| Previous Section | Back to Table of Contents | Lords Hansard Home Page |
5.36 pm
Lord Tomlinson: My Lords, I begin by expressing my gratitude to the noble Baroness the Lord President for her comprehensive introduction to this debate today. I add to that my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, for the very clear way in which he has dealt explicitly with how the proposals in the reform treaty affect national parliaments.
Today is not the day for intense scrutiny of the reform treaty, which will come all too soon by the traditional method that we have adopted when we reform treaties—ratification by Parliament rather than by referendum. A lot will be said about referendums during this debate, and I repeat what I said once before in this House: I believe that my right honourable friend the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, was wrong when he promised a referendum. I said so at the time and I still believe it. But that was at least understandable in the context of the constitutional nature of the treaty—wrong, but understandable. Today we have to acknowledge that the constitutional treaty died; it was formally and officially killed off and buried, following its rejection in France and Holland. Today we have a very different reform treaty, which is being ratified in precisely the same way as all its predecessor reform treaties. So today is not about referendums, nor should it be.
5 Dec 2007 : Column 1737
It is a matter of record in this House that some people are so firmly set in their prejudicial views that they never allow the facts to get in the way of a good gripe about Europe, as if that somehow purged the system. Holders of such views will no doubt assert, usually without any supporting evidence, that the constitutional treaty and its successor reform treaty are similar if not identical in everything but name. The noble Lord, Lord Howell, poured scorn on the Dutch Council of State. That was really not up to his normal standard. The Dutch Council of State is a highly regarded and important constitutional mechanism, which concluded in a cogent and carefully argued opinion that the new reform treaty not only is not broadly equivalent to the constitutional treaty but applies in countries that do not have opt-outs such as the United Kingdom has. He then went on to quote in aid the Select Committee in another place, with less than his usual assiduity in telling us all the facts about what happened. The Select Committee report said:
“What matters is whether the new Treaty produces an effect which is substantially equivalent to the Constitutional Treaty. We consider that”—
- “for those countries which have not requested derogations or opt outs from the full range of agreements in the Treaty, it does”.
The committee then referred readers to the table in the annexe to the report.
The committee quite clearly distanced the United Kingdom from that. Mr Bill Cash sought greater clarity in the report. If noble Lords look at the report, they will find that, at paragraph 9, Mr Cash moved an amendment that proposed to add, at the end of line 10:
“We do not consider that, in the event, the Reform Treaty is ‘very different’ from the Constitutional Treaty”.
Mr Cash’s amendment received the support of Mr David Heathcoat-Amory, who was in that minority group of six in the Convention on the Future of Europe. That was the only support that Mr Cash had; there was no one from the government party. His amendment was defeated by five votes to two in the other place.
Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, I want to conform to the high standards of assiduity that the noble Lord expects from me. I wonder whether he would read out the sentence that follows the ones that he read out from the report of the Select Committee in the other place. I do not think that it conforms to the sense that he is purveying.
Lord Tomlinson: My Lords, I am sorry that the noble Lord does not have the report with him, because I read to the end of that paragraph. The report then carries on with paragraph 73, which is on a completely different issue. I read everything to the end of the paragraph.
Lord Willoughby de Broke: My Lords, the noble Lord is talking about the report from the European Union committee in another place. At paragraph 45, the report states:
“Taken as a whole, the Reform Treaty produces a general framework which is substantially equivalent to the Constitutional Treaty”.
5 Dec 2007 : Column 1738
Lord Tomlinson: My Lords, as the noble Lord knows, I have made my argument. I will listen to his later on if I have to.
At times, I believe that my Government are too timid about Europe. There are times when they should show greater drive, imagination and commitment to some of what I believe are our European obligations. I represented your Lordships' House in the Convention on the Future of Europe together with the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, and supported a draft constitution, as did my Government initially. Prior to ratification and under strong parliamentary pressure, the Government identified their red lines and sought to protect them. They succeeded, which resulted in major changes for all and even greater changes for some. The UK red lines were entrenched in the reform treaty by opt-ins, opt-outs, exemptions and emergency brakes.
