European Union (Amendment) Bill

We have debated this amendment for two hours and 14 minutes. I begin by saying that I have been looking forward to our debates, and I have not been disappointed. I say that because assuming that we can keep the temperature down just a little, this debate is already proving to be a fascinating opening to our consideration. I want to say something about how I intend to approach this because the noble Lord, Lord Howell, was good enough to say how he would do so at the beginning of his remarks. I have had the privilege of talking to many noble Lords about the course of our consideration, and I hope that in the six days of debate we will have the opportunity to do what the noble Lords, Lord Howell and Lord Hunt, in particular, but other noble Lords too, have asked for: as far as possible and led by the amendments that have been tabled, we should go through the Bill line by line. Doing so will allow us on many occasions not only to have high-quality debates about particular issues, but also to question, as noble Lords have begun to do today, the issues that lie at the heart of some of the divisions between the different Benches of this House. That comes down to questions such as: what this treaty amounts to when considered in detail; how different it is, or not, to the constitution that was put before; whether that should have been put down, as my noble friend Lord Kinnock, who is not in his place, said, as a constitution in the first place; or as we look further forward, whether that should have led to a referendum based on the genuinely held view of some noble Lords that that was a commitment which should be kept to because there is no fundamental difference. I hope that scrutiny of the treaty will bring forward all the issues of detail that will enable those noble Lords who have not yet reached a decision to do so. I have to say that all the contributions I have heard today reflect the strong views held by noble Lords in one direction or another. None the less, it is important that our colleagues who do not have strong views have the opportunity to hear what is good or bad about this treaty in other people’s minds and eyes. At Second Reading I made a promise to the noble Lord, Lord Howell, that I intend to keep. I have 50 pieces of paper covered in quotations, many from leaders of other European states and from all over the place. I do not intend to use them. I intend to quote only Members of your Lordships’ House and another place. I pay great tribute to, and will use substantially, the reports of the European Union Select Committee in another place, the committee in your Lordships’ House and the Constitution Committee. All of these reports have been quoted and, alas—as my honourable friend Michael Connarty said in the Commons—misquoted from time to time. If I can encourage noble Lords to stick to using those we know and those who can stand before us and tell us what they meant when they wrote what they wrote, I think our debates will be substantially better. I am not going to resort to quotations from a variety of leaders and I would welcome other noble Lords’ agreement that that is a substantially better way forward. For the purpose of this short contribution, I am going to concentrate on the amendments before us. I am not doing that in order to run away from the bigger questions.