European Union Bill

Debate between Lord Liddle and Lord Dykes

Wednesday 13th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Liddle]

My Lords, I beg to move Motion B1 in the name of my noble friend Lord Triesman. The original amendment which this House carried reduced the number of referendum locks in the Bill from 56 to three—that is not counting major treaty change. That was the amendment that we carried and that has been considered by the other place. This amendment substitutes for the position we took on that occasion the view that referendums should be mandatory only where, in the view of the Secretary of State, they are of major economic and constitutional significance. I assure noble Lords opposite that that is fully in line with the policy of the Labour Party.

When the Bill first went through the House we were told many times by the noble Lord, Lord Howell, that all the issues covered were constitutionally or economically significant, but when you actually look at it, that cannot be the case. When you look at the questions of moving from consensus, or unanimity, to majority voting listed in Schedule 1 to the Bill, they cannot conceivably be regarded as constitutionally significant. For instance, there are matters such as the approximation of national laws affecting the internal market, the guidelines of economic policies and excessive deficit procedures. As we know, on one of these items—the British Government changing the list of military products exempt from internal market provisions—the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, pointed out that we had been arguing for this as a country in our national interest for years in the councils of the Union. So the Bill contains far more referendum locks than those that could be regarded as of major constitutional significance.

Noble Lords on the government Benches are fond of quoting the Lords Constitution Committee when it suits them. What they fail to quote is the major conclusion of the Lords Constitution Committee on referendums—that they should be used only on matters of major constitutional significance. They cannot conceivably argue that all the items covered here pass that test. If we do not apply this test, as in this revised amendment, we are making a major move from a representative democracy to a plebiscitary democracy and that is something that should be of as much concern to Eurosceptics as it is to pro-Europeans.

The other problem with this plethora of locks, as we have argued before, is that they will gravely inhibit the ability of any British Minister or Government to represent our national interests in Europe on a flexible basis as issues come up. No Government will volunteer to hold referendums, not because they fear Euroscepticism but because, as has been shown by all the academic evidence that has studied them, referendums are, in the main, decided by the people on issues other than the question being asked. That is what you get in a plebiscitary democracy. All kinds of issues are decided on questions that are nothing to do with the subject of the referendum. If it is impossible to put issues to referendums, then Britain will be very constrained in its European policy. If this is continued for 10 or 20 years, it is bound to lead to a process of British self-marginalisation in the European Union.

I do not believe for a second that that is what the noble Lords, Lord Howell and Lord Wallace, and the Benches opposite want. However, the truth is that the Adullamite cave of anti-Europeans in the other place and in the Conservative Party, who have insisted on putting the Bill in the coalition agreement, want to make Britain marginal in Europe because they want the Bill to lead to Britain coming out of the European Union.

[Lord Dykes]

Is not the noble Lord also perturbed that at the last annual Ditchley lecture the former Prime Minister, the right honourable John Major, feared that Britain was already a semi-detached member of the European Union?

European Union Bill

Debate between Lord Liddle and Lord Dykes

Wednesday 8th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Liddle]

My Lords, I hope not to detain the House long on this. In a sense, with this amendment we are trying to skin the same cat in a different way. It is designed to extend the scope of the significance clause in order precisely to give our Government, because we want to support them and make them effective in the European Union, the flexibility to cope with the unforeseen. We have made this point many times in these debates. Basically, the Government point-blank refuse to accept its validity. They argue, first, that all the red lines and every issue in the Bill is of constitutional significance, including the full list of issues in Schedule 1, and that therefore any move on these issues should require a referendum. That is the Government’s position on my first point.

Secondly, they would argue that the EU has plenty of competences to act already in most situations, which is true, but that does not cover any potential new situations which we cannot foresee, to which my noble friend Lord Triesman referred. Thirdly, they argue that when we talk about circumstances that might occur which would require action, we cannot name any of these circumstances and that it is all hypothetical and nonsensical.

This amendment is on the assumption that it is not hypothetical and nonsensical. We can already see brewing in the European Union the makings of another big step forward towards fiscal federalism being considered at a senior level within the Union. One just has to read the—in many ways wonderful—parting speech made by Jean-Claude Trichet last week when he received the Karlspreis in Aachen. It was about the achievements of the European Union and all Members of the House should read it. He said that as a result of the present crisis, not today but the day after tomorrow, there would be a need for the creation of a European finance ministry and for member states to concede sovereignty over economic questions, particularly when they were in difficulties and failing to conform to European rules. I can understand his frustration in dealing with the situations in Greece, Portugal and Ireland.

If I was still an adviser in No. 10 Downing Street, my reaction would be to say, “Gosh, there’s something potentially quite big here coming down the track. We may well have changes of Government in France and Germany in the next couple of years. We have got to do some hard thinking ourselves about how we anticipate the situation”. I would say to the British Prime Minister that if he wants to avoid another big treaty, he has to think about how, on all the relevant issues—economic governance, supervision of the banks, the structural reforms necessary to make the European economy competitive and the advance of the single market—we can make Europe more effective. If necessary we have to be prepared to look at small changes in the treaties which we could make under the simplified revision procedure that would convince our partners that serious action could be taken that would not require another big leap forward. Therefore, that is what I would be doing.

