European Union Bill

I accept that. I note that I had already crossed out the words ““Act of Parliament”” in my notes in anticipating that comment. Unfortunately, in the excitement, I put those words in, so I take them out again. However, when we come to the minutiae, there may be some qualification even to what I am saying. I want to try to explain why shortening the list is not the right thing to do, and to deal particularly with the passerelle provisions, on which the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, commented with his enormous expertise and hinterland of understanding of these things, having been in at the creation of not all the passerelles—some have existed for many years but never been used—but of those that we dealt with in the Lisbon treaty, which we had first seen given birth to in the constitution, which unfortunately came to a sticky end. I say as a preliminary that all this discussion about referendum requirements against treaty changes and for certain decisions where no treaty change is required, and for giving up vetoes—in other words, allowing the right to be outvoted on certain issues—takes place against a background of huge areas of existing power and competence in the European Union. When one thinks of the enormous range of areas where the European Union can legislate, and where we can develop all kinds of positive ideas and initiatives to enable it to deal with entirely new global conditions of the 21st century, I am always left a little bewildered that we should come back again and again to the probably, I suspect, fairly marginal areas—these may be very small areas indeed—where there is supposed to be a tremendous yen for new treaties and extending the competences and powers of the European Union. These are areas in the margin of the real world of the European Union, where many of us have been involved over many years, and where enormous tasks have yet to be carried out which do not require yet a further extension of the powers and competences of the European Union. I say that just as background; I want to come back to that point in more detail a little later on. I turn more specifically to the amendments. Of course I am very pleased that the signatories to the amendment have accepted the principle that a decision on whether to join the euro is of such fundamental importance that the people should decide. I have argued before—Ministers have argued, the Government have argued and the Bill argues—that the referendum requirement is a vital part of rebuilding trust with the British people. We perfectly accept the point made by the Constitution Committee of your Lordships’ House that referenda should not be used, as it put it, as a ““tactical device””, and that referenda should, as we argue, be used for more critical issues of fundamental importance. We therefore come down to a central question running through all this debate—what are the critical issues? What are the fundamental problems and matters on which it would be right for people to be consulted before powers are pushed away or—whether through treaties, various procedures, the passerelle device or simply a decision of this Government—they decide to give away a certain power or move in a certain direction? We begin with a puzzlement as to why the other one-way irreversible decisions in Clause 6 that we are talking about and I shall come to in detail are considered any less important in the minds of noble Lords than the euro. I find it difficult, as do a number of noble Lords who have spoken with great precision and accuracy, to conceive that the monetary independence of the UK should be considered essential to our national identity and economic interest—an argument apparently accepted by the supporters of the amendments—but not the UK’s military independence and commitments to NATO, if it were decided to establish a common EU defence that might well conflict with those commitments. We have held many debates in this House in the past four or five years about the dangers of that. Why consider just the euro but not the impact that joining the European public prosecutor’s office could have on the UK’s judicial independence, as my noble friend Lord Faulks clearly emphasised. I want to refer to that in much more detail. I note that the previous Government opposed that. The present Government are against it. Many of the Nordic countries think that it is an extremely bad idea. There is very little support at all for the proposition. Yet the suggestion that there should be a safeguard against what would be a major incursion into the criminal justice system in this country is not seen as important. I cannot give all the details, because I know that there are different views on this. What about the UK’s ability to police its own borders? This is a red-hot issue, yet for some reason it is not included in the list. Allow me to elaborate on some of my remarks. A decision on whether to join a common EU defence is fundamental, as it could result in a common EU army—the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, said that that may not happen immediately; but it could happen—and in giving the EU the power and legal right to decide on the deployment of UK civilian and military assets in a way that is not the case with NATO. It is of course perfectly true that operational command is under an American supreme commander, and that on the battlefield decisions and powers may be taken that can subordinate British forces to others. However, the suggestion that we should move in a new direction and be aligned with some of the European Union’s ideas is a new departure. These would be huge decisions on which the British people should decide that are discussed on the doorstep. It is reasonable to suggest that Parliament and the people are entitled to ask what extra benefit would be bought by moves of that kind. The UK has long valued its NATO membership and key bilateral defence relationships within Europe, of which the treaty with France announced last summer is one. The UK also values existing mechanisms for security and defence co-operation within the EU. Bilateral and multilateral co-operation is an essential part of our approach in the UK and to wider international defence—as has recently been shown in Libya and earlier off the coast of Somalia, through Operation Atalanta. All that is going on; all that is thoroughly sensible; all that is within the operational activities of the European Union and I find it hard to see why an advance into a completely new area of power delegation and power transfer should be brushed aside. It would be a major development. I turn to the issue of the public prosecutor, because a good many comments were made on that. It is coalition policy that we will not participate in the establishment of any European public prosecutor. We know that it is a sensitive issue, as was recorded by the House of Lords Select Committee on the European Union in its 16th report seven years ago. It is perfectly true—the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, spoke with great expertise on this—that Article 86(2) provides only for the European public prosecutor to combat crimes affecting the financial interests of the Union. Although that is so, the participation of the UK in a European public prosecutor would mean giving up control of a fundamental part of our judicial system: the decision on who can be brought for prosecution in this country. That is not a small matter. That is a vital principle. As Article 86(2) states, a European public prosecutor, "““shall exercise the functions of prosecutor in the competence courts of the member states””." In other words, a European public prosecutor would have power to prosecute in those member states within the prosecutor’s jurisdiction. In England and Wales, it is the responsibility of the Crown Prosecution Service to decide whether to prosecute and whether to take over any private prosecution, so powers granted to a European public prosecutor would cut across that well-established principle. As the noble Lord, Lord West of Spithead, when a Minister in the previous Government, informed this House: "““The Government have consistently opposed the creation of an EPP””.—[Official Report, 1/3/10; col. WA325.]"