European Union

Lord Pearson of Rannoch Excerpts

Wednesday 16th May 2012 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

As an amendment to the above Motion, after paragraph (3), insert:

“(4) To make an annual report to the House for debate on the effect of its work on the European Union’s legislative proposals and legislation.”

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

My Lords, several times over recent years I have intervened at this juncture in our appointments procedure to complain about the composition and effectiveness of your Lordships’ Select Committee on the European Union. I have also suggested that the number of its sub-committees should be reduced and their energies redistributed to other committees of your Lordships’ House and future ad hoc committees. I remind noble Lords that the appointment of our Select Committees is a matter for the whole House and not just for the usual channels, whatever they may be. We have just approved a heavyweight committee to consider economic affairs and we have been generous enough to give it one sub-committee. Do we have the balance right?

Would it not be more sensible to disband EU Sub-Committees A and B on economic and financial affairs, international trade, the EU’s internal market, energy and transport and pass their activities to our Economic Affairs Committee, perhaps giving it another sub-committee in the process? Are we right to have a Sub-Committee C on foreign affairs, defence and development policy when we do not have a committee on our own defence and foreign affairs? Should we not set one up and include the work of Sub-Committee C in its remit?

Furthermore, do we really need two EU sub-committees: on justice and institutions, Sub-Committee E; and on home affairs, Sub-Committee F? Could they not be rolled into one? These suggestions would leave us with an EU Select Committee and just two sub-committees: Sub-Committee D, on agriculture, fisheries and our environment—all areas firmly under the control of Brussels; and a new combined E and F Sub-Committee? That would largely free up the energies of four sub-committees for distribution elsewhere.

In this respect, I am not sure whether our Science and Technology Committee feels that it is now adequately equipped with its new second sub-committee. Clearly it is a vital area of our national life. If so, I merely point out that it had to struggle to get what it needs with the powers that be.

I make these suggestions because I believe that the committee work of your Lordships’ House, with the single exception of our EU committees, is of huge value to the nation. The expertise and wisdom that resides in your Lordships’ House is unrivalled anywhere else in the country. The standard of debate is dauntingly high. I see our committees as one of the irrefutable justifications for your Lordships’ House in its present composition and at or somewhere near its present size. How could we field anything like the number of Select Committees that serve this House with a House of some 300 Members?

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chairman of Committees]

My Lords, I am much more concerned about being able positively to influence policy development rather than seeking the post-hoc position of trying to change policy and legislation once it has been enacted. Surely it is much better that we are in there, bringing to bear the expertise of this House on issues of major European policy.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

I am most grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken: to the noble Lords, Lord Grenfell and Lord Hannay, and partially to the Chairman of Committees. They all said the same thing: that I had got it all wrong, that I had not understood that the EU Select Committee is there not to tell Brussels what to do but to hold the Government to account and to advise them how to act. Well, as a matter of fact, I am aware of that; my point is that the result is ineffectual, as witnessed by the 580 scrutiny overrides and so on. I accept the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, who said that the Government indeed reply, copiously, to all our Select Committee reports and that the Commission replies to the Government’s views. However, the result remains the same. On the example relating to fish that has been given by the Chairman of Committees, let us wait and see.

The amendment and the debate have been worth while. I have to disagree with my noble friend—if I may refer to him as such—Lord Tebbit in one regard. I agree that members of the European Union Select Committee are largely wasting their time, but I do not propose that they should go and dig their garden. Their energies should be redistributed around the other committees of your Lordships' House, particularly the ad hoc committees of the future, which will be increasingly important.

I am grateful to the Chairman of Committees for giving me some support and to the chairman of the Select Committee for not ruling out of order what I had to say. I am grateful, too, to both noble Lords for giving us the hope that future annual reports of your Lordships’ Select Committee may indeed include what I have requested. I am most grateful to the noble Lord for his generous reply. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment to the Motion withdrawn.