European Union (Amendment) Bill

My Lords, in my few remarks this evening I shall address three aspects of the Bill: first, whether we should ratify it; secondly, how the decision on whether it should be ratified should be taken; and, finally, leading on slightly from the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Owen, some of the implications of Clause 6, the most interesting part of the Bill. Today we have had many hours of interesting debate about the meaning and implications of the treaty. For weeks and months we have had interesting debates about the implications of different bits of the treaty, but we are moving to the point where those discussions come to an end. We have to decide whether we in this county actually ratify it. We cannot reverse engineer it; it is a package. We have to take it or reject it in its entirety. In my view, the treaty contains good parts, bad bits and bits that I am not sure about. Some parts I think that I understand; others, I am not so sure. But it is no good me standing here like some doubting Thomas. Like everyone else, I have to take a view about the whole. On balance, I say, ““Yes, we should ratify it””. Against that background, and in the context of the world and the circumstances that we all find ourselves in, how as a nation should we take that decision? In particular, should there be a referendum? Looking at the strict constitutional position, I think that there is no stipulation that there should be a referendum. One problem with referenda in this country is that their use has been contaminated by the deliberate and cynical obfuscation of the first perpetrator, Harold Wilson, between high principle and low politics. Essentially, the referendum has become, at least on one level, a device used by besieged Governments to save their skins. It is always said that you will use a referendum on only the most important topics. From a Government’s point of view, the great—and cynical—advantage of that is that, if they happen to lose the referendum, they just go on as before, as if nothing had happened. That is not right. There is an indissoluble link between the Government’s ability to implement their programme, their majority in the House of Commons and their continued existence. If it is decided that in certain ways our constitutional arrangements should be changed so that important constitutional and public policy matters are decided not by Parliament but by referendum, it follows as night follows day that the loss of a referendum on such topics should be treated as a vote of no confidence and a general election should ensue. Indeed, if we as Parliament do anything other than that, we are becoming a patsy of the Executive. That would be very wrong. The problem now is that current politics seems to have been completely destabilised by the muddle bequeathed to us by Harold Wilson and the ensuing invocation of the mantra ““referendum””. No one knows, as is clear from the debate today, quite where they stand. Contrary to the proposition at the time that the referendum would bring closure, it is becoming increasingly clear—I speak as an ex-MEP who has spoken at countless meetings about EU matters—that the effect of the referendum was to give those who disliked the result the view that, if only they could somehow get another referendum, with one leap they would be free. It would be just the same had the result of that referendum gone the other way. We cannot go on like this, somehow trying to deal with the question of EU membership by surrogate. We have been in the European Union for a longer period than that between the death of Queen Anne and the battle of Culloden. While it is sometimes difficult, we have to work in the European Union from the inside. That is precisely what my noble friend Lady Thatcher did, when she was Prime Minister, at Fontainebleau. She got what we wanted. We need clarity about the rules and principles. I do not disguise the fact that I am a long-standing believer in representative parliamentary democracy. If we are to have a referendum—I am not necessarily against that, although my instincts are to the contrary—let us enshrine the principles in statute, just as certain matters have been enshrined in Clause 6 of the Bill, so that everyone knows where we stand. Given that there is no constitutional requirement for a referendum, should there be one? I am a Conservative, for which I make no apology, and I start from the Conservative proposition that, if there is to be a change from normal and established constitutional practice, the case must be made for change. In the present circumstances, I do not think that the case has been made. It has been said frequently this evening that many people want a referendum, but it is equally true that a lot of people do not want a referendum. They think that we are here to decide what is, by any measure, a difficult issue. Perhaps I may quote from the report of the European Union Committee, which says at paragraph 2.6: "““The Lisbon Treaty itself is, however, a complex document, not easily accessible to the people whom it affects, and this is likely to be an obstacle to informed debate as to the merits of the Treaty””." Many people think that this is a very important issue. It is a very difficult issue and they do not want to be treated as if it were ““Celebrity Big Brother””. I believe that people in this country are entitled to expect that significant legislation will not be dealt with capriciously by our system and that it will be carried out in accordance with ordinary constitutional arrangements, unless and until procedures are changed. I do not support, and I do not believe that the British people support, a kind of Harold Wilsonian dodging and weaving to see a way through the muddle. It is also said that the Government pledged a referendum on a different treaty, albeit a somewhat similar one. This may come as no surprise to some noble Lords, but I do not consider myself to be bound in any way by a Labour Party manifesto pledge. In conclusion, I find myself at variance with my party on this issue; I very much regret that, but I am afraid that it is so. However, as I intimated in my opening remarks, I think that in many ways the most interesting aspect of the debate in the other place and of the Bill concerns Clause 6, which introduces binding provisions in statute, constraining the way in which any future Government will deal with certain opt-outs and possible changes to the way in which the European Union works. That is a very important development. I have some sympathy with the noble Lord, Lord Owen, and believe that we might move from using a resolution of both Houses, which has the one, supreme advantage that the Parliament Act does not apply, to effecting those changes by Acts of Parliament. As no Parliament can bind its successor, I see no reason why one should not opt out of the Parliament Act in those circumstances. We all know that one of the great problems in this country about our membership of the European Union is that many of our citizens feel alienated from it and many of our national institutions, not least the national Parliament itself, feel that there is a division, wider than that between Dives and Lazarus, between them and the European Union institutions. If the kind of provisions contained in Clause 6 can be developed further, there is a real chance that we might be able to reduce that divide, lessen the alienation and bring them together. Clearly, we cannot have a system where Parliament binds the Government to a voting mandate, but in certain circumstances we can have a relatively simple process that gives Parliament a quick and accessible lock over what the Government are doing in the Council of Ministers. I would like that aspect to be examined in a little more detail to see whether it has wider application. If we could do that, I believe that there is a real chance of increasing the acceptability of the way in which the European Union works in this country. The great magic of that would be that we could effect those changes without in any way affecting our relationship with the Union itself, so it could be carried out in a completely separate and solely domestic piece of legislation.