European Union (Information, etc.) Bill [HL]

moved AmendmentNo. 3: 3: Clause 1, page 1, line 16, at end insert— ““(5) All information provided under this section shall be provided by a committee of seven members appointed by the Privy Council, of whom— (a) two shall be nominated by organisations appearing to the Privy Council to be in favour of the United Kingdom’s continued membership of the European Union, (b) two shall be nominated by organisations appearing to the Privy Council to be opposed to the United Kingdom’s continued membership of the European Union, (c) two shall be nominated by the Privy Council as persons it considers to hold no opinion as to whether the United Kingdom should stay in or leave the European Union, and (d) one shall be nominated by the Privy Council as the chairman of the committee, being a person it considers to hold no opinion as to whether the United Kingdom should stay in or leave the European Union. (6) The person nominated under subsection (5)(d) shall not act in any capacity as chairman or as a member of the committee unless at least five members of the committee approve his appointment. (7) No person may be appointed under subsection (5) if he is or was— (a) a member of the European Parliament, or (b) an employee of the European Union or of any institution of the European Union.”” The noble Lord said: We come now to what, I fear, may be the main bone of contention between the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, and Europhile supporters of this Bill and those of us of a more Euro-sceptic inclination. Amendment No. 3 is an attempt to bridge the ever-widening chasm between those who regard the project of European union as a good thing—a project that has brought peace, prosperity and influence to Europe—and those of us who have come to see it as a dangerous failure that is over-regulated, undemocratic and corrupt and which bodes ill for the future of the peoples of Europe in the global economy that is already upon us. The amendment speaks for itself. It may not be perfect, but it is an honest attempt to see that any information put before the public should pass through both Europhile and Euro-sceptic filters, thus emerging as balanced as possible. Other noble Lords may be able to think of a better way of ensuring that only balanced and honest information about our relationship with the EU is distributed, in which case I look forward to hearing their suggestions. What is absolutely obvious is that no official information from Brussels or the Government should be distributed unless it is balanced by the Euro-sceptic view. Indeed, the committee proposed by the amendment might decide to do just that. It might decide to distribute the Brussels line on a given subject with the sceptic view alongside it. People could then ask questions, talk about it, at last have some of the national debate that the Government say they want, and make up their own minds. I take the example of subsidiarity. In his speech at Second Reading, the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, said: "““I am especially keen that the explanation of subsidiarity, for example, should be properly handled, as well as the emphasis that many policy areas remain the principal or sole preserve of the sovereign member states, which is as it should be””.—[Official Report, 15/12/06; col. 1771.]" Europhiles claim that subsidiarity ensures that the EU is given power to do things only when they can be done better by the Community acting as a whole, leaving everything else to be done by the member states. I imagine that that may be the interpretation supported by the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, but I hope that he will forgive me when I say that we Euro-sceptics regard it as entirely misleading; we would regard it as entirely misleading if that meaning of subsidiarity was to form part of the information distributed under the Bill. We maintain that subsidiarity has precisely the opposite meaning and, indeed, has had the opposite effect over the years. We would want the people to be told that subsidiarity has always been a deception and has done nothing to stem the steady passage of powers from the member states to the European Union. We have not deviated from this view since subsidiarity was introduced during the Maastricht negotiations of 1992. We noticed then that the clause was ambiguously worded, its first sentence making it clear that it applied only to areas that had not already been passed to the control of the EU. We felt rather sorry for poor Mr Major when he claimed subsidiarity as a great victory for national sovereignty, saying that under it some 25 per cent of the already over-burdensome EU regulation would be repealed within three years. Of course, nothing of the sort has happened. To rub in the true interpretation of the subsidiarity clause, Protocol 30 was added to the next treaty—the Amsterdam treaty of 1997. This states clearly that subsidiarity means maintaining the acquis communautaire—or powers acquired by the Community—in full. It goes further, ordaining that subsidiarity supports the infamous Article 6.4 of the treaty on European Union, according to which, "““The Union shall provide itself with the means necessary to obtain its objectives and carry through its policies””." As, indeed, it has, as, indeed, it is, and as, indeed, it will until the EU mega-state is complete or until we, as a country, see the light—or, perhaps, the darkness—and leave the wretched thing behind us. We would expect any information on subsidiarity to at least contain the treaty clauses and protocolon which it is based and some examples of where it has worked. