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Lord Russell-Johnston: My Lords, perhaps I may take a couple of minutes to thank everyone who has taken part in this serious, informative and interesting debate. The noble Lord, Lord Giddens, was the first to say that honour killings had nothing to do with religion. Okay, I know that Mohammedanism, Christianity, Judaism, the Sikh religion and Buddhism all disavow it, but if religion is about the inculcation of good, I must ask why religion does not have more to do with it the other way round. That is a good question.

The noble Lord, Lord Roberts, stressed the thrust of multi-racial harmony and that there must be only one set of laws. He talked about families. That issue creates a big problem between the established community and the incoming community. In the established community, if a young person is in trouble the natural thing to do is for teachers or workers to phone the parents. In the migrant community, phoning the parents can be signing the child's death sentence if it is a question of involvement with some other person. It is very difficult.

The noble Baroness, Lady Cox, realised that well in her constructive and thoughtful contribution. She mentioned partners' deaths. Of course, domestic violence is serious in this country normally, but the distinction between the honour killings and domestic violence is that domestic violence is normally between partners. Honour killings involve uncles, fathers and brothers. It is different.

The noble Baroness and everyone else mentioned the need for more resources. The noble Lord, Lord Parekh, was quite right to stress that it is not just the final act that is important, but the background to the final act. There must be protection, but you will not succeed in changing things unless you change attitudes. The noble Lord was dead right there.

The noble Baroness, Lady Rendell, as one might expect, made a lucid and forceful contribution. She painted a vivid, horrible and frightening picture of women's lives in some parts of Pakistan and she asked the simple question: are we doing enough? I do not know whether the Minister answered that direct question.

My noble friend Lord Dholakia is an epitome of the advantage that our society derives from so many immigrants. He was unequivocal in his condemnation. I thought that the poem by the Afghan girl, quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, in his concluding remarks, was very poignant and very sad.

The Minister, who we all know is blunt and forthright, but extremely experienced, used the term, "dishonour killings" from the start. He is dead right and that is the way to leave it. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion for Papers.

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.
 
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Subsidiarity: Early Warning Mechanism (EUC Report)

5.04 pm

Lord Grenfell rose to move, That this House takes note of the 14th Report of the European Union Committee on the subsidiarity early warning mechanism (14th Report, Session 2004–05, HL Paper 101).

The noble Lord said: My Lords, I begin by paying some very well earned tributes. My 17 fellow members of the European Union Select Committee tackled this rather complex question with their customary zeal and impressive expertise. I should say how glad I am that the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, who probably knows more about the early warning mechanism than anyone else in this Parliament or any other Parliament will intervene in the gap. I am grateful to him.

I am grateful to committee members and to our indispensable Clerk, Simon Burton. At the same time, we owe a great debt to our committee specialist, Sarah Price, who marshalled all the evidence and arguments and wove them into a coherent and readable main report. She did a very good job. Perhaps I may seize the moment also to thank Her Majesty's Government for their response, which appears in the follow-up report about which I will have something to say later.

The Select Committee's first report on subsidiarity was published on 5 April. Clearly, since its publication, circumstances surrounding the EU constitutional treaty have significantly changed. However, subsidiarity remains a topic of interest in member states and national parliaments, and it has been the theme of a number of productive conferences during the UK presidency.

So what is subsidiarity and why did we undertake the inquiry on this subject? The principle of subsidiarity, put simply, requires that legislative action be taken at the appropriate level; that is, that the EU should act only if the objectives of the proposed EU action cannot be sufficiently met by member states and can be better achieved by the Union. It is an important principle, because it can both act as a check on the need to take action at Union level and ensure that, where that need is clearly established, the action is taken effectively and adds real value. Monitoring the principle of subsidiarity also helps to create a co-operative relationship between national parliaments and European Union institutions, and between national parliaments themselves, which is an idea to which I am greatly attached.

The principle of subsidiarity made its first formal appearance in the 1992 Maastricht Treaty, which set out important legal principles concerning the existence and exercise of the Community's powers. It was given further emphasis by the Amsterdam Treaty of 1997, which was accompanied by a protocol on the application of the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality. The more recent treaty, establishing a constitution for Europe, was accompanied by a new protocol on the application of these principles. The protocol provided for a mechanism through which
 
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national parliaments could seek to influence EU law-making by monitoring the Union's adherence to the principle of subsidiarity and by drawing attention to breaches where necessary.

Our committee decided to conduct an inquiry into what this new protocol would mean for this House. Although this treaty now seems highly unlikely to come into force, the committee's report remains relevant as the House already has a role in monitoring subsidiarity under the existing Amsterdam treaty. The main conclusion of our report was that the principle of subsidiarity needs to be applied more vigorously if it is to be as effective as it might be. We took evidence from, among others, Professor Stephen Weatherill and Professor Derrick Wyatt, who are leading experts in this field at Oxford University. They were both of the opinion that,

Both believe that subsidiarity has so far received only token attention from EU institutions and has certainly not served as a restraint on the part of the Community institutions in their law-making activities. We took some evidence that largely refuted this view, notably from the Government and from United Kingdom MEPs, but the committee was of the opinion that the principle of subsidiarity could, and should, still be adhered to more closely. We expressed the hope that the new protocol, if enacted, would provide a vehicle for highlighting and invigorating subsidiarity compliance across the Union. In their response to our report, the Government expressed the same hope and added that they believed that,

and that strengthening the national parliaments' role in the making of EU legislation should continue to be pursued. We can only say "Amen" to that.

