European Union Bill

Lord Pearson of Rannoch Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Radice]

Before my noble friend gets up, I rise to oppose both the tone and the principle of Amendment 20A. I oppose the tone because, as several noble Lords have pointed out, enlargement has been exceptionally good not only for the European Union but for Britain’s interests. As my noble friend Lord Tomlinson pointed out, some jolly rich countries have joined and have been our allies in some of our negotiations over such issues as the budget and the reform of the CAP. The so-called poorer countries are mostly former members of the Soviet bloc, nearly all of which have joined. They have become more prosperous as a result of being members of the European Union, particularly Poland, which is one of the great success stories. This is not just about Polish plumbers coming to France and Britain; it is also about the standard of living and growth rate in Poland increasing considerably. It is a big success story. Let us hear more about it from the Ministers. I hope to hear the Minister say something about enlargement, as it is a good thing.

Enlargement also buttresses democracy in these countries. To be a member of the European Union a country must be a democracy. This is a tremendous weapon that we and the European Union have in changing and underwriting the whole issue of democracy in Europe. Therefore, I oppose the tone of what we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart. I also oppose this amendment.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

My Lords, I wonder whether—

[Lord Radice]

I am going to say something nice about the noble Lords if the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, will be quiet. I oppose the principle of the amendment because I do not believe that it should be written in the Bill that we ought to have referendums when countries join. That is not only a question of practicality; Parliament should decide this issue. The French have referendums if the Government and Parliament decide that something is not part of their constitution. Here I come to my compliment. In an odd way the noble Lords, Lord Stoddart and Lord Pearson, have done the House a service as they have once again highlighted the very curious nature of this Bill. On the one hand we have 56 policy areas that trigger referendums, and we have all had great fun pointing out that some of them are rather minor issues. On the other hand, on the big European issues of enlargement and membership of the European Union itself it is not written in the Bill that if we want to leave the European Union we have to have a referendum. I would have thought that a Eurosceptic Government might be interested in that but the Government have very sensibly not gone down that road, perhaps because they are in a coalition with the Liberal Democrats. I do not support this amendment, but its movers, my old friend Lord Stoddart and the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, have done the House a service as they have reminded us once again of the gross inadequacy of this Bill.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

My Lords—

[Lord Radice]

I am sorry, I have sat down.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

We are in Committee and I do not think that I even have to say, “Before the noble Lord sits down”. I was going to thank the noble Lord for the compliment that he paid my noble friend and me, but is he aware of one of the very few jokes about the European Union that is going about in Eurosceptic circles? I ask this given that he extolled the virtues of democracy which the EU brings to its new members. The joke is that if the EU were to apply to itself to join the EU it would fail on the grounds of its total lack of democracy, its bureaucracy with its monopoly on proposing new legislation—what body that pretends to be vaguely democratic can do that?—and, as we know, the secret process with COREPER, the Council and so on. How can he extol the virtues of the EU’s democracy, given that background?

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

My Lords, I frequently agree with some, but not all, the views put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart. However, on this occasion I agree more with some of the points made by the noble Lords, Lord Radice and Lord Richard. I agree that enlargement has been a positive development. Indeed, if you have an organisation called the European Union, it is unthinkable that you should exclude from it countries that before the advent of communism in Europe were part of the European family of nations, many of which had living standards and political systems similar to those in western Europe.

Some years ago I took part in a debate on the European Union with my noble friend Lord Brittan, who I am pleased to see sitting beside me. I think that the debate took place in 1993 or 1994, and I remember that my noble friend attacked me because I had not said a single positive thing about the European Union in my speech. I could not think of a single positive thing to say about the European Union at that time. However, if I took part in another such debate with my noble friend, I would say that enlargement is a considerable development that has been advantageous to the countries that have joined and to Europe generally.

If I may say so, the noble Lord, Lord Richard, made a good point that slightly bothered me. I support the Bill, but he said that within the logic of what he called this “crazy Bill” there surely ought to be a referendum on enlargement, given that we might have a referendum on altering the procedures for the appointment of a public prosecutor and other matters that the noble Lord regards as rather marginal. I was bothered about that question, and I have been sitting here for 20 minutes trying to think of an answer. It is that in those areas where they say there should be a referendum—including matters such as altering the procedures or powers on the appointment of a public prosecutor—the Government do not actually intend there to be a referendum, because they do not intend that such propositions should advance further at all. The Government are trying to put a lock on the issue and to stop it happening. They are drawing a red line on legislation for the immediate future, whereas they are in favour of enlargement, and that is why they have not applied the lock or the referendum provision to enlargement.

