European Union (Amendment) Bill

I would nearly like to support the amendment in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Pearson, Lord Stoddart and Lord Willoughby de Broke, and my noble friend Lord Hamilton. However, on balance, I disagree with them all them slightly for different reasons. There is a strong majority in this country in favour of remaining within the EU, as my noble friends Lord Astor and Lord Hamilton said, but that majority is becoming increasingly worried that the EU is moving towards becoming a kind of federal state. That is not the EU that it originally wanted to join. There is therefore an overwhelming and growing feeling in the country that we have had enough Europe. It may be all right, but we do not want any more. It is often said that Britain should be at the heart of Europe. Well, we are more able to influence developments at the heart of Europe now than we will be if the Lisbon treaty is ratified. With the move towards more qualified majority voting in so many areas, we pool a much greater amount of our sovereignty whether we admit it or not. It is difficult to see how we can get it back. We currently have the influence and ability to persuade our European partners to do it a bit differently. Our influence to achieve that after the treaty is ratified will be diminished. The noble Lord, Lord Radice, rightly pointed out that the European Union has been very good in many ways for many of its members. However, having worked outside the United Kingdom and in Asia for half my working life, I am not sure that the United Kingdom has gained as much from it as some of the other members. The United Kingdom could have made a fist of trading as a single nation state. I do not deny that the single market has been hugely successful. I spent a lot of time in Tokyo, in the 1980s and 1990s, telling everybody how wonderful having this single market was, but I did not say that it ever meant that we were going to give up crucial parts of our national sovereignty to Brussels, where we will be only one of 26 or 27. I worry particularly about financial services. Having spent 2006 working in Brussels, as the director-general of the European Fund and Asset Management Association, I know very well that many of our continental competitors are quite jealous of London’s success. They are more concerned with harmonisation than with the continuing success of London, the United Kingdom’s financial services capital. Although we try to say that London is Europe’s and the United Kingdom’s financial services capital, London will nevertheless suffer as a result of pressure towards harmonisation of financial regulation. MFID has had some undesirable consequences. The financial services action plan is expensive. We must be careful in this area. The more we surrender our ability to decide our own regulation and financial legislation, the more threatened London’s position will be.