European Union Referendum Bill

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Excerpts

Monday 23rd November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, I back up what the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, said, with which I entirely agree. To make the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, happy, I should say that my receipt of a pension from the European Parliament is on my declaration of interests. As far as I know, I do not have to mention it every time we discuss the EU, as that would bore the House greatly.

I wish to amplify two of the points in Amendment 24C, in the name, principally, of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay. The Prime Minister said recently that the EU was essential—I cannot remember whether he said “essential”, but he at least meant that it was very important—to the UK’s national security. I think that is the first time he has made that very valid point. Therefore, it is important that the report the Government promise to publish in the very welcome amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, should cover the law enforcement, security and justice point because the public have a right to know what that consists of. For instance, the report should state that we are a full member of Europol and not stray into the domain covered by Amendment 25, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, by implying that if we are not in the EU we will not be a full member of Europol, as Norway is not—it has a sort of observer status. The same applies to referring to Eurojust as a sort of club of prosecutors which makes sure that we catch, and can prosecute, these major criminals.

As the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, said, we have full membership of the European arrest warrant. We could even push for reform. I wish that Ministers, the Government and the Commission would take up the report that I wrote as one of my last acts in the European Parliament. This was about multilateral reform of the European arrest warrant. We could not do that simply as law takers outside the EU, even if we had some kind of other arrangement.

On proposed new paragraph (d) in Amendment 24C and the rights of UK citizens living in another country, a lot of work is being done here, to which the UK, being in the European Union, has a great deal to contribute. This work is about complementing the rights of free movement. We have maybe 2 million citizens living in the rest of the EU. We can take a leading part, with our strong civil as well as criminal legal traditions, in influencing the work on the mutual recognition of documents and of civil partnerships and marriages, including of course same-sex marriages, and on the rights that help our citizens in their daily lives in other EU countries.

It is important that our citizens understand the full implications of those EU measures, and the rights and obligations that arise under EU law enabling us to help defend our national security and ourselves against terrorism, to catch criminals and to help people taking advantage of free-movement rights through civil-law issues. I hope the Minister will say that the report will have some focus on these sectors of law enforcement, security and justice, including civil justice.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I should like to speak to these three amendments.

My noble friend the Minister’s first amendment, Amendment 24A, makes the assumption that the Prime Minister will come back with a negotiated package from the EU. There is not a lot of evidence at the moment that that will happen. The Prime Minister has made it clear that if he cannot get any reforms of or agreement with the EU he will walk away. Is that offer no longer on the table? Are we now basically taking the position that, however hopeless the concessions that we get from the EU are, the Government will campaign to stay in whatever happens?

On Amendment 24B, I have many more concerns. It speaks of,

“information about rights, and obligations, that arise under European Union law as a result of the United Kingdom’s membership”.

This really encompasses a large part of UK citizens’ lives. Nick Clegg, from another place, said that 50% of our legislation originates in the EU. This is a very broad category, encompassing very many activities that happen in this country.

In proposed new subsection (1)(b) my noble friend’s amendment says,

“examples of countries that do not have membership of the European Union”.

Can she indicate which countries she will identify as being not part of the European Union, but which have a relationship with it? This is also an extremely broad category. Virtually every country in the world has some sort of relationship with the EU. I would be particularly interested to have a little bit more detail about the free-trade treaty between South Korea and the EU. My view has always been that if South Korea can have such a treaty, the United Kingdom can, too. I should like to know a lot more about that. Will we be told about it in this paper? In general terms, nobody can pretend that the information that will come out in the report suggested by Amendment 24B will be in any way impartial. But of course, when it comes to partiality, we have only to move on to Amendment 24C in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, to find a whole list of things that quite clearly the noble Lord thinks are going to give advantage to those people who want to stay in the EU.

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[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

My Lords, before she leaves that point, does my noble friend accept that the EU has very few free trade treaties with other countries, so at least one of them should be listed so that we can know about the detail?

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, I believe that we will select examples of countries that can best inform the people of this country about how they should cast their vote. We must not try to skew that. Clearly, it would be a balanced selection of countries. I would not like to define now what will be in the report because that would assume that I would be writing it—I will not be.