EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES COMMITTEE

HL Deb 07 November 1974 vol 354 cc593-645

3.29 p.m.

LORD DIAMOND rose to move, That this House takes note of the Special Report of the Select Committee (Session 1974). The noble Lord said: My Lords, it would be churlish of me to start without first saying a word or two in appreciation of the much undeserved but acceptable comments made by various Members of your Lordships' House. When in January, 1973, we joined the European Community, we became partners in a law-making body of an unusual kind, partners in a body which made laws which were binding, or which could become binding, on the citizens of all member countries in which our Government would participate through the relevant Minister taking part in the Council of Ministers' decisions, but in which our Parliament would not participate. It was therefore obvious that some machinery had to be devised so that the traditional function of Parliament in protecting the rights of the citizens of this country could be carried out.

For that purpose—as your Lordships well recollect; this is very familiar ground—the Maybray-King Committee was set up, and its recommendation was accepted by your Lordships' House that a Select Committee should be formed which would have the responsibility and duty of examining and considering all proposals emanating from Brussels, proposals made by the Commission of the Community to the Council of Ministers and reporting to this House those which were of importance in content and policy and therefore worthy of consideration by your Lordships. It is that Committee's first Report which we are now considering.

It is a Committee which had been functioning for three months by the time this Report was produced—not by the time it was printed, because, as your Lordships are aware, there is a certain interregnum between preparing matter for printing and circulating the printed document. I hope that that will be much reduced and almost extinguished in the months ahead, but that is something to remember with regard to all Reports which have been made and which have not yet reached your Lordships for the simple reason that they have not been printed. What we are considering is the first three months' work of this Committee, of which I was greatly privileged to be Chairman.

I should like to start by drawing your Lordships' attention to what has been done and the method we have adopted to do it. In all these matters almost without exception, we have followed the wise advice of the Maybray-King Committee. First, to get an idea of the scope of the work, may I remind your Lordships that owing to the sixteen months' delay which occurred between our joining the Community and the Committee being set up there developed a considerable backlog which, added to the new proposals being made during the course of the three months under discussion, made a total of some 400 proposals to be considered. That represents a challenge. Of course, the larger part of those proposals would be likely to be of a kind which, if they had been the subject of domestic legislation, would not be likely to arouse great interest among your Lordships and would not indeed take up much, if any, of the time of your Lordships' House. So it was clearly necessary to devise some method of separating out those which were in that category, and those which would, or might, need to be brought to the attention of your Lordships' House and be the subject of debate if necessary.

Accordingly, a process of sifting was adopted and we followed the suggestion made in the Maybray-King Committee. It fell mainly to the Chairman of the European Committee to select or sift those proposals which fell into category A—namely, not worth bothering your Lordships with; and those which fell into category B—namely, those which after they had been throughly examined and considered and evidence taken and conclusions drawn, should be reported fully to your Lordships' House. Accordingly, as paragraph 7 of the Report explains, this sifting process was done.

But after sifting there nevertheless remained, from the workload of about 400 proposals, 130 proposals which needed, or seemed to need, to be examined and considered. That, again, is a large number and it is of a large variety. When I say "variety", I mean a variety of topics which would have engaged the interest and responsibility of many different Government Departments. So one had to devise a further system not only of selection or sifting, but a system whereby all the remaining category B items could be examined, as far as possible in a reasonably short time, and evidence taken and so on. Therefore, five sub-committees were appointed, broadly on the basis of suitable groupings of Government Departments, and manned in part by the membership of the main Committee; but as, clearly, that membership was not sufficient to go round, having regard to the fact that it would be impossible to expect every Lord to be able to attend on every occasion, manned to some very valuable extent by co-option. Therefore, again as foreseen by the Maybray-King Report this is the way in which the Committee set to work; first, by sifting; and, secondly, by having a number of sub-committees examining at the same time a series of proposals with a view to reporting on them to your Lordships' House.

May I now come straight away to the results that have been achieved by the Committee—and, again, I am speaking of the period of the first three months of the Committee, ending broadly with the start of the Recess. It is, therefore, necessary for me to say—and to thank all members of the Committee accordingly—that, of course, the work of the Committee and of the sub-committees continued during the Recess, though not with the same regularity as during the time the House was sitting. The result has been that the sift which was nearly completed at the end of the period in the Report has now been completed, and there remain in the process of examination by the sub-committees a number of proposals, nearly all of which are not urgent. It will be appreciated that a number of proposals are made by the Commission to the Council of Ministers which do not stand a hope of early consideration or early adoption. They are not intended for that; they are intended for careful long-term consideration. Therefore, all of those have been included in the figures in the Report which is before your Lordships.

I am making the simple point that inasmuch as we had during the first three months caught up with the sixteen months' backlog, completed the sifting process, completed examination of all the proposals deserving examination, with the exception of those which were not of an urgent nature, it would be fair to conclude that the Committee had in that period got on top of its work. I am happy to say that that is the case, and that there is now a Committee functioning which not only has got on top of its backlog and knows its work, but which is able to cope with the current volume of work coming before it and likely to come before it. Therefore, the machinery envisaged by the Maybray-King Committee, if I may say so—I am in a little difficulty here because I was not entirely absent from the deliberations of that Committee myself—was wisely thought out. I cannot say that the Committee was wise, but I can certainly say that the Chairman was extremely wise. Therefore, one is happy that the Report can describe that result.

My Lords, that result was not obtained—I am going to be fairly practical and factual about this—without a great deal of work by the members of the Committee and the co-opted members of the sub-committees. The volume of paper descending on members of the Committee was enormous. We nearly had to get to the stage of providing one lady with masculine assistance in order to carry the paper; it was physically of such proportions. Therefore, I hope that your Lordships will permit me to express my appreciation to the members, co-opted members, and chairmen of the subcommittees, because it is the subcommittees which did the examination and calling of witnesses and the drawing of reports. The burden fell on the chairmen of the sub-committees, and I express my great personal appreciation to them, to the staff who worked for us so well, and to the legal adviser, Sir Charles Sopwith, whose services we were fortunate enough to be able to secure.

I repeat that the work was not done without that effort or without a measure of co-operation from all concerned which I have never experienced in any similar activity before. It was amazing. In the first place, we had complete co-operation from the other House, complete exchange of papers, and unique provisions made through the Table, under which the usual problem of having to get a special message before a Member of the other House could give evidence here, or vice versa, was overcome for all time. We do not need to do any more of that business. If a Member wishes to give evidence from the other House he simply comes along, be it Minister or Back-Bencher, and gives evidence, and vice versa.

I myself accompanied the Chairman of the comparable Committee of the House of Commons when we went to Brussels. We had complete co-operation from Government Departments. Of course there were difficulties in the early stages of getting all the material ready and so on, but that is inevitable. I am never daunted by growing pains when you have a new organisation to set up and there are difficulties to overcome. They were simply growing pains and they have been overcome, and I foresee no difficulties in the future. The Government Departments are to be congratulated on the work they did and on the assistance they gave to our Committee. So, indeed, are Government Ministers on their willingness to come and give evidence, and for the undertakings which have been given from both Front Benches in both Houses as regards the unwillingness of the Government, in normal circumstances, to proceed with reaching decisions in Brussels in advance of consideration by the Houses of Parliament of those matters upon which the respective Committees have reported as being worthy of consideration and debate. It is for that effort and that co-operation that I express my great appreciation.

I now come to the real question: how-far have we succeeded in our purpose, our purpose being to protect the rights of the citizen, and to protect the rights of Parliament in relation to legislation emanating from another place—yet a third place? I must first make the obvious point that everything that our Committee has done—and the facilities provided—has been in addition to the rights which Members of your Lordships' House already have. Not one single right has been withdrawn; that is to say, any noble Lord, irrespective of the view of the Committee, or any Member of the Committee, can raise Questions, Starred and Unstarred Questions, seek to raise a matter on short debates, and have a meeting with a Minister. Ministers are always ready to meet Members of your Lordships' House, as I well know. All these methods of airing views can continue. Nothing has been withdrawn whatsoever, and all the facilities which we are providing are additional to that.

Your Lordships are of course very familiar with the rule whereby any of your Lordships can not only attend but participate in the debate in any Select Committee; the only limitation is not being able to vote. I cannot recollect a single occasion when any of the Committees voted, so that is not a great limitation. There is that facility, which again continues and has not been withdrawn.

Some of your Lordships may feel a little anxiety—I certainly did—as to whether the selection, the sifting process, would mean that certain proposals were taken away from the purview of noble Lords for all time. That is not the case either. It did not matter whether a Committee, or I as its then Chairman, thought that a certain category was appropriate for a certain proposal. That did not determine what any of your Lordships might think about it. It helped in getting our work done, but nothing more than that. I am also relieved to note the statistics that of every ten proposals which I, as Chairman, thought ought to be categorised as B—worth consideration—the sub-committees on closer examination decided that two were not worth that. Some 20 per cent. were recategorised as A; namely, not worth further consideration by the subcommittee or by the House. So one is very relieved that one has erred on the right side.

Have we succeeded in protecting the public in the sense of obtaining the views of the public? Yes, my Lords, I think we have gone a long way, considering the printing difficulties which hampered us greatly in this respect. Evidence has been taken from the public and from organisations representing the public. Whenever any such organisation has written in and asked, "Are you aware that we have certain interests? Will you bear this in mind?", we have replied, "Yes. Of course, we will be very happy to bear this in mind." The hearings have been held in public. The evidence either has been, or will be, printed. Therefore, I think it is right to say that every step has been taken to make our activities known, and to give opportunities for representation of the views of the public. Of course the debates which are about to take place are the supreme tests, and that is the way that public opinion is aroused.

Then, again, as I have already said, the Government have given these very definite promises indeed about not reaching premature decisions. By "premature", I mean in advance of a decision being taken by this House on a Report made for debate. Although in the early days it was not possible for them to withhold from reaching decisions because the Committee had not been set up and had not reported, and therefore opportunities for debate had not even been sought, one understands the context in which that happened, and that was again a part of the growing pains which inevitably one suffers when catching up to date.

The debates are the heart of the matter, and these are starting to take place in your Lordships' House to-day. As your Lordships will see from the figures, of the 34 Reports, 22 have been made, in the opinion of the Committee, for information only, and 12 have been, in the opinion of the Committee, worthy of debate. That would mean about three or four per month—on the basis of the three months' work—and that would mean about one day's debate a month. I do not think that one day's debate a month on legislation emanating from Brussels represents an unmanageable figure. Therefore, I am very relieved that we can really say that the Committee is now functioning, the Reports are before your Lordships' House, and there is no reason to doubt that it can continue to cope with the volume of work coming in, and to discharge the heavy responsibilities which have been put upon it.

