European Union Bill

Lord Kerr of Kinlochard Excerpts

Tuesday 26th April 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I welcome a debate in which we are discussing the amendment in front of us rather than having another Second Reading-type debate as I felt at some point this afternoon we were doing. I can see where this amendment and the other probing amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, are going, but they are based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the purpose of the Bill. The Bill does not intend to tie a British Government hand and foot to prevent them co-operating within the terms of the treaty.

The coalition agreement accepts the Lisbon treaty. That is, after all, a major step forward. The Lisbon treaty includes a substantial extension of competencies. As the noble Lord, Lord Mandelson, said in his very useful speech before dinner, the task that the European Union now needs to pursue is to use effectively the competencies that it has to make good decisions and then to implement worthwhile policy within those existing competencies. I have been struggling, with this and a number of the other probing amendments that the noble Lord has put down, to discover what particular difficulties these will cause for the British Government.

The European Union, as we all know, has often preferred—or at least those enthusiasts and habitués of Brussels have—to spend time writing new laws and devising new institutions rather than getting on with implementing policies. Part of the hole that we now find ourselves in and the mistrust we have across the European Union is the result of 25 years of treaty amendment, from the Single European Act, through the Maastricht treaty, the Amsterdam treaty, the Nice treaty, the Convention and the Lisbon treaty. They have provided very substantial competencies for the European Union, many of which have not yet been used.

My noble friend Lady Hamwee produced a very interesting paper the other week on the number of powers that the previous Labour Government had acted to put into the law, which have not yet been implemented. There was this great feeling in that Labour Government that when something happened, you passed a new Act or created a new criminal offence. There is now, as a result, a huge list of things on the statute book that have not yet been implemented and which I rather hope that this Government will get around to repealing.

As far as the EU is concerned, there are now substantial competencies. There are a large number of regulations in force, many of which unfortunately have not been fully enforced or implemented. I am puzzled by what it is that one needs to do with the European Court of Justice for which Article 256—which I have read, again—does not provide the powers that we need. The noble Lord, Lord Kerr, has said—on at least one occasion and I think more often—that we will need to change the number of judges in the European Court of Justice, which will require a treaty change and therefore a referendum. My understanding on this—and I may be wrong—is that to change the number of judges on the court, which we all know is overloaded, would require unanimous agreement by Governments of the member states in an intergovernmental conference; but in terms of this Bill, that would not involve a change to the treaty and certainly not the provision of extra powers or competencies. Yet again, I fear we may be dashing off after a hare that is bolting rather faster than we did.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard]

The number of judges in the court is defined in the treaty. So changing the number of judges in the court requires an amendment to the treaty. There is no doubt about that. Whether that would require a referendum—which is the point that the noble Lord, Lord Howell, was debating with me before dinner—is another question. He may well be right: it depends on whether you view an increase in the number of judges as an increase in the power of the court. If you did, then, under this Bill, you would require a referendum; if you did not, then, under this Bill, you would not. However, it is certainly a treaty amendment.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

Before the Minister replies, can I ask the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, whether, with his great knowledge of these matters, anything can be done about the quality of these judges? Is it not true that none of them would pass muster as a judge in even the lowest and least distinguished of British courts? Is there anything we can do about that under the treaty? Who decides it?