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[Lord Triesman]

My Lords, the observation is completely accurate and adds weight to the point that I make, namely that it is in these areas where people are trying to work through the provision of stable legal systems and better democratic systems that we have seen the replacement in many cases of conflict between those states. That is a huge success.

Of course, we have supported accessions from their initiation through to full EU membership. Major parties on all sides of the House have done so, despite the inconveniences that have sometimes occurred but which were minor in the overall context. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, that not all these gains can be washed away by tales of cynicism, whisky, chocolates or anything else. By and large, in my experience, people have sought the gains because they have wanted a better and more peaceful life, and have wanted their children to enjoy a better future.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

My Lords, can the noble Lord name a single European country that would have gone to war with another since 1945 in the absence of the project of European integration?

[Lord Triesman]

My Lords, I was going to go through one or two. Certainly Serbia will serve the purpose. A number of countries in the region, for one reason or another, went to war. It was only when a different kind of future was offered to them that they began to think about the alternative future that their children might enjoy which did not involve shooting each other.

I understand, in debating the amendment, that the issues that I have raised are not supported everywhere or by everyone. I take the point of the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart: I regard the movement of labour in a free market as broadly beneficial, but I know that not everybody thinks so. Many people have expressed anxieties about it. This has been one issue that has come out of part of the accession. I believe that, broadly speaking, it has been economically advantageous to Europe rather than the contrary. However, I accept that many people who expressed anxieties were dismissed in a trivial way or saw their anxieties given grudging attention. Probably that did not serve the argument well.

Some people may have felt that changes of that kind were sufficiently profound that they wanted a say in the decision through a referendum. More than that, I suspect that they felt the need for some sort of shout about the overall size of the EU. For all that, were they to contrast the prospect of having a referendum on those questions with the ideas in the Bill about having a referendum on many minute, technocratic and in many instances unintelligible provisions, probably they would think that some of the issues raised by the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, were more important than others. It would be foolish of us not to recognise that.

I suspect that some of the same arguments could happen with the Turkish accession. Let me be clear that we—certainly I do—totally support it. I welcome the dynamism that it represents. I also have no hankering for a Europe that is built around a single religious tradition—a view which has been expressed by many of the Eurosceptics and, indeed, in some European capitals. It would be a huge gain to see Turkey as a full member of Europe. It is absolutely right, as the noble Lord, Lord Tomlinson, said, that it has always played a fundamental role in the Council of Europe. This would be a huge gain for Europe in a much more profound sense—a Europe that is welcoming and able not only to cope with, which is probably too derisory a way to put it, but to embrace a major secular but also Islamic nation with a capability of bridging the interests of Europe, the Middle East and the Caucasus and bringing a great deal to stabilising the discussion right around the southern and eastern flank of Europe.

Whatever the merits that I might express about it, I know that those merits have been accepted by all recent United Kingdom Governments. However, there remain people—it has been something of a cause in France and Poland, for example—who believe that Turkish accession would have a major impact on the style and culture of the European Union. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, described it as the ethos of the European Union. I look forward to these evolutionary changes regardless of whether others have expressed doubts. However, among those who have expressed doubts, some will probably feel that there will be an impact on them—a greater impact than some of the things that will be subject to referenda under the Bill’s provisions—and that they are not being asked their opinion.

The Minister will probably want to explain to the House the difference in approach and the apparent irrationality of the circumstances in which people will be asked for their view as between the different kinds of categories of issues at stake. The amendment draws the wrong conclusion. However, it cannot be said that the issue that it raises is inconsequential. Nevertheless, as I said at the beginning, we are opposed in principle, and we are. It would be better to remove the requirements for so many of these trigger clauses for referenda without providing any compelling definitions of issues of major constitutional importance and without an independent means of confirming the compelling nature of the decision.

