European Union Bill

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Excerpts

Tuesday 17th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taverne]

My Lords, I have taken part only occasionally in this debate. I have been fascinated by the display of knowledge manifest in this House of the workings and procedures of the EU. However, regarding the clause as a whole, at least three important points have emerged. The first applies very much to the Liberal Democrats. The noble Lord, Lord Liddle, was absolutely right when he pointed out that the coalition agreement does not in any way countenance our support for, or compel us to support, referenda on passerelles or non-treaty changes that transfer power. The agreement is explicit on this and talks about transfer by treaty amendments.

That concession was made during the coalition negotiations. It is something that we have to put up with. Personally, I deeply regret it, because we have heard time after time from government spokesmen that it is necessary to have these referenda in order to restore trust. There is no evidence whatever that having referenda improves trust. The Netherlands had a referendum on the constitution, and trust has not increased since then, but anti-EU sentiment has grown. France had a referendum on the constitution. Again, since the referendum, there have been no demands for more referenda, and opposition in France to the European Union has grown. It may grow even more after events in the Sofitel hotel. It is very important that on the Liberal Democrat Benches we recognise that we are not in any way compelled to support Clause 6, with its stream of referenda.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

Before my noble friend leaves that point, is it not true, however, that Euroscepticism is increasing in places such as Finland and Germany, and right across Europe, whether or not referenda are held?

[Lord Taverne]

That is perfectly true, but it is not as if having a referendum suddenly changes the mood and makes people pro-European—especially not if they will have to vote on all sorts of minutiae. That brings me to my second point. The noble Lord, Lord Howell, in his very eloquent defences of, in many cases, the indefensible, kept on telling us that there will not be a stream of referenda—or referendums; on the whole, I prefer “referendums”—because particular changes will be postponed and we will then have a package of referendums all in one, which will lead to a new treaty amendment. If, as has been pointed out by many people, that kind of package is to be put to a referendum, how can you possibly have a simple yes or no vote? It makes an absolute nonsense of the question. There may well be some good changes that one would want to support, while others would be bad and one would want to oppose them.

The third point I want to make was made by the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart. The Bill refers to the next Parliament. It was made clear in the coalition agreement that there would be no transfers of powers during this Parliament. The Bill is only for future Parliaments. It is unheard of to put forward legislation that would not have an effect in the current Parliament and is solely designed to bind future Parliaments. This provides an overwhelming case for the flexibility that was argued for in the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Liddle. We need flexibility because in the next Parliament we may have a different Government. If the Conservatives are in power—whether or not as part of a coalition—their attitudes may have changed. Attitudes to Europe can change fairly fundamentally. In 1973, I was an independent Social Democrat and was appointed as an MEP—that was before elections for MEPs—because the Labour Party boycotted the democratic processes of the Union. There was not a single Labour Party representative, which meant that the socialist group had far less power than it would otherwise have had, and I was invited to join the socialist group.

Of course, the Labour Party changed completely. I remember the noble Lord, Kinnock, being a very strong opponent of our joining the European Community, as it then was, and he then became a very strong proponent of the European Union. Therefore, Labour changed fundamentally and there is no reason why the Conservatives should not do so too. The experience of power can often have a very important effect when Governments have to face reality.

I think that the Government should look again at Clause 6. There is a very strong case for greater flexibility and, indeed, the whole rationale behind it is based on a fallacy.

European Union Bill

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Excerpts

Monday 9th May 2011 Lords Chamber

Amendment 30 is a simple amendment which accepts that, for the euro, there is a requirement for a national referendum. It also suggests that there should be no requirement, other than for treaty reform, for a referendum on anything else. If the amendment, which stands in my name among others, is carried, we will have accepted that there should be referenda for treaty reform, and now for the euro, but not for the thickets or plethora of decisions which we are about to go into. I beg to move.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

My Lords, it is quite difficult in this debate not to get drawn into some sort of Second Reading speech when we have amendments, such as those of the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, which basically fillet the whole Bill and seem designed to ensure that it does not have the effect that was originally intended.

