European Union Bill

My Lords, I have a great many objections to this Bill under three broad headings. The first is the constitutional damage this Bill would do if it was enacted. I totally agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Garel-Jones, has said but, as he said himself, this is not the moment to go into that as we shall have other opportunities on amendments relating to referenda in Clause 18. Secondly, I am concerned about the honesty of the Bill. I made the point at Second Reading that although it purports to offer referenda on a vast range of potential subjects, it seemed quite clear that there would in practice be no chance of referenda ever taking place on some of these secondary or tertiary issues and that the Bill is therefore something of a fraud on the public. I am quite concerned that there is another fraud going on here, which I will come to in a moment. Thirdly, I am concerned about the practical implications of the Bill and there I agree again with what the noble Lord, Lord Garel-Jones, just said. The noble Lord, Lord Kerr, made it absolutely clear in moving his amendment that there is a serious discrepancy between the way that the Bill was presented as protecting the British public against any further concessions of power to the European Union—the entire rhetoric was that there will now be this block with a referendum—and the inclusion of decisions made under Article 48(6), which quite clearly and explicitly excludes any extensions of the powers of the European Union. In fact, we have been offered a Bill with so-called protection for the public against a threat but which includes a provision that, by definition, could not form part of that threat. One has to ask why that has been done. Is it a matter of drafting carelessness? Surely not; the references to Article 48(6) are absolutely clear and deliberate. There are several of them throughout the Bill. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, and his co-signatories to the amendment have gone through the Bill and addressed them wherever they arise. There is clearly a deliberate intention here to go beyond what is in my view—I know it is a value judgment, but it is my view—the already extreme rhetoric with which this Bill was presented. The reality is even more extreme and one has to ask: why is that? Why is there an intention to have a referendum on matters which, by definition, cannot involve increasing the powers of or conceding capabilities to the European Union? I hope that the Minister will address this issue, as I cannot imagine that we could have an honest debate on this subject without it being explicitly addressed. I also hope that there might be more contributions from the Lib Dems in the course of debate on this set of amendments. I suspect that a lot of Lib Dems were dragged, kicking and screaming, into supporting the notion of the Bill on the basis that all it did was to provide for a referendum in the event that further powers were being conceded to the European Union. In fact, the Bill that has come up is much more restrictive and goes far further. I do not know whether every member of the Lib Dem party has appreciated the significance of explicitly including Article 48(6) as it is being done, or of what that means. It puts much more of a brake on the European Union’s day-to-day activities, which I will come on to in a moment, than was ever suggested in announcing the intention to move forward with this legislation. It is particularly important that the Lib Dems, both in this Committee and in the country as a whole, have an opportunity to think really carefully about Article 48(6) before they decide what their ultimate attitude is towards the Bill. It would be artificial if we did not hear from more Lib Dems in the course of our proceedings, including on this amendment. The third issue that concerns me about the Bill in general—I come particularly to the issues covered by this amendment—is its practical consequences. Before we pass any legislation, it is terribly important for this House to think through what its practical consequences will be. If you are sitting on a board of directors at a business and deciding whether to take a particular decision, you think pretty carefully about its practical consequences. You may ask your support staff and so forth, or you may ask legal advisers or other outside advisers such as management consultants, ““What would be the consequences of our doing X, Y and Z””? You ask people, come up with as many possible answers as you can and weigh them carefully before you decide on the balance of advantage or disadvantage in going forward or not. It is important to look at particular cases. Since the Government have set out for us in Schedule 1 the sort of issues which would require a referendum under the Bill, at least by way of an illustration which is not exhaustive and does not exclude other issues, we should think through in the course of the Committee’s proceedings what would happen if this Bill became an Act and was now on the statute book, and practical decisions needed to be taken in any of these categories. I shall take a few at random, without taking up too much time. Take, for example, Article 77(3) on, "““provisions concerning passports, identity cards, residence permits etc.””." Some people would say, ““We’re not part of Schengen so that doesn’t concern us at all””. If that were the case, why would we need a referendum on the subject? It baffles me. One can well imagine a situation in which we could not cut ourselves off from, let us say, immigration issues in the Schengen area. We remember the problems that we had with Sangatte, with a large number of illegal immigrants from France concentrating themselves in Calais with a view to trying to steal through the Channel tunnel in one form or another or on to ferries and come into this country. It was a serious practical problem for us. There was no point in using philosophical arguments to deal with it; it needed to be dealt with in a practical way. There are many possible scenarios that one can imagine where we will need to sit around a table with our partners and come to a sensible agreed solution to deal with, let us say, a massive and difficult immigration issue or threat that has suddenly arisen.