European Union (Amendment) Bill

It may be helpful if I follow my noble friend Lord Blackwell as my name is on Amendment No. 126, which follows his Amendment No. 125 to which he has just spoken. The wording my colleagues and I have used on the amendment reappears often in the Marshalled List. Its purpose is to ensure that whatever amendment we pass into the Bill—and I very much hope that we will eventually pass my noble friend’s amendment—actually bites, and that the wording of the original European Communities Act cannot be used to circumvent whatever we decide in the Chamber. I am afraid that, without our amendments, that is the position. I am sure that I do not need to remind your Lordships of the whole of Sections 2 and 3 of the European Communities Act 1972, but can paraphrase it. Section 2 for the first time passed the power of the British courts to the Luxembourg Court of Justice. The particular part of the 1972 Act which I fear should go on record in your Lordships’ proceedings—Section 3(1)—reads as follows: "““For the purposes of all legal proceedings any question as to the meaning or effect of any of the Treaties or as to the validity, meaning or effect of any Community instrument, shall be treated as a question of law (and, if not referred to the European Court be for determination as such in accordance with the principles laid down by and any relevant decision of the European Court)””." In other words, from then on the European court ruled. Our amendment would exclude those words from any amendment that we may pass to the Bill. Secondly, my contribution to the debate will be to ask the Minister two questions, which I asked her in writing and which she has not yet answered. I think they will help to inform the Chamber about whether this really is a constitution. I will end by making a third suggestion which I hope will allow the House better to understand these proceedings. The first question which I wish to put to the Minister has achieved the distinction of being No. 2 of the unanswered Written Questions. I asked Her Majesty’s Government what is the legal status of the European flag and anthem in the United Kingdom and in the rest of Europe. That is an important question because I understand that the only difference of any substance between the constitution upon which a referendum was promised, which the Dutch and the French voted down, and the treaty which is now before us is that the flag, the anthem and Europe Day have been left out. It would be helpful if the Minister were to answer that Question, bearing in mind that the flag and the anthem are used all the time and the fact that they are being left out of the constitution does not mean that the flag will be pulled down or that Beethoven can be relieved by no longer having his wonderful music abused in such an unfortunate cause. What is the legal status of the flag and the anthem and what is our relationship to it? Secondly, I asked the Minister two Questions to which she was good enough to reply but which she did not answer. Those Questions were answered on 28 February. I asked Her Majesty’s Government: "““On which areas of United Kingdom national life the European Union is not able to legislate””—" that is, now—and, as a sort of second barrel to that Question, I asked Her Majesty’s Government: "““On which new areas of United Kingdom national life the European Union will be able to legislate if the Lisbon Treaty is ratified””." I was asking what there is in our national life that the Brussels system of law-making cannot touch. She did not answer. She gave the same Answer to both those Questions, which was: "““For the first time the Lisbon Treaty defines the Union’s competences, setting out where the EU can and cannot act””." That is not an answer to the Question. She continued: "““These competences are set out in Article 2(12) of the Treaty of Lisbon— … pages 52-55—presented to Parliament in December 2007. The treaty explicitly states that competences not conferred on the EU remain with member states””.—[Official Report, 28/2/08; col. WA 133.]" The trouble is that if you look at pages 52 to 56 of the treaty of Lisbon, you are left asking the same question: what area of our national life can the EU not touch? I will not go through it all now. Your Lordships can read about the exclusive competences, the shared competences, the internal market, industry, culture, education and civil protection. It goes on and on. It is very difficult to find what areas are left out, especially when one bears in mind the justice and home affairs element of the new treaty and the common, foreign and security element. I did not intervene further in the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, because I felt that the mood of the House was that it was time he moved on and into the future. However, I remind him that as regards the international obligations to which he says we are subject and which deprive us of our sovereignty—I think that he mentioned NATO, US bases here and so on—we can leave those tomorrow if we wish and they do not make the majority of our law which we do not want. I repeat that the basis of our constitutional settlement is that the British people elect and dismiss those who make their laws. We have now come to a situation where the majority of our national law is made in Brussels and imposed on this Parliament by the Brussels system. To make matters worse, under this treaty we now grant legal personality to the new Union. I am assured in Brussels that that is regarded as the jewel in the crown when the court gets going. As other noble Lords mentioned, there is the passerelle clause. The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, is right—the treaties which went before this were all constitutional. It is true, unfortunately, that my former friends in the Conservative Party got it wrong in not granting a referendum on the Single European Act, the Maastricht treaty, Amsterdam and Nice, which many of us in this House tried as hard as we could to get. I repeat that five wrongs do not make a right and we in the UK Independence Party are prepared to welcome a sinner that repenteth in the shape of my former friends. My helpful question for your Lordships—I hope—is to the Minister. I reach it by quoting another of my favourite quotes on why this treaty is indeed the same as the constitution. It is from Mr Karel De Gucht, the Belgian Foreign Minister, and it goes as follows: "““The aim of the constitutional treaty was to be more readable; the aim of this treaty is to be unreadable ... The Constitution aimed to be clear, whereas this Treaty had to be unclear. It is a success””." My final question to the Leader of the House is: can she help us with this? Surely it would be reasonable for the Foreign Office to produce for your Lordships for the rest of the proceedings on this Bill a very simple index of the treaty of Lisbon, so that when we come to debate a subject we can look it up in the index and find it in the treaty without having to wander all through the previous treaties, all through what is left of the constitution, the renumbered documents and the total confusion that surrounds the examination of what is before us. I do not know whether any other noble Lord would care to support that request, but there are armies of people in the Foreign Office who no doubt have such an index at their fingertips, because otherwise they have to go to their computer to look up where something is in the treaty. If that index could be made available to all noble Lords, I am sure that it would facilitate our proceedings.