Lords Sitting of 30 June 1993

Preamble
The House met at half-past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Worcester.

Public Interest Immunity
Lord Spens Lord Spens asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether the increasing use of public interest immunity by departments of state, government agencies and statutory bodies is consistent with their expressed policy of "openness".
The Lord Advocate (Lord Rodger of Earlsferry): My Lords, the Government do not keep a central record of the number of claims made for public interest immunity, but I do not believe there has been any appreciable increase in recent years. The Government are committed to a policy of openness and will be setting out proposals to carry this forward in a White Paper before the Summer Recess. There are always some matters which it is not in the public interest to reveal, and even in countries with freedom of information legislation, protection is provided for the most sensitive material.
Lord Spens: My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Lord for that reply. I am delighted that there will be some proposals put forward. Does the noble and learned Lord not agree with me that, increasingly, the use of public interest immunity, because it is invoked inevitably by the Government, is being seen as a device to prevent disclosure of incompetence, malpractice and abuse of the system—to coin a phrase used yesterday in another place—and that this is something that needs to be dealt with now before it gets out of hand?
Lord Rodger of Earisferry: My Lords, as I indicated in my first reply, am not aware of any evidence that public interest immunity certificates are being used to any greater extent than in the past. Therefore, it follows that I do not agree with the noble Lord that public interest immunity is being used in the way he suggests.
Lord HaiIsham of Saint Marylebone: My Lords, I declare a former interest in the matter. Does my noble and learned friend realise that in most government departments—certainly, in the departments I have experience of—there are papers stuffed with intimate details concerning the private lives of individuals which it would not be in the public interest to disclose and where it is absolutely essential that public immunity should be claimed where it is available? Unlike almost every other form of prerogative, the courts have the right to override public immunity where the interests of justice require it and they act responsibly and even-handedly in the matter.
Lord Rodger of Earisferry: My Lords, my noble and learned friend is, of course, correct. Anyone who has ever been concerned with the administration of criminal justice will recognise exactly the point he makes; namely, that many documents come into the hands of the authorities which contain information of a sensitive and personal nature referring to many individuals which it would clearly be wrong to make public. As my noble and learned friend added, it must be remembered in this general area that whereas it is the duty of the authorities in appropriate cases to make the claim, that claim is always subject to scrutiny by the courts and, in appropriate cases, despite the claim being made, the courts may order disclosure.
Lord Ewing of Kirkford: My Lords, does the noble and learned Lord accept that we are in a difficult situation when a Member of another place uses the privileged protection of that place to make serious allegations? Does the noble and learned Lord agree that it would be wholly wrong for the Serious Fraud Office to claim public interest immunity against the background of a Member of another place using the privileged protection of that place to make serious allegations?
Lord Rodger of Earisferry: My Lords. the situation relating to what is proper in connection with proceedings in another place is a matter for the Speaker and the authorities of another place and I would not wish to comment upon it. All I can say is that in an appropriate situation—I am not talking about the situation that has been mentioned—where a claim for public immunity was appropriate. it would be the duty of the Serious Fraud Office to make that claim.
The Earl of Onslow: My Lords, will my noble and learned friend clear up a point for me? It is undoubtedly acceptable to practically everyone that there should be some form of public interest immunity. However, do Ministers, when presented with a document to sign, have discretion in that matter or does the law require them to sign that document?
Lord Rodger of Earisferry: My Lords, the position, which has been explained on a number of occasions, is that when, having considered the documents which are placed before him and all the circumstances, a Minister decides that it is in the public interest that these documents should not be disclosed, he does not have a discretion in the matter. At that stage he has a duty not to disclose them.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, the Minister is quite right. What occurred in another place yesterday is not the business of this House. I understand that a Statement is being made in another place dealing with that problem. Regarding the Question of the noble Lord, Lord Spens, concerning statutory bodies, the Minister is not entirely correct in saying that there has been no extension of the practice. There has been a substantial increase in the number of people appointed to statutory bodies who have already been found wanting in the performance of their duties. In some cases there have been questions of probity. That

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is part of the public record. However, in no case have the Government taken action against those people. In some cases they have even sent them on their way with a golden handshake. Those are irrefutable facts. Is it not time that the Government extended to members of statutory bodies the strictures which apply to people in local government who, if they are found wanting and fall by the wayside, are quickly hauled before the courts and dealt with?
Lord Rodger of Earlsferry: My Lords, if I have understood the question correctly it falls rather wide of the Question on the Order Paper. However, statutory bodies are like everybody else in this area. Where it is their duty to claim public interest immunity in relation to papers, they must do so.
Lord Renton: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that public interest immunity, and other matters, cannot be made effective unless the Official Secrets Act is observed? Will he say to what extent there has been any difficulty in recent years in enforcing it?
Lord Rodger of Earlsferry: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Renton will be familiar with the fact that legislation on official secrets has been modified in recent years. We are all optimistic that with that modification it should be possible to enforce the Act satisfactorily in future. Of course, I take the point that if it is not enforced satisfactorily that could lead to difficulties of the kind my noble friend mentioned.
Lord Richard: My Lords, is the noble and learned Lord aware that I was surprised to hear that there are no statistics as to the number of public immunity certificates which are issued? Does he not agree that in the absence of any such statistics there is a feeling among practitioners that there is a growing use of these certificates? Their use is certainly not diminishing. Does he also agree that although judges now have the power —which, as he will know, is a very recent one—to look at the documents for which immunity is claimed, it does not follow that they will overrule the person or body applying for immunity? Finally, does he agree that in terms of the administration of justice this is a somewhat dangerous practice and that claiming immunity for documents which could be used in a trial is a right which should be used sparingly and only in the last resort?
Lord Rodger of Earlsferry: My Lords, I note that the noble Lord is surprised that no statistics are kept in this matter. I am not quite sure what the purpose of such statistics would be. After all, if one has to claim public immunity, that is in response to a request which is made for documents. It follows that it is only if requests are made, and perhaps in proportion to the number of requests made, that certificates have to be granted. Therefore, I do not believe that statistics would of themselves assist very much.
There is always the safeguard, which has been much developed by the courts, that at the end of the day it is for the courts to take the final decision. They have done so and, as the noble Lord will be aware, in many
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cases they have overridden the claim for public interest immunity. I believe that that is a satisfactory way of handling the matter.
I recognise that, in the case of prosecutions, public interest immunity certificates are a matter of particular sensitivity. Since that is a matter which, as the noble Lord knows, is under investigation by Lord Justice Scott, it would be best to say no more about it.

Pit Closures: Environmental Effects
2.47 p.m.
Baroness Nicol Baroness Nicol asked Her Majesty's Government:
What action they propose to prevent subsidence and landslides, and the possible pollution of water supplies, following pit closures.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Trade and Industry (Baroness Denton of Wakefield): My Lords, it is the responsibility of British Coal to consider and assess the environmental implications of its proposals in relation to the closure of individual pits. There is close liaison between British Coal and the National Rivers Authority on all questions relevant to the authority's responsibilities, including any implications of proposed pit closures.
Baroness Nicol: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for her Answer, but is it not the case that the final responsibility in this case must be that of the Government? After all, we are talking about a nationalised industry. Is she aware of the recent press reports which show that, particularly in County Durham, the closure of certain mines may lead to subsidence, landslides and pollution of water supplies if pumping out does not continue? Is the noble Baroness saying that the Government have no responsibility in this case?
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, quite rightly identified this as a serious problem, about which the Government are indeed concerned. British Coal and the authority have been in discussion regarding potential problems in the North East for some considerable time. I am delighted to say that in this instance, as in many others, the media are ahead of the facts. Pumping has not ceased at the mines in the North East. I hope that I can reassure the noble Baroness by saying that the Government will ensure that British Coal's current role in respect of the physical legacy of historic mining will be carried on after privatisation.
Lord Ezra: My Lords, it is precisely on the point of privatisation that I should like to ask the noble Baroness a question, because from my past experience I am well aware of the sense of responsibility which the National Coal Board and British Coal have had in these matters. When the industry is possibly broken up under different ownership, how will these matters be regulated and carried out?
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, the noble Lord has much experience in that area. It is experience which indicates that taking action in advance is the best way to deal with the question of subsidence;

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otherwise it may be too late. The principle that the polluter pays will be retained. However, perhaps I may assure him that in the 1992 environment White Paper the Government gave an undertaking to consider what long-term measures may be needed to deal with water pollution from abandoned mines. It is a matter which is well in focus.
Lord Gisborough: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that some of the pits which will be privatised will go out of business in the normal course of events leaving no one responsible? To what extent will the Government take bonds with regard to privatised pits to ensure that there are funds to meet liabilities?
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, I do not have an answer on that issue, but I shall obtain one and write to my noble friend.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, what steps are Her Majesty's Government taking to ensure that no slippages or landslides take place in the areas where recently coal mines have been closed? The Minister will appreciate that the Aberfan tragedy is still very much in the minds of people in Wales. We are desperately anxious that no comparable crisis or tragedy occurs again. Does adequate communication and co-operation exist between British Coal and the local authorities? The local authorities are very much alive to the dangers that exist in their areas.
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, the noble Lord draws attention to a tragedy which I believe will stay in people's minds for ever. All tips are required to be inspected at specified intervals by civil engineers. Under present legislation, local authorities can serve notice on any tip owner to carry out necessary works to prevent a tip constituting a danger.
Lord Mason of Barnsley: My Lords, is the Minister aware that pollution of water supplies is already occurring? Where pits have been closed, pumping has ceased, and still waters near the coal mines are dependent on pumping water from the pits to keep the water pollution free, sewage is already developing, algae blooms are occurring, and fishing has had to cease. Water pollution has already begun. Will the noble Baroness draw the attention of British Coal and the National Rivers Authority to the issue? As chairman of the Anglers Co-operative Association in Wales, I am guarding the interests of fishermen and anglers. We are worried that pollution has already begun. Something ought more properly to be done about it.
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, I am sure that the noble Lord looks after the interests of his friends with much energy. Under the Water Resources Act 1991, the authority can prosecute those responsible for unlawful discharges. I shall draw the attention of the authorities to the noble Lord's question. I am sure that he, too, will draw the attention of the authorities to the problem.
Baroness Hilton of Eggardon: My Lords, it is estimated in relation to the Durham coal mine in particular that it will cost £2 million a year to keep the
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pumping stations open. The Government pick up the tab for decommissioning nuclear power stations, so surely it is the responsibility of Government to pick up the tab for maintaining the pumping stations in future, at least in the North East coalfield and elsewhere where pollution may occur.
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, the noble Baroness confuses two issues. However, as I stated in my original Answer, the commitment from the Government to ensuring that matters are resolved is absolute.
Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone: My Lords, many of us would have gained the impression from the exchanges so far that subsidence and water pollution after the closure of pits were related solely or mainly to recently closed pits. Is it not a matter which lasts sometimes for generations after the closure of former mining areas?
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, my noble and learned friend draws attention to the fact that it is not an instant problem. It is a matter on which we have ensured that there will be answers when it occurs. We have no knowledge of situations where coliery closures have been directly responsible for a landslip activity.
Lord Donoughue: My Lords, is the Minister aware that the problem has been described by the environmental director of Durham as a potential environmental catastrophe? Bearing in mind the anxiety about privatisation, and what will occur after privatisation, will she assure the House that the exact legal and financial responsibilities for the mines which are to be privatised will be clearly outlined in the legislation to be brought before this House?
Baroness Denton of Wakefield: My Lords, the noble Lord has expressed his anxiety on this issue on earlier occasions. Perhaps I may again reassure him that it is an issue which will be well identified in the Bills to come before the House.

GP Services: Rural Areas
2.54 p.m.
The Countess of Mar The Countess of Mar asked Fier Majesty's Government:
Whether it is their policy to reduce the number of small general medical practices in rural areas.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Baroness Cumberlege): My Lords, no.
The Countess of Mar: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply which I had half expected. Is she aware that the parameters laid down for fund-holding practices, the methods by which special clinics are paid for, the reimbursement for computerisation, and the means by which dispensing doctors are repaid for drugs and containers are steadily undermining the practices of rural doctors which will very soon become unviable. What do the Government propose to do to ensure that those

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practices remain viable and that the patients in those practices receive equal treatment with patients in urban areas?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, the Government have a general practice payment scheme as well as an inducement payment scheme for doctors in rural areas. Fund-holding practices already make up 20 per cent. of the rural practices. That compares very well with the proportion for the country as a whole of 14 per cent.
Lord Williams of Mostyn: My Lords, yet again perhaps I may endorse the monosyllable which was the first Answer. Will the Minister bear carefully in mind that the small general medical practice in rural areas is of exceptional importance? It is an important central strand in the life of those communities. Not everyone has a motor car, and public services generally are decaying. To sustain those practices is of paramount importance.
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, I thoroughly endorse everything the noble Lord says. It is because of that commitment that the Government have ensured that GPs are better paid and better equipped and that they have stronger primary health care teams with more ancillary staff and more practice nurses. In my view they have never done the job better.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: My Lords, does the Minister agree that in isolated rural areas there can be a problem of getting cover for GPs for holidays and time off? Does she agree that GPs need more help and support rather than less and that the problem of a two-tier system might arise?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, the noble Baroness is absolutely right. We are aware of problems that rural GPs have in terms of cover. That is why in 1991 we introduced a revised scheme for GP rural practice payments. It is being reviewed at the moment. I believe that it has been successful.

Serbia: International Sanctions
2.57 p.m.
Lord Campbell of Croy Lord Campbell of Croy asked Her Majesty's Government:
What is their estimate of the effectiveness at present of international sanctions against Serbia.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Chalker of Wallasey): My Lords, sanctions are having a dramatic effect on the Serbian economy. At the Copenhagen European Council, European Community leaders reaffirmed the importance of sanctions as one means of pressure on Serbia, and their determination to ensure rigorous enforcement of the various UN Security Council resolutions.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for her reply. In view of today's report of a fierce offensive by the Bosnian Serbs, what
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pressure is being brought to bear internationally upon the regime in Belgrade to stop them providing assistance?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, it has already received a good deal of pressure from the whole community not to supply arms to the Bosnian Serbs. One of the major problems is that already there are vast quantities of arms in the hands of the Bosnian Serbs within the Bosnian border.
There is also no doubt in my mind that further supplies are getting over the border from those who do not adhere to any instruction which might be given from Belgrade. But we shall continue, with the noble Lord, Lord Owen, to do our best to stop that and to get the warfare stopped altogether.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, is the Minister aware that the whole status of the United Nations is crumbling? People look at what is happening in Bosnia, with hundreds of people being slaughtered and thousands being made homeless—world opinion is aghast—and they feel that nothing practical is being done about it and that there is nothing like the immediate action which was taken as regards Kuwait. Is it possible for our Government to raise the matter with the United Nations and if the only answer is world force, then so be it?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, I have to say to the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, that the UN is not crumbling. It has worked better over recent years than ever before. We may not like all that comes up in the UN but the nations are working better together than ever before. When the noble Lord says that nothing practical is being done, he should tell that to my 115 staff working in Bosnia to get help through, and to the 2,500 British troops working alongside the Spanish, Belgian and French. He should also realise that we do not stop, either in the UN or among our partners, trying to find a resolution to this terrible problem.
Baroness Williams of Crosby: My Lords, in view of the recent decision by the United Nations Security Council not to allow arms to be sent to the Bosnian Moslem Government—a view which many of us share —will the Minister agree that it becomes all the more important to show that we are not in any way biased against one particular community?
In the light of that fact and the reports that there are still a great many weapons crossing the Drina River even now, will the noble Baroness tell us what steps may be taken to stop that source of supply to the Bosnian Serb army?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, I am grateful for that question. It enables me to inform the noble Baroness that we have increased our contribution in terms of the number of customs officers working on sanctions assistance missions to 15. Others are doing likewise. We are doing all we can and the United Kingdom has played a leading role in the efforts to tighten the enforcement of the passage of banned goods into Bosnia.

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Another point that we must realise is that, even with the provision of equipment which we have given to Serbia's neighbours to try to help them, and even with the enhanced communications networks that we have provided, there is no way that we or any of our partners in the UN who are trying to stop this terrible slaughter will succeed in preventing it until the people themselves decide to stop the slaughter. However, we shall go on trying.
Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone: My Lords, on another aspect of the matter, would it not be well to carry in our minds the suggestion that the Germans and the Japanese might alter their constitutions to provide military help in these cases?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, my noble and learned friend is right. I believe that this is under active consideration in both countries. However, when and how they decide to do so must be a matter for them. What they could help with—and in some ways I believe they have already done so—is the provision of equipment, which does not involve men of their armed forces.
Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, as the Minister claimed that the enforcement of sanctions continues, could she give the House some indication of precisely how many UN monitors are being employed in the work? Could she also give an indication of the quantity of goods actually seized in the pursuit of the enforcement of sanctions against Serbia?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, I am sorry that at this moment I cannot, from the Dispatch Box, give the noble Baroness the exact figures and I do not wish to inform her incorrectly. I shall write to her and put the letter in the Library. Our 15 officers are accompanied by similar numbers from other countries and the whole effort has greatly increased over the past two months. That I know to be a fact, but I shall write to the noble Baroness with the details.
The Earl of Lauderdale: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that one of the difficulties with which we are faced is that throughout Bosnia—whether in the Serb, Croatian or Moslem areas—both military and civil authority is crumbling and fragmenting? We face a situation with warlords all over the place, even spreading into Serbia itself.
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, my noble friend is right, authority is crumbling. There is also a rejection of instructions given by the headquarters. Over recent days we have watched, noting the situation in Sarajevo, where although it is vital to maintain the political process, there has obviously been a breakdown in the authority and cohesion of the Bosnians.
While authority may be breaking down, other people are still trying with great difficulty to work for peace in many of the areas and we should do our best to help them. That is why we go on, as we have done, saving hundreds of thousands of lives by our actions.
The Earl of Lauderdale: My Lords. is my noble friend aware that Milosevic is now presenting himself as a man of peace? There is no end to the lying that goes on.
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, he may now present himself as a man of peace, but I think that in all our memories that was not so a few weeks ago.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, can my noble friend confirm recent reports that despite the talks in Geneva and Sarajevo, Serb and Croat Bosnian forces are combining, if only temporarily, to attack Moslem held areas?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, I have heard similar reports to those of which my noble friend speaks, but we all know that sometimes the forces combine one week, only to fight one another by the end of the same week.