I should like to say a few more words before I sit down. First of all, your Lordships will have observed that I have made no reference whatsoever to pro-Market or anti-Market sentiments, for the simple reason that any such words would have been totally irrelevant. The question has not arisen, nor could it arise. Our function has been to try to fill a democratic gap while the European Parliament is not yet able to carry out its full functions there. That has been our responsibility, we being members of the Community; we have not been asked by your Lordships' House to do anything else, and that is what we have found it quite enough to do. So questions of what individual views might be with regard to remaining in or seeking to come out of the Market just have not arisen, and I hope they never will, in this Committee.

I want to make just one point which I hope your Lordships will find acceptable. I found that the key to getting through a volume of work of that new kind in rather quick time is due to a fact which is not sufficiently aired in your Lordships' House; namely, that your Lordships' House is a veritable storehouse of wisdom, skills, and talents of a kind unimaginable until one goes to friends and says, "Will you help me on this? Will you come along on that? Will you serve on that?" Many who have established themselves as major statesmen in the world have been most willing to come along and help. As I am retiring from this job, it can do no harm to tell your Lordships the reason why I think we have been able to do the work as well as we have.

It would be wrong of me to finish without wishing every success to my successor, the noble Baroness, Lady Tweedsmuir of Belhelvie. I am sure she will enjoy the work, that her Committee will enjoy her chairmanship and that the House will enjoy the benefit of their joint wisdom. I have known the noble Baroness for some time. In fact I hope I do not embarrass the noble Baroness when I say that I remember very well her maiden speech. Not only do I remember her maiden speech, which, of course, was delivered in another place, but I remember the response by the bluff Clydesider who followed the noble Baroness and made the usual appropriate comments about the wisdom of her speech—which has been well fulfilled—and went on to say that another reason why he welcomed the noble Baroness was (if my memory serves me right) that she was "easy on the eye". I do not remember when that was, but looking at the noble Baroness I am driven to the conclusion that it must have been but yesterday. I wish her every success; I wish this Committee every success in its important task. I feel very privileged to have been concerned in its early days.

THE EARL OF MANSFIELD

My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, may I ask him how the sifting process by the other place is going along as compared with ours? In other words, has the other place come to the same kind of ratio as the noble Lord and his excellent Committee of a ratio 22: 12? It might be worth while to know the kind of conclusions which they have come to.

LORD DIAMOND

My Lords, I kept myself informed of the way in which the other place was carrying out its duties, but it would be wrong of me to offer any comment. I believe they came to the conclusion that sifting was not appropriate in their case.

3.53 p.m.

LORD MAYBRAY-KING

My Lords, it is with extreme pleasure that I join in the congratulations to my noble friend Lord Diamond and endorse the gracious compliment he has paid this afternoon to his noble successor. I, too, have known the noble Baroness, Lady Tweedsmuir of Belhelvie, for a very long time. She has the admiration and the frienship of all the political Parties and all the Cross-Benchers in the House, and we are delighted. Those of us who sat on the Select Committee of 1973 and who recommended the setting up of the Scrutiny Committee—Reports of which we are now considering—are staggered at the progress that this Select Committee has made under the distinguished Chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Diamond. I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, is to join in this debate—he made such significant contributions to our discussions last year—and that the noble Earl, Lord Lauderdale is to speak. I am delighted that from the old 1973 Committee we still have on this Committee the noble Lords, Lord Fulton, and Lord Dudley, and the noble Earl, Lord Lauderdale.

From the start in 1973 we had the wholehearted support of both Front Benches. That has been constant. It began with the noble Lord, Lord Jellicoe, who was Leader at the time, followed by the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, Leader of the Government Benches, followed by the enthusiastic support of the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, Leader of the House to-day, who has been in this from the start and who also served with distinction on the 1973 Committee. I congratulate him on his skill in choosing the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, and his equal skill in choosing such a wonderful successor.

My Lords, the 1973 Committee emphasised a number of problems. One problem was the need to prevent Parliament from being overburdened with massive documentation. From our studies, and especially from our visits to Parliaments abroad, we thought that the problem could be solved, as the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, said by sifting—by asking the Chairman and an official to go through the documents and put to one side those which were not important. They were called the A group. On the other side were those worthy of consideration by the Committee itself. We imagined from our experience that this B group of important ones would be, perhaps, 5 per cent. of the total number of documents. We were wrong; we underestimated the problem. As the Report has shown, far from it being 5 per cent. which were worthy of serious study by the Committees it turned out to be 30 per cent., and as the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, has pointed out, 130 long and detailed documents have been of sufficient importance to warrant careful consideration by one of the sub-committees. So first I congratulate them on having achieved a mountain of work.

We then recommended that the task of the Committee could be carried out only if we set up specialist sub-committees. The Committee has done that. Five subcommittees, one under the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, one under the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, one under the noble Lord, Lord Hill of Luton, one under the noble Lord, Lord Champion (who has done a splendid job and I am sorry is not joining the new Committee), and the fifth under the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran. We have been fortunate to have five Chairmen of such quality, men of all parties and of no party. These Select Committees report to the major Committee, and not the least excellent feature of this first year's work has been the way in which noble Lords have consented to come forward to be co-opted because of specialist knowledge. They have worked enthusiastically and given service to the five sub-committees. The House is indeed indebted to some 21 noble Lords who have accepted co-option on to one or other of the five committees. That number will grow as the years go on.

The Report we are considering shows that a splendid start has already been made. Each sub-committee has met once a week on average, has met, as the Chairman proudly said, during the Recess, and has taken evidence from expert witnesses, and prepared Reports. There have been 42 meetings of subcommittees apart from the main Committee meetings and, as we foresaw, the Reports take certain varied classic shapes. A Report will indicate that a certain document coming from the Commission is important, so important that it needs a debate; may be so important that it needs debate urgently—and I shall refer to urgency a little later on. Another group of documents will be regarded by the Committee as important enough for the House to be informed of their importance because they contain very useful information, although not warranting a special debate. Then, some of the documents which the Chairman himself has regarded as important enough to go to to the Committee have been, on reflection, wiped out and the number of documents to come to the House has been thus reduced.

Let me illustrate the kind of Report. Here is one on Prepackaging: The Committee consider the proposal is one which raises important matters of policy to which the attention of the House should be drawn, but they are satisfied that in all the circumstances the adoption of an average system would be of economic benefit to the United Kingdom and there can be no doubt that failure to do so would be prejudicial to British trade in the Community. Important, but not important enough, for the Committee to wish to oppose.

Then, a second one, on Radio Interference: The Committee consider that the proposal raises matters of policy and submit this Report to the House for information. And for information only. A third one—probably the most important in some ways as the years go on—this time on the Regional Development Fund: The Committee consider that the proposals raise important questions of policy and principle, to which the special attention of the House should be drawn, but that no useful purpose would be served at present by a major Report to the House, so long as the precise nature of the proposals which will emerge from renegotiation are at large. They intend to consider the matter further when information is forthcoming on the character of the amended proposals for a Regional Development Fund, and believe that at that stage it might be thought appropriate to have a full debate in the House. These are different kinds of recommendations from the Committee. It is significant that 12 subjects, in 12 documents, have been regarded by the Committee as sufficiently important for it to demand a debate. If one looks at the Report one will sometimes see under tabulated reports of the sub-committee in the last column, "debate", This indicates that that topic is one of the 12. I am worried about the time factor in two ways, whether the House can provide opportunities for 12 debates. On the other hand, as the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, has pointed out, if we have perhaps three mini debates in a day we might possibly be able to do the job. But 12 subjects for debate in only three months work would suggest that there might be 30 in a Session, and I am therefore still anxious.

My Lords, the main purposes of the Diamond Committee are first to inform the House—indeed, to inform the general public—about what is happening in this European Parliament to which we belong. We can be critical; we must be critical. I have always thought at the same time that we can be positively critical in expressing support for, and giving information about subjects which we support, both to the House and to the country. But the most important feature of the Diamond Committee is to press for debates. In the 1973 Select Committee we underlined the urgency of the matter which we were discussing, the need to act at an early stage. I think everybody now agrees that we should have set up a Scrutiny Committee two years ago, even before we went into Europe.

I am glad that the Report emphasises the need, whenever possible, to scrutinise proposals before they are finalised—at the earliest possible stage before the Commission or the Council, or both, have made up their minds. I quote: To alert the House at an early stage to controversial proposals, thus enabling Parliament to debate controversial Commission proposals at a formative stage. It would have been a good thing if we could have debated the butter mountain before it reached the height it did two years ago. Now, thanks to the Diamond Committee and its Report, we will have an informed debate on sugar. That could perhaps have occurred earlier. The noble Lord, Lord Diamond, has explained that the problem of printing, of the General Election and so on has interfered with the timing of a possible debate on sugar. The Commission sent its first Report to the Council in July. Lord Diamond's Committee considered it, I think, on August 20—certainly in mid-August—and we might have been able to take part in the sugar debate earlier than this afternoon had we been swifter. I say to the Government that we must find means of speeding up the printing of a Report, especially the Report of a Select Committee if it is urgent; and of providing a debate, if the Select Committee says that it is a debate which ought to take place urgently.

I am delighted that the parallel Committee in the other place, under Sir John Foster, carries on in the same good relations with the new Committee; that they share documentation. I think it is constitutionally right that our Committee has said that Budget and fiscal matters are for the Commons Select Committee and not for ours. The Committee had to face an enormous backlog. Documentation built up all of last year; all the time we were meeting, trying to create a machine, we were aware of the fact that the backlog was accumulating constantly. The Committee has tackled this with determination. I note with pleasure the quiet confidence it expresses on page xvii: Considering the magnitude of the tasks imposed by the terms of reference the difficulties encountered to date appear far from insuperable. There is a note of supreme confidence in that remark. I believe that is so because in the critical early days the Committee had an exceedingly able Chairman and exceedingly able chairmen of sub-committees, with industrious and able backing from the rank-and-file members of the committees and those who consented to be co-opted.

