European Union (Amendment) Bill

The noble Lord made a number of important points. It is absolutely correct for him to say that there are a number of blurry edges and unanswered questions. He very properly mentioned a number of them, including the salary, the role of the proposed EU president and of the External Action Service, and defence co-operation. The noble Lord’s argument for a six-monthly report is rather overtaken by the important points he made that the relationships are in any event in a state of perpetual flux. He talked about the informal politics of the European Union. I am sure that he would agree that in any constitution there is no settled position, like the final struggle in the great ““Internationale””. There is no final struggle. All constitutions are by nature dynamic; none are in fact static. We may be interested in parliamentary accountability, but that will not be done in one six-monthly report—it will be a continuous process. That is the important point about this. There will be constant modifications. We will be part of the debate which leads to those modifications. We are part of the European Union. We do not have bilateral relations with the European Union; it is part of ourselves. Much of the development will depend on matters such as the personalities of the individuals who are there, the external matters that confront Europe and the challenges we face—for example, matters in the External Action Service, such as the pressures on our own budget in terms of the foreign diplomatic service and the extent to which we want to co-operate. That important point has been made in earlier debates by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace. There will be continuous modification. It is therefore impossible to reach an end-point. It is important that we ensure an active role for national parliaments. I have acknowledged that there are questions about how the proposed role will work out in practice. In conclusion, the key fact is that we must ensure parliamentary accountability. There is a moving target and therefore there should be a continuous form of accountability.