Business
3.6 p.m.
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, it may be for the convenience of the House to know that the Committee stage of the European Communities (Amendment) Bill will be adjourned at about 7 p.m. for about one hour and that during this adjournment the one-hour Unstarred Question in the name of the noble Countess, Lady Mar, will be taken. Following the recent agreement by the House to this new procedure for time-limiting dinner break Unstarred Questions, no speech on the Question should exceed 12 minutes in length.

European Communities (Amendment) Bill
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now again resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now again resolve itself into Committee.—(Baroness Chalker of Wallasey.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES in the Chair.]
Lord Bruce of Donington Lord Bruce of Donington moved Amendment No. 393:
After Clause 1, insert the following new clause:
Regulations and Directives: prior approval by Parliament
(". Her Majesty's Government shall not give approval in the Council of Ministers to any Regulation or Directive of the European Community, the European Union or the European. Central Bank under the Treaty on European Union unless the same shall first have been fully debated and approved by both Houses of Parliament.").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker, will be aware, because I notified her office this morning, of the purpose of the debate. Although ostensibly it is covered by the amendments named, it is to obtain from the Government a precise account, a precise definition of our present position and the position (on the assumption that the Maastricht Treaty is ratified)

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under the Luxembourg compromise. Hitherto, the compromise has been assumed to have afforded some protection to the United Kingdom where vital national interests are at stake.
There are quite a number of people for whom this is of little concern. Others in our country view with equanimity the passing of powers away from the Westminster Parliament to the European Community. Many take that view and it is quite understandable.
However, a number of noble Lords in this House and people outside it have from time to time been uneasy about the passage of power from the British Parliament to the Community. That has been accomplished not only through the original Treaty of Rome and as it emerged following the renegotiation in 1975, but also through the Single European Act and the treaty we are now considering. I believe the Committee will agree that to some extent they have derived some small comfort and reassurance from the statements that have been made from time to time by successive governments, who have sought to reassure them. But notwithstanding the treaties that have been concluded and the documents that have been signed, in the last resort if vital national interests are affected they can be taken care of. If the Committee will bear with me for a moment, I shall give some examples of the kind of reassurances that have been given, and I believe probably accepted by the British public to whom the observations were addressed.
In the committee report Cmnd. 4715 in 1972 (some 20 years ago) the then government said:
"On the question where a government considers that vital national interests are involved it is established that the decision should be unanimous".
That was also reinforced at the time of the famous referendum of 1975, when the Government issued to the populace at large some explanatory memoranda explaining to them what the treaty meant in an endeavour to obtain public support for a continuation of the United Kingdom within the then Common Market. Fact No. 2 of the document stated:
"No important new policy can be decided in Brussels or anywhere else without the consent of a British Minister answerable to a British Government".
That seems quite explicit enough.
Members of the Committee may recall the time when my noble friend Lord Stoddart and myself, speaking from the Front Bench on behalf of the Labour Party, sought to battle quite extensively against some of the provisions of the Single European Act. My noble friend and myself, and many others, once again raised the question of what the fallback position was. The noble Baroness, Lady Young, said:
"The Luxembourg Compromise is not, and never has been, a provision of the European Community treaties. It is a political understanding based on the so-called Luxembourg accords of 28th and 29th January 1966, and, as the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, quoted from the letter that I sent him, I went into some detail on this point".—[0fficiu/ Report, 17/10/86; col. 1084.]
The noble Baroness went on to define what the Luxembourg compromise then was and said that the member states declared that:
"Where in the case of decisions which may be taken by a majority vote on a proposal of the Commission very important interests of one or more partners are at stake,
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members of the Council will endeavour within a reasonable time to reach solutions which can be adopted by all the members of the Council while respecting their mutual interests and those of the Community in accordance with Article 2 of the treaty".—[Official Report, 17/10/86; col. 1084.]
The noble Baroness went on to say that the French delegation considered that:
"Where very important interests are at stake the discussion must be continued until unanimous agreement is reached".
She added:
"It is that French declaration which constitutes the basis of the Luxembourg Compromise".—[Col. 1084.]
The noble Baroness went a little further than that. She was anxious to assist in the matter and she fortified her opinion by saying:
"That the Luxembourg compromise is unaffected by the Single European Act is not just the view of the United Kingdom. Our view was supported in a recent survey of the Single European Act by an independent and prominent law firm specialising in Community law which said:
'The continued resort to the Luxembourg Compromise is in no way prohibited even in the new areas open to majority voting'.
It is also borne out by a statement issued by a French Government spokesman in September [1986] when he said:
'The Council of Ministers will be able to decide by qualified majority more frequently than at present without in any way bringing into question the ability of a member state to invoke the Luxembourg Compromise when a question of vital interest is concerned".—[Official Report, 17/10/86; col. 1085.]
So far the Government have been pretty unequivocal about the matter. My noble friend Lord Stoddart and I ventured to express some doubts about it at the time, and on our joint behalf I said:
"I am satisfied that in the final analysis the veto is no longer effective".—[Col. 1085.]
Regrettably, as I shall seek to show presently, we were quite right. Nonetheless, when the same question was asked, the noble Baroness, in the course of the Second Reading debate which took place in this House recently, was able to say without equivocation that our position under the Luxembourg compromise was in no way affected by this Bill.
We now come into an area of dissent. According to the noble Lord, Lord Cockfield—who I am sorry to say does not seem to be in his place this afternoon —in the debate that took place on 24th June last, a quite different view was expressed. He referred to events that took place while he, at the same time as the noble Baroness, Lady Young, was there, was himself in the Cabinet and ought to have known what was happening. The noble Lord said:
"When my noble friend Lady Thatcher was Prime Minister (Mr. Peter Walker was Minister of Agriculture and I also was a member of the Cabinet), she tried to veto a grossly excessive price increase. I hate to use the modern popular phrase, but she was told to get lost; and that is exactly what happened". —[Official Report, 24/6/93; col. 486.]
The noble Lord went on to say, in regard to Germany,
"On the next occasion it was Chancellor Kohl of Germany who decided to veto a cut in the subsidy for cereals. My noble friend Lady Thatcher decided that she would not try to exercise a veto to prevent Chancellor Kohl stopping a reduction in the cost of the CAP. So what happened on two occasions, admittedly separated by two or three years, was that my noble friend Lady Thatcher, who after all is just as formidable a character as the noble Lord, Lord Bruce"—
Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear!—
"on the first occasion was forced to quit the field and on the second occasion decided not to stand and fight".—[Official Report, 24/6/93; col. 486.]

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The Committee will recall that I intervened in the debate at that stage to remind the noble Lord, Lord Cock field, of what actually happened in May 1982, which he acknowledged was probably the occasion to which he referred. What do we find? I ventured to remind noble Lords at that time—17th October 1986—of the events that took place in 1982, to which the noble Lord, Lord Cockfield, referred. I said:
"There can be no doubt that we tried to exercise our veto in 1982 at a time when the right honourable gentleman Mr. Peter Walker was Minister of Agriculture…I quote from his account given to another place on exactly what transpired. This occurs at col. 352 of Hansard of 19th May 1982".—[Official Report, 17/10/86; col. 1082.]
Mr. Walker said:
"Together with Denmark and Greece we strongly protested when the Presidency, encouraged by the Commission, announced that for the first time since 1966 the principle of obtaining unanimity where a very important national interest had been invoked was to be violated and that a decision was to be taken in accordance with the treaty arrangements for majority voting…I placed it on record that I considered that the conduct of the Presidency of the Commission and the member States which had joined in this procedure had created a very sad and damaging day in the Community's history and that the Council had quite unjustifiably chosen to depart from the established working practices based on the agreement reached in 1966".—[Official Report, Commons; 19/5/82, col. 352.]
I have a very simple question to ask the Minister. What is the present position? It is no good telling me or the Committee that the position is unchanged or unaffected or producing such Foreign Office and Civil Service jargon as may be fed in for the purpose of delivering it to this Chamber. I want to know the actual position. It can be one of two things. Either the British Government, if they consider that a vital national interest is at stake, can invoke the Luxembourg compromise, or the other governments participating in the meetings can override Britain's concept of its national interest and, on the basis of what they consider to be Britain's national interest, fail to assent to the application of the Luxembourg compromise.
A straight answer can be given to that question. Either we as a government—it is immaterial which political party is in government—can veto any proposal put forward under Maastricht or any of the treaties (we have that right if we consider our national interests are at stake) or our veto can be overridden. It is no good saying that the position is unaffected or is at it was before if that earlier position itself was unambiguous or contrary to the interests of the United Kingdom. The matter is very simple. If it can now be defined, there is some measure of reassurance. If it he true that this Government, or any succeeding government, on reviewing some of the asinine proposals that come from the Commission (supported by the other member states when it suits them, which in monetary terms it very often does) have the power to veto and that veto is effective, many of our anxieties will have disappeared.
The Liberal Benches will not be moved in a similar way because a sack of potatoes tied together, with the Treaty of Rome around it, is sufficient. I am talking now of the ordinary general public and some Members of the Committee whose misgivings over some of the provisions of the Maastricht Treaty may
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have been alleviated and who may have thought that after all, if vital national interests were concerned, we could retain our sovereign independence in the matter. If that is the case, we can all be reassured. I should rejoice. I do not relish continuing this very detailed argument over what I consider to be a worthless piece of paper anyway. I beg to move.
The Earl of Onslow The Earl of Onslow moved, as an amendment to Amendment No. 393, Amendment No. 393A:
Line 4, after ("unless") leave out ("the same shall first have been fully debated and approved by both Houses of Parliament") and insert ("such approval is given on the understanding that it is subject to withdrawal within 60 days if Parliament shall so direct').
The noble Earl said: The point of this amendment is to achieve supervision of treaties and actions under the treaty by Ministers. We have supervision in the Select Committees and it is admitted that they do very good work. We examine the treaties. But there is no means of retroactively amending a directive or a direction when it has emerged from the Commission. I believe that we should have such a power. It is a very simple but rather vital point. I beg to move.
Lord Jay: I reinforce the request that the question of the validity of the so-called Luxembourg compromise should if possible be cleared up once and for all. There was no doubt what it meant in 1966 when President de Gaulle made his famous pronouncement. It meant that if the government cif any member state decided that a matter was cif first-class national interest to that country, the decision overrode anything in the Treaty of Rome. It was not a provision of the Treaty of Rome requiring unanimity. In President de Gaulle's opinion it clearly overrode the whole machinery of the treaty. He expressed that in a rather picturesque and characteristic sentence. He described the Commission of the European Community as "a group of clever and perhaps useful men but not a government". The implication was that governments in the last resort took decisions and that the authorities in Brussels were what Sir Winston Churchill used to refer to as important functionaries. Fonctionnaires is no doubt the correct term. Thatwas the situation in 1966.
At the referendum in 1975, the main theme of the Government's publicity and the arguments of those who wanted a "Yes" vote were that 'we were wholly protected because the Luxembourg compromise allowed the British Government in the last resort to say that, whatever appeared in the Treaty of Rome, on a vital matter of national interest we could not be overridden. Some people, including myself, would. modestly point out that this was in no way included in the treaty and that we therefore felt there was a slight weakness in the validity of the Luxembourg compromise.
A few months ago Mr. Giscard d'Estaing, a former French president, made a speech in which he said that the Luxembourg compromise was no longer in force and had no validity today. Since that lime—only a few weeks ago—Mr. Balladur, the present French Prime Minister, said that the Luxembourg compromise was

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in force and that the French Government contemplated using it in the matter of the common agricultural policy and the GATT Uruguay Round.
It seems to me profoundly unsatisfactory when we have to learn the truth about this matter from French politicians, however eminent; even more so, if they contradict one another. Much more might be said, but I feel that that is sufficient argument for asking, indeed appealing to, the noble Baroness to tell us exactly what is the validity of that compromise today, legal, political, moral or otherwise, so that we all know where we stand.
3.30 p.m.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: I do not want to enter into the debate on the issue on which my noble friend the Minister will no doubt reply; that is to say, the issue as to the degree of consent that this Parliament has to one of these measures. I simply want to invite the attention of the Committee to the extraordinary nature of the amendments.
Amendment No. 393, in the name of my noble friend Lord Tebbit, which was moved at some length by the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, says that for an order to be approved,
"the same shall first have been fully debated and approved by both Houses of Parliament".
Equally, the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Onslow refers to,
"the same shall first have been fully debated and approved by both Houses of Parliament".
That is the most extraordinary drafting. How anybody is to decide whether or not a matter has been fully debated I do not know. For example, if a matter is debated in another place and in due course a closure is moved, as it often is, would it be argued that the matter had not been fully debated and that therefore the approval which was given was invalid? Indeed, suppose in this Chamber, where we deal with these matters fairly sensibly, your Lordships agreed the Motion without debate or with purely formal debate. Would it be said that it was not fully debated and that therefore the agreement was ineffective?
I therefore leave the Committee with the point that, whatever the Committee's view on the general merits of the issue, the two amendments are badly drafted. They could not possibly be put into our law and will be utterly ineffective.
The Earl of Onslow: Perhaps I may be given the opportunity to answer that point. Nobody would he happier than I, if the general principle of debate was conceded, for the amendments to be torn up and for a government representative to write them properly. There is no argument about that. Nobody intends to push the matter to a Division. We are trying to discuss the actual problem which my noble friends and I believe that we have identified.
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: I wanted to say something similar. As he often does so well, my noble friend made a speech of "splitting hairs" upon the amendment. He may be right in regard to the wording. However, most of my objections throughout have
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been that our power of veto has been taken away when, years ago, we were guaranteed that it would be there forever.
We should not raise further points which could obscure the main question —and which my noble friend could answer clearly—as to whether or not our power to veto stands as set out in the Luxembourg compromise. Are the French right? What is the position? We should not worry about whether or not the wording of the amendments is sufficient.
I greatly admire the way in which my noble friend splits hairs. He is right in terms of the literal position. But do not let it obscure a clear answer to a clear question on something which is vital to the whole issue.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: Surely when it is proposed to amend the law it should be amended in a sensible form, whatever the motives or intentions. When a proposal which is put forward for amending our law is nonsense, it should be pointed out clearly and effectively, whatever the general view of the policies concerned. I am extremely surprised that my noble friend, who is normally so excellent in his determination to see that your Lordships' Chamber legislates sensibly, apparently does not mind nonsense being put forward.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: I do not want to enter into this discussion. It will not take us anywhere. In any event, the situation was made perfectly clear by the noble Lord, Lord Bruce—he was only moving the amendments as a peg upon which to hang a constructive discussion on an important subject. That is the spirit in which I wish to say a few words.
When we look at the text of the Luxembourg compromise, we see that it really was not a compromise; it was an attempt to make one. One cannot erect a political attempt to compromise into anything more than it truly was. That is why my noble friend Lady Thatcher—who is fortunately here —was unable, according to her lights, in her interests and in the interests of this country, to achieve a veto. It does not have within it the means of doing that. When one looks at the situation carefully we see why.
Article 3 says that the six delegations note that there is a divergence of views on what should be done in the event of failure to reach agreement. That is not a very propitious start. Only the French—nobody else appears to have done so—took the view that discussion at the Council of Ministers should continue until unanimous agreement is reached. Therefore the essence of the attempt to make a compromise was no more than appears under the first heading; that the Council of Ministers will endeavour, within a reasonable time, to reach solutions that are adopted. It is no more than that.
If that analysis is right—I truly believe that it is and I have the text in my hand—it is beside the main point to demand from the Government today any further interpretation. The position today is in fact what it was at the time when my noble friend Lady Thatcher sought valiantly to exercise a veto but was unable to

