European Union (Amendment) Bill

My Lords, I have to say to the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, that I was not quite sure how much of his contribution actually addressed the amendment moved by my noble friend. However, I want to make clear my own personal position before I say anything more on the amendment, because many of us on these Benches have been misrepresented. I have always been a strong supporter of Europe. In the world in which we live, there is undoubtedly an importance in being an effective partner in a grouping of nations. It was important enough when we first agreed to join; in the present world climate, with security issues, the energy crisis and the food crisis, global warming and the prospect of possibly mass migration, and with the seismic shift of wealth out of European developed countries into oil-producing countries, there never was a more important time for us to have the strength of collective action in these areas. It is because I care about that, and because I have supported Europe over the years, that I am deeply concerned about the great gulf now emerging between that concept, which is honourable and persuadable, and the great public disaffection with Europe. I say to those who are the most passionate supporters—and there are many others here, among them distinguished former Commissioners—that the defence on these issues may imperil the very existence of Britain in Europe, if we do not address that public concern. I say to those on the Liberal Benches who have addressed this issue that I was not surprised that my parliamentary neighbour David Heath, as he was when I had the neighbouring constituency, decided to resign from the Front Bench and vote against the Liberal Whip. It was not totally unconnected with the fact that in his own, Liberal-held constituency, they took a poll on whether there should be a referendum and 87 per cent voted in favour. He understood that perhaps—and increasingly the elected Members next door and the Government with their declining popularity may be able to appreciate this as well—that the public are getting more and more concerned about how they appear to be disregarded in these issues and how other, grander people are supposed to know better. I sat through the whole of last Wednesday’s debate and I have considerable respect for those who have the integrity to say that they are opposed to a referendum. I understand their position entirely. It is embarrassing for them—it is embarrassing for everybody—that all political parties undertook that there would be a referendum on the constitution. To noble Lords who have tried to make this argument, I have to say that I have no real respect for those who try to pretend that the treaty is significantly and manifestly different from the constitution. The trouble is that the public believe that, too; they believe that there is a subterfuge here. The noble Lord, Lord Neill, spoke most interestingly, and I look forward with great interest to what the noble Baroness the Leader of the House is going to say in reply to his very interesting points. I have the honour still to be a member of what was the Nolan committee, which the noble Lord took over as chairman. Originally, I had the honour to serve under the late Lord Nolan. I remember that in looking at the standards of conduct in public life, we set out the seven principles that we thought were key. They are repeated in the latest report that the noble Lord will have received. The two key ones were honesty and integrity. I have to say that the way that these issues have been handled—the issue of whether there should be a referendum; the situation we face after the Irish referendum; and people outside looking to build and reinforce public support for the concept of Europe—has been catastrophic. It has done absolutely nothing to improve public attitudes. I appreciate that the referendum was last week and that now we have a new situation. On the Irish referendum, leaving aside the fact that there is no quick and easy answer to what I thought were pretty powerful points made by the noble Lord, Lord Neill, it is quite clear that all honest people recognise it is all now a bit of a muddle. We do not know what is going to happen. Can anybody in the Chamber tell me what is going to come out of the meetings of the head of states and the Prime Ministers on Thursday and Friday—the next two days? I do not imagine that the Prime Minister knows what is going to come out of them. It seems to me to be quite incredible that we do not know what is actually going to happen—my noble friend has put down an amendment proposing late in October for the Third Reading, but somebody might like to table another amendment proposing that we wait until the end of next week, the day before heads of state are due to start considering what we do about this. Is the noble Lord, Lord Neill, right: are we dealing with a corpse? Are we meant to carry on the farce of a Third Reading on a corpse? It seems to me to be an insult to Parliament. People actually care about parliamentary sovereignty and the respect of Parliament. That seems to me to make no contribution to it at all. So I have to say quite simply that it is extraordinary that we should be here today. I think that the only way in which Parliament can recover some honour out of this—and the House of Lords can truly conduct its revising, amending and warning process to the elected House—is that we should pass my noble friend’s amendment tonight.