European Union Bill

Lord Stoddart of Swindon Excerpts

Monday 23rd May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I am not sure I agree with the picture of decisions having to be taken instantly. On the contrary, it seems to me to be much more likely that there would be all kinds of negotiation, not least because it would result in one or more member states being outvoted. I do not think these are. This is a very complex matter, and I have sought to try to explain as best I can how we see it working but, of course, I will write to the noble Lord in more detail about his precise concerns. I am not sure that he has really satisfied me about the cutting edge of his amendment, and I have clearly not satisfied him. We will just go on boxing and coxing while other noble Lords have to listened, so I think it is better if I write to him and try to clarify the Government’s understanding of the reasoning and the reason why primary legislation would be justified against his clearly very strongly held view that it would not be justified and might hold things up.

[Lord Stoddart of Swindon]

Will the Minister ensure that all Members of the Committee who have taken part in our debates so far also receive the letter that he is going to send to the noble Lord, Lord Kerr?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

Yes, of course I will.

I want now to turn to the next point that the noble Lord raised, which is to do with Article 64(3) of the TFEU on the reverse of liberalisation of capital movements to or from third countries. The noble Lord, Lord Kerr, indicated he did not fully understand what the Bill means. He interpreted it as allowing a move back from QMV to unanimity. Article 64(3) allows for unanimity for the adoption of,

“measures which constitute a step backwards in Union law as regards the liberalisation of the movement of capital to or from third countries”.

I do not know where this phrase “step back” originally emerged from. I do not know whether it was way back in the original draft of the European constitution. It may have been. It is used to do that which we believe should be subject to an Act of Parliament. Once again, I will obviously look at it very closely, but that is why we believe it is in the Bill in the form that it is and why we think an Act of Parliament is the right way forward.

Those are the detailed points that were raised. As I said about the phraseology that comes down to us from legislation under a previous Government, there is matter for further reflection. I fully accept that just because it was there before does not automatically mean that it is the right way forward now, although the previous Government undoubtedly thought that there were good reasons for it, otherwise they would not have put it there.

Clause 7 covers four categories of passerelles—I do not want to detain the Committee by listing them all now—that cover a wide range of different passerelle devices with which we are concerned. I like to think that Clause 7 represents a clear step, which in principle although maybe not in detail has the support of noble Lords generally, towards enhancing parliamentary control over the Government’s participation in a range of important passerelle decisions at EU level. The result ought to be—indeed, the coalition Government believe it will be—an increase in Parliament’s, and ultimately the British public’s, sense of ownership of and engagement with the future direction of the EU.

Of course, in the highly sensitive areas listed in Schedule 1, as we know and have debated endlessly in Committee, the referendum lock would apply on top of parliamentary approval. However, an Act of Parliament is required in the other areas listed in the clause, which surely can only be a bonus for the public trust and accountability that we are all working towards in this legislation and in our work on the European Union generally.

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[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

Of course we will reflect on that, but I remind noble Lords that the purpose of this Act is to improve parliamentary scrutiny and oversight of the procedures of the EU.

[Lord Stoddart of Swindon]

Did I understand the noble Lord correctly when he said that the proposal is that the Official Journal of the European Union should only be published online? If so, that is quite a serious proposal because not everyone has online access.

[Lord Bowness]

My Lords, I do not wish to take up the time of the Committee. The proposal as I understand it is to continue producing the printed version. It is a question of which version the courts will recognise. The courts have said to date that only the printed version is the authentic one. If this proposal goes through, they will be able to accept the electronic version. The noble Lord will not be disfranchised by not being online.

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[Lord Willoughby de Broke]

My Lords, I am very familiar with that argument, which was wheeled out after the constitutional referendum by numerous pro-Europe commentators—they said that it was about the colour of Monsieur Chirac’s socks or something; it was not about the constitution at all—but I know, because I was in France at the time of the referendum, that people were very engaged in the debate. So whatever the noble Lord on the Front Bench may say, there was a rejection by the French people by a 55 per cent majority of the constitutional treaty. I do not think that his arguments hold water.

