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Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, I am glad to be associated with this amendment, which the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, moved with great eloquence. In putting forward such views, he speaks for those far beyond his own party.

As for the cost of the proposal—referred to by my noble friend Lord Waddington—if it reached the stratospheric sums mentioned, I should have to disengage my support. Together with other noble Lords, I believe that this would be quite a cheap exercise. The actual sum would be minuscule compared with the amount that the Government spend on advertising almost every week, let alone the amount that the European Union spends on promoting its views—sometimes dedicated in a particular direction. So I do not believe that the cost problem is a deterrent.

Why do I believe that it would be right for the Government to accept the amendment? I accept the point that the impartiality criterion is a difficult one. I have it from my noble friend Lord Bell—who is an expert sans pareil in handling information and in persuading people—that separating information from persuasion is always very difficult, although it can be done.

If those who draft the treaties and documents are serious, and if the Commission is serious, about bringing Europe nearer to the citizen, the thirst for information about what is implied in this treaty, and in others, must be met. That thirst is very great; it is much greater than it was even a few years ago. Thanks to the information revolution, people have far better access to information. The movement is afoot in Europe for a less centralised and less remote pattern of European institutions which no longer try to conduct our affairs from the top down.

The demand for plain English is admirable and right. We should resist "Euro-babble" wherever it occurs. There are inherent difficulties in the complex relations between nations being put together by treaties. This is an argument for fewer treaties and less activism by the central European institutions, so that what they do, and the responsibilities that they assume, can be explained in simpler words—in any language, but obviously in our native language, English, with which we are particularly concerned.

I hope that the amendment will be supported by all parties. I waited, breathless, to hear whether the Front Bench colleagues of the noble Lord, Lord Phillips,

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were going to support it. In the end, I think I detected that discretion was to be the better part of valour, and that we should have wait another day for their support. I hope I am wrong. This is an excellent cause for all parties that believe in democracy, liberty and freedom. They should recognise its value and support it.

As my noble friend Lady Park of Monmouth rightly said, this is a constitutional matter—purveying to people what is being done to their constitution—not ours, but theirs—in their name. It is not only a financial matter. That should be understood before any referendum on the euro is called. I believe that it is increasingly being understood. The constitutional issues have now come to the centre of the debate.

The amendment does not affect the treaty. Those who are terrified of touching the treaty in any of its sacred aspects can be reassured. It merely brings a small ray, a beam, of common sense into this area, where there is so much babble about closeness to citizens and more democracy, and so little action. Therefore, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, will press his amendment to a decision. I certainly support it.

Lady Saltoun of Abernethy: My Lords, might I ask what is probably a very stupid question? If the amendment is accepted, and if every household in the country receives a lovely communication through the door—clear, impartial, and written in beautiful English which everyone can understand—what happens if they decide on the basis of that information that they do not like the treaty? What can they do about it? I understand that there is not to be a referendum on the treaty. Will there be an election before the treaty comes into force? What can people do about it if they do not like it?

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, to answer the last point raised by the noble Lady, Lady Saltoun, first, there has been an election since the treaty was published. We stated categorically in our election manifesto that we would ratify the treaty if we were elected. The British people have had their chance and we all know what they said clearly in June.

Let us come back to the point of the amendment. I think that we all agree on the need for information about the Treaty of Nice and about the United Kingdom's membership of the European Union, although I must point out that the amendment is about only the constitutional and governmental effects of the Treaty of Nice, not the entire panoply of difficulties that some of your Lordships have expressed relating to some of the deeper constitutional issues, which are not solely to do with the Treaty of Nice. We can agree that it is important that we communicate to the public on the issue.

The Government have been doing that since before the Treaty of Nice was negotiated. We published a White Paper in February 2000 before the start of the IGC that led to Nice. That White Paper set out in clear and simple English the issues involved and the Government's approach. That document was and still

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is available on the Foreign Office website. In addition, we have regularly held debates on the issues in this House and in another place and we have provided further information to Parliament and to the public on the outcome of Nice. Parliament has received a detailed explanatory memorandum to accompany its consideration of the Bill, spelling out the issues. That is also available on the Foreign Office website.