My last word is that I hope the Government will accept the advice of the Diamond Committee and, when the appropriate time comes, appoint the Committee, not for a Session but for a duration of Parliament. The work is continuous and ought to be able to go on independently of the break at the end of a Session. I commend the Report to your Lordships. With it, I offer the Select Committee my sincere and hearty congratulations. I believe it has made a great start under a fine Chairman. I believe it will continue to make excellent progress under that Chairman's splendid successor.

4.7 p.m.

THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH

My Lords, I am very glad to have the opportunity of taking part in this debate. I shall intervene but briefly on the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, but I congratulate him on his Special Report. Also, I have in retrospect to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Maybray-King, for his earlier Report, and also commend the contribution which my noble friend Lord Brooke of Cumnor made to that Report as well. I am glad to see that he is to speak to us this afternoon.

I will confine my remarks mainly to paragraphs 16 to 18 of that Report regarding the Committee's relations with the United Kingdom delegation to the European Parliament, and also to that very significant last paragraph, paragraph 24. Before doing so I wish to take the opportunity of saying how strongly I endorse the remarks of my noble Leader Lord Carrington and my noble friend Lady Tweedsmuir of Belhelvie for the remarks which they made in the debate on the Address last Tuesday, concerning the EEC. I support also—if I may stick my neck out a little—what the noble Lord, Lord Greenhill, said about the importance of holding more frequent meetings of Heads of States, or Governments, ultimately meeting perhaps monthly and confidentially in, as he said, "British Cabinet style". I agree with him that only collective discussion at the top level over the years will establish the understanding and confidence which will lead to the sort of Europe from which we can benefit. I was glad to hear the noble Lord say this in his most interesting maiden speech.

To get to my main points, my Lords, I should like to add how grateful we are to the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, for having decided to invite noble Lords who are members of the European Parliament to attend meetings of the Select Committee and its sub-committees as often as they are able to do so, in order to take advantage of their dual mandate. But, as Lord Diamond says, the strain imposed by this dual mandate means that we are only occasionally able to attend meetings of his committees, although we receive all the relevant papers. The fact that membership of the European Parliament can now take up to some 200 days of our working year means that for some of us it has become virtually a whole-time job—and, indeed, an unpaid job, since the increase in the cost of living and the rise in our expenses now exceeds the travelling and subsistence allowances provided by the European Parliament itself. In this connection, I hope that in parenthesis I might be allowed to say that we are emphatically not in a favourable position vis-à-vis our colleagues from the first Chambers in the Parliaments of the other eight countries. Senators in other countries of the Nine receive up to an equivalent of £10,000 per annum to attend either the European Parliament or their national Parliaments less frequently, I think, than do most of your Lordships who are members of the EEC Assembly.

However, to go back to my main point, what I feel about the new Committee in your Lordships' House, which will be presided over by my noble friend Lady Tweedsmuir, is this. I hope that, if it is at all possible, before that Committee decides which subjects, instruments or legislation it considers merit discussion on the Floor of your Lordships' House, members of the European Parliament might be consulted and might be specifically informed by, perhaps, the secretary of the Committee that these proposals are likely to be put forward as Motions in your Lordships' House. Then, members of the European Parliament can perhaps be asked to give their views on the matter, if they have any. Even if we, as members of the European Parliament, are unable to attend a given Committee meeting here in this building when such matters are discussed, I do not think it would delay proceedings if a message was sent to us, by telex if necessary, wherever the Peer or, indeed, the Member of the other place who happens to specialise in that question may be.

Sometimes, if the meeting of your Lordships' Committee seemed more important than the debate we were attending on the same day in Brussels, in Strasbourg, in Luxembourg or elsewhere, we might well return to attend the meeting of the Committee here in Westminster. As an example, I was asked this morning whether I would come to the first meeting of the new Committee, presided over by the noble Baroness, on Tuesday. Unfortunately, it so happens that this is perhaps the most important week in the year of a European Parliamentarian, since we shall be involved in the most vital stage of our debate on the overall budget of the Communities, and we must, if possible, all try to be there and take part in our speciality, and to vote later in the week. I need hardly add that the work of Peers in the European Parliament tends to double when Members of the House of Commons are recalled on a three-line Whip or during Election campaigns, of which, I regret to say, we have had two this year. This underlines the importance, in my view, of ultimate direct elections to the European Parliament, perhaps on the basis of the proposals made by the Dutch member, Dr. Patijn, which many of your Lordships may have read, but which I strongly commend to your Lordships and which I think would be a very suitable subject for debate in your Lordships' House. But both on practical and on democratic grounds, I think we should have direct elections before the year 1980—preferably, perhaps, in 1978.

At present, members of the European Parliament from the larger countries are attempting to represent the interests of some 1½ million of their electorate, and indeed, I suppose, the interests of their country as a whole. This, as your Lordships can imagine, is, if not a mammoth at least a somewhat daunting task for some 20 Members from both Houses of Parliament at Westminster. Therefore, the sooner Labour delegates join us to make up our full quota of 36 members, the better. I feel, however, that if Peers or even Members of another place were sent a specific message as soon as it was known that the Lords or Commons Committees were likely to recommend a debate on a given subject, then we on the Continent could get a message back very quickly, and possibly our views might be of interest to members of the Committees here in Westminster. I think some kind of simple communication procedure of this kind could be devised to meet this point, and I hope that the noble Baroness will bear this in mind.

I recognise, of course, that, in the absence of a Labour delegation, a Labour Government may not be as interested in the views of Conservative, Liberal or independent Members of the House as they would be in the views of members of their own delegation if they had one. If they did have one, those members could help a great deal in renegotiation, as we are trying to do ourselves in the European Conservative Group, in the Liberal Group and by the noble Lord. Lord O'Hagan, who always obtains so much worthy publicity for all the questions which he asks. I am very glad to see that he should be here this afternoon. But, if there was a Labour delegation—and I hope the noble Led, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, will take this point-such a delegation could help him and his Government a great deal in the renegotiation procedures.

I consider, however, that for most of the time Conservative, Liberal and indeed independent members, as well as Members of another place, tend to take a national, British point of view in most specific issues, without forgetting their overall European responsibility and European outlook; and I have found some present Labour Ministers very interested in what a Conservative member had to say. I have even been called by Labour Ministers for my advice on some specific question, and I was very glad to go to see them and tell them my views.

Finally, I was particularly interested to read the last paragraph of the noble Lord's Report, paragraph 24, in which I am very glad to note that he says: The Committee recognise that their responsibilities may in time come to be discharged within the Institutions of the European Communities, when the development of the European Parliament and the strengthening of the decision-taking processes of the EEC have made the necessary progress". It may be of interest to your Lordships to learn that the French do not have scrutiny committees as we do. As a very distinguished French statesman said to me only last week: such Committees may perhaps inhibit European integration by over-emphasising national interests to the detriment of the interests of Europe as a whole and Britain as part of Europe. But I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, that we should at this point in time have these Committees. The Danes and the Irish have similar ones. As the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, indicates, so long as the procedures of the EEC do not allow for full democratic scrutiny of proposals for legislation, then we need these Committees. I also agree that without them, and without the kind of informed debate such as we are having this afternoon, the Communities may well remain ill-understood in this country. I will not detain your Lordships any longer. I have made my points, and I shall be very interested to hear what the noble Lords, Lord Diamond and Lord Goronwy-Roberts, have to say in answer to me in their winding-up.

4.20 p.m.

LORD BROOKE OF CUMNOR

My Lords, the three speeches which have already been made in this debate leave me with little to add, but I cannot deny myself the pleasure of congratulating the noble Lords, Lord Maybray-King and Lord Diamond, on their outstanding success in devising and carrying forward to this advanced point the machinery which Parliament so badly needed for examining and bringing to notice matters from among the vast mass of documents flowing out from Brussels, which require Parliamentary attention. It must give the noble Lord, Lord Maybray-King, under whose Chairmanship a number of us sat with much pleasure in 1972, very great satisfaction that his Report has been almost entirely accepted and the procedure recommended in it is now shown to be in working order. I think the only glaring error that we made on that Committee was to estimate that only 5 per cent. of the documents would need to be considered for bringing to the special attention of Parliament. The Diamond Committee finds that it is nearer 30 per cent. than 5 per cent. and that, I think, increases the warmth of the tribute we should pay to the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, and his Committee for having carried forward the scrutiny in such a rapid way.

My Lords, I do not think that it has been mentioned—and I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, will not mind my mentioning it—that he was in fact the only member of the Maybray-King Committee who on one occasion tried to play truant. If your Lordships care to look up the Minutes of the Maybray-King Committee, it will be found that there was one Division during its many meetings, and that the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, on that occasion moved the omission of the paragraph which recommended that the work in question should be done by a Select Committee. The voting was one for the Amendment and nine against. The noble Lord, Lord Diamond, did not press—indeed he was not in a position to press—his point further, but whether he has since been converted or has bowed to the weight of numbers, I do not know. However, I give him all the more credit for having thrown himself into the work of the new Committee and having so loyally and successfully sought to make the new machinery effective.

My Lords, I think that all of us on the Maybray-King Committee, and probably many of your Lordships who were not on that Committee, felt acutely unhappy that so many months after Britain had entered the Community we still had no machinery for Parliamentary examination of what was going on. It was a very grave defect. It was not the fault of the then Conservative Government that this happened and it is no good crying over spilt milk, but we were, I think, in considerable Parliamentary danger during that period when proposals which might not commend themselves to either or both Houses of Parliament were going forward without effective means of our challenging them or seeking to modify them.

As I understand it, when the Diamond Committee took over, it was faced with a backlog of some 271 documents and in the next three months—May, June and July of this year—there was a net increase of 132 more documents which required its attention, making some 400 altogether. The fact that the Committee brought that figure down from 400 to 119 by the end of July means that a tremendous amount of hard work had to be done, and I am sure that the major part of it fell on the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, though he will say, no doubt, that he would not have been able to do the work but for the constant helpfulness which he received from the Officers of the House and from all others who were concerned to get the machinery to work.

I am quite sure that all of us would wish to join in the tributes which have been paid this afternoon, not only to the noble Lord but to the members of his Committee and most particularly to the chairmen of the sub-committees, some of whom must have found themselves with an unexpectedly heavy load of work from which they nevertheless did not shrink. Lastly, we should pay tribute to the co-opted members who voluntarily took these burdens upon their shoulders.

