European Union (Referendum) Bill

Lord Spicer Excerpts

Friday 10th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Spicer (Con)]

My Lords, I begin with a confession. I have form on this matter as one of those who opposed the Maastricht treaty when it came before the House of Commons. It is always a bad thing to say that one was right or that I told you so, so I will not do that, but I will say that what was clear in those days has become a fact of life in many cases now.

Take for instance the linkage between fiscal policy and monetary policy, which is absolutely clear after the events of last year. It is quite clear that if you have a monetary union, you have to have a fiscal union as well. If you transfer your tax policy, your expenditure policy and your monetary policy to another institution, you have at the very least created a circumstance of constitutional change for which a referendum is highly appropriate. That is in the context of something irrevocable, not changeable, being written into the treaty and therefore for ever—that is the key issue about Parliament having given up its sovereignty: a successor Parliament will not have the powers because the previous Parliament has given them away.

That has been put forward as a situation which would be created by the Bill. Actually, it has already been written down in a treaty which we have signed. We have already signed away the power of Parliament to keep sovereignty for itself. The two eminent former Permanent Secretaries raised that as an issue about the Bill. They were fighting each other, by the way—I do not know if anyone else noticed—because the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, was saying that it is a bad thing because we were binding another Parliament, and the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull, said that it was a bad thing because we were not. Leaving that aside, it has been done already. We are already giving away powers to control the economy and we are doing it for ever. If that is not something which requires a referendum, I do not know what is.

There is one remaining question: does this apply to Britain? Is Britain, because of its opt-out, perhaps the only country which does not need a referendum? It might be argued that all the other countries need referendums and we do not. The answer to that, in my view, concerns something I asked a Question about yesterday: the acquis communautaire. That is endemic to the treaty of Rome. It is stated clearly throughout the treaty that any change in the treaty must be in one direction, towards European statehood. That is absolutely clear. It is written in there and it will, incidentally, sweep Britain along with it in a great tidal wave.

That is the answer, by the way, to the “Waiting for Godot” people who say that we must wait for some great event to take place in Europe before we have a referendum. A dynamo already exists in the system, and if I was keen on preserving a move towards a federal state of Europe I would just leave things alone as it is all there already. It is a very strong argument, they usually say, for us to wait for some great event to happen before we have the referendum. They are absolutely wrong about that—but right in their own terms because a federal state of Europe is what they want. If you do not want that then at some point the British people will have to be consulted. That time should, in my view, be here as quick as possible, but the Bill is certainly a step in that direction.