EU: UK Membership

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord McNally for introducing this debate. I wish to highlight some of the issues around the environment and climate change. It is surprising that now over 60 per cent of European directives concern the environment, environmental protection and improvement, because it is a relatively recent development that puts the environment so at the heart of so much European policy. In 1987, the Single European Act really brought about that change, introducing some of the important principles such as ““polluter pays”” and requiring environmental protection to be incorporated into all Community policy. In 1992, the Maastricht Treaty required the Union to act where it could be more effective than member states, and it asserted the precautionary principle. The good reasons why the environment should be dealt with at a regional level became far more obvious with events such as Chernobyl, acid rain and the pollution of rivers, many of which run through more than one country. Those made people realise that pollution does not respect national boundaries. It was not just pollution—birds and fish migrate, and the protection of biodiversity and all those things began to make member states reflect on how much more effectively they could act together as a body and bring in directives such as the habitat directive. Perhaps where we have failed, certainly nationally and I think in the European Union, is to engage with people on why those changes have come about. People do not question now when they go to the seaside why they are not swimming in sewage, but there was the bathing water directive. The fact that people no longer go round Europe asking whether it is safe to drink water from taps has something to do with the directives on water. In this country, we still have to learn a lot about the regulations that we introduce emanating from those directives. You only have to go around the food markets of France, Italy or Spain or the small shops to see just how wrong we have got food regulation in this country in terms of encouraging the small business and the small producer. Of course, environmental protection has had to fight against some of Europe’s biggest mistakes in environmental terms. There has probably been no bigger environmental disaster than the CAP, which was introduced for very different reasons in 1962 to underpin food production. Its consequences for the environment have been disastrous; overproduction, exhausted soil, fertilisers that run off into the water and so on. Similarly, the common fisheries policy has left fish stocks in Europe’s waters facing wipe out or a crash. As other noble Lords have mentioned, neither of those two disastrous policies are being reformed at the speed at which they need to be reformed. The common fisheries policy needs to be integrated with the marine strategy, but that aim is not yet being taken seriously. The CAP reforms ought to be completed by 2013, based on the principles that the outcomes need to be rural development and environmental protection. It is for those ends that the forthcoming CAP reform health check will be extremely important. The noble Lord, Lord Hannay of Chiswick, mentioned the success of REACH—Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals. Those regulations were finalised in December 2006. They did not make a big impact with the public, but the fact that the chemicals industry has now agreed that chemicals that cause cancer, infertility, genetic mutations and birth defects, and those that can accumulate in the environment, will be replaced with safer alternatives over time is an immense step forward. The new European Chemicals Agency will have information about suppliers across the EU. It will create a level playing field in those industries and is a model of how environmental protection can sit comfortably with new technologies and create a better trade in cutting-edge products that harm the environment and ourselves much less. However, climate change, which many noble Lords have spoken about, is the tremendous challenge facing us. It is a European-scale and a global-scale challenge. It is cheering that the Kyoto Protocol survived at all at a European level and that the EU has introduced a range of policies and targets to help member states. That has set a global precedent, and perhaps the European Emissions Trading Scheme could be forgiven some of its faults for at least getting that discussion going on a global stage. What is depressing is that the Commission can set those targets and do its best, but when it comes to the political will to implement them, member states are still lacking. The fact that member states were willing to grant far-too-big allowances and thereby undermine the scheme was a big lesson. Unless member states, including the UK put their will behind a common EU energy policy—such as that being undertaken by South America which is leading the way and talking and thinking positively of the of benefits such a policy—then all of that talk of targets will be undermined at a national level by member states trying to find easier ways of doing things. There is no easy way when it comes to climate change. Recently, the EU set a target that 20 per cent of European energy consumption should be met from renewable resources by 2020. It is a tremendous opportunity for the UK and I know that the Minister is well aware of the opportunity that it offers for marine renewable technologies. The UK is in a unique position in Europe to realise that opportunity—possibly followed by Portugal—but the UK is in by far the best position. If we were to grasp that opportunity, we would lead Europe and the world in those technologies. Many of the targets set with the aim of tackling climate change also offer us tremendous economic possibilities. From July this year, consumers will have the legal right to purchase gas and electricity from any supplier in the EU, and we will have a functioning internal market for energy. Although it seems incredible that we do not have an overall energy policy with each member state playing its role and playing to its strengths, but pooling knowledge, resources and those strengths to fight climate change. Joining up energy policy and putting each member state’s shoulder to the wheel is an issue that the UK must lead and put its enthusiasm behind. That is the only way we will be able to fight climate change. The EU has a big role to play here and I hope that we play our role within that.