These issues are likely to be right at the top of the agenda in the next two or three years. On page 14 of this wretched Bill, in Schedule 1, we see how it would inhibit any British Government from considering even the slightest change in decision-making processes in these crucial areas. In Schedule 1(2) we see that referenda would be required on any changes in the approximation of national laws affecting the internal market, any changes in the broad guidelines of economic policies, any changes in the adoption of provisions replacing the protocol on the excessive deficit procedure and any changes in the role of the European Central Bank on prudential supervision. These are precisely the issues that are going to be at the top of the agenda in European Union policy-making in the next few years, yet we are putting a ball and chain around the feet of our Ministers, because we know that Ministers are not going to put forward anything that would require a referendum, and we are preventing Britain from playing the role it should be playing in the next few years on these issues.

Some noble Lords may argue that these issues are nothing to do with Britain because we are not in the euro. I think that that is completely wrong. Although we are not in the euro, the success of the Government’s economic and political strategy very largely depends on the success of the euro area to which a huge proportion of our exports goes. If we are going to get a rebalancing of the British economy into exports and investment, we have to put forward policies for the success of the euro area, because we will not succeed in those ambitions unless we engage constructively in that debate. Yet we are hampered completely from engaging constructively in it because of the conditions of this Bill. So let us be pragmatic. Let us give ourselves the ability to act in our national interests.

[Lord Dykes]

I am most grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. Is not that point even more relevant when one thinks of the very helpful and positive Answer of the noble Lord, Lord Sassoon, answering Questions on Monday, when he said how important it was to maintain the solidarity of the UK with the eurozone through all the common work that we are doing together? Is that not even more important now that we are going to have the pan-European financial supervisory agency based in London? What if a crisis emerges that needs to be dealt with precipitately by all national Governments together?

[Lord Liddle]

The noble Lord, Lord Dykes, is so right. I actually congratulate the Government in many respects on their attitude. The Chancellor of the Exchequer made a speech in Paris earlier this year in which he said, “We are not in the euro but by gosh we want the euro to succeed. It is absolutely essential to our interests”. This was what Mr Osborne said. Some Members on the Conservative Benches may not recognise that point but that is where Britain’s national interests lie and we have to have the flexibility to deal with these situations. I do not know what precise flexibilities would be required but we have to have that.

In terms of historical parallels, I am reminded of Harold Macmillan’s wonderful quote, “Events, dear boy, events”. Of course it was Harold Macmillan as Chancellor of the Exchequer who had failed to realise the significance of what was happening at Messina and then woke up later to the reality of the treaty of Rome and the threat that this presented to Britain’s position in the European Union.

Harold Macmillan wrote in his diary—using the language of a man who had fought in the First World War and lived through those experiences in a different age from that in which, thankfully, we are living in—that, “If we were to allow the French and the Germans together to create a united Europe with Britain not being a part of it, we would be sacrificing everything that our men had fought for in two world wars”. That was his view in the 1950s. Our view today should be decided on the basis of a proper calculation of our national interest. We need to be fully engaged in all the questions affecting the European Union. We ought not to have this ball and chain, and we should have some flexibility. That is why I urge the Government, even at this late stage in the consideration of the Bill, to think about how it could be amended to give Ministers the pragmatic flexibility they need in order to represent our national interests effectively in Brussels and in order that Britain can live up to its role as one of the leading partners in the European Union. I beg to move.

European Union Bill

Debate between Lord Liddle and Lord Dykes

Monday 16th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Liddle]

I have the greatest affection for the noble Baroness, but I think that her attempt to justify the fact that the terms of the coalition agreement have not been met in this case is neither muscular nor robust. I think, therefore, that our friends on those Benches have something to think about. What I am suggesting that our friends on those Benches think about is the merits of the amendments that this side is putting forward. We are offering a mechanism by which a lot of the unacceptable trivia in the Bill could be assessed in a proper way by an independent committee that would advise Parliament about whether they were fundamental or matters that would not require a referendum.

I suggest that there is possibly a germ of consensus in the coalition agreement. We on this side have moved our position from when Labour was in government because we now believe that matters such as passerelle clauses and simplified revisions of the treaty should be approved by a proper Act of Parliament. That is a significant move on this side of the House towards greater parliamentary accountability. I should have thought that the Lib Dems ought to seize that as an advance in accountability. We should confine referenda to these fundamental issues that your Lordships’ Constitution Committee said needed to be defined. An independent committee would be a good way of doing this.

I am sorry to have gone on at such length—

[Lord Dykes]

I intervene only briefly and thank the noble Lord for giving way. Is he not perfectly correct in general and in the specifics he mentioned? There is no apparent transfer of power, notion or concept built into the EPPO proposals. That is the European Union being allowed by the sovereign member Governments to deal with matters to do with any financial misdemeanours affecting Union finances. There is no extra transfer of power there at the margin at all. Why are the Government so obsessed? My noble friend the Minister kindly and co-operatively said at the end of the previous Committee session that he would focus on the important areas that the noble Lord has emphasised today in his remarks. However, he then goes back to say, “Ah, we must have the whole list as well. They are important as well”. There is no logic to it, particularly with the EPPO proposals.

[Lord Liddle]

I think the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, is right on that subject. The problem is the people who believe in the thin end of the wedge, but the way to deal with that is to have a proper process for deciding what is significant and requires a referendum and what does not in the form of an independent process that people will respect. That is what we are proposing in these amendments. It is a sensible compromise for the way forward that I hope the Government will consider seriously. It would resolve an awful lot of the big problems that people have with this Bill. I beg to move.