European Union Bill

Perhaps your Lordships would welcome it if we began to come to the end of this enormous debate. I agree with my noble friend Lord Lamont that the effect of this debate has been to clarify our differences, particularly the concerns of noble Lords opposite, about the Bill, and the worries that lie at the centre of their anxieties. I do not want to parody what the noble Lords, Lord Liddle and Lord Triesman, have said again and again. They wish for more flexibility, and by ““flexibility”” they mean the readiness to agree to or even initiate treaty changes. They further argue that in some of its provisions—notably Article 48(6), but in others as well—the Lisbon treaty provided this flexibility, which somehow the Bill is reversing and putting back in the box. I think that that is a fair summary of where they stand. I question straight away whether they have got the Lisbon treaty quite right. We know that using the passerelle provisions requires a treaty change, and in a life experiment, not a laboratory experiment, we have seen how that is conducted. It is conducted through some very elaborate negotiations on an urgent issue that will not be solved by any immediate policies to hand—namely, the stability of the European financial and monetary system—and, to meet that, a treaty change is winding its way through the system and will take one year and three-quarters to come to fruition and be agreed. So that structure, that passerelle arrangement—which, incidentally, was as noble Lords know very well, an agonising compromise between several other suggestions at the Lisbon treaty negotiations—is certainly not a quick solution, a flexibility device, an emergency provision, which somehow the Bill is negativing. That is not the pattern. Then we come to the broader question of whether treaty changes generally are synonymous with flexibility. I have considerable difficulty with the line taken by the Opposition. Not only does it take 18 months to two years to work up and elaborate treaty changes and get them agreed between the 27 members, which all have their own procedures for handling these matters, going through their own legislatures and constitutional arrangements and, in many cases their own referenda arrangements as well, but this seems to be a very poor response, a very poor kind of flexibility and a very poor pattern of responding to emergency and difficult issues. As I understand it, the implication of the amendments, which extend the exemptions to a very wide range of issues, is that it would be nice to be ready to have treaty changes in an enormous list of things. We dealt with banking and financial regulation in the previous group of amendments, and I would be testing the patience of the Committee if I went through that again. However, these amendments deal with climate change, pollution, energy security, migration, cross-border crime, neighbourhood policy, maritime law, piracy and human trafficking, about which my noble friend Lady Williams spoke with such precision, knowledge and telling appeal. In all those areas, as I understand it, the amendments would like to see treaty change. I wonder whether the Opposition realise quite what they are asking for; it seems extremely doubtful that treaty change is the way to solve crises or problems in any of those areas. The amendments appear to have been drafted on the assumption that the Bill is trying to impair the UK’s role and participation in all these areas. They take no account of the fact—and it is a fact—that the existing treaties which extend enormous areas of competence to the EU already afford the European Union ample scope—I shall show in detail why this is so—to legislate in all the specific areas referred to in all the amendments. If I were to go through that vast list now, we would be here till well after midnight and probably the early hours of the morning, so I cannot do justice to every aspect. But let me try to show how, in many of these areas, the competences are there. The need to plunge into this complicated area of treaty change is minimal; the opportunities for creating a highly effective European posture and policy are available within the existing competences and the existing absolute competence in particular is available to the EU in trade questions. Let me explain some of the points where this is so. Perhaps I should begin with referenda generally and the concern that a multiple stream of referenda lies ahead if the Bill gets on to the statute book. That, I think we have established, is nonsense. Far ahead, a great new treaty could touch on a number of the issues we are looking at tonight. But the idea of a stream of referenda, which I know noble Lords in many cases dislike intensely, is unrealistic. In two highly eloquent pieces of oratory in two debates, my noble friend Lord Deben has let us know that he does not like referenda at all. That is my impression from listening to his words. He is perfectly entitled not to like referenda at all. However, he must face it: they increasingly creep into modern government, particularly in this internet age when 2 billion people, out of 6 billion on this planet, are on the web every morning. This obviously empowers people and leads to more consultation of public opinion than ever before in many democracies. It goes with parliamentary representative government; it does not undermine it, provided it is handled in a sensible way. I query what my noble friend Lord Deben said—although I hesitate to do so because his eloquence is mighty on these matters—about the British people not liking referenda. A survey last year by the European Parliament election study found that 81.4 per cent of people in the United Kingdom agreed that EU treaty changes should be decided by referendum. That is a lot of people. I love the bravery of people like my noble friend Lord Deben who stand up for their own views, even when they are those of 10 per cent, 15 per cent, 5 per cent or even 0 per cent of people. That is fine—let them do so. However, to say that the British people as a whole are against this sort of approach, in the right way on the right occasions, is just not correct. I turn now to the various issues that have been raised by these amendments. Climate change was first on the list. Several noble Lords expressed the concern that we need some new treaties for the EU to be more effective in this area, and that we did not do too well at Copenhagen. The treaty package that we have now was ample for the European Union to act on behalf of member states at Copenhagen. It did not do so for all sorts of detailed reasons, of which I suspect my noble friend Lord Deben and others who follow these things closely are well aware. We might need new treaties only if, for instance, the EU conceived the idea of a pan-European carbon tax or something like that. Is that something that we want to see? Is it not something that we would