European Union (Amendment) Bill

I was smiling to myself when the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke, said ““slagging off””, because I used the word ““impugn”” when I was trying to think of a posh word for slagging off. That is what I came up with, with the help of my noble friend Lord Bach. I apologise for smiling when that was said. I love the idea of the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, being the fluffy end of the debate. I will try to be brief, because I think that everything that needs to be said has been said. The first time that we have the opportunity to consider as a group of 27 states the possibility that a member state might wish to leave is through the Lisbon treaty. It is right and proper that rules to enable people to leave should be properly considered in the treaty and delivered appropriately. The noble Lord, Lord Stoddard, is not completely right in saying that repealing the 1972 Act is all that has to happen. That is true for domestic law but, as a consequence of being part of the European Union, we have entered into treaty agreements of many different kinds from which we would also have to withdraw. We would have to do so in a way that did not detrimentally affect our national interests. We need to consider that. The decision to leave the European Union is for the member state and the member state alone. It is its decision to do so. There is no question of seeking permission to withdraw, which noble Lords might have been concerned about. It is simply about notifying that the member state has decided to withdraw. The European Council would provide guidelines for withdrawal, and the Union would negotiate an agreement with the withdrawing member state because, as noble Lords will be aware, there are issues to be resolved beyond treaties, such as what happens about arrangements for Members of the European Parliament from nation states, for officials in the Union institutions from the withdrawing member states and so on. There are people who would need to be considered in that process. Making sure that was done properly and in an orderly fashion is important. There may be financial implications, as noble Lords have said, of not contributing to the European Union. Equally, there might be financial considerations of other kinds. It is important to have a mechanism that could ensure smooth withdrawal. Noble Lords can be reassured that the decision would be for the member state. In our case, the repealing of the 1972 Act would be the domestic way in which we would do it, but there would be much more to do. This sets out a process to make that happen as smoothly as possible. I hope that we would never leave the European Union, but—as I hope noble Lords will agree—if a member state chose to leave, this is a very good way of making sure that it happened properly.