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European Union (Amendment) Bill

The noble Baroness, Lady Symons, has dealt formidably with the question of how far the UK can retain its independence in foreign policy, particularly in relation to its seat on the United Nations. It would be unwise to tangle with her and I do not wish to do so. I want rather to state the other side of the argument which she effectively pointed to in her very eloquent intervention, and that is the significant argument for a common foreign policy. I take the points of distinction made by the noble Lords, Lord Hannay and Lord Owen, between a single foreign policy—which we are not at present talking about—and a common foreign policy. In doing so, I hark back to what the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Swansea, said about the fact that the CFSP remains an intergovernmental structure and therefore one in which one has to seek the agreement of all to produce a single statement or a single policy. To go back to the importance of a common foreign policy, the key question is not whether after a common foreign policy has been agreed the countries that agreed it are bound to support it. That seems a very fundamental principle, like the principle of the collective responsibility of a Cabinet, even where some members may disagree with the decision reached by that Cabinet. The much more important point is whether a common foreign policy in some agreed areas would give the European Union far greater influence and strength in international organisations than any one country could hope to have on its own. My noble friend Lord Ashdown gave very powerful arguments in the military field for reaching common agreements to deal with some of the essential security considerations that we have to face. Incidentally, in that context it would be appropriate to point out the absolute necessity of such co-operation in dealing with terrorism, which no individual country could hope to deal with on its own. The same goes, in rather different ways, for organised crime, people trafficking and other areas, where no country defending its own borders can hope to have any impact on organised methods of getting around those borders and making them effectively unnecessary or dispensable. The point I want to make is a slightly different one. There are certain areas where the European Union has a very specific approach and one that the world badly needs. Let me state a couple of examples other than those which have already been presented by my noble friend Lord Ashdown. The first is very close to my heart—nuclear proliferation and nuclear disarmament, probably the single greatest issue facing the world after that of climate change. We cannot hope to get anywhere as an individual nation state on issues of this kind, which necessarily require international agreement in order to be effective. To reach that international agreement there is nothing more effective than a grouping of countries which share common values and a common purpose. Let me give an example where there is a divergence between the European Union and our single most important and closest ally, the United States. The United States has so far found it impossible to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Although the matter has been before the US Congress for more than 15 years, it has still not been ratified. That means that one of the great barriers against the further development of nuclear weapons into yet more and more effective and lethal mechanisms has been so far prevented by the failure to reach agreement. On something like the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty—essential in limiting nuclear proliferation—the compelling arguments of the European Union as a whole are far greater than that of any individual country, even our own, close as it is in many ways to the United States, if we are to move towards an agreement under which countries will begin to ratify that treaty. For example, the United States has in recent years come out in favour of the independent verification of test weapons and their development. It is clear that that does not work: one cannot have independent, national verification of the dangers of nuclear proliferation. I am delighted to say that the United States has changed its position and returned to accepting that multilateral verification is absolutely essential if one is to limit nuclear proliferation. However, there was a time when the United States strayed from that position into quite dangerous areas where others were only too inclined to follow, which is one reason why three nuclear-weapon powers are not signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and shows the importance in some areas of a common foreign policy. Another example is disarmament in the crucial area of small weapons. The Conference on Disarmament at the United Nations in Geneva is still locked into unending arguments on small weapons, which have devastated Africa. Far more deaths have been due to small weapons than to weapons of mass destruction in the past 10 years. How does one then move towards international treaties that limit the trade in and supply of small arms? It is only by reaching agreement within international organisations such as the Conference on Disarmament at the United Nations. How does one do that without a powerful group of nations united in their determination to bring about an agreement of that kind? As the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, pointed out in his forceful speech, it is easy to see that, in some cases, only a common European position will advance the very things that, as the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, said, the British public would like to see. They want to see security; they want to see peace; they want to see us move back from the danger of serious development of weapons of mass destruction. To do that, it is no good falling back on the independent foreign policy so eloquently described by various noble Lords, because it will not bring about the outcomes that we desperately need. They require a group of nations that are committed to pursuing them—not every single issue in the world, but some of the key issues that can be achieved only by collective decision to move ahead. I plead, therefore, with those who are listening to this debate to recognise that a common foreign policy in some areas—for our purposes, that must mean a common European foreign policy—is essential to bring about the very purposes for which our Parliament in the House of Commons was elected, and which we in this Chamber believe is an essential responsibility of our presence here to further in every way that we can.