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Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I wonder if the noble Viscount the Lord Privy Seal will allow me to clarify one matter. In his phrase in the last sentence before one he implied that the United Kingdom was one of the "outs" for the purpose of protecting our interests. I wonder whether he really meant that.
Viscount Cranborne: My Lords, as always, I must phrase my language with great care when I am confronted by the noble Lord. Of course he is right: our option is whether to go in or whether to go out. It is an option which we preserve and which we have managed to preserve during the course of the weekend in Dublin.
Also, I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, would agree that if the euro is to be launched successfully it is right for its legal status to be agreed. He would not expect me to dispute that. That is what he clearly implied. There are all sorts of financial documents and arrangements which will straddle the launch of the euro and it will be important that those documents cannot be undermined, so the legal status of the euro was an extremely sensible thing to be agreed at Dublin.
I should also emphasise to the noble Lord that the conclusions say that ERM2 is a purely voluntary affair. We have said that we would not join it, and that was certainly agreed at ECOFIN.
I am very conscious that my answer has been rather a long one, and I apologise to the House. However, many matters were raised. I wish to point out to the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, in the most gentle terms, that there are a great many amusing jokes to be made about both our parties at the moment. It is worth his remembering that the leader of his own party in 1983 made all sorts of commitments in his election address. Just taking a couple of examples, he was committed to taking this country out of Europe and he was against the nuclear deterrent. It is only fair to spare the blushes of the noble Lord and not to go through that rather embarrassing document in greater detail today. However, I would remind the noble Lord that when he talks about British interests and indeed when the noble Lord, Lord Taverne, talks about British interests, we are told that the Labour Party, were they to win the next election, would find itself perfectly happy to give up the veto on regional policy, the veto on environmental policy, the position that we have adopted on the working time directive, and indeed the veto on the treaty on employment. All those matters would undermine the present success of this country in reducing the scourge of unemployment where we have made such advances in the last two or three years.
5.18 p.m.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, would my noble friend confirm what I believe he said more than once, but it is of such importance that it justifies confirmation, that nothing which was discussed at Dublin and none of the discussions which he quoted undermine in any respect the right of this country to retain its separate currency independently and separate from the European currency?
Viscount Cranborne: My Lords, I am very happy to give my noble friend the assurance he seeks. The opt-out was one negotiated by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister at Maastricht, and it is an opt-out which is still protected, even after Dublin.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, I have one short question to ask the noble Viscount, but before I do so I would remind him that it was his government that took this country, without the consent of the people, into the Treaty of Rome, into the Single European Act and, indeed, into the Maastricht Treaty without consulting anyone at all. Therefore, it behoves him ill to mention my right honourable friend Tony Blair, the Leader of the Opposition, particularly in the light of the stresses and strains which there are now in the Tory party among those decent members who accept that mistakes have been made by a Conservative government.
I should like to ask him just one question, because we want to get on with other business. On page 12 of the communique, in the area of justice and home affairs, in the last sentence of paragraph 1 there is a note which states:
- "Europol should have operative powers"--
- "working in conjunction with the national authorities to this end".
Viscount Cranborne: My Lords, I am always happy to see the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, rise to his feet and imply so clearly that the Labour Party is united on matters of Europe. But there is a difference--I respect the noble Lord's capacity for textual analysis--between operational powers for Europol and operative powers. I hope that I can allay his fears. We would certainly not accept--it is our understanding that it was not in any way implied--that we would give powers of arrest or even of investigation to Europol. Our adherence and ratification of the Europol Convention implies that Europol's role is still and will continue to be to assist the national law enforcement agencies and certainly in no way to replace them.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for the Statement. In the interests of time, I shall not press him on how subsidiarity may work better or how there will be greater openness in the working of the EU, unless, of course, he would like to enlighten us on those points. My worry is concerned with a point raised by my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter and what my noble friend said about the stability pact and so on for EMU. He said that they cannot lead to sanctions of any kind on non-member countries.
That may be so for the stability pact and convergence criteria for EMU themselves, but is that quite the whole picture? Are we not left in the background with the position in the treaty whereby under Article 3 of the Protocol our opt-out does not come into action until we say that we will not move to Stage 3? So my first question to my noble friend is: when we say that we will not move to Stage 3--assuming that we do say that--are not we still left with everything that we have agreed in the meantime?
My second question, which is related to the first, is even more difficult. Even after we have said that we will not move to Stage 3, are not we still left with many articles of the treaty, such as Articles 102, 103 and 109, which mean that action can still be brought against us in the Luxembourg court if we do not run our economy on communautaire lines? Articles 169, 170 and 171 can be used against us and, as I understand the treaty, unlimited fines can be imposed upon us in the Luxembourg court. I do not know how my noble friend will be able to reply to that kind of detail this afternoon. But my general question to him is: is our opt-out on EMU likely to turn out to be as unreliable as our opt-out on the social chapter?
Viscount Cranborne: My Lords, my noble friend is well known as a sceptic in every sense of the word. We are satisfied that the opt-out is safe and the ECOFIN conclusions have reinforced that view. I could trade--rather less effectively than my noble friend--the various articles and subsections of the treaty. But I believe it will be sufficient for me to say that I am sure that my
noble friend will return to this question and I shall be extremely happy to help him monitor my assurance during the course of the coming months and years.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, I try to keep up with developments in Europe as much as is possible on the basis of published information. Can the noble Viscount indicate to me under whose authority the President of the Commission presumed to address himself to the entire Council and--I understand from the press--deliver an admonition to Her Majesty's Government? Is he in agreement with the principle in general--I make the inquiry in all good spirit--and are the Government in a position in which they accept quite willingly the right of the President of the Commission to lecture the United Kingdom?
Viscount Cranborne: My Lords, I understand that even Lord Palmerston was lectured when he was Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister of this country when it was reputedly at its most jingoistic. It is nothing new in our history for officials of one kind or another to lecture this country. The question is whether or not the lecture carries with it a stick. In this case we have managed to resist that stick--if it exists. As I said to my noble friend Lord Pearson of Rannoch, our opt-outs are ones which we are willing and happy to live with.
Lord Marlesford: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that two of the points made by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister are absolutely crucial for the British people to understand? First, the decision on whether to go ahead with the single currency will be the most far-reaching decision that the European Union has ever taken. Secondly, if the currency goes ahead, whether or not Britain is a member, it is a vital British interest that it succeeds.
In that context, does my noble friend agree that it is appropriate once again to congratulate my right honourable friend the Prime Minister on having secured the opt-out at Maastricht, ably assisted at that time by my right honourable friend Mr. Lamont? Is it now widely recognised that the Prime Minister on one of the ablest international negotiators on the scene today? For that reason alone and quite apart from any others, in this crucial matter it is very much in Britain's interest for the Prime Minister to negotiate on behalf of Britain throughout and at the Amsterdam Conference next year.
Let me make two other points. Would it be wise for the European Union, if it wished to press ahead with the euro, to do it in a more modest stage of merely making it legal tender in all countries and seeing whether or not people use it? That would be a real market test as to whether there is merit in it.
Finally, let me say how glad I was to hear in the Statement that the Council of the supreme body of Europe underwrote the democratic arrangements reached in Hong Kong. I hope very much that the Government of the People's Republic of China will pay due regard to that important consensus.
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