We also took a substantial amount of evidence on what the new protocol could be expected to achieve. We found that expectations varied widely. There were those who saw it as a workable mechanism for the monitoring of subsidiarity and those who believed that it would be no more than a catalyst for better communication between EU institutions and national parliaments. We concluded that, with or without the protocol in force, subsidiarity monitoring can still, and should, be a catalyst for such a desirable opening-up.

Commissioner Margot Wallström, in her capacity as Commissioner for Institutional Relations and Communications, told the committee of her desire,

The committee would greatly welcome such a change in culture and expressed the hope that the protocol would help to turn that intention into reality. We also looked closely into the question of how national parliaments might collaborate and co-ordinate their subsidiarity monitoring. Almost all our witnesses agreed that, if and when national parliaments intended
 
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to submit reasoned opinions to the EU institutions, under the provisions of the new protocol, it would be useful to communicate with each other before doing so.

We agreed that an exchange of information between national parliaments would be highly desirable to ensure the effective operation of the protocol, and we felt that, although the Commission might listen to solitary objections to placate the member state involved, co-ordinated objections could reasonably be expected to carry more weight. We also expressed the hope that the new protocol would encourage co-operation between national parliaments for wider informative and constructive purposes. In the absence of the new protocol, that remains our hope. With this aim in mind, we continue to support the development of the so-called IPEX project, which will, when ready for use, create an Internet site devoted to the Union's parliaments for their exchanges of information and opinions.

The committee undertook detailed work on the legal aspects of the protocol. Article 1.11 of the constitutional treaty provides that national parliaments shall ensure compliance with that principle in accordance with the procedure set out in the protocol. The use of the word "shall" in the article led to a wide debate on whether the monitoring of subsidiarity compliance would be voluntary for national parliaments or a treaty obligation. Most of our witnesses took the view that the article implied that national parliaments had a political obligation to monitor the principle but not a legal responsibility. We concluded that the treaty was unclear on this point and that, in practice, it would be up to each parliament to decide the extent to which it would become involved in scrutinising subsidiarity compliance.

Similarly, it would be up to each parliament to decide how to include regional parliaments and assemblies in the monitoring process. Article 6 of the protocol requires that:

Our committee recommended that regional parliaments and regional authorities should be made aware of forthcoming legislation at the time of the presentation of the Commission's annual work programme, and we urged the Government to set the necessary mechanisms in place.

Still concentrating on the legal concerns arising from the protocol, the committee considered Article 8 in detail—the article that would provide for actions to be brought before the European Court of Justice challenging European legislative acts on the grounds of infringement of the principle of subsidiarity. The committee's consideration of this article brought to light a number of searching questions, which we put to the Government for clarification.

On the assumption that the Government had answers to these questions before they signed the constitutional treaty, we found their response to this section of our report rather disappointing. The
 
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Government offered a general comment on Article 8 which admitted that the article was imprecise and would require further elaboration in further discussions among the member states and EU institutions. Although, understandably, they say in their response that these discussions will now no longer take place following the treaty's rejection by France and the Netherlands, it would help if the Government could now give more precise answers to these legal questions based on the thinking that they must have done before they signed the treaty. Both the Government and Parliament need to be clear on these points in anticipation of any revival in the future of the treaty's proposal to set in place an early warning system endowed with sanctions.

The final chapter of our report looked at the reaction of other national parliaments to the proposed new protocol. We concluded that, whatever their thoughts on the practicability of the early-warning mechanism, parliaments were enthused by the hope that enhanced subsidiarity monitoring would lead to greater involvement of national parliaments in European law-making. The likelihood that clear cases of infringement of the subsidiarity or proportionality principles might be quite rare, given that the Commission is now taking the issue more seriously in its formulation of proposals—at least, that is what it tells us—does not invalidate the desire of national parliaments to show how vigilant they could and should be.

With completion of the treaty ratification process no longer in prospect, the committee was concerned to ensure that the enthusiasm for, and political momentum behind, subsidiarity monitoring should not weaken. We therefore published a short follow-up report in November, which includes the Government's response to our main report and an update for the House on recent developments in the area of subsidiarity and, in particular, the decision of COSAC to conduct a subsidiarity and proportionality check in the coming year.