I should like to ask one or two questions. The Maybray-King Committee, in the course of its Report, drew attention to the possibility that the urgency in certain cases might be such that a report of a sub-committee ought to be able to be speeded straight to the House without being considered, as would normally happen, by the main Committee. I should be interested to know from the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, whether this has ever happened in practice during these first few months. I do not think any of us would say that an urgent report from a sub-committee ought to be held back from Parliament because the main Committee had not time to consider it; but I have no doubt that the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, and his colleagues will have given thought to this, even if the problem has not as yet arisen in an acute form.

My Lords, my other question is a more important one. I gather, from something said in the Report of the Diamond Committee, that the Committee has also been troubled by it. How is the normal Member of your Lordships' House to discover in advance that a sub-committee of the main Committee is to meet to discuss some document bearing on a subject in which he is particularly interested? To take an example—and it is not such an imaginary one as your Lordships might think—there might be a noble Lord who was particularly knowledgeable about shrimps. Strangely enough, shrimps are a matter which has given the Commission in Brussels some concern, and I understand that the operative law in Britain has already been modified by a regulation which was never examined by Parliament because it went through before the Diamond Committee was set up. This hypothetical Peer might be very anxious to exercise his right under the Standing Order to attend the meeting of a sub-committee when a document relating to shrimps was being examined, but he would be hard put to it to deduce, from a notice on the Order Paper that there was to be a meeting on Wednesday of the Sub-Committee on Agriculture, Fisheries, Food, Energy and Transport, that the main item on the menu for that meeting was to be a matter close to his heart. There may be some grapevine by which it is possible to convey to noble Lords what the agenda is likely to consist of when a sub-committee meeting is announced, but if this problem has not yet been solved, I urge that thought should be given to it.

We can see already from the willingness of noble Lords to be co-opted to sub-committees that there are those here in your Lordships' House who are ready to take on additional burdens, and I feel quite sure that it would be a gain to the whole strength of the Committee if more and more individual Peers could be drawn in to exercise their right of attendance and speech at sub-committee meetings, but that can only be achieved if some way of informing them of the probable agenda in advance can be devised.

Naturally I join with each noble Lord who has spoken, and indeed with the whole House, in congratulating my noble friend Lady Tweedsmuir on her appointment as the new Chairman of this Committee. I wish her the best of luck. She has great gifts, but I suspect she will need the luck as well. However, I am sure she knows that the House of Lords has the greatest confidence in her.

May I throw out one suggestion—not for the present but for the more distant future? It is that from time to time there should be an examination, either by a joint committee of both Houses or otherwise, of the work being done by the Commons' Committee and the Lords' Committee. I suggest this because of my experience on the subject of Statutory Instruments. In 1925 your Lordships' House set up the Special Orders Committee to keep Statutory Instruments under review, and 19 years later, in 1944, there was set up in another place a parallel Committee on Statutory Instruments. When I had the honour of being appointed Chairman of the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments in the 1971–72 Session, nothing struck me more sharply than the discovery that, although for 27 years the two Houses had had these parallel Committees, it had never been anybody's business to make a comparison of their operation and to see whether there were overlaps or gaps, or whether the work could be done more efficiently and more economically.

Certainly, it is not an exact comparison, but I should like it to be borne in mind that after (say) five years of the operation of these two Committees which Parliament now has on European Instruments, there should be, by some machinery or other, an examination of how the two Committees have worked, so that we can see whether there are gaps or over-lappings or whether either of the two Committees could be enabled to work more effectively. I am not proposing that this should happen for a number of years, because, quite clearly, each Committee has to settle down and get on with its very important work. It is a review which should be made not of the theory but of the practice of the two Committees, when that time comes.

4.33 p.m.

THE EARL OF LAUDERDALE

My Lords, I should like to add expressions of my gratitude to those which have already been made on the work of the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, and to extend congratulations to his successor. As the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, has pointed out, we have in the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, a reformed character, who accepted the desirability of the Select Committee as against the Standing Committee, and who then threw himself into its work. I should like especially to confirm, indeed to stress, something which the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, said earlier; namely, that there was absolutely no expression of any pro-or anti-Common Market sentiments in our proceedings. I have perhaps acquired the reputation of being a sceptic—indeed, such I still am—but I hope that my scepticism will be constructive in a glance into the future, in the light of our Committee's terms of reference.

The Select Committee owes to Parliament an energentic exercise of its power to send for persons, papers and records that are relevant to its wide terms of reference—significantly wider than those of another place, which are limited to secondary legislation and published documents. We are set up to consider "proposals", not decisions, "whether they are in draft or otherwise", and to obtain "all" necessary information. In effect, our job is vigilantly and resourcefully to search out any important questions of policy or principle.

After the experience of only three months' work labouring against a sixteen months' backlog, I ask myself what lessons should be drawn from those intense three months, drawn for the benefit of the successor body. Nothing in what I have to say should in the slightest degree be thought to imply any sort of criticism, either of our late Chairman or of the staff. The staff have been diligent and sophisticated; they go to endless trouble. And as for our Chairman, I must say it was for me daily an ever more educative process to sit at his feet, wondering at so penetrating a mind and so deft a diplomatist. I greatly regret his levitation to the stratosphere of a Royal Commission. My regret is only matched by my pleasure at our unexampled good fortune in the success ful "hijack" of my noble friend Lady Tweedsmuir.

Four points may be worth looking at. First, there is the obligation to obtain "all necessary information". From one sub-committee which dealt, under the urbane and sympathetic chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Champion, with transport, fisheries, food and energy, there emerged the urgent report—still unprinted—which was sent to the House on July 18. This concerned the Commission's proposals for an energy policy and it arose almost by chance.

The fact was that it became common gossip in London among the oil companies that a discussion document was in circulation. It was admitted to have been in the Ministries; it was admitted to be available for discussion with the energy industry; but it was not considered in Whitehall to be available to Members of Parliament. Inquiries were made and these were usefully stimulated by a Press report, as a result of which, with the aid of our staff, we managed to identify the consequential proposal R/1472/74. The Committee looked at it, discovered the importance and urgency of it, took evidence and made an urgent report which, one learned on the grapevine privately, was of considerable value to certain Ministers. But we spotted it only thanks to a Press leak and London gossip. I do not believe that we would have spotted it otherwise.

This is no reflection on the sifting procedure, because with such a mountain of paper it was hardly surprising. Yet among the very important evidence which the Maybray-King Committee collected, notably from the German Parliament, it was found that they study Commission papers—and I quote from paragraph 120 of the report— "before they are published"; that means, before they go from the Commission to the Council. The Maybray-King Committee recommended that we should study Community proposals—-and again I quote— … while still in the formative stage, starting as early as possible. That purpose is confirmed in the report which is before your Lordships this afternoon.

The questions arising, to which I should like to draw attention, are these. Do we yet have—and it is not surprising that we may not have after only three months' work—the right machinery for getting the necessary information as early as possible? Have we so far, under the pressure of this backlog and with little time in which to tackle it, been too dependent on Whitehall? Have we been too dependent on Whitehall when we can, if we want, send for persons and papers anyway? Have we the right lines of communications with Brussels? Should we not be willing to have recourse to the appointment of experts, as indeed we are authorised to have recourse under our resolution of appointment?

My second main point is the question of what I call "follow through". The Maybray-King Committee suggested in paragraph 121 of their Report that scrutiny of many of the more far-reaching proposals "should be a continuing process by a sub-committee which has studied the subject in depth". In the last Parliament, the noble Lord, Lord Champion, presided with his urbanity and consideration over a sub-committee that had an absurd range of subjects to consider; agriculture, fisheries and food, transport and energy. Ought there not in future to be a separate sub-committee either on energy and transport or just on energy, and should not such a sub-committee have specialised staff to support it? As I say, we are empowered to have this under our terms of appointment.

Thirdly, there is the question of the Council of Ministers. The Maybray-King Committee made the point in paragraph 139 that the Scrutiny Committee should be free to consider whether a Ministerial Statement on Council proceedings ought to have the special attention of the House drawn to it. This was the more important, the Committee thought, inasmuch as Ministerial Statements, have not always been entirely satisfactory". It may well be that our new Chairman will remember particular occasions when that thought floated about the Chamber. More especially did the Maybray-King Committee draw attention to the point in the light of the German experience.

It was made very clear at Question 371 of the Minutes of Evidence when Herr Werner Blischke, an official of the German Parliament, had been asked if he could tell us whether in private session of a Parliamentary Committee the German Minister concerned would tell the Committee exactly what happened in the Council of Ministers. The answer was: "He is expected to do so". That is the German practice. I submit we should not be shy about learning from it. The Government have not yet responded—and this is a point which no doubt the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, will be interested to consider—to the suggestion made in the Maybray-King Report, paragraph 20, that it would be "greatly for the convenience of Parliament" if they would state their position on the Luns doctrine, which referred to the controlled leakages that had become the custom from the Council.

The Council of Ministers is now the most important body of the Community. As an institution it is not accountable. It is not—repeat "not" —comparable to a cabinet. Some 150 persons attend it. Its continuing work proceeds through the Committee of Permanent Representatives. In some respects its activities resemble those of a legislature and its legislative decisions bind the citizen without further appeal. The only resemblance it has to a cabinet is that it meets in camera, and yet, as I have suggested, Ministers atttending it give out partial and slanted accounts of what took place.

All in all, Parliament deserves to know much more about what happens in the Council of Ministers; and at the present period of renegotiation surely Parliament needs to know as much as at any time. The Scrutiny Committee of the last Parliament did not manage to get around to any examination of Council proceedings and the Statements made on them by Ministers. Even now, it was the other place which this week, on Monday, was given an outline agenda of Council business for the coming month, and it has had the opportunity to question Mr. Hattersley about it. Surely that underscores the importance of this Committee in the future, bearing in mind the guidance of the Maybray-King Committee, looking at Ministerial Statements and Council proceedings.

Finally, there is the question of the summit meetings. The Maybray-King Committee stressed the value of the then future Select Committee, looking, as it put it, … at Community objectives laid down by meetings of Ministers outside the formal structure of Community institutions". That is in paragraph 120. The first summit occurred in October, 1972, and at it the United Kingdom Government consented to the aim of economic and monetary union—for which the current "shorthand" is EMU. That was never the subject of Parliamentary scrutiny in this House, whether by debate or by the Select Committee. Yet paper after paper, document after document issues from the Commission to the Council carrying a preamble which, after all, corresponds to the Long Title of a Bill, quoting as its context and purpose the advance towards economic and monetary union. It is something to which this House has, to my knowledge, never formally consented. Here, again, was a range of matters which the outgoing Committee could not get around to due to its short life and the immense backlog.

