European Union (Amendment) Bill

My Lords, this has been yet another interesting and high-quality discussion. I have sat through some 75 hours of discussion in your Lordships' House and I hope noble Lords will believe me when I say that it has been a great privilege to do so. I have heard speeches with which I agreed wholeheartedly and speeches with which I agreed with not a word, but all of them were delivered with great passion, knowledge and experience. I pay tribute to everyone who spoke in this evening’s debate. I also pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, for the ingenuity with which he came up with his amendment to the Third Reading procedure. There will probably have been much scratching of heads as those with responsibility for our procedures looked back over precedents. The previous occasion on which such a precedent was used, but with no vote, was in 1984. The previous occasion on which a vote was taken on such a Motion was in 1976. Therefore, we are in territory that is way before my time in the House. But, inevitably, as I reread the speeches in the relevant Hansard of 1976, I recognised some noble Lords’ voices. I shall be relatively brief because much of what I wanted to say has been said. Having sat through many interesting hours of debate, noble Lords will know where the Government, and I on behalf of the Government, stand on the issues before us. I want to focus on three points. The first is parliamentary sovereignty. Noble Lords have spoken across the House about the importance of parliamentary sovereignty. Indeed, in the Question that the noble Lord, Lord Elton, asked just before we began this debate, that issue was raised again. I stand firm by what I said then and what I have said before: it is important that we act as a sovereign Parliament on behalf of this country and do things which are appropriate for that parliamentary sovereignty, not least in determining the position that this Parliament holds on a treaty of this importance. I recognise the importance that my noble friend Lady Symons attaches to that and the relevance of what the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, said about the importance of passing legislation even if it were not to be implemented. It is not that unusual for that to happen. It is completely within the abilities and propriety of your Lordships’ House to do so. We are 96 per cent of the way through our deliberations. It is important that we should ratify. The Czech Republic is reiterating the position it has been stating since April—that its constitutional court, because of the way it operates, must deliberate. I have now read the entire statement of the Prime Minister and yesterday it was reiterating that position. It will come to a conclusion later in the year, and I respect that. Its constitutional court will make a decision and the Czech Republic will move forward on that basis. It is for each member state to make its decision. Some 18 countries have so far done so. It is our turn to decide what we wish to do. The second point has not much featured in this debate. The noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, came closest to covering it. Why are we doing this? What is this treaty about? Why do I think it is a good thing for this country? Noble Lords have touched on issues of, for example, reducing the size of the Commission and making sure that Europe can work more effectively. The noble Baroness, Lady Williams, and others talked about that. That is important because Europhobe and Europhile alike have said for a long time that Brussels needs to work more effectively, as does the Commission. How much money is spent has featured in discussions, as far as I can remember, over the past 20 to 30 years. The treaty also gives national Parliaments a greater say in making European Union laws. That is an important aspect of our deliberations in the past 24 days across your Lordships’ House and another place. It is important to recognise that that makes a difference. The treaty also sets out what the European Union can and cannot do—the competences, on which we spent a great deal of time in our earlier discussions. It deals with some of the issues raised by the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, in his life and work in Bosnia-Herzegovina when he dealt with the problems of a European Union with two heads. These are resolved by the treaty. Perhaps more important than anything, it sets overarching priorities for eradicating poverty and introduces children’s rights for the first time into the European Union’s objectives. Part of our deliberations—perhaps the most important part of the scrutiny in your Lordships’ House—has been looking line by line at what this treaty actually does and agreeing or disagreeing about it. Those who have participated know what it is trying to do. Deliberating on the content of this treaty is important. Making a decision on what we think about the content is important. Whether this treaty ever becomes law across Europe, sending a signal that children’s rights are important or that the eradication of poverty matters makes a difference to our representatives—our Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary—at the discussions. We should not lose sight of what this is all about or what it is for. I was also taken by a message in the Evening Standard today from some business leaders who said that this was a ““positive step”” for Britain, that we should do more to support the treaty and that we in this House should make sure we ratify it. The article says, "““the European Commission is a force for free markets, and one of the best friends British business could hope for””." That comes not from me, but from eminent business leaders. Noble Lords can look at the Evening Standard website to see what they have said. The content matters and the messages that we send about our views on the content matter hugely when our representatives are in Brussels, deliberating with their colleagues on what should happen next. The third and final point is whether a delay would help the process. Does it help the Irish in what they have to do next and will it enable us to amend the treaty? There is no appetite, as has already been said, for trying to find ways to amend treaties or to find new treaties. In the Statement last night, it was made clear that should we want another treaty, it would have to come back to your Lordships’ House and to the other place and go through the process again. Would it help the Irish to say, ““We will give you four months and then come back to this issue””? I do not think so. Considering everything that noble Lords have said about not wanting to put the Irish in a difficult position and not wanting to bully them, with which I wholeheartedly agree, we should let the Irish have time, but setting some arbitrary four-month timetable does not make any sense. In my view, it sends the opposite signal to the Irish. It says, ““You have only four months and then we shall come back to the subject””. We can look at what has happened on previous occasions. In 1992, it was 17 months before we came back with a solution when the Danish voters rejected the Maastricht treaty; and in 2001, it was 19 months before we came back to the subject when the Irish rejected that in a referendum. The four-month period makes no sense at all, but that is what the noble Lord has proposed. It is inconceivable that in four months’ time the Irish Government and colleagues across Europe will have had time to work this through. I do not wish to put any pressure on Ireland that would make the Irish feel that one of their closest friends and allies is insisting that they do so. That would be bullying and that I will not do. For those three reasons it is very important that tonight we make our decision. The noble Lord has found a procedure from 1976 which, I presume, he wishes to test in your Lordships' House. This is a very good opportunity for us, once again, to deliberate and to discuss, but we have done that. It is now time to decide that this treaty should receive Royal Assent and that our Prime Minister should go to the European Council tomorrow with our views on what is in the treaty and the ideas behind it in order to participate fully—not in a semi-detached way—in the European Union and be able to ensure that, in doing so, he supports the Irish people who have to think through their next steps. I want to end by quoting the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, from a 1976 debate on the same subject. The then Leader of the Opposition said that, "““what does not seem to me very sensible, if I may say so, is to spend a very long time and a great deal of energy—we on this side, at any rate—in trying to improve and alter the Bill, and then to say that, in spite of all that, we are going to reject it; because if we do that I really do not know what on earth we have been doing all this time””.—[Official Report, 8/11/76; col. 21.]" I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Carrington: a four-month suspension achieves nothing. All it will do is to send the wrong signal to the Irish Government and prevent our Prime Minister going to the European Council with the full knowledge of our views on the content of this treaty. I hope noble Lords will reject the Motion and that we will see this Bill safely on its way.