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Lord Pearson of Rannoch: I too shall briefly support the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart. I also congratulate my noble friend Lord Howell on his analysis of the situation. I do not want to make the Committee more gloomy than it may already be on the subject, but it is worth putting on record the fact that the treaties that we are talking about can be amended only by unanimity. They do not contain an exit clause. Article 48 of the Treaty on European Union makes it clear
that unanimity is required for any change to the Treaty of Rome. That makes amendments a little more difficult.
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: The Government believe strongly in the central importance of this Parliament and of this House in shaping and taking the big decisions that affect our national life. That includes decisions on Europe. That is why, in October 2000 in Warsaw, the Prime Minister proposed a second chamber of the European Parliament drawn from national legislatures. It is also why he pressed successfully for agreement last December at Nice that at the next intergovernmental conference we would consider the role of national Parliaments in the European architecture.
I was very pleased to hear that the noble Lord, Lord Howell, has some detailed proposals to put forward on the role of national Parliaments. I direct his attention to the declaration on the future of the Union. Paragraph 5 specifies that the role of national Parliaments will be looked at, while paragraph 6 addresses that issue and the need to improve and monitor democratic legitimacy and transparency in the Union and its institutions. There is not a great deal of difference between the noble Lord and the Government on the need to look carefully at the issue. The Prime Minister was seized of that argument when he pressed that case successfully at Nice.
That is also why, in his first speech on Europe as Foreign Secretary, my right honourable friend Jack Straw said:
- XThe EU will go on operating through the strategic leadership of the governments, and through them, the Parliaments of the member states. Those are the institutions which our citizens already know, trust and feel comfortable with".
The Foreign Secretary also went on to say,
- XThis is not enough on its own. If we really want this European Union to work, the leadership of the member states must be combined with what the institutions of the EU bring to the table. That is the mix we have, and that is the mix we should keep."
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: It might be the various ways which the European Union has for coming to its decisions. I believe that it has been drawn very widely in order to allow for the broadest possible discussion, particularly of the issues of transparency and accountability, with which I know Members of the Committee are so concerned. I believe that the use of the word is the widest possible drawing of the ways in which the IGC in the year 2004 will be able to discuss issues around the democratic principles governing the European Union. I hope that has answered the point of the noble Lord, Lord Renton.
The European Parliament is one of those institutions to which I have been referring, and I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Renton, would agree
that it is a very important one. It is right that elected representatives at European level should have a role in the making of European legislation. This is especially so in areas which are agreed by qualified majority voting in the Council, where the European Parliament plays an important role in ensuring democratic accountability and legitimacy.It is right, too, that the European Parliament has the ability to ensure democratic accountability at the European level by holding the Commission to account. We saw in 1999 just how effective the European Parliament can be in this respect. Its action led to the resignation of the whole of the Santer Commission over its unsatisfactory performance.
As my noble friend Lord Stoddart has said, Clause 3 of this Bill is included to meet the requirements of our own legislation, which was agreed in this Chamber. Section 6 of the European Assembly Elections Act 1978 provides that the United Kingdom cannot ratify treaties increasing the powers of the European Parliament unless they are approved by an Act of this Parliament. We believe that this is a very sensible check on the powers of the European Parliament. What we are debating here, therefore, is a standard clause that we debate when we debate European treaties, as I am sure many in this Chamber will recall.
The Treaty of Nice does indeed increase the powers of the European Parliament, but the changes are relatively minor, especially so when compared with the increases in the European Parliament's powers in relation to the Maastricht and Amsterdam treaties. They may be minor, but they are useful. The Treaty of Nice increases the powers of the European Parliament in a number of ways. For example, nine of the articles which have been moved to qualified majority voting in the Council have also been moved to a co-decision procedure. The European Parliament has also been given a limited role in the new early warning mechanism in respect of a risk of a breach by a member state of fundamental human rights—a matter which we discussed in Committee on 15th November in relation to the first group of amendments.
The Treaty of Nice also improves the standing of the European Parliament before the European Court of Justice. It does that in two areas. First, the European Parliament now has the right to challenge acts adopted by the European Community on grounds such as incompatibility with the treaty, or that they have exceeded the European Community's competence. Previously the European Parliament could only bring a challenge for the purpose of protecting its own prerogative. Secondly, the European Parliament can now obtain the opinion of the European Court of Justice as to whether an international agreement to be entered into by the Community is compatible with the European treaty.
These are desirable changes, I believe, but they are fairly modest. The most significant change agreed at Nice regarding the European Parliament is the agreement on the distribution of seats for MEPs in the European Union of up to 27 member states, as we have already discussed.