So where do we go from here? Subsidiarity was a major agenda item at the 9 to 11 October COSAC meeting at Westminster, which I co-chaired with my colleague, Jimmy Hood, MP, the chair of the House of Commons scrutiny committee. At this meeting, COSAC—which I think your Lordships know is the main forum for co-operation between the European Union affairs committees of Europe's parliaments, including the European Parliament—decided that it would not be appropriate, at the present time, to conduct a second pilot project based on the subsidiarity early-warning mechanism as set out in Protocol 2 to the Constitutional Treaty. We had earlier, before the two negative referendums, conducted a pilot project focusing on the Commission's Third Railway Package, which had raised some interesting and significant subsidiarity issues.

COSAC took this decision because it was sensitive to the view that the body should not, at this stage, make assumptions about whether the treaty would be ratified. COSAC also appreciated the concerns of the
 
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Commission, which said that it would find it difficult to respond to anything described as a "pilot project" for the mechanism contained in the treaty. In this spirit, COSAC concluded that it would instead conduct a "subsidiarity and proportionality check", which would serve to focus discussion on how scrutiny of subsidiarity by national parliaments might be improved, and would allow those national parliaments who would wish to do so to co-ordinate their scrutiny of subsidiarity among themselves, to heighten its impact.

A few voices critical of this proposal have been heard in a minority of the parliamentary chambers around Europe, and notably from a handful of members of the European Parliament. For most of them, the concern has been that COSAC might be seeking to "cherry pick" from the treaty, or might be trying to introduce the treaty's provision for subsidiarity monitoring into practice through the back door.

Your Lordships' committee in no way shared this concern, and COSAC's conclusions, sent to the EU's institutions, stressed that national parliaments already have a legitimate role to play in scrutinising subsidiarity and proportionality compliance under the Amsterdam Treaty and the protocol on the role of national parliaments annexed to it. By conducting a subsidiarity and proportionality check, national parliaments would not in any way be cherry picking from the treaty, or assuming that the ratification process would be completed. No treaty change is required, either for national parliaments to present their views to the Commission, or for the Commission to respond to those views if it so wished. In addition to this, participation of national parliaments in the process, as I said, would be entirely voluntary. Unlike the provisions in the treaty, there would be no "yellow card" sanctions available to the parliaments.

COSAC agreed that it would be best if participating national parliaments would inform the COSAC presidency of the proposals they would like to see made the subject of the check not more than two weeks after they had examined the Commission's annual work programme for 2006. With that work programme now published, we have invited those chambers wishing to participate to send in their proposals to the COSAC presidency by mid-January of next year. The next step would then be that the presidential troika—that is to say, the last country to hold the COSAC presidency, the current presidency and the successor—will then collate responses and designate the most frequently named proposals to be subject to the check. This list of proposals will then be distributed to the national parliaments, and to the European Parliament.

Participating national parliaments will then complete their scrutiny of the proposals and send any comments they have on subsidiarity or proportionality directly to the Commission, the European Parliament and the Council within six weeks, so that these institutions are at least made aware of our specific concerns. Whether they do anything about it is a matter purely for them, but at least they should listen.
 
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Your Lordships' House will therefore be taking part in this check. The Select Committee and its sub-committees have been closely examining the Commission's list of priority initiatives set out in its annual work programme to identify proposals that ought, in our view—if there are any—to be subject to the check.

In the mean time, I have written to the European and External Relations Committee of the Scottish Parliament and to the equivalent committee in the Welsh Assembly inviting them to alert our Select Committee in Westminster to any proposals, at whatever stage in the policy-making and legislative cycle they occur, where they felt that there were subsidiarity or proportionality issues of which we should be aware. This would then inform the proceedings at Westminster. We have told them that we will keep them updated on the process and outcome of the check in due course. Obviously this arrangement, if agreed, will eventually include, as we hope, the Northern Ireland Assembly. The responses from our Scottish and Welsh colleagues have been very positive.

Subsidiarity was the subject of a United Kingdom/Dutch intergovernmental and interparliamentary conference held in the Hague on 17 November this year, in which I participated as co-chair. As at COSAC, the conference reached a broad consensus that the Parliaments of member states should play a stronger role in ensuring the implementation of the principle of subsidiarity in order to achieve the right balance between regional, national and EU levels and to help connect European citizens to European decision-making. And, as at COSAC, the conference saw the earliest possible access for Parliaments to information on forthcoming legislative proposals as crucial to effective monitoring. A presidency note on the conference is due and will be placed in the Library of the House. Subsidiarity will continue to be an area of great interest in Europe during the Austrian presidency and a further conference on the principle has been organised for the 17 and 18 April in that country.

In conclusion, I am fully persuaded that improved methods of co-operation between Europe's parliamentary committees can, among other benefits, bring about a rise in the quality of scrutiny as we learn from each other, while respecting each other's parliamentary traditions and practices. And that, as the fruits of an experiment on subsidiarity monitoring, will be no mean achievement. That is why we commend to your Lordships these reports on subsidiarity and the monitoring of its application. Bringing national parliaments closer to the European legislative process is one important step in bringing the Union closer to the people. I beg to move.

Moved, That this House takes note of the 14th Report of the European Union Committee on the Subsidiarity Early Warning Mechanism (14th Report, Session 2004–05, HL Paper 101).—(Lord Grenfell.)
 
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5.22 pm

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