European Union Bill

My difficulty in answering that question is due to the difficulty that the Opposition have in stating why they want particular treaty amendments and expansions of the powers and competences of the European Union. When we have pressed on this matter, it has been a bit like ““King Lear””: the Opposition seem to want to do ““such things”” and there will be uncertain futures in which new powers will somehow be needed for the European Union. Therefore, they want to amend the Bill by removing areas where the Bill would prevent the surrender of the veto. That would not prevent activity, because a huge range of competences accorded to the European Union allow it to be highly active in all these areas. However, the Opposition want to remove the vetoes on the big decisions. I think that they want a referendum on the euro, although I am not at all sure about the others and I want to go through them as we discuss these matters. The Opposition have not answered that. Why do they want these huge treaty changes, and why do they want the vetoes removed? It seems to me beyond understanding that they should want vetoes removed when so many powers and competences are now accorded to the European Union, and they can do all sorts of things to achieve the kind of Europe that we want in the future. If the Opposition have some new ideas for expanding the powers of the European Union, let them state them, otherwise we are left with a kind of ““King Lear”” situation—they will do ““such things”” as it is too difficult to mention at this time. I want to turn to the 12 decisions in Clause 6, which cover highly sensitive areas. When I heard the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, call some of them trivial, it made me, in the words of Hilaire Belloc, gasp and stretch my eyes. When one looks at the reality of them—their real-world implications—they are anything but trivial. The big five decisions under Clause 6 include joining the eurozone, and there seems to be a general consensus that there should be a referendum on that. Incidentally, I reassure my noble friend Lord Lamont that there is not really a problem there at all. The referendum would take place before the UK took the decision, and the exchange rate would then be struck at a certain point in the middle of the night or whenever it was technically advisable to do so. I think that my noble friend put that in perfect perspective. On the provisions relating to EU common defence, I think I heard the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, say such decisions could not necessarily lead to anything too serious—I do not want to parody him—because it was a complex issue and it might be desirable, I suppose he was saying, to give up the veto or decide to join without a referendum because not too much harm could come from it. That is miles from reality. In fact, under an EU common defence policy—on which we would urge there should be a referendum—we would no longer be able to decide independently which situations and developments we should respond to and which situations represented a threat to our national security, we would lose our ability to decide unilaterally which operations we would mount and it would no longer be our choice alone whether we should act independently or with whom we should act in concert. Of course, in this modern world we will always be acting in concert, but we decide. To say that is in the trivial category seems to me to be taking off to another planet.