European Union Bill

Debate between Tim Farron and Thérèse Coffey

Tuesday 7th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Tim Farron]

I do not think I am permitted to take more than two interventions.

There is such Eurosceptic hostility to the European Union that the last Government took the view that to attach themselves to the EU would mean seeing their popularity sink. They should have gone on the front foot; perhaps we would be in a different position if they had.

The UK and other member states face many major challenges, such as delivering economic growth, completing the single market, delivering new free trade agreements, cracking down on cross-border crime, combating climate change and fighting global poverty. The Bill should finally place to rest the concerns about the lack of democratic safeguards over big EU decisions. It will ensure that future big decisions about Britain’s place in Europe are taken out of the hands of the governing elite of the day and placed firmly in the hands of the British public and, on their behalf, this Parliament.

The Bill is a fine example of what coalition politics produces—a document delivered by two parties, working together despite their differing traditional outlooks on the EU.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Tim Farron]

I will not. I am permitted to take only two interventions without losing time and I want to ensure that I give people a chance to speak.

Despite our differing traditional outlooks on the EU, the coalition has come together, found common ground and drawn a line—obviously—under the European constitutional question once and for all, we hope, by ensuring that the public and Parliament have the final say on the big questions that will determine how UK and EU relations evolve. The Bill should also give the British public a new sense of ownership, enshrined in law, over the future evolution of UK relations with the European Union.

The Liberal Democrats are unashamedly a pro-European party. We fundamentally believe that British national interests are best served by playing an active and leading role in the European Union. We are also fundamentally a democratic party and one that believes in devolving power to the lowest level possible and in reconnecting the public to politics through democratic reform. We recognise that the experience of rapid EU integration over the past two decades, although it has been necessary and ultimately beneficial to the UK, has left many members of the British people feeling sceptical about and disconnected from the decisions made in their name at an EU level, most recently with the Lisbon treaty.

This is why the Bill is so important. Its main purpose is to reconnect the British public with EU-level decisions and to reassert parliamentary controls over those key decisions. The Bill should help to give the British public a new sense of ownership over the UK’s relationship with the EU in the future and it provides the British public with the legal guarantees that they, not the Government or Parliament, will have the ultimate say in future decisions about the UK’s level of involvement in the EU.

Now is the time for the EU to focus on delivering solutions to the huge challenges that face all member states rather than looking inward. The Bill is in keeping with a number of innovations in the Lisbon treaty that seek to provide national Parliaments and European citizens with a greater say over EU decisions and the direction of the European project. I say that as a member of my party who voted with my now coalition colleagues in favour of a referendum on the Lisbon treaty. If we had had a referendum, I would have argued in favour of that treaty.

The UK is not alone in recognising that the pace of EU integration has left a dangerous lack of understanding about the connection between the EU institutions, national Parliaments and their citizens. In fact, that was recognised by all EU member states in the Council, by members of the Commission and by Members of the European Parliament long before the Bill was conceived. Indeed, that concern was translated into concrete measures in the Lisbon treaty. The treaty has gone a long way towards creating new connections and controls between the public and national Parliaments in the EU, which I warmly welcome. It is too early to see how they will work but the direction in which the EU—and now the UK—is moving is clear.

Let me give some examples of Lisbon treaty democratic and parliamentary control innovations. The European citizens’ initiative enables a petition of more than 1 million European citizens from across the member states to trigger a legislative proposal from the Commission and is a unique and groundbreaking innovation expressly designed to develop connections between European citizens and the often seemingly alien EU institutions. The new yellow and orange card system enables one third of national Parliaments, via the scrutiny Committees in the UK, to object to an EU proposal if they feel that it breaches the principle of subsidiarity, requiring the Commission either to reconsider the proposal or to force the Council and the European Parliament to come to a decision whether to scrap the proposal or to amend it. Also, the new emergency brake clauses in the treaty enable any single national Parliament to block a proposal if it considers the proposal in question to breach or contravene a fundamental component of the legal framework, such as criminal justice.

The Bill can in part be seen as a logical extension of the work of the Lisbon treaty in reconnecting the public and Parliament to EU decisions and its institutions, but our sincere hope and intention in supporting the Bill is that it will finally help to restore some sanity and pragmatism to the debate in UK politics about the EU and EU proposals. There is an extremely poor level of debate in the UK about the EU and the Bill should help to improve that. With a more transparent approach to our membership of the EU, some of the clouds of Eurosceptic mythology might begin to lift. For instance, the use of passerelle clauses will trigger Acts of Parliament and that will mean a rare and welcome opportunity to have an informed domestic debate about substantive EU proposals, giving Members of both Houses the chance to discuss the respective pros and cons of a particular EU measure for the UK.

For example, should the Bill become law, one passerelle that would trigger primary legislation would be that on establishing an efficient and fully functioning EU patent system. A proper patent system has been at the top of UK businesses’, innovators’ and scientists’ wish lists for decades and we believe that it is fundamentally in the interests of the UK. We look forward to discussing that groundbreaking proposal in more detail if and when primary legislation is introduced in the near future as a result of the Bill. Such issues will be discussed more often in this House and the voices of reason in this place will be forced to go on the front foot and to sell the benefits of EU membership and integration to the British public.

The Government have chosen to engage positively with Europe and to tackle the largest single block that leads to discontent about the EU among the British public, which is the sense that decisions taken at EU level are remote, unaccountable and beyond our control. Liberal Democrats believe that the UK’s national interests have been and will continue to be served best by our membership of the European Union. The major challenges that face us cannot be solved by UK action alone. They often require international action through the European Union. Our relationship with the EU, however, from the point of view of the media and much of the public, is pretty poisonous. For a sane Government who seek to advance Britain’s best interests, this is a hugely challenging position. Surely the challenge is too big for legislation alone to fix it.

There is a growing fear that unless something radical is done, the views of the British public and the politicians on the EU will continue slowly to drift on a tide of Eurosceptic media stories to a point at which this country will ultimately leave the EU altogether. I know that many of my colleagues on the Government Benches would favour that, but in my view it would be an absolute disaster for the United Kingdom. I would be interested to hear from the Minister what other plans the Government have beyond our Bill, in line with their commitment to play a strong, positive and active role in the EU, to start a new dialogue with the British public calmly and rationally to explain and sell the benefits of EU membership.

There are many questions to answer, but the Bill’s crucial task is to democratise and make transparent and trustworthy all our dealings with the European Union and to do so in a way that is pragmatic and positive for our immensely valuable relationships with our EU partners. For what it is worth, I think the coalition has succeeded in meeting those challenges and I look forward to continuing this formalised outbreak of accountability and reason towards our membership of the European Union.