EU: Subsidiarity Scrutiny

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

Tuesday 5th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the noble Lord uses his characteristically robust and colourful language. There is always a tension between the time that national Parliaments wish to take for scrutiny and the pressures that national Governments, including our own, may wish to give to taking decisions. There are those in national Parliaments who regard the eight-week limit for taking a scrutiny decision as unfortunate, but I am informed by those who know the Brussels situation better than I do that the earlier national Parliaments submit reasoned opinions in the process of negotiation, the greater effect they have.

Reasoned opinions in the form of reports issued by the European Committee of this House are widely respected throughout the European Union in other national Parliaments and elsewhere. I recall with delight a Member of the European Parliament being appointed to head a committee in the European Parliament. He was asked by his clerk to start by reading three documents, two of which were reports from the House of Lords EU Committee.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

My Lords, would the Minister not agree that in the short period of time that the yellow-card system has existed, the main lesson to draw is that we have to get better at enlisting other national Parliaments when we use the yellow card because that is the shortfall? Will he confirm that on the one occasion when it was used, the Commission withdrew its proposal—the Monti II proposal? Will he also confirm that the right to take action in the Court is one for this House, not the Government under the Lisbon treaty?