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do so. Nothing has changed. It is an attempt at a compromise; it is not a binding compromise; it never has been and cannot be erected into such.
Lord Tebbit: Perhaps I may briefly comment on a couple of points that have arisen. I rejoice to hear what my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter said in his advice to us that we should reject unclear or badly drafted legislation. I take it that he will vote against the treaty on Third Reading, otherwise he would appear to be straining at a gnat having swallowed a whole caravan of camels.
In response to my noble friend Lord Campbell of Alloway, I would say that his view is an interesting one. However, it neglected one point which was made so effectively by our noble friend Lord Cockfield; that is, that the Germans had exercised a veto in the Council over a matter of agricultural policy. The veto that they exercised was against a proposal to reduce prices, whereas the British veto, which was rejected, had been against a proposal to increase prices.
The Committee will recollect that my noble friend Lord Cockfield concluded from that—indeed, he made it a large part of his argument about the nature of the Community as a whole—that there had been a deal between France and Germany over the agricultural policy in which it was clear to both the parties that they had a right of veto, but that no one else did. My noble friend expressed this as a fact of life which we would simply have to accept and said that it was no good railing against it. I am not sure whether I necessarily accept that, but that was the view of my noble friend Lord Cockfield. And it is a matter of historical fact that the Germans exercised a veto on an identical matter, except for the sign, of prices in the agriculture committee, where we had not been allowed to have a veto. So the veto exists; it has been used. To say that it is not there seems to fly in the face of experience.
I should like to put another point to my noble friend before she replies. As we know, Her Majesty's Government, rightly or wrongly, regard the proposal, which is part essentially of the social chapter but is being forced on us under the guise of a health and safety ruling, to bring about a limit of a 48 hour week in the United Kingdom with some distaste, to put it mildly. For a long time it has been denounced at extraordinary length by Ministers of the Crown. The matter came to a head recently in the Council. A veto was not cast. Now Ministers say that they will take this matter to the European Court of Justice. Well, maybe so. That is very interesting. But what if the verdict goes against us? Will we then veto the proposition? Why did we not veto it anyway if it is Her Majesty's Government's view that it is such a bad thing?
I understand from my own sources, which are not very far removed from government, that the Minister was advised that she should not attempt to cast a veto because it would be declared by the others that the veto was not valid, and that is why no veto was cast. I should like the assurance of my noble friend that no such advice was given and that the reason that the veto was not cast was not any doubt at all about its
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validity. I should like her to assure me that it is the belief of Her Majesty's Government and their advisers that had a veto been cast, it would have a valid veto.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: The noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, is rightly concerned that amendments should seek to improve and that they should be in order. I sincerely hope that when we come to debate Amendments Nos. 399 to 404 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, which will put the Bill itself in better shape, the noble Lord will listen to the arguments. Indeed, I am confident that after listening to the arguments he will feel sure that the Bill will be improved if those amendments are cirri I hope that he will feel able to support them.
I rise only very briefly on the point just raised by the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit. I want to ensure that the confusion is cleared up. On the 48 hour week, he asked whether we could not first of all have used the Luxembourg compromise—the veto—when this was being discussed in the Council of Ministers as now we have to go to the court for it to decide. lie then went on to ask whether, if the court decided against us, we would use the veto. If my memory serves me correctly, the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker, during the course of this debate, told me that it was not possible to use the veto after a court decision had been made. The veto, in other words, had to be used before the matter was taken to the court. If the veto is not used before the matter is taken to the court, then the veto can no longer be used. If we do not use it at the time when the decision is being taken and it goes to the European Court, and the European Court declares against us, we then have no opportunity again to use the veto. It is very important to establish just when the Luxembourg Compromise can be used and when it should be used. I hope that the noble Baroness will be able to clear up that matter.
3.45 p.m.
Lord Clinton-Davis: Perhaps I may start by saying that I thought, with respect to the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, whose interventions from time to time we all find very interesting, that he took a very lofty view about parliamentary draftsmanship today so far as concerns Back- Benchers and even, if I may say so, Front-Benchers, because I have often been guilty of putting down an amendment that may not have been nonsense but may have been ineffective. We simply do not have the availability of parliamentary draftsmen or even perhaps his great expertise in this field, though I wonder whether some of the amendments that he has put down from time to time have not been somewhat ineffective.
I do not take the view that the noble Lord has taken about the amendment proposed by the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, which is designed, as I understand it, to provide Parliament with greater powers to scrutinise the situation. I should have thought that it is always desirable, if it is possible, for matters coming before the Council to be debated in Parliament before that takes place. But it is not always possible. That is th.e difficulty. So many issues come before the various councils and, notwithstanding the valiant efforts of

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the Scrutiny Committees in both Houses, we do not have the ability to debate all these issues at the most appropriate time. Of course there are occasions where Ministers wish to have the endorsement of their point of view by Parliament, particularly when it is likely that it will achieve all-party support—that is often quite useful —before a Council meeting takes place. So I do not blame the noble Earl, Lord Onslow. I do not often agree with him but I think that he is perfectly entitled to do what he has done on this occasion.
The anxieties that have arisen with regard to the Luxembourg compromise arise because of the extension of qualified majority voting under the Maastricht Treaty. The background to this has been very well rehearsed, particularly by my noble friend Lord Bruce of Donington and also by the Select Committee on European Union back on 23rd July 1985. In its document, the Select Committee set out the background to the matter and the nature of the dispute that had arisen between the French and the other member states back in 1966.
I have to say in passing that the policy of the empty chair which preceded this, which was embarked upon by the French Government under President de Gaulle at that time, was one designed not to facilitate the progress of the Community. But what it lead to was the Luxembourg compromise, which as I understand it has been used on 13 occasions between 1973 and 1985. I shall want to come back to that in a moment but I think that it has lost its former authority as a European Community convention, and I do not particularly want to see it revisited. Does the noble Lord wish to intervene?
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: I take it that the noble Lord is perfectly happy that we do not have a veto even when we believe that the important interests of this country are involved?
Lord Clinton-Davis: I would like to develop the argument in my own way. In the course of doing so I hope to be able to deal with the point which the noble Lord raised, but I wish to do that in a logical way. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, that the Luxembourg compromise has never had any legal status; it is simply an agreement to disagree and no more and no less than that. What it comes to in practice is that it applies to the extent that the member states are inclined to let it apply, but only of course when qualified majority voting itself is to be applied.
So what is a very important interest? Clearly, there is no possibility of any objective criterion which is capable of independent assessment. It has to be subjective and the view of the government seeking to invoke it in a particular way. In practice, while member states do occasionally throw into the discussions which take place in the Council the possibility of their erecting the Luxembourg compromise, the reality is that when member states—at least as regards the kinds of issues that I was dealing with although, of course, I cannot deal with the entirety of the Council decisions—discussed their problems, for example, in the transport and
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environmental councils and even in the general affairs council dealing with nuclear safety post-Chernobyl, people did in fact say that they might invoke the Luxembourg compromise from time to time.
It is always important that the argument should be made by the Government seeking to invoke it. It is no use simply saying "We think that this is an issue which is very important to us and therefore we might invoke the Luxembourg compromise". If the Government concerned put forward the argument in a coherent and positive way to indicate that they are genuinely going to be disadvantaged in some vital way, then it is wrong to assume that other member states will always fail to respect that.
As I say, in a number of very important matters that arose in the councils which I attended on the issues to which I have referred in general, the Luxembourg compromise was never invoked, not even over the issue of Gibraltar in dealing with the question of aviation which was back in 1986. The two countries which were deeply concerned about the argument; namely, Spain and Britain, patiently negotiated a compromise, neither invoking the Luxembourg compromise. But one might have thought, listening to some of the contributions today, that we simply and glibly say that a vital national interest is involved and therefore we are going to invoke the compromise.
The truth of the matter is that there is a feeling of reciprocity about these issues. Member states do feel: "There but for the grace of God go I". They do not wish to see the doctrine invoked by others for that reason. Therefore, I do not believe that it is necessary to carry out any amendment to the treaty. That would clothe the doctrine with an authority which it has never previously had and, in my view, never should have. It is essentially a doctrine of last resort and it should not be used in any abusive manner lest it reduces the work of both the Commission and the Council to a deadly halt. I have a faint suspicion that that is in fact what lies in the minds of some of those who propose the use of the Luxembourg compromise in the way which some of these amendments support.
One has to take account of the elaborate procedures for scrutinising and changing Community proposals before they even reach the Council table where they are further very closely scrutinised. I believe that qualified majority voting represents an incentive to arrive at quicker decision-making in a whole variety of ways that will enhance the Community, but that member states, despite that, will still strive to maximise consensus, if not total unanimity.
For example, there have been areas in transport policy where it has been perfectly possible, before the Single European Act, to utilise qualified majority voting. It was not done because member states, perhaps wrongly, decided that it was better to try to ensure that one achieved unanimity in these fields. But I do not believe that it helped to develop transport policy. I remember the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, arguing very strongly the other day about shipping cabotage. In that regard the Greek Government have consistently said that vital national interests are

819
involved. They also prayed in aid something very similar, which I need not go into now, in order to frustrate the policies of the Community in that respect. The noble Lord might not say that the Greeks have a vital national interest and that the issue of cabotage was so important to the Community that that the Greeks had to say should have been avoided. I do not know the noble Lord's views about that, but I know that he feels very strongly about cabotage.
As regards road haulage, as the Minister will know herself because she was involved with transport, for years the Germans sought to say that the liberalisation of road haulage was absolutely incompatible with their interests and they used every and any argument to that end. There was no question of using the Luxembourg compromise. Eventually (it was only the other day) a decision was taken to make the liberalisation of road haulage become a reality. So I do not believe that it is very sensible to seek to give a kind of statutory basis. That would be a great mistake. I do not believe that revisiting the Luxembourg compromise in the way which has been suggested here represents a sensible position.
What the Government have done in relation to the procedures at Maastricht—and we do not agree with it—is to use a procedure whereby an individual member state might he excluded from the Community's policy without jeopardising collective action. I shall not go into the question of whether the Government were right or wrong about that, because it is obviously a matter on which we have very different views. But it is not an illegitimate way to proceed and it is not the Luxembourg compromise.
In trying to put the Luxembourg compromise into the form that these amendments seek, what worries me is that effectively it will stall progress altogether. It will make it virtually impossible to arrive at a sensible consensus based either on qualified majority voting or more particularly on something which is broader than that. I believe that it would be fundamentally wrong to adopt these amendments. From this side of the Committee I counsel that noble Lords should reject them.
4 p.m.
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: The lead amend ment in this group of amendments; namely, Amendment No. 393, moved by the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, and the amendments tabled to it by my noble friend Lord Onslow, would, as the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, has said, require the Government to obtain the approval of Parliament before agreeing resolutions and directives in the Council of Ministers. There are many explanatory memoranda put to the Committees of both Houses. I know because I sign many of them before they are put out. But the requirements in these amendments, while placed by the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, and my noble friend Lord Onslow, to get us to explain the situation, would not be practical in any sense.
Let me try to explain what I accept is a complicated situation and respond to the points which were made by the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington. The real question is: what is the Luxembourg compromise? It
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is a political agreement. It is based on the Luxembourg accords of the 28th and 29th January 1966. These brought to an end six months of difficulties stemming from France's withdrawal from participation in the Council of Ministers. The text represents an agreement to resume business as usual while disagreeing about what should be done when a very important national interest is at stake.
Since then, member states have spelled out their positions more clearly, notably in the declarations accompanying the 1983 Stuttgart solemn declaration, which was signed by my noble friend Lady Thatcher. The essential features of the Luxembourg compromise are as follows: it applies only when the Council is taking a formal decision by majority vote on the basis of a Commission proposal. When a member state claims that a very important national interest is at stake, all member states are committed to try, within a reasonable time, to reach a general, acceptable solution. Some member states, notably Britain, France, Denmark, Ireland and Greece —although, as Members of the Committee have said, the Germans invoked it in 1985—consider that in those circumstances discussions must continue until unanimous agreement is reached. Some member states, notably France and Ireland, consider that the essential national interest must be directly related to the subject under discussion.
I could put the exact wording of the Luxembourg compromise into Hansard, and I am prepared to do so if your Lordships wish, but it was stated in the evidence given by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs of another place back in 1986, and it has been written into our records on many occasions. I shall certainly see that it is placed in the Library.
Some Members of the Committee obviously wish to see the Luxembourg compromise entrenched in a legally binding treaty article. I am not accusing the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, of that: he has never asked for that, to my knowledge. Perhaps I may answer why I do not believe that that would be right. The key point is that Her Majesty's Government will continue to defend our national interests within the Community through whatever means at our disposal. As I have said, the Luxembourg compromise is a political agreement, not a legally binding text, as my noble friend Lord Campbell of Alloway referred to it. That is why it is unsuited to entrenchment in law. The continuing validity of the political agreement was not called into question during the political union negotiations, and nothing in the Maastricht Treaty conflicts with its continuing existence or suggests that the compromise cannot be invoked.
Perhaps I should tell the Committee that in the French National Assembly debate on 12th May last year on the revision of their constitution necessary to give effect to the Maastricht Treaty, the then French Foreign Minister said:
"No Government exists which would accept that., in a Community debate, a vital interest should he sacrificed in any way".
That was endorsed by M. Bérégovoy. the then Prime Minister, in the National Assembly in May 1992, when he said:

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"France has never given up and will not give up the right in a serious crisis to protect its fundamental interests. When the application of the majority rule would challenge interests judged vital for one of the states, the mutual commitment remains to continue to seek agreement among themselves".
Those are sentiments with which we totally agree and, as one noble Lord has said, M. Balladur, the present French Prime Minister, has said that the Luxembourg compromise is in force.
It is clear that, although it is not legally binding, others will support us in maintaining the Luxembourg compromise. The French, Danish and Irish (who all made declarations for the minutes to accompany the solemn declaration on European union signed by the heads of government at the Stuttgart European Council on 19th May 1983) reaffirmed the existence of the compromise—that is, that voting should be postponed where essential or where very important national interests were at stake. Even countries which previously took the view that the presidency must have recourse to voting where the treaty so provides have invoked the compromise. That is the German example, which has been quoted in our debate.
Five other member states, including the United Kingdom, refused to take part in a vote. That was how the decision was blocked. We did not do it because we agreed with the substance of the German case, but because all member states concerned attached considerable importance to the Luxembourg compromise. I believe that they will continue to do so. It is a political reality. The Luxembourg compromise was last used in 1988 by the Greeks on an agricultural price proposal. Together with Portugal, Denmark, Ireland and France, we supported Greece in the use of the Luxembourg compromise. So, although I cannot give a more recent example to the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, I can tell him that we supported the use of the Luxembourg compromise in 1988.
Perhaps I may turn now to what I call the 1982 saga, which was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, and my noble friend Lord Cockfield in an earlier debate. It is true that the UK representatives at the Agricultural Council on 18th May 1982 asked for a vote on the annual price fixing to be deferred. That was because we had been unable to secure satisfactory decisions on the overall Community budget. But we were not supported on that occasion by enough votes of member states to be able to defer that decision. Only Denmark and Greece supported us —and that did not give us our 23 votes. That was because other states took the view that the compromise could be invoked only in support of national interests directly related to the subject under discussion.
I believe the Luxembourg compromise still to be an effective weapon. There have been many occasions when decisions which could have been taken by a majority vote were deferred because one or more member states were opposed to them. On another occasion back in July 1978, we invoked the Luxembourg compromise in the Fisheries Council because Commission proposals for the conclusion of fisheries agreements with Sweden and the Faroes affected our fundamental national interests. No vote
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was held. Because we retain the right to invoke the Luxembourg compromise even if there is no direct relationship, we shall not hesitate to do so if we believe that it is the right thing to do.
That brings me to the question that was asked of me by my noble friend Lord Tebbit. He asked why the veto was not exercised against the working time directive. We voted on something very different from the original directive that was brought before the Council. My right honourable friend the then Secretary of State for Employment, Mrs. Shephard, gained enormous support for improving the directive. It surprised even those of us who were involved. What existed at the end was nothing like the directive which had come to the Council at the beginning. In other words, my right honourable friend had gone on talking, had continued working to improve the directive, and had used the very technique which is so important if we are to improve what comes forward.
We voted, as we did in the end, because the proposal had been much improved; but we gave notice, at the same time, that we objected to the proposal which went through because of the legal base upon which it had been introduced. Members of the Committee will remember that it was introduced under Article 118a which is the health and safety provision which, of course, has qualified majority voting. We announced our intention to challenge that decision because of the legal base. That is the challenge which will go to the Court of Justice. But it was not our judgment that the amended proposal put at risk a vital national interest, much as we continued to dislike it, because the proposal that my right honourable friend went on working for was something that was a good deal more acceptable than that which we started out to achieve.
The noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, asked a question about "invoking the veto", as he called it—the Luxembourg compromise—after a matter has been to the Court of Justice. I do not think that one could have a political veto after a matter had been referred to the Court of Justice. I took the advice of my noble and learned friend the Lord Advocate. He tells me that, indeed, it would not be possible: if you are going to use the Luxembourg compromise you must do so at the decision-taking stage before it is referred to the Court of Justice. I hope that that adequately answers the noble Lord's point.
I should like to continue with my response because I am sure that we want to make progress in our debates. In answer to questions posed on the issue, I have said that one cannot make—as I think the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, has sought previously—a clear distinction between the occasions when the Luxembourg compromise was formally invoked and where it was tacitly applied. In fact, I even answered a question to that effect way back in 1986 from the Foreign Affairs Council.
I believe that it is in the nature of things that the mere existence and the threat of the use of the Luxembourg compromise is often sufficient to secure changes in the proposed legislation to the satisfaction of the state concerned. I am also fully aware of the anxieties which, if there were to be no Luxembourg

