National Parliaments (EUC Report)

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Monday 15th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, this has been a rich debate which has ranged widely from the lack of a European demos to the future of Britain’s role in the European Union, to the popular disenchantment with the European institutions across much of the EU to the role of COSAC. Having read the report and having listened to the first two or three speeches, I must say that I was beginning to think that COSAC had improved enormously since I was last a member. Then I heard the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, almost say that it might take another generation before COSAC becomes an effective body. I remember eating very well when I went to COSAC and some of the discussions were useful. However, all that was a long time ago, and I am sure that it has improved a great deal.

The British Government do accept that the European Parliament, the British Parliament and other national parliaments have complementary roles. We absolutely insist as part of our proposal for European reform that national parliaments need to be more actively engaged and that relying on the European institutions alone to provide legitimacy is no longer acceptable, possible or publicly achievable. We all know about the negative image of the European Union—the image that UKIP puts out that the EU is attempting to accumulate more and more powers in Brussels and has to be resisted so that power is pulled back. I am old enough to remember the old idea when I first went to meetings in Brussels and elsewhere when we were discussing joining the EU that it was there to replace national Governments. National Governments represented the old way and national parliaments were part of that. Jean Monnet, who hated the French National Assembly and was never himself a parliamentarian, believed that technocracy was much better and more efficient than democracy. There were those like Altiero Spinelli who had a passionate belief that the European demos was there, somehow, to be discovered, if only one worked hard enough for it.

We have discovered in the generations since then that it was not really there, that all politics remains local, and that the problems we are now facing are that while politics remains local, economics, finance and markets have become international and often global, security has become international and often global, and the gap is one that we are all struggling to fill. We also had a number of discussions about rivalry between the European Parliament and national parliaments, with the European Parliament sometimes claiming greater legitimacy because it represented the European demos. I recall one Member of the British Parliament attending the convention when the European Convention met and feeling from the start that she was being patronised by Members of the European Parliament. She became and she remains a rather sceptical Labour MP.

There is something of a Brussels bubble. We understand that Brussels does need a culture change, and I listened with interest to the optimism expressed about the new Commission, perhaps about the new European Parliament, and abort some of the new Commission officials. Again, I mark that we do not send enough British officials to the Commission for a whole range of reasons. I am glad that my own Government have reinstituted the European fast stream and are working to try to get more British officials to go through the concours and to come in as seconded national experts at all levels because that is part of the way we can change the culture of Brussels.

[Lord Spicer]

The Minister is making an extremely interesting point about the gap between the demos and the economics, as he put it. Is not the reason for that gap, which will always exist, that the Parliament will permanently be constrained by two things? The first is the European Court and the second is the treaty, which was the subject of a little discussion between me and the noble Lord, Lord Boswell.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

With respect to the noble Lord, Lord Spicer, I was making a slightly different point, which is about the global market and global manufacturing. The fact that, for example, when the French sell an Airbus a third of the value added to that Airbus comes from British manufacturers, and that every time the Germans sell a Mercedes, it contains a large number of British components, means that markets have gone beyond the nation state but legitimacy has not. That is a fundamental, structural problem of the world in which we now live. I will not touch on the migration dimensions of that, but the security dimensions are also extremely difficult. That leaves us with a set of dilemmas which are not solvable and which we have to cope with.

A number of noble Lords made the point about the resources and time required. Resources are needed for scrutiny, as the report suggests. If we are setting up for national parliaments to be more closely in touch with each other, that requires a good deal of travel and time. One noble Lord remarked—it may have been the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood—that, in some ways, a European Parliament that was drawn directly from national parliaments was more appropriate. However, it did not work before 1979, partly because national parliamentarians are elected to serve constituents in their national parliament and the more time we expect them to spend elsewhere, the less time they will have to do their primary job. So there is a set of real problems there.