It would be very helpful if the Minister could also comment on the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, about what would happen were there to be a number of countries seeking accession at the same time. I will not invite him, however, to develop a new theory of AV which might allow for multiple voting—an outcome which probably everybody would fail to understand.

I can also see one other great risk in the kind of referenda that this amendment calls for, and that is in the area of producing campaigns which could very well be xenophobic and draw out the worst in relations between those seeking entry to the European Union and the domestic community of the United Kingdom, not least because many of those communities already in the United Kingdom are dynamic and vigorous parts of the society of the United Kingdom. The tensions that could be produced by that kind of approach would be quite unacceptable.

I also believe that accession does not transfer powers from the United Kingdom and that the House would do itself a considerable favour by recognising the beneficial characteristics of the growth that we have seen, a benefit which will unquestionably continue. As we look across the whole of the achievement of a peaceful European Union, I suspect that that will be seen historically to be one of the better departing points in our history.

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[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

I seek some clarification on the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Liddle. It seems to wish to get rid of three emergency brakes but leave in place the one that includes the common foreign and security policy. That seems somewhat inconsistent; the noble Lord has mentioned several areas of co-operation where he believes it would be important, if the EU were to proceed in a manner that would be conducive to our interests, for us to do so. I suggest that the common foreign and security policy would be one area in which we have rather more expansive interests than in those of social security, judicial co-operation and cross-border crime.

Since the noble Lord gave a few examples, may I caution him on, for example, judicial co-operation? He thought that it may well be essential to have improved judicial co-operation if we are to tackle terrorist threats. That is an important point, but I also urge caution regarding the other direction. It is not that long ago that in this House the former independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, my noble friend Lord Carlile, warned us regarding the proposals for 60 days’ detention without charge that the previous Government wished to introduce. We must not go in the direction of the French legal system, for example, under which people have been interned for several years without charge. It cuts both ways: we may want enhanced co-operation but we may well not want it.

The previous Government negotiated the treaty and put in the emergency brakes. It is unclear what these moves would achieve and why that change of position has come about. Will the noble Lord reassure me on my understanding, which is that the Bill does not require a referendum before the EU can act in areas where the emergency brake exists? Co-operation is a good thing which can benefit the UK, but I thought that this was about making it clear to the British people that a referendum would be required if there is a move to abandon these important safeguards. Can the noble Lord explain what has caused this quite significant change in thinking?

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

There has been much support in our debates so far against referendums for all but the most important issues such as the euro, and the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, echoed that in his speech. The speech of the noble Lord, Lord Deben, comes to mind, and many others. As this is a theme running through so much of our debate, I felt that I should make just one comment.

To put it mildly, we, the political class, are not particularly popular. I fear I detect a feeling out there among the people, in many discussions and in many fora, that our system of representative parliamentary democracy has, to some extent, broken down, or at least that it is not the great instrument it was before, the one which was exported all over the world. I think that there is now greater support for more of a plebiscitary democracy. Our system of representative parliamentary democracy worked very well in the 17th, 18th, 19th and even early 20th centuries, when many, if not most, people could not read and often led lives of endless drudgery and when better educated people were elected to Parliament to take their decisions for them. But now the people can read and, on the whole, are just as good and capable as their politicians. I believe that something like the Swiss democratic system, with its referendums—not, perhaps, going quite as far as the Californian system, with its difficulties over tax and the rest of it—really is now the only way in which to restore their democracy to the people. To those of the political class who laugh at this and decry such a prospect, I merely say, “They would, wouldn’t they?”.

[Lord Flight]

My Lords, it seems to me that the three areas where the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, is suggesting the lock-in of the referendum should be removed are fundamental to the argument about needing to have the requirement for referenda to lock in the position as it now is. They are about our common law system, our criminal justice system and our social security provisions. These are crucial areas and, as others have pointed out, because of their importance we negotiated, and were satisfied to get, the emergency brakes at Lisbon.