The British public have also been able to secure a host of information on Nice and on the EU from the Foreign Office through our website, through our publications, through the media and through other organisations that many people use to secure information. Some of your Lordships also referred to the short booklet that the Government have published for the general public spelling out the issues. We believe that it spelt them out in the clear and impartial way referred to in the amendment. As we have already discussed, what some regard as impartial may not be altogether consistent with what others regard as impartial, but it is certainly the Government's view that the booklet is impartial. We send it out to anyone who writes to us about Nice.

All the necessary information has been made available. Mailing it to every household could be done only at disproportionate cost. It was not done for any of the previous treaties. I am sure that all your Lordships, who are tremendously knowledgeable about Europe, agree that some of those treaties were a great deal more radical than this treaty, including those negotiated by Conservative governments. I do not understand why it is suddenly so important to do that for the Treaty of Nice, which makes changes that are much less fundamental than those in some previous treaties.

Some of your Lordships have alluded to the considerable handicap that this country has, which most of our partners in the European Union do not have. It is one reason why the British public remain among the least informed on European issues. The problem is that it is very difficult to provide objective information on Europe via the media. Europe is an emotive issue in this country and a sensible debate through the media—a debate that does not include many raised voices—is almost impossible in this country. That is one reason why we target the public directly. We have already heard categoric statements from some of your Lordships repeating what has been put forward in the press recently relating to moves made in the Foreign Office for some sort of security council arrangements in the EU. That is plain nonsense, but some will believe what is put in the press. I did not hear the programme to which the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, referred earlier, but the funding in 1975 was voted for by Parliament. As far as I know, it was split equally. I do not know whether the noble Lord believes that the CIA was funding in addition to that or whether he believes that the CIA was funding both sides. One should not always believe everything that one hears a journalist say.

Let us leave that on one side and come back to the point of the amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Phillips, said that it was not enough to have

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information on the Internet. Of course it is not enough in itself, although more than 55 per cent of the UK is in touch with the Internet. We have the highest Internet usage of any country in Europe. Thanks to this Government's policies, that figure is much higher for children and young people.

The information is made available on the Internet not just for those who access it directly. Your Lordships will know that media organisations and other so-called multipliers of information and news use the Internet as one of their primary sources. We are taking approximately 10,000 hits a month on the FCO website. Noble Lords may say that that is not very many. It may not be—although it is one of the highest usages of any official information in Whitehall—but those multipliers have to be brought into the equation. We believe that it is right for the Government to make such heavy investment in the Internet and in the ways we have published information.

That is just one part of our strategy of raising awareness about the EU. We also work in partnership with organisations, think tanks, private companies, institutions and others to spread information. We undertake research to show where the need for information is greatest and to develop the strategies that we believe are needed. I hope that your Lordships will be able to agree that that is a far more sophisticated and cost-effective way of providing information than simply sending out an unsolicited mailshot.

I have a great deal of sympathy for what my noble friend Lord Bruce said about the treaties being incomprehensible. That is why we are so supportive of what the convention is trying to do and of the aims of the IGC in 2004. However, I am bound to say that my noble friend's point would not be met by the amendment, which is closely focused on Nice alone, not what has gone on before. He will be much better helped by the proposals that the Government are supporting on the IGC. Of course there are problems with the criss-crossing of the references between various treaties, conventions and declarations. That is why we have said that a simplification of the treaties is very important, with a view to making them clearer and better understood, without changing their meaning.

The noble Lord, Lord Waddington, referred to the letter that I sent him. As with many issues, I believe that these matters require careful reading. Sometimes documents have to be read two or three times to understand exactly what is meant. I am not at all unhappy that it was a British draft that went forward to make it absolutely clear that there should not be leaking of money from European sources into national political parties. His main point was that the provision was not clear and the words were gobbledegook. A lot of such provisions are very difficult to understand. That is why we need to look clearly at the treaties. I have great sympathy with the noble Lord. Noble

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Lords will be able to judge for themselves about the gobbledegook from the letter that has gone into the Library of the House.


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