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European Union Bill

I am grateful to the noble Lord for his clarification. However, he talks about trust, and I have to say to him that the reason why the British people have lost trust in politicians to represent them in Europe is that over many years they have seen politicians stand up and say, ““Minor changes. These won’t affect you””, but cumulatively those changes have added up to a huge shift in powers. These brakes were put in the treaty, which was agreed by Parliament. The noble Lord may not want to remove them this year, but when does he want to do it? If he wants to do it at some time, that would be a substantial weakening of the current treaties. In the spirit of the Bill, which I wholly support, I regard anything that removes a veto or anything akin to one as a major change to the treaty that should not be carried through by Government without the provisions of the Bill requiring that as a major change it should be put to the people in a referendum. In his speech, the noble Lord attempted to confuse the House by suggesting that the referendum would make it difficult for the UK to use these powers. I should make it clear—the Minister can correct me if I am wrong—that nothing in the Bill requires a referendum for the UK to use, or not to use, the emergency brake. The Bill is entirely silent about the use of Articles 48, 82 and 83. It simply says that if the EU seeks to amend the terms of the treaties under which we can use those emergency brakes, that will require a referendum. Whether or not the use of the emergency brakes itself required a referendum would depend on the substance of the matter that was contemplated being brought forward under those provisions, which would fall under other aspects of the Bill. Removing the subsection, as the noble Lord is attempting to do, would mean that at some point in time a future Government could give away these vetoes without requiring that to be brought back to the people. That is exactly the kind of action that has led to the loss of trust of people in politicians and, unfortunately, in this Parliament, to protect them in this matter.