European Union Bill

The noble Lord used the word ““innocuous””. I do not believe that any of the matters in Schedule 1, which were put there with very careful evaluation and judgment, are innocuous. As I tried to explain last night, there are other areas of unanimity in which a veto could be removed that could be put in the less significant, if not the totally innocuous, category. The list in Schedule 1 is not there by chance, accident or lottery; it is there because each has been evaluated and covers very sensitive issues where there would be a transfer of power. If the opportunity were taken to remove our veto in these areas—not to act, be active or develop policies in the areas—that would surrender an important power, which might greatly damage this country’s future national interest. I appreciate the sensitivity of the issues concerned. I do not want to raise any hopes, but I do not think that the amendments, some of which have been advanced with great clarity and feeling—I shall come to specific amendments in a moment—are an appropriate opportunity to remove items from the schedule. I want to set out as clearly as I can, and as seriously and in as detailed a way as I can, why that is so. Of course, I shall continue to reflect on the points raised in today’s debate. As I said last night and in earlier Committee sittings, I am very happy to meet colleagues who want to discuss and analyse this or any other aspect of the Bill. As ever, I have carefully listened to the Opposition’s wish—I believe it is a central theme—that they want more flexibility. I say ““more”” flexibility because there is flexibility in the whole pattern, as we discussed earlier. In Clause 4, there is flexibility, through the significance provisions. There is flexibility in the sense that all kinds of issues are not in Schedule 1, and those that are included in it are there for very careful reasons. As we shall learn as our discussions in Committee proceed, there is also flexibility in that a number of issues will be suitable, if changed, for an Act of Parliament rather than the application of the referendum lock. That is the flexibility theme that the Opposition have developed. They want, as I understand it, to lift the lock on some matters of competence and power. I do not want to make a cheap debating point—the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, possibly seemed to be indirectly reproving me—but I am not 100 per cent clear where, after all the work in the Lisbon treaty and the huge range of competences that exist in vital areas, about which the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, spoke so graphically, they want us to further extend the EU’s powers. My noble friend Lord Goodhart made it crystal clear, as usual, with the clarity of a fine legal mind—I say that with envy, because I wish I had the same sort of legal mind—where he wanted unanimity to be given up. I want to address his points specifically; he urged that unanimity should be given up—he used strong words, one of which was ““absurd””, about there being any resistance to abandoning the veto in these areas. It was obviously not resistance to operating in these areas—we all want to see all sorts of operations—but resistance to giving up any veto. Schedule 1 lists a number of articles in the treaty on the European Union and in the TFEU on which decisions in the Council or the European Council are agreed by unanimity, consensus or common accord. We all agree about that. I have just made the point, but I shall make it once more, that Schedule 1 is not an exhaustive list of treaty articles where there is a present requirement for unanimity, consensus or common accord. In compiling the list, I repeat that the Government considered carefully which articles to include in Schedule 1 and which to exclude. At the risk of sounding repetitive, it was not a random selection. The treaty articles included fall in broad terms into the policy areas that are considered to be red lines, to which the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, referred. They have been considered sensitive by Governments of all persuasions—this is not a party matter at all—and by the British people, and any proposal to give up a veto would be considered sensitive enough to warrant the application of the referendum lock which this Bill would put in place. I repeat what I said a moment ago: we are not alone in having had a lot of concerns in previous treaty negotiations about moving to QMV in these areas. We have our locks—and we will have more when, as I hope, the Bill becomes an Act—and other member states have their locks of all sorts of varieties. To my mind, as someone who wants to see the European Union receive better support and succeed more in terms of popular consensus than it has done in the past, that is a good thing. The amendments seem to be based on a misunderstanding. The Bill and the schedule do not impact on the use of the articles to which I referred; they merely change the veto procedure. Of course, the articles cover different areas. They cannot help being different—that is the vast scope of the European Union. The articles cover areas such as foreign policy, defence, security, national security and military issues, third-country and international agreements, national economic, tax, fiscal and energy policies, provisions on the EU budget, financial management of the EU, citizenship and elections, social security and employment policy, and issues of membership and enlargement. Saying that those should not be included is not at all the same as requiring a referendum of the people every time we wish to agree any measure under any of those treaty articles. The implication seems to be that, if we do anything under these articles, we are somehow getting into referendum country, but that is not so. The referendum lock applies only if there is a proposal to give up the right to say no and the UK could make a difference to the outcome by so doing. There would be no problem before the UK agreed to act in these areas. The issue would arise only if it were a matter of surrendering the opportunity to say no when something against the British national interest was to be surrendered. Therefore, one is left asking those who want to give up these vetoes why they want to do so. Why should we ever want to do that? What are the powers that we so anxiously need or are ready to give up that would benefit the national interest in the future? Some examples have been put forward but in every case that I have heard this evening they are matters where we can proceed by unanimity. If we gave up the veto, it would be very difficult to see why the countries that we were trying to get to do something that they would not otherwise do, and were resisting by hanging on to the veto, would give up the veto themselves. Obviously they would be asked to give up the veto so that they could be outvoted. This seems to be an extraordinary convolution of the procedures that go on. It explains why countries were ready to give up certain vetoes at Lisbon but have, on the whole, said, ““No more””. Let me turn to the amendments themselves. Amendment 45 would remove Article 19(2) from the Treaty on European Union from Schedule 1. This is the article that provides for the appointment of judges and advocates-general to the Court of Justice of the European Union. The amendment seems to suggest that the Bill—or the application of these provisions—will result in a flurry of referendums on decisions for minor issues. We consider—and I have to state the Government’s view on this—that the requirement for the appointment of both judges and advocates-general should be agreed by common accord and consensus. This is vital to enable the UK to achieve its key policy objective of ensuring that the overall quality and independence of the EU judiciary is maintained. In contrast, to lose the ability to be able to block the appointment of judges in the future would be an issue of some sensitivity and would mean that we would not be able to uphold the effectiveness of the Court or the EU as a whole.