European Union Bill

The noble Lord, who is very skilled in these matters, knows that he is putting the question upside down. It is dangerous to halt a cascade, because you may have to divert it, and the cascade that the Bill is designed to halt is the cascade of small competence and power transfers that have been going on over the years in many areas and have caused a lot of people to fear that competence creep—I am sorry to repeat that unfortunate term—and power creep are continuing all the time, allegedly under parliamentary control, but somehow without proper public discussion, and certainly without the consent of the people. The referendum-lock device is precisely to ensure that when the big transfers of competence and power come, they are in a clear package. The noble Lord said that that was the wrong thing to talk about, but that is the way that it will happen, like the Lisbon treaty, and the country will be invited, because of the many items that will involve competence transfer, to have a referendum on them. That is precisely my point. There will be no cascade because, if the Bill works effectively, which I think it will, the great changes needed in the 2020s and 2030s in the European Union, as it adjusts to new conditions, will have to be treated in a substantial treaty that must and will automatically trigger a referendum. That is entirely right and it will offend only those who, like my noble friend Lord Deben, do not like referenda at all. However, for most people, including 84 per cent of the country, or their children, that will be the right way to proceed. It should ensure that some degree of trust, reconnection and support for the great European cause is resurrected. At present that support is fading away very fast. It is draining away in Finland, Hungary, to some extent in Poland and in many other countries. I am not sure that even in Germany these matters carry the popularity and support needed for the kind of reforms we want to see in Europe. This is a very serious matter. I do not say that this Bill alone will do the job of reconnection—of course it will not. We need leadership, articulation and an understanding that giving more and more powers to the centre is an outdated 20th century idea and that the more you accumulate powers at the centre, the more you get public disaffection and remoteness. That must be understood. It must be understood that in this networked age, you do not need centralisation to carry out effective powers. Once that is understood, we will begin to get shapes in the European Union that relate to and connect with the people, as the Laeken declaration pleaded for almost a decade ago. That is why I believe that these exemptions will increase mistrust and take Europe back, rather than forward to the 21st century adjustment needed in the information age, and why I therefore plead with the noble Lord and his colleagues to withdraw the amendment.