European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

Monday 19th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

The noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, has made a great leap from what I said to what the Daily Mail said.

As to the point about judicial involvement, I will give one example. When I was a Minister of State in the Department of Employment, the European Commission decided to implement the working time directive. We thought that employment law was a matter that required unanimity, but it did so as a health and safety measure in order to have it implemented by qualified majority. The advice that I had as a Minister was that that was illegal and wrong, but I was also told that there was no point in my going to the European court because it has a duty to promote the acquis and I would lose. I do not know whether that advice was correct.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

Does the noble Lord recognise that the transfer from unanimity to a qualified majority was conducted by a Government and a Prime Minister, Mrs Thatcher, from the party to which he belongs? It was in the Single European Act.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, is wrong.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

From past experience, I am sure that various people would like to change places with the noble Lord.

The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, is quite wrong. Employment measures at that time required unanimity. The working time directive was introduced as a health and safety measure and it was argued that it was so that it would require only qualified majority voting, and we would no longer have a veto. The issue was whether it was worth going to the court to argue that that was an improper act.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

The noble Lord has misunderstood what I said, which was that the provision in the treaty that provides for qualified majority voting for health and safety was introduced with the agreement of the Government of the day, whose Prime Minister was Margaret Thatcher.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Callanan]

I am not going to continue with this debate, but I think we know where she is coming from: she wants to reverse the result of the referendum, which she is entitled to believe, but I am entitled to disagree with her.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

I will give the noble Lord another target. He seems to be an absolutist about referendums. What attitude did he take in 1975 to the two-thirds of the British people who voted to join on the terms that were put before them?

[Lord Callanan]

I am afraid that I was not old enough to vote in that referendum, but my father tells me that he voted to join a Common Market at the time and nobody ever asked him whether he wanted to join a European Union. But that is a separate argument.

We in the Government believe it to be our solemn duty to deliver on the instructions of the people.