Perhaps I may also remind Members of the Committee that the Treaty of Nice makes many fewer significant additions to the European Parliament's powers than previous treaties, in particular the Maastricht Treaty, which was negotiated by the Conservative Party when they were in government. It was the Maastricht Treaty which established co-decision procedures in the first place and which made the European Parliament joint legislator with the Council in a host of key areas. I shall not go into all of those areas now, but I believe that in many ways they were quite significant ones. The Maastricht Treaty also gave the Parliament significant new powers over the Commission. As we have seen, those have been exercised—and exercised in a way which I believe that most in this Chamber felt was entirely right and proper at the time.
I turn now to the point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Park of Monmouth. I agree with the noble Baroness that the sharing of intelligence is always an extremely sensitive and difficult matter. We have discussed it in this Chamber in relation, for example, to military intelligence, when I have been able to assure the noble Baroness that we only share such intelligence where we believe that it will be fully protected. The same is true of criminal intelligence. We would not share any such intelligence unless we believed that that intelligence would be properly protected, and protected in a way that we would wish to protect it in this country.
I was very taken by the arguments of the noble Lord, Lord Howell, in respect of looking at the future role of parliaments. I will not dwell on the fact that the noble Lord, Lord Howell, in a previous amendment sought to excise that part of the protocol which meant that the IGC in the year 2004 would be considering the role of the parliaments. We will let that go. Nonetheless, I very much look forward to a point where he is able to bring forward what he has referred to as detailed proposals. I am sure that we shall enjoy debating those in the run-up to the 2004 IGC.
The Nice Treaty, however, does not extend the European Parliament's powers in a way that is exceptional, and certainly not in a way that goes beyond the Maastricht Treaty. It does not change the overall institutional balance in the European Union, where it will remain the case that the strategic decisions are taken by member states; with, moreover, the United Kingdom's position strengthened through the greater relative voting power that we secured in this treaty.
What the Nice Treaty does do is to make some very modest and sensible adjustments with respect to the European Parliament. We believe that they are right and we believe that Members of the Committee should be able to approve them.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch: Before the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, decides what to do with this amendment, perhaps I may put two questions to the Minister which arise from her remarks.
The first question concerns her statement that the European Parliament proved its value in 1999 by holding the Commission to account, and that indeed its action resulted in the resignation of the Santer Commission. I repeat a question I put to the Government in Committee and to which I have not yet received an answer. Has anything changed as a result of the resignation of the Santer Commission? I ask that against the background of the European Court of Auditors finding that #5 billion has yet again gone walkabout—irregularities, fraud, call it what you will. I seem to remember that it was exactly the same figure which the Court of Auditors found had gone walkabout before the resignation of the Santer Commission. It is, of course, a very much lower figure than the Select Committee of this Chamber has found on numerous occasions, which is at least double that.
My second question is perhaps more important. When the Minister repeats the view of the Prime Minister that there should perhaps be a second chamber in Brussels, and so on, and the recent statement by the Foreign Secretary on events as we move towards the next IGC in 2004, can she say whether Her Majesty's Government envisage any return of powers to national parliaments as a result of this process, as we move towards 2004? If they do envisage any return of powers, do they agree that it will have to be achieved by unanimity, and could the Minister say what those powers might be?
7 p.m.
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: Perhaps I can deal with the last point first. The noble Lord asks whether Her Majesty's Government envisage any return of power. I can say that Her Majesty's Government are approaching the discussions on the future of the European Union with an open-mind.
I stress that we signed up to a protocol addressing the issues which said that we recognise the need to improve and monitor the democratic legitimacy and transparency of the Union and its institutions in order to bring them closer to the citizens of member states. We should draw from that an understanding that the current position is one that can be improved upon; otherwise, why is it necessary to look at the need to improve, the need to monitor and the need to look at democratic legitimacy? We discuss those matters all the time. I draw from that that it will be an opportunity for reform. Does that mean that it will be a return of powers to this Parliament? I cannot answer that. I can say that it will be an opportunity for people to make those arguments in the run-up to the IGC in the year 2004. But any treaty changes will have to be agreed by unanimity.
The noble Lord, Lord Pearson, also asked what is so different now in the Commission? I am bound to point out that some of the Commissioners changed, and as far as I recall, some Members of the Committee were rather pleased with those changes. I am glad to see the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, nodding his head so vigorously.
Not only have some of the Commissioners changed, but also, as we all acknowledged, it was a wake-up call over the way in which some parts of the Commission were being run. Again, we have had the opportunity of discussing that in the past so it is unfair for the noble Lord to say, XNothing came out of that". Some things did change.
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