Some may not agree or be comfortable with the use of required referenda to act as a lock-in to the position that we are in; that is their view. But the whole point of the Bill is to protect citizens against UK Governments, as they have done over the past 20 years, gradually ceding more and more powers without any form of consent from the electorate or from changes in Europe to which the Government are not necessarily a party having the same effect. It would be completely illogical for the Government, having decided to embark upon this Bill, suddenly to say, “We are quite happy after all not to have the lock-in on the crucial area where we have emergency brakes”. The amendment is rather, dare I say, a waste of time, because it goes to the heart of what the Bill is about.

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In due course, I suspect that there will come a time when the European Union wants major reform and perhaps, in a few years’ time, a major treaty will lie ahead, but I do not know. It may be one that transfers competences or it may be one that reassesses certain distribution of powers and competences. That is in the future, but in the mean time, this continually depicted pattern of a multiple series of referenda is a complete fantasy and does not relate to what will happen. However, with the passing of the Bill, we are reminded that the dangers of a smaller trickle of competences and powers unnecessarily creeping to the European Union, against the wishes of the British people, would be checked. There would be great reassurance and a strengthening to the European Union and what we have tried to do over the years would be achieved. That is why I advise my noble friend to withdraw the amendment.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

My Lords, can the Minister give us any idea of the quantum at stake in this amendment, given the European Union’s well known capacity to take power by whatever method it can? He mentioned the use of former Article 308 and the noble Lord, Lord Blackwell, mentioned how we were deceived in the Maastricht negotiations over the working time directive which, in the end, turned out to be part of the social policy. How many existing competences are being practised which might require codification? Is this a big area or is it something that will not happen very often because there is not much left to codify or to put in the treaty or to agree?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I do not think it is possible to quantify what will happen, what is happening or what has happened. Codification has occurred from time to time and I described one or two instances where it has occurred. There have been more. I would love to be able to say to the noble Lord that it has happened 15 times and it will happen 15 more times, but that would be completely unrealistic. I have no idea how it will occur, but it is important to ensure that we understand what genuine codification is. It will occur again and, as my noble friend Lord Brittan said, it is an objective legal concept but it is a bit like an Omega wrist watch that seems to be genuine but turns out to have nothing inside. There are non-genuine codifications and we have to watch very carefully to see that they do not join the genuine move towards competence creep, which is a phrase that people do not like. The phrase that people like in relation to the European Union is “knowing where they stand”, believing, as I think the majority of people in this country do, in the value of the European Union but feeling thoroughly uneasy about it continuing to take too many powers away from the nation states. Most nation states in Europe do not want that and we do not want it either.

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[Lord Triesman]

My Lords, I apologise if what I have said is not clear enough. My point at the very beginning of my comments was that when you begin to talk about the latitude to move in any of these areas, you can guarantee that one set of people will say that it is a new arrangement and demand the conditions which the Bill establishes for a referendum, while others will say that it is simply in the areas of competence: they can do it with a degree of codification, were that to be necessary, or they can do it under the rubric of the codified arrangements. It will always be the subject of conflict between those who believe that it is a subterfuge to extend the powers of the EU and those who believe that it can be done legitimately. I am saying that you cannot run a proper political process that way, with that much obscurity and that many arguments and with the prospect of many things not only going through our Parliament but through judicial review, and with fierce arguments around the country about the need for a referendum in those circumstances. It just strikes me as being a way of tying the hands of those who you hope and expect will be competent to conduct the discussions in the European environment to a successful conclusion in the interests of this country.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

My Lords, I speak against these amendments. Amendment 23B assumes that the EU single market is a good thing for this country. That is a common misconception among the political class upon which I should like to cast a little doubt. This is a big and detailed subject and I recommend that any serious student should consult the briefing notes on the globalbritain.org website, which demolish the whole myth of the EU's economic usefulness and that of its single market.

The background point, which is not generally understood, is that the single market is more than a free trade area, it is a customs union. This means that a single customs barrier surrounds all the countries in the Union, whose international tariffs and trading arrangements are negotiated and decided centrally by the European Commission. In a free trade area, on the other hand, the countries concerned enjoy free trade among each other, but they remain able to make their own tariff arrangements with countries outside that area. They have their own seats on the World Trade Organisation and they are also able to make their own domestic law in areas such as working time, health and safety at work, part-time workers and so on.