What I have said is not in any sense a criticism of what was done, but rather an endeavour constructively to set some sights for the future. I trust that the new Committee, largely freed of the burden of the backlog and chaired by one whose mind and Parliamentary skill are as fair as her ever welcome appearance, will rise to these new horizons and new opportunities.

4.50 p.m.

LORD O'HAGAN

My Lords, at the end of the Special Report that we are debating to-day the Committee that has been until recently chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, suggests that one day it may be possible for the scrutiny of draft legislation flowing from the Community to be vetted and monitored within Community institutions. It is not possible at the moment, and indeed it would be unthinkable so long as there were no Labour representatives at Strasbourg—and I, as all other members there, regret their absence and hope it will soon be remedied. Nor indeed would it be possible to think of it seriously until a European Parliament was elected. But may I reassure the noble Earl who has just sat down that two of the aspects of the nature of the Community to which he himself referred in the closing section of his speech are aspects that the European Parliament—not yet democratic, not yet directly elected, still without Labour Members from Britain—is itself concerned about.

One of these aspects is the secret legislative activity, the unaccountable legislative activity of the Council of Ministers. Many members of the European Parliament continue to press for the Council to meet in the open when acting in a legislative capacity. The other point the noble Earl mentioned was the super-imposition of the summit meeting above all the institutions of the Community in such a way that what the "summits" decide is not accountable through the normal institutions of the Community. The noble Earl was complaining that we had not in this House debated the communiqué of the summit conference of Heads of State and Government in 1972. The European Parliament is similarly concerned that it has not enough lien on the Council of Ministers, and we are very much hoping that after the next summit conference we shall be able to act in parallel, as the noble Earl himself was suggesting, by obtaining a direct explanation from the Council of Ministers of what it is that they have decided in the names of all the people of the member States.

THE EARL OF LAUDERDALE

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way and also for pursuing this point. Would he agree that there might be some merit in working towards the objective that when the Council behaves as a legislative body there should be full and verbatim accounts of what it does?

LORD O'HAGAN

My Lords, I do not wish to stray too far from the subject in question, but I am revealing no secrets when I say that tape recordings are made of Council proceedings and these are kept by officials of the Council; they are at the disposal of the individual Member Governments, and some Member Governments release them. To return to the subject directly under discussion, I have been unable to participate fully in the work of the Committee whose Report we are discussing to-day because, as the noble Earl, Lord Bessborough, explained fully and convincingly, a great burden of work falls on Members of the European Parliament.

However, even if I had not been absent so often from this country, I wonder whether I should have been able to exercise my statutory right under the Standing Order to attend and participate in the work of the various sub-committees. I was very interested in, and would endorse wholeheartedly, what the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, had to say on this subject. May I make a plea to the noble Baroness and to the Clerks that if the Members of this House who are not co-opted members or full members of the committees are still to have the right to attend these committees, some much better system of information should be devised; the agendas of these committee meetings should be published more comprehensively, and a subject likely to come up for discussion at a particular meeting should be advertised, perhaps in the Library, particularly when Government Ministers or other distinguished experts are giving evidence to the committee.

The Committee refer towards the end of their Report to their role in informing the Press and the public and to the nature of the Community legislation. As someone who has learned from working in one of the European Parliament's 12 specialist sub-committees which meet continuously, two or three times a month in Brussels, monitoring draft Community legislation, may I say that these subcommittees of your Lordships' House have a very important role to fill in so far as public information goes. One thing I have learned is that the nature of draft legislation in the Community is very different from the nature of draft legislation here. Many Community proposals are what we would call Green Papers or White Papers or even, very often, Statutory Instruments. Some are small technical measures merely implementing something that has already been carried into law some time before, while others, such as the European Draft Statute on Company Law, kick around for years going through endless modifications. There is an exaggerated fear encouraged, if not entirely created, by the media in this country (I am not an attacker of the media; I am a supporter of them) in that these draft proposals are presented as if they were British draft legislation. In fact, most Community proposals are much more like discussion papers, White Papers or Green Papers, documents which are often amended, and amended again, delayed and altered out of all recognition by the time they finally pass into law.

So I suggest to the Government and to the noble Baroness in her new role that it would be much to the advantage of the Committee and of the Government to encourage a wider knowledge of the work of the committees, because for those who fear that a whole stream of alien legislation is being imposed unwillingly on this country the true situation could easily be demonstrated by having meetings of the sub-committees in public, by taking evidence in public and giving a platform for people concerned about the nature of draft legislation; and it would be as well for those giving evidence to know that their point of view had been taken into account by Parliament. Also, it could be very useful for the Government when attending the Council of Ministers to be able to say, "We took evidence on this matter in one of our Houses of Parliament and all those who were concerned about it attended and gave full vent to what they were worried about, and Parliament presented a report." The Committee at the moment do excellent work but their work is not sufficiently well known. I am sure there are many people with genuine worries—perhaps unfounded worries—about the nature of Community draft legislation who could easily be satisfied if they had an opportunity of presenting evidence in public to one of these excellent sub-committees of your Lordships' House; and in so doing the Committee would be reinforcing Parliamentary institutions in this country, at the same time, possibly, as helping the work of the Government and the Council of Ministers.

My Lords, I have spoken enough. I should like to congratulate the members of this Committee, the Chairman who is retiring, and his successor, on what they have done in showing the resilience of your Lordships' House in adapting so quickly and so successfully to this new challenge. May I say that there is every opportunity for peaceful and productive co-existence between the European Parliament and this Committee. I hope that this co-existence will be more in evidence in the future than it has been up to now, although problems will inevitably remain. I attach a lot of weight to what the noble Earl, Lord Bessborough, had to say about possible ways of making greater use of the European Parliamentarians' expertise in the work of this sub-committee.

My Lords, may I conclude by saying that while welcoming the work of this Committee and hoping that it will continue in the way that it began, the best way to make Europe democratic and the best way to make the Community fit in more closely with the needs of democracy and Parliamentary traditions is to send Labour Members to Strasbourg.

5.1 p.m.

LORD CHELWOOD

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, speaks with great authority on European affairs and has made, if I may say so with respect to him, an outstanding contribution to the work in Strasbourg, Luxembourg and Brussels which I have been able to see at first hand. My excuse for intervening in this debate is that I was myself a member of the Conservative delegation to the European Parliament for eighteen months until last August and a Joint Deputy Leader with the noble Earl, Lord Bessborough. I was myself a member of the Political Affairs Committee and of the External Economic Relations Committee.

My Lords, in my opinion the Scrutiny Committees of both Houses have undertaken very successfully, on the whole, an important and essential role. This job is done in all of the national Parliaments with the exception only, as the noble Earl, Lord Bessborough, mentioned, of France. Inevitably there has been some duplication between the work of the Scrutiny Committee of your Lordships' House and another place, despite the exceptional powers sensibly given to both Committees to facilitate liaison, which is described in paragraph 17 of the Special Report of which we are taking note. I should like to agree very warmly with what the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, said, speaking from very long experience, of the difficulties and duplication that can arise when parallel committees of the two Houses are working on the same subject. It may well be that, in view of the very heavy backlog of work which has piled up so far as the Scrutiny Committee in another place is concerned, and the anxiety expressed about this by the Leader of the House who is considering a new method of scrutiny, in their wisdom Members of another place will give further thought to the possibility of a Joint Committee. However, I am sure it would be impertinent of me to go beyond that.

My Lords, another reason why there was such a big backlog of work has already been referred to in several speeches by noble Lords. This was the 16 months' late start that was made, but that is all water under the bridge—or perhaps I should say water over the bridge—and what matters now is the future. But there is a third reason to which attention has not been drawn and it is something with which we have to live. It is that the European Parliament and its Committees meet for 11 months out of 12, whereas we meet for 8 months out of 12. They sit in September, October and January and there are, therefore, three months when they are churning out draft legislation of all kinds—draft papers. Regulations, Directives and so on—when we ourselves are not sitting. This requires further thought and it leads me to say a word about paragraph 18 which refers to the "dual mandate".

The noble Earl, Lord Bessborough, said something about this in a very modest way. He told us—and it came as no surprise to me—that over the last 12 months he himself has spent something like 200 working days as a Joint Deputy Leader of the European Conservative Group. I myself did not spend quite so many working days abroad in 1973, but I was abroad for 150 days; or, to put it another way, I was abroad on European Parliamentary work for three days out of five, counting Mondays to Fridays as working days. I do not think that the general public has fully understood yet quite what a heavy strain is imposed on Members of your Lordships' House—and an even greater strain on Members of another place. As has been mentioned in this debate, this means that the opportunities for giving evidence to the Select Committee or its sub-committees are few and far between, and may often mean flying home in order to do so and the giving of ample warning.

My Lords, this would not be the right time to go in any detail into the relief of the strains that the "dual mandate" imposes, which undoubtedly result from the introduction of direct elections. However, indirect reference is made in the Special Report to this possibility, and I think that we should note in passing here that the Political Affairs Committee of the European Parliament has already given consideration and, I think, is due to give further consideration at a further meeting to the most excellent draft Report on Direct Elections, the rapporteur of which is Dr. Patijn, the Dutch Socialist Member. I think I am right in saying that this Report may well come before a plenary meeting of the European Parliament next month.

Choosing the ideal interim system for this country to introduce direct elections will be far from easy because we have a pure majority system. Introducing direct elections into a country like Holland, for example, which has pure proportional representation, or into Germany, which has a mixture of the two systems, is comparatively easy. I hope that I shall not be thought immodest if I draw attention to the fact that on Wednesday I shall be taking the chair at a Press Conference to present to the Press the report of an all-Party study group, which was commissioned by the British Council for European Movement, called "Direct Elections to the European Parliament". Mr. Michael Stewart and Mr. Alan Beith were the two other Members of Parliament who belonged to the study group and we had the advantage of taking most valuable evidence from the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, and the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan. Indeed, the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, to introduce direct elections into this country appears as an Appendix to this Report. I hope that this will contribute to the national debate on this very important subject. Certainly there is no doubt that when the time comes when we are able to introduce direct elections, so long as we bear in mind the immense importance of very close liaison between the Members of the European Parliament and the Members of the British Parliament considerable relief will be provided which is badly needed.