I noticed, as a member of the Government talking to newly elected MPs—there was a very large turnover in the British Parliament last time—that a great many newly elected MPs coming from outside politics had very little idea of the complexities of international negotiations in which we are engaged with other European parliaments, or of the contacts one needs to have with members of other national parliaments or, indeed, members of the same political family as yours in other Governments. They have learnt, but it takes time. After all, more and more of our parliamentary candidates, I saw in one newspaper at the weekend, are now being drawn from people who have established roots within their local constituency. They are not elected to Parliament because of their international experience and they are unlikely to get re-elected if they spend too much time travelling around Europe and beyond. That is one of the obstacles with which we have to deal.

The new Commission has signalled that it is open to a much more positive dialogue with national Governments. New President Juncker has stated this on a number of occasions; Vice-President Timmermans, as has been remarked, has made it very clear that this is one of his priorities. As a Minister in the Dutch Government beforehand, he was already heavily committed. Closer co-operation among national parliaments was mentioned by many noble Lords. The offices which we now have in Brussels are to be strengthened. It is a very good way of using Brussels as a means of communication that enables you to find out earlier what is going on, examine proposals at an earlier stage and talk among national parliaments about how one might use yellow cards—lowering the threshold. The green card question is a very interesting one which the Government will wish to consider. We are not yet committed. We note the proposal that the coverage of these mechanisms should be extended to cover proportionality as well.

The noble Lord, Lord Bowness, talked about first reading deals. One of the problems that the Government have in responding to that is the sheer complexity of a multilateral negotiating process, with co-decision with the European Parliament, the Commission and the Council of Ministers coming in. The points at which national parliaments insert themselves into that process and how national parliaments keep up with that process is, again, part of the problem with which we all have to deal. Over the past year, as I have struggled with the EU balance of competencies exercise—a fascinating exercise—I have changed my mind on whether it would be useful for this Chamber also to examine other international organisations through which the British Government work. Time and time again in the EU balance of competencies exercise we have had evidence which has said, “We work through the EU on this, and we also work with OECD or the World Health Organization”. Indeed, the EU operates in some respects as a regional member of the World Health Organization in specific areas. Explaining that to the national public, as far as we can, and examining how effective those other international organisations are—most of them are a great deal less effective than the European Union—is perhaps also something which this Government might be able to achieve.

The noble Lord, Lord Judd, remarked that perhaps it would be easier if we explicitly had a confederal Europe rather than a federal Europe. I thought the chapter in this report on economic governance was particularly interesting and difficult because the contradictions of where we have got to with international markets come in because you need some power to decide as soon as you have an integrated single market, let alone a common currency, and when you face a global economic crisis, the legitimacy to decide above the level of the nation state is not there. So we are again stuck with the problem that it is not possible to reconcile the principles of democratic accountability and legitimacy and the need to take these decisions among a range of different actors.

[Lord Judd]

Is it not highly relevant here to recognise that in what the Minister is saying about what has happened to international finance, the real discussions that influence policy are going on in the G7 and places such as that? In this sense, it gives us room to reconsider the structures that built up before this was of such manifest significance.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I suspect that any incoming British Prime Minister does not begin to understand just how much of his time he will now have to spend out of the country dealing with other Governments and so on. One of my very small roles within government has been trying to say, “No, the Deputy Prime Minister cannot go to that international conference, in spite of the fact that he speaks the language”, or whatever it may be. The pressure on Ministers to travel, particularly those in the British Government who have much more pressure to spend time being accountable in Parliament and to parliamentary committees than many of our counterparts, is among the real strains that I see our senior Ministers facing.

On consulting the public, I shall briefly remark on the balance of competences exercise. The final report will be published this Thursday. The two-year exercise has consulted British stakeholders on the single market and a range of other areas. We have had more than 2,000 pieces of evidence from a very wide range of organisations—economic think tanks and others—and have attracted contributions and evidence from more than two-thirds of the other member states.