So a country does not need to belong to the EU to enjoy free trade with it. According to a recent government Answer to me, the EU and its single market already have free trade agreements with some 63 countries outside the EU and are on their way to having similar agreements with another 75 countries, or roughly 80 per cent of the other countries in the world. It is perhaps worth noting that both Switzerland and Norway, not in the EU or its single market, both export more per capita to the single market than we do; Switzerland three times as much and Norway five times.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way, but I fear that he is in danger of misleading the House fairly elaborately in this matter. He is talking about three things, not two: the first is a free trade area, the second is a customs union and the third is the single market. Norway, he has just stated categorically, is not part of the single market. I am afraid that he is in error. It is part of the single market, and it applies single market legislation by receiving fax messages from Brussels telling it what it has to do. The members of the European economic area are in the single market but are not in a customs union. However, I am not totally sure that this line of argument is going to get us very far—but it would be useful.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

I do not want to delay the House, but that is why I made the distinction between a customs union and a free trade area.

The worst aspect of our membership of the EU single market is its sheer cost. Like their predecessors, this Government are determined to avoid an official cost-benefit analysis, and so we are left with the eight analyses that have been produced since the turn of the century, four of which are pretty much official, and which put the cost of our single market membership at anything between 4 per cent and 10 per cent of GDP. Indeed, the highest cost estimate came in 2005 from the Treasury itself in a paper entitled Global Europe: Full-Employment Europe under the signature of Mr Gordon Brown when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer. It put the cost of EU regulation at 6 per cent of GDP and of EU protectionism at 7 per cent. In March 2006, the French Conseil d'Analyse Economique, which is attached to their Prime Minister’s office, found that France had gained nothing from the single market or, indeed, the euro. In June 2006, the Swiss Government published their finding that joining the EU and its single market would be nine times more expensive than staying with their current sectoral free trade agreements with Brussels. Later in 2006, the EU Commissioner for Enterprise and Industry, Mr Günter Verheugen, said that EU regulation was costing its members some €600 billion a year, or around 6 per cent of GDP at the time.

One of the troubles with being in the single market is that this EU overregulation, whatever it costs, applies to the whole of our economy, not just to the 9 per cent that trades with clients in the rest of the EU. So the 11 per cent of our GDP that goes in trade with the rest of the world and the 80 per cent that stays in our domestic economy—91 per cent of our GDP—has to carry the burdens of Brussels’s overregulation. There are, of course, those who fear that were we to leave the EU and its single market our trade would somehow suffer and that, to quote the propaganda, 3 million jobs would be lost. The truth appears to be the opposite: trade would expand and jobs would be created. It is, of course, true that we have 3 million jobs exporting goods and services to clients in the EU, but they have 4.5 million jobs exporting goods and services to us. We are, in fact, the EU’s largest client. Would the French stop selling us their wine or the Germans their cars just because we had left the single market and were no longer bossed around by Brussels? Of course not. There are also the points that the World Trade Organisation would prevent any form of retaliation were we to leave and that the EU’s average external tariff is now below 1 per cent. Our trade is going up faster with the rest of the world than with the EU, both inwards and outwards. Our exports to the EU single market are declining. The single market is sclerotic and overregulated and its demographic trend is against it. It is the “Titanic”.

It is also hard to think of any other customs unions along the lines of the EU. There was the Soviet Union, and there may be something similar in the Caribbean, but nowhere else. Mercosur in South America does not count because its members are free to agree their trading relationships with non-members. Can the Government advise us of any other customs unions like the EU? If not, does that not suggest that it may not be such a great idea?

As to Amendment 23F, I do not think we need the EU getting more involved in financial regulation. Commissioner Barnier has openly said that he does not favour what he calls the Anglo-Saxon model, and we have yet to feel the damage done to the City of London and its ability to pay tax by the new EU supervisory bodies. When the movers of the amendment say that they do not want it to interfere with the UK’s general approach to financial regulation, I ask whether they have Monsieur Barnier’s agreement? The deed is done. Overall financial supervision has passed to Brussels. No provisions in this Bill will prevent that.

As to Amendment 23H, I fear that those of us who come from the Eurorealistic perspective would rather that the unelected Commission did not continue to negotiate on our behalf in a new global trade round. As the world’s fifth-largest economy, we would rather do it for ourselves.