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compromise, would arise in the mind of the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington. He has pursued the issue relentlessly, and rightly so. However, I must tell him that it is a political decision and not a legal one; and, indeed, I have explained exactly why that is so.
I must tell the noble Lord that I believe Amendment No. 393 to be unnecessary. We have existing scrutiny procedures for regulations and directives which, on the whole, work well. However, in his support, I shall be improving scrutiny wherever that is really necessary, as the noble Lord already knows. I should like to take the opportunity to pay tribute to the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Boston of Faversham, and thank him for the important and valuable role that he has played in our EC scrutiny over recent times.
The Government value the scrutiny given both by this Chamber and another place. However, it would not be appropriate or practical for each and every regulation or directive of the Community to be fully debated and approved by both Houses of Parliament. Certainly, I believe that it would be inappropriate to enshrine what is essentially a matter of scrutiny in legislation.
We want to have a working system. Our scrutiny system works; indeed, it is much admired by other countries. I believe that we should leave it alone and get on with the job. I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, wishes to intervene. I give way.
4.15 p.m.
Lord Clinton-Davis: Before the Minister sits down, perhaps I can take her back to the point she made about the 48-hour week proposal. I was not surprised to hear that the Government had opposed it and had taken the point that the legal base chosen was incorrect. We do not take that view, but that is not the point. However, to say that it was a candidate for the use of the Luxembourg compromise —which is what I thought the Minister suggested—would be utterly absurd. There is in fact a perfectly legitimate political point of view about the matter and one which we do not share. Would it not be useful in terms of invoking this vital national interest that it should, perhaps, be done where there is very clearly overriding support in all parties for a situation which the Government are seeking to invoke as a vital national interest?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: First, I shall check the Hansard record most carefully. I certainly did not mean to say—my noble friend Lord Ullswater confirms that I did not; and I am grateful to him —that we considered using the Luxembourg compromise. I was describing a situation where others—not the Government—had suggested that it might be used. In that case, we did not even come to a vote when we finished discussing the working hours' directive. It was not necessary to do so when we had so greatly amended the whole situation. In any event, we intended to submit, via the European Court of Justice, the resultant directive (which was a much slimmer volume than the original) to the European Court of Justice because of the base that had been used.
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However, as regards the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, that the Luxembourg compromise might only be used where all parties are in agreement, I do not think that that is a practical proposition. A government is elected to govern and a government could not share the blame with the Opposition if they got it wrong because the Opposition would not want to take it. As I said, I do not think that that is a practical proposition.
In conclusion, and before the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, responds, I must say that I believe that the whole atmosphere about the kind of changes that we have been discussing has changed. It was quite clear from the Copenhagen European Council which noted the Commission's commitment to wider consultation before submitting new proposals that there would be more chance for debate and discussion. I hope that the Green Paper system from the Community will provide a good opportunity for national Parliaments, including this Chamber, to influence regulations and directives at an early stage but without Amendment No. 393 which I urge Members of the Committee to reject.
Lord Jay: Before the Minister finally sits down, could she make quite explicit what I believe was implicit in what she said; namely, that the Luxembourg compromise remains in force vis à vis the United Kingdom in exactly the same sense as it does for France and Germany?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: At the end of quoting both M. Dumas and Prime Minister Beregovoy of France, I said that we agreed with what they said. That is exactly it.
Lord Tebbit: With reference to what my noble friend said concerning the 48-hour-week decision, we have seen a new phenomenon. I have often referred to the slices being taken off the salami one by one until the sausage has disappeared. It seems to me that this is a case where the slices are being produced one by one until we have the whole darned sausage. That is why it should have been dealt with at. a very early stage. However, my noble friend would ease my worries in that connection if she could assure me that, in the view of Her Majesty's Government, it is a vital British interest that the social chapter should not be applied to the United Kingdom.
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: We have already found a way to deal with that without the Luxembourg compromise. That is why we have the social protocol. I really do not think that there is anything more to be said about it.
The Earl of Onslow: Perhaps I may try to sum up what I thought my noble friend said. It is that the Luxembourg compromise is a convenient bargaining tool and it has no legal force whatever. The other people may want to gang up against us and say that it does not work and there is nothing that we can do about it. That is a rock which I see but which the noble Lord, Lord Richard, does not. Maybe he is Nelsonian and I am not. That appeared to me to sum up my noble friend's remarks.
Lord Bruce of Donington: I wish to express my appreciation for the constructive and honest way with which the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker, dealt with my questions. I am sure that with her officials and everyone concerned she has made every conceivable endeavour to answer fully the questions that I ventured to raise.
What troubles me a little is the attitude of the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, who spoke on behalf of my party. He indicated that as far as he was concerned —and presumably that encompasses the party as a whole—he envisaged that the role, if any, of the Luxembourg compromise should be progressively reduced. He did not regard the Luxembourg compromise as being anything to which he paid particular regard. I am accustomed to dealing with commissioners and my noble friend must know that imputing to me on the basis of what I have said any desire to incorporate the Luxembourg compromise into the Maastricht Treaty is a lot of nonsense. I did not seek, and I do not seek, to incorporate the Luxembourg compromise into the Maastricht Treaty, and my noble friend knows that very well. It is a typical way of diverting the argument from the principles which I laid before the Committee.
In the interests of brevity I deliberately omitted a quotation from an authoritative source. It was a point upon which the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, pegged himself. He pointed out somewhat gleefully my argument that the French declaration constitutes the basis of the Luxembourg compromise, and he asked, "What about the rest?". My noble friend Lord Clinton-Davis endeavoured to supply the rest from a Select Committee Report of 1985. I shall go furth.er and more authoritatively and refer to a statement made by the Government in 1986 which supersedes anything given in the Select Committee Report of 1985 to which he referred. I shall complete the statement, which was:
"By definition, that compromise, which is sometimes called a veto, is only applicable to decisions to he taken by a qualified majority and, although the French view was in a minority in 1966"—
a point upon which the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, seized—
"it now [1986] represents the clear view of at least five member states—France, the United Kingdom. Ireland, Denmark and Greece. Moreover, as noble Lords will know, in 1985 a sixth government, the German government, invoked the Luxembourg Compromise".—[Official Report, 17/10/86; col. 1084.]
I believe that in a way that disposes of some of the contributions which were thoughtfully made today by Members in various parts of the Committee.
I return to the statement made by the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker, which I must study very carefully indeed. It may well be that we must return to the matter on Report because one thing troubles me and I hope that the Minister will be able to solve it. I am troubled because the version of the noble Lord, Lord Cockfield, who was a Member of the Cabinet in 1982, gives a totally different account. That must be resolved and I hope that it will be resolved a long time before the Report stage. In the meantime, I renew my grateful thanks to the noble Baroness.
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: The noble Lord put a final question to his Front Bench, and I hope that I may put a question to my Front Bench. My noble friend's explanation is that she is perfectly happy to allow the situation to stand as it is. She said that it works well, it allows negotiation, we are able to improve things and she is happy about that. Is my noble friend still happy about the changing of horses? Does she not believe that resisting our request under one heading —the 48 hours—and then suddenly switching to health and safety is a manoeuvre which must somehow be dealt with? Would it not be a good move if we could, if not in the words of these amendments, find a way of preventing someone starting a race on one horse, finishing it on another horse and claiming to be the winner?
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: It started under Article 118a and it has always been under Article 118a because it was raised as the working time directive under the health and safety provisions. Therefore, it has not changed horses, to take my noble friend's analogy. There is no doubt in my mind that if there is what to all of us appears to be the wrong use of a legal base the raison d'étre Court of Justice is to resolve these matters, and that is exactly where we have sent them.
Lord Bruce of Donington: I ask the leave of the Committee to withdraw the amendment.
The Earl of Onslow: I believe that we have discussed the matter as much as we can and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendments Nos. 393A and 393B, as amendments to Amendment No. 393, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendment No. 393. by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 394 had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.]
[Amendment No. 395 not moved.]
Clause 2 agreed to.
Lord Moran Lord Moran moved Amendment No. 396:
After Clause 2, insert the following new clause:
Report on duties of sovereign as citizen of the Union
(". In implementing Article 8 of Title II of the Treaty establishing the European Union, Her Majesty's Government shall lay before Parliament for approval before 31st December 1993 and annually thereafter a report on those duties, if any, to which the Sovereign is to be subject as a citizen of the Union.").
The noble Lord said: I wish to introduce Amendment No. 396 standing in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Tonypandy. He is extremely sorry that he cannot be here this afternoon for the good reason that he is in Cardiff with Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales. He has left me to deal with the theoretical aspects of the Sovereign's duties while he helps with the practical aspects of the Royal Family's activities. I think that he has much the better part. I cannot hope to match the eloquence and passion that he brings to our debates but I shall do my best to explain our amendment.
In dealing with the Queen's possible future duties under the treaty, we have sought to bring forward as helpful, reasonable and uncontroversial an amendment as we can devise. We were helped in its drafting

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by the Public Bill Office, to the members of which I express our thanks. I hope that what we are now proposing will commend itself to the Committee and that the Government will accept it.
The amendment does not deal with the complicated question of the Royal Prerogative nor with our own relationship with the Sovereign as Her Majesty's subjects. In a debate in this Chamber on 17th February, the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker, explained the Queen's position. On Second Reading of the Bill the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor said that:
"there is a distinction between the concepts of citizenship and of allegiance. We owe allegiance to Her Majesty the Queen. We will continue to do so when we are citizens of the Union. Citizenship of the Union differs from national citizenship, particularly in a monarchy like that of the United Kingdom. Here the citizen is also a subject. Maastricht will not make us subject to anyone other than Her Majesty and we shall not owe any allegiance to the European Union… the treaty in no way alters the Monarch's constitutional position in the United Kingdom."—[Official Report, 8/6/93; cols. 714–5.]
That is clear and reassuring. It is, however, a measure of the concern in this Chamber and outside that the noble and learned Lord felt it necessary to say that. But at any rate our own relationship with the Sovereign will be unaltered. That is deeply satisfactory. In our generation we are extraordinarily fortunate in having as our head of state a Queen whose dignity, dedication and hard work are beyond praise.
Noble Lords: Hear, hear!
Lord Moran: Our amendment is concerned with the Sovereign's own position under the treaty in relation to the citizenship provisions which we debated in this Committee on 22nd June.
It became clear then that citizenship of the European Union was to apply without exception to every man, woman and child who was a national of a Community country, and that it was to be compulsory. Now I was greatly surprised that when the citizenship proposals were included in the treaty, no arrangements were made to exclude Community heads of state, whether they were hereditary monarchs or elected presidents. I am sure that if you and I had been drafting these provisions the first thought which would have occurred to us was what arrangements should be made for heads of state. But no provision seems to have been made for them. They are all, apparently, including the Queen, to become plain citizens of the Union like the rest of us. The noble and learned Lord will correct me if I am wrong about this. But if I am right, I find this state of affairs hard to understand. I should be grateful if the noble and learned Lord would tell us what consideration was given to the question, what line Her Majesty's Government took on it in the negotiations, and why it was that exceptions were not made for the Queen and other heads of state in the Community.
It seems to me rather surprising that M. Mitterrand, who is France's principal representative on the European Council and is also himself a head of state, and one who seems to take the privileges of that position fairly seriously, should have agreed to this. It is my understanding that the treaty was originally
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confined to its core economic provisions—the three stages of European monetary union, the single currency, which will be the watershed leading us to a unitary European state, and the European Central Bank, which is to run our economies. But apparently Chancellor Kohl and M. Mitterrand (who else, since it is they, as we have been told by the noble Lord, Lord Cockfield, and others, who call the shots in the Community?) decided that some political provisions must be included as well. So perhaps citizenship was put in rather hurriedly with little thought given to the position of heads of state. I do not know. I hope the noble and learned Lord can enlighten us and explain why heads of state of Community countries are being required to become citizens of the Union.
It does, after all, seem to me extremely odd that the Queen should be required to be a citizen of anything; let alone a body outside her own realms. I am sure that many Members of the Committee will also consider it odd and far from satisfactory. I myself find it extraordinary that the Government should have agreed to it. However, the fact is that they have so agreed and that under the treaty the Queen is, as I understand it, compelled to become a citizen of the Union. Under the treaty, like the rest of us, she will have rights and duties.
The question of rights is, I imagine, scarcely one that will trouble the Sovereign. The rights specified in the treaty do not seem to me likely to affect Her Majesty. I cannot well imagine Her Majesty petitioning, appealing to an ombudsman, seeking consular protection overseas or standing for the Westminster City Council and I do not believe that she has any problems about free movement in Europe. Nevertheless, the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor told us on Second Reading that Her Majesty would be entitled to exercise the rights conferred upon citizens of the Union. But, he said,
"it would be a matter for Her Majesty's choice, on the advice of her Ministers, whether in any particular situation she did so."—[0ffieial Report, 8/6/93; col. 715.]
So much for rights; the question of duties is less clear. Article 8 of the treaty refers to duties. It says:
"Citizens of the Union shall enjoy the rights conferred by this Treaty and shall be subject to the duties imposed thereby".
I repeat:
"and shall be subject to the duties imposed thereby".
Therefore, clearly there are to be duties. Ministers have repeatedly asserted that there are at present no specific duties under the treaty, and the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor told us on Second Reading that the principal duty, which, he said, we have all had since 1972, is,
"to obey the laws of the Community so far as they have direct effect in national law and are binding on individuals."—[Col. 715.]
But clearly new duties may be imposed in the future. The citizenship provisions were included in a rather surprising part of the treaty—clearly in ordler that they can be interpreted by the European Court of Justice. So those interpretations may result in new duties. The treaty could also, I think, be amended in future by the Council in a way which could impose specific duties on all citizens of the Union, including the Sovereign. Or duties could perhaps arise by the

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creeping, imperceptible process of gradual integration pushed on by the Commission, of which we have heard in this Committee stage. Duties could be of many kinds, from trivial obligations up to paying taxes direct to Brussels or being conscripted into a European army. At all events, duties are mentioned in the treaty, so obviously duties there will be.
Hence our amendment. It does not tamper with the treaty. It simply means that the Government would have to tell Parliament if at any stage duties were to be imposed on the Sovereign and that Parliament should approve any such duties. The amendment would simply be a safeguard, an insurance against anything being done affecting the Sovereign without our knowledge and consent. I cannot think that anyone could object to that. It would also have the merit of discouraging any British government in the future from agreeing to any inappropriate duties which could be imposed on the Sovereign. No doubt this year, and perhaps for some years to come, the government could make a nil return in their report. That would be a reassurance to us all and would, I am sure, be well received in all parts of both Houses. The safeguard is for the future.
I hope, therefore, that this amendment will receive general support, and that the Committee will agree to it. It is an essentially commonsense amendment, which I unhesitatingly commend to the Committee. I beg to move.
4.30 p.m.
The Earl of Onslow: I draw to the attention of my noble friends on the Front Bench this thought. Can they imagine either Disraeli or Churchill allowing those duties to be imposed upon the Sovereign? The contrast between Disraeli, who made his Sovereign Empress of India, and the present Prime Minister, who made his Sovereign a citizen of the Union, needs no underlining.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: I suggest respectfully to the noble Lord, Lord Moran, that it would be wholly inappropriate to include this proposed new clause in the Bill because his argument is based upon an anxiety which is a total misconception; namely, that the Queen is a citizen and, indeed, is subject to any of those duties because assuredly she is not.
In speaking to Amendment No. 2, when Article 8 was considered in the context of citizenship of the Union, I said that the Sovereign was not involved in Article 8 and that I should advert to that again when speaking to this amendment. On a totally objective analysis of Article 8, citizenship of the Union, as dependent upon nationality, confers a dual status—in the case of a monarchy such as ours, a subject of a monarch and a citizen of the Union. Under Article 2 citizens of the Union have rights under the Maastricht Treaty, which amends the Treaty of Rome, the ECSC and EURATOM, which also imposed duties upon citizens.
But our Sovereign is not a citizen; nor indeed are the subjects in other sovereign states, members of the EC, who are citizens of those states. The rights of the
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citizens of the Union are, as has been said, set out in Article 8e. Clearly, at face value—we need not go through them again —none could conceivably apply to the monarch. One cannot say that none of them conceivably apply to the monarch, but no court anywhere in the world could so construe them as applying to the monarch. If no rights are conferred upon the Sovereign by Article 8, assuredly no specific duties are imposed. The drafting concept is unitary and reciprocal as regards rights and obligations. No duties are apparent, or are referred to in the article, and such duties as there may be for the citizens arise under the Treaty of Rome as amended and the Single European Act.
As far as I am aware, it has never been suggested that the Treaty of Rome or the Single European Act, signed by plenipotentiaries on behalf of six sovereigns and six presidents, impose any duties whatever upon the sovereigns, upon the presidents or upon the plenipotentiaries. The magnitude of the misconception all but beggars belief. So what is the basis of the proposal to insert this new clause which, if carried, would be sent to another place further to delay a Bill that is already too long delayed? It cannot be said, as the noble Lord, Lord Moran, said, that this is a measure of safeguard because there is nothing to safeguard. No rights and no duties are conferred upon the Sovereign.
On reading the Second Reading speeches of the noble Lord, Lord Moran, and the noble Viscount, Lord Tonypandy, the only fear—it has not been stated —that is evident is perhaps sired by misconception out of a fear of federalism. If that be so, assuredly Article 8 cannot, on any construction, serve as a launch pad for federalism. I listened with attention to the noble Lord and to my noble friend Lord Onslow. I believe that the whole purpose of this amendment is simply not understood. It is to be hoped that it will not be acceptable to the Committee.
Baroness Strange: The use of the word "citizen" as applied to Her Majesty the Queen revives unpleasant echoes of the French Revolution when the Queen of France was referred to as Citoyenne Capet. We all know where that led. I think we would all feel happier and safer if our own Queen remained sovereign and subject to none.
4.45 p.m.
Lord Chalfont: I seek clarification of what appears to be, on the face of it, an important question as regards the citizenship of the Union of the Sovereign. In the first place, there must be a difference between our own Sovereign and the heads of state of other governments and other nations, especially heads of state who are elected. We cannot put President Mitterrand and Chancellor Kohl in the same bracket as our own Sovereign because presumably, except in exceptional circumstances, our own Sovereign is head of state while she is alive whereas President Mitterrand and Chancellor Kohl can once again become ordinary citizens of their own countries, and

