European Union (Amendment) Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 5:00 pm on 6 May 2008.

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Photo of Lord Robertson of Port Ellen Lord Robertson of Port Ellen Labour 5:00, 6 May 2008

The noble Lord makes the argument most succinctly, but he voted for it. The biggest extension of qualified majority voting since the treaty of Rome was established, and we saw that through. The noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, was a great proponent of the Single European Act, although she claimed afterwards that Malcolm Rifkind had confused her at the time. I thought that I was turning the same green as the Benches as we spent nearly a year dealing with the Maastricht treaty, which took us decisively into the realms of foreign policy. The noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, was part of the unofficial Opposition on the Government Benches at that time.

I have heard before all the doom-laden prophecies of what would happen and I am hearing them again today. The reality is that in this world we need more Europe, not less. We need more unified voices on the complicated issues that face us all. I refer to the non-military threats that we face—we have a subsequent debate on military aspects. The list of challenges that we face includes terrorism, organised crime, economic instability, problems of migration, the effects of climate change and trafficking in narcotics, people, guns and cigarettes. None of these can be tackled, handled or managed properly on a single nation basis; therefore, the collective action of the European Union—the 26 nations which have voluntarily come together—makes absolute common sense. These are discrete issues that affect every citizen of this country; it is right and proper that the European Union should strive for a common policy on them, articulate that policy in as many avenues as possible and then do something about it.

Much is made of what the Lisbon treaty says about the achievement of a policy. The new, consolidated treaty says:

"Within the framework of the principles and objectives of its external action, the Union shall conduct, define and implement a common foreign and security policy, based on the development of mutual political solidarity among Member States, the identification of questions of general interest and the achievement of an ever-increasing degree of convergence of Member States' actions".

In a world where we face the kind of challenges that I have outlined—and that was not an exhaustive list—it seems eminently sensible and in the self-interest of the people of this country that we act together when we can, and diverge on the limited occasions when we believe that it is necessary.