European Union Bill

My Lords, if the purpose of this Bill were gesture politics, with no outside effects, then perhaps it would be possible to go along with it. However, the provisions proposed in this amendment are reviewable by a Government and are by no means gestures alone. They are bound to have a significant effect on the ability of our Ministers negotiating in the Council to decide issues of massive importance to the people. We have been told that none of those issues will be considered by the people in the lifetime of this Parliament so the Government appear to be putting on ice any questions about improving the efficacy of the working of the European Union until the end of this Parliament. My noble friend who opened this debate said that a subsequent Parliament could amend this Bill or throw it out. He is right, but he also said in an earlier debate that the Government have no intention of using this Bill in this Parliament. If that is the case, why are we having to legislate at all? It seems to me that the appropriate time to do that would be in the next Parliament if that is when these measures are supposed to bite. The notion that we are legislating for the future in this way is bound to have almost no effect on public opinion beyond putting up scaremongering notices about the possibility that after the next election we will all collapse in a heap and be walked over by our fellow members of the European Union. That is guaranteed to make the issue of Europe a very divisive one at the next election. The amendment of my noble friend Lord Goodhart seems to be eminently sensible. It has not been rejected by another place. It is new and it is not merely differently phrased but differently conceived. I supported the sunset amendment as it was drafted but I am happy to support my noble friend’s revision. It would allow Ministers to decide, in the light of the circumstances at the time, whether the issue before Europe and before this country was of such massive importance that it would be inappropriate to prepare a referendum. My experience of dealing with European matters in Parliament suggests that debates are long and thorough about European issues. The public are made completely aware, by debate and deliberation, what the issues are. Surely some of those who are supporting this Bill must remember the debates on the Maastricht treaty—the hours after hours in which Members of Parliament considered these matters. To suggest that the public were not aware of it is simply to deny the facts of history. The noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke, suggested that this was a wrecking amendment. It is not—it is an amendment that enables the Government of the day to decide whether the national interest is better served by legislative process—by debate, as we had over Maastricht—than by having a prolonged debate in public leading to a referendum.