I am always amazed when I listen to people supporting these sorts of amendments that they do not seem to realise how totally disillusioned the British people are with our progress as we creep, by grandmother’s footsteps, further and further into an integrated Europe which nobody really wants. I rather liked the analogy of Odysseus being strapped to the mast with wax in his ears, because we should remember that the reason why that happened was so that he would not hear the sirens’ songs and be dashed on the rocks. I hope that our Ministers will be strapped to the mast with wax in their ears because we will otherwise be merely drawn further and further into Europe and into an integration that people in this country do not want. I sincerely hope that we will oppose these amendments, which seem to be designed precisely to remove what the Bill is trying to do, which is to reassure the British people that we will not be drawn any further into Europe by this rather surreptitious process that has been going on under successive Governments for many years now and has led to a great sense of disillusion among the British people.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

I shall speak to a number of the amendments in the group which are in my name and support the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr. I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, got in ahead of me, because he has enabled me to realise that he has neither understood what the amendments are trying to do nor understood what they are not trying to do. So I shall try, since that is the spirit of Committee stage, to say a little bit about them.

I hope that I shall not be totally out of order if I express some regret that so many of these amendments have been bundled together when they are completely contradictory. There are amendments in the group which add more to the list of 56 referendums with which we are threatened and there are amendments, such as those which I support, which subtract. They are not two branches of the same subject; they are two completely contrary views of how to pursue Britain’s national interest in Brussels. However, having said that, I am happy to address all the amendments, particularly those in my name.

The reasons that we have to take seriously the need to reduce the number of subjects on which there might be referendums are numerous. The proponents of the legislation have simply ignored the views of the Constitution Committee of this House. I have not heard a single word from the government Benches answering the committee’s report in which it said that referendums should be used in the EU context only when matters of major constitutional importance are at stake. I shall not go through the whole list in Clause 6 to show which matters are and are not—most are not—covered by that; the euro clearly is, which is why there is no question of trying to suggest there should not be a referendum on that matter. However, that is one reason for shortening the list.

The other is that if you have 56 items—or, as some speakers on later amendments in this group will no doubt urge, more than 56 items—which could trigger referendums, you are chopping at the base of representative parliamentary democracy and the sovereignty of Parliament, because you are handing over huge chunks of it to a different process which does not involve Parliament. That is another reason for cutting down. A further reason for taking this matter seriously, as I hope the Government will, is that given by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr. So far, the Government’s response to these criticisms of this great cascade of potential referendums has been totally inadequate. Their response has been what is now described in the argot as “Calm down, dear”. They say, “Don’t worry, it won’t happen. None of these things will happen”. The noble Lord, Lord Howell, said the other day that there will not be all these decisions in Brussels that require referendums; they will all be bundled together into a big package. As the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, pointed out, that is fundamentally against Britain’s interests. I do not wish to accelerate construction of a large institutional package of measures of the sort that was passed in the form of the Single European Act or Maastricht or Lisbon. It is not in our interests to do that, but that is precisely what we will end up doing. Alternatively, and it is really quite serious, we will end up having serial blocking in Brussels, which is what I think some noble Lords opposite would like; that is, when each decision comes forward, the British Minister will block it because they will not want to have a referendum on it, either for opportunistic reasons or for perfectly substantial principled reasons. Together, they will all add up to a situation in which Britain’s good faith will be queried. Our partners will then be propelled either into the large package, which is not in our interest, or into enhanced co-operation. By definition, since we are talking about matters that require unanimity, they will have been brought around the Council table to a point at which 27 of them—or more if there are more members of the Union than now—have said that they are prepared to go ahead and one, Britain, has blocked it. That is the absolute perfect building block for enhanced co-operation—for marginalising ourselves and being completely ineffective. Therefore, I am arguing that we truncate the list of matters on which there should be a referendum.

I now turn to the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton. This is certainly not removing the whole meaning of this legislation. No one from these Benches is contesting the completely new innovation; namely, that the Government will submit to a referendum any measure that is negotiated in an intergovernmental conference and results in a new treaty or a treaty amendment reached through intergovernmental conference. That is the meaning of Clause 2. No one is contesting that. No one is contesting the referendum on the euro. Those of us who are moving amendments in this block need to be clear about what we are not doing as well as what we are doing.

