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European Council: 15-16 October 2008

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness the Leader of the House for repeating the Prime Minister’s Statement and warmly welcome her to the duty of repeating these important Statements. Nearly 500 noble Lords voted in a Division on the Lisbon treaty this summer, which was a record for the reformed House of Lords. I do not see them all here today, but these are matters of great interest to the House, and I think I speak for the whole House in saying how much we appreciate reports from the the noble Baroness and her predecessors on EU summits. I much regret that there was not more concrete progress on climate change, but is it not inevitable that world recession will cause some countries to reassess their shorter-term priorities? The UK Government have reasserted immensely tough unilateral targets on this important policy, but can the noble Baroness explain how it is that Mr Miliband's part of the Government is trying to restrain hydrocarbon use, while the Prime Minister is campaigning for lower prices that will promote its use? In the context of the Prime Minister's call for lower petrol prices, have the Cabinet given any consideration to cutting fuel duty, or is it simply a combination of policy incoherence and political spin? Reinforced as her Benches are by the noble Lord, Lord Mandelson, does the noble Baroness share my disappointment that there was no commitment to restarting international trade negotiations, to which the noble Lord devoted so much time, sadly all in vain? We hear that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has been reading up on the history of the great depression. Well, that should cheer the country up. Was not one of the abiding lessons of that time that protectionism was a disastrous factor in exacerbating recession or what is now called contraction? Much consideration at the summit was given to energy security, but is that not precisely the sort of question that we should have been tackling more than a decade ago? Can the noble Baroness place a report in the House on the EU's current estimate of the percentage of future EU energy need that will be sourced from Russia? There was also much talk of immigration. That, too, I may venture to say, was hopelessly belated. The Council agreed a high-sounding new EU pact, including joint consular services, joint border guards, sharing asylum seekers and a single asylum procedure. However, can the noble Baroness assure the House that the Government will agree to nothing in these discussions, now or ever, that will detract from the UK Government's absolute right to limit non-EU entry into this country based on our national need and not on other nations' problems? In the closing paragraphs of the Statement, the Prime Minister mentioned, "““crimes … committed by EU residents in the EU but outside their country of origin””." Why did the Prime Minister refer to that? Is this a new initiative being taken forward by the Council of Ministers? Can the noble Baroness put any flesh on those bones? While rightly deploring the Russian invasion of Georgia, the communiqué was a little light on solutions. There is talk of a full, in-depth re-evaluation, but such diplomatic flannel seems to cover divergence in opinion in Europe on whether to do deals with Russia or to take a firm line with Russia. Where do the UK Government stand? Fudged lowest common denominator policies will not deflect those ready for violent breaches of international law. Is it not essential that we have the highest common clarity in the face of this indefensible action? Will the noble Baroness lay in the Library of the House a summary of the report of the Taoiseach on the situation following the rejection of the Lisbon treaty? The communiqué talks about ““resolving the situation””. Does that mean making the Irish people vote a second time? Do the UK Government support that policy of, ““We’ll only listen if you tell us what we want to hear?”” Would it not be a disgrace to force the Irish people to vote twice when the British people have not been allowed to vote once on this treaty? On the financial crisis, to which the Lisbon treaty was utterly irrelevant, I reaffirm our support for coherent action. However, nothing can hide the fact that many of the economic problems facing this country are home grown. Talk of being the ““saviour of the world”” may sound as hollow and hubristic as recession bites as does ““ending boom and bust””. I agree with the Prime Minister that there is a need to strengthen the IMF early warning system, but is not the real question what we do in response to warnings? Eighteen months ago the IMF warned the UK about fast rising household debt, vulnerable financial institutions and potentially illiquid instruments and exposure to risk. I think we all recognise these words and their effects, yet why did not the Government respond to those warnings and fix the roof when the sun was shining? International co-operation is vital on this subject, but no substitute for effective domestic action. The City of London remains uniquely important to our economy. There is simply no parallel in most other EU member states. So will the Government resist robustly efforts to create a single European super vision of the City? Is not one of the lessons of recent weeks not that we need a Bank of Europe regulating the City, but that it was a catastrophic error to take the supervisory role away from the Bank of England in the first place? The Prime Minister asked for confidence in the future, but how can we have confidence in the future when we have Labour’s past record to look at? Figures now show that Britain has borrowed £38 billion in the first half of the year. We are heading for our worst ever Budget deficit. What benefit is the backslapping of the Prime Minister in Brussels to those in the real economy outside the summit chamber who now face lay-offs, repossessions, joblessness, collapsing incomes in retirement and lost business livelihoods, not due to the world outside but to 11 years of spend, borrow and waste economics, for which the answer proposed is yet more borrowing? Finally, can the noble Baroness confirm that the usual channels have agreed, in principle at least, that there should be a debate to discuss the global financial situation and that the Government are seeking to find a date? We very much hope that an announcement on that will be made fairly soon.