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European Union (Amendment) Bill

My Lords, thank you, I accept the correction—especially that of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, who is very well versed in these matters as well as in many other matters, including Europe in general. I mention the most reverend Primate not only because of his traditional sacerdotal leadership, for which he is famous—not only in York but elsewhere—but also because he is political. I do not mean that he is party political, but he is political in the wider sense of being logical; indeed, he showed the illogic of the amendment, which was moved very ably by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, too, for his remarks. I shall not say who it was but, a while back, I asked a previous ambassador of Ireland in London, now retired, when the note of condescension had disappeared from English or British voices when they were addressing Irish people. He said that it was 15 years ago, when Irish incomes per capita overtook those in the United Kingdom, which I thought was a very practical answer. The idea that we would go back with a textual intervention in Irish affairs, as the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, said, of the nature suggested by this amendment, is unwise. I also thank my noble friend Lord Lester for his remarks. I would welcome the Minister putting aside the amendment as one to be furthered and pressed, which would be most unwise. However, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, for his remarks. There was a lot of support for his thoughts about ensuring that the European Union once again connects strongly with the people. I personally think, and on these Benches the general view is, that the Lisbon treaty actually does that. People complain about the textual complications, but I think that they exaggerate their objections. I feel strongly that the Lisbon treaty is partly a substantial answer from the European institutions and the sovereign member states, working together to meet the problem, after the Dutch and French referenda results, that the public were, quite rightly, grumbling about being out of touch—and, more important, that the Union was out of touch with the public. But then again, in national politics, many members of the public in Britain and other countries say that they are out of touch with their own Government and that it has all become too complex—or that, in the case of Britain, the political parties are too close together so no one can understand the substantial differences in their programmes, one to another. There are all sorts of objections like that, but none gainsays the reality of building the European Union as a modern union of 27 sovereign countries—deeply sovereign, with no reduction in any net sovereignty at the margin of any kind whatever; I cannot understand why the Conservative Party continues to fret about that matter—working together to make this a Union of the European peoples. The people themselves, with their diasporas spreading all over Europe and their mobility, with the 10 or now 12 member states coming in, too, with their mobility, and the younger generation, being practical Europeans, find these abstruse arguments about some pretend so-called loss of sovereignty as very much living in the past. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, moved this amendment not with the intention of seeing it pressed but to leave his little testament, at Third Reading, to remind us again that he is really a genuinely good European and that he feels very embarrassed sitting alongside some of his colleagues, who are not. There is an awkwardness in the Conservative Party, which will come out again and again, particularly if it is aided and abetted by the ministerial reply tonight.