European Union Bill

Lord Tomlinson Excerpts

Tuesday 17th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne]

My Lords, I am a little dazzled by the complexity of the millions and billions and almost trillions of pounds and euros that the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, has laid in front of us. Indeed, while I was listening to him most closely, I recalled a moment of great happiness when I was begging for charity recently and I received a cheque with so many zeros that they fell off the end of the cheque. I ran around saying to someone else who could add up more closely in the charity, “Look, look, look, we have done exactly what we want to do”. He pulled me down to earth and he said, “Do be careful—this is a cheque from Burkina Faso”. When it was added up, it came to about $5.

The arguments put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, while in no way impugning, by this comment, his grasp of finance and passionate loyalty to the European Union’s holding on to her old funds, make me wonder whether in fact this amendment does not belong in the Bill at all. In other words, is he offering us the king with no clothes? Surely this Bill is about the transfer of powers and competencies. It is not about the transfer of finance, which should enable the European Union to carry out the powers and competencies it already has. In other words, this is not a Bill that enables us successfully to argue various different figures about financing of the European Union. My suggestion is that this most interesting amendment does not in fact belong here at all. It is correct and proper, incidentally, that the European Union should be suitably funded for the competencies that the member states have authorised it to carry out.

There is also the problem that this figure simply does not take into account our contribution from the United Kingdom to the EU budget in terms of inflation. How would the noble Lord react if, for example, the UK goes over the £10 billion mark, but proportionately our contribution is in fact smaller? That could be the case with the growth of Germany and other economies: our proportion—our net contribution—could be proportionately smaller but might be larger than £10 billion. In the calculation of our UK contribution—the net versus the gross—the timing of the UK’s actual contribution needs to be taken into account. This amendment is impractical on timing grounds alone, because our contribution generally comes in after the event.

It is, of course, natural that I would be likely to disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, on his comments that we have diluted sovereignty from the United Kingdom in joining the European Union. I will disregard the temptation to go down that channel, otherwise we will not make any progress on this amendment—save to say that in foreign affairs and defence and security, if I could dare tempt him with that wicked phrase, we have greater strength, power, and a wider outreach with our European Union member state partners than we could possibly ever have standing, talking and trying to influence alone.

In fact, I suggest that this matter is in complete contrast to the measures that we, and other member states, have already introduced to make significant savings in domestic budgets. Of course, I agree with the noble Lord profoundly that we should empower our Ministers, our civil servants and our diplomats to argue as forcefully as possible against the sorts of increases that, sadly, the European Commission and the European Parliament have recently demonstrated that they want. That argument is, without question, right and proper, but to do that we need to empower our Ministers and diplomats. We cannot do that if we bring this type of amendment forward and claim that the mere transfer of money transfers competencies to the EU. It does not. That is why I suggest this amendment should be discussed in another Bill, at another time and in another place.

[Lord Tomlinson]

My Lords, the House should be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Pearson. I want to congratulate him on lightening the mood of the House after what has been a pretty dismal day. We had the attempt this afternoon to introduce proposals that amount to constitutional vandalism and there will be no proposal for a referendum on that. The noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, has today conducted himself in a way that is worthy of our congratulations for his fertile imagination, which I hope somebody will recognise as qualifying him for consideration for the Booker prize for creative fiction.

If we come to the substance of what the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, was saying, he inevitably gets his estimates somehow sort of right. Our membership of the European Union costs us somewhere between 4 per cent and 10 per cent of our GDP—not much of a margin; the odds are that he is going to be somewhere within that sort of range, but it lacks precision.

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[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

My Lords, perhaps I could try to make it make sense for the noble Lord. There are some huge differences between the money we pay to the European Union and the money we pay to the other institutions that he has mentioned. There is, of course, the question of quantum; without a cost-benefit analysis, we will not agree the figures, but from what I said today and on 3 May, we are looking at a cost of EU membership possibly in the region of £100 billion a year.

There is also another very important point. These other institutions that the noble Lord has mentioned do not make our law. They do not make the majority of our national law—it may be—in secret. They do not have laws proposed by the unelected Commission in secret, negotiated in secret by COREPER, passed in secret by the Council and imposed on the people and this Parliament by the European Union. These other institutions certainly are not in the same class. If we are having referendums, I do not think that it would be a bad idea to have one on NATO and other institutions. The British people would probably agree them, for the reasons that the noble Lord gave. The one that they will not agree is the one on the European Union.

[Lord Tomlinson]

The noble Lord referred yet again to this question of a cost-benefit analysis. How is he proposing to define “benefit”? He wants to have the cost-benefit analysis, but he has told us we get no benefit. Will he give us a clue about what definition of “benefit” would satisfy his demand?

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

My Lords, if the noble Lord would be good enough to read my Bill, which is now top of the waiting list and is sitting in the Printed Paper Office not very far away, he would understand how we propose to go about a cost-benefit analysis, with a truly independent committee of inquiry reporting to Parliament and the people. However, the noble Lord makes a very good point. Although I am often asked this question, I cannot think of a single advantage or benefit that we have had from our membership of the European Union that we could not have had by friendly collaboration and free trade with our good neighbours in Europe.

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Debate on whether Clause 6 should stand part of the Bill.

[Lord Tomlinson]

My Lords, Amendments 42, 43 and 44 have already been debated. I remind the Committee that the three amendments relate to Clause 6, and would delete successively paragraphs (c), (d), (e), (f), (g), (h), (i), (j) and (k). That is why I have given notice of my intention to oppose Clause 6 standing part of the Bill. I merely rise to say those few words now, and do not propose to press the matter now, but it is something to which we might return later.

[Lord Taverne]

My Lords, I have taken part only occasionally in this debate. I have been fascinated by the display of knowledge manifest in this House of the workings and procedures of the EU. However, regarding the clause as a whole, at least three important points have emerged. The first applies very much to the Liberal Democrats. The noble Lord, Lord Liddle, was absolutely right when he pointed out that the coalition agreement does not in any way countenance our support for, or compel us to support, referenda on passerelles or non-treaty changes that transfer power. The agreement is explicit on this and talks about transfer by treaty amendments.

That concession was made during the coalition negotiations. It is something that we have to put up with. Personally, I deeply regret it, because we have heard time after time from government spokesmen that it is necessary to have these referenda in order to restore trust. There is no evidence whatever that having referenda improves trust. The Netherlands had a referendum on the constitution, and trust has not increased since then, but anti-EU sentiment has grown. France had a referendum on the constitution. Again, since the referendum, there have been no demands for more referenda, and opposition in France to the European Union has grown. It may grow even more after events in the Sofitel hotel. It is very important that on the Liberal Democrat Benches we recognise that we are not in any way compelled to support Clause 6, with its stream of referenda.

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[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

The Minister explained very patiently that the Bill was a compromise. He admits that it was not provided for in the coalition agreement, which provides only for referendums on treaty change. I shall not gainsay that. It was a compromise between the Government and a noisy minority of one of the two parties in the Government who made all the running in the House of Commons. We are just waiting for the compromise with the rather large majority of those who have spoken in this House—I think it was 35 at Second Reading—of which there has been from the government Bench no sign whatever.

[Lord Tomlinson]

I shall not oppose the clause standing part, but have one slight comment to the Minister. He referred to compromise, but I remind him that he said earlier that the Bill was a compromise between incompatible policies. We shall come back to this later, because there is incompatibility. At the moment, I can see it being removed only by the withdrawal of Clause 6. However, I am content to accept his advice.

Clause 6 agreed.