European Union Bill

My Lords, I was going to go through one or two. Certainly Serbia will serve the purpose. A number of countries in the region, for one reason or another, went to war. It was only when a different kind of future was offered to them that they began to think about the alternative future that their children might enjoy which did not involve shooting each other. I understand, in debating the amendment, that the issues that I have raised are not supported everywhere or by everyone. I take the point of the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart: I regard the movement of labour in a free market as broadly beneficial, but I know that not everybody thinks so. Many people have expressed anxieties about it. This has been one issue that has come out of part of the accession. I believe that, broadly speaking, it has been economically advantageous to Europe rather than the contrary. However, I accept that many people who expressed anxieties were dismissed in a trivial way or saw their anxieties given grudging attention. Probably that did not serve the argument well. Some people may have felt that changes of that kind were sufficiently profound that they wanted a say in the decision through a referendum. More than that, I suspect that they felt the need for some sort of shout about the overall size of the EU. For all that, were they to contrast the prospect of having a referendum on those questions with the ideas in the Bill about having a referendum on many minute, technocratic and in many instances unintelligible provisions, probably they would think that some of the issues raised by the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, were more important than others. It would be foolish of us not to recognise that. I suspect that some of the same arguments could happen with the Turkish accession. Let me be clear that we—certainly I do—totally support it. I welcome the dynamism that it represents. I also have no hankering for a Europe that is built around a single religious tradition—a view which has been expressed by many of the Eurosceptics and, indeed, in some European capitals. It would be a huge gain to see Turkey as a full member of Europe. It is absolutely right, as the noble Lord, Lord Tomlinson, said, that it has always played a fundamental role in the Council of Europe. This would be a huge gain for Europe in a much more profound sense—a Europe that is welcoming and able not only to cope with, which is probably too derisory a way to put it, but to embrace a major secular but also Islamic nation with a capability of bridging the interests of Europe, the Middle East and the Caucasus and bringing a great deal to stabilising the discussion right around the southern and eastern flank of Europe. Whatever the merits that I might express about it, I know that those merits have been accepted by all recent United Kingdom Governments. However, there remain people—it has been something of a cause in France and Poland, for example—who believe that Turkish accession would have a major impact on the style and culture of the European Union. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, described it as the ethos of the European Union. I look forward to these evolutionary changes regardless of whether others have expressed doubts. However, among those who have expressed doubts, some will probably feel that there will be an impact on them—a greater impact than some of the things that will be subject to referenda under the Bill’s provisions—and that they are not being asked their opinion. The Minister will probably want to explain to the House the difference in approach and the apparent irrationality of the circumstances in which people will be asked for their view as between the different kinds of categories of issues at stake. The amendment draws the wrong conclusion. However, it cannot be said that the issue that it raises is inconsequential. Nevertheless, as I said at the beginning, we are opposed in principle, and we are. It would be better to remove the requirements for so many of these trigger clauses for referenda without providing any compelling definitions of issues of major constitutional importance and without an independent means of confirming the compelling nature of the decision. It would be very helpful if the Minister could also comment on the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, about what would happen were there to be a number of countries seeking accession at the same time. I will not invite him, however, to develop a new theory of AV which might allow for multiple voting—an outcome which probably everybody would fail to understand. I can also see one other great risk in the kind of referenda that this amendment calls for, and that is in the area of producing campaigns which could very well be xenophobic and draw out the worst in relations between those seeking entry to the European Union and the domestic community of the United Kingdom, not least because many of those communities already in the United Kingdom are dynamic and vigorous parts of the society of the United Kingdom. The tensions that could be produced by that kind of approach would be quite unacceptable. I also believe that accession does not transfer powers from the United Kingdom and that the House would do itself a considerable favour by recognising the beneficial characteristics of the growth that we have seen, a benefit which will unquestionably continue. As we look across the whole of the achievement of a peaceful European Union, I suspect that that will be seen historically to be one of the better departing points in our history.