European Union (Amendment) Bill

My Lords, I hope that the noble Lord who has just moved this amendment will not necessarily feel offended if I say that in Committee and on Report he has, to some extent, been under a sort of test after the declaration of being a good European that he made right at the beginning, after Second Reading. I remember it vividly and rather agreed with it, but I nonetheless felt cautious about agreeing totally with that judgment that he is still a good European—for he was in the past, and I remember that vividly—because of the subsequent changes that had happened in the Conservative Party. It was not right for him just to gloss over that today in his concluding remarks, or to say that the Conservative Party had not really changed on Europe. I do not want to be repetitive tonight, and I shall be very brief, but when I sat in on the Committee stage of the Bill in the Commons a number of others, including people who were sitting and listening in the Gallery, but who were not really political—for I deliberately made a point of asking them if they knew the Conservative Party’s history on Europe—were shocked by the intense hostility of the remarks made. They were made not just by the Back Benchers—mainly Mr William Cash and Mr David Heathcoat-Amory—but by the Front-Bench spokesmen and particularly the foreign affairs spokesman. There was a deep-seated hostility and antipathetic remarks, which were not just a marginal detail on the current attitude. Years ago when we were campaigning together, I remember vividly that the noble Lord followed me as chairman of the Conservative group for Europe when I was a member of the Conservative Party. We remember those days, when the party was a strong European force: the whole ethos was strong, thanks to the leadership of Edward Heath when following Harold Macmillan. Those days are no longer here, so in the spirit in which the noble Lord is not suggesting in any way that there should be a formal vote on the amendment but pressing for a good idea—to have more information, leaflets and so on our membership of the European Union, the Lisbon treaty and the rest of it—then one would welcome that. In fact, the noble Lord has redeemed himself in the course of these proceedings, if that does not sound condescending, because he conveys his enthusiasm for Europe in his remarks and when he wants more information from the Government that is, understandably, part of that. So much information is provided already, both through official channels from Her Majesty's Government and through all the other things. I can quote an interesting pamphlet—a guide to the Lisbon treaty—from the forum group, which I am sure that the noble Lord has read as well. It says some very good things about the Lisbon treaty. One can quote the Foreign Office’s recent pamphlet on the Slovenian presidency period, which on page 13 sums up just what the Lisbon treaty means to everybody. Also, the noble Lord has to bear in mind one very significant point. What if there had been lots of argy-bargy in the other member states, particularly the older members, or what they call the more mature members of the European Union? What if there had been a lot of Sturm and Drang in the German Parliament about the Lisbon treaty—apart from the constitutional court point, which is the only one that has come out of the German scene. In France, too, which the British press has always described as a very bloody-minded nationalistic country and extremely difficult, what if there had been lots of anti-European people around, apart from just the National Front and the Communist Party? What if there had been those manifestations of disaffection for the Lisbon treaty? And then in the 10 new countries—or the eight plus the two islands in the Mediterranean and Bulgaria and Romania—what if there had been huge hesitations in that regard, as there were in Poland for a short period, although not for very long? After that, it went back to the equilibrium state of a massive amount of parliamentary enthusiasm for the Lisbon treaty and the opportunity that it provided. The point came up earlier—I made it myself, though not very well, and the Leader of the House referred to it—that nine of the new countries thought that they were going to have a referendum, and then they did not need it. Yet the élan for a referendum in a newly democratic country is very great indeed, when you get the initial expressions of the whole people. Often when they devise their own constitution they have a referendum on it, and some of the member states did that. Yet, despite that, in all those member states the public accepted that there was no need for a referendum. But I do not want to go back over the old ground covered in the previous debate. The Leader of the House nods vigorously at that point. All this shows, surely, that there is an ample amount of information about these matters. This is no criticism of the public at all; I am not saying that they are stupid or ignorant, but the understandable commonsense position of the British public is that they are not very worried about all this. The right-wing newspapers are trying to start huge campaigns and the Sun newspaper tried to get a large number of signatures, but it could not do so. So I believe that there is an adequate amount of information. Last year, I launched the European Union (Information, etc.) Bill, which I presented to the House and sent to the House of Commons. Although the Conservative Party did not formally oppose it, I did not notice any enthusiasm on its part at Second Reading or in Committee. The Bill provided for the installation of European information centres in public libraries, other municipal centres, and obvious, official local buildings, along with plenty of information on the internet being freely available. One of the subsections in the noble Lord’s amendment proposes the same thing. I should like to reintroduce that Bill some time, not least because it also dealt with the display of flags. It is extraordinary that the only European flag within several kilometres of this place, apart from on hotels, which are good at putting them up because it is cheaper just to have one European flag, is on the Slovenian embassy, round the corner. It flies one all the time. The British Government put up the European flag the other day, along with the European member states’ flags around Trafalgar Square, but they were put up very quickly and taken down so quickly. Why did they not leave them there for a week, or longer? This is the only member state where there are no displays of European flags on official government buildings. If you look at the National Assembly and the Senate in France—again, a bloody-minded nationalistic country—there are plenty of European flags. There are 65 European flags in Lille Europe station. That would be a good start. The Government should encourage that kind of thing. We can return to debate those matters later, maybe under separate legislation.