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EU: Codecision (EUC Report)

My Lords, although I am now a member of the European Union Select Committee, I was not a member at the time the report was produced; I am therefore free to congratulate not only the chairman but the committee on producing a report which contains important recommendations and proposals for enhancing effective security of matters subject to co-decision, or ordinary legislative procedure as we must now call it. It is also an extremely useful handbook and explanation of that procedure. The noble Lord, Lord Roper, has already explained to the House the contents of the report and indicated where the Government stand to date. The outstanding issues have already been referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Roper, and by my noble friend Lord Brittan of Spennithorne. As to the outstanding issues raised by the committee—namely, the publication of the Cabinet Office guidance on scrutiny and the provision of the so-called limité documents—like other speakers I urge the Minister to tell the House that these issues can be resolved positively in favour of the committee’s recommendations and suggestions. It is extraordinary that the Government should have any doubts about publishing the scrutiny guidance—not the documents to which it is subject but the scrutiny guidance. Everyone in Parliament and the public should know exactly the parameters in which we work. As to the limité documents, we know that those are made available to other parliamentary committees by other Governments, as has been made clear today. Two selective answers from one of the committee’s witnesses show how misleading the designation may be. In answer to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mance, in questions 213 and 215, the director of the Council Legal Service said: ""It is not a classification in the sense that it means the document is restricted, secret or confidential"." Later he said: ""Limite is not confidential, it is not immediately accessible to the public"." To be fair, the witness also chose to justify in his answers the use of the designation and suggested that it was used only in certain cases where it was believed disclosure would undermine the Council’s decision-making process. We understand that point. In a report of the committee on the access to documents regulations, the need to be able to negotiate and receive candid advice was recognised. However, we are talking about general publication, effective parliamentary scrutiny and the need for Parliaments to have all the material necessary to do the job of scrutiny properly. The use of the designation ought to be the exception rather than the rule. Similarly, the ability of our Brussels office to have access to Council documents so that we can respond quickly to the possibly changing situation during the co-decision procedure is important. The new process will be a learning curve for all concerned. I welcome the Government’s proposals that we should be updated on policy changes and that judgments will not be made about what is or is not significant. However, I put in a plea which may be of potentially greater concern to the Sub-Committee on the Law and Institutions, which I chair, than to other sub-committees. In the areas with which we are concerned the policy may be agreed and not changed during the passage of the legislation, but the details could be extremely important. For example, the Commission is proposing to recast and strengthen the existing directive on combating late payments in commercial transactions; a fresh directive is proposed. The policy thrust—to reduce late payments—will remain the same but the detail may prove critical. I am sure that that will prove the case in other proposals which may come forward under the Stockholm programme. I urge the Government to be flexible and sensitive in assessing what may be a matter for parliamentary scrutiny, and perhaps exercise a judgment in terms of detail as to what is significant, because we must be alive to what is going on. This brings me to my final point. The noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke, accused the committee of bleating. However, it seems to me that it is UKIP which is doing the bleating and the committee is making substantive and constructive proposals as to how scrutiny by this Parliament can be improved in the light of the Lisbon treaty. I appreciate that some may consider that this involvement of the European Parliament in making laws which affect the United Kingdom is to be regretted—if not deplored—but that is not the subject of this evening’s debate; nor is it the real world because we are not going to withdraw from the European Union. We need to recognise that we are now presented with opportunities to be involved and to influence the making of European legislation, and we ought to embrace those opportunities with enthusiasm. We need to demonstrate a willingness to work with colleagues in the European Parliament to ensure that, as early as possible, they, as well as Her Majesty’s Government and the Commission, know the views of the UK Parliament. I believe that in the European Parliament there exists a desire to work with national parliaments, and it is reciprocated in other national parliaments. This week, the internal market committee held a hearing on the late payments directive to which I referred earlier. Seventeen parliaments from across the Union were present to discuss an issue which, while important, is something of a specialist interest. They all contributed to the debate, while others had submitted written evidence. The committee rapporteur, at what was an early stage in the process through the European Parliament, saw that on a number of issues there was a common concern by national parliamentarians across the Union; likewise, national parliamentarians with concerns found that they were shared by parliamentarians from other countries. We have to create an atmosphere whereby this Parliament does not bleat but deals with European legislation as mainstream business, not something alien with which we would prefer not to be concerned. If we have the opportunity to have more influence on events, we must take it. If we have the opportunity to know more about what is happening and why, then rather than complaining after the event, we must show our citizens that, far from being spectators of the process, we are fully engaged as participants on their behalf.