European Union Bill

Labour did not oppose the Bill overall, but it certainly urged that we should scrutinise it and that, by heavens, is what we are doing. No doubt we will be doing a good deal more of that. With this legislation, we are, in our view, plainly acting in the spirit of the Laeken declaration, which noble Lords will remember urged that we should seek to find ways, which are widely recognised throughout the whole of the European Union, not just in this country, to bring the processes of the Union and its legislative procedures closer to the people. That was 10 years ago. It urged us to act on that basis. It seems to me timely—if anything, a little tardy—and certainly appropriate for the era in which we now live that we should bring forward legislation on which, we hope, we can build an architecture of faith and commitment to the European Union for the future and a building that we hope will last although, obviously, we would not like to see—we will be debating this later—future Governments remove the foundation stones from that architecture and destroy it. That would be a pity, but it will again be a matter of opinion and debate. The Bill is put forward with that kind of faith and intention in our minds. Frankly, calling it a fraud on the public is a deeply regrettable statement—deplorable, in my view—and not at all in line with the tone of debates in this House of Lords. I think that it is a pity that people should speak in that way. I want to come to the core issue in the debate. The simplified revision procedure allows the European Council to decide to make amendments to the part of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union that concerns internal policies. That is what the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, stated quite clearly. This is the Article 48(6) issue. The noble Lord said that the treaty changes under the simplified revision procedure are not allowed to transfer further competence from the UK to the EU. Here I hesitate, because I am going to challenge the viewpoint and authority of the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, and many others, but certainly the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, who is a great expert. After all, he was, I understand, rapporteur of the European constitution, which came to, I am afraid, a sticky end, but he has vast expertise. However, it is possible to transfer further powers from this country to the institutions of the EU. The potential for a substantial amendment to be made under this mechanism means that we should treat, logically, changes under the simplified revision procedure in the same way as we would treat other types of change. I was challenged again and again about what sort of things are involved. I have a long list of powers in the past, present and future that will be affected by the transfer of powers.