European Union Bill

Viscount Trenchard Excerpts

Monday 13th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

My Lords, I have considerable sympathy with this amendment. In the course of the last three months we have heard from all sides of the House the collective failure of politicians to articulate a vision of why Britain needs to co-operate with members in her region to advance her interests. Putting an obligation on Ministers to spell out positively a vision for the EU seems eminently sensible, given the context of the Bill. This is, as the noble Lord, Lord Risby, said, that once the Government have passed an Act, they would presumably like to win an amendment. It seems odd to resist an amendment such as this when we are clear that the Government would have passed an Act proposing the policy solutions that there would be and, as the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, said, would wish to maintain their credibility by seeking actively to campaign in a referendum. I cannot see why there is such resistance to this amendment.

I remind noble Lords of some of the things that have been said about the media. Even if the Government of the day were determined to win a referendum, it is entirely conceivable that a sceptical media would choose to ask questions about why the Government were spending money. We have known from the several months of debate over referendums in this House in relation to other matters that large amounts of money have been set at the door of the practicalities of holding a referendum. It would be entirely possible for our media, which did not wish us to promote that measure that was meant to be discussed in the referendum, to say that this was a huge waste of money. The fact that a requirement for promoting that measure would be enshrined in the Bill would allow the Government to say that they were carrying out what statute and legislation required them to. We have had arguments for months on the lack education and the lack of information about the European Union. This would be an opportunity for the Government of the day to move beyond those technical measures to use that process to educate the public about their vision.

I turn to the final point in the amendment that I do not think the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, in moving it, quite brought out to the extent that I would wish to do. It states,

“in participating in a campaign for any referendum held in pursuance of Sections 2, 3 or 6 or in taking other steps required by this Act.”

The discussion we have had so far pertains only to the holding of referendums. There are other measures in this Bill that do not call for the holding of referendums. Sometimes they call simply for an Act of Parliament, or for a Statement to be made to Parliament. In doing these things, an obligation would be put on the Ministers of the day to have regard for the desirability of promoting the United Kingdom’s membership of the EU. This amendment says to us as politicians that we have to step up to the mark and that if we believe that the legislation that we are passing is good legislation, we have to go out and explain why we think that it is good legislation. While I would love to say that I wholeheartedly support the amendment, I will only go so far as to say that I can see a lot of merit in it and I look forward to hearing from the Minister why he does not think that it is extremely useful and long overdue.

[Viscount Trenchard]

My Lords, I am afraid that, although I listened with great interest to my noble friend Lady Falkner, I cannot agree with her that the amendment makes much sense. I listened carefully to the noble Lords, Lord Triesman and Lord Radice, in putting forward the amendment. It is an odd amendment. What does it actually mean? Any referendum that might be held under the Act is not going to be a referendum as to whether our membership of the EU is or is not a good thing. By definition, if the Government want to put a referendum event to the people, it follows that they must already have decided that it is a good thing, so to get the result they want in the referendum, they will obviously explain the benefits as energetically and positively as they can.

There is something strange about the language of the amendment, because the desirability of promoting the United Kingdom's membership of the EU sounds rather as though we are not a member but perhaps should be. We are a member, so obviously Ministers must explain what being a member of the EU means and must honour the obligations of being a member. I fear that that is rather subjective.

Furthermore, under the Bill, a referendum other than one which the Government wanted to win might be triggered. There are many ways in which a referendum can be triggered under the Bill, as noble Lords have said. Ministers of the Crown might be obliged to put a certain point to the country but they might not necessarily want the result to be yes. The noble Lord, Lord Radice, said that Ministers have not positively made the case in public for membership of the EU on a continuing basis. I suggest that that is because many Ministers of the Crown have felt that our membership of the EU is no longer so clearly wholly beneficial as they had thought it was, or as people thought it would be 10 years ago, or longer ago than that.

The amendment does not add anything to the Bill. It is somewhat subjective and I cannot support it.

[Lord Dykes]

My Lords, I agree very much with the earlier utterances and express regret that I cannot agree with what the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, said. I do not think that there is any evidence that Ministers have become less enthusiastic about our membership of the European Union. That is irrespective of the colour of the Government. That applies to both parties in power in recent times and, as far as I can detect, definitely applies to the coalition—very positively so in respect of the first part of the coalition statement about their aspirations on Europe.

I am sure that it is because of what the noble Lord, Lord Radice, mentioned and what the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, hinted at less directly: because of what the British press say. It is mainly the tabloids—the comics that masquerade as newspapers in Britain. They are more and more like magazines rather than newspapers. That is affecting the broadsheets as well, particularly those with owners living in tax havens overseas, not normally living in the UK and not paying UK direct taxes themselves, mainly the Murdoch press, but all of them anti-European and attacking our membership of the European Union in a most extraordinary and vicious way, which has not been seen in any other member state that I can think of.

I have to declare an interest as I also live regularly in France at weekends whenever possible. The French press are not at all like that. My colleagues in politics in Paris express astonishment that we allow the overseas-based owners of the press here who do not pay UK direct taxes themselves to attack our fundamental membership of the European Union in such a way. That has been the reason.

The most astonishing contrast that I noticed was just at the moment of the IMAX launch by the new Prime Minister Blair, with his new Government, still very, very popular, not quite walking on water but pretty close to it in those early days and causing a lot of inspiration and enthusiasm among the British public for the new Labour Government. That launch was the beginning of the decline in the new Labour Government's support for Europe in atmospheric and psychological terms. That was tragic. Britain in Europe was destroyed by it. So was the European Movement—although it still exists, it is struggling along as a very truncated body doing noble work but very much at the fringes of British life.

It is a tragedy for this country that we have had this nonsense for so long: politicians refusing to stand up bravely and correctly for the benefits of our membership of the European Union. Therefore, I very much welcome the proposed new clause. It was debated in Committee and therefore we need not go into all the arguments now. We particularly thank the noble Lord, Lord Howell, for repeating that the purpose of the Bill is to oblige Ministers to promote the cause of our membership of Europe in what he would describe as a more correctly balanced sense because the public would have much greater participation through the referendum mechanism. Like the noble Lord, Lord Deben, I do not agree with that because I am against referendumitis and the populism that comes from it, but I can see his arguments. The proposed new clause would be a good thing, as we would return to promoting our membership—not in a propagandistic sense but in the practical sense of reassuring the public, explaining in detail many of the complicated matters and getting away from the dreadful xenophobia that is being allowed to develop because of the insouciance, nervousness, recalcitrance and hesitation of British politicians. There is a danger that that will start to affect the coalition if it continues, and I hope very much that it does not.

I do not want to take up too much of the House’s time but I conclude with an issue that may seem small, although it is very important. I refer to the display of flags—one of my favourite subjects. There is only one European flag within the vicinity of Westminster. It is on the Slovenian embassy building and we thank the Slovenians for their courage in daring to show it. It is the only one, apart from the one displayed on Europe Day in Parliament Square each year. All other major countries, together with some of the new ones, routinely proudly display the European flag alongside their patriotic national flag. Our national flag should be alongside the European flag on government buildings, as is routinely the case in France. When President Sarkozy makes a television broadcast, he always has the European flag alongside the tricolor. Why have all parties in this country been so hesitant and pathetic about this in the past? It is now time for the matter to be corrected. I have been encouraged by the words of the noble Lord, Lord Howell, on previous occasions in these debates and believe that the Government should accept this imaginative new clause.