European Union (Amendment) Bill

We really cannot have a sensible debate on the treaty if we take the view that any amendment that attempts to probe the meaning of particular phrases is out of order because we have to accept it all en bloc or not. Whatever the intention of any of the amendments may be, we should take the purpose of this debate as being to explore the meaning and impact of the treaty and whether it is something that the UK should be satisfied to sign up to. On that basis, it seems to me that there are two interesting points in the amendment. First, there is the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, on the effectiveness of economic, social and territorial policy and the meaning of the word ““solidarity””. I agree that there are great failures in the way in which that policy currently works; there are many better ways of achieving the objective of helping the poor countries in the European Union develop. The amendment exposes a broader point. If I understand the numbering, it refers to the consolidated treaty’s Article 3—to which I referred in my Amendment No. 125, which we discussed before dinner—which sets out the objectives of the European Union. Following the response of the Lord President to that amendment, I am now confused and concerned about the status of these objectives in their totality, of which this is one element. Is the wording critical in terms of how the courts might interpret the objectives and how the competencies of the European Union might develop? Should we study them carefully or are they a meaningless preamble which we can disregard as simply the high-flown rhetoric of the European Union? The Lord President’s earlier response suggested that the wording of the objectives may have a very real impact on the legal status of legislation in the European Union and the scope of what can be done in the UK. The noble Lord, Lord Pearson, has picked out one particular aspect of the article, but we need to understand exactly the implications of all the objectives set out in it and the extent to which they may have an impact on the UK.