European Union (Amendment) Bill

My Lords, I begin by echoing the sentiment of the noble Lord, Lord McNally, about the quality of the debate. It has been a great privilege to sit through some of the most extraordinary and terrific speeches that I have heard in your Lordships’ House. I have singled out a few of those speeches for comment. I must pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Bruce-Lockhart, for whom it was a particular effort to come here today; he spoke with great eloquence, although I did not agree with him. The most reverend Primate made some entertaining and interesting points, many of which I agreed with. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe, and the noble Lord, Lord Owen—both former Foreign Secretaries—spoke with great eloquence from different perspectives and we were richer for that. The noble Lord, Lord Patten, made one of the most brilliant speeches I have heard in a long time. Many other noble Lords spoke extremely well and I pay tribute to all of them for their speeches, whether or not I agreed with them. This has been a substantive debate and it shows Parliament at its best. It proves beyond doubt that the Government’s approach in saying, ““This is the place to scrutinise, deliberate and debate””, is exactly right. I will come on to the issues that noble Lords have raised about referendums but I do want to make that point. This is what we are here for. It is even more so what another place is here for. I believe we have fulfilled our obligations in scrutinising this treaty. I pay tribute, as I will again at Third Reading, to the Opposition, the Liberal Democrats, the Cross Benches, the right reverend Prelates and all noble Lords who have participated, because we have done our job extremely well. A lot has been said about the purpose and role of referendums, or occasionally referenda— if I am not mistaken, the plural is ““referendums””, but I will leave that aside—and the question of opinion polls and YouGov opinion polls in particular. For any noble Lord who has not made the connection, I declare the interest that my husband is president of YouGov. When the YouGov poll took place, he and I were on a boat in France, so it is nothing to with us, guv. Noble Lords would also expect me to say that I have no knowledge or information on anything to do with opinion polls conducted by that company—we keep a complete Chinese wall between us and anything that it may do. However, I look with great interest at all the opinion polls on the subject. The noble Lord, Lord Brittan, and the most reverend Primate and other noble Lords said that the truth in the history is that when people are asked whether they would like a referendum on all subjects, they will rightly say yes. We have to keep +the context of what is being said. I was struck by what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe, and the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, said—the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, also raised this at Second Reading—about the complexity of the question. When the referendum took place, all those years ago now, it was on a straightforward question—a question that people could answer with great certainty. One of the great issues for us is that the complexity of the treaty, because we scrutinised it line by line, has been revealed—I refer to the changes that have been made, the red lines and so on. We must be clear that in using referendums we are also ensuring that we give people the right responsibility, which is to answer questions that are put before them, and those questions must be able to be answered properly. I hesitate to say that explaining what the justice and home affairs opt-ins would be to the population at large may be quite complicated. There is an issue about Parliament making its mind up about what its responsibilities and role are and when it is right and proper to ask those questions of the public. I also note what was said about the weather in Ireland. I understand the point; on issues of this complexity, it concerns me that the weather might be the determining factor. I cannot decide—the noble Lord, Lord Howell, must forgive me for this—whether, if there were a referendum, the Conservative Party would campaign for yes or no. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Howell, will answer that question for me. Indeed, I might press him to, because I really am unsure what the position would be; it is an important issue. If there were a referendum, I know where the Liberal Democrats would be; I know where the members of UKIP would be; I know where those on my Benches would be; I probably even know where some of the Bishops might be; I know where some of the Cross-Benchers would be; but I do not know where the Conservative Party officially would be. I have asked several times, but have not really had an answer to a question that is important in the context of those who push in relation to trust; we need to know, in particular, what the Conservative Party would do—if this Bill reaches the statute book, as I hope it will, next week, and if there is ratification across 27 member states—whether the Conservative Party leadership will reopen this. If they were fortunate enough to win the support of the British electorate and become the Government, would they accept—as Mr Cameron seemed to be moving to doing in his article earlier this week—that what is done is done? I think the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, said in a speech in 1975 that two years on from when things have happened is not the time to start reopening that which went before. Noble Lords have said how isolated Her Majesty’s Opposition are in Europe, for which I am very sorry. This is a great party and some of the best and most brilliant speeches made in your Lordships’ House this afternoon in support of the European Union were made by noble Lords sitting on the Opposition Benches. I hope that the Conservative Party will move back to the position of strength—to being supporters of Europe, so that we may all together be in that great position in that way. It is my contention that it is our job to do our job and the European Council’s job is to do its job. Whatever happens in Ireland, it will be for the European Council, which will meet at the end of next week, to deliberate and discuss. The 27 heads of state must make their own decisions. I will comment on the debate extremely briefly. Six reasons have been given for having a referendum. The first—the obvious one—is the manifesto commitment: this is exactly the same as a constitution and there should therefore be a referendum on it. The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, talked about trust; the noble Lord, Lord Blackwell, has been very consistent; he also delivered, I meant to say earlier, yet another very good speech. But, as my noble friend Lady Symons, said in a very powerful speech, the constitution is entirely different. It is a founding document; it is quite different to what is before your Lordships’ House now, which is in a similar vein, as many noble Lords who were responsible for dealing with previous treaties, have pointed out. We do not accept that it is the same thing. Out of the nine countries that held or plan to hold referendums, none, bar Ireland—which has to do it under its constitution—is planning to hold a referendum on this treaty. That means that we are in good company in recognising that this is not the same thing. The second reason is that the Lisbon treaty is a constitutional treaty. As noble Lords have explained, far more eloquently than I can, it is not; it is different. Noble Lords say that the content is the same, is similar, may be similar, or possibly has similarities. The noble Lord, Lord Blackwell, quoted part of my letter. He obviously did not quote all of it—I will not go through it all—but if noble Lords read everything I said, I hope they will draw a slightly different conclusion to that. Yesterday, for fun, I was looking up what the DNA similarities are between human beings and other animals. Apparently, I am 60 per cent a fruit-fly, 98 per cent a mouse and 95 per cent a guinea-pig. That does not make me a guinea-pig or a fruit-fly or a mouse—I hope. We are very clear that there may be similarities. Things were brought forward from the constitution because they were important innovations in how we operate together. That does not make us the same—I am not a fruit fly. As I have already indicated, some of the safeguards in this treaty were not even in the constitutional treaty. Then there is the argument of the cumulative effect of all the treaties we have had in the past, meaning that we have got to the point where we need a referendum. I reject that. The sixth and final reason that has been given over the course of all our debates over the past months has been that we have held a referendum on other issues so we should hold a referendum on this. I am not going to dwell on that point because I do not think that anybody has raised that today as a conceivably good issue. I just want to comment to the noble Lord, Lord Blackwell, on the case that is before the courts at the moment. I have to question the appropriateness, while the case is still before the courts, of raising what was said by government counsel. I am not surprised that the noble Lord was able to get a copy of what the counsel said—I am sure that it is now in the public domain in any event. However, the noble Lord will understand that I am not proposing to comment on it.