European Union (Amendment) Bill

I welcome all movements on this front. In fact, the curious situation is that the British Government, through the mouths of the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, are urging that the European Union should look at its biofuels policy again. The noble Baroness indicates that some second thoughts might be starting to develop, but the EU Commissioner concerned has said very bluntly that he does not see any connection at all between biofuels policy and rising prices. A number of other quite blunt assertions have been made that if this policy changes at all, it will not be by much. It is therefore not wise for the Government of this country or the government of Europe to commit to an elaborate new legal base to confer further restraints or further centralisation on these vastly complex areas. We need the co-operation of our neighbours through the interconnector, and the enlargement of the French electrical interconnector was one of the things that I authorised in the early 1980s. However, we do not need a lot of further rules and regulations of the kind proposed in the Bill. The Opposition should be strong to anything that will damage the flexibility and existing co-operative arrangements which have worked reasonably well but are about to be tested most vigorously by the coming energy crisis. On the biofuels issue, even the noble Lord, Lord Stern—now a Member of this House, and the apostle of climate change and the need for renewables and so on—warned that Europe was on the wrong track. If we do not have the strength and the freedom to see that others are on the wrong track and to develop our own pattern and perhaps encourage others to develop theirs, if we bind ourselves by these new regulations and provisions, we are making a grave mistake for the future. We will look back in your Lordships’ House and see that that is what we have done. In the mean time, because the Minister has given certain assurances on the QMV side—and I would like to examine those more carefully—I am prepared to think about this again and perhaps return to it on Report. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. [Amendments Nos. 71 and 72 not moved.] [Amendments Nos. 73 to 78 had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.]