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Lord Howell of Guildford: I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her comments. In her view the amendment is not necessary. I should point out that merely to refer to various past reports and debates does not meet the aim of this amendment which is to do with the future. When and if the Treaty of Nice is ratified—assuming that Ireland turns round and matters proceed smoothly, because there are several Xifs" in the way—thereafter we want to see that the full economic, political and constitutional effects of this measure are put before Parliament. One is really asking for assurances about the future, which we do not have, rather than a track record, which we certainly have and do not dispute.
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: Perhaps the noble Lord will give way. I gave the specific assurance that the Government would continue to keep Parliament informed of developments in the European Union as they occurred. I hope that the noble Lord takes that as an assurance about the future.
Lord Howell of Guildford: I take that as an assurance about the future. It is not the one that we want, which is to do with the White Paper, but at least the reportage to the two Houses will proceed as in the past. We do not believe that that is enough and that in the new age of information technology and empowerment in which we live the whole question of communicating to people what is being done in their name needs to be improved and strengthened. For that reason we shall return to this theme again and again, not just on this Bill. This particular matter may well be one that attracts our attention again at Report stage. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury moved Amendment No. 42A:
- After Clause 3, insert the following new clause—
The noble Lord said: I do not move this amendment in any spirit of partisanship vis a vis the European Union. The amendment is not concerned with the degree to which we in this House and the other place have debated—some may say ad nauseam—the various aspects of the Treaty of Nice. This amendment is concerned exclusively with democracy, in particular the extent to which democracy is real for the mass of so-called ordinary people of this country.
Just as the amendment is moved without any partisanship, I should at least declare that I am president of a charity called the Citizenship Foundation which, with considerable support from the Government at different times, has striven to make the mysteries of citizenship, particularly vis a vis Europe, a little more apparent to the great majority of school pupils. I believe that however well committees of this House, the Committee this evening and others have debated the matter there has been a major shortfall in the information that is made available to ordinary citizens in language that they can understand and in forms which appeal to them.
Some say that this amendment, if accepted, would help the Euro-wreckers—those who want the UK to leave the European Union, or at least oppose any further evolution of it. That is as untrue as is the claim that the amendment is of assistance to the Euro-zealots. The truth of the matter is that if democracy and freedom of information mean anything at all, ordinary people should have the opportunity to understand and form their own views about what we do in their name.
Some say that this is too late. I agree that it would have been much better had public information been widely available to ordinary citizens at all stages since the referendum in 1975. But a man does not refuse drink because he is parched. Certain it is that the people of this country are parched of impartial and accessible information in popular form. Some will say that all this is too difficult to explain. Many in this House believe that comprehension of the formidable intricacies of the treaty is beyond them, but if that is truly the case we should abandon the European Union now. I for one am unwilling to accept that the Treaty of Nice is incapable of being reduced to plain English and explained to so-called ordinary people in a way that they will understand. That is happening in jury trials of the greatest complexity every day of the week.
Some also say that people are not interested. It is true that only 23 per cent of our fellow citizens turned out at the previous Euro elections. That was a catastrophic figure, and there is no point in hiding behind it. It is also true that, in so far as polled, the level of public interest in matters European is parlous. I do not believe that that is apathy but a combination of ignorance and resentment, and we can and should do something about it.
I contacted the office of the Foreign Secretary about this matter. I am aware that the Foreign Secretary is particularly keen to enable people of this country to understand what is going on. I was grateful to receive a letter from the Minister in response to my approach.
The Minister referred to the Internet site. That is no doubt an excellent tool for some of our fellow citizens, but only 40 per cent of them have access to it. I bet that only a small number of those who have access will find and use that site. What we are considering tonight is the 60 per cent or more citizens who do not have access to the Internet and would not know what a White Paper was if it was put on the kitchen table but who none the less desperately need unbiased information in plain English in a popular format about this immensely important project.
In her letter the Minister referred to the availability of leaflets. It is true that a leaflet about the changeover in currency was published recently. It is also true that a big campaign on the changeover for business, which was originally headed by the noble Lord, Lord Simon, continues. So far the Government have spent #10 million on that. As the noble Lord said in an article in the Financial Times only last week, it none the less represents a paltry attempt to explain the situation to the business community which has a self-interest in knowing about these matters and considerable levels of informational sophistication.
Finally, the Minister referred to the strenuous efforts being made by Peter Hain, and formerly by Keith Vaz, through tours, speeches and in debates on the Internet. I pay tribute to them. Long may their efforts last. However, no one should be deceived for a moment as regards what this revolution seeks to achieve; that is, to reach the tens of millions that such efforts will get nowhere near.
I should mention to the Committee that it would be ironic if we and the Government failed to achieve what is proposed in the amendment at a point when banks and other financial institutions are now required by law to inform in writing every individual customer of each change in interest rates. In that I believe we have the potential for demonstrating hypocrisy between what is being imposed on organisations and businesses and what is being done by us.
