European Union (Amendment) Bill

I hope that the noble Lord will continue to participate in the debate, because it is very helpful to have one of the authors of the document with us. I dare say that what has happened on this occasion used to happen regularly to him when he served as one of our leading officials; that is, his text has been taken by Ministers and turned into a ministerial document. Gordon Brown has introduced his Guide to the European Union, which contains many references to the constitutional treaty, and turned it into a document which explains the treaty of Lisbon. I have been through the two documents carefully—I obtained the former document from the House of Lords Library and am very happy to pass my copy to the Minister as she searches for further evidence. One sees that huge tranches have been taken word for word, with the treaty of Lisbon inserted where the constitutional treaty was. I do not seek to rehearse all the arguments about the differences. The amendment would ensure that we explained in simple, understandable terms what the treaty of Lisbon meant. A huge bundle of documents was delivered to my office—I do not know whether it was delivered by a fork-lift truck, but it was of a massive weight. One of the problems with converting a constitutional treaty into the treaty of Lisbon and rewriting it is that if one wants to understand the treaty of Lisbon a massive amount of documentation is now necessary. I urge the Government to look again at all this material and convert it into a readily understandable document which can answer and knock on the head some of the myths and scare stories which, sadly, are often put around by those who wish us to withdraw from the European Union. I shall give one example, because I treasure giving as much time as possible for the noble Baroness the Lord President to be briefed by the noble Lord, Lord Bach. One of the documents that I treasure is the no document that went to every household at the time of the referendum in 1975. I know that some Members—I do not see them here—will say that all we ever agreed to in the 1975 referendum was a free trade association. I remember being on many platforms vigorously supporting our membership of the European Community and saying that it was a step in the right direction towards a more prosperous and peaceful Europe because we gave up sovereignty in key areas and, by pooling it, made ourselves stronger. At that stage, we had a very vigorous argument. I remember that the no document was headed ““The right to rule ourselves””. In 1975, it said that: "““The fundamental question is whether or not we remain free to rule ourselves in our own way””," and that the Common Market has set out, "““by stages to merge Britain with France, Germany, Italy and other countries into a single nation””." That, of course, was not the case, but I fear that by allowing the anti-European lobby continually to peddle myths and misunderstandings, we have begun to lose the argument. In the last debate, when we were talking about the referendum, I sensed that one reason why a lot of people who supported a referendum no longer do so is that they feel that the argument about our membership of the European Union would be lost. That argument would not be at all positive, but be all about what the Government have or have not done. In many ways, that is a reflection on our failure in our duty to present the positive facts about Europe that are agreed by all parties, particularly the one I regard as the European party—my own. I have seen the party opposite move from being one entertaining the idea of entry into one that, in its election manifesto, wanted to withdraw; that caused a number of people to leave the Labour Party at that time. My party has never adopted any such posture, and as far as I am concerned it never will. However, we want to see a much more positive attitude, so I hope that the Minister will take the opportunity given to her by this amendment to spell out for us all exactly what she and her colleagues will now be doing to present the positive case. I beg to move.