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presumably of the Union, when they leave office. Leaving that aside, I cannot believe that this question was not considered in the framing of the treaty.
It has been suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Moran, that perhaps the matter was overlooked. I know a little about the way in which the Community operates. I would imagine that the matter was certainly considered. I should have thought that it would be considered at some length. There must have been a reason why heads of state were not excluded from the conferring of rights and the imposition of duties in this case. I hope that when the noble and learned Lord replies to the debate he will assure us that the matter was considered and that there was a good reason for not excluding heads of state, and what that reason was.
I have two further questions on which I would 'welcome enlightenment. First, if the noble Lord's amendment were accepted on a Division, would it have any effect? It seems to me that as it is at present framed it would allow us to be informed about any new duties that were imposed upon the Sovereign but that does not seem to me to be a form of consultation. Unless I have misunderstood the amendment, it seems to me the only difference it would make is that if any duties were imposed upon the Sovereign and if they were altered, we would only be entitled to be told about them after the event.
Secondly, in the context of the intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, is it true—this is an important issue and it would certainly affect my judgment if the Committee were to divide upon this amendment—that under the current treaty, no rights would accrue to the Sovereign as a citizen of the Union? Is it equally true that no duties would therefore be imposed upon her? If the Government can assure us that that is the case, my attitude to the amendment would be much changed. But if that is not true and if, under the treaty, rights are accrued to the Sovereign and duties are imposed upon her, I believe that this is an important amendment.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: I hope that the noble and learned Lord will be able to deal with a question which has just been raised by the noble Lord on the Cross Benches. I would like to know whether he regards the treaty as making our Sovereign a citizen of the Union at all. I would be interested to have his answer to that question. If that is so, does it carry with it the implication that at any rate some of the duties of a citizen of the Union could be imposed upon her? If that is the case, the matter seems to be a little more serious than perhaps some of us had realised.
Lord Richard: I hope I may make two observations. It seems to me there are two issues raised by this amendment. The first is public concern about the position of the Sovereign in relation to the Maastricht Treaty and the second is the device—I do not use that term in a pejorative sense—which the noble Lord, Lord Moran, is proposing to try to deal with the parliamentary situation.
It is fair to say that there is some public anxiety about the position of the Sovereign in relation to the Maastricht Treaty. I hope that when the noble and
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learned Lord sums up the debate he can be clear and unequivocal as to the position that the Monarch would occupy in the event of the Maastricht Treaty being passed. Some of the questions 'which have been raised, notably by the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, are pertinent and deserve an answer. I hope that the noble and learned Lord can give one.
I turn now to my second point concerning the terms of the amendment. Almost irrespective of the answer which the noble and learned Lord gives to the first point I would have difficulty in accepting the proposals which are contained in the amendment. I do not believe that the issue needs the excessive parliamentary scrutiny which is set out in the amendment. Therefore, while I share some of the anxieties which have been expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Moran, and look forward to the answer which the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor will give the Committee, if there is a Division on the amendment, I could not advise my noble friends to vote in favour of the amendment.
Lord Moran: Perhaps I may respond briefly to the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway. It seemed to me that he was suggesting that under the treaty Her Majesty the Queen would not, as a citizen, have any rights or duties. If that is so—and in due course the noble and learned Lord will tell us what the position is—then my anxieties would fall away. If no duties are to be imposed on Her Majesty there is no need for the Government to report them to Parliament.
However, as I understood it, the noble Lord argued that the Queen would have no rights. Has he read the speech by the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor at Second Reading in which the noble and learned Lord said:
"Some of your Lordships have asked whether Her Majesty would herself be entitled to exercise the right; conferred upon citizens of the Union. The answer is yes".—[0fricial Report. 8/6/93; col. 715.]
That seems to be an important statement. It is that which has in part led to the anxiety which I feel.
I agree very much with the points made by my noble friend Lord Chalfont. Obviously everything turns on whether Her Majesty is to be, as we are, a citizen of the Union and, if so, whether she will have rights and, specifically, whether she will have duties which could include in the future duties which are not at present specified. That is the point which I hope the noble and learned Lord will be able to clarify.
Lord Tebbit: There are two points which I should like to raise with my noble and learned friend. If the word "duties" had not been in the treaty—and we are assured that there are none so that word need not have been there—the matter would be very simple. If at some subsequent stage, after the next in.tergovernmental conference, for example, there was a proposal to impose duties of some kind then quite clearly during those negotiations it would be entirely reasonable and proper for those negotiating on behalf of Her Majesty's Government to make the point at that stage that the Monarch should be exempted from those duties.

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However, that is not the case. Unfortunately there is a reference to duties, although we are told that there are none. Therefore, should it be decided at some future stage that the question of duties for the citizens of the Union should be introduced a change in the text would be required to except the Monarch from the position in which she is placed by this treaty. In this treaty she is like every other citizen of the Union, with rights and duties, although there are no duties. Therefore, we would have to make an exception. We would have to create two classes of personality: ordinary citizens of the Union, and our Monarch—or perhaps heads of state generally.
It would be much more difficult to do that in the future than if we had done it ab initio. I wonder whether my noble and learned friend takes a similar view to me. Perhaps he can assure me that in his view. should duties ever be proposed, particularised or specified, a new class of person would be introduced into the treaty; namely, a head of state or, most particularly, our Monarch.
Secondly, I say to my noble and learned friend that anxieties have been expressed, which may be slightly far-fetched but I should like his reassurance, that a duty is placed upon the Monarch in this treaty since she is not merely a citizen. She is a legal, constitutional personality—or whatever is the appropriate designation. She is part of Government. She is more than Mr. Smith or Mrs. Brown, and more than one of Her Majesty's Ministers. Under those circumstances, as a constitutional personality, is she bound to uphold the objectives of the treaty?
That is an important question, for if she is so bound to uphold the objectives of the treaty it would be possible that at some time her duties in that regard could come into conflict with her position as the Queen in Parliament. We are always told that if something was absolutely unacceptable the United Kingdom could renounce the Treaty of Rome. That is surely theoretically possible. However, until the renunciation had come into effect on her signature, Her Majesty might be bound to uphold the Treaty of Rome. That would be a difficult position at that juncture.
Therefore, I should like to be assured that Her Majesty, in the personality of the Monarch—the Queen in Parliament—is under no obligation whatever as a citizen to uphold the objectives of the treaty. If she were there would undoubtedly be a potential constitutional conflict between her two duties.
Lord Charteris of Amisfield: It is surely the case that the Queen always acts on the advice of her Ministers.
5 p.m.
The Lord Chancellor (Lord Mackay of Clashfern): The amendment and this debate touch on matters of considerable importance. They are matters with which all of us will be concerned. I shall endeavour to state as carefully as I can what I believe the position to be in the light of our law up to this moment.
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First, I want to remind the Committee, just in case that might be necessary, that Article 8 of the Maastricht Treaty, in the position in which it appears, is a new article to be inserted in the Treaty of Rome as amended. Therefore, "this Treaty", referred to in the second sentence of Article 8, is the Treaty of Rome as amended by the Single European Act and the Maastricht Treaty. That therefore requires us to consider the existing situation. We should forget Maastricht altogether for the moment.
In 1972 the Parliament of the United Kingdom, the Queen in Parliament, passed an Act to give effect as the law of this country to the Treaty of Rome and laws properly made thereunder. That treaty contained power under which duties could be imposed on individual citizens. To take some examples which arise, I refer to the tachograph and the proper net which one can use for fishing. By virtue of that Act of Parliament the law of the United Kingdom introduced those duties, just as Parliament might directly introduce other duties in accordance with the ordinary procedures which we use for making enactments.
As regards the Community, the law is effective in this country only as part of the law of this country by virtue of that Act of Parliament. Therefore Her Majesty the Queen has the same relationship to that law as to any other law enacted by Parliament; and, of course, her consent was given in respect of the Act of Parliament of 1972.
One has to remember that the special position of Her Majesty the Queen in relation to the law of this country arises from the fact that the courts of this country are her courts; and that the general rule at common law in this country is that the Queen, as head of state, the Monarch, is not subject either to criminal or civil proceedings in the United Kingdom. There are very special provisions for certain aspects of her private right. But that is the general rule.
Accordingly any provision of European law as incorporated into the law of this country will be subject to exactly the same arrangements. There is no question of the European law being enforced in this country except through the national courts, and in accordance with the system that we have which regulates the position of our Monarch as head of state. That means that when the position of the Monarch is considered there is no machinery whatever by which any duty under the European law could be enforced against her. It is precisely the same position as applies in respect of the ordinary law laid down by Parliament in this country.
The part of the Treaty of Maastricht which we are discussing was certainly subjected to detailed consideration and, so far as I know, no suggestion was made that it was either necessary or appropriate to exempt heads of state from the operation of Article 8. I believe that the reason that I have just given sufficiently explains that. There is no way in which the article overrules or affects the arrangements between the head of state—in this country our respected and much loved Monarch—and the courts of the country.
As regards other courts—the Monarch may go abroad and find herself in France or Germany—she is exempt from any process under the law of France or

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Germany by the doctrine of sovereign immunity. Therefore there is no question of legal duties being created upon the Monarch, enforceable in the courts of this country. Therefore I submit to the Committee that the position of Her Majesty the Queen is entirely secured by the arrangements that have been made.
Perhaps I may turn to one or two other matters. I stated in my Second Reading speech—I believe it to be correct—that Her Majesty the Queen is a national of the United Kingdom; and obviously that is the most important matter. Attached to that, the consequence would be that she will be a citizen of the union. There is no suggestion that she will become, as the noble Lord, Lord Moran, said, a plain citizen of the union. Her prerogatives and ranks as the Monarch of the United Kingdom are in no way diminished. All that is said is that being a national of a member state, she shall be a citizen of the union.
The Earl of Onslow: Will my noble and learned friend allow me to intervene? Is she not also a citizen of Canada, Australia, and other countries of which she is a Monarch? Could she not get out of such citizenship by claiming to be a citizen of Canada? Does that not have some effect?
The Lord Chancellor: I believe that it is a little dangerous for me to speak on behalf of Her Majesty the Queen. However. I believe that one of the last things she would wish to do would be in any way to abandon her right as a national of the United Kingdom. We are all proud and glad of that fact. She is a national of the United Kingdom.
I wish to come to the question of duties which my noble friend Lord Tebbit and others have raised. No one will have heard me say that there are no duties on citizens of the European Union. What I say is that the duties are imposed by exactly the mechanism of the 1972 Act and the Single European Act. There are no new duties imposed by virtue of this Bill except under the same types of mechanism. The Committee will notice—it is of considerable importance—that Article 8e provides for the possibility of provisions being brought forward,
"to strengthen or to add to the rights laid down in this Part".
That is to say, the rights attached to citizenship of the union by that part. There is no machinery in that article for adding to the duties. In other words, the duties that are in question are the duties which may be laid down under the machinery of the Treaty of Rome as amended, which has been, of course, exemplified over the years since 1972.
Accordingly, my submission to the Committee is that the unique position of Her Majesty the Queen arises from her relationship to our national law. The mechanism—it is the only mechanism—by which the European law becomes part of our national law is by virtue of the authority of Acts of Parliament which make it so. Therefore there is no need for any additional machinery.
In particular I suggest to the Committee that the proposed amendment has a number of defects. The noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, pointed out that it is a matter of record only rather than consultation. I submit to the Committee that to adopt any such
836
provision would give a quite erroneous impression of the true position so far as concerns the Monarch. In this connection, her true position is founded on the relationship between the Monarch and her courts. It is only through her courts that any of the duties imposed upon other nationals of the United K.ingdom could be enforced within the United Kingdom itself.
I very much appreciate the anxieties which have been expressed and I have sought to deal with the matter as carefully and fully as I can. I am sure that all Members of the Committee would wish to join the noble Lord, Lord Moran, in saying that we, as a country, have been served in a most. remarkable way by our beloved Sovereign over many years. Her Majesty's Government would wish to do absolutely nothing of any kind in any way to diminish her position. On the contrary, in accordance with the oath that we have all taken on coming into the House, we would wish to maintain her position in the fullest possible sense.
The consent of Her Majesty the Queen is given ultimately to Acts of Parliament that pass both Houses. When her rights and interests may be affected, she is also in the habit of laying them before Parliament for the purposes of a Bill going through the House. She did so in relation to the Act of 1972. and she will do so, I understand, in relation to this Bill. She did that in the House of Commons and I understand that she will formally do so in this House. The principal reason for that being required in this instance is that her prerogative to ratify treaties is modified by the necessity to have an Act of Parliament before any question of proceeding to Stage 3 of the Economic and Monetary Union could arise. That is a qualification on the prerogative to ratify treaties which lies with Her Majesty.
In the light of that explanation, I hope that the Committee will feel that, far from enhancing the position of Her Majesty, to pass the amendment might be to cast quite an unnecessary doubt upon it.
Lord Jay: Before the noble and learned Lord sits down, to a non-lawyer. one point is not altogether clear. I thought that he said that because the courts are Her Majesty's courts, no duty can be laid upon her by those courts. Therefore, she was, as it were, exempt, he said, from the European Communities Act 1972–to use a non-legal term. The noble and learned Lord also said, however, that she becomes a citizen of the European Union as a result of this treaty. If she becomes that as a result of this legislation, how is it that the legislation has that force which apparently the 1972 Act does not? I am afraid that is not clear to a non-lawyer.
5.15 p.m.
The Lord Chancellor: I sought to explain this, and obviously it is important that I. should make it as clear as I can. When Parliament passes an Act, it does so in. the knowledge of the relationship between Her Majesty and her courts. The general rule to which I referred is that Her Majesty, as a private person in right of the Crown, cannot be brought before her own courts. Therefore, in passing any kind of legislation

837
which appears to impose duties, there is no infringement of Her Majesty's position in that respect. I say that that is true of the Act of 1972; it is true of the Act of Parliament that made the necessary changes in our law to enable Her Majesty to ratify the Single European Act; and the same would be true if this treaty were to be ratified.
However, that does not prevent rights being assigned to Her Majesty if Parliament wishes to assign rights to her. I have said that by being a national of the United Kingdom, Her Majesty will obtain thereby the rights that obtain as a result of the treaty, in connection with the matters referred to in the treaty conferring rights. I pointed out that if those rights ever came into question at all, they would be exercised only on behalf of or on the advice of Her Majesty's Ministers. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Moran, that as regards practicalities—with which we ought to deal—it is highly improbable that any specific rights mentioned in Article 8 would ever be in question for Her Majesty. Thus, from the practical point of view, even on the rights side in respect of Article 8, there is no particular addition to Her Majesty's rights thereby conferred. There are formal additions, but nothing of great importance.
As regards duties, the position is different because duties depend on the enforcement arrangements. Because of the relationship between Her Majesty and her courts, there is no question of that.
Lord Monson: Before the noble and learned Lord sits down for the second time, would he agree that the existing post-1972 duties, arising from the European legislation of which he spoke, are already incorporated into English law and Scots law? It is those laws which we obey and which are the means for ensuring our obedience to those duties. In other words, it is through English and Scots law. Why, then, is it necessary to incorporate the word "duties" into the treaty at all? It is surely totally superfluous.
The Lord Chancellor: The situation is that under the treaty it was wished to make reference to and incorporate provisions about citizenship. As my noble friend Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn said on Second Reading, the aspiration involves the idea of duties as well as rights. Therefore, it is fair, in presenting the matter, to notice in the provisions that there are duties. But they are the duties which arise from the sources already identified and by the same mechanisms. Those are: the Treaty of Rome, the treaty amending it (the Single European Act), and, if Maastricht is ratified, the provisions of the Maastricht Treaty under which duties can be created. But those are all of the same kind and arise in the same kind of constitutional relationship. The point I wish to emphasise is that Article 8 does not create any new mechanisms for additional duties on anyone.
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: My noble and learned friend has answered clearly and without question that the Royal Prerogative is not involved. He made that perfectly clear, and that is safe. But since he reiterated the statement he made in his Second Reading speech
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that under Maastricht Her Majesty becomes, like everyone else, a person, there is a risk. It may be one that we cannot see at the moment, and it is difficult to envisage; but there must be a risk that she, as a person, quite apart from her Royal Prerogative, could be involved in it. Is it possible to insert something at some stage which will protect her as a person, in addition to her Royal Prerogative powers as a Monarch?
The Lord Chancellor: The question is whether any addition would be wise or useful. As I have sought to explain, the position depends entirely on the relationship between Her Majesty and the laws of this country. That is what we are talking about—the laws of this country, as they are affected if the Bill is passed.
Lord Tebbit: I wish to thank my noble and learned friend for having explained the matter with a lucidity and clarity with which it has not been explained before. I would that we had had his explanation perhaps a week or two ago, it would have been extraordinarily helpful.
Perhaps I may ask my noble and learned friend to advise me whether I am right in interpreting what he said. The duties to which the Treaty of Maastricht refers are those duties which are already imposed in the Treaty of Rome, not extra duties which, for some reason, in this treaty become involved in the Treaty of Rome by (if I may coin a phrase) the "tachograph" route—that is to say, the perfectly normal process of European legislation becoming English law through the medium of the Treaty of Accession.
If I am right in following my noble and learned friend down that route, any new duties which might be thought of at some time in the future—let us say, something quite extraordinary such as European national service—would have to be enacted in the form of a further amendment to the Treaty of Rome. They would become effective in the United Kingdom through exactly the same route as the obligations to obey the law of the tachograph, and would therefore not affect Her Majesty, since, as he has said, she cannot be required to submit to her own courts.
The Lord Chancellor: What the noble Lord said is absolutely correct. The situation is that by virtue of the Treaty of Rome first of all, power was given to the Community institutions in accordance with the procedures laid down to make legislation which by virtue of the 1972 Act becomes effective as part of the law of the United Kingdom. Those powers have been enlarged under the Single European Act, and they have been altered, or will be altered again, under the provisions of this treaty and this Bill if it becomes an Act. But these are all similar, as the noble Lord said —and as a distinguished former Member of the Government, he has had considerable experience.
All the duties which can be laid down under that procedure must be referable to powers which are granted under these treaties to the Community. Therefore the protection of the citizens of this country against what I might call, for the sake of argument, foreign-imposed laws, is that the powers which have been transferred to the Community institutions are defined and laid down. Nothing could be laid upon the