My Lords, may I say a brief word about the last paragraph of the Conclusion of the Special Report. I am thinking of the first sentence in the last paragraph; perhaps I may be allowed to read it: The Committee recognise that their responsibilities may in time come to be discharged within the Institutions of the European Communities, when the development of the European Parliament and the strengthening of the decision-taking processes of the EEC have made the necessary progress". That is perfectly true, but unfortunately progress has been disappointingly slow—far too slow. There have been inexcusable delays and failures on the part of the Council of Ministers to follow through the positive promises which were made at successive Summit meetings. I am glad that the next Summit meeting will study this question again and that we may at last begin to move in the right direction because, as we all know, the European Parliament has no legislative power whatsoever. I hope it is on the verge of getting some real "teeth". But if I may be allowed to point this out, it has two advantages which we do not have in either House of British Parliament. It has the most unusual power of, what I might call, pre-legislative discussion; which, put in another way, is a dialogue with the Commission. This is something which our own Select Committee shares with it, in that they are able to look at draft legislation in its early stages. I very much agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Maybray-King, said about this point, because if one does not look at legislation in the early stages it is often too late. So the European Parliament and its Committees have this pre-legislative power which is a most valuable one, the importance of which is sometimes under-estimated.

May I say a couple of sentences about the extraordinarily good work done by the overworked staff of the Select Committee? If I may say so with respect to your Lordships, it was absurdly small when the Committee was first set up. But of course it was a matter of trial and error and nobody knew exactly how heavy the work was going to be. I was glad to read that the staff had been very much strengthened and I hope that that will ease the work of the Committee.

Before I conclude, I should like to issue a brief word of warning arising from the system of classification into A and B lists, described in paragraph 6 of the Special Report. Obviously, it came as a surprise to many of your Lordships to find how many of the draft reports, regulations and so on, really merited consideration by your Lordships' House. The estimate in the Maybray-King Report—which I thought was quite brilliant, if I may say so with respect—was that only one in 20 might merit such consideration; whereas it has turned out that very nearly one-third deserve it. Again, this was guesswork on the part of the noble Lord, Lord Maybray-King, and those who work with him, but it has meant that the amount of work which falls to this Committee, and which also falls on your Lordships' House, is a great deal heavier than had originally been supposed.

However, with respect, I think we should be careful not to overestimate the need to debate measures proposed by the Community, which have already been through every conceivable check and control before seeing the light of day. They have been considered by the Government Department concerned in Whitehall; they have been through the fine mesh net of our Permanent Representative and his excellent and very large staff; they have possibly been considered by some professional body such as the veterinary surgeons or accountants or farmers; they have very likely been considered by the Economic and Social Committee, which I am sorry to say is not fully up to strength as far as this country is concerned, and they will also, of course, have been considered by the relevant committee of the European Parliament.

It is true to say that almost the most severe criticism one can make—in the light of my experience of the European Committee—is that it is altogether too slow-moving and that many desirable things never seem to happen because so much consultation takes place. The chances of their trying to ram something down the throat of some member country which is unwilling to accept the legislation concerned are very remote indeed. I have not yet seen it happen, particularly since they gave up the idea of harmonisation for its own sake, which I was very pleased indeed about. So it is a slow-moving body which takes the utmost care in consulting everybody concerned over a long period of time. I think that that, also, has been somewhat misunderstood.

Therefore, I should like to suggest with respect that it is quite unnecessary for the Select Committee to give even greater scrutiny to draft proposals emanating from Brussels than they would give to draft proposals emanating from Whitehall, unless there is some particularly good reason for it. As the Select Committee's experience grows I think they will be inclined to take the view that less Community legislation merits debate in your Lordships' House than has been the case in the past and therefore I would hope to see the amount of work that we are expected to do—even if we do it in the shape of a "mini-debate", which has been mentioned as a possibility—decreasing rather than increasing. This is all the more likely to happen as a result of the skill and experience of the chairman of the Select Committee and of its larger staff. It places a very heavy burden of responsibility on the Chairman, as the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, knows from personal experience and as the noble Baroness will soon find out.

To put it in another way—and this is the last point I wish to make—speaking of Parliament as a whole we are surely not seeking more control over British Government proposals than the British Parliament previously exercised, or now exercises, simply because such proposals have been agreed with eight other I countries. That may seem to be a rather strange way of putting it but perhaps it is not an ineffective way of putting it. If I may give one example from my own experience, when I was a member of the External Economic Relations Committee we had the right, and we exercised the right, to scrutinise draft treaties with every country into which the Community, under its common commercial policy, entered into a trade agreement, and we have been claiming the right, which I think we have virtually acquired, to seek to amend such trade agreements, but finally neither your Lordships' House nor another place has ever exercised such a right at all.

There may even be some of your Lordships who have never read the Ponsonby rules and did not even know that they existed. I did not know that they existed until about eighteen months ago when I was asked to draft a memorandum for this Committee on the extent to which we should seek to control or even have a veto over trade agreements between the Community and third countries. I then studied the Ponsonby rules and so far as I know they have never been used, either by your Lordships' House or by another place. Trade agreements, so to speak, go through "on the nod", But, of course, there will be ample work for the sub-committee concerned with trade agreements to do in all kinds of matters, such as the renewal of the GATT agreement and even smaller matters of great importance which affect the United Kingdom, such as the treatment of Hong Kong textiles, to give just one example.

In conclusion, I should like to say that I attach the very greatest importance to the work of the Select Committee. I hope to be able to contribute to it in some modest way. I believe it has what I might call a bridging role in order to ensure that the gulf between the British Parliament and the European Community, which undoubtedly exists, can be crossed easily, quickly and naturally, but I hope and expect to see the work of the Select Committee gradually diminish as membership of the Community is increasingly recognised as being in the national interest and is therefore more and more taken for granted. In my experience the bureaucrats in Brussels are very far from being faceless. Meanwhile, I feel strongly that so far as your Lordships' House is concerned the Select Committee, working very much on the right lines, has done an absolutely first-class job and I, too, should like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, on his Chairmanship of this Committee and wish every success to the noble Baroness who is succeeding him.

5.18 p.m.

LORD INGLEWOOD

My Lords, my intervention will be brief. I welcome this debate as a valuable and timely chance of spreading information about Europe at this important time. Important though this work is we must all realise that it is uphill work. Like other Members of the Committees I am proud of having been asked to be a co-opted member of one of the sub-committees, but I claim that in the long run this work is more attractive to Members of your Lordships' House than to Members of another place. However, we tend to attract less notice in the Press and on the television for the work that we do here.

We depend for this spread of information about Europe largely on the Press and the television, but I think we must all agree that they prefer tales of human misfortune to reports of procedures, and it is largely procedures about which we have been talking here this afternoon. If some Member of your Lordships' House had the misfortune to fall down on the way home this evening and to be run over, whether by a bicycle or by a bus, I am sure this incident would have far more space given to it in the newspapers to-morrow—possibly even space on the front pages—than any minor sentence on the back page that this present debate is likely to be given. But it could be that in the future these debates, provided they are short, will be more attractive to the Press and television than our talks to-day, which must in the very nature of things largely be concerned with procedure.

It is curious, but people in this country are indifferent to Europe. It is curious because we are not only so close to it, but are really a part of Europe. One of my first impressions in 1945, when I first became a Member of another place, was the lack of interest at a time when I should have thought it would have been of absorbing interest, not least because we had the special responsibility at that time of occupying large parts of it. But it seemed that the less the Members in the other place wanted to have to do with Europe, the better they were then pleased.

If I may turn again to procedure, there now comes the question of timing. This work of scrutiny is not a field for snap decisions. The more evidence one hears, the longer the time taken and hence, the easier it is to get left behind, even to the degree of being too late to influence events. I am sure we must be able to demonstrate to the public that any reports made by our Committee and debates in this House are in the end effective, and are not just pigeon-holed. I am sure that one of the most valuable things the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, could tell us when he speaks in this debate is in what manner he sees these Reports having effect, who they are going to influence, and exactly what bearing they have on those decisions taken a long way away from here but which, none the less, are going to be very important to the lives of all in this country.

5.22 p.m.

THE EARL OF SELKIRK

My Lords, may I say a word or two before the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts, replies. I should like to join other noble Lords in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, on his work. I admit that when I first went into the Committee I wondered what on earth was going to happen. If we look at the first pages of the Report of the Committee, we see that there were 600-odd documents sculling around the place. The fact that we have been able to get through them and, as the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, said, the fact that there was very little disagreement in any of the Committees once we had grasped what they were about, is largely due to the leadership given by the noble Lord. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, that of the 600 documents some were highly unimportant, but how were we to know that unless we looked at them and had some idea of what they were about? Some were wisely put out almost like balloons to try out, long ahead of requirements. This has the disadvantage of making a great deal of paper available, but it has the advantage of giving plenty of time. This is no bad system.

I think the Committee has the advantage of learning something of the approach to these problems which is being made from Brussels. It is utterly different from our concept of legislation. It takes one quite a long time to grasp their approach, their manner of working. Anyone who goes there will be quite surprised at the complete difference in their view of legislation from our own. It is wrong to pretend that we need to be very frightened of this. In the Law Committee there were few, if any, proposals which would affect, except in a minor degree, the law of this country. There was nothing at all we need be afraid of. There are certain differences of principle, I think, in the sense that we are inclined to run many things by voluntary organisation, within professions and organisations, whereas France particularly is more inclined to work by Statute law. Generally, we obey the law in this country. Certain other countries do not pay quite so much attention to it. They are inclined to sign an international document without having a very firm intention of carrying out what that document contains. Perhaps we are slow about signing it, but I do not think there is any need to be anxious about it.

My Lords, the third thing that impressed me was the preparation, the readiness to help and the knowledge of the civil servants in this country with regard to what is required. Obviously they had given an immense amount of attention to the problems being evolved in Brussels. They were extremely well informed, and we gained a great deal of information from these people.

I would refer to a point raised about timing by the noble Earl, Lord Bessborough. We made a recommendation from the Committee. When is it going to be debated in the House? It will certainly not be straight away, and whether we will even find one day a month to debate it, I do not know. The document of itself must be the important document which can be taken to Brussels or wherever it is, by our representatives. The Report made by the Committee is as much as they can go by, because debates will not take place here frequently. I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, who suggested they should be informed when certain subjects were under discussion. This is very difficult indeed. Most of our meetings were held at rather short notice, and we were not told until a short time in advance what was going to be under discussion, or its significance. I have no doubt that this is something my noble friend Lady Tweedsmuir of Belhelvie—who I warmly congratulate on her appointment, and who I am delighted to see taking on this important task—will do. I have no doubt she will find a way of doing so. It will be difficult to arouse any great publicity interest in the work of this Committee. It is important that the public should realise that this House is taking seriously its responsibility in seeing what is being produced by the legislative procedure or by the proposals coming out of Brussels.

