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Text of Lord Howell’s opening speech in the
Lords Debate prior to the signing of the Treaty of Lisbon (European reform
Treaty) and the Lisbon EU Council Dec 13-14 2007
4.50 pm Wednesday December 3rd 2007
Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, I am sure that noble Lords are grateful to
the noble Baroness the Lord President for moving this Motion and giving us the
opportunity, in theory, to have some input into the processes leading to the
reform treaty. Of course, the reality is not quite so encouraging, because what
is to be signed in Lisbon next week is already fixed and cannot be amended. It
will come as no surprise to the noble Baroness that we will seek to amend the
Bill, but the treaty is set in granite already and that granite is about to be
dumped on us. We cannot change it.
I shall not spend too much time arguing about the contentious and controversial
issue of a possible referendum on this treaty. The noble Baroness and everyone
else know our position. We say that there should be a referendum because the
treaty is plainly a remake of the original constitutional treaty, which came to
grief. The Labour Party and the Government say no. We agree with most leaders in
the European Union, such as the German, Spanish, Irish, Czech, Finnish, Danish,
Austrian, Belgian, Italian and Luxembourgian Prime Ministers, and several
others, that this is the constitution in all but name, and we agree with Valéry
Giscard d’Estaing, the father of the former treaty, who says that it is the same
word for word, with not a comma changed. We also agree with the other place’s
European Scrutiny Committee, which made exactly the same point. On the other
hand, the Labour Party, plus one Dutch opinion that the noble Lord, Lord Hannay,
mentioned, disagree with that.
Sometimes we Conservatives are accused of being alone in the European Union. In
this case, it is the Government and the Labour Party who are alone. Labour
promised a referendum but will not deliver, so there it is. We shall have to see
whether they can hold out against the facts and the overwhelming wish of the
British people that there should be a referendum. I leave that for the moment.
The issue will, no doubt, come up in the debate, because it is a matter of trust
and a commitment by the Government in their manifesto that is now, apparently,
to be overthrown.
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In the past, the noble Baroness asked me a question that I was rather hoping she
would ask me again today. The question she put to me before was what we, the
Conservative Party, would do in government if the treaty had already been signed
and sealed and had entered into force. In one way, it is a very flattering
question, since it assumes that the next Government will be Tory. That is a
realistic assumption, but it is quite an admission from a Cabinet member.
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, I made no such assumption. I did not ask
the question again because I had already asked it and I know that the noble Lord
is a noble gentleman who would answer the question as soon as he had an answer.
It is simply a theoretical and hypothetical question that all opposition parties
of merit need to answer about what they would do if the circumstances were such.
Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, it is hypothetical for the second reason
that I was going to come to, because it assumes that we would lose the
referendum battle. I believe that that is wrong. We intend to win it, so the
more relevant question is what Labour would do if there was a referendum and the
treaty was rejected, as is perfectly possible. It happened with the previous
constitutional treaty, which Mr Giscard d’Estaing says is identical word for
word.
I turn first to the famous, or infamous, passerelle clause—the so-called
simplified procedure or self-amending provision in Article 33.7 of the working
draft that we have here; we still do not have a final text. Last time, leading
members of the Government said that it was unacceptable. It still stands in the
middle of the treaty, so I imagine that views have changed on it. Article 33.7
allows the Council to move to majority voting in any of the areas outside Part 3
of the treaty, which is the detail bit, covered by unanimity, including foreign
policy but excluding defence. The change would not need to be ratified by
national parliaments.
There is a provision that, if a parliament complains within six months, such a
proposal will not go through, but the presumption would be reversed from what we
have known in the past. Unless the Government, having already signed up to
something, allow Parliament time to vote against it, it goes through
automatically. That would unquestionably undermine the role of Parliament in
controlling treaty changes. It is quite the opposite of what the Lord President
said: it would mean a shift of power towards the EU’s leaders and away from
national parliaments.
We have been through all this before. In the 2003 White Paper, the Government
said:
“There is also a proposal for a clause which would allow the European Council to
vote by unanimity to move any Treaty article to QMV. We oppose anything which
would undermine the role of national parliaments in Treaty change”.
