European Union (Amendment) Bill

My Lords, over our seven hours of debate I have listened to many Conservative speakers. The noble Lord, Lord Howell, claims that the Conservative Party is the nice party now, but I think that it is the confusing party. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, told us that the approach of the Government should aim to be at the heart of Europe. I certainly agree. The noble Lord, Lord Howell, seems to be reluctant to recognise any role for the European Union. He says that on the one hand the Lisbon treaty will be followed by more treaties, but on the other hand it is self-amending so there do not need to be any more; it is liquid legislation. Many questions have been asked today. At one point the noble Lord, Lord Howell, made an important statement to the effect that—I do not want to misrepresent him, but I cannot recall whether he was speaking for himself or putting forward the Front Bench position for his party—had there been a referendum on the Lisbon treaty, the Conservative Party would have campaigned for a no vote. I am not clear whether that represents the settled view of the Conservative Party as a whole, but I cannot see the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, taking the same position. In summary, I remain confused on exactly what the Conservative Party position is on the European Union and indeed on the Lisbon treaty. To conclude, I agree with some of the spirit of the amendment in the same way that I intervened earlier to ask the Minister about citizenship education and the basics of the EU. I agree that there simply is not enough explanation about who does what in the Union. I have a theory that when people say that they do not know what the EU is or who makes decisions, it is because one of the problems is that they do not really know how their local council works, and they certainly do not know how the Government in Westminster works. However, because those institutions are within their sphere of legitimacy, they do not question them so intently. But I have to recognise that they do question the legitimacy of the European Union. It is not that they are burning to know all about the Union, but it amounts to people saying, ““We don’t like what we don’t understand””. There needs to be a great deal more relatively simple but not unintelligent information—not too simple because people are not stupid—about the EU. Finally, on the one hand we are supposed to accept that there are a lot of Eurosceptics, while on the other hand reports from respectable polling organisations and Eurobarometer surveys carried out on behalf of but not by the European Commission show consistently that a large majority of people even in this country want the EU to be competent on issues such as tackling serious crime and terrorism, climate change and helping to solve the problems of poverty in the third world. They want the EU to be able to do things. There is something of a contradiction in those results, but I believe fundamentally that the British population supports a competent EU that is good at solving problems. It can do that only if it gets its act together and speaks with one voice. There is something of a kernel of truth in this otherwise unacceptable amendment about the need to convey more information.