Previous Section Back to Table of Contents Lords Hansard Home Page

Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, I feel bound to support the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, in his amendment and in the remarks that he has just made. He very often makes those remarks, because he
 
7 Feb 2005 : Column 560
 
believes very much in what he says. I suppose that I have been making those remarks for well over 40 years, and I continue to believe what I believed then—that we should not have joined the Common Market and that we should now leave the European Union. That declares my interest in the whole matter.

The noble Lord is right—and the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, is right. At Second Reading, in Committee and today, the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, has made it clear—although he and I are on different sides of the fence—that he is concerned about the growth of privileges given to certain elites. Those sorts of privileges are beginning to undermine the confidence of people in international bodies and international systems. He is right in believing that. I think that we all believe in that. That is why it is necessary—it is a pity that the previous amendment was not carried—for the amendments to be tabled, and that includes this amendment.

4 p.m.

The European Union is increasingly becoming a unitary government. Therefore, as it is becoming a unitary government, it does not need the privileges that are extended to it. The Commission has privileges. If I am not mistaken, agents of the Commission sitting in London and in various cities and towns in our country also have those privileges. I should like confirmation of that. If that is so, the widespread privileges that those people have impinge not only on our national life but on our local life.

I should also like, at this point, to raise the question of British Commissioners serving in Brussels. They enjoy privileges, as far as I know. It appears that one of them wants privilege beyond the privilege that he already has, and that is the privilege to interfere in national affairs and indeed to criticize the BBC itself and individual members of the BBC. Perhaps noble Lords have not noticed it, but he has launched into an attack on John Humphrys, accusing him of being a Euro-sceptic. I do not know where he has been for the past 30 or 40 years, but he has also accused the BBC of being Euro-sceptic. Anyone with any knowledge at all knows that that simply cannot be true.

Mr Mandelson is enjoying privileges as a European Commissioner but still wants to intervene in the political life of this country and to libel—this is the question to which I am coming—individual members of an organisation. Does his privilege extend to immunity from being sued for libel? I should like the answer to that.

The Bill appears to be a small, minor Bill. However, as we have gone through Committee, and as we are going through Report stage, we are beginning to find that it has far more importance than even I thought right at the beginning. That so often happens. We had the European arrest warrants legislation before us, and the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, and I and others took part in that debate. We said that it was very dangerous for British citizens, and we consequently opposed it. Apparently, however, many Members of the Commons did not understand what was happening. I
 
7 Feb 2005 : Column 561
 
see from a report in the Daily Telegraph of Monday 31 January that a Committee of the House of Commons now says that EU warrants "undermine British law". That is precisely what many of us were saying when the legislation was going through this House.

I make that point simply to underline the fact that it is necessary for the House to scrutinise every Bill that goes through it and to do so in detail. If we do not, we might find that we are putting the British people in great jeopardy. Once we have done it in relation to the European Union, we cannot get out of it because of the acquis communautaire. Once we have agreed to something and once it has become law in the EU, we cannot undo it without the complete support of the European Council and the Council of Ministers.

So I hope that the House will consider the amendment very seriously. If there is a vote, I will, of course, support it in the Lobby.

Lord Monson: My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, that this House was the first to recognise the dangers of the European arrest warrant and that the House of Commons woke up to the dangers of that warrant late in the day. However, I should like briefly to ask the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, a question. Will the members of the bodies concerned and their families be exempt from parking restrictions and parking fines, in addition to the many tax and import duty privileges that are being afforded to them?

Lord Triesman: My Lords, I am afraid that I am liable to disappoint all three of the noble Lords who have spoken because I do not intend to debate the issue of European integration. I do not intend to reopen some of the questions that have been asked because they are nothing whatever to do with this Bill. It is not a discussion of whether Europe has effectively become a unitary government. The Government are absolutely clear—we have always been clear and could not be clearer—that the EU is an organisation made up of independent nation states. That will continue to be the case.

Some of the questions that have been asked, to which I shall try to reply briefly, seem if anything to perpetuate mythologies. Are people exempt from parking restrictions? I think that that question must have been asked and answered a dozen times in this House. No, they are not. Is Peter Mandelson exempt from any action if in a private capacity he libels people and they take action against him for libel? No, of course he is not.

Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, Mr Mandelson was speaking as a European Commissioner. That is the question I was asking. If he is speaking in his capacity as a European Commissioner, is he exempt from being sued for libel if he makes a libellous statement? That is the question, and I should like an answer to it.
 
7 Feb 2005 : Column 562
 

Lord Triesman: My Lords, when European Commissioners comment on John Humphrys they do not do so as European Commissioners. No one is exempt in that way.

Perhaps I may deal with another point. Is it the case, as the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, suggests, that families are covered in the way that he describes? The current agreements conferring privileges and immunities for bodies under Title V and Title VI of the Treaty on European Union do not apply to families. That is another matter that has been cleared up on several occasions. The noble Lord suggested that it might apply to people's dogs. I can assure him that, by and large, dogs are not charged with offences under any national law and brought before courts, and nor do they have to plead immunities in those circumstances. We are really in the land of the wholly fanciful. I cannot believe that it helps the cause of arguing about the issues on the noble Lord's part, let alone mine, to deal with them in such ways.

I turn to matters of fact. The noble Lord, Lord Pearson, read out the names of a significant number of European Community bodies. However, they are not relevant to this Bill. They were listed because I was asked for a list of bodies in a particular context but they are not relevant to the Bill as it proposes conferring privileges and immunities on agencies established under the Treaty on European Union. Those bodies were not established on that basis. The bodies that were include the European Parliament, the Council, the Commission, the Court of Justice and the Court of Auditors. With the greatest of respect to the House, that is ground that we have all covered before. Covering it again will not change those facts.

I turn to matters of substance because that is where we ought to make our judgments. Deleting Clause 5 would mean that we would not be able to confer privileges and immunities or legal capacity on EU bodies established under the Treaty on European Union, or on persons connected with those bodies. There is no other existing legislation to allow the United Kingdom to implement its commitments to confer privileges and immunities under secondary legislation. Leaving such matters to be dealt with in primary legislation would make it extremely difficult and very long-winded for the United Kingdom to fulfil the obligations it has undertaken to confer privileges and immunities in the EU measures establishing the relevant EU bodies. These are not the only bodies with which we have these kinds of arrangements. Indeed, only some half an hour ago we discussed the arrangements that we have with our partners in the Commonwealth. Treaties exist in relation to many other nations. I am not espousing a philosophy here; these mutual obligations are a fact of life when making international treaties. It is not simply a characteristic of Europe.

These bodies need legal capacity and privileges and immunities in order to function fully. For each body, the EU member state governments have together negotiated a specific agreement covering privileges and immunities. As I said in the previous debate, it has
 
7 Feb 2005 : Column 563
 
been this Government's policy—as it was the previous government's policy—to ensure that privileges and immunities are granted on the basis of functional need.

The ATHENA financing mechanism, the EU Satellite Centre and the Institute for Security Studies are all bodies which the United Kingdom supports as important for the successful development of the European Security and Defence Policy. They need legal capacity in order to operate; without that these agencies could not enter into agreements, for example, to enter into leases, to rent buildings, or open bank accounts. They also need privileges and immunities related to the official work of the organisation to ensure that these agencies can operate freely in support of the foreign and security policy being developed by the EU's member states, including ourselves.

I do not wish to use an example from the European Union, but if anyone doubts that diplomats and others working in these bodies need these kinds of protections, I ask noble Lords to think how such people would be placed trying to operate in a country like Zimbabwe without such protections. These protections are fundamental to getting on with the job at hand.

We have made a commitment to confer legal capacity and privileges and immunities in the way that I have described. We intend that the bodies should be able to function freely, fully and appropriately. We need to fulfil that commitment and to do that we need the legislative powers which would be conferred by Clause 5.

For those reasons we cannot accept the amendment. I appeal to your Lordships' House to argue this case in terms of the facts and the realities rather than the things which apparently are supposed to scare us but which have no application at all in this context.

4.15 p.m.


Next Section Back to Table of Contents Lords Hansard Home Page