It seems that that opposition means nothing now and has been overthrown. No
twist of logic or debating dexterity can erase or obscure the fact that this
transfer is a big slice of power away from national parliaments into the hands
of central EU institutions. You may think that it is a good thing or a bad
thing, but it is a
5 Dec 2007 : Column 1725
fact. I hope that we will never again hear it asserted that such a treaty as
this one, let alone the one before, transfers powers back to member states,
because it does no such thing.
I must, without making too many demands on your Lordships’ time, say a little
about the red lines, because the Lord President has placed considerable weight
on them. First, the red lines do not cover—this is aside from whether they work,
which I will come to in a moment—the new two-and-a-half-year, and presumably
five-year, EU president. Some people urge—it is not in the treaty but many
people urge this—that this EU president should also become the Commission
president and therefore a sort of Mr Europe. The red lines also do not cover the
renamed Foreign Minister or the substantial new diplomatic service, and they do
not cover the fact, which I think the Lord President missed out, that the High
Representative or Foreign Minister is also to be a vice-president of the
Commission under Article 9(e), thus serving both supranational and
intergovernmental masters. That is a matter that your Lordships will want to
reflect on, as it is very significant. Moreover, the red lines do not cover the
single legal personality, the 60 vetoes lost or the ratchet clause to which I
have just referred.
Although the Government were not happy before about most of these things,
presumably they are now happy. As to the red lines themselves, they are more or
less the same as last time. The last report from the European Scrutiny Committee
of another place was brutally frank about them. On the Charter of Fundamental
Rights, the committee does not accept that the protective protocol,
“guarantees that the Charter can have no effect on the UK”.
Also, everyone knows that the European Court of Justice can and will make
rulings that may arise from cases outside the UK, from which we will have no
escape whatever.
On the red line on foreign policy, there is a declaration in the treaty of
freedom for the United Kingdom, but that is really where it all stops: it is a
declaration, not even a protocol. In fact, the treaty proposes 11 new areas of
foreign policy where the veto is removed and it puts forwards the requirement
that the EU High Representative should state the Union’s position at UN
meetings. It goes without question that we should co-operate closely with our EU
neighbours on specific world issues; of course we must. For example, if, as some
hope, the prospect of EU membership can heal divisions that are looming again in
Bosnia-Herzegovina, that would be excellent and positive. However, that the
whole pattern should be frozen into a process by law is, to my mind, far more
dubious. In some cases, it would be plain silly.
The Select Committee goes into huge detail on the justice and home affairs red
line. I fear that we will be returning to this, but its view is that the
transitional measures over five years,
“appear to weaken the UK’s position”,
and that the opt-in decision under the proposals will become one that,
5 Dec 2007 : Column 1726
“may lead to serious consequences for the UK through the transfer of
jurisdiction on important measures dealing with civil and criminal justice”.
Not much of a red line there.
When the time comes, we shall also have to look closely at the apparent
obligation that the treaty imposes on national parliaments—the Lord President
mentioned this—and the proposition that national parliaments contribute to the
good functioning of the Union. The committee, having noted that the “shall” in
the phrase “shall contribute” has now been omitted, says that that is still
highly ambiguous. The protocol on national parliaments, which was one of the
good things in the former treaty, seems to have been watered down. I should like
the Lord President’s guidance on this. Earlier, the proposition was that it
would require a third of national parliaments to block a measure. Now it seems
that, although a third of national parliaments can register dismay, half the
national parliaments are needed to block a measure. Perhaps the Lord President
or somebody could clear that up. It is very hard to elucidate the real position
from the text, which has no contents and no guide for the reader.
We shall also need to examine closely the new power proposed over employment
policies, which the UK Government tried to delete, but gave up; on energy
policy, where our interests and those of mainland Europe obviously diverge
enormously, given the continental reliance on the trans-Siberian and Russian
systems; and on climate policy, which the Lord President mentioned, where the EU
Emissions Trading Scheme has been judged by independent, factual reports to be a
dismal failure and appears to be leading not only to no cut in carbon emissions
but to an increase in carbon emissions in the European area. In all those areas,
we need to watch very closely that the right hands are on the lever, not the
wrong ones.
