European Union (Amendment) Bill

My Lords, like many other speakers, I am a member of your Lordships’ Constitution Committee. On this issue, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lyell, and the noble Baroness, Lady O’Cathain, are on the other extreme of arguments from me, although perhaps the use of the word ““extreme”” in relation to a moderate body such as the Constitution Committee is not appropriate. There is a spectrum of views in the committee. The noble Baroness, Lady O’Cathain, rightly referred to the fact that we are speaking as individuals in this debate. I warmly endorse the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord McNally, particularly in reminding us that parliamentary involvement in European affairs will be greatly improved overall by this treaty. That is particularly true with regard to justice and home affairs, where national parliaments across Europe—not just here—will have a more prominent role in JHA co-operation through the subsidiarity mechanism, through evaluating Eurojust’s work and through greater scrutiny of Europol, as well as through a power to veto moves from unanimity to QMV in certain key areas. I believe that the arrangements that have been outlined for the Houses of Parliament in this country represent a considerable improvement on what has gone before. That is an important context within which we should view the current debate. In Committee, the view was frequently expressed that we should be careful about Governments trying to sneak important things through without Parliament being aware of them in the area of justice and home affairs. Indeed, my noble friend the Leader of the House referred to this when she used the phrase, ““pull a fast one””. Other noble Lords have referred to this concern. I am not sure that there has ever been a real danger of that happening. In my own fairly brief experience as a Home Office Minister, when I regularly attended Justice and Home Affairs Councils, I was not aware of major decisions being made that were not brought to the attention of Parliament or on which we did not have a good idea of what Parliament’s views were. I am not making a party-political point because I am not aware of previous Governments operating in that way in the European sphere, either. However, the additional changes that the Leader of the House has outlined are welcome, particularly the proposals for a report to allow both Houses to give a strategic overview of justice and home affairs, the reporting-back mechanism, whereby we can review more effectively what has happened in this area, and the timetable for specific proposals on opt-ins. A number of speakers have already referred to the fact that there can be a large number of opt-ins. My noble friend Lord Rowlands rightly said that the aim was not to give Parliament a cumbersome system that meant examining all kinds of minor proposals that, through the normal scrutiny process, would have been deemed to be acceptable in any case. However, the procedure that the amendment envisages would be applicable in any possible consideration of opt-ins and so would give Parliament a cumbersome procedure. I believe that the arrangements that the Leader of the House has outlined are a great improvement on the ones envisaged in the amendment. I hope that the compromise that is on offer will be grasped with enthusiasm by Members of your Lordships’ House. I conclude by saying that, although I did not support the amendment in the Constitution Committee and do not feel as strongly on this issue as others do, I recognise that the pressure exerted by the committee has resulted in real change. For that reason, I pay tribute to the committee and its members.