European Union (Amendment) Bill

My Lords, I want to make three points, and I hope that they may assist the House. Progress on the Bill has been slow and it has been thorough. Let us look at the statistics. Parliament has had 24 days of debate, with 10.5 days in this House; 315 amendments were tabled in the Commons; 266 were tabled in the Lords. There have been no less than 57 Divisions: 12 in this House and 45 in another place. The Bill has been scrutinised thoroughly, minutely and in great detail. It is at the final stage of its parliamentary progress. It should now proceed. It is noteworthy that those who are most in favour of postponing the Bill are the very people who are opposed to the treaty. I am sure that it is a great coincidence, but it is difficult to find, at least in this House, someone who says that he is in favour of the Bill and also in favour of not proceeding with it. I listened to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Howell, with great interest, as I always do. He uses elegant words and flowing phrases. I was reminded of incident that took place many years ago in the other place when I rather upset the late Lord Hailsham. I cannot remember what the issue was, but he made a great speech in which there was great talk of honour, constitution and principles. I had to follow him, and follow him I did. I accused him of something I called ““vintage Hoggery””. I then defined vintage Hoggery as the art of elevating a political motive into a high-flown constitutional principle. He was not very well pleased—your Lordships may not be surprised. Nevertheless, it is good, I suppose, to see that Hoggery still flourishes and exists, at least on the Conservative Front Bench. The issue here is very simple. It is whether, having got this far, there is any justification for not continuing. We should look first at what the Irish say. They have urged other countries to proceed with their own ratification processes. The Irish Minister for Europe, Mr Roche, said on the BBC on Monday: "““I believe that the Irish people have had their say. I believe that they now want to allow each of the other member states to have its say and then at the end of this process to say, ‘Well where does this leave us? Where are we?’ I mean, the whole genius of Europe is that it has moved together and that it moves together in unison. The idea of a two-tier Europe is not attractive to any member state””." Mr Roche was then asked by the interviewer, Evan Davis: "““You want the rest of us to continue with the ratification process, do you, because the British are voting on Wednesday?"." He replied: "““Well, we certainly have said we're not going to intrude on any other member state's ratification process. It's right and proper that each member state deals with this matter in its own constitutional procedures as we did with our process. Our process is respected and we respect everybody else's right to deal with it through their processes””." If the Irish Government do not think that the process of ratification should be postponed, why on earth should we? Nor do I accept for one moment the argument that somehow or other postponing the Third Reading of this Bill gives the Government more elbow room, latitude and clout in any future negotiations. It seems to me to be exactly the contrary. If we pass this Bill, the British position becomes clear. If we do not, it will remain imprecise and opaque, which seems to me to be what the Opposition want. I do not accept the arguments that the result of the Irish referendum makes it more difficult for us to play our full part in European affairs or that by passing this Bill we are somehow joining with others in bullying Ireland. I cannot help wondering whether these objections would still be made if we had proceeded on a different form of ratification other than the one we chose. There is nothing wrong with ratifying a treaty by the parliamentary process. That is how Maastricht, Nice and the Single European Act were done. The other form of ratification is by a public referendum. Either one is equally valid in law and produces the same effect. I cannot help thinking that the attitude of the Opposition would hardly be the same if we had chosen to ratify via a referendum. Consider this possibility: if that referendum had been arranged, say, for next Monday, is it seriously contended that it would be postponed because of the difficulties that it is alleged might flow from the Irish vote? I do not think the Opposition would advocate that for an instant, even though the effect of the referendum, if positive, would be precisely the same as the passage of this Bill. Either way, therefore, we would go on with it. The fact is that the Official Opposition just do not want the treaty; it is that which has motivated their actions. I do not think that this House should pander to them any longer. We have come a very long way in considering the Bill. It would be ludicrous for us now to refrain from completing our job.