wish not only to examine in our Parliament, but to be part of a package that should be put to the British people? It would be a very brave person who suggested that something like that could just be put into a treaty and dealt with by means of some parliamentary Act and no more than that. Energy is a more interesting area still. A great deal of debate took place across the Floor on energy issues. A new competence on energy was added under Article 194 of the Lisbon treaty. The Bill would not affect that at all. Climate change is specifically covered under Article 191 of the TFEU, and is therefore already covered by the treaties. Article 191 on Union energy policy, which my noble friend Lord Wallace has already quoted, aims to promote the interconnection of energy networks. Article 170 of the TFEU says that, "““the Union shall contribute to the establishment and development of trans-European networks in the areas of transport, telecommunications and energy infrastructures””." My noble friend Lord Deben is right. The need in Europe is for interconnectors. There is, at times, plenty of electricity and gas available across the whole of continental Europe, but it is in the wrong places and the transmission systems are inadequate. If there are difficulties with our Russian friends, while there is gas in some areas, other countries are cut off completely. Transmission systems are needed. However, I contend that the way to get those transmission systems and interconnectors in place is to work through elaborate co-operation within the treaties. If one wants delay, start on a new treaty. Start that elaborate two-year process, which will lead to endless negotiation, argument and compromises. At the end of it, I would place a strong bet that we would have fewer interconnectors, pipelines and trans-European electricity grids than we would through proceeding by the complex, but nevertheless available, degrees of co-operation under the existing treaties. The next item on my list is piracy, on which the noble Lord, Lord Davies, spoke extremely eloquently. He is right that this is an extremely serious issue. I was recently in Norway where people told me that they were losing one ship a week. There is no doubt that this is potentially an extreme danger in the entire Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden. Indeed, the coast of Somalia and the whole east coast of Africa could become a no-go area. The EU already operates in a cohesive way under the CFSP. My noble friend is right: the border issue is being addressed through a whole range of international bodies, including the UN. It is all co-ordinated highly effectively under British leadership through the Bahrain contact centre. Matters concerning common rules of engagement are fairly well harmonised although more resources are needed from all sides. The Chinese and the Indians are contributing and the Americans have patrols but we need more resources. We probably need more aerial surveillance, perhaps even UAVs. Above all, we need more effective treatment when pirates are caught in terms of deciding who imprisons them, convicts them and holds them. That is a very difficult issue involving careful negotiations with Kenya and Somalia, although there is not much hope on that front, and Somaliland, where things look better. Again, I can think of no better way of delaying the urgent measures that are now needed than by setting out on a new treaty and a two-year treaty process to try to get co-ordination between the navies of the 27 countries. I am completely baffled by the approach of noble Lords who think that plunging into the complex area of changing treaties through these devices would meet urgent problems; it would not. It would mean a lot of argument and delay and certainly would not meet the problems concerned. We need a more co-ordinated approach among the nations of north Africa. The European programme has so far been somewhat marred by different views within the European Union on the whole question of the degree of intervention needed. There is no doubt that the powers are there; all one needs is agreement between the parties to develop with other countries—the United States and in the Middle East, and perhaps with the African Union but certainly the Arab League—more effective support systems to follow up that happy day when we see peace and a settlement again in Libya and, indeed, in the other countries where Arab revolution has taken place. I heard mention during the debate of the need for more flexible rules on immigration and asylum. Perhaps they are needed but, again, the proposition that treaty changes are needed and should be brought forward as part of some large treaty-changing pattern to solve these problems seems to stretch credulity. Treaty changes are not the answer to the great problems of developing a more effective European Union in this very complicated world where the entire pattern of power and influence has changed and shifted eastwards and, indeed, has dispersed to the millions of people now operating through the internet and modern information systems. I just cannot conceive that in some dire way this Bill is standing in the way of the necessary array of treaty changes which will be needed. As I think the architects of Lisbon hoped, a new treaty may arise in the longer-term future, but that is some way ahead. It may be five or 10 years away. It could be a very big package indeed designed to adjust the European Union to the new international landscape, just as my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary is seeking, through his speeches in the network world in which we are now operating, to adjust the position of the United Kingdom and the whole European Union stance in relation to Asia, Latin America, the emerging powers and Africa. The rising, looming power of China probably needs adjusting for as well. I would not rule out the need for a treaty five or 10 years ahead. When that treaty comes, it will contain many issues that involve extensions of competence. It might even contain issues that involve the retreat of competence, but the extensions of competence will be there. Extensions and transfers of power will probably be there, and that treaty, in the view of the coalition and of 84 per cent of the British people, will require a referendum. That is what some—I admit, not all—of us argued for over the Lisbon treaty. That is what the Government agreed to over the constitution for Europe, which was the predecessor of the Lisbon treaty, and that is what most people in the United Kingdom want to be reassured about. To make certain that that happens, we must have an admittedly elaborate and complex set of arrangements to ensure that all kinds of transfers of power and competence do not creep under the radar or take place without proper transparency and consultation of the British people after the necessary parliamentary Acts have been passed.