EU Council

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

Tuesday 31st January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Clinton-Davis]

My Lords—

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

My Lords—

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

Shall we hear from the Cross Benches and then Labour? We have not yet heard from the Liberal Democrats. We may go around the Benches and there is plenty of time.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

I join the noble Lord, Lord Brittan, in saying that the Prime Minister was extremely well advised not to contest the use of the institutions in the context of this intergovernmental agreement. I would only add, gently, that you cannot reserve your position on a decision that you are not a party to.

Can the Minister now answer a question that I have been asking with a certain persistence without getting any answers: what provisions in the intergovernmental agreement are objectionable to the British Government? He has just spoken warmly about Article 2, and I imagine that he could speak quite warmly about most of the other articles, so why are we not joining the agreement? It is a little difficult to understand. Perhaps the Prime Minister let the cat out of the bag when, with a look of some relief on his face—at least it looked like that on my television set—he said, “Nothing to sign. Nothing to ratify”—and, he might have added, “Nothing to make me run the gauntlet of my Back-Benchers”.

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, if those were his motivations, there would be nothing wrong in that. In fact, the Prime Minister made it entirely clear in response to questions and in his Statement on the December Council that his only aim was to preserve British interests. At the December Council, he asked for certain safeguards and those safeguards were not offered. Hence, we have got to the current position.

As the noble Lord knows extremely well, we have a number of legal concerns about the treaty, particularly on the use of the EU institutions, but, as I said, it is in our national interest for the eurozone to solve its problems. That is why we are reserving our position. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, asks my noble friend Lord Howell questions from time to time. He will have an opportunity to have another go in a couple of weeks’ time, when we are having an all-day debate on the European Union.

We will be watching developments very carefully over the next few weeks and months, and if there is any sign that they will encroach, particularly on the single market, we will seek to take appropriate action.