One of the most pleasing aspects of it has been to hear people in other Governments saying, “This is a very useful exercise. We should do something like it ourselves”. People within the French Government, the Dutch Government, the Finnish Government and others have said the same. One of the small achievements of this coalition Government has been to consult widely on how far the current arrangements under the Lisbon treaty suit British business, British interests, British trade unions and others. I cherish the evidence from easyJet, which began, “If it were not for the European single market, easyJet would not exist”.

The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, touched on the exchange of information between national parliaments and Brussels. I welcome her as someone who has made the transition from being a witness before committees of the House of Lords to being a Member of the House of Lords—a route that I remember transiting myself rather too long ago.

The question of how far we co-operate with other national parliaments raises some difficulties. There are other national parliaments with which we are in very close touch. There are others which do not have quite the same style or tradition. Two years ago I had lunch with the chair of the European affairs committee of a particular national parliament, who did not seem to have the sense that he should ever criticise his own Government or should disagree with their approach to Brussels. It was a rather surreal experience.

Some, however, are very active. I note, incidentally, from the table in Appendix 6 of the report that second chambers in several countries are much more active than first chambers. We are not the only ones who are able, because of our second-chamber status, to do what we can.

The European Union is, of course, a political system. How it works depends on how actively different institutions engage with it. We wish, as far as possible, to encourage other European parliaments to engage with us. The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, asked about the government response and how this fits in with the Government’s reform agenda. I remind him that the Foreign Secretary, my right honourable friend Philip Hammond, is engaged in active conversations with other national Governments. He has so far visited 11 national capitals. The feedback he has been getting demonstrates very clearly that there is an achievable, broad-based reform agenda shared by many other Governments which does not require treaty change.

Indeed, other Governments are vigorously saying, “We can do this without treaty change”. It is achievable within the headroom provided by the Lisbon treaty, and it covers a stronger role for national parliaments, effective regulation, the budget, completion of the single market in areas such as services in which the obstacles come from Germany rather than from Britain and others, the digital single market and so on. We have an active reform agenda that we are pursuing.

Time is short, and I am sure that noble Lords would like their dinner before everything closes. I think that one has to stress the obstacles, such as travel requirements, yet again. The noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford, suggested that one could spend more time visiting others. I am sure that the Daily Mail would take very careful note of the sort of hotels in which Members stayed. Again, all of these things require time and effort. If you do one thing, you cannot do another. The noble Lord, Lord Judd, suggested that we need to get ordinary people involved, not always members of the elite. Unfortunately, politicians by definition are part of the elite. We are not ordinary people, otherwise we would now be at home watching television or doing something else. Part of the underlying problem of democracy that we now have is that it is easy to decry those engaged in national, let alone international, politics as part of an elite.

[Lord Judd]

I am very grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. I find what he says, as ever, very powerful, but I will give a practical illustration. When under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, we were doing a report on drugs in the European context, the noble Lord was at pains to make sure that we were hearing from people working with drug addicts on the front line. That is what I am talking about. It seemed to me that the remarks I was making were being addressed to us in the committees as distinct from the Government.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lord, I understand that, and I take that as read. Time is very short. I will therefore turn to government engagement with our Parliament and our committees which the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, mentioned in his opening. He made a number of strong remarks about the Home Office in particular and also about the Cabinet Office, which I will take back and to which we will respond in time.

I disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Davies, that Ministers are delegates, as I think he said at one point. We all understand that we ask our Ministers to engage in a series of complicated negotiations. The importance there is to have a constant dialogue with Parliament and with parliamentary committees as to how far we can go.

This has been an extremely valuable debate. We all understand how vital is the question of restoring a sense of the electorate’s own membership of the European Union, and how difficult that is—as well as how much we hope that what we do in this Chamber and what is done in the other place and other national parliaments can help to rebuild a sense of legitimacy and accountability for the very necessary tasks that we ask the European Union to fulfil.