European Union Bill

My Lords, it might encourage your Lordships’ House to hear that I do not intend to talk about piracy; I seek to talk about the amendments that deal with the environment and climate change. These differ from earlier amendments. I disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, as it seems to me that most of the areas that he covered were unique competences of the European Union, whereas we are now talking about a number of areas where there is joint competence. I say to my noble friends that if we were arguing that the British Government felt that we had sufficient powers in the European Union to do most of the things that we wanted to do, if we saw no reason to extend powers, and if the Government were going to commit themselves not to do that, I would have real sympathy with that. If the Government went on to say that there might be occasions on which we have to go along with things that seem to be sensible extensions, I would have sympathy with that too. However, I find entirely unacceptable the concept that we cannot go along with anything unless we have a referendum. I find that unacceptable with regard to the environment, for the reason that I gave when I interrupted the noble Lord. Many of the issues about which we are talking are almost incapable of admitting a question of the kind of which a referendum admits. I do not like referenda. As the Committee knows, I am opposed to referenda on any grounds in any circumstances. I am a believer in parliamentary democracy. One of the sadnesses of this Government is that they have betrayed what seems to me to be a fundamental part of our constitution. Referenda have always been used in partial circumstances for particular reasons. Napoleon III was the best user of referenda before General de Gaulle. This is a foreign activity much disliked by sensible people in the United Kingdom. I yield to no one in my dislike of referenda. They are always partial and always undertaken for a particular reason. The provision that we are discussing is included because the Government want to make it difficult to do anything in this area. The noble Lord, Lord Pearson, thinks that this is not so. The difficulty is that the Government speak in different ways to different people. They say to some people, ““This is a wonderful step forward for those who are Eurosceptic””, and to other people, ““This does not matter very much anyway because we are not going to need it””. Therefore, I find it very difficult to take this debate seriously. However, it is crucial with regard to environmental issues. I have one or two suggestions as to why that is the case. For example, we are going to have a real issue with the transfer of electricity across the European Union. The superconductor systems, which will enable us to pass electricity very fast without losing power, will be very important in enabling us to meet our energy requirements and the requirement to cut the damage we do to the atmosphere and to mitigate climate change. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, does not believe in climate change. He is a sceptic on a wide range of subjects. It will not therefore worry him, but it worries me considerably if we cannot do something about this The problem with the superhighway that the plan creates is that it needs to pass over national boundaries. For example, if we are able to produce a lot of electricity from the almost permanent sunshine in Morocco and pass that into the European Union, it has to go through Spain and then France to come to northern colder climes. The French are not, at the moment, disposed to take this electricity because of their commitment to nuclear power. Therefore, we may need some additional competence of the European Union to make sure that this fundamentally European matter can be carried through. Are we really going to have a referendum asking whether the people of Britain are in favour of a superconductor system that enables Moroccan or Spanish electricity to move to northern Europe and Denmark? Is there a question that could sensibly be presented to the British people? I do not think that there is, and furthermore no sane Government would want that. This Government will tell us that that will not be necessary and that somehow or other under the present mechanisms it will be possible to get this scheme. If that is so, your Lordships would agree that if this Bill is to help people to be less cynical about the European Union, what could be more productive of cynicism than the argument that when you get such a thing, you can find a way round doing it? That is extremely difficult to accept. There is a second reason. Why does Britain often find a way of looking at things differently from the rest of the European Union? It is because we have been lucky and blessed enough to have had 1,000 years of history with only one revolution and no invasion. The one invasion that we had in 1066 was enormously important, because it stopped us speaking ““Skogalog”” and taught us to speak English. It was hugely valuable, and thank God we lost. Apart from that, we have had an evolutionary system. The problem with the Bill and this particular bit of it—and why these amendments seek to change it—is that we are denying the European Union the ability to evolve. We are saying that these things can be decided only by some massive change and that we must have a vote of the British people on subjects as limited as those that we are talking about. We should be doing the opposite. We ought to be encouraging this great European Union—the most important thing that has happened in peacetime to anywhere in the world for 100 years. This great European Union must develop by evolution, not by having this confrontational system whereby, once you feel it has gone too far, you must have a referendum, even if it is on a totally unsuitable subject.