European Union (Amendment) Bill

My Lords, I will take the sagacious advice of the Lord President and proceed with what were supposed to be very brief remarks. I detect that the Government feel that the Lisbon treaty is in the interests of Britain and of the European Union, in every way that has been explained at previous stages of this Bill, including Second Reading. It provides acceptable, rational adjustments to the operating procedures inside the Union that allow the EU to function more effectively with a much larger number of states. That is the common-sense aspect of what we are talking about. It again goes beyond costs and benefits. The benefits are also strong emotionally and psychologically in terms of the public’s increasing acceptance of the natural state—the common-sense, routine, even mundane basis—of our membership of the European Union. On an everyday basis, the public are ahead of the politicians. They may not have detailed knowledge of every aspect of what is a very complicated scenario. None the less, in natural ways—with people moving with their families and children, or retiring to other European countries as part of a general diaspora—the mobility of populations within the Union is much higher than mobility in the United States, which was always given as an example of a high-mobility country in comparison with the sluggish population movements of European countries. That era has now passed. This is the modern European Union of the future, where younger members of the population in particular are extremely keen, in a natural, practical sense, about what they can do and the opportunities that they have of being members and citizens of the whole Union and not just loyal and patriotic members of their own sovereign member states. We will certainly agree with the Government if, as I hope, they assert again that the benefits of EU membership far outweigh the costs and make completely nonsensical the arguments of the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, and his colleagues. Jobs, peace and security together mean a massive amount to a continent that was riven by horrendous conflicts in the days when France and Germany hated each other with a visceral hatred that had to be felt to be believed. One of the great stories of post-war Europe is the reconciliation of France and Germany, leading to the basis of a strong European Union. They invited Britain to join at that stage and we foolishly said that we did not want to. Lest this revert to a Committee stage debate, which would be reprehensible—and I do not want to make this a Second Reading speech—I conclude by saying that I hope that the House will reject decisively this ridiculous amendment.