[Lord Stoddart of Swindon]

I remind the noble Lord that every French voter received a copy of the Lisbon treaty, so they were perfectly well aware of what they were doing—unless they are stupid, which of course they are not.

[Lord Willoughby de Broke]

That is right. It is history now, but I believe that they were voting on the constitution and they voted against it. The noble Lord, Lord Dykes, is not in his place so perhaps it is not worth saying this, but these are not the ravings of a swivel-eyed Europhobe or the poisonous meanderings of the Murdochite press. These are simple facts—it is what people said after the votes on the constitution and on the previous treaty, as I mentioned.

On the dubious basis that a no vote was a request for more Europe, not less, after a period of reflection the constitution was wheeled out again, this time badly disguised as the Lisbon treaty. Monsieur Giscard d’Estaing himself had the decency to admit that the treaty was,

“purely a legal rewriting—incidentally unreadable—of the draft Constitutional Treaty”.

The reason, he admitted, was above all to avoid having referendums.

Yet again, that ungrateful bunch the Irish threw a shillelagh in the works by voting against the Lisbon treaty. What an unnecessary obstacle these referendums are to the furtherance of the great project. For their pains, the Irish were roundly vilified. A leading German politician said that a no vote was real cheek, while a British Labour MP said that the Irish had voted no because they had become entirely too arrogant. True to form, Ireland was shamelessly vilified by the Eurocracy and told to hold another referendum, which duly gave the so-called “right answer”. Not that this has done the Irish any good, of course; their reward has been to be sacrificed on the altar of the solidarity of the euro, to be loaded with debt that they will probably never be able to pay back and to be told by the French that they must raise their corporation tax. So much for EU solidarity.

Noble Lords can see that the European elite have form when it comes to reversing the results of referendums that do not suit them. The amendment will reassure the people of this country at least that when they vote no in a referendum on any of the items in Section 6 against a transfer of further powers to the EU, their vote will not be nullified by an immediate demand for another referendum and to think again. The Bill has a referendum lock in it.

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[Lord Waddington]

I hear what my noble friend says. I have not the faintest idea whether it was uttered or not. By the time all these great events were occurring, I was reading the Royal Gazette in bed in Bermuda and not the Times or the Telegraph here in Britain. All I am telling noble Lords now is what the history of the matter is. The history that I have related so far is entirely correct. The Conservative Government were obviously not happy about many aspects of Maastricht, which was precisely why they, with considerable perspicacity, negotiated the opt-out. However, having opted out, there were still great dangers ahead. Therefore, when the Danes rejected Maastricht there was an opportunity to block the treaty and work for a fresh start in which energies would be concentrated not on trying to manage the economies of the member states but on extending the borders of the EEC and creating a fully competitive common market within those borders. But that opportunity was all thrown away. If it had not been and there had been a fresh start, the EU would not be in the mess it is in today, bailing out countries which are “broke” as a result of having been put in the straitjacket of the euro.

This amendment cannot affect how we should react if there are further defeats of proposals for treaty changes in other countries, although I hope that we have learnt some lessons in that regard, but it would prevent a British Government going along with EU bullying if the people voted no in a referendum—and that would be a very good thing.

[Lord Stoddart of Swindon]

