European Union (Amendment) Bill

I do not wish to detain the Committee for long, but I would like to comment on one or two things said by the noble Lord, Lord Leach of Fairford, in moving this amendment. When the noble Lord came before the Select Committee to give us evidence, we were pleased when he told us that it was hard to object to the principle of recognising population in the voting system. Indeed, we were so pleased with that remark that we quoted it at paragraph 4.56 of our report. On the more substantive issue to which the noble Lord referred—the weight of the United Kingdom in the new voting system—there are two points to be made. As to building up a majority—and we are normally in the majority—our weight will go up from 8 per cent to 12 per cent, so we will have 50 per cent more weight when we are trying to build up a majority to get something agreed. When we come to blocking, there is a dispute. The noble Lord is quite right. Open Europe, in its report, states that the UK stands to lose nearly 30 per cent of its ability to block EU legislation in the Council. On the other hand, others, including the Government, consider that the UK’s share of a blocking minority will increase from 32 per cent to 35 per cent. Therefore, there is a dispute on this matter. I happen to accept the views of the Government, which were supported by others. There is another point. At the moment, it is necessary to have only three member states in order to have a blocking minority. That is increased under the treaty to four member states, which could be argued to disadvantage us in some way. However, we were impressed when a former British representative to the European Union, Sir Stephen Wall, told us that the current minimum of three member states to form a blocking minority was a mistake, because it is not often that we are in league with two other large member states in wanting to block something. He did not think that the minimum of four would be significant in terms of undermining the British ability to block. I do not believe that the changes in the Lisbon treaty in this respect are significant and, therefore, I do not believe that this amendment deserves support.