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European Union (Amendment) Bill

My Lords, correct me if I am wrong, but the same treaty was ultimately put to the Irish population again. The Irish were told to rethink and came up with a different verdict. That is not what we hear from Ireland today. They are not going to do it again and they will not be insulted by the idea that they might do so. Clause 4 is headed, ““Increase of powers of European Parliament””. It states: "““The Treaty of Lisbon is approved for the purposes of … the European Parliamentary Elections Act 2002””." That is a dead duck. It does not apply at all. There will never be a treaty of Lisbon. We go on to Clause 5, which is headed, ““Amendment of founding treaties””. It tells us in subsection (1): "““A treaty which satisfies the following conditions may not be ratified unless approved by Act of Parliament””." Then there are two conditions, of which the second is: "““Condition 2 is that the Treaty results from the application of Article 48(2) to (5) of the Treaty on European Union (as amended by the Treaty of Lisbon)””." That condition can never be satisfied, so Clause 5 can never operate. Clause 6, which is headed, ““Parliamentary control of decisions””, gives a whole list of provisions that will need parliamentary approval. All make reference either to the treaty of European Union, covered in paragraphs (a), (b) and (c) of subsection (1), or to the treaty on the functioning of the European Union, covered in paragraphs (d) to (i). Those treaties are defined as the Lisbon treaty in subsection (4). The effect of that is that no provision other than Clause 1—and possibly the clause on commencement—will ever come into force, or bite on anything, if there is no treaty of Lisbon. For Parliament to be asked to give a Third Reading to a Bill that has nil effect, and submit it for Royal Assent, seems entirely wrong. Your Lordships may say—and I see the smiles of some noble Lords facing me—that there has been a big win for the proponents of the treaty. So it is. Everybody in the House knows that every vote has been won by the Government and their allies and lost by the Conservatives. We all know that. We know that the Bill is in a position where, if we were asked to put up our hands, a majority would be in favour. I have not the slightest objection to any parliamentary procedure that could be devised for taking the opinion of Parliament on approving the terms of the Lisbon treaty. However, we ought not to be asked to go through what is now a charade of Third Reading of a Bill that, as I have demonstrated, can never achieve its intended result. It would be different if someone were prepared to stand up and say, ““Don’t you worry, it’ll all be put to the Irish population again and they’re going to vote it through, so there is some real substance here””. However, I cannot believe that anybody in the House could sincerely believe that to be a possibility. We ought to do what the Irish have asked for. Let us have some time and space so that we can see what comes up. Let us talk to our colleagues in Brussels tomorrow and on Friday. Then there will be a period—