839
citizens of this country by virtue of any of these treaties which is not covered by powers which are laid down in the treaties. That is the basic protection which I believe every Member of this Chamber would think to be right. The authority of Parliament is required, and that authority can be given, as it has been given, by giving authority to others to make the rules under particular provisions; but no further authority than that.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch: I am most grateful to my noble and learned friend for the explanations that he has given. But can he perhaps help me with one further final point which concerns the legal precedence which these articles take? I have been looking again at Article 189 of the Treaty of Rome, which I believe is the article which first gave the power to import British legislation from the European Economic Community. I think my noble and learned friend has mentioned that article before.
In Article 189—and I gather it is still that article under which we propose to import legislation and therefore to acquire the duties of that legislation under British law —no mention is made of citizenship. Furthermore, Article 189 is quite a long way down the batting order in the Treaty of Rome, whereas Article 8 is being imported as a new clause right up at the top, and for the first time establishes citizenship of the Union. My question to my noble and learned friend is: can he assure the Committee that the duties which according to Article 8 clearly flow from the new rights conferred under the new citizenship of the Union can in no way be equal to the duties that we have acquired in the past under the Treaty of Rome?
The Lord Chancellor: As I said earlier, Article 8 is incorporated into the Treaty of Rome as amended, if Maastricht is ratified. The complete body of treaties dealing with the European Community—I leave aside for the moment Euratom and the Coal and Steel Community—are the Treaty of Rome, the Single European Act and the Treaty of Maastricht. These have to be construed, so far as they amend one another, as a single document. The fact that an article is -Article 189" does not give it any less force than if it were Article 188. You have to take account of the whole. The logical structure of the document may be of some importance, but so far as giving effect to the document is concerned, the rules adopted by the European Court and every other rational tribunal is that you must look at the whole document in reaching a conclusion.
Article 189 is of course the authority under which the Community can operate. But the basic powers which are fundamental to that operation come, in many cases, much earlier in the treaty. For example, the common agricultural policy provisions are much earlier in the treaty. So there is no particular significance in that. But I want to take perhaps a very slight exception to what my noble friend said towards the end of his question to me. I think he suggested that the duties were in some way related to the new rights. I do not think that is, strictly speaking, true. I think the position is that the duties which are in question here are duties which would be imposed under the
840
Treaty of Rome as amended in the way I said, and the rights will be all the rights given by these treaties, including of course the rights referred to specifically in Article 8. But there are other rights which arise or may arise under the treaties as well as these. Article 8 provides certain additional rights. One must take account both of all the duties and all the rights in this connection.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch: I am most grateful to my noble and learned friend. I was merely going on what Article 8 says, which is that for the first time,
"Citizenship of the Union is hereby established".
I believe that that is so for the first time. The article continues:
"Every person holding the nationality of a Member State shall be a citizen of the Union"—
and I believe that is so for the first time. The second paragraph states:
"Citizens of the Union shall enjoy the rights conferred by this Treaty"—
and there is not even a comma: it goes straight on to say,
"and shall be subject to the duties imposed thereby".
So I read those duties as flowing from the new rights of citizenship of the Union. I am very happy to have had my noble and learned friend's reply, but I should have to study it rather carefully in Hansard to understand how much progress I have made.
The Lord Chancellor: I invite my noble friend to do just that, but I think the important situation is, as he said: citizenship for the first time; rights and duties not for the first time.
Lord Moran: First of all, I should like to thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate, which has been of considerable importance. In particular, I should like to thank the noble and learned Lord for the very clear and helpful explanation that he has given. As a very plain citizen indeed. I feel abashed to be confronting the supreme legal authority in this country on a matter that is, to a very large extent, legal in content and I am hardly competent to do so.
The noble and learned Lord, however, made it clear that Her Majesty is to be a citizen of the Union. He has already spoken about her rights. What he said about her duties has been partially reassuring. However, it seems to me that he made it quite clear that if in future duties were to be imposed on any heads of state, or certainly on the Queen, they could not be enforced against Her Majesty in the courts, either in her courts in this country or in other parts of the Community. But I cannot imagine that we would ever reach the point of seeking to enforce—that was the word that I understand the noble and learned Lord to have used—such duties against Her Majesty. It seems to me almost inconceivable.
I know that we are discussing in this treaty provisions for the Court of Justice to fine national governments; but I cannot imagine that the question of enforcement would ever arise. In what the noble and learned Lord said, he made clear that the Queen could have duties imposed on her under the treaty but that they could not be enforced against her. It seems to me as a plain citizen that it would have been much better if the Community governments, when they

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negotiated this treaty, had done the obvious and sensible thing and exempted heads of state from citizenship. That would have been far simpler. It would have been understood by everybody and would have avoided all the problems that we have run into. I regret that so little thought seems to have been given to the problem and that we simply relied on the impossibility of enforcement, which seems to me very unsatisfactory.
When we drafted this amendment, we did not know what the noble and learned Lord has just told us. I do not think that any of us in this Chamber knew what he has since very helpfully made clear. In a way that underlines the point that I was trying to make.
This amendment, which suggests that the Government should report to Parliament on the position about duties, was designed to ensure that the Government should keep Parliament informed of the position. None of us would have known what we have learnt from the noble and learned Lord this afternoon if this amendment had not been moved. It is only because we have been able to raise the matter in this Chamber that the noble and learned Lord came and explained the position exactly. I should like that to be the position in the future.
To put it the other way round, to object to our amendment is to say that the Government should not report to Parliament on any duties that might he imposed on the Sovereign in the future, that Parliament should not be required to approve such duties whatever they might be, and that such duties might be imposed on the Sovereign without any reference to Parliament. I believe that few Members of the Committee would want to take that line.
It was suggested to me—I have no idea whether or not it is true—that, all things being equal, the Government might not have had any trouble accepting our amendment as it stands on its own but that they are concerned, above all, with avoiding any amendment of the Bill which would require consideration in the other place. We have now discussed this amendment for just over an hour. If it were to be agreed, I cannot imagine that consideration of it in the other place would greatly delay ratification of the treaty. Frankly, if there is to be a balance between the convenience of the Government's business managers on the one side and safeguarding the Sovereign's position on the other, there can surely be only one choice.
I should like to consider very carefully what the noble and learned Lord said. In many respects this amendment is out of date because it was drafted before he gave that explanation. I am concerned about the general principle that anything affecting the Sovereign's position in the future should be put to Parliament and Parliament should be told. The Government should have an obligation to inform Parliament and to seek Parliament's consent. That seems to me fundamental and of the greatest importance. I shall look carefully at what the noble and learned Lord has said this afternoon and if I feel that it is not fully satisfactory, I shall come back to it
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at Report stage. At this stage, I do not propose to divide the Committee. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
5.30 p.m.
[Amendment No. 396A not moved.]
Lord Tebbit: I feel that we are going just a little too fast. Amendment No. 396A was discussed but I understand that it is within this Chamber's rules of order if I were to say of that amendment that it provides a right to renounce citizenship of the Union parallel to those—
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Alport): I must interrupt my noble friend. I was informed by the noble Lord who tabled the amendment, Lord Stoddart of Swindon, that it was not to be moved. Therefore I did not call it.
[Amendment No. 397 not moved.]
Clause 3 [Annual report by Bank of England]:
[Amendment No. 398 not moved.]
Lord Pearson of Rannoch Lord Pearson of Rannoch moved Amendment No. 399:
Page 2, line 2, leave out ("and") and insert ("including").
The noble Lord said: I very much hope that these two groups of amendments to which I put my name (Amendments Nos. 399 to 401 and 402 to 404) may come as something of a relief to the Committee as a whole. They are not designed, as so many previous amendments have been designed, to remedy what many Members see as defects in the Treaty on European Union itself. They are an honest attempt to remedy obvious drafting deficiencies in the Bill.
The deficiencies occur in Clauses 3 and 5, both of which were drafted with unusual speed when the Bill was going through the other place, without the usual full and proper consideration by the legal draftsmen. Indeed, I understand that the Government in the other place had reservations about accepting the amendments which imported Clauses 3 and 5 into the Bill. Whether that was because they found the substance of the clauses or their drafting unsatisfactory, I am unable to say. In either case, the amendments are aimed purely at improving the drafting. I hasten to add that the wording of the amendments is not my own. It has been given to me by very senior legal draftsmen who must be regarded as being as expert as any in the land.
Amendments Nos. 399 to 401 will improve the drafting of Clause 3 of the Bill. The Committee will note that Clause 3 makes reference to Article 108 of the Treaty on European Union. As Article 108 is mercifully short, it might be helpful to the Committee if I quote it in full. Article 108 reads:
"Each member state shall ensure, at the latest at the date of the establishment of the European system of central banks, that its national legislation including the statutes of its national central hank is compatible with this Treaty and the Statute of the ESCB".
Clause 3 purports to set out the procedure by which this country shall meet the terms of Article 108; I submit that it fails to do so. Amendment No. 399 would substitute the word "including" for the word "and" in the second line. It is an amendment about

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which those who advise me feel quite strongly. I can see that it does not look absolutely essential to a layman such as myself. Indeed, I find the placing together of the word "including" with the word "ensuring" somewhat cumbersome. Nevertheless, it would more closely meet the intentions of Article 108 of the treaty and I feel sure that the Government could come up with an improved amendment if they were minded to accept its spirit.
While the Government are considering that possibility, it may be helpful for them to examine the question of whether or not the word "annual" is necessary, which has the effect of requiring the Governor of the Bank of England to report annually. That seems to be rather overdoing it when set against Article 108 of the treaty. It may be that the statutes of the ESCB will require annual reporting. If so, I must apologise to your Lordships for not being sufficiently familiar with them.
Be that as it may, Amendments Nos. 400 and 401 are progressively more necessary. Amendment No. 400 would meet the opinion of those who have advised me that it is not adequate simply to provide for an order. I am advised that it should be at least a statutory instrument, thus ensuring that the order will be printed and made public. I do not know whether my noble and learned friend will be able to agree with that advice and I look forward to his reply.
I would not have thought that there could be room for disagreement when we come to Amendment No. 401. The main trouble with Clause 3 of the Bill as drafted is that it does not say what happens if the annual report of the Governor of the Bank of England is not approved by both Houses of Parliament. We are simply left hanging in the air if either House decides not to approve it. Nor is it clear what purpose is served by making the report subject to the approval of Parliament, which is what the clause as drafted appears to do.
On the other hand, I am advised that the contents of the order are matters with which Parliament should be concerned since it will presumably make provision for the kind of things which should go into the report. The effect of Amendment No. 401 would therefore be to make not the report, but the order, subject to an affirmative resolution.
The same kind of difficulties afflict Clause 5 of the Bill. That clause is intended to meet our commitments under Article 103(3) of the Union treaty, the relevant part of which is also mercifully brief and reads as follows:
"For the purpose of this multilateral surveillance, Member States shall forward information to the Commission about important measures taken by them in the field of their economic policy and such other information as they deem necessary".
The trouble with Clause 5 is that it requires Her Majesty's Government to submit to Parliament, for its approval, a report which would be an assessment of the medium term economic and budgetary position in relation to public investment expenditure and to the social, economic and environmental goals set out in Article 2 of the treaty. But as with Clause 3 of the Bill, Clause 5 as drafted is silent as to what happens if Parliament withholds its approval. Once again the
844
clause leaves us hanging in the air. Therefore, Amendment No. 402 would leave out the words, "for its approval".
Baroness Trumpington: Order. Perhaps I can ask my noble friend why he is speaking to Amendment No. 402, if he is doing so, because it is in a different group.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch: I apologise. I thought that I had made it clear that I was speaking to both groups of amendments. If that is not in order I am happy to speak only to the first. They come together as similar drafting points in Clauses 3 and 5. I am in your Lordships' hands If it is in order. I shall continue.
Amendment No. 403 deals with the problem that Article 103(3) of the treaty requires member states to forward their relevant information only to the Commission. It does not, as Clause 5 suggests, require them to forward their information to the Council and the Commission. The Committee may feel that that is not all that significant and, being a layman, I am unable to judge how much importance should be attached to it. But Clause 5 of the Bill is clearly out of tune with Article 103(3) of the treaty. I should have thought that it is the kind of defect which the Committee would want to correct.
Be that as it may, even a layman such as myself can see that Amendment No. 404 is needed. It clarifies what happens if either House of Parliament does not approve the required report. Amendment No. 404 would prevent the submission being made to the Commission in those circumstances, which I trust my noble and learned friend would agree would be the appropriate course of events. I hope that my noble and learned friend can agree that the amendments are helpful and I commend them to the Committee. I beg to move.
5.45 p.m.
Lord Rodger of Earlsferry: The two groups of amendments are unusual since, as my noble friend Lord Pearson said, rather than being addressed to wider issues, they are addressed explicitly to the wording of the clauses as they appear in the Bill. Notwithstanding what my noble friend said, I urge the Committee not to endorse his Motion.
The first of the amendments would delete the word "and" in line 2 and insert the word "including". My noble friend said that the result would perhaps be. rather unsatisfactory English. I simply say that whether or not that is so, the amendment is not necessary. It is quite plain that as the clause stands it covers the implementing of Article 108 as a whole, and that includes not only the ensuring of compatibility of the statutes of the national central hank, but also the other things already contained in Article 108. One could debate what particular language might have been chosen and I am perhaps not the best person to defend the language of the clause, which was drafted by people other than myself. Nonetheless, it satisfactorily, if not perfectly, makes sense and would not give rise to difficulties in practice.

845
We then have two amendments which are really put together by my noble friend—Amendments Nos. 400 and 401. He first makes the point about the order being made by statutory instrument. There is no need for the order to be made by statutory instrument. The Committee will be familiar with many kinds of orders which are made, which do not need to be made by statutory instrument but which are perfectly satisfactory from the point of view of Parliament.
The difficult point is that if one looks at the effect of Amendments Nos. 400 and 401 taken as a whole, one sees that whereas Parliament would have a chance to comment upon and approve the order which had to be made, nothing would be said regarding approval of the report. That would be giving up the substance of the matter for.the form because surely Parliament would wish to have the opportunity to examine the content of the report rather than the content of the order which would give rise to the report of the Governor of the Bank of England. For that reason, contrary to what my noble friend said, this would be a wholly unsatisfactory amendment which would destroy the purpose of the clause inserted in another place, the purpose of the clause being to allow Parliament to scrutinise, to examine and to pass comment on the terms of the governor's report.
Of course the Committee will realise that Article 108 is only to be implemented at the third stage, so it presupposes that the United Kingdom had got as far as the third stage, at which point the Bank of England would be independent. So it would be for the Governor of the Bank of England, and not for us, to determine what his attitude would be were Parliament not to approve his report when it was submitted, because he would be acting as an independent governor at that stage. For all those reasons, contrary to what my noble friend suggests, I would ask the Committee not to endorse the amendment.
Lord Renton: Before my noble and learned friend leaves Clause 3, would he agree that the last part of the clause, which reads,
"shall be subject to approval by a Resolution of each House of Parliament",
is exactly the same as saying that there shall be an affirmative resolution before approval can be given? In other words, in substance the amendment of my noble friend Lord Pearson of Rannoch would not add anything on that point.
Lord Rodger of Earlsferry: It would not add anything but it would change the effect. As I understand the amendment, it would mean that it would be the order which would be subject to approval whereas, as the clause is drafted at present, it is the annual report which is subject to approval. It is a matter of considerable importance which of those it is because the House, and Parliament as a whole, would wish an opportunity to approve or not the governor's report rather than simply the order which would give rise to the report. So although I accept what my noble friend says about the affirmative resolution point, the resolution would, on the other hand, be attached to a different matter—to the order
846
—whereas, in the version which we have before us, unamended, the matter relates to the report itself. I believe that that is what was intended by those who put down the amendment, which is now Clause 3, in another place. I believe that that makes sense.
In Clause 5 we are dealing with information to be submitted to the Commission or Council, under Article 103 or Article 104c of the treaty. It provides that before that information is submitted the Government shall make a report to Parliament. The information which is thereafter submitted is to be based on the report once it has been approved. Again, this clause was not originally in the Bill but was introduced by the Opposition in another place and was accepted by the Government.
As my noble friend Lord Pearson has said, Article 103 deals with monitoring economic performance in member states—what is known in the jargon of the treaty as "multilateral surveillance". Article 104c deals with member states avoiding excessive budget deficits. That is known as the excessive deficits procedure. I should stress that both the procedures require information to be submitted.
I shall deal with the articles separately. First, with regard to Article 103, I should explain that even at present what is in substance this kind of surveillance takes place under an existing Council decision on convergence which was adopted unanimously by member states in 1990. So what Article 103 does is to build on existing practice. The information which the United Kingdom supplies under the present arrangements is based on material either drawn from the financial statement and budget report or which can be derived from it. And so it is considered in that context by Parliament. Therefore, there is no objection in principle to the idea that Parliament should consider the report which forms the basis of information to be submitted.
The position is, again, that the drafting is perhaps not as clear as it might be. But it was made absolutely clear by the Opposition spokesman in another place that the intention of the clause was that any report under the clause would need to receive the approval of Parliament before any submission was made to the Council or to the Commission. I should stress to the Committee that the Government agree with this intention. Therefore, in answer to my noble friend, I am quite happy to give the commitment that any report under Clause 5 will be submitted by the Government to Parliament for approval and that information will be submitted to the Commission or the Council only when approval has been secured. I think that that deals with the point which my noble friend raised on that matter.
My noble friend then suggested that it was proper to delete the reference to the Council. He suggested that there was no reference to the Council which was appropriate in this clause. It is right to say that one has to look at the drafting of the clause quite carefully. I do not carry a torch for it but my noble friend will see that it states:
"Before submitting the information required in implementing Article 103(3) of the Treaty",