Finally, is it not really grotesque that an organisation that has so dismally failed to look after the vast sums entrusted to it by the taxpayers of Europe should have its powers strengthened, or made more effective, as the amendments have it? More will certainly mean even worse, and I oppose the amendments.

[Lord Empey]

My Lords, I think we are straying back to a Second Reading debate, because we seem to have moved somewhat from the amendments. I shall return to what the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, said about emergencies and new technical developments that could arise and that are reasons that he is using to justify his amendment.

Of course emergencies will always arise—they are part of life’s rich panoply—and there will always be new developments, but even if they did require changes to treaties and so on, we know that that will take a considerable time. Emergencies can be dealt with by multilateral agreements, bilateral agreements or in a range of other ways, and we deal with them that way all the time. I have worked with an international treaty: the Belfast agreement. We had specific arrangements with the Irish Republic. They were codified. I suspect that people on the streets of Britain talk of little else but codification from what I have been listening to this afternoon.

The debate is so complicated that it causes the eyes to glaze over. We had specific areas of co-operation set out in an international treaty and discovered that an emergency arose. It was the prospect that we would not have enough gas on both sides of the Irish border. What did we do? Because we did not have it codified and it was not part of a treaty, the two Ministers—I was one of them—reached a bilateral agreement that we had ratified through our existing processes. We were able to do the job and get the pipeline built in a fraction of the time that it would have taken had we taken it through a formal process. I believe Governments will always be able to find a way to work together in an emergency and that when things are part of an elaborate process, that does not guarantee speed.

The amendments talk about the effectiveness of the single market, effectiveness in mitigating climate change and effective financial regulations. Effectiveness, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. If you talk about all these issues, you are talking about pretty well everything in modern life and policy. Not an awful lot is left if you include all these issues.

A fundamental underlying mistake is being made here; nations that require referendums as part of their existing constitutions are not rendered useless negotiators in Brussels. A number of our fellow members of the European Union have referendums as an integral part of their constitutions. Do we mean that the Danes or the Irish are unable to negotiate? Of course not. They are able to do it, and they sit down with fellow Ministers who might not have that requirement. Does that mean that the Danes, the Irish and others are hogtied and unable to negotiate? Over the years, they have sometimes done a jolly good deal. The recent referendum in the Irish Republic on the Lisbon treaty was initially rejected. They went back to the table and got a better deal, and then it was passed. I do not believe that that indicates in any sense that, just because a referendum might be required, a Minister, or a Government, is paralysed. In fact, the evidence is to the contrary. Of course, if it gets far too detailed and concerns trivial matters, I would agree, but I do not think that we are facing that.

In any event, this Bill is about the future. It is not about the past. I believe that there is sufficient wriggle room in the existing treaties and that you would be a pretty bad Government or a pretty weak Minister if you could not find something on which to hang a hook to move a particular measure forward. I am not confident that this Bill will be a showstopper for the European Union. Of course it will not. The European Union will continue. We have many treaty obligations in it, which I believe will be honoured, but this Bill is about preventing expansion and trying to restore public confidence. It is precisely because people do not believe politicians any more that this sort of Bill is necessary.

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[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

I defer to the noble Lord’s deep knowledge of history, but he will accept that metaphors and similes are sometimes rather broader than a deep knowledge of history would insist on them being. I insist on keeping my metaphor going for a few more minutes. The point that I want to make strongly is that issues are coming up that clearly will require a degree of competence on the part of the European Union that is not embraced in the present treaties. Unless we exclude some of these issues from the elaborate procedure of the referendum lock, we will find ourselves hobbled in trying to deal with them.

I shall give two illustrations. I particularly urge my noble friends in the Conservative Party to consider one of them very carefully. In the past couple of months we have seen some of the consequences of the Arab spring. One of those consequences has been the placing of substantial sums of money within the structures of the European Union because there is very little control over how the European Union at present deals with inflows of money from other quarters. Members of the European Parliament have shown a great deal of sense about this and have urged the European Union to take additional action, which, as I understand the Bill, will probably require the referendum lock procedure to be met.

