national interest by blocking the move to QMV should nevertheless vote for QMV and for the power to be overridden by itself. That seems to be a turkeys-for-Christmas argument that does not add up in the real world. To imagine that by the muscle of QMV—I will not call it a sledge-hammer—one is going to get other countries to fall into line with a proposition that we might like to see pushed through is unrealistic. Why should they vote against themselves? That is not the way the pattern is ever going to work. The truth is this—my noble friend Lord Lamont touched on it—that the reason there is a long list of items in Schedule 1—