EU: Integration

Lord Tomlinson Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I think the British people have a sensible and balanced appreciation of the virtues of living in the European continental area: that it is a mighty single market; that our influence in it is useful; and that when it comes to trade bargaining with the rising powers of Asia, Latin America and Africa, it is very useful to have a bit of muscle. That is a perfectly sensible and common-sense view that, I suspect, prevails in the minds of most of the British people. They may not like some of the aspects of the EU—many of us find these things irritating—but on the whole it seems a reasonable grouping in which to be deeply and actively involved, and that is where we stand.

[Lord Tomlinson]

My Lords, would the noble Lord agree with me that the only alternative to the word “integration” used in the Question is disintegration or stagnation, and that our future lies in an integrated Europe—within the confines of some of the qualifications that he made—and that any question of encouraging disintegration would be wrong?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

To avoid the debate getting too polarised, of course, there are degrees of integration. In this decentralised age, compared with the 20th century, where centralisation and central state dominance were the fashion, people are looking for more flexibility and decentralisation in all sensibly run organisations, including the EU. There may be some areas, as I indicated in my opening Answer, where a degree of integration is more sensible as an alternative to chaos. However, there may be many other areas where the time has come for decentralisation and a returning of powers closer to the people.