Notwithstanding my view about the timidity of my Government, the simple fact is that we have only one reform treaty on offer and we have only one thing that we can do with it: if we do not support it, we must reject it. If we reject it, because of the requirement of unanimity in treaty changes, we will wind up with possibly the worst of all conclusions, which is a continuation of the Nice treaty, the most unsatisfactory of the amendments made over the years. It is not a question of the promised land being round the corner if we get rid of this reform treaty; this is the only reform treaty on offer and the alternative is the status quo of the treaty of Nice. I have my regrets, as I know other noble Lords may have, but our idiosyncratic wishes are not on offer when we come to debate the reform treaty.
We have a draft reform treaty agreed by heads of government with unanimity. It can be changed only by unanimity; we will not be offered a variant treaty. We must ratify or reject what is currently on the table. Nobody in your Lordships’ House should allow their concept of the best to jeopardise the good that I believe is on offer.
What does the reform treaty significantly improve to the substantial benefit of not only our partners in the EU but also us? The noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, spelled out clearly the benefits to national parliaments. Those are very significant improvements, which we would be foolhardy to criticise or reject as somehow a worsening of the position of national parliaments. There is the whole packet of extremely important institutional changes. My noble friend the Lord President referred clearly to the benefits of having a full-time president. There are the advantages that are made in the area of common foreign and security policy, with the double-hatting of the high representative.
The advantages that have come from our engagement in common foreign and security policy are many and important. That role has expanded dramatically. Our role in the Middle East peace process and in the stabilisation of the Balkans, our role with our European partners in relation to Iran, the various security missions in Bosnia, in Gaza, on the West Bank and in the Central African Republic and the role that has just been adopted in Chad are very important. They will be made more efficient and effective by the system of the double-hatting of the high representative. The
5 Dec 2007 : Column 1739
Much more can be said in favour of the reform treaty; we will no doubt talk about this day by day over goodness knows how many days when we come to ratification. As I said, only two things are on offer: the reform treaty agreed by unanimity and requiring ratification by unanimity, or the treaty of Nice, with all its imperfections. No other options or permutations are available. In such circumstances, I unhesitatingly commend the agenda for the Lisbon summit. I look forward to my right honourable friend the Prime Minister coming back and saying that the discussions have been successfully concluded and I look forward to us getting the Bill that it will be our prerogative to ratify.
5.47 pm
Lord Waddington: My Lords, it is always a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Tomlinson. I like his rumbustious style. Even when he is talking nonsense, it is always a pleasure to hear that nonsense.
I suspect that the real purpose of the debate is to allow people like me to let off steam; I cannot see that it performs any other useful function. The Prime Minister is going off to Lisbon to sign the treaty whatever any of us says today. He is then going to force through Parliament a ratification Bill, by the use of guillotines and three-line Whips. We in Parliament will not be able to alter in the slightest respect what he is going to sign up to. The only useful thing that we can really do is try to shame the Government into honouring their promise to hold a referendum.
I find it very curious that while the treaty does, to all intents and purposes, embody the constitution that was rejected by France and the Netherlands, some people outside the Government as well as within continue to insist that the opposite is the truth. There may be something deeply psychological in this, but there is probably a more mundane explanation. I suspect that such people feel that if they do not continue to insist that black is white they will be conceding the case for a referendum, and that a referendum would end in a decisive “no” to this latest exercise in EU empire building. All that just tends to show that what we are experiencing now is just one more episode in the long history of deception practised by those driving the European project. That history has done enormous damage to democracy, and it has helped to create real distrust of politicians.
Successive Governments have diminished the authority of this Parliament and transferred powers to unelected European institutions without any proper consultation of the people. True, there was a referendum back in 1975, but the question on the ballot paper was the product of deceit. It was designed to give the impression that all that was at issue was membership of a Common Market—which was far from the truth, even at that time.
