European Union (Amendment) Bill

I am extremely grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate and to the Minister for her response. A number of arguments have been put against the amendment. First, my noble friend Lord Brittan, the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, and others have argued that referendums are wrong in principle. Those who believe that should clearly oppose the amendment. I disagree with them for the reasons eloquently set out by my noble friend Lord Leach, but clearly if you think that a referendum on the euro is wrong, you will oppose the amendment. The vast majority of contributions from around the Committee have indicated that the amendment should, in principle, be agreed with, but noble Lords have questioned whether it is in the wrong place and whether it is needed. Perhaps I may briefly address those points. This is a treaty of Europe. The provisions on the euro and monetary union are major components of the treaty of Europe, the treaty on the functioning of Europe and the protocols that accompany them. As I made clear in my introduction, the Lisbon treaty amends those protocols to say that Her Majesty’s Government can notify the Council of their decision to enter the euro. We are debating a treaty on Europe, and the provisions on monetary union are a major feature of the European Community and its development. If there is any doubt about the UK Government’s policies on that and other issues and about the way in which the powers in the treaties should be exercised, the Bill implementing this treaty is exactly the right place to set those matters straight. Therefore, I cannot see any argument for saying that this is the wrong place for my amendment. If the Government were to offer a separate Bill to deal with the matter, I should be happy to accept it, but it seems to me convenient and perfectly in line with the purpose of these treaties to make the amendment here, as is the case with any of the other amendments that we have discussed to do with other passerelle provisions, other opt-ins and so on. The other argument, put forward by the noble Lords, Lord Tomlinson, Lord McNally and Lord Hannay, is that the amendment is unnecessary. This goes back to the point about trust. I was delighted to hear the Minister reaffirm the Government’s commitment to a referendum on the euro and I was delighted to hear the noble Lord, Lord McNally, on the Liberal Democrat Front Bench confirm, under interrogation, that the Liberal policy to support a referendum on the euro is unchanged. However, as I said in my opening remarks, it would not be surprising if the public were suspicious about commitments to referendums being met, which is why I think it necessary, in the interests of public trust, to include this in the Bill. I wish to clarify a point made by my noble friend Lord Brittan. He said that I had suggested that a referendum on the issue would take the matter out of political debate. I did not suggest that a commitment to a referendum would make the issue non-political; I suggested that, if it were clear that all parties were committed to a referendum, the question whether or not to have a referendum would be taken out of political debate. However, there are clearly those in this Chamber who, despite agreeing with the notion of a referendum on the euro, want to find a reason for not including it in the Bill. If there are any doubters, I should make it clear that agreeing to this amendment would not in any way invalidate the treaty or prevent it from being ratified; it would simply be a procedural issue within the United Kingdom. Those who oppose the amendment must accept that they open themselves up to the electorate questioning whether their reason for doing so is that they wish to leave themselves some degree of freedom. That may not be their intent but I do not think that they can blame anyone but themselves if that is what people read into their motives. That is a decision for them. I think that it is in the interests of political trust and democracy in this country that we make it clear that, before we enter the euro, all parties are committed to a referendum on the matter. For that reason, I wish to test the opinion of the Committee. On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 160B) shall be agreed to? Their Lordships divided: Contents, 135; Not-Contents, 195. Clause 7 agreed to. Clause 8 [Commencement]: [Amendment No. 161 had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.]