EU: Reform

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Thursday 9th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been an excellent short debate and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, for raising this topic. To be honest, the quality of the contributions is likely to be considerably in advance of what we hear tomorrow, and I think that this is a much more relevant topic for debate on the future of Britain’s relations with Europe. As I listened to the excellent speeches from all noble Lords who have spoken, it struck me that we should be using our wonderful Lords Select Committee to try to put together some kind of consensus about what a reform agenda for the EU would be. That would be a very valuable exercise.

There will probably always be some differences on areas such as social Europe but I think that there is a possibility of achieving a large measure of agreement on what such a reform agenda should be. However, the key point, which I put to the Minister during Questions this morning, is that an agenda for reform has to be a multilateral agenda for Europe and not a set of British demands for the repatriation of this power and opt-outs from this or that directive. I was glad to hear the noble Lord, Lord Howell, endorse that approach.

I do not agree with the Prime Minister’s speech about a referendum—we can debate that tomorrow—but it was extremely well crafted. There is a lot of common ground on about 80% of what it had to say about the future of the European Union.

However, the Government’s reform agenda has certain flaws. The questions asked by the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, were extremely relevant. I had intended to ask them myself. I will not repeat them but I will add to them. First, the assumption that there will be a major treaty change in the next Parliament is debatable at best. Some of the countries which most favour reform—the Netherlands, for example—are among the partners who are most opposed to a comprehensive treaty change. So we do not necessarily win allies on reform by demanding treaty change.

Secondly, as the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, said, our approach to future enlargement and the linking of that to the question of migration and limitations on migration, threatens to put against us in Europe most of the new member states that, when I worked for Tony Blair, we fought hardest to get onside. There are obviously many issues that need to be considered on the question of migration—social security benefits and so on—but if it is thought that we are playing a populist game on these issues, we will simply alienate a large section of the European Union.

The third error the Government are making is the assumption that the eurozone will become a much more integrated area and that we will have to accept a kind of permanent outer-tier status in the European Union. That is not realistic. I am sure that we can negotiate non-discrimination clauses and commitments that would reassure people who worry that a eurozone bloc might discriminate against us. I am sure that that could be done and the integrity of the single market preserved.

There is wide range of issues within the EU in which Britain should seek to play a leading role, such as energy and climate change; defence and security, where our bilateral co-operation with France is presently very strong; foreign policy; free trade agreements; and the deepening of the single market. We should not automatically assume that we will be outer-tier players. That is not a viable vision for Britain’s future in the European Union. I do not see a country such as Great Britain putting up for decades with the idea that it is only on the outer fringe.

The Government may have some of the right ideas about reform but they are not, in our view on this side of the House, going about it in the right way. There is a big opportunity for change coming up with the appointment of a new European Commission. Who will be the President? Are we pressing for reforms to how the Commission works? One of the key things in trying to ensure that Europe focuses on a limited number of key priorities rather than trying to legislate over a wide area is to think about how you streamline the European Commission so that it has a limited number of priorities, and making an agreement with the European Council about what those priorities would be.

I do not think that the agenda for the future should be one of repatriation of powers. However, it should certainly be one of understanding between the Council and the Commission about how competences that the treaties give to the European Union should be exercised. We must have another go at the question of more sharply defining the principles of proportionality and subsidiarity. For the moment, that is enough. The Government have a lot of major questions to answer.