So if the Prime Minister refuses the people a referendum on the treaty in blatant disregard of the promise made in the 2005 general election, and if the Liberal Democrats support him in that deceit, there
5 Dec 2007 : Column 1740
Let us not forget that this treaty is the product of the German Chancellor’s plan to bring back the old treaty under a new name, using different terminology without changing the substance. That is not an assertion, but the unvarnished truth, because, very helpfully, the German Chancellor’s letter containing this plan was leaked and made public. So we know that that is the origin of the present treaty and, of course, there is plenty more evidence that we are discussing the constitution under a new guise. Virtually all the heads of government have echoed the words of the Spanish Prime Minister:
the old treaty, that is. He continued:
“It is, without a doubt, much more than a treaty. This is a project of foundational character, a treaty for a new Europe”.
So how on earth, in those circumstances does the Prime Minister seek to justify his refusal to hold a referendum? Well, he cannot say that the treaty does not alter fundamentally the relationship between the member states and the EU, because Mr Blair said that of the constitutional treaty and promised a referendum. The Foreign Secretary’s suggestion that the new treaty is not proposing the characteristics of a constitution was less than helpful. Here the scrutiny committee was remarkably moderate in its comments. It said that what matters is whether the new treaty produces an effect substantially equivalent to the constitutional treaty. Clearly, it does. So the Prime Minister is reduced to saying that the other countries may have signed up to the constitutional treaty in a new wrapping, but we have not done that because we have all our opt-outs. That seems to be his defence now, but that will not wash, because, as the scrutiny committee points out, the opt-outs, red lines and so on are substantially the same as those negotiated at the time of the constitutional treaty and it was after negotiating those red lines back in 2005 that Mr Blair made his referendum promise. How on earth can the Prime Minister today say, “Because I’ve got these red lines, I don’t have to have a referendum.”? It is complete and utter nonsense.
I do not have time to deal with the question of whether the opt-outs will be worth the paper they are written on after the Court has got at them, but I am tempted to say a word about the Charter of Fundamental Rights and the protocol that the Government say they have obtained. The protocol says that the charter does not extend the ability of the Court of Justice to find UK law inconsistent with the charter and that nothing in Title 4 creates justiciable rights applicable to the UK.
5 Dec 2007 : Column 1741
Judges of the European Court have said that they are sceptical about the effectiveness of the protocol, and the reason for that scepticism is blindingly obvious. In time, the charter will be interpreted by the Court following proceedings brought by citizens or Governments of other member states. Their interpretation of the charter will become part of European law and, as European law has primacy over our law, our courts will follow the European Court’s rulings. It is as simple as that, and that is why the protocol is meaningless.
The treaty contains some matters of immense constitutional importance, and I do not see how that can be denied. First, there is the new-style President of the Council—a change which means that, instead of negotiations taking place between the supranational Commission and a national head of government who has a vested interest in protecting the rights of member states, one unelected Brussels institution will be parleying with another. Even more serious is the scrapping of the bar on the merging of the posts of Council President and Commission President. I really do not understand the argument advanced by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, who says that that will not happen. The question that he has to answer is: why does the treaty allow for it to happen now? It is no good saying that it will not happen; the treaty now allows it to happen when previously it could not have done, and that is a very worrying development. Indeed, the Government fought against this being allowed but were defeated in the negotiations and it is now a possibility.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire: My Lords, I recognise a new straight banana story on the way up. The reason that it was not in the treaty previously is that there was no President of the Council position for two years. I know of no source that has suggested that it is possible, except for British Eurosceptical think tanks. If the noble Lord can quote me continental sources which are proposing this, I should be very interested to hear them.
