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European Union Membership (Economic Implications) Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken, I suppose especially to those who were nice about my persistence in this matter. I find that very agreeable, and I assure them that I will do my best to continue in that endeavour. Briefly, I will pick up on the two speeches that were, perhaps, most critical of the Bill, by the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford, and the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner. To the noble Lord I say that when he talks about fish not respecting national boundaries, it is a fact that before we joined the common fisheries policy, some 70 per cent of all the fish that swim in what are now EU waters did so in waters which were ours, and would be ours were we to leave the common fisheries policy. On the common agricultural policy, of course we are not suggesting that we will not continue to give aid to farmers. At the moment, the £3.4 billion that we give them annually comes out of the gross contribution to the budget of £18.5 billion, and not, as I think he may have suggested, out of the net £10 billion which we send in cash to Brussels. The noble Baroness, Lady Falkner—the only contributor from the Liberal Democrat Benches, and very welcome for that—criticised the composition of the committee. I am quite open to agreeing with her on that. I do not think that it is impossible to find respectable people with no firm opinion as to whether we should stay in or leave the European Union. One would find quite a few of those on your Lordships’ Cross Benches. As to the views of Scotland, Wales and Ireland, this would be a national study, which would be free to consider the separate positions of those countries. Then, I am afraid, the noble Baroness, made the mistake of confusing our membership of the European Union with our access to the single market. I suggest that we discuss this when she has had time to read what I have said in Hansard. The noble Lord, Lord Desai, made the very good point that this Bill is perhaps too narrowly drawn, and what we want is not just an economic cost-benefit analysis but something much wider. I agree with him on that. Two of the earlier Bills that we discussed in recent years in fact went wider, and wanted to consider not only our economic costs and benefits but the effect of our EU membership on our constitution, defence and so on. So, I completely agree with that. I do not know whether the Bill is amendable, but, if it is not, no doubt we can try another one fairly soon. I was grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Watson of Invergowrie, who put many interesting statistics before us. I think they came largely from the trade union movement and showed how positive our EU membership is in economic terms. That would have to be considered by the committee and looked at very closely. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Lea of Crondall, that if the inquiry produced a report that showed how positive our membership was overall, that would be that and we would have to live with it. Coming to the Front Bench speeches, there was a unanimity there from the political class against the Bill, which was not to be found in almost any of the other speeches. The noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, said that this is completely the wrong time for this sort of Bill. Europe is in crisis and we must be good, lie down, get on with it and hope for the best, or words to that effect. The noble Lord, Lord Desai, said to me in an aside that may not find its way into Hansard, although I think it should, ““Never fix a roof when it’s raining””. The noble Lord, Lord Davies, said that we need international action and cited the environment. He took the line that climate change or, as it used to be called, global warming is man-made. Quite a lot of us disagree with that. The Minister also agreed that any Bill of this kind should go wider than a pure cost-benefit analysis. He said that it was an important Bill but not sufficient, and I am grateful for that. I think I have already put him straight on the gross and net contributions. We are working from the Pink Book, not the Treasury figures. I refer him in particular to table 9.2 on gross and net contributions in the Pink Book, which came out last Wednesday, some three months late—I do not quite know why. A number of noble Lords said that we want to be like Norway. The noble Lord, Lord Sassoon, mentioned this. Well, we do not want to be like Norway. We would rather have the position of Switzerland. I think the Minister agreed with the noble Lord, Lord Kakkar, about the working time directive and other European legislation that is damaging our National Health Service. He said that he would continue to press the Commission on this point. My final question to the Minister is: what is the point of the United Kingdom continuing to press the Commission on these and other burdens that come from Brussels? With 8 per cent of the votes in the Council, there is nothing that we can do to reverse them and we will not do so. I conclude by thanking all noble Lords who have spoken. I beg to move that the Bill be read a second time. Bill read a second time and committed to Committee of the Whole House.