My Lords, I am a signatory to this amendment and, of course, support it. The noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke, has provided a good deal of the history of referendums in other countries. The most recent case of a further referendum was in the Irish Republic, where the first referendum was held on 12 June 2008. During that referendum, Mr Barroso intervened to warn that, if the Irish rejected the Lisbon treaty, there was no plan B under any circumstances, and that there would be dire consequences not only for Ireland but for the whole of the European Union. Nevertheless, the Irish voted no on a 53 per cent turnout, with 53.4 per cent voting no and 46.6 per cent voting yes. There was pandemonium all over the place, especially in the European Union. Many people thought that the Irish had spoken and that that should be the end of the matter, especially as Mr Barroso had denied that there was a plan B, but obviously there was a plan B—another referendum. That took place on 2 October 2009. As noble Lords will know, the result was reversed after a bitter campaign, during which the European Commission and the Irish Government weighed in with taxpayers’ money—probably illegally, incidentally. According to Mr Jens-Peter Bonde, who at that time was a senior MEP, the Commission and the Irish Government between them spent millions of euros supporting the yes campaign. As if this huge support was not enough, large amounts were also contributed by vested interests, including €250,000 by Ryanair. In fact, 10 times as much was spent on the yes campaign as on the no campaign—little wonder, then, that the Irish people reversed their first vote by a 2:1 majority.

However, that was not the first time that the Irish people had been made to vote again. When they had the temerity to vote no to the Nice treaty, they had to vote again to provide the only answer that was acceptable to the European Union and the Irish Government—in other words, if people do not provide the right answer first time round, they will be made to vote again until they do. That is the impression that is given, and that is why in many respects the European Union and some of the nation states are held in contempt by their peoples.

However, as we have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, the Irish people were not the only ones who were made to vote again. When the Danish people voted no to the Maastricht treaty in 1992, they were forced to vote again a year later in 1993. Again, the no campaign was out-financed and clobbered by their own Government and others with vested interests in obtaining a yes vote—and this was duly achieved. However, as noble Lords may remember, when the result was declared the Danish people were so annoyed that they actually rioted in Copenhagen, the police fired 113 shots into the crowd when it was trapped, and 11 people were treated for gunshot wounds. When people feel cheated about their decisions, in some cases and under some circumstances, they are prepared to cause mayhem and riot.

Therefore, for these and other reasons, I support the amendment and hope that the Government will accept it. Before I sit down, I ask for an assurance from the Government that in any referendum under the Bill they will not use taxpayers’ money to support one side of the argument, and that they will prevent the use of taxpayers’ money by any institution of the European Union to support one side of the argument. That should include the European Parliament, which has just voted for a change in funding rules that will allow cross-national EU political groups of MEPs to take part in referendum campaigns in member states. It would be quite outrageous if MEPs from any part of the EU, with taxpayers’ money through their expenses, were able to indulge themselves in a specifically British referendum. Unless the Government can assure us that they will block such activities, I support the amendment.

[Lord Flight]

My Lords, it is very tempting to support the amendment, and the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon, made some good points about expenses. The forced holding of second referenda has been shameful and has involved quite improper practices. However, I should like to make two points on why the amendment may not be appropriate for this country. The first is that any second referendum would require the approval of both Houses of Parliament. I trust that this House, unless it is dangerously interfered with, would act properly in that situation. Secondly, in the event of a referendum on “in or out” in which people voted to stay in but certain developments in Europe within the five-year period made the situation dramatically different, it would be unwise to be limited by a five-year rule that the UK could not reconsider the issue again in the light of future developments. Many Members of this House are sympathetic to the amendment on the improper use of forced second referenda, but such a measure would not be appropriate in this country.

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[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I am happy to answer that now: perhaps it will enable us to avoid having a debate on Clause 13, which is largely technical. The Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act makes it entirely clear that there are tight controls on the funding of referendums by political parties and other actors, including those outside the European Union. My understanding of the clause is that the European Commission would not be allowed to spend more than £10,000 in the course of a referendum. I hope that that provides the answer that the noble Lord needs. If any further details are required, I will of course write to him. However, I am sure that he is an expert on PPERA and all the details that the Electoral Commission now oversees.

[Lord Stoddart of Swindon]

I asked about the new rules which would allow European political parties to campaign in any country on referendums. Does the existing legislation cover expenditure by MEPs in any country, including our own, in case of a referendum? We need to know that.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I seem to remember that in both the Danish and the Irish referendums there was substantial assistance from Eurosceptic groups in this country in terms of finance and people—but perhaps I am wrong about that. Perhaps my memory is at fault. Perhaps we should consider whether there should be an amendment at a later stage to ensure that such British groups are prevented from intervening in other countries’ referendums. I will have to take advice on that and on some other matters.

