I do not often treasure the words of the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, but I shall treasure his description of this treaty as a straw, because I feel that in the next six weeks we will hear quite different weights given to this treaty by the noble Lord and each time I shall be thinking of that straw.
The cumulative argument, which the noble Lord has made use of to justify the amendment, which was made use of also by the noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, does not wash. We are asked to ratify, or to prepare the ground to ratify, this treaty. We are not asked to give further parliamentary consideration to all the other treaties to which this rubric was not attached. So the cumulative argument cannot wash; nor can one accept that it was only an unfortunate oversight by the various Governments formed by Members opposite who put the Single European Act and the Maastricht treaty to this House and the other place that they forgot to mention that there were some constitutional implications.
I am addressing this simply because it is the noble Lord, Lord Howell, who has proposed the amendment. He has now revealed that the thrust of it is because of the cumulative effect of all the treaties. That will not work, so I argue very strongly that we should follow the practice that we have followed with previous European treaties and simply list this treaty with no qualification and no reference to its nature or style.
European Union (Amendment) Bill
Proceeding contribution from
Lord Hannay of Chiswick
(Crossbench)
in the House of Lords on Tuesday, 22 April 2008.
It occurred during Committee of the Whole House (HL)
and
Debate on bills on European Union (Amendment) Bill.
Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
700 c1416-7 
Session
2007-08
Chamber / Committee
House of Lords chamber
Subjects
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Timestamp
2023-12-16 00:18:19 +0000
URI
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