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EU: Codecision (EUC Report)

My Lords, I shall try to follow the advice, if not the precise practice, of the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, and be as benign and analytical as this work justifies and requires. I very much admire the work of the noble Lord, Lord Roper, and his very distinguished committee in their ceaseless search to ensure that all incoming EU proposals for legislative change and amendments are properly and rigorously scrutinised by Parliament and that the loopholes and escape hatches—I am looking at the Minister and the government Bench—which allow either Her Majesty's Government or higher authorities and procedures to slip things through into our domestic law and onto our statute book, are narrowed to the absolute practical minimum. In particular, I reinforce the concern of the noble Lord, Lord Roper, to ensure that proposals reach our Parliament in good time, whether they come from government departments or EU sources. The report says good things on that. This is a matter not just in relation to information reaching this Parliament, but reaching the Government themselves. Government and Parliament need to be much more aware at an earlier stage of what the EU authorities seem to be hatching. A very good example of that is the recent financial regulations, which seem to have caught the Government, and indeed everyone else, by surprise. Incidentally, that is why a future Conservative Government will have a Treasury Minister spending a lot of time in Brussels. Clearly, some more communication is needed there. The fact remains that the overall scrutiny of the flow of EU proposals—here, rather unusually, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, that it is too big a flow with too many items—instruments, regulations and laws is still very far from satisfactory. There are too many overrides of scrutiny reserves—the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke, gave us the figure but others know it too; it is a fact—and too many excuses and arguments about exceptional situations, the need to hurry for this reason and that, the fact that Parliament was not sitting at the time, and so on. We have heard all these comments again and again, and they have been used often in the frequent overrides. It may be thought that these are trivial issues. They are not. We are dealing here with the system that allowed both the European arrest warrant, which was very controversial, and the setting up of the European Defence Agency to be incorporated into British law via the override system. Frankly, we should say in this House—and perhaps our colleagues in the other place should say the same; they may even have done so—that more of this is just not acceptable. The override system may, in the last resort, be necessary and perhaps will have to be used, but in very limited circumstances. Meanwhile, on top of that, as the excellent report makes clear, government departments are still left with a little too much wiggle room to decide what proposed changes to legislation have policy implications and should be referred to us in Parliament. As the noble Lord, Lord Roper, rightly said, he successfully got the word "significant" washed out of the system, and that was a very good move by him. Even so, it remains a matter of judgment, and I think that we should be tighter and more demanding on that. If there is a scintilla of a suggestion of a policy implication, the matter should be referred by the government department to our scrutiny mechanism for processing. There is also a clear need for more explanatory memoranda behind the proposals—something that the committee of the noble Lord, Lord Roper, rightly calls for. The scrutiny guidance should of course be published; I find it incredible that it is not. As for these mysterious limité documents, which several of your Lordships referred to, why on earth ours have to be concealed when other Governments give them to their parliaments, I simply cannot imagine. When one tries to analyse what limité documents are or which ones are marked limité, it verges on comedy rather than serious administration. I think that we are looking to the Minister and hoping for that concession to come with a nice smile. Finally, half the report is on the expanded codecision procedures and the informal so-called trialogue arrangements. There can be no doubt that the codecision procedures for fixing—I use the word advisedly—and amending EU legislation between the Parliament, the president and the Commission undermine democratic scrutiny and reduce the ability of national parliaments to have a say. I do not think that there is any disagreement about that, and they are not something that we would like to see stay in place. Frankly, I think they are unhealthy and need to be reformed, although I have to say—I hope not too cynically—that we will ask for a change in the trialogue process in vain. I believe that it will go on whatever we say. This whole development also places a very heavy load on our own systems and procedures and on the work of the noble Lord, Lord Roper, and his family of committees. In fact, it is probably far too heavy a load, because the flow of legislation and proposals from Brussels is far too heavy. I think that there is growing agreement, even among the strongest enthusiasts for this whole procedure, that that is so. Then along comes the Lisbon treaty and, of course, the noble Lord, Lord Roper, and his committee have even more to do, notably the opportunity to give reasoned opinions on the subsidiary nature of proposed EU legislation and regulations as well as to report on all the numerous opt-ins that result from the treaty. With the collapsing of the pillars, this will fall into one pillar, and I understand that there are probably about 100 opt-ins to police and justice measures alone in the pipeline. It will be a very busy time for a lot of people. There is also the task of deciding to refer proposals to the European Court of Justice, which will also be a matter for the committee. On whether the so-called yellow or orange card—the reasoned opinion system—involves our national Parliament in more EU legislation seems to my mind a little doubtful. I understand that to trigger second thoughts by the EU authorities, nine parliaments are required to object. In the end, the EU authorities can simply review the objections, if nine parliaments are involved, and then can carry on as before. In my language, that is not a sign of vastly increased parliamentary involvement. It is obvious that far too much legislative power and accountability have been allowed to slip away. It does not really fit with the modern world of decentralisation. It may have been right in the past but it certainly is not right today. This is not the time or the debate in which to go into the plans of those on this side of the House for regaining some of the accountability and power. However, one clear and immediate result for us in this House is that it puts a disproportionately heavy load on House of Lords resources and staff. I would like to give notice to your Lordships that we on this side are not comfortable with the way in which the EU-related committee structure, inevitably and through no fault of its own, has to place such a heavy demand on the House of Lords’s resources. Very shortly, it may well be time for your Lordships to consider a new and differently balanced committee structure. I understand that your Lordships’ Constitution Committee is just about to produce a report, which I have not seen, but which I understand contains thoughts and ideas along the same lines. When and if my party forms a Government, we remain determined to be very good Europeans, with strong and positive policies for our region of the world. The world does not end with Europe. We have our own bilateral interests and roles within the changing global network to consider and our links with rising powers of Asia—central, south eastern and Pacific Asia—and Latin America on which to focus, and on which this House is capable of bringing enormous expertise to bear. At the moment, there are difficulties in that respect. In addition, given my party’s announced plan for a much more cross-departmental government structure for international and national security issues—getting away from the so-called "stove pipe" departmental boundaries mentality and divisions—and for a national security council with heavy international involvement, we might well need an international and security committee to track it with a wider remit than anything available through the narrower EU prism. I suggest to your Lordships that the parliamentary committee structure—