European Union Bill

My Lords, some time ago I was given a copy of a speech made by a former Comptroller and Auditor-General of the United Kingdom, Sir John Bourn. I put it in a plastic folder and kept it on my desk so that I could produce it the next time someone was so foolish as to raise the question of the qualification of European Union accounts. The noble Lord, Lord Stevens, has hit the jackpot today. He is the recipient of the message from Sir John Bourn, who confirmed in June 2006 that, "““if the UK had the same system as the EU, he would have to qualify all 500 UK expenditure accounts rather than just those where he thought there was a problem (13 in 2005)””." He went on to say: "““It is worth noting that the accounts of Britain’s Department for Work and Pensions, which is responsible for distributing pension and other social security benefits, have been qualified by the National Audit Office for each of the last 18 years””." Nothing has changed since 2005. "““Fraud and error in the payment of UK benefits amounts to an estimated £2.5 billion a year—that is substantially more than the £224 million that is thought to be fraudulently taken from the EU””." I thought that that was worth reading into the record, so that it is absolutely clear. Every time we debate Europe, the canard is produced about a Europe riddled with fraud, as if our example is somehow the perfect one that the rest of Europe should adopt and follow. The European Union Bill arises from the section in the coalition programme on Europe, in which the Government said that they would, "““examine the case for a United Kingdom Sovereignty Bill to make it clear that ultimate authority remains with Parliament””." Yet the Government in their response to the House of Commons European Scrutiny Committee said at paragraph 6: "““The Government has never claimed that Parliamentary sovereignty is currently under threat in relation to EU matters. We would agree that, to date, the UK Courts … have rebutted arguments that EU law has an autonomous entrenched status in UK law and have recognised that EU law takes effect in the UK through Acts of Parliament””." The Government continued, having already demolished the argument about UK sovereignty, to proceed to a Bill that includes Clause 18. In a further report to the House of Commons Select Committee, when they had quoted three main sources for their concern, the Government said: "““Although none of these sources has in any way undermined the operation of Parliamentary sovereignty in relation to EU matters to date, we do think that there is a need to put the matter beyond speculation for the future””." So this was not a real problem for today; it was an imaginary problem for tomorrow. Yet, when they were pursued further—this is my last quotation—they went on to say in a rather paranoid state of mind that Clause 18 had been included in the Bill to, "““address concerns that the doctrine of Parliamentary sovereignty may in the future be eroded by decisions of the courts””." Here we have yet another example of the paranoia that is developing in the coalition about the courts. First, it was about the European Court of Justice; then it was about the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights; and now there is this fear that courts in this country may, at some time in the future, exercise an unreasonable power over what they consider to be parliamentary sovereignty. I view Clause 18 as unnecessary in its totality and I hope that the Minister can find persuasive, cogent reasoning to convince us why your Lordships’ House should not seek to delete it at a later stage. During discussion of the Bill today, we have witnessed a rather sad scene: a rather unhappy and lonely duo on the Front Bench. They are usually such a happy couple, but we have had the noble Lord, Lord Howell, looking fairly miserable and the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, doing his best to raise a smile once in a while. It is not surprising that they are looking discomfited, however much they are wedded and welded together by coalition politics, because today they have by and large been abandoned by the Conservatives—apart from the noble Lord, Lord Sheikh. I always listen to the noble Lord, Lord Sheikh, with interest, but, with respect, he gave a rather eccentric constitutional interpretation about binding your successors. Apart from that, they were abandoned by the Conservatives, rather disowned by the Liberals—with the exception of the noble Baroness, Lady Nicholson, who, I thought, tried to play both sides against the middle—and found no support on either the Labour or the Cross Benches. That is a unique achievement even for a dynamic duo such as the coalition’s Robin and Batman on foreign affairs. They have managed to find precious little support anywhere in this House. Even if they were reasonably confident of getting support from the usual suspects on Euroscepticism in this House, they have found that, as we already knew, they were not going far enough to placate any of them. We have an EU Bill under which there are only two real issues. There is the so-called referendum lock, on which I shall not have the impertinence to say anything, because the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe of Aberavon, demolished it in his remarkable speech earlier. The other part of it is sovereignty, which has not found a friend in the House, as far as I can see. We have Parts 1 and 3. If I followed my instincts, I would possibly get into trouble, but my instincts are that the Bill needs two main amendments: ““delete Part 1”” and ““delete Part 3””. Then we could have a vote on Part 2. That would make it a Bill that would get unanimous support not only in the coalition but in the whole of the House. That is one possibility. The case for the hierarchy of referendum locks has been destroyed and Clause 18 has been shown to be a sham. Today’s debate has shown that everyone in this House is out of step with the government Front Bench. From the Liberal Democrats, we have had remarkable speeches from the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, and the noble Lords, Lord Taverne, Lord Maclennan and Lord Dykes, among others. From the Conservative Benches, we have had remarkable speeches from the noble Lord, Lord Brittan, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe, and very interesting contributions from the noble Lords, Lord Plumb and Lord Bowness. From the Cross Benches, we have heard from the European trio of the two Davids—the noble Lords, Lord Williamson and Lord Hannay—together with the noble Lord, Lord Kerr. From the Labour Benches, each of my colleagues who has spoken has made an impressive contribution.