Thirdly, we are not challenging the coalition agreement in any way, which merely stated that there would be a referendum on treaty change. No one here is contesting that. It is probably not formally covered by the Salisbury convention, but the Government have a majority in the other place and have the right to have their legislation. However, the Government have added a huge amount to that coalition agreement in this case and these amendments address that. That is why we should take them seriously.

Finally, these amendments do not take us back to the position that this Parliament agreed when it ratified Lisbon. At that time, it subjected these matters—the Article 48(6) matters and the passerelles and so forth—to resolutions in the two Houses but not to primary legislation. In the Bill, the Government are introducing a requirement for primary legislation in all these matters and some others too which are not required for referendum. None of these amendments contests that shift, which is a shift to increased power for the Westminster Parliament in ratifying things agreed in Brussels. That is not being contested.

Those three things that are not being contested are important to understand as well as those things that are being contested, which I argue are also important. I hope that these amendments can be treated seriously and not considered to be wrecking amendments. They are not wrecking amendments. If the Bill is passed with these amendments it would still be a major constitutional innovation in this country. It would still institutionalise the holding of a referendum whenever an intergovernmental treaty were agreed in Brussels.

No one should try to tell those of us who tabled these amendments that we are not accepting the spirit in which the coalition was founded and the spirit in which Parliament conducts its business. The amendments are perfectly legitimate. They would put Britain in a much stronger position in Brussels because Ministers will still have to say, “I can give only political agreement to this unanimity requirement. I cannot give legal agreement to it. Before I can give legal agreement to it I must go back to London and seek an Act of Parliament to enable me to give legal agreement to it”. That is how these amendments will leave the situation.

That is a strong position for a British Minister. But it does not involve a whole cascade of referendums. I believe, along with others, that it is frankly a sick joke to suggest that this will improve Britain's relations with its partners in the European Union. Alas would it were so, but it will not. It will organise a whole series of difficult moments which may well lead to our marginalisation. We all know from last week that that is what referendums are in this country. They are confrontations between two schools of thought. They are bitter and lead to hard feelings.

Anyone who tells me that organising a series of referendums in this country will improve the way that people think of the European Union cannot be stating that with any seriousness of purpose. It cannot be so. We have all known in the history of Britain's membership of the European Union that when we get into a confrontation over European issues, support for Europe drops sharply. When we have a period of relative calm and tranquillity and of reaching agreement in Brussels in a sensible way, sometimes striking compromises, support rises. Please do not tell us that this Bill will improve support for the European Union in this country. It will have the exact opposite effect.

European Union Bill

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Excerpts

Tuesday 26th April 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grenfell]

The noble Lord, Lord Kerr, applied the test of common sense to the relationship between Clauses 2 and 3. Sometimes I wonder about the common sense on the other side of the House as I do not hear much of it in this debate. He concluded his remarks with a devastating argument against the inclusion of Clause 3 on the grounds that it is simply not necessary, and that with the amendments to Clause 2 it really should not be there. The great French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry said that perfection is reached not when everything that could be written has been written but when everything that need not be written no longer remains. I have that pinned on my computer at home when I write. If he had been listening to this debate he might well have come to the conclusion that Clause 3 fell under that rule and that it is not necessary. I shall certainly support those who claim that it should not stand part of the Bill.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

I had not intended to be drawn into the debate but, having heard my noble friend Lady Williams of Crosby saying that people would be bored by referenda on European issues, I wonder how bored they will be on a referendum on the alternate vote system, where I suspect the turnout will be minimal. I am not sure that there will be a large number of referenda on these issues for the simple reason that Ministers will have grave doubts about whether they are likely to win those referenda, so they will not be able to give way on these matters in the European Union anyway.

There is a terrible misunderstanding of the disillusion in this country and the way in which the British people have been misled by successive Governments on so many issues dealing with the European Union. We started by being told that we were joining a free trade area when it was never to be that, and from then on we have seen transfers of sovereignty which have never been popular in this country. The reason why people dislike the EU so greatly is because they see sovereignty being drained away and successive Governments lying about what they claim to have achieved in the European Union when in fact they have transferred sovereignty from this country to the European Union.

