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Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: My Lords, for the benefit of noble Lords, perhaps I may inform the House that there is a firework display nearby.

6.49 p.m.

Lord Lea of Crondall: My Lords, I thought that it was divine disapproval for the line being taken by the noble Lord, Lord Lamont.

Perhaps I may add my congratulations to those already given to the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Crosby, on her elevation. I often wondered what the "gang of four" was all about. In that connection, I noted with great interest the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Owen, on the case for the referendum on the euro being--I hope I get this right--not before but maybe in, 2004. That would tie in with Berlin. I assume that he would not necessarily vote against it at that time; otherwise I may have missed his point.

Some people say that we are rushing our fences on Europe; others that we are proceeding too slowly. Every step in the EU since the 1950s has been damned with faint praise in some sections of opinion in Britain. Sometimes that is because, it is claimed, it is over-ambitious and will fall flat on its face; it has not. It has been a remarkable success story, the leading model of regional integration with the nation state in the world. We are certainly not slavishly following the constitutional model of the United States, which is the main alternative. Europe is its own model, sui generis.

In that kind of setting, Nice should be seen, as my noble friends Lord Grenfell and Lord Tomlinson have dubbed it, as a careful, modest, necessary but permanent addition to the construction of a larger EU. I am afraid I do not understand--here I echo the noble Lord, Lord Hannay--how the noble Lord, Lord Howell, concluded that it is not necessary for enlargement. The new formula for votes in the Council of Ministers is surely self-evidently a pre-requisite of enlargement. The agreement on voting weights was not an easy one and I think that the French deserve congratulations on hanging in there. I hope that congratulating the French does not infringe any ancient Act of Parliament which entails being sent to the tower.

On qualified majority voting, enlargement means that we cannot, surely, have a national veto on the range of EU work. It is surely a fact that the EU would grind to a halt if we allowed every country--to be concrete about that, Latvia and Malta--to exercise a veto on the sort of issues extended to QMV in the Nice treaty. On the question of enlargement, perhaps I may add that the challenge of adding countries with an average GDP per head of only 30 per cent of the average EU GDP is daunting. That is a good deal lower than it was when countries of low GDPs, such as Greece, Portugal and so forth, came in.

I suggest that the real reason why anti-EU opinion is miffed by Nice is not that it is inadequate, but that it has destroyed the illusion, popular with some sections of opinion, that widening, to use the jargon, is at the expense of deepening. It is becoming more and more apparent that the two go hand in hand. That

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must come as a shock to the illusions of those who seriously thought that enlargement would water down the whole thing.

I turn to defence and the European rapid reaction force. Does my noble friend the Minister not remember well the support she received on that, not only from these Benches and the Liberal Democrat Benches, but from noble and gallant Lords on the Cross Benches who pointed out that they had been working on that for many years? The problem of Turkey has been cited. Nothing has prevented Turkey from participating in assistance in the Balkans, for example, as it has done recently, having committed some 1,000 troops to Kosovo. Am I right in saying that in such cases the appropriate umbrella would be available as now but the rapid reaction force would bring additionality to that? I may be on the same line as the noble Lord, Lord Owen, in that respect.

As regards the importance of the social and employment dimensions of the EU, Nice should be the signal for a great number of countries to think in a more practical way about how they will transpose the acquis, not just by passing laws--closing the chapters as it is called in the jargon--but by engendering people to take responsibility on the ground in implementing the changes. In my experience in a number of countries in the past few weeks, from Lithuania to Macedonia, that has to receive a great deal more emphasis. The trade unions of Europe are now working together at a practical level as they never did before. That is partly because we can create a better life and a better society together, rather than if we act on our own. That has always been the spirit of trade unionism.

I turn to agriculture. My noble friend will correct me if I am wrong on one point which has not so far been mentioned. I believe that the next step is for agriculture to be dealt with in the WTO negotiations in parallel with internal EU discussion. That is inevitable, and that is why I am pleased that Qatar will go ahead--I hope I am right on that--and that the two timetables will therefore be expected to dovetail in about 2004.

