European Union Bill

My Lords, I will speak to the long list of the amendments in this group. Because some amendments in the group have been changed since they were debated in Committee, I hope that I will be forgiven if I say a little about them. The broad case for this group of amendments remains that which was referred to by many noble Lords at Second Reading and in our debates in Committee: it is the belief that the long list of potential referendums is excessive and disproportionate, that it does real damage to the structure of representative parliamentary democracy and that it needs to be shortened. I do not know how on earth the Government arrived at a list as long as 56. Some earnest people have discovered even more in this legislation. Indeed, why stop one short of where Mr Heinz got to? The amount is quite excessive and would have a disproportionate effect on our constitutional practice. What it amounts to is massively increasing the number of potential referendums in one area of policy while not doing so in any other area of policy. It is completely unbalanced in its approach. The amendments that I and other noble Lords have tabled today reduce the number of areas that would be subject to a referendum mandatorily if they were pursued separately, one by one. I will come back to the point about what happens if they are pursued collectively later on. In these amendments we have tried to take account of the debate in Committee. The noble Lord, Lord Howell, who was the Minister on that occasion, spoke about the big five and attached a lot of importance to their being the subject of a referendum. I and other noble Lords listened carefully to that speech and have taken considerable account of it in the way in which these amendments are cast. When we discussed it in Committee, we only suggested that there should be an explicit referendum requirement for a decision by Britain to join the euro and that other matters referred to in Clause 6 should not be so treated. However, we listened to what the noble Lord said in the debate, in particular the great importance that he attached both to the question of any move towards military co-operation and to the question of any move on border controls—that is the Schengen treaty, which, of course, does not apply to this country at the moment. Therefore, we have recast these amendments in such a way that, if they were passed, while there would be a considerable reduction in the number of referendums that potentially would need to be held, there would still be a referendum requirement if we were to decide not only to join the euro but to move decisively in the direction of military co-operation. Here the amendment is more precise than the extremely woolly wording of the Government’s own Bill, and makes it clear that what the Government and their supporters were talking about was the circumstances in which defence co-operation moved to an area that involved the setting-up of a European Union force or structure. That is the way in which it is now cast and it suggests that this would definitely require a referendum. The addition of the Schengen provisions requires less explanation; it is fairly straightforward. Britain has had an opt-out since, I believe, the Amsterdam treaty, and it is not suggested that that could be shifted other than after a referendum. These changes show that those of us seeking to amend the Bill are listening carefully to the debate, in Committee and indeed on Report, and are taking full account of points that have been made from the government Bench on this matter. I hope that on their side they will reciprocate that spirit of compromise. It is quite important to emphasise one or two negative points about the amendments: things they do not do. First, the removal of a mandatory referendum requirement for a whole long list of things in Clause 6 but not for the euro, Schengen or military co-operation does not mean that they would not under any circumstance be caught by a referendum requirement. The noble Lords, Lord Howell of Guildford and Lord Wallace of Saltaire, have told us on a number of occasions that, in their view, most of these issues will come up not separately but in a group. As has been the case in the European Union in the past—at the time of the Single European Act, of Maastricht, of Amsterdam, of Nice and of Lisbon—they will come up as a wide range of amendments on different and disparate issues which will be brought together in a single new treaty. By definition, the British Government will be willing to agree to it because, otherwise, none of this would happen at all. If they objected to such a package, there would not be such a package. In the circumstances where a package was taking shape and being supported in principle by a British Government, and where one or other of these issues which we are suggesting should not be the subject of a separate referendum requirement were part of that package, it would be caught by Clause 2, which we are not suggesting should be changed. If one of these issues, such as the question of the public prosecutor or all the other list of issues which it is suggested should be dropped from being dealt with individually as a referendum, were to become part of a package, that would not then mean that it was exempt from a referendum—quite the contrary. Because it was part of a package being taken forward under the normal treaty revision process, as it is called, it would be caught by Clause 2. The exemption from a referendum is merely if it is dealt with individually. I do not want to get into a guessing game with noble Lords on the government Bench as to which of the two is more likely. They have said on quite a number of occasions that they believe that the overall-package approach is the more likely if the European Union were to move to change its treaty again, in which case they have nothing to worry about. Nothing will differ from what they wish to see, because, if any of these issues which we are suggesting should not individually be dealt with by a referendum were incorporated in such a package, there would be a referendum and they would be dealt with in it. That is a fairly important negative point to note. The amendments are a great deal less far reaching than noble Lords might think when looking at them on the paper before them. The second negative point is that those proposing the amendments, as we explained when we discussed them in Committee, are not seeking to move back from the referendum requirement in the Bill to the simple situation that existed on the basis of the legislation which this House and another place adopted at the time of Lisbon; that is, where such changes would require merely a positive resolution in both Houses. We have accepted the Government’s wish to ensure primary legislation—that is, the full works in both Houses—if any of the changes were to be approved by Britain following a decision by the British Government that they were in Britain’s interest in the first place. Again, I emphasise that none of these matters will come before any House unless that condition has been fulfilled. Far from weakening Parliament’s powers, in proposing the amendments we are strengthening them, because Parliament will now have the role of passing primary legislation or rejecting it, depending on which way it goes, and there will not be a return to the Lisbon arrangements. I think that is pretty important. Those who move these amendments argue that we are strengthening Parliament’s powers over the handling of changes to the treaty, not weakening Parliament’s powers—as the Government would—by giving referendums the possibility of overruling a view reached not only by the British Government but by both Houses of Parliament. Frankly, that is a pretty radical constitutional innovation. The amendments move in the opposite direction, towards a strengthening not a weakening of the powers of both Houses. The third negative point is that nothing in these amendments cuts across or undermines any commitments by any of the major parties in the last election or those contained in the coalition agreement. None of those texts envisages the ““Heinz minus one”” number of referendums; they all envisage a broad statement that when the treaty is going to be changed, there will be a referendum. That is preserved by these amendments because if there is the normal treaty reform process, that is what will happen. For all those reasons, we are trying to introduce a bit of the proportionality which noble Lords on various Benches have called for in the last few weeks of debate on the Bill. We have done something to limit the damage to the system of representative parliamentary democracy—which all of us, not only those who tabled these amendments, hold dear—if this Bill passed unamended. I hope that, after debate, the House will support the amendments. I beg to move.