One of the most vociferous and articulate Members of the European Parliament on this issue of how one deals with what one might believe to be illegitimate funds—funds that have been stolen from a nation by its leader or funds that have been deliberately laundered through Europe—was the spokesman of legal affairs in the European Parliament. Mr Karim is a Conservative Member of the European Parliament, and I will quote what he said because it is extremely relevant to this debate. He said:

“I would … invite Baroness Ashton, as a key architect of the EU’s new plan for north Africa, to implement strong anti-money laundering provisions as an important part of the future EU strategy in the region. More broadly, the … Commission must act to urgently address the deficiencies in the current arrangements regarding funds originating overseas. The EU cannot continue to be a savings account in which leaders of developing countries deposit their ill-gotten funds”.

Mr Karim went on to call for urgent action by the European Union, which under this Bill will of course be caught by the referendum lock.

I think that my second example will stir a number of Members of this Committee as it certainly stirs me: namely, the relative unwillingness of the United Kingdom to address the issue of human trafficking. According to the International Labour Organisation, human trafficking has now become the third largest common illicit business in the world. It is valued by the ILO at approximately €32 billion in the past year. It is third after the drug trade and the arms trade. It has burgeoned and mushroomed in the past few years.

The United Kingdom was unwilling to sign and agree to an EU directive on the trafficking of children. It refused to do so on the grounds that the United Kingdom had its own measures and did not require a European Union directive on the issue. As many will know, the argument went on month after month, with only Denmark and the United Kingdom refusing to agree to the proposed directive. In this country, the official figures are said by the Home Office, the Metropolitan Police and the UK Border Agency to be far higher than the official figures that are given. Recently, the Home Office said that the official figure for child and human trafficking was around 250 cases a year. One area of the borough of Westminster alone has found something like 1,120 children who are being trafficked. It has announced that it is having to strengthen its own steps strongly to try to deal with the issues.

I will not bore the House with telling it—

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

My Lords—

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

I will not give way at the moment. I am in the middle of an argument. I will gladly give way to the noble Lord afterwards. I will not bore the House by going on about some of the unspeakably awful cases. For example, a boy from the middle of Africa was brought to this country at the age of 16 by a man who pretended to befriend him. Day after day, he was locked up in a house with just one meal a day being served to him and was repeatedly sexually abused by older men. A young mother of several children was trafficked to this country and used by up to 15 men a day against her own will. That was the price of the people who trafficked her in order not to reveal that she was an illegal immigrant.

I will not go on about this, but the cases are bloodcurdling, frightening, terrible. People are trafficked for three purposes: first, sexual exploitation; secondly, direct slavery, often in domestic work; and, thirdly—this is not unfamiliar to those of us who, like me, live in East Anglia—fruit and vegetable picking; young men and women, often children, are used in fruit and vegetable fields, often with almost no wages at all, in conditions of near slavery. We do not like to observe these issues. We like to think that that does not happen here and we reject the concept that such things can happen in an orderly and well policed state, but we are wrong. Unless we can get some international agreement, or at least a European-wide agreement, we will not be able to stop the sources that are being dealt with in other European countries in such a way as to bring this kind of thing to an end. It took 10 months for the British Government and the Prime Minister, under pressure from a group of women who organised visits and petitions to No. 10 Downing Street, finally to agree to this directive a couple of weeks ago. The Prime Minister did not want to do it because he did not want to agree that this extension of the competence of the European Union was essential to deal with this disgusting trend.

I have mentioned these things, and I shall now stop arguing them, to point out that there are what I call—I am sorry, but I shall repeat it—Canute cases, where we try to pretend that the massive structure of organised crime, ranging from the drug trade to human trafficking to money laundering, is not there. When you weigh these issues in the balance, it is right for the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, and his colleagues on the Labour Front Bench to press for certain issues not to be subject to the referendum or to the inevitable delays that follow it. These issues affect our fellow human beings, many of them British, in ways that we should never accept as a country. They require at least a reasoned reaction; they can no longer be dealt with on a purely national basis.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

Without wishing to detract in any way from the terrible situation to which the noble Baroness has so brilliantly spoken, does she have any statistics on how many of these people come here from Europe through the European open border? Would it not be easier for this country—which is, after all, an island—to police its borders more effectively if we had control of those borders? I suspect that the majority of these people come through from other countries in the European Union.