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Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, I wondered whether he would make any reference to his intervention during discussion on a Starred Question on rainforests on 15 June.

Lord Tomlinson: My Lords, I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, knows my view on that matter. I did not intend to make any statement on that. For the sake of those noble Lords who were not in the House during that discussion, I asked with reference to the noble Lord, Lord Pearson,

"Is it not the case that concerning the development of forestry in this country, we should all be following the lead of the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, who recently received £96,000 from the European Union for doing exactly that"?—[Official Report, 15/6/05; col. 1197.]

I was praising the noble Lord, not criticising him. I hope that his shoulders are big enough occasionally to accept words of praise from a pro-European.

Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, I do not want to detain your Lordships but the intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Tomlinson, last week was a clear repetition of a very prominent and damaging hatchet job on me by the Guardian newspaper on 30 May which implied wrongly that I had benefited from EU money. I managed to get the Guardian to print a letter of correction on 3 June and merely mention these items so that any of your Lordships who may be interested—I appreciate that there may not be many—can read them. At least I have set the record straight in your Lordships' House, even if the noble Lord opposite is not interested in doing so.

6.25 pm

Lord Waddington: My Lords, I am sorry that my noble friend felt it necessary to intervene at that stage. It would have been much better if the noble Lord, Lord Tomlinson, had made an apology at an earlier stage. However, I shall not rake over those matters now. People can read the article and hear what my noble friend has to say.

It is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Tomlinson, as I like his robust style, which I, being of a more reserved disposition, cannot possibly hope to emulate. However, I shall not follow his
 
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argument today because there are some points that I want to make which have not been covered in the debate so far.

The results of the referenda in France and the Netherlands are not making life easy for the Government, but they have certainly opened up immense opportunities. First, we ought to be absolutely clear about why we are where we are. For a decade and a half, the European train has rushed forward at breakneck speed. Those in charge have made little effort to take ordinary people along with them. Indeed, I believe that elaborate steps have been taken in most countries to conceal from the people where the train has been going. To speed the train along, the Commission has been prepared to use every possible device at its disposal, sometimes, for instance using powers given it for one purpose for an entirely different one.

Those of us who were in the House of Commons in the 1980s are often challenged about the Single European Act. My view is that it has been extensively misused. Many of us were na-ve enough to believe that it would be used to reduce barriers to competition. I acknowledge that it did some of that but, on the pretext of providing a level playing field, the Commission has also used it to produce a veritable blizzard of so-called harmonisation measures, many of them comprising the worst kind of bureaucratic meddling.

Only last week, I had a reminder of the absurdity of some of those measures when I received a letter—I am sure that every other noble Lord did—about the EU Food Supplements Directive. I am sure that people throughout the Continent have all kinds of bright ideas on how their quality of life might be improved, but I am equally sure that few put the need to harmonise the market in food supplements at the top of that list. It really is a load of nonsense.

The Commission has not been averse to a bit of sharp practice now and again. For a start, it has used treaty articles designed to create a single market to advance entirely different aims. My right honourable friend David Heathcoat-Amory has put in a great deal of work on that and has pointed out that Article 95 of the treaty, which allows the harmonisation of laws and regulations to establish the internal market, has been used to promote directives on money laundering, art market levies, summer time arrangements, metrication, combating terrorism, anti-personnel landmines, civil protection and balance of payments support.

Then there is Article 308, the flexibility clause that allows the Community to take new powers to achieve a treaty objective. That is supposed to be used and used only in the course of the operation of the Common Market. In fact, it has been used for purposes entirely unconnected with the Common Market, for example, to set up new executive agencies and to grant loans to non-EU countries.

What on earth is the point, incidentally, except as an exercise in empire-building, of the EU's involvement in overseas aid? What is gained by countries handing
 
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over the bulk of their foreign aid for the EU to launder and then, having taken a cut, dispense on their behalf? What about the so-called social dimension mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Lea of Crondall, yesterday? The point surely is not whether workers should have decent holidays but whether, given our history of effective collective bargaining, there is the slightest need to have holidays and working hours laid down in Brussels. Clearly, there is not.

While the Commission has brought forward a torrent of rules and regulations interfering—in the words of my noble friend Lord Hurd of Westwell—in every nook and cranny of national life, step by step, treaty by treaty, the peoples of Europe have been losing the right to govern themselves. That is the history of the past decade and a half. The Maastricht Treaty, which was hailed for enshrining the principle of subsidiarity and as a measure that would limit unnecessary legislation, did nothing to stem the flow, or blizzard, of rules and regulations. A massive extension of majority voting meant a massive transfer of power from the people of Britain to the people of Brussels.

Some, such as my noble friend Lord Hurd, described Maastricht at the time as marking the high tide of federalism; but of course it was not. Amsterdam followed, and another 20 areas of self-government were surrendered. Then came Nice, with an extension of majority voting to a further 40 areas. Finally, when the Government signed up to this ill fated constitution, they signified their willingness to surrender the veto in another 63 areas, covering such key matters as criminal law and justice. Why on earth the Government chose to pretend that the constitution, which thenceforth would be the source of authority of the EU and would be open to interpretation by the European Court in entirely unpredictable ways, was a mere tidying-up exercise is beyond my comprehension, but it should make one a little wary as to what the Government might be up to now.

The real risk is not so much that the constitution will be implemented by the back door; it is that the Commission and others will just go on behaving as if nothing whatever has happened. We are told—these matters were raised by my noble friend during his excellent contribution on the Statement the other day—that the Fundamental Rights Agency is being set up in Vienna, even though without the constitution it has no legal status. We are told that John Bruton is in Washington acting as if he were the EU ambassador; and that Mr Solana is comporting himself as though already he was the European Minister for Foreign Affairs. The Government have the power to just say "No" to that sort of nonsense, and we are entitled to an assurance that they will.

I am sorry that the noble Baroness the Leader of the House is not in her place. She completely missed the point of the question that was put to her by the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, at the time of the Statement. Without the constitution in force, the EU has no legal authority whatever during a period of reflection to do any of those things. It is the Government's job to see that the EU does not act without proper legal authority. Again, I am sorry that
 
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the Leader is not here, and I hope that my remarks are passed on to her, because we are all entitled to a categorical assurance that the Government will have none of that nonsense. They must say that there is no question of anyone acting as if the constitution is in force, because they would be acting without any legal authority.

I have another concern that the Government will pick out of the constitution superficially attractive bits and promote them on the assumption that no one could possibly object because they are really awfully good things. Might I therefore also have an assurance that the paltry provision giving one third of national Parliaments the right to require the Commission to review a proposal and then carry on as if nothing has happened will not be picked out and presented as a great reform? Here, I disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell. We need real, not fake, proposals to enhance the role of national Parliaments.

The British Government have been saved from disastrous error by the rejection of the constitution in France and the Netherlands. In all their proper concerns about the budget, I hope that the Government will not fail to advocate fundamental reform—reform that, in the words of my noble friend Lord Biffen, will reduce the ambitions of the EU and restore the primacy of national governments and Parliaments. They might usefully start by urging that the Commission be stripped of the right to initiate legislation. That really would be a blow for democracy.

6.36 pm

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