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European Union (Amendment) Bill

I concede that we are at the warm-up stage of the Committee and that we will perhaps move with slightly greater speed on amendments on our second and third days than we are at the moment. I note that the noble Lord, Lord Howell, promised us line-by-line scrutiny of the Bill, but so far I have heard only a number of familiar arguments about Europe, Britain, national identity and sovereignty and not line-by-line scrutiny. As a veteran of the debates on the ratification of the Amsterdam and Nice treaties, I must say that these arguments are very familiar, although I regret that this time we will not have the 25-minute speeches that the noble Lord, Lord Shore, used to make on these occasions in the middle of Committee. We do not need line-by-line scrutiny of the Bill. Well over 100 Members of your Lordships’ House have already given the treaty detailed line-by-line scrutiny in our committees. Many of us have waded through these massive reports from different committees that we have had. That is the sort of scrutiny that we need and to which we should return in Committee. Scrutiny is, however, also an ongoing process, and the Chamber and its committees should continue to do it. We must be very careful about claiming that Members on our Benches are speaking the truth and that others are not: that we are presenting the truth, if I may quote the noble Lord, Lord Howell, for what it really is. That takes us down all sorts of conspiratorial roads in deciding who is not speaking the truth and who is really identifying the underlying issues. These are charades familiar to many of us from previous ratification debates. The British constitution is famous for its flexibility, its pragmatism and its ability to adapt to different circumstances. That is also true of Britain’s foreign policy and our participation in international institutions. Those who cling to a wish that the world would stand still form part of the bedrock of those who vote for the UK Independence Party. I well remember during the last election campaign a BBC interview with a woman who said that she had just voted for UKIP because, ““I would like England to be the way it was 40 years ago””. Many of us would like that, although we would like to have today’s income in the England that was 40 years ago, but the world changes and our unwritten constitution adapts. When I listen to the noble Lord, Lord Howell, and others on his Benches, I am also reminded a little of Trollope in the 19th century. For the Conservatives and unionists, the EU is the equivalent of the Irish question in the late 19th century. It is the one they stub their toes on all the time. They cannot come to terms with it, and they grapple with it as a constitutional issue. However, all international treaties limit national sovereignty. Membership of the United Nations limits British sovereignty.