5.27 p.m.

LORD LLOYD OF KILGERRAN

My Lords, may I apologise to the House for the fact that my name does not appear on the official list? It was put down some few days ago through the official channels, but there was some hiatus in those mysterious ways with which I am not acquainted. I should like to pay a tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, on his most efficient and sympathetic approach to the vast problems which faced him when he first undertook the chairmanship of this important Committee. I admire his administrative skills in disposing of this vast amount of work and his ability to inspire members of the Committees, co-opted or otherwise, to be so active. I wish him well in the important task which he now has before him.

If I may add a personal note, I was greatly honoured when he invited me to become the chairman of sub-committee E on law. I felt very honoured for two reasons. It was obviously a personal tribute which was most unjustified but I felt honoured, also, that, to use his words, he felt it would be tidier and perhaps equitable from a purely administrative point of view that perhaps one of the chairmen of a sub-committee should be a member of the Liberal Party which had been so concerned with EEC matters, and this had not gone unnoticed by him. I found that this sub-committee was no sinecure. Alone of all the subcommittees, it had to read all the documents produced; whereas the other subcommittees dealt with a chosen number, a much smaller number.

As this sub-committee appears likely to be reconstituted, I should like to pay great tribute to the work done by members of it—the noble Baroness, Lady Emmet of Amberley, whose great experience of the United Nations was so valuable to us, and the noble Lord, Lord Hale, who worked indefatigably, at times when he was not very well; he never failed to find the important substance of so many of these complicated documents. Then there was the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Hampstead, who was Quain Professor of Law in the University of London and of great assistance. The noble Lord, Lord Lyell, was indefatigable and avid in his reading of the papers; and on one occasion we had the honour of having the noble and learned Lord, Lord Diplock, sitting with us when we took evidence from a member of the secretariat of the Lord Chancellor's Department. The load on the secretariat was immense. Lord Diamond has referred to these matters. I should also like to pay a tribute to the initial administrative work of Mr. Grey, who now sits at the Table, and also to Mr. Brendan Keith who has succeeded him. At all times we also had the great assistance, as Lord Diamond has mentioned, of our legal adviser, Sir Charles Sopwith.

May I say a word about the general impression that we, as members of the sub-committee, had about the contents of the documents that we had to examine? It was to me very exciting and educative, though sometimes rather disturbing, to see all the papers on multifarious subjects that issued from Brussels. I listened with great interest to the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, when he explained to us the nature of so many of these documents. I must say that when we read through all these documents we were often at a loss to appreciate the reasons for their publication. We often felt that many of the documents were unnecessary. We often felt that it would be interesting to know what procedure was adopted at Brussels to prompt the issue of many of these documents.

It seemed clear that many of the draft rules and regulations were often very Germanic in form, and we have speculated on the reason for, and perhaps the advantage of, this phenomenon. However, I had had the advantage over my colleagues that as a Silk at the Patent Bar I had been closely associated professionally with many EEC documents. I soon learned to appreciate that perhaps the Anglo-Saxon approach to legal regulations, as to their substance and interpretation, is not always the most helpful and effective or attractive way to approach these matters in this technological age. I also appreciated that perhaps we have a lot to learn from the often experimental and certainly modernistic approach which is made to these matters by Continental lawyers and legal draftsmen.

May I, in conclusion, take this opportunity of congratulating Lord Diamond's successor, the noble Baroness, Lady Tweedsmuir, on her appointment. Her success will be inevitable, and I hope that this work will bring her great interest and happiness.

5.34 p.m.

BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE

My Lords, I should like to take this opportunity of expressing my thanks to every noble Lord who has been good enough to wish me well in this very difficult task that I have undertaken in following the noble Lord, Lord Diamond. I have already found out from previous experience his enormous capacity for work and his exact mind, and he has on so many occasions served this House well. I have listened to this debate with the very greatest interest. I should like to say to all noble Lords who have spoken that I will study again what they have said, because I feel that it is both wise and constructive advice.

I know very well that this Committee cannot be a success without the enormous work which is undertaken by the chairmen of the sub-committees, and also by those who are co-opted to them, and it is only with the help of your Lordships' House that I will be able to undertake this task. I would only say that I feel it a great honour to have the opportunity to serve the House in this way. I thank your Lordships for your good wishes and I hope, with the noble Lord. Lord Brooke of Cumnor, that I shall have the luck as well.

5.35 p.m.

LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS

My Lords, this is the first time this House has debated a Report of this European Communities Committee which has been in existence since May. The Committee is indeed to be warmly congratulated on the Report and on the encouraging picture which it gives of its activities to date. In its brief life the Committee has completed consideration of 347 proposals and has started consideration of 63 more. It is very encouraging that the Committee should already be in a position to say that the number of proposals awaiting consideration is not an unmanageable one. Its regular reports have brought a variety of proposals to the special attention of the House, together with very useful comments. Very great credit, of course, is due to the members of the Committee, those who have been full voting members of the Committee and sub-committees, and indeed those who have attended, and sat in, even though they had no voting powers; the value of their service is not to be minimised because, for reasons that we all understand, they cannot share with the other members the right to vote.

But our particular thanks and congratulations must go, of course, to the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, for this very happy result. It is with very real regret that we allow him to give up the leadership of this Committee, which he has got off to such a splendid start. However, we are all delighted that the noble Baroness, Lady Tweedsmuir of Belhelvie, has accepted this important role. It must be reassuring, not only to the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, but to the whole House, that one of her great Parliamentary and administrative skills and experience should now undertake this truly vital work. We are grateful to her. We wish her well. We know she will serve this House and this country, as always, with grace and distinction, and for my part I can assure her that Her Majesty's Government and indeed my noble friend the Leader of the House will be more than ready to co-operate with her in her task.

It is a major aim of Her Majesty s Government to ensure not only that British interests are fully reflected in all decisions reached in Brussels, but also that the views of Parliament, as representing the people, can be brought to bear before British Ministers subscribe to those decisions. We regard this as an important aspect of Britain's relationship to the Community on which the people have a right to be reassured before they are asked to take the decision on the results of renegotiation. They need to know that there cannot be what my right honourable friend the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary so aptly described as an involuntary loss of sovereignty.

We seek to ensure a double safeguard against this danger. The first lies in the Council itself, where British Ministers defend our interests. To those who are doubtful of membership of the Community, may I emphasise that no piece of Community legislation, or for that matter any other important Council decision, can be agreed without the assent of the British Government. This is the meaning of the Luxembourg Agreement. Her Majesty's Government are, and will make sure they remain, in a position to see that nothing is agreed that would conflict with the essential interest of this country. This, of course, is the view of the other members of the Community. That is the first safeguard.

The second one is that we provide here for democratic control. It is here, in Parliament, that the Government place such importance on the role of the European Committees—the Scrutiny Committees, as they have been called by many noble Lords who have taken part this afternoon—in enabling Parliament to bring its influence to bear on Ministers. Here Lord Inglewood's point that the reports, and the outcome of the debates on the Floor of the House, should be brought to the effective attention of Ministers, who then proceed in due course to Brussels to speak and to decide for us, is of paramount importance.

It would clearly be impossible for Parliament to examine every piece of Community legislation affecting this country, however short lived or trivial. A great mass of this paper is concerned with quite small and even ephemeral matters, but it is crucial that the views of Parliament should be brought to bear on proposals of significance. This is where the procedures and processes invented and promoted by my noble friend Lord Diamond have so signally served this purpose, and this country, in that it does seem, does it not?, that he and his Committee have hit on the right way, through the sifting process, to identify the matters which are of such significance that they should in due course be discussed by Parliament.

It is the task of the European Communities Committee to draw to the attention of the House all such proposals. As one noble Lord said, this work cannot be skimped. It has not been skimped, but in dealing with this important matter carefully and in detail they, and we, run up against the question of availability of time on the Floor of the House to discuss and debate those proposals. We must see how we get on. We have indicated from this Box, and in another place, how ready the Government are to help to provide the time for these discussions. I personally would like to reinforce that. We must all co-operate to ensure that this House finds the time to discuss proposals of significance which the Committee and its subcommittees suggest to the House. A number of noble Lords suggested that sub-committees might do this (I am not going to prejudge the decision of the next chairman, of course) without recourse to the parent Committee. We must cooperate on this. It is vital that proposals of significance should have time found for them to be properly debated in this House.

I think that we were all glad to read the kind words in the Committee's Report about the help that they had received from the Government and from Departments. I particularly appreciated what the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, said in this connection. I can testify—and I am sure that the new chairman of the Scrutiny Committee would join me in this—to the extraordinary dedication of our civil servants, not least those of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, in regard to this important work. They are tireless, and indeed I believe they are the best in the world. They are objective, and at all times ready to respond to requests for assistance, guidance, and information.

It has indeed been the aim of the Government to give the Committee full assistance in its important role, and I think that we can fairly claim to have done this. I can also say that we shall continue to do it, because it is part of our intention that the work of this Committee should effectively be taken on to the Floor of Parliament, and in due course find expression in what we have to say in international gatherings outside this country.

In the first place we make sure that all Commission proposals for Community legislation are sent to Parliament within two working days of their receipt in London. We also send, with the minimum of delay, a wide range of other documents issued by the Commission—reports on the situation in the Community, and general policy papers setting out Commission thinking on certain topics. I can well understand the somewhat rueful comments which have been made this afternoon about the volume of paper involved. My point here is that within two days of the receipt of Community legislation in this country it is on its way to Parliament.

THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH

Proposed legislation.

LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS

And we endeavour also to be as expeditious as possible in regard to the non-legislative reports—indeed interim assessments—which the noble Earl, Lord Bessborough, reminded us form a very important part of the work of the Commission, and therefore of our work here. In order to help the committees digest all this information, Departments provide an explanatory memorandum for each document. This memorandum is prepared by the responsible Department in the form recommended by Parliament, and is signed by the responsible Minister. This is the first link we have set up between the Government and the committees.

