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European Union (Amendment) Bill

My Lords, thank you very much. I apologise to the House for having been unable to take part in the debate earlier. I apologise in particular because it is such an immensely important debate. On the referendum and the manifesto commitment, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham. It is an issue of trust, but also simply of honourable government. You cannot make a major manifesto commitment, as it was in the eyes of the public, and then act almost with contempt in not honouring it. Manifesto commitments of such importance must be honoured, and the issue of trust and democracy is tremendously important. The Government’s main argument on the manifesto commitment is that the changes to the treaty are not significant. That is not a strong argument. I and many others in this House would say that there are significant changes but, as the noble Lord, Lord Howell, pointed out, there are also the changes that have been set out and acknowledged by other European state leaders as significant. They have been entirely clear about that. Therefore, the main argument is defused. Even if it were not, it is set aside by the simple issue of honouring a manifesto commitment. I want briefly to say something about my own experience of Europe in general. Unlike, I suspect, many in this House and across the country, I was brought up, until the age of 10 or 11, entirely in France—in Paris—Germany and Austria. I was brought up in a family which read Goethe in German, and played and sang Schubert in the evenings. They may today be described as Europhiles. They had a great regard for European culture, but that has nothing to do with desiring a political union across Europe. Secondly, in the 1975 referendum, I, like many people here, voted to stay in, but what I voted for was not a European Union but an EEC, as it was described. I voted for a European Economic Community and nothing more.