[Lord Waddington]

Is not my noble friend guilty of excessive moderation? When one thinks about it, there is no need for a single referendum and no need for any further transference of either competences or powers. The trouble is that there have been so many transferences that the whole machine has indigestion, so the demands in this country are not for giving more powers to the EU but for repatriation to our Parliament of the powers that have been taken.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

I agree absolutely with my noble friend. I only wish that I could believe that we were going to see repatriation of powers, but unfortunately with the acquis and so forth that will be extremely difficult.

The plea that has been made for the amendments is that, in special circumstances and when there is great urgency, discretion should be given to Ministers to allow things through without a referendum. You can imagine how that will be abused. The procedure, like so much done by past Governments, will be abused to let things through without referenda and we will be back where we started. I totally oppose the amendments.

[Lord Goodhart]

If the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, thinks that what happens in the European Union is of immense concern to the average member of the United Kingdom, will he consider the result of the general election in 2001, when the right honourable Mr Hague was the party leader and fought that election largely on the basis of dislike of the European Union? Perhaps the noble Lord remembers the result of that election.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

Yes, and perhaps my noble friend would like to remind himself why William Hague fought the election on European issues. It was because he had done so incredibly well in the European elections not much before, and it seemed at that point that the country did not want to have anything to do with Europe.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

Perhaps I may also remind the noble Lord that Mr Hague did not fight that election on the issue of Europe; he fought it on the issue of the euro, the currency. He said that the election was, in effect, a referendum on the currency. That was not wise, because a referendum on the currency had already been promised by all parties. That election was not fought on the issue of Europe.

Libya: Bribes

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Excerpts

Thursday 10th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

As my noble friend will appreciate, that is a broader question than the one we are looking at now about Libyan employees and officials, so I do not have any additional comment to make, except that I am sure that the matter is carefully under review and in hand.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

Does my noble friend accept that the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford, would be the first to condemn the Government if we had failed to get our nationals out of Libya, even if we had to pay facilitation fees to do so?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

My noble friend is absolutely right.

Piracy: Operation Atalanta (EUC Report)

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Excerpts

Wednesday 10th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

My Lords, before I left Sub-Committee C, I was very concerned that this report was going to be both inconsequential and thoroughly wet; I am afraid that that is what it has turned out to be. It is inconsequential because its main findings are that everything should carry on as it has been over the past few months. As my noble friend Lord Teverson pointed out, things are not improving in any way whatever. I would have been much happier if this report had shown courage in trying to change the way that we are dealing with this very serious problem.

The report, as my noble friend Lord Teverson has indicated, called for additional resources—as all reports like this are liable to do—but that is flying in the face of the fact that certainly the Europeans are cutting their defence budgets in every direction. UAVs are in very short supply. Certainly, the British could not produce them, because if we have any we want to use them in Afghanistan. I do not know whether any other European countries have spare UAVs. Everybody wants helicopters, and our strategic defence review has cut the number of capital ships that the Royal Navy will have, so we would ask for more resources more in hope than reality.

My noble friend Lord Teverson referred to the risk/reward ratio for Somali pirates that was mentioned in the report. It is extraordinary that it is almost impossible to catch any of these pirates. You have to catch them in the act of committing piracy, which is extremely difficult. It is not legitimate, if you catch a small boat with ladders and grappling hooks and God knows what else, to say that this indicates that these people are pirates. All that you can do in those circumstances is confiscate the ladders and grappling hooks, if they have not already been thrown overboard before you capture the boat. The risks that Somali pirates run of being caught are very small. We will have to see whether the 400 who are awaiting trial receive any significant punishments. We should make no mistake: the law enforcement going on is not much of a disincentive to these pirates.

The rewards—the millions paid in ransoms—amount to multiples of lifetime earnings for Somali fishermen. The rewards are extremely high for these people, and the risks have not been developed nearly enough. The stakes must be raised. It was extraordinary that the report said it was a very good idea if uniformed military people went on cargo ships, presumably so that if they were attacked by pirates, they could shoot at them; but that it was not a good idea to use civilian security guards to do the same thing—although, as we know, civilian security guards in these circumstances might have been people in uniform a few months earlier, and just as well trained as any of the military. There is a hang-up about this. The International Maritime Organisation and the shipping industry do not like the idea of using armed security guards, but we must do this. There is a moment when pirates approach a ship to attack it when they are extremely vulnerable. At that point, a guard with a machine-gun can create appalling havoc in that boat. We must start raising the stakes, otherwise we will get absolutely nowhere.

