As the responsible Minister during much of the period in which these European Union regulations were being put into operation, I would
not like to let this occasion pass without pointing out a slight amusement of mine. This transposition from EU law into British law seems to be a perfectly happy and reasonable thing—and we have not heard shrieks from the anti-Europeans on the subject—but at the time of the original regulations Britain had the dirtiest reputation in Europe. We had filthy bathing waters; our drinking water was below the standard of most countries certainly in northern Europe and probably the whole of the then European Union. We were forced, because we had to sign up to this, to improve the conditions of water in this country—I say this as someone who was for some time the chairman of a water company, seeing it from that side of the fence as well as the government side. This House ought to remember that it must keep the Government’s feet to the fire, because, before we were a member of the European Union, we would not have done any of these things. I suspect that today, had we not been a member of it, we would have been considerably backward now.
There is a real issue about this too, because we also have to remember that no man is an island—this island cannot do things without affecting other people. We will have to think, were we to leave the European Union, of the points that the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, has referred to—that, if we wish to, we will be able to take laws which have been passed in the rest of Europe into our own hands. Of course, it will take much more statutory time to do so; it will not be as easy as it has been up to now. But we have to realise that what we put into the channel from our side will affect people on the other side of the channel, just as what we do in the United Kingdom from the north of Ireland directly affects people in Ireland.
6.45 pm
I remind the Government that, in this reasonable and sensible way of passing what we have on to the future were we to leave the European Union, we are only where we are because of the European Union. Those of us who had to fight that through the other House will recognise just how much we owe to our membership, just how much danger we are in by leaving, just how little the Government have already promised us, just how little there appears to be in the environment Bill, as far as we know, and just how much we will have to fight to maintain the standards in Britain if we are to leave the European Union—which is why it is barmy to do so.