In her letter the Minister stated that she felt that delivery of information in the form of a tabloid newspaper to every household would not be well received. She thought that such a campaign would not be effective. All I can say in response is that it is about time we tried to do something. Some 26 years have passed since the referendum and we have done absolutely nothing for the ordinary people of this country. Perhaps the Minister is right and such a document would not be well received or would not be effective. However, neither of those speculations—they are no more than that—have put me off in any degree from this proposal. We must try.
Perhaps one is influenced by one's own experience, but I do not doubt that the great British public believe that we are not interested in informing them and that
Some have said that it would be biased. I think that that is nonsense. Every day of the week the Government put out information to the public in the form of White Papers, Green Papers, consultation documents and so forth. I have no trouble believing that the Government would do their best to publish unbiased information, should the amendment be accepted. Finally I was told that something else should be done because the proposal was not appropriate. However, as I see it, nothing else has been done.
I turn now to the question of cost. I have taken the trouble to inquire of the Royal Mail what it would cost to deliver a tabloid freesheet to all 24.5 million households in the kingdom. I have also learnt what it would cost to design and print such a freesheet comprising two pages in full colour. The total cost would amount to under #1.4 million. Given that the interest payable on the Dome debt exceeds that sum per diem, I do not think that we should jib at such a relatively modest sum.
I shall bring my few remarks to a close by saying that I am sorry that the amendment has been moved at this time of night when the Committee is not as full as it might have been. I believe that the issue with which we are grappling could not be of greater moment, both to us as a Committee and to our democracy. The European Union represents probably the most dramatic and ambitious exercise in democracy that we have witnessed in modern times. It is enormously important for every citizen. We have had a taste of that in the issues covered by the Nice Treaty during the course of our debates.
I shall return to the point where I began my remarks. If we are serious about making our democracy vibrant, if we are truly concerned about the fact that, at the last election, only 59 per cent of our fellow citizens bothered to exercise their precious right to vote, and if we are in any way influenced by poll after poll reflecting the level of disaffection felt by the public at large, then it is not sufficient for us to rest on the traditional methods of imparting information. We need to change to using means of communication that we may have some hope will be acceptable to those who most need us to reach out to them. An element of psychology comes into this: the public want to feel that we are reaching out and making a special effort to communicate with them; that is, that we care about them, that we want them to understand and that we do want to hear from them.
For all those reasons, so briefly and inadequately put, I hope very much that the Government will feel able to respond positively to the amendment. I beg to move.
Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville: Some 40 years ago, when I was the Swiss correspondent on the Financial Times, Sir Edward Heath and the late Reggie Maudling arrived in Geneva to tell their EFTA colleagues that we would negotiate to join the European Economic Community. Ten years later, between 1971 and 1973, I was a private sector resident in Brussels when, under Sir Edward's government, the treaty was being successfully negotiated and signed. In the mid-1980s, I had the experience of serving for four years as the British Minister on the Budget Council of the European Union, probably the longest period of service since 1972. Those three lepers' squints at what now is the European Union were as nothing to the experience of debating these matters in your Lordships' Committee.
I have long regarded the European Union as a cathedral. The swiftest record for the construction of a European cathedral was 40 years for Durham; the longest was over a millennium for Prague. It looks like the European Union will come in somewhere between those two figures. Because a cathedral is—as the good book puts it—a house with many mansions, the condition of the construction process is that of a series of building sites. From time to time, the language which floats upwards from those building sites is that which emanates from any building site in the land.
A little after that metaphor had first occurred to me, I discovered that it had earlier struck that great man, Charles de Gaulle. I was proud to serve as an infantryman in the army of a man who, in his post-war memoirs, said memorably—I give the English translation—
The next thing I have to say might have caused me to be cashiered from the general's army. Ever since that summer 40 years ago in Switzerland, I have always regretted the fact that Europe has primarily, and perhaps inevitably, advanced through its elites rather than through its peoples. I suspect that de Gaulle would have remarked that the French people trusted him; no doubt they did. However, the subsequent seeming enthusiasm of the French people for the direction in which Europe was going struck me as being at odds with their reputation for individualism. As a result I was in no way surprised that the French vote in the referendum on Maastricht was so close and that perhaps the French elite had rather unwisely taken the French people for granted.
For myself, I believe that the cathedral will be built more securely and nobly if the peoples of Europe genuinely are carried along in the process and retain the periodic right to say, XWait a minute". Of course a cathedral cannot be built by referring every separate construction issue to the diocesan electoral register. But, when people are consulted and kept fully informed, they have a much better chance of reaching a good decision. For the reason that my noble friend Lord Howell adduced on the last new clause but one, I regard the current new clause as a classic milestone in
XPUBLIC INFORMATION
(1) This Act shall not come into effect until Her Majesty's Government have communicated to every household in the United Kingdom the constitutional and governmental effects of the Treaty of Nice.
(2) A communication under subsection (1) shall be—
(a) in writing,
(b) in plain English,
(c) in popular form, and
(d) impartial."
8.45 p.m.
XI invited M. Herriot to join me in rebuilding France. He said that he preferred to rebuild the Radical Party".
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