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Lord Pearson of Rannoch: But the judgments of the court are legally binding. If the court takes the charter, in its present form and with its current status, into account in its judgments, the charter is already beginning to have a binding legal effect in the law-making procedure of the European Union.
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: I cannot agree that that follows. The judgments are legally binding but the charter may be one of a huge number of things taken into account and balanced in judgment. It may not always be entirely the overriding issue. Being able to take something into account and its being legally binding are two different things—as we discussed at Second Reading.
Lord Blackwell: The charter may be one of a number of things taken into account by a court, but the question for some of us on this side of the Committee is, what additional weight is the charter given by being
taken into account among many other documents? If the charter is given additional status, weight and political authority by being declared an attachment to the treaty, the weighting concerns us.
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: That is a matter for the court and it will be judged on a case by case basis—as I am sure the noble Lord would realise if he were not so keen on trying to persuade us all that this is legally binding. I cannot repeat too often that it is not legally binding. It may be taken into account, inter alia, with a number of other issues, and will always be judged on a case by case basis.
I turn to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Lyell. Article 229A refers to individual property rights. I believe that that means that intellectual property rights in the UK are covered. However, I need to check the point. If I may, I shall do as the noble Lord suggested and write to him on the matter.
To sum up, the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, wishes to consider how the views of those who believe as he does might be taken into account in the convention. If the noble Lord can persuade the usual channels through debates such as this one that there should be some participation in the convention to reflect that, it is a matter for him to pursue. However, the noble Lord's views are given a very fair airing in this place. We are all grateful to him for keeping us up to the mark on all these issues. I did hold a meeting on this matter in this House, which was announced in Hansard before the event. Those who wished to put their views on this point had an opportunity to do so to a Minister at first hand.
The Government very much look forward to the debate about the future of the European Union. We believe that reform of the EU—so that it can continue to deliver what the citizens of Europe, and indeed of Great Britain, want— is very important. We approach the debate with a good deal of confidence. We have learnt since 1997 that our approach, which is pro-Europe and pro-reform, is one that works. The Nice treaty confirms that. So, too, does the agenda for the 2004 IGC which we agreed at Nice.
We believe that the amendment seeks to strike down not only what the noble Lord concentrated on in terms of the Charter of Fundamental Rights but a far wider debate, one to which most Members of the Committee have already signed up in the contributions that they have made elsewhere about the importance of Parliament and of treaty reform. I hope that the Committee will see fit to reject the amendment.
Lord Howell of Guildford: How I miss Lord Shore of Stepney on these occasions. There was no one better than he at eloquently exposing the vanities and conceits of the Charter of Fundamental Rights and the inappropriateness of its language and ambitions. But, sadly, he is no longer with us, so we shall have to do without him.
The noble Baroness, Lady Thomas of Walliswood, suggested that I had used too scattered a type of shot to aim at this particular bird, and that there was a
danger of shooting down other, more precious and valued wildfowl at the same time. When I heard that, I questioned myself as to why I had sought in the amendment to remove the whole declaration rather than merely the reference to the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which we have debated in considerable detail.Then, examining the words of paragraph 5, I began to have more confidence that maybe the shot was the right one. The process with which we are dealing is identified in earlier paragraphs as the deeper and wider debate that we wanted about the future of the European Union. A whole range of issues, many of which we have discussed earlier today, will be relevant to that. Indeed, there are many more problems in relation to European governance and the entire Community method, which is now under criticism, and the relationships between European institutions which will have to be swept up in that debate. One of our main criticisms is that these are relevant issues that should have been tackled at a treaty summit such as Nice but they were not. Instead, they were replaced by many measures that we think continued the old drift in the wrong direction instead of facing the new conditions of an enlarged and different kind of Europe.
Having considered the issues, I thought that my aim had not been as wide as I had earlier feared. Putting aside for the moment the status of the European Charter of Fundamental Rights, which we wanted dropped from the declaration, there are three other goals. First, how can we establish and monitor a more precise delimitation of powers between the European Union and member states? I spoke to that, as the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas of Walliswood, will recall.
I cast some scepticism on the general ambition of freezing for all time the line of delimitation of powers between the Union and member states because the world is not like that any more. Even now, a range of decisions and issues are handled some weeks by European institutions, other weeks by national agencies and committees and other weeks by mixed levels of officials between institutions at the European and national level. I am sure that the noble Baroness has made a study of that. Some superb studies have been produced, particularly by the European Policy Forum, showing how the pattern of decision-making ceases to conform to the hierarchical idea that competencies can be defined at one level or another. The world is no longer like that. That is yesterday's world of hierarchy and static conditions which no longer exists. I should not shed any tears if that was left out of the declaration.
We have dealt with the status of the charter. The third point is the simplification of treaties to make them clearer without changing their meaning. It is sad that the British intelligentsia has failed to engage in the debate that is happening all over Europe. People are beginning to question whether the Monnet Community method, having succeeded for 40 or 50 years, is still right and whether the preamble to the original Treaty of Rome should be frozen in time or whether the debate should be reopened and the
concept of ever-closer union questioned. These questions are not raised just by Euro-sceptics or Europhobes. Highly focused people who want the Europe of the future to unite and work better are engaged in the debate. Stamping that out by putting in the phrases without changing their meaning will close off a range of lively debate that we have a duty to participate in, so I would shed no tears over that.The final point is the role of national Parliaments in the European architecture. I share the concerns expressed by my noble friend Lord Blackwell. Can the process really do that? Will national Parliaments have a sufficient voice in the convention to have their say? That means more than just being told what their role is by some convention. We need to establish what powers should be returned to them in order that the missing democratic thread in the process of the European initiatives, which are racing forward on every front, can be restored.
The European Parliament has its part to play but, as we have argued repeatedly, that does not satisfy the democratic deficit. That requires more than just talking vaguely about the role of national Parliaments; we have to give power of initiative and of early, pre-legislative scrutiny of community instruments and initiatives back to national Parliaments, where it belongs. Until that happens, the draining away of legitimacy and democratic validation will continue.
Everyone knows that that is happening. Even the European Commission, in its governance White Paper, recognised that process. It went on to make some futile and inadequate propositions about how to stem the bleeding. It is failing and will fail because it is still talking in the language of the hierarchy and of
somehow handing down by subsidiarity or by central view-making to the nation states certain decisions and views as it thinks appropriate.We know that the subsidiarity idea was well meant but it has failed. It has been said that the only responsibility that has been subject to the subsidiarity process over the several years since Maastricht is the treatment of animals in zoos. That is the one provision or decision that has been subsidiarised. Otherwise, the process has failed to meet the growing concern about the democratic legitimacy of the Union institutions.
I shed no tears that my amendment aims a little wider than was intended and raises all sorts of fundamental issues that we should certainly discuss further. Having said that, I see that the hour is late. We have covered those matters before and will want to consider many of them again in much more detail. Against that background, and with that consideration in mind, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 2 agreed to.
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