My noble friend Lord Teverson referred to the fact that the violence is now increasing. This blows away the idea that somehow, if we use violence against pirates, they will increase the violence that they use against us. We are at the moment collapsing under every threat from the pirates, yet still the violence is increasing. In the evidence given in the back of the report, I mentioned that I had listened to a programme about a merchant captain who had been attacked by pirates. He was sprayed with AK-47 machine-gun bullets on his ship, and two rocket-propelled grenades were fired. One of them missed the bridge and the other went into a fuel tank. The tank was empty, which I said at the time was probably a good thing. As noble Lords will know, if you have a fuel tank with a lot of fumes in it, you can end up with an explosive mixture which can blow apart a ship. If the tank had been half-filled with fuel, that probably would have been the most likely thing to have blown up the ship completely. These people are not mucking about. They are playing a very dangerous game and we are treating them with kid gloves. I fail to understand why.

I also thought that the whole attitude of the report to paying ransoms was unbelievable. We said that we should go off and employ professional ransom negotiators. Has it not occurred to members of the committee that if you do this, you are merely feeding the dragon? You are encouraging more people to go out and kidnap people on ships and ask for ransoms. It would have been better if the committee had shown a bit of courage and said that we should stop paying ransoms because, until we do, this piracy will go on indefinitely. Why do we recommend that armed military personnel should go on merchant ships but not private security guards who carry out precisely the same operation?

This is a disappointing report. It will do nothing to reduce the amount of piracy in the Red Sea and I regret that I came off the committee and could not express my views more forcefully there.

Afghanistan

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Excerpts

Wednesday 27th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I cannot say very much, except that the earlier setbacks have to some extent been corrected and I believe that we are making progress. I should like to be able to give the noble Lord a far more detailed reply but I am not in a position to do so at the moment. I shall therefore do it in writing or at some other opportunity.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

My Lords, can my noble friend confirm that the northern tribes in Afghanistan are getting extremely nervous about the talks with the Taliban? That of course means that the Pashtuns are being brought into the peace process and they are the people against whom, not very long ago, the northern people were involved in a very serious civil war, supported by the West.

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

It is a yes and no sort of answer. It is certainly true that Taliban extremists have relations with, in particular, the Pathan or Pashtun tribes, but my noble friend must remember that the Afghan security forces consist of 43 per cent Pashtun and 42 per Tajik, who have been at odds in the past but are now working together. Therefore, while inevitably the position of the Pashtun and their readiness to work with the rest of Afghanistan to see a stable state emerge will always be the problem—and has been for 100 or 150 years; there is nothing new about this—the fact is that at the moment many Pashtun are working very well with the Tajiks and the northerners. If it comes to discussions with any kind of Taliban adherents, they will obviously be the ones who are more ready to be integrated and to discuss a positive future and who are less extreme than the inevitable wild small percentage who will want to go on killing to the last.

Commonwealth Games: Delhi

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Excerpts

Monday 28th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

My Lords, on the first point, the Commonwealth Games are part of an ever growing and stronger Commonwealth network, in which I take a particular interest. I believe that it can be of great advantage to all developing countries, including India—and to ourselves and our prosperity, exports and interests. The noble Lord is quite right on that point.

On the issue of aid, India is a country which still contains one-third of the world’s poor people, which is an enormous number. Part of our growing and enhanced relationship with India includes the immensely well targeted DfID programmes which are aimed at meeting the absolutely unbelievable poverty that still exists in India. Those programmes are, of course, greatly welcomed by the Indian Government and the Governments of the various states within India.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

My Lords, have I missed something? Is India not a sovereign nation and is it really our business to tell it how much money it should or should not spend on the Commonwealth Games?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

No, it is not our business. We have negligible influence on the matter and I would not presume to tell India how much it should spend. It will manage perfectly successfully and it does not need any additional comment from us, except helpful and friendly advice, which we are always ready to give.