European Union (Amendment) Bill

I start by saying how much we welcome the noble Lord, Lord Leach of Fairford, stepping in to move this amendment on behalf of the noble Lord, Lord Blackwell. I am led to understand that this is the first amendment that he has moved in this House; to do so at 10 minutes to 10 after a long, heavy day of Committee work demands more than is usually required. I congratulate the noble Lord, although I shall not agree with him. I hope that that does not come as too much of a disappointment or surprise to him. His amendment would exclude the provisions in the Lisbon treaty that set out the new double majority voting system from having any effect in UK law. To us, this a key institutional reform introduced by the treaty and one which means that decision-making will become fairer, reflecting more accurately the relative population sizes of the member states and, at the same time, increasing the UK’s voting weight. We believe that the new system will ensure more effective decision-making in the enlarged EU. As it is based on population, surely it is more transparent and fairer than the current QMV system. As has already been said by the noble Lord, Lord Roper, our share of the votes in the Council of Ministers will rise substantially from 8.4 per cent—that is, 29 votes out of 345 under the incredibly complex Nice system—to 12.3 per cent. The treaty of Lisbon updates the EU’s institutional structure to reflect the fact that the EU now has 27 member states and faces new global challenges and opportunities. Frankly, effective co-operation in the EU will be essential in meeting those challenges. The treaty updates the EU’s institutional structure in a number of different ways, and we have discussed some of them tonight. That structure was designed for a different era and we believe that the changes will enable Europe to act more effectively. It is in our country’s interest to see more effective decision-making in areas such as energy, the environment and counterterrorism. It is not in our interest to see gridlock as an EU of 27 becomes, it is hoped, even larger in the future. While considering the merits of a voting system, we have to bear in mind that a single member state is only as strong as the coalition of which it is a part. The benefits, or otherwise, to the UK depend as much on the change to the strengths of other countries as to the UK. By way of example, Germany, which was referred to by the noble Lord, will, as the largest member state by some margin, be the biggest beneficiary of the move to a voting system based on population. Thus, in votes where the UK and Germany are on the same side—as we tend to be, for example, on budgetary issues—DMV is in the UK’s interest not only because our vote increases but also because the German vote increases too. Under the new system, it will be simpler to update the voting weights if and when new member states join. Because we will have in place a system based essentially on population, rather than prescribing each country a specific number of votes, we will not need to renegotiate the system every time a new country joins. That could be particularly important as Croatian accession moves closer. It is part of a sensible updating of the institutional framework of the Union to equip it to act more effectively in pursuit of shared interests. It has been alleged by some—the noble Lord referred to this—that double majority voting would reduce our blocking power. I have seen figures, and they have been mentioned today, suggesting that our blocking power would be reduced by some 30 per cent. Those figures are discredited. Those who used them quoted from a paper published by academics at the London School of Economics in June 2004. One of the authors of the paper, Professor Machover, has made it clear to us that, in his view, under the new voting system the UK’s relative position will substantially improve. The Select Committee, under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, who is in his place, concludes: "““The new system for calculating a qualified majority is more equitable and takes more account of population than the current QMV rules, and the revision is significant””." The committee also repeated: "““The UK’s voting weight increases from 8 per cent to 12 per cent””." Finally, we have analysed situations where the UK has recently been in blocking minorities on sensitive issues, such as on the soil directive, the payment services directive, the 2008 Community budget and the European fisheries fund. In each and every case, I am advised that we would have also been in a comfortable position to defend our interests under these new rules. We step, then, into the field of qualified majority voting. I hope that the Committee will agree that it is really too late to start a debate on that—on its virtues or otherwise—tonight. However, if there are members of the Committee against qualified majority voting in principle, it is important to remember that the first use of it was in the treaty of Rome; it was extended further by the Single European Act. The Government recognise, as we did at Nice—and as our predecessors did in the Single European Act, and at Maastricht, which followed it—that, as the Union grows in size, decision-making by unanimity can become more difficult. QMV can make that easier. The example, of course, is that the single market could never have been built, nor would much legislation have been passed on, for example, the environment, market liberalisation or reform of the common agricultural policy, without QMV. With the greatest of respect, I will quote the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, who said in this House, long ago now, in 1993: "““We would never have got the single market without an extension … of majority voting … we wanted a single market, and we had in fact to have some majority voting””.—[Official Report, 7/6/1993; col. 562.]" I hope that—