Over all this looms the power of the European Court of Justice. As your
Lordships pointed out when examining the previous treaty, the new proposals in
effect make the ECJ unquestionably the supreme court with ultimate powers over
the Union and over the boundaries and limits of all competencies as between
member states and the EU institutions. As the Economist magazine pointed out,
“there is nothing in the opt-outs to stop British judges being invited to pay
attention to European rulings and case law involving other countries”.
Jurisprudence will be created from now on based on the charter, and it will
create precedents that all member states will be obliged to respect, opt-outs or
opt-ins or nothing at all.
Just as we want smaller and more effective central government here at home—we
certainly do not have it at the moment—so we also want the central EU apparatus
and its budget to reflect the same aims. We believe that veiled threats that the
UK would somehow be marginalised or isolated if we dared to challenge current EU
trends, or dogmatic assertions that alternatives to the present direction are
“not on offer”, are absurd. Far from being marginalised in a second-class
Europe, as I have heard suggested, we would be in the first-class section. It is
the so-called core countries, saddled with
5 Dec 2007 : Column 1727
overregulation, overcentralisation and low productivity, that would be lagging
behind.
None of that needs arise. We do not need Europe to go that way. We can and will
achieve a more sensible organisation for Europe's future. Once this
backward-looking treaty, which stands in the way of a better Europe and not on
the path to a better Europe, has been cleared aside, we will be in an entirely
new situation, brimming with opportunities for reform. The gateway will be wide
open, not merely for remodelling many aspects of the old EU, designed in the
last century, but for the EU’s transformation into an enlarged organisation far
better suited to Europe’s needs in the 21st century.
To be told that because one questions this treaty one therefore objects to a
better EU is frankly a silly debating point. I totally reject the defeatism of
those who say that we are stuck and that we cannot halt and change the slide of
the present EU towards ever greater integration. This kind of defeatism comes to
us from both sides. It comes from the dismissive Europhiles, who say that
everything from Brussels is marvellous, that Franco-German dominance will always
outwit us and that if we query it we will always be in outer darkness. It also
comes just as much from the “let us withdraw” brigade, which likewise insists
that we will always be outwitted and should therefore abandon ship. None of
these people seems to realise that we are one of Europe’s biggest economies and
strongest nations, with the full ability to use our power as well as our highly
skilled diplomacy, for good or bad, in deciding the European future. Obviously I
am determined that it should be the former.
What is not debatable is that the UK must always—I stress always—remain engaged
in Europe, as it always has been in our history except for one or two disastrous
periods. Our place today is also in the wider networks of the rising Asia, but
we must be the best practitioners of regional co-operation. We must be good
Europeans. I think that, when we debated this the other day, I heard a jeering
noise from the Lib Dem Benches. In fact, I would claim that we are much better
Europeans, and always will be, than those who want to foist a divisive and
intrusive new legal order on to Europe’s ancient nations. We certainly want to
work closely with our European neighbours in all matters of security, as well as
in many other areas. Our European neighbours are our allies, our friends and our
partners, but they should no more be our bosses than our equally valued partner,
the United States of America.
In the end, our best strength as good Europeans, as well as good citizens of the
world, has been and always will be in our own inner resources, our confidence
and our commitment to the key values of democracy and the rule of law in an open
and fair society. Nations are more than ever today the building blocks of a
sound and peaceful international order. Much of our best contribution to that
order is to be confident guardians of our own security and national interests.
When we are in government, we shall deal with European and EU issues firmly,
confidently and in that spirit.
5 Dec 2007 : Column 1728
5.07 pm
Lord Wallace of Saltaire: My Lords, I apologise for my voice. I hope that it
will survive my speech. I start with some rapid comments on the contribution
from the noble Lord, Lord Howell. We on these Benches do not see the
Conservatives as alone inside the EU. We do, however, see the current
Conservative
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