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, could—if I could have his attention—give us examples of areas of our national sovereignty that have been returned to us under it, and examples where a reasonable person might think that the EU should not have taken powers, leaving them to the national Parliament to decide instead. We feel that examples of both those should be put to the people. Before the noble Lord gives us those examples, I remind him of the statement made last month byMr Roman Herzog, the former German President, to the effect that 84 per cent of all German national law since 1999 has been imposed by Brussels. It may not be quite the same figure here, although it is hard to see why it should be different. Our Government refuse to answer the question of what percentage applies here, going no further than to confess that most law affecting our business now comes from Brussels, which is bad enough. Even if we are cautious and say that some 70 per cent of all our national law is now imposed on us by the Brussels system, that should give us all pause for thought. Does that not mean that your Lordships’ House and the House of Commons are now 70 per cent irrelevant, if 70 per cent of our function has been usurped by Brussels? Of course, working here in these splendid surroundings, and with most Members of the other place paid rather more than they might be in real life, it is easy not to see the wood for the trees. That is where our membership of the European Union has brought us, and I would like to know what subsidiarity has done to stop it. At Second Reading on 1 December, I briefly set down, at cols. 1778-79 of Hansard, some of the other basic reasons why we Euro-sceptics so dislike and fear the project of European Union, all of which we would want to form part of the information distributed under the Bill. I will not repeat them now. We hope that this Bill would give rise to open and honest debate on the innately undemocratic system of EU lawmaking, about which most people in this country are simply not aware. We hope that national debate would also be encouraged on the question of exactly what the economic costs and benefits of our EU membership really are—another subject avoided by the Government like a frightened rabbit, perhaps because private independent studies put the cost of our membership at anywhere between 4 per cent and 10 per cent of GDP. No wonder the Government do not want to have to validate that. If the Bill were already law, we would expect it to create some national awareness of how the failed EU constitution is being put in place in Brussels—piecemeal, surreptitiously and illegally. That is not the sort of thing that Brussels or our Government, who are collaborating in this process by refusing to use the veto to stop it, want the British people to know about. Under this amendment, though, we could go to the proposed committee and ask it to publish the fact that articles in the existing treaties are being used to advance the constitution through the back door. One of the main articles being used for that purpose is Article 308, which allows the EU to take power only, "““in the course of the operation of the common market””." Yet this clause is being used to set up the EU’s fundamental rights agency in Vienna and to legalise its fundamental rights charter, a vast new human rights law justiciable in the Luxembourg court. This is the initiative, as noble Lords may remember, that Mr Keith Vaz, when Europe Minister, assured us would have no more force than the Beano, and which the Prime Minister assured us would never become justiciable in Luxembourg; yet the Commission has ordained that all new law must reflect the charter, and the court has declared that it is already deferring to the charter in its judgments. Thus the corrupt octopus advances. Article 308 has also been used to pass control of civil contingencies to Brussels, and even to validate a new €350 million EU propaganda campaign called ““Promoting Active EU Citizenship””. Your Lordships have considered these three abuses of Article 308 recently in Oral Questions, and there have been several Written Questions. To all these questions, the Government offer a wholly unacceptable excuse for not using the veto to prevent them. They have done it again today, in a Written Answer to my noble friend Lord Tebbit, at cols. WA 310-11 in Hansard. They say that before allowing Article 308 to be used, they submit the proposal in question to the scrutiny committees of both Houses. However, those committees are powerless to prevent the Government from going ahead, especially as the Government have over-ridden their reservations 180 times in the past three years. The British public are wholly ignorant of this process and of the other areas that I have mentioned. If this amendment is accepted, the Bill would do much to enlighten them, an aim that the Government say that they share, although I fear that they do not. If it is not accepted, I cannot support the Bill. I beg to move.