It has been a major effort for Whitehall Departments to provide these memoranda, usually within the target of two weeks of receipt in London of the document concerned; that is, we aim to make available the explanatory memoranda within two weeks of the receipt of the document concerned. Equally, we stand ready to give the committees further information about any particular proposal in which they express interest. On occasions, as we have heard this afternoon and read in the Report, this has taken the form of further written information. But the Special Report also makes clear that officials and, on occasions, Ministers, have also been ready to come before the Committee in person. I should add that there is absolutely no limit to the readiness of Ministers to attend in person meetings of this Committee.

To help the committees decide the priority they should give to the documents before them, the Government provide a monthly written forecast of business which is expected to come before the Council for Ministerial decision in the following month. Noble Lords will have seen in Tuesday's Hansard a Statement made by my noble friend Lady Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe which is an example of this kind of information: a forecast of the business, with dates as to when the specific Councils—foreign affairs, agriculture and so on—will meet during the following month. We shall also continue the practice, introduced at the end of the last Parliament, of accompanying this by a monthly Ministerial Statement. Sometimes there will be a composite statement giving the projected timetable as well as the Ministerial comment upon it.

It is indeed good to know that these arrangements have been appreciated by the Committee. As my noble friend Lord Diamond knows, he has been most welcome at any time to discuss with myself or my colleagues in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office any problems which may arise in his Committee's work. The same will be equally true, as I said, of his successor. My right honourable friend the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary has a special responsibility for co-ordinating the Government's relations with the Committees in both House, a role to which he attaches great importance.

I look forward to a series of debates during the coming months on items that your Committee has singled out as raising important matters of policy or principle to which the special attention of the House should be drawn. We shall in fact be having the first two debates of this kind this very evening. If our system of Parliamentary scrutiny is to be effective, it is clearly of considerable importance that when the Committee reports on a particular proposal as raising matters which require the special attention of the House an early opportunity should be found for debate. This was stressed by a number of noble Lords, among them my noble friend Lord O'Hagan. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor—if I may say so without presumption—made a speech which contained a great deal which I and other Members of the House will wish to ponder very carefully when we read it in Hansard to-morrow. He stressed that perhaps the only flaw, if flaw it is, in our arrangements so far, is how to make sure that the Committee's valuable work is not nullified, first, by the lack of an early enough opportunity for discussion in this House; and, secondly, nullified because it has not meaningfully been placed in the possession of Ministers as they proceed to decision in Brussels. This is a central and important point about which we must all think carefully.

LORD DRUMALBYN

My Lords, will the noble Lord forgive me? I wonder whether I may put this point to him. It is a point that I think troubled the Committee. At this time of the year there should not be any great difficulty in bringing to the early attention of the House and getting an early debate on matters that are important, but the timetable of the Council is different from the timetable of the Houses of Parliament, and it may prove very difficult towards the end of the Parliamentary Session to get time for matters that may be urgent and may require decision before the House resumes. I wonder whether the noble Lord could give special consideration to that point.

LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS

Indeed I will; I have been seized for some time with the peculiar difficulty of the incidence of time and distance which arises in the case of both Houses. The noble Lord and I have experience of the other place as well. Then there is the dichotomy between our own Parliamentary timetable and what happens in Brussels—that is, the timetable of the Council. August does not mean quite the same thing in Europe as it does in this country. There must be greater harmonisation of timetables as between Europe and ourselves. There is this disparity of pace and of occasion, and it can create very great difficulty. This I would say: if towards the end of a Session it is seen that an important decision in Brussels cannot be taken with the advantage of its having been debated in Parliament here, then special measures should in my view be taken to see that the relationship is corrected. I take the noble Lord's point very fully and I believe that the Government are seized of its importance.

We also recognise that if the views of Parliament are to have their proper weight in the overall decision-making processes of the Community, not only should such debates take place before final decisions are taken in the Council of Ministers, but also the arrangements for debates should be such as to make it possible for both Houses to have been able to express a view before decisions are taken. I have some reservation, and I join here with one or two noble Lords who have canvassed the possibility of relating the work of both Houses in such a way that there is less overlapping in the light of experience. Possibly—I am offering a purely personal view now as I am entitled to do on a procedural debate of this kind (I do not always have to talk as a Minister) I can speak as a Member of this House—debates, at least on certain categories of matters, should not have to proceed in both Houses. We have already sequestrated the financial issues to the other place so that we in this House are not obliged, indeed as a result of the deliberations of the Scrutiny Committee we do not intend, to discuss those matters. There is room here perhaps for further rationalisation—I tread very warily; I do not for a moment wish to indicate to another place what it should do—but I think we are all entitled to throw out ideas about further efforts at rationalisation in the future.

Of course debates on reports of the Committee will not be the only way in which we shall be able to express views on Community matters. There will also be opportunities provided by other debates on the general range or particular aspects of Community matters. There will continue to be other normal procedural opportunities, such as Questions by which Ministers are held accountable to Parliament.

There will also be made to Parliament twice a year a general report on developments in Community matters. The Government share the view expressed in the Special Report that these could provide a useful opportunity for a general debate on EEC matters at which consideration could also be given to the work of our Committee. The Committee's remarks in the final paragraph of their Report, that the time may come when the European Assembly is in a position to discharge the responsibilities which are at present those of this Committee, deserve attention and thought. We had a most stimulating debate about the European Assembly in this House on June 25 when a Bill on direct elections introduced by the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, was discussed. I think everybody will agree that the Assembly has not developed far enough to fill the democratic gap which faces the Community now and that national Parliaments have an indispensable and essential role for the foreseeable future.

This has been an extremely useful debate. I think it is one of those debates which pre-eminently will lend itself to re-reading in Hansard and further consideration in cold print. But every speech I have heard to-day has been made by noble Lords who know the area. The noble Lord, Lord Chelwood, for instance, has already made a notable contribution in hard practical study of the question of direct elections, something that has to be done before we start translating any idealistic theories into practice. Other noble Lords have indicated through their own special expertise how the procedures of the Committee may be further strengthened. For instance, the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Maybray-King, was of that order.

I find it difficult to pick my favourite points from what has been said this afternoon and to address myself to them specifically. This debate is valuable as a whole. I have no doubt that the new Chairman will herself wish to study what has been said to-day. It has been a debate brimful of highly important suggestions, many of them, I believe, susceptible at least of experimentation; but here one does not wish to intrude upon the prerogative of the new Chairman to study and decide for herself how far and how fast a number of these suggestions may be implemented.

The second aspect of the debate has been the kind of question raised by the noble Earl, Lord Bessborough, who referred to what, constitutionally speaking, I would call the hierarchical organisation of the European system. My noble friend Lord O'Hagan also referred to this matter as did others. There is the Summit, which is, of course, a negotiating body. There is the Council, which is a meeting of Ministers with powers. There is the Commission, which is not only below but rather to the side of the Council of Ministers in that it is substantially a non-Parliamentary agency. Then, of course, there are the national Parliaments and (who knows?) there may be some relativity to the newer Regional Assemblies which this country and others may be inventing in due course. It will be an interesting life at all levels.

The debate has given us all food for thought about the future of the Committee. It has also called our attention to fundamental questions relating to the constitutional future of Europe. I do not think we ought to be in too great a hurry to solve so massive and complex a question as the constitutional structure of any regional arrangement in Europe. That is my view. Hard work and hard thought must proceed on the kind of structure which we think will fit a viable and acceptable Europe.

Well, it is debates like this in which we find suggestions, criticisms and, above all, a readiness to exchange views and ideas, which will help us on our way. I repeat that I am most grateful to my noble friend Lord Diamond for having made it possible for us to have such a very useful debate. I look forward very much to the contribution which I know the noble Baroness, Lady Tweedsmuir of Belhelvie, will make in due course.

LORD DIAMOND

My Lords, I am sure at this hour that even those Lords who have addressed very specific questions to me would not wish that the House should be detained by a detailed response to all of them. However, may I say that every member of my Committee who sat in the last Session will share with me the view that we are indeed indebted to the House for the splendid way in which it has received our Report. It is most encouraging. To the Minister may I say how glad I was to hear him remark that by co-operation all round, time must be found for debates. I am sure the key is that if we all bear in mind that there is need to slot in time for debates of this kind then time will be found, as indeed it must. The noble Baroness, Lady Tweedsmuir, has said that she will think carefully about all the suggestions which have been made and which are for her and the future Committee to decide upon.

May I mention one or two points of interest which have been raised in important speeches on the past. First, yes, there has been a system of direct reporting by sub-committees so as not to hold up the work of Parliament, by the simple procedure of a sub-committee submitting its Report to the Chairman of the main Committee and that Chairman, by authority of the Committee, having the responsibility of issuing the Report, if he thinks fit and if he considers it is urgent enough. That has happened on more than one occasion. Secondly, although there has been some difference between an estimated 5 per cent. and an eventual 30 per cent. it would not, I am sure as a member of the previous two Committees, have made any difference to our conclusions had we thought it might be 30 per cent. or 5 per cent. The important point is that we are working on those proposals in ways which are turning out to be effective and capable of handling the number which have to be reported on and examined, be they 5 per cent. or 30 per cent.

The question of publicity and the members of the European Parliament—and members of the public as a whole being made aware of what is going on and when—engaged the minds of the Committee early on. We are back to the same problem of printing. The second Report which was printed on June 12 and which was brought out just before the printing delays started, referred to this matter in two paragraphs, one of which—Paragraph 7—stated: Further details of the agenda, time and place of the meeting of the Sub-Committees will be circulated in the fortnightly report from the main Committee, in which the division of all proposals between A and B lists will be recorded. Under the heading of "Publicity of Proceedings" at Paragraph 17 it stated: A list of all current Community proposals to be considered by the European Communities Committee and its sub-committees will be appended to the fortnightly Report of the main committee. This will indicate to Members of the House and to the public which proposals are to be considered by the Committee and its sub-committees. So this was a point which was well made, well taken and would have been well understood by Members of your Lordships' House had we not had the printing difficulties.

My Lords, I conclude on one simple note. I am sure we all understand that these arrangements are to enable this democratic gap to be filled until a European Parliament can carry out a full democratic function as we understand it. Nevertheless in the meantime it is important for us to be able to demonstrate that there is nothing inconsistent between democratic control, as we understand it in this country, and the functioning of the Community as it exists at present. It is my hope that the House has been satisfied by our Report that this is the case..

On Question, Motion agreed to.