Lord Waddington: My Lords, I entirely fail to see the argument that the noble Lord is advancing. Why did other countries resist an attempt by the British Government to prevent this happening? Why did the Commission fight the British Government and insist on it being possible? If it is all so unlikely, why on earth did that happen? Clearly, the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, has no answer to that, and I honestly do not see why he raised the point in the first place. The truth of the matter is that it could happen and, if it did, it would be a most dangerous development. The new postholder would be the most powerful unelected official in the world and, once he was created, it would be only a matter of time before there were calls for him to be directly elected and, lo and behold, we would have an elected president of a budding Euro superstate. That is why the British Government fought against this move—fought and lost. It beggars belief that the Government should have made these developments possible, having protested time and again that they would never agree to the merging of the Council and Commission presidencies.
Secondly, there is to be an EU Foreign Minister in all but name. He will be a member of the Commission; he will chair EU meetings of national Foreign Ministers;
5 Dec 2007 : Column 1742
The Government say that we have kept our veto in the area of foreign affairs. Really! What about proposals from the EU Foreign Minister? What about the design of the EU diplomatic service? What about terrorism and mutual defence? What about the election of the EU Foreign Minister? What about civil protection? What about the new EU foreign policy fund and consular issues? All those are matters where the veto will no longer apply.
Thirdly, there is the grant of legal personality. Here again there is a change of massive importance. The EU can already sign up to agreements in so-called First Pillar areas, such as trade, but the power is now to be extended to foreign policy, defence, crime and judicial issues. According to Mr Prodi, this is,
- “a gigantic leap forward—Europe can now play its role on the World Stage thanks to its legal personality”.
That is no unimportant matter.
In conclusion, the Government’s performance during the negotiations of this treaty has been dismal. The Government should have fought like a tiger to bring a bit of democracy into the EU. They should have advocated taking away from the Commission the sole right to initiate legislation. They should have demanded a clear division of power between member states and Brussels, to stop the relentless drift of power from member states to the EU. But instead they have done precisely the opposite. They have given up the veto in key areas and accepted a change in the voting system which makes it harder to block legislation. They have agreed to most powers being defined as shared and member states being able to act only if the EU has chosen not to.
The Government started this exercise by telling us how tough they were going to be in the negotiations and how they were going to prevent this or that happening. At the end they have feebly surrendered on issue after issue. It is a dismal result with terrible consequences for this country.
6.02 pm
Lord Williamson of Horton: My Lords, I begin by welcoming the Government’s decision to hold a debate before a European Council. We have traditionally had Statements after European Councils, with a rather brief time for comments, particularly for Cross-Benchers. This is one of the first debates in advance of decisions by heads of state and government in a European Council. It may be true that, in the particular case of the reform treaty, our influence on the course of events is small, but the debate is none the less welcome.
I spent a good part of my career in the United Kingdom public service dealing with EU matters, and some years in the European Commission as I yo-yoed between London and Brussels in those days before the wonderful Eurostar. In the light of that I declare that
5 Dec 2007 : Column 1743
Although this debate is very welcome, we do not know precisely all the subjects that will be discussed at this European Council. At Seville, in 2002, the European Union decided that in future the draft agenda of European Councils would normally be available about six weeks before the meeting and the draft conclusions about three to four weeks before. I know that the Select Committee in another place in its current inquiry is considering who in its opinion might have access to these documents, but, in the mean time, that does not mean that ordinary Back-Benchers or even ex-Convenors have seen one.
Obviously, the reform treaty is the principal dish on this occasion. I am not too clear about the other, perhaps related, matters which may also be discussed in the European Council. I understand that these may include the proposal to appoint a group of wise men—and women, I hope—to examine the future direction of the Union. If so, I express the hope that they will be given terms of reference that enable them to concentrate on those issues that will be of interest and benefit not just to the so-called elite but to all our fellow countrymen and women and that they will not delve into institutional questions which should, in my view, be put away for many years to come.
I assume also that there will be discussions on globalisation and the European Union, to which the Government have referred in their pamphlet of October this year entitled Global Europe, to which the noble Baroness the Lord President referred. I welcome that pamphlet and shall return to it later in my speech.
| Next Section | Back to Table of Contents | Lords Hansard Home Page |