European Union (Amendment) Bill

This has been a long and very interesting debate. I thank all Members of the Committee who have participated, not least those who have tabled amendments in this group. I am conscious that I am all that stands between noble Lords and dinner so I shall try to deal with matters expeditiously, although I intend to cover as much as I can in the full and certain knowledge that this is an issue to which we shall return and continue to debate. Although there have been many contributions, for many noble Lords there has been much food for thought as well, which I sense they will go away and deliberate on. I shall set out as clearly as I can the current position. I go back to the beginning and to something that I said at Second Reading. Noble Lords need to have this clearly in their minds when considering the European Court of Justice, a much maligned organisation in many of the contributions. Whether noble Lords like it or not, the European Union is an organisation which needs rules; if you have rules you have to be able to enforce them. The European Court of Justice is the mechanism, put crudely, which enforces the rules. Making it effective as a court is in our interests. It ensures that member states respect the European Union rules—that there is a level playing field, particularly for our businesses in the single market, and protection for our citizens in the rights that they have as members of the European Union. I think it helps to destroy, as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral, said, the myth that somehow we implement and other nation states do not—that we do it properly and other member states do not. When member states interpret and apply European treaties, the court’s role is to ensure that European law is observed. The member states make the law. The European Court of Justice does not make the law; that is not its job. Its job is to interpret the law. We will have fully participated in any law that is made in Europe. The European Union in its competences is able to make laws on subjects only with the approval of the member states. We are not absent players; we are part and parcel of the system. That is really important because it is suggested that somehow the European Court of Justice operates on its own, outside the law and outside the European Council of Ministers, as though it were a body that made law. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Slynn, said, on a previous day in Committee, although the court has spoken and interpreted the law, that law is binding. The Council can change the law and practice. It may not do so very often but it can do so; that is not beyond it.