European Union Bill

My Lords, I wish to intervene briefly on these matters. Although the amendments have been described as probing, I hope that the Government will be able to give a considered response to this interesting set of ideas, particularly the second amendment, which needs attention from the Government. On the most recent Committee day, hopes were expressed that the Government would respond to the constructive suggestions made in a raft of amendments. I hope that the Government will respond in that way today. Ministers are definitely responding in the sense of having discussions outside the Chamber about what might be parts of the Bill in future. I hope that that will continue and people would be grateful for that. Any answers that could be given in the Chamber to take us further forward to make the Bill more sensible, more proportional—to use that important adjective—and more balanced would be very welcome. As an example of messages sent by my noble friends the Ministers, I appreciate that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, kindly sent me a copy of the Daily Express attack that was mounted on his correct and sensible words in the previous Committee session. This is relevant to these amendments as well. I will not quote every word that Mr Patrick O’Flynn wrote in the Daily Express on Saturday 14 May because it would take too long, but he said that perhaps Mr Clegg’s ambition of changing the House of Lords would be justified after all. Although the Daily Express would not normally support that kind of thing—I am paraphrasing—on this occasion he was attracted to Mr Clegg’s ideas because he had just discovered that, "““the current way of selecting peers—appointing establishment time-servers—has turned it into a hotbed of European federalists””," referring to the debates in the most recent couple of Committee sessions. He continued: "““The Lords is now full of people I have always regarded as ghastly pro-EU creatures … turncoats such as Lord Davies of Stamford and Lord Dykes””," Ministers, "““such as Lib Dem Lord Wallace and returnees from the Eurogravy train such as Labour’s Lord Tomlinson. Much of the time they spout rubbish about paying homage to Brussels. They were at it again on Monday””—" that was 9 May— "““turning their guns on this newspaper’s crusade to get Britain out of the EU. Lord Wallace complained about the opposition of the Daily Express to the flying of the EU flag from British public buildings … Pearson reminded the pro-Brussels coven: ‘Millions of people in this country actually welcome the campaign to leave the EU which the Daily Express has started’””." I think that the total number of people who supported the Daily Express’s dodgy little campaign was 370,000, which is one and half times the average size of a London borough, representing the whole nation. That shows how few people actually read the Daily Express. Mr O’Flynn then concluded that the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, "““challenged Dykes to admit ‘that the absence of the European flag on most of our public buildings reflects the wishes of the British people’””."