Subsidiarity Assessment: Seasonal Workers (EUC Report)

Lord Williamson of Horton Excerpts

Wednesday 20th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Williamson of Horton]

My Lords, I am truly being spoilt today, as I find myself on the speakers list sandwiched—if that is the word—between the noble Lords, Lord Stoddart of Swindon and Lord Pearson of Rannoch. I am sure that the moderation and content of my remarks will satisfy both of them, which is not always the case.

I intervene briefly to support the European Union Committee’s first report of this Session, which assesses whether the proposal for an EU directive on conditions of entry and residence of nationals from third countries for seasonal employment reasons does or does not—and the committee says that it does not—comply with the principle of subsidiarity.

First, because this Parliament, under Article 5(3) of the Treaty on European Union and Article 6 of the protocol on the application of the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality, can submit a reasoned opinion on Commission proposals to the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission itself, it is important that we should use this provision and that it should not go by default. I am glad that the EU Committee has examined this specific proposal and made this recommendation.

Unfortunately, the word “subsidiarity”, which sounds very technical, does not ring many bells in the United Kingdom. None the less, it is important, because it is a serious attempt to define the boundary between potential action at EU level and action by member states under their national arrangements, as in matters of shared competence the EU can act only if and in so far as the objectives of the proposal cannot be sufficiently achieved by the member states. Just as in this House we have a duty to scrutinise the activities of our Government and to ensure that they do not go beyond what is necessary, so we need also to present our views on the respect of the principle of subsidiarity and proposals being put to the EU institutions.

Although the UK opted out of the immigration regime in the original so-called Schengen provisions and we decided to operate our national border controls, it is remarkable that, in recent years, perhaps the number one concern of citizens has been the question of immigration and our operation of our border controls. None the less, I believe that the entry to and residence in the UK of third-country nationals as seasonal workers can be controlled by market forces and our national arrangements. That is what the EU Committee has said. Otherwise, we would have to follow the EU directive, if the Government had decided to opt in, and I do not think that we should do that.

Finally—this is a last word—those of us who work in this House know that we have been bombarded in recent years by a large volume of national, not EU, legislation, both as Bills and, more particularly, as secondary legislation. In the period from 1 August 2008 to October 2009, for example, 2,366 statutory instruments were made, of which only 94 directly implemented EU law. None the less, if we can avoid a proposal that, in the view of our EU Committee, does not respect subsidiarity, that is good.