European Union (Amendment) Bill

My Lords, the great problem with the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, is that he has some charming qualities that make me think he is not such a bad chap after all, but then he makes a quite disgraceful intervention such as the one he has just made. I know what he is up to, because he has half confessed it. He is not talking to us, he is talking to Hansard. It is therefore probably just as well that people who read Hansard will also see the rebuke of the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York so that those remarks can be put into context. I will not go through all those whom the noble Lord named. But I have known the noble Lord, Lord Kinnock, since we were students together. I know that what he said is absolutely true. An iron rod of integrity has run through all his political life. That is why if the noble Lord had continued I would have divided the House on the Question that he no longer be heard. It is a pity that a debate that has ranged long and wide should have ended on that sour intervention. I have only three things to say. The noble Lord, Lord Howell, and I fell out only once, which is pretty good going by McNally standards over such a long process. It has been a tour de force for him, ably advised by his local solicitor. I hope the Prime Minister occasionally reads Lords Hansard. I have been around this place in various guises for nearly 40 years and the performance of the noble Baroness the Lord President has been one of the most impressive I have seen from a Front Bench. Her command of her brief, her eye for detail and—my god—her patience have been a credit. I conclude with something that I quoted at Second Reading: a message from the grave. I said then that I had had the honour in the 1970s to work for Jean Monnet in his old age. I had a look at his memoirs, and I think he sent us a message. Talking about the future of Europe, he said: "““It has to overcome the inertia that hinders movement and the habits that resist change. We have to reckon with time. Where this necessity will lead and towards what kind of Europe I cannot say. It is impossible to foresee today the decisions that could be taken in a new context tomorrow. The essential thing is to hold fast to the few fixed principles that have guided us since the beginning: ""gradually to create among Europeans the broadest common interest, served by common democratic institutions to which””—" I emphasise this— "““the necessary sovereignty has been delegated””." That is what this debate has been about. I am proud of and grateful to my own Benches—my noble friends Lord Wallace and Lord Dykes and, as I often say, that galaxy of talent behind me.