Before concluding, perhaps I may mention the second front, which is not in Berlin but here in Westminster. Nice sets out a clear job of work to be done in national parliaments, including Westminster, which means us. When we criticise the EU for sins of omission--for not streamlining its procedures, and so on--let us remember the injunction, "first remove the mote from thine own eye". The European Union Select Committee structure does an excellent job, but we need to think about how it should be supplemented in relation to the convention.

Page 78 of the blue treaty document states that there will be discussion leading up to Laeken--we have missed that--and after Laeken with national parliaments, and all those reflecting public opinion, in four areas. First, it refers to delimitation of powers between the Union and member states; secondly, the status of the Charter of Fundamental Rights; thirdly, simplification of the treaties; and, fourthly, the role of national parliaments. I suggest that it is apparent from that that we in this House do not move at the speed of

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a greyhound in adopting new procedures. We are moving forward to the convention and on this occasion we really do need to have consultation in depth.

Perhaps I may say to my noble friend the Minister that we must get the right combination. Can she indicate whether that is how she would see it? As a Foreign Office Minister, she will know that the relationship between the Executive and the legislature is a delicate one. To make discussions work, should not we have a combination of formal and informal procedures for the involvement of this Parliament in feeding back what is happening as regards the convention?

Along with other noble Lords present I welcome the initiative of my noble friend yesterday in arranging an informal meeting, open to all Members, on the work of the convention. That complements well the formal procedure. The range of those who attended yesterday made good use of an hour's question and answer session, which was far freer and, perhaps I may say, more illuminating than that which is often the case when everyone is prepared to make a speech on the record. After Laeken we need a new type of future scoping paper, perhaps along the lines of a discussion document and perhaps one notch down from a Green Paper.

Now is the time to stop being the theatre critic who often gives the play a bad review and to get out there on the stage. I am sure that our representatives on the convention would also benefit greatly from that. There is one point on which I believe we would all agree with the noble Lord, Lord Waddington; that is, one would not find much understanding of the Nice treaty in a public bar either in London or Dublin. A point follows from that. As we start to use more popular language and endeavour to meet the point, I trust that we will not then be said to be simply making propaganda. I hope and believe that getting the euro into people's pockets will be an example of how we have to take risks in getting popular understanding, and that when people then look back in a few years' time they will ask what all the fuss was about.

7 p.m.

Lord Biffen: My Lords, the entrance fee for this debate is to pay a tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, and to congratulate her on being appointed Leader of the Liberal Democrats. I happily make that payment. My noble friend Lord Howell of Guildford has explained the modalities that prevent us from voting on this legislation this evening, which I understand. If I were still in the other place, I would happily have joined the Conservative Party in voting against this legislation on the occasion of their consideration of Second Reading. As we no longer have a vote, we can concentrate on our voices.

I shall reflect on where we have come from and where we hope to go. To my mind, the debates on Europe that were initiated in the late 1950s and in the 1960s, when the Rome Treaty prescribed a

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homogeneity of the original six that made the term "closer union" have a certain understanding, are of recent recollection. One great protagonist of the debates on Europe in this country was inspired to talk of "Europe, a nation".

Since then we have gradually seen the enlargement of Europe into its present state, both in terms of its ambitions and its territorial commitment. We have seen that the pursuit of "Europe, a nation" has encountered a number of serious considerations that should make us all ponder and reflect at this time on Europe and her institutions. I shall choose--not in any sense of malice, but with a sense of significance--three areas where, on any tolerable judgment, I do not believe that the European Union and its institutions stand well regarded.

The first, and perhaps the most important, is popular endorsement. Europe, seeking the consent and the endorsement of the European people, stands in a very sad situation. Direct elections were initiated in 1979 and on five occasions such elections to the European Parliament have taken place, starting with a turn-out of votes of 63 per cent, which during the 1999 election fell to 49 per cent. Each election has recorded a drop in the number of votes over the preceding election.

There is no sign whatever of a popular enthusiasm and a popular endorsement, above all a popular understanding of what sacrifice means in governmental authority as far as the European population is concerned. I believe that to be a profoundly dangerous situation. At the end of the day, popular voting and popular involvement give those who take authority, and who require discipline, the tolerance that comes with popular participation. If you take that away, you will not take away conflict; you will almost certainly ensure that eventually conflict will be taken to the streets. In my view, it is evident that that is the danger, although it lies over the brow of the future.

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