[Lord Stoddart of Swindon]

I am most obliged to the Minister for giving way again, but the point about MEPs is that they will be able to use their expenses to campaign, and that is taxpayers’ money. If people give voluntarily, that is a matter for them, within the election rules, but if MEPs are spending taxpayers’ money, that is another business. I appreciate that the Minister cannot reply now, but when he considers the matter further he will perhaps take that into consideration.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I will refer back to the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act.

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[Lord Clinton-Davis]

I have rarely heard such piffle from any Member of this House as we have just heard. To suggest that Government Ministers would play fair on this issue is addled. At the moment, all the evidence points the other way. They are happier to point in the way of negativity rather than deploy the arguments in favour of the community.

[Lord Stoddart of Swindon]

Is this an intervention or a speech?

[Lord Clinton-Davis]

It is a speech. Many years ago, I shared the view of many members of the Labour Party when I expressed the opinion that our membership of the EU was wrong. My noble friend Lord Radice took a different view. He was right and I was wrong. Having been a commissioner of the EU for some time, and having been in charge of transport, the environment and the nuclear industry, I formed the view that on all those issues, the voice of Europe should be positive and heard. I never came to the conclusion that we should somehow shilly-shally on those issues.

My noble friend Lord Liddle was in Europe as well. I think that he would share my view that it is imperative that members of the Commission should be heard. At the moment, their views are drowned out by people who take a contrary view, such as the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, who is a great friend of mine despite our differences of opinion on this issue. When the then President of the Commission, Jacques Delors, spoke to the TUC in Bournemouth, it was a remarkable event. I wish that more members of the Labour Party and of this House had been present. It was remarkable because many people in the TUC did not share that view. But he was rather positive about the virtues of the European Union and he convinced most of those present that that was right.

Unfortunately, in recent times Ministers from both parties have been less than forthcoming with their views on the European Union. I wish that that was not the case. Therefore I support the views expressed by my noble friend Lord Radice on this point. It is incumbent on members of this Administration to speak out about the virtues of the European Union. It is quite impossible for us to withdraw from the EU or play a lesser part in it, although some people here would like us to do so. It is absolutely vital that the case for the European Union should be advanced by Ministers at all times, and that is singularly lacking at the present moment.

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[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

My Lords, I do not believe that the noble Lord, Lord Radice, was suggesting that there should be a legal obligation on Ministers to say nice things about the European Union. What he was trying to do is to get at long last a more balanced perception of the pros and cons of our membership of the European Union, for which I profoundly commend him.

Of course there are many things wrong with the European Union, as there are with the United Nations, with our special relationship with United States and with many other aspects of international institutions, one recently mentioned being NATO. Nobody argues with that; we live in a world of real politics where it is clear that most institutions have substantial flaws. Nobody denies that the same is true of the European Union.

But what I find so sad is that, for 40 years now, this country has gone on missing opportunity after opportunity to lead and profoundly to influence the European Union because of its obsession with constantly trying to run it down, even when it does things which are obviously in the interests of this country, of the European Union itself and of the world. Neither your Lordships nor I have got time to go back at great length, but such an attitude dates from our refusal to have any part in the Coal and Steel Community of 1951, our refusal to take part in the 1957 treaty of Rome, with our dismissal of the enterprise as being unlikely to succeed, our failure to recognise the astonishing achievement in bringing Spain, Portugal and Greece, all of them dictatorships, into a framework of democracy which has been sustained, undoubtedly with some difficulty, right up to the present time—which is an amazing achievement—and our total lack of interest or great concern with the European Union’s extension eastwards into central Europe, the Baltic states and elsewhere, countries for which the European Union, alongside their membership of NATO, were the guarantees of their future democracy and stability. They still have a long way to go, but they have come a very long way since 1989 when the Soviet Union collapsed.