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certain things will be done. That is how it opens. But if one looks at the end of the clause one sees that the report,
"shall form the basis of any submission to the Council and Commission in pursuit of their responsibilities under Articles 103 and 104c".
Therefore, whereas the clause opens with Article 103.3, it closes not only with Article 103 but with Article 104c.
One has to look at the whole clause. When one looks at it in that way one sees, as my noble friend said, that in Article 103.3, for the purpose of the surveillance, member states shall forward information o the Commission. One has therefore the basis of the report to the Commission which is referred to in Clause 5. But if one then turns to Article 104c, which is a third stage clause, one finds that in Article 104c.9 there is provision, if a member state is failing to put into practice the recommendations which the Council is making under the third stage, that the Council may give notice to that member state to take appropriate measures to make the reduction which the Council deems to be necessary. Then it says:
"In such a case, the Council may request the Member State concerned to submit reports in accordance with a specific timetable in order to examine the adjustments effort of that Member State".
Under Article 104c, which is where the Council comes into it, there is provision for reports to be made to the Council.
For the sake of completeness, I should add that under Article 104c.14 one sees that further provision relating to the implementation of the procedure is set out in the protocol. If one then turns to the protocol and looks at Article 3—it is a bit of a paper chase—one finds that there is an obligation that member states shall report their planned and actual deficits and Ihe levels of their debt, promptly and regularly to the Commission. I therefore take it that the intention of the draftsman of this particular clause was to sweep up references to the Commission and Council under these various provisions in Articles 103 and 104c.
In those circumstances, it would follow that the drafting of Clause 5, even if not perhaps as elegant as it might he, is not inappropriate in the way suggested by my noble friend. Therefore, I ask him to withdraw this amendment as well as those referring to Clause 3.
6 p.m.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch: I am most grateful to my noble and learned friend. At this stage of the evening, I would not dream of attempting to press the matter further with him or with my noble friend Lord Renton. I was glad to hear him say that perhaps the wording of Clause 5 is not as perfect as it might be. I believe that I, together with those who advise me, had better have a closer look at what my noble and learned friend has said to see whether we might want to bring back something more accurate at the next stage. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 400 and 401 not moved.]
Clause 3 agreed to.
Clause 4 agreed to.
Clause 5 [Convergence criteria: assessment of deficits]:
[Amendments Nos. 402 to 404 not moved.]
Clause 5 agreed to.
[Amendment No. 405 not moved.]
Clause 6 [Committee of the Regions]:
[Amendment No. 406 not moved.]
Lord Sefton of Garston Lord Sefton of Garston moved Amendment No. 406A:
Page 2, line 24, at end insert:
("( ) Her Majesty's Government shall advise any person proposed under subsection (1) above that if appointed he should in exercising his duties as a member of the committee give due consideration to the need for the decentralisation of Community administration as a step towards the "harmonious and balanced development of economic activities" as stated in Article 2 of Title II.").
The noble Lord said: The amendment which I now move brings back the memory of going to Brussels and meeting the noble Lord, Lord Thomson, at the same time as meeting the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker. Even at that early stage of the Common Market the one thing that struck me was that we were beginning to build in Brussels and Luxembourg another golden triangle of congestion and hopeless living accommodation. I have already referred to the amendment which I am now moving when we were debating another group of amendments. At this stage it merely seeks to find out the Government's attitude to what I consider to be a very fundamental subject.
If the Common Market is to succeed, if we are to go on building the unity of Europe, then it is important that everyone should feet involved in the Community. It is not good enough to treat the peripheral areas as though they contained only people who needed the dole. Ultimately, that kind of attitude leads to a dependency culture which I also mentioned the other day. In the end, resentment is built up in that someone in a different place and who is very remote both in distance and in culture, is determining the lives of people in the peripheral regions. If one considers the South of Italy, it is no coincidence that that is where the residue of the Italian problem lies.
When one considers the threat to the United Kingdom, it does not come from the South of England. The threat to the United Kingdom arises when certain things happen such as those which occurred recently; for example, when Scotland sincerely believes that it is not counted as part of the United Kingdom. I shall not say any more about that. One should not insult the Members of the Committee by making a long speech, already written, about an issue of that kind. It is an extremely fundamental subject and everyone will understand it.
The noble Baroness, Lady Chalker, was an MP for a constituency inside one of the peripheral areas. I am not sure which one it was.
Baroness Trumpington: Wallasey.
Lord Sefton of Garston: Some people like to refer to it as the Wirral. However, it does not make any difference. The noble Baroness, Lady Chalker, knows all about the situation. She knows of the attitude which has developed in Liverpool. There is no need for me to mention the social problems which have arisen

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there recently; but they stem from the fact that the inhabitants believe that they are on the perimeter and that nobody really understands them or their problems.
The powers-that-be in Europe can decide to send largesse, money in large parcels, to Europe; but that does not serve the purpose. What is the Government's attitude to this matter? It is not asking much. I simply ask whether the Government will advise the people appointed to the regional council that one of the major factors on which they should concentrate is the decentralisation of the administration of the Common Market.
I say that for two reasons. First, if the concentration of activity arising from European Union activities continues to concentrate in that area of Europe, then the problem will reach such an extent that the standard of life in the area will not improve. Secondly, at the same time the rest of the European Union will be denied what is vitally necessary —that is to say, the jobs created in administration in the European Union and the identification of the people in the peripheral areas with the European Union as a whole. I beg to move.
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: This seems to be turning into a Merseyside debate with the noble Lord, Lord Sefton, moving this amendment and myself, as Chalker of Wallasey, answering for the Government. I believe that we are extremely conscious of the needs of all our regions within the United Kingdom. There is absolutely no doubt that over the years in which I served in another place, the difference which we were able to achieve in the way in which the needs of the regions, peripheral or otherwise, were considered in Westminster, was very welcome indeed.
The European Parliament is not the most popular of institutions in this or in another place. But I watched as the elected members of the European Parliament began to carry out their duties in Strasbourg and how the needs and anxieties of the regions were being thoroughly looked at by Parliament. They sometimes had very funny ideas about solutions; but nevertheless, the problems were discussed as they had never been discussed before.
We also saw successive European Commissioners —of which one former member, the noble Lord, Lord Thomson of Monifieth, is here this evening—go to a great deal of trouble to ensure that the needs of the peripheral regions, whether far off places in Greece or Denmark, let alone in the United Kingdom or anywhere else, were taken into account.
In moving his amendment, I know that the noble Lord, Lord Sefton, is really asking for reassurance that that pattern will continue. He is also asking for the decentralisation of Community institutions. I believe that through modern technology we are coming closer together, anyway. Perhaps I may momentarily refer the Committee back to our debate on trans-European networks, which are mentioned in the Maastricht Treaty. Such networks are one of the ways in which the needs of the peripheral regions can be brought, and will be brought, to the notice not only of the Commission, but also of the Council of
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Ministers which takes the decisions. Therefore, I advise the noble Lord, Lord Sefton, that his amendment is not necessary because of the other developments that are taking place.
Because I do not believe that the amendment is a practical suggestion, perhaps I may give the noble Lord one assurance. The Government have already pledged themselves to look at the needs of the regions in relation not only to national decisions, but also to the development of the Community's further regions. I say that knowing the debate that has taken place about the structural funds and about how new objective I status will be given to parts of Scotland and, indeed, to Merseyside when it is decided by the Council of Ministers. I understand that there is unanimity among the Ministers who will discuss this matter, and that it will come forward shortly.
Therefore, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Sefton, will accept that there is a whole host of different ways in which the needs of the periphery of the Community are being brought together at its centre. The opportunities for discussion are being enhanced by the Committee of the Regions. Each country is to decide its own membership of that committee. This country's members will be elected members of local authorities. In that way, there will be a second safeguard on top of the undertakings which the Government have freely entered into to make sure that the needs of the regions are fully understood. With that explanation, I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Ewing of Kirkford: I wonder whether the Committee will allow me to say just a few words before my noble friend Lord Sefton replies to the Minister. I appreciate that the Minister is doing her best to reassure the regions that their interests will be considered; but the Maastricht Treaty deals with the development of Europe in the years to come. I suspect that behind the amendment which has been tabled by my noble friend Lord Sefton is the view that once foreign policy becomes part of the EC's remit, there is no justification for all the machinery connected with co-ordinating foreign policy throughout Europe to be based, on the one hand, in Brussels (where there are well over 100,000 EC jobs at present) or in Luxembourg on the other hand. Anybody who has seen the complex at Luxembourg will realise that many thousands of jobs are located there. There is no reason why the machinery that is put in place to develop a common foreign policy should be based in either Luxembourg or Brussels as opposed to London, Edinburgh, Newcastle or Liverpool—a place very dear to the Minister's heart.
That is true of defence policy also. I served for five years on the Western European Union, and I am firmly of the view that, far from being strengthened, the WEU should be wound up. If there is to be a common defence policy, there is no reason why the machinery that goes with the creation of that common defence policy—the Commissioner responsible for defence and all the backup that is necessary —should be based in either Brussels or Luxembourg as opposed to London, Edinburgh, Newcastle or Liverpool.

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All that I am asking the Minister is that as this policy develops, as it will develop, she will keep those points in mind. When referring to Brussels and Luxembourg, one could refer also to Strasbourg but to a lesser extent because only the Parliament building and some administration is based there and the Parliament building is not even owned by the EC: it is owned by the Council of Europe. All these three centres (but Strasbourg to a lesser extent) are becoming saturated with EC jobs while there is nothing in administrative terms in our peripheral regions to reflect the fact that we are members of the EC. All that I am asking the Minister is that as the market develops and new powers are given, consideration should be given to decentralising the administration into the peripheral areas.
6.15 p.m.
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: I understand what he noble Lord, Lord Ewing, has just said. I had hoped that what I said earlier to the noble Lord, Lord Sefton, about our intention to utilise trans-European networks would give him that assurance. It will not always be practical to move to other places parts of the institutions which have grown up in Brussels, Luxembourg and Strasbourg, but as our technology develops, there is plenty of room for doing things at a distance. Indeed, distance learning is one of the subjects that we have already discussed in relation to this Bill.
Perhaps I may make one factual correction to what the noble Lord, Lord Ewing, said. The amendment which has been moved by the noble Lord, Lord Sefton, does not cover the common foreign and security policy because that is a separate pillar under the Maastricht Treaty. It is quite separate from the Community and the Treaty of Rome. I should like that to be made clear on the record.
I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Sefton, will feel reassured. I give him my personal reassurance that I did not include Wallasey in my title without continuing to care for the region that I represented for so long.
Lord Sefton of Garston: Who could resist such an appeal? I would not dream of doing so, and in any case I would not dream of holding up the Committee. As I said in an earlier debate, the sooner this debate is over, the sooner we accept Europe and the sooner we start working for Europe, the better. I am heartened and pleased by what the Minister has said because there may now even be a chance of changing the Government's attitude to the decentralisation of administration. When one looks at Vauxhall Bridge and sees MI5 and MI6 crowding the place out and asks the Minister why they cannot be moved in view of modern technology in which communications between the outlying depot and the centre are much more efficient than in London, the reply comes back that the civil servants need to be in London because a Minister may have to control them or consult them. That would apply also to the Common Market. One
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gets a vision of the Minister sitting in his plush office and 2,000 civil servants waiting at his door to greet him. It is patently absurd.
I thank the Minister for her assurance. She can rest assured that I, too, will be looking at decentralising administration which need not be in Brussels and that I am waiting.to see when it moves out to the peripheral regions. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 6 agreed to.
Lord Beloff Lord Beloff moved Amendment No. 407:
After Clause 6, insert the following new clause:
Further Treaties amending the Treaty of Rome
(". Her Majesty's Government shall not, in the European Community, European Union, or the institutions of either of them, negotiate or give formal or informal approval to any proposal for any further Treaty amending the Community Treaties or any one of them unless there shall first have been laid before Parliament and approved by a Resolution of both Houses a Command Paper setting out—

(a) the policy and objectives of the Community or the Union in putting forward the proposals;

(b) the full details thereof; and

(c) Her Majesty's Government's policy in relation thereto.").

The noble Lord said: Before moving this amendment, I should like to renew my apologies to my noble friend Lord Campbell of Alloway for my inability to do so yesterday evening. I do not know that his forensic skills will be much challenged by what I have to say since the issue which I am now putting forward is of a political rather than a legal nature.
I should like to return to something which my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor said at an earlier stage —namely, that any increase in the competences of the Community is a matter for treaty. It is not quite clear that he meant that literally because, for example, in the course of our debates on education it was apparent that the Community had found ways of entering—sometimes very usefully—into that sphere, although it would be difficult to find a precise, legal basis in the Treaty of Rome. We were told on that and I believe on other matters that in a way the Maastricht Treaty is a catching up in legal form of what, to some extent, already exists in practice. Nevertheless, in principle, clearly my noble and learned friend is right. Certainly, our partners in the Community believe that further treaties involving the amendment of existing ones should be envisaged.
As I pointed out on Second Reading, there is some contradiction in our picture of what has been happening; that is, the picture presented to us by our Government and that sometimes presented by spokesmen of other governments. The noble Baroness, Lady Chalker, was very emphatic yesterday in pointing out that the original proposals in some fields had been much improved by the constant and devoted negotiating skills of those who have represented us on the various bodies concerned.
Ministers are always inclined to take a rather reassuring attitude. They tell us that we should not worry too much, that the thing is going along satisfactorily and that the idea that it could suddenly be catapulted into quite a different state of affairs is illusory. Nevertheless, I am sure that Members of the Committee will have noted that, on the morrow of the

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second Danish referendum when the Danes, for reasons which they found adequate—though some may find them illusory—agreed to ratify the Maastricht Treaty, the incoming President of the Community (the Belgian Prime Minister) announced that he thought that there would be scope this very autumn for another summit meeting which could look at an immediate revision of the treaty. That proposal cannot have found great favour as we have not heard much more about it. I take it that it is now generally agreed that there will be no such conference for revising the treaty until 1996, the year actually specified.
Nevertheless, it must also always be in our minds that there is nothing to prevent the presidency for the time being—and we still have this rotating presidency which is, I think, one of the weaknesses of the whole structure—if it sees fit, and if it has support, from calling a conference to revise the treaty.
The purpose of the amendments is to suggest that, in future, there should be a way in some form or other —I would not attach particular merit to one procedure as against another —for Parliament to ascertain in detail what is likely to be proposed in respect of amending the treaty and the negotiating mandate with which Ministers and their officials will go to such revision meetings.
I do not see how that can, in general terms, possibly be opposed by Her Majesty's Government as they must be well aware that the difficulties that they have had in persuading the country of the merits of the treaty—we know that they have had difficulties, or we would be having a referendum—are partly derived from the fact that people find not merely that the treaty is difficult to understand (a claim that I find exaggerated) but also that it embodies moves about which they do not feel they have been adequately consulted. Moreover, even their Members of Parliament, in some cases, do not appear to have managed to establish the relations with their constituents on the matter that one might expect.
No doubt there are Members of the Committee who have received a great many letters about aspects of the Maastricht Treaty. The fact that we "non-elected" persons are thought to be suitable recipients of points of view suggests that there has been some breakdown in the communication between government and people which must he the bedrock of any important change in our treaty arrangements, or in the circumstances that arise out of them.
It would also appear, although it may be happening more slowly, that that is becoming a feature of public opinion in several other Community countries. There is a sudden realisation that as a result of what appeared to be rather technical procedures—for example, the introduction of this or that new clause into an already much-amended Treaty of Rome—we are being asked to live in a rather different world. Indeed, the previous amendment raised one aspect of that world; namely, its impact upon the peripheral regions of the Community.
Therefore, it seems to me to be worth drawing the Committee's attention even at this late stage of the
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current proceedings to the fact that we have facing us —possibly sooner, but certainly not later than 1996 —a treaty which, if some people in continental countries are to be believed, would mean a massive step towards a centralised form of government. We must face that fact. It is desirable that we should have in existence the parliamentary machinery which would enable a government to go into such negotiations with the assurance that they were carrying along with them the majority of the citizens of this country. I beg to move.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: I thank my noble friend at the outset for his apology. I take the view today that we are both fellow casualties of the postprandial roller-coaster. If we can leave it at that in amity, I shall be most grateful.
The matter under discussion is quite serious. The proposed amendments—namely, Amendments No. 407, 408 and 414—are grouped under the heading "Further Treaty Negotiations". I shall be very brief. However, in a sense, it cannot be denied that the amendments affect the position of the Monarch under our unwritten constitution. They inhibit the exercise of the Royal Prerogative on the advice of government to conclude treaties with other heads of state. They preclude Her Majesty's Government from concluding any further Community treaty without the prior approval of Parliament.
My noble friend referred to forensic skills. However, there is nothing skilful or forensic about it; it is just plain, straightforward stuff. These amendments were not introduced into the Bill by another place. Another place is not likely to think again, already not having thought at all—
Noble Lords: Oh!
Lord Campbell of Alloway: They did not have a chance to think—they just did not think. Therefore, Members of the Committee may well consider that it would be a curious assumption of power, perhaps savouring of a hint of arrogance, for this Chamber to send the amendments to another place for debate. They are amendments which conflict with the fundamental constitutional principle that Parliament may not legislate to bind a future Parliament. There is no precedent; there is no good reason. The proposal is wholly impracticable and, indeed, it could well be misunderstood as directed not only against government but also against the exercise of prerogative.
That it is a wrong precedent: the treaty-making power of the Monarch has never been ceded, qualified or called into question. That there is no good reason: the treaties concluded as between heads of state, as my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor was at pains to point out a few moments ago, cannot affect our own domestic law without the assent of Parliament. That it is impracticable: Members of the Committee may remember the process described by my noble friend Lord Cockfield, who is in his place. I refer to Hansard of 23rd June, col. 358, where he describes the continuing process of negotiations as between member states implemented by the treaty-making process.