We turn aside time and again from the fact that the European Union is the single greatest giver of aid to developing countries, exceeding any other country on the same scale such as the United States, China or India. We take very little notice of the tremendous efforts made by the European Union to do something serious about emissions, greenhouse gases and the environment. At the most parochial level, when we look at the cleanness of our beaches and at the fact that the Thames river now has salmon all way up to the Pool of London, we see that that is due directly to European Union directives, though nobody is ever prepared to say it very loudly in this country. I could go on—I shall not—but what I find so sad is that we in this country have failed to give a constructive lead to the European Union and spend almost all our time carping about it. We are right to criticise it—yes—but to carp, to sour and to change and distort the facts in the way that happens in the British press is astonishing and not copied in France, Germany, Spain or most other major countries of the European Union. It is a unique aspect of a certain kind of British moaning about the great opportunities that it has decided not to follow up.

The noble Lord, Lord Radice, spoke about the Murdoch press and Associated Newspapers. Those newspapers do not simply produce balanced and constructive criticism of the European Union; they continually emit a series of distorted statements, falsified facts and false scandals which rarely come home. One should compare them with the one newspaper that I think everybody in this House would recognise does not grind very strong party axes and attempts seriously to devote itself to society and the public good, in providing the nearest thing to truth that can be provided—I refer, to your Lordships’ surprise perhaps, to the Financial Times. The indications, the outlines, the descriptions and the analysis in the Financial Times of what is actually going on in Europe are unique in being genuinely international, genuinely global and genuinely objective in a way that most newspapers do not pretend or even try to be. One reads in that newspaper lots of criticisms and worries about the eurozone and so on, but it provides a picture of what is happening that is far better balanced than that which one gets from most of the other major tabloids or even for that matter, sadly, some of the major broadsheets.

Our future as a country lies in working closely with the European Union. It is not just me who says that; it is people such as President Obama and the leaders of China. Our major neighbour nations recognise that the UK’s future as a serious player on the world stage is very closely linked to the extent to which we can co-operate with our neighbours in Europe. That is very strongly the view of the United States; it has been over several presidencies—I do not doubt that we shall hear anything very different when the present President of the United States comes here on Wednesday. Should we not at least give a moment’s pause for some of our closest friends and best allies when they say to the United Kingdom, “Please, think constructively about what you can contribute to the future, and think about how the Commonwealth and Europe together could create a world of greater peace and greater balance”? Just for once, let us move away from the negative position that we in this country so often take and look at the prospects for our children and grandchildren. Let us notice that they inevitably require us to work, not uncritically, but thoughtfully and constructively, with our European neighbours to make the world a somewhat better place.

[Lord Stoddart of Swindon]

The amendment refers to the failure of Governments and Ministers to promote the European Union; what we have had is a debate about the pros and cons of the European Union. I could speak for a very long time on that, but I shall not. However, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Radice, that he is wrong in his view that Ministers of all Governments have not promoted the European Union or the European ideal. In fact, we have progressed—if that is the right word—from what was supposed to be a common market to what is now, almost, a new country called Europe. We need to understand that all the way along, ratchet by ratchet, treaty by treaty, Governments have promoted our memberships, first, of the Common Market and now the European Union. They have done so in the belief that things should be done better by a group rather than by individual nations. That is not what the British people think; they believe that Britain should remain a self-governing nation.

The Single European Act transferred huge tranches of power to the European Union. It was followed in 1992 by the Maastricht treaty, which promoted even more powers to the European Union. That process culminated in the latest treaty, the Lisbon treaty. There is virtually no policy area where the European Union is not now involved. It is even involved in taxation and the control of our financial institutions. It takes the lead in foreign affairs and virtually all issues of British policy now have, in part or as a whole, a European Union basis. That is all I want to say for the moment, but I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Radice, will withdraw his amendment, which is ill conceived.

House resumed. Committee to begin again not before 7.01 pm.