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Maastricht, as I see it, is in any case somewhat out of date. It is just a step in this process, in due course to be followed inevitably by another such step. If we are to keep a seat at the negotiating table, if we are to pursue what has been our traditional policy of diplomacy during the centuries and long before the Common Market was thought of —which was to keep an eye on what is going on in Europe in order to advance and protect our interests, and surely that is the policy that we must continue to pursue within the EC—the empty chair will serve us no better today that it has ever served in the past.
The system adopted—and we cannot act otherwise—is that the treaties are concluded as between heads of member states and are then submitted to the respective Parliaments. There is no viable way in which the United Kingdom can "buck" the system without serious damage to our standing and influence in the affairs of Europe within what we hope will become the enlarged European Community.
Further delay in the passage of this Bill, already too long delayed, would be seen by other member states as yet another manifestation of our incomprehensible insularity: the odd man out playing at blind-man's buff. Members of the Committee may well think that by convention and tradition the role of this Chamber is to uphold the constitution and the exercise of the royal prerogative; not as innovators to initiate these proposed derogations from the constitution.
For those reasons it is the hope that the Committee will not accept the amendments.
6.30 p.m.
The Earl of Onslow: It is normally reasonable that Members who have put their name to the amendments should speak before others but I shall let that gently pass. The noble Lord, Lord Campbell, said that the amendment affects the Royal Prerogative. I suggest that that has already been done by writing into the Treaty of Maastricht that it will be renegotiated and committing the Royal Prerogative to renegotiate a new treaty in 1996. As regards an attempt being made to bind a future Parliament, Article Q of the Maastricht Treaty provides that the treaty shall be for an unlimited period. Therefore, the argument produced by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, appears to be totally fallacious.
The view put forward by my noble friend Lord Beloff appears to be self-evidently sensible to those of us who have doubts about the actual workings of the treaty and who are of the opinion that it will invariably implode inwards when its incompetences are realised by everyone and not just by a few. It seems to me that if we are to renegotiate a new treaty it is important that the Government go to the negotiating table with the support of both Houses of Parliament, with the support of the people and with the support of a policy which has been clearly laid out as regards what is required, rather than what happened at Maastricht. That was, basically, a reaction to what the French and Germans had done and to say, "Oh, because Lady Thatcher is no longer here we had better do something", and landing ourselves in the muddle in which we now find ourselves.
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I know that the noble Lords, Lord Aldington and Lord Cockfield, will move their wise old heads in askance when I say that the treaty will eventually collapse. I bet a pound to a kipper that it will.
Lord Simon of Glaisdale: I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, in his criticism of these amendments, which are unacceptable. I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, has identified an area in which it is possible that our procedures can be improved. I suggest that the noble Baroness might consider referring the matter to the Procedure Committee.
The noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, said, firstly and rightly, that these proposals modify the Royal Prerogative to negotiate and sign treaties. That is not answered by saying that the future negotiation of a treaty is envisaged. Even if it is, as the matter stands at present the prerogative of the Crown stands unmodified.
There is a second reason. It would be quite absurd to modify the Crown's prerogative in the narrow sphere of treaties relating to Europe. That anomaly simply does not make sense. If it is to he modified at all it should be modified generally. I surmise that the amendment was drawn in the way that it was in an attempt to keep within the Long Title. I am by no means certain that it has done so. It is difficult to argue that these amendments are consequential on the Treaty of Maastricht.
However that may be, there is the further reason that the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, put forward; namely, that it is a fundamental constitutional doctrine that, in the famous words of the common law, Acts derogatory of future Parliaments bind them not. Anything that is passed by one Parliament can be altered by a future Parliament: so that is never attempted because it is an act of futility. However, I believe that, there may be scope for improving our procedures. The normal parliamentary course in relation to treaties is that the Crown has the prerogative to negotiate and sign treat ies but in order to ratify, in the case of a complicated treaty, the Crown is bound to try to secure any necessary alteration in our domestic law which will bring it into line with new treaty obligations. That is what this Bill does.
In theory, doing that, there should be no difficulty in parliamentary control, albeit ex post facto, over the alterations that have been effected by the treaty. In the case of this treaty and this Bill Members of the Committee have ranged widely and have been uninhibited by strict rules of order. Many of the discussions on amendments must have gone beyond the normal rules. It may well be, therefore, that the Procedure Committee would wish first to examine whether what has been done in this case is an advisable precedent. If it is not, it may wish to consider whether something along the lines of what was suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, and the noble Earl who has just spoken might be introduced into our procedure.
I can see that there are very grave difficulties, although something of that kind is done in the United States where, although the President has the

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prerogative of treaty making, in modern times, not infrequently, members of Congress are identified with the negotiating machinery. I must say that the thought of the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, being associated with the Prime Minister at Maastricht, Edinburgh or Copenhagen provides a light note in the proceedings on this Bill. However, something of that nature may be considered alongside what has been proposed in the amendment. But, in the meantime, I agree entirely that the amendments are not acceptable.
Lord Aldington: I remind the Committee of the procedure that has taken place in this Chamber before the Maastricht Treaty was negotiated. I agree entirely with what my noble friend and the noble and learned Lord said about prerogative. However, behind the strict words of the amendment, I detect a desire on the part of my noble friends whose names are to the amendment that Parliament should be associated with the policy behind the proposals which Ministers will negotiate with other Ministers. That is exactly what happened in the case of Maastricht.
Members of the Committee may have forgotten that a special ad hoc Select Committee was set up. It carried out a full inquiry into economic, monetary and political union. We addressed to your Lordships a very full report which was debated twice. During the course of the negotiations, which seemed to cover all the points that we took up, there was a slight change and a further inquiry was carried out and a further report made to your Lordships. There was then a further debate, to which the Government responded giving their views.
It is true also in the case of Maastricht that this place as well as the other place considered the Government's proposals in great detail before the treaty was finally negotiated. Therefore, I suggest to the Committee that there is no need to consider again the procedure in connection with amendments to the European Communities Treaty. A Select Committee exists to deal with such matters and it will continue the precedent set by the noble Baroness, Lady Serota, when she was chairman of that committee.
6.45 p.m.
Lord Cockfield: I agree entirely with what my noble friend Lord Campbell of Alloway said. At first sight this may appear to he a reasonable amendment but as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, pointed out, it is of major constitutional importance because it changes the balance of power between the Executive and the legislature.
Changes of that kind have been made over the centuries, although not always to the public advantage. However, they have been made. If they are made, they should be made as a result of proper and full consideration and not as a result of feelings on one particular issue.
I agree entirely with my noble friend Lord Aldington that those matters were very fully debated both in this Chamber and in another place. If we feel that additional time should be given to debating those matters, no doubt that can be done. But we should
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not, under any circumstances, make major constitutional changes on the basis of a single and particular case.
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: It may be for the convenience of the Committee if I pick up a few of the comments made on this group of amendments. There is absolutely no doubt that what my noble friends Lord Campbell of Alloway and Lord Cockfield, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale have said about the amendments is very true.
The amendments would fetter the prerogative in the field of treaty making. I know that that is not unprecedented in EC law but it is quite clear that Amendment No. 407 would impose not a specific fetter but a general fetter on treaty making. That is why, in short, I cannot accept Amendments Nos. 407, 408 and 414.
It has been a consistent practice as regards treaties for Parliament to pass any necessary domestic legislation after signature but before ratification. I believe that that practice affords sufficient protection of Parliament's legitimate right to influence and any future substantive amendments to Community treaties will require an Act of Parliament just as we had the Single European Act and just as we are now discussing a Bill on the Maastricht Treaty. That is Parliament's opportunity to have its say.
I understand the procedural anxieties which have been expressed by my noble friend Lord Beloff and I understand also the comments made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale. At times the Committee has been in some doubt about whether we were debating the amendment before us. However, as those Members of the Committee have said, that is a matter for the Procedure Committee.
I urge Members of the Committee to vote against the amendment if it is pressed. It would be not only wrong to fetter our procedures but I believe that it would be a very unwise step. I cannot accept those amendments.
Lord Beloff: It is not my purpose to press this amendment but I must make it clear that there is an unbridgeable gulf between myself and my noble friends Lord Campbell of Alloway, Lord Cock field and others who take the same view.
The amendment does not refer to the general power of making treaties by the use of the prerogative. Treaties are made on many occasions and some are minor; for example, to cede a distant islet or make a particular provision for some commercial matter. We are here—and I agree in this regard with my noble friend Lord Campbell of Alloway—dealing with a major constitutional issue. However, the constitutional issue is not the relationship between the legislature and the Executive. The constitutional issue is the wish of some persons in this Chamber and outside it and on the continent of Europe that Britain should become part of a European superstate to which successive meetings to amend the treaties will direct themselves, as has been made quite plain by Chancellor Kohl, by President Mitterrand and by other European leaders.
This means we are discussing something on a totally different level from our internal constitutional

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arrangements. Once we have entered into that situation, the balance between the legislature and the Executive in this country will become of relatively minor importance to anyone except the specialists. I implore Members of the Committee to take their minds off the current debate in this Chamber or indeed in this country and observe more closely what is being urged upon us in Europe. At that point we may find our enthusiasm for entering into further arrangements diminished. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 408 and 409 not moved.]
Lord Morris Lord Morris moved Amendment No. 410:
After Clause 6, insert the following new clause:
Meaning of "municipal elections"
(". The term "municipal elections" in Article 8b of the Treaty on European Union shall mean in the United Kingdom elections at town, parish, district or county council level only.").
The noble Lord said: This amendment flows from Article 8 of the Maastricht Treaty which establishes for every citizen of the United Kingdom a citizenship of the European Union which they neither asked for, nor have they accepted. They must have been as delighted as I, and no doubt the Committee, to read the incredibly generous rights that have been imposed upon us. Article 8b states:
"Every citizen or the Union residing in a Member State of which he is not a national shall have the right to vote and to stand as a candidate at municipal elections in the Member State in which he resides".
As we in this Chamber have no right to vote in general elections in this country anyway, the Committee can imagine the delight that filled my heart on reading that article. I thought how wonderful it was that I should be given a righ be given a right — I never asked for that in the first place — to vote in an election in another country. Thate is too Iudicrous even to contemplate. howerver, having handled that delight with as much joy as I could meant. I have been led to believe that the influence of Humpty-Dumpty has reached other states of Europe and that the other states of the Community have read into this word anything that best suitedc them. It is of critical importance that the meaning of the term "municipal" —that has been variously interpreted by memeber states —within United kingdom law is absolutely clear. That is the sole intention of this amendment. It is an attempt to probe Her Majesty's Government on the precise meaning of the term and it is an attempt to suggest that some clarity be introduced into domestic law. I beg to move.
Lord Hacking: I wish briefly to intervene as this matter was considered by Sub-Committee E of a Select Committee of this Chamber. We produced a precise report upon the matter, and the provisions that are set out in the Maastricht Treaty while not identical to our recommendations run entirely within the spirit of those recommendations.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Earl Ferrers): In the debate on citizenship that took place in this Chamber the other day, I twice gave an assurance to the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon, who was concerned about the matter, that "municipal" in this
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context cannot be taken to mean national. I am happy to give my noble friend Lord Morris that assurance again this evening. I shall try to make the position as clear to him as I can because he still labours under an anxiety.
In our domestic arrangements we have basically now three types of elections: elections to the European Parliament; parliamentary elections and municipal elections. In the national context, municipal elections mean local authority elections. In international law, though, the word "municipal" has a different meaning. It is used to draw the distinction between, on the one hand, international law and, on the other hand, national law. In international legal parlance domestic law is called municipal law. In this international parlance the word "municipal" is not used to mean national in the context of elections. It never has been and it is well known not to do so.
My noble friend is worried for fear that the word "municipal" in the Maastricht Treaty might be taken to mean that Article 8b refers to national elections. I can assure him that that is not so. It applies only to local elections and elections to the European Parliament and not to national elections. This is well known and it is clear to all our partners in the European Community. I hope therefore that I have been able to lay to rest any ghosts of apprehension or fear which my noble friend might still have harboured.
The Earl of Onslow: Before my noble friend finally sits down, does what he has said mean that a British subject residing in Germany can vote in Lander elections or only in bürgermeister elections?
Earl Ferrers: If a person was resident for a certain length of time in another country in the Community, he would be able to take part in that country's local municipal elections but not in its national elections.
The Earl of Onslow: My noble friend has not answered the question. Lãnder are states in the Federal Republic of Germany. Can we vote in state elections in federal countries abroad or not?
Lord Richard: Before the noble Earl answers, I should tell him that the invisible people in the Box are nodding hard in assent to the proposition.
Earl Ferrers: I am deeply indebted as I always am to the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition. Unfortunately I do not have eyes like a chamaeleon but I am happy to give the confirmation which my noble friend seeks. The answer is "Yes".
Lord Belhaven and Stenton: Can my noble friend say whether, for instance, British subjects or French subjects who are resident in Germany for a certain period of time will be able to vote in European parliamentary elections?
Earl Ferrers: That is the subject of amendments that will be discussed later.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: I did not intend to intervene at this point but the nods of assent in relation to the question asked by the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, on whether British citizens will be allowed to

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vote in Länder elections in Germany raise another interesting point. Have I understood correctly that British citizens will be able to vote in Länder elections?
Noble Lords: Yes.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: What would be the position if, for example, we altered our local divisions into regions rather than counties and districts as they exist at the present time? Would there be a risk under this provision that, say, Frenchmen or Italians coming over here would be able to vote in regional elections and that they would be the English equivalent of Länder elections?
Earl Ferrers: The noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon, has a vivid imagination and he tries to speculate on What might happen if we altered the arrangements for voting in this country. We must address the basic question which is that the word "municipal" in international law refers to national things as opposed to international things. In the context of elections "municipal" does not mean national elections; it means local elections. It would be up to the government of the day of the country concerned to decide whether, if it altered its internal arrangements, that would constitute a municipal election. My understanding of the hypothesis which the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon, puts forward is that it would still be a case of a local election.
Lord Monson: What would be the case if some form of Northern Ireland Assembly were to be revived? Would continental Europeans resident in Northern Ireland be able to vote in elections for that assembly?
Earl Ferrers: Again, it is undesirable to try to fulfil all kinds of hypotheses. I come back to the original point, which is that if it is a national election they will not be able to participate. If it is a local election they will.
Lord Belhaven and Stenton: I am sorry to come back to my noble friend, but I did not ask him an imaginary question. I thought that I asked him a concrete question: would a British or French subject resident in Germany be allowed to vote in elections for the European Parliament in Germany?
Earl Ferrers: The answer to that question is in the affirmative.
Lord Cockfield: There is no problem about that. It is specifically covered by paragraph 2 of Article 8b.
Lord Morris: In the light of that information from my noble friend, for which I thank him, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 411 to 420 not moved.]
Baroness Trumpington: I beg to move that the House do now resume. In moving this Motion I suggest that the Committee stage should resume not before 8 p.m.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
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House resumed.

Income Support: Pregnant Young Women
7.1 p.m.
The Countess of Mar The Countess of Mar rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will implement the recommendation of the House of Commons Select Committee on Health that: "Pregnant 18–24 year olds who qualify for Income Support should receive it at the full adult rate".
The noble Countess said: My Lords, the Minister must be well aware of the increasing concern for the well-being of single mothers between the ages of 18 and 24 who are dependent upon social security benefits. I have received letters from the Royal College of Midwives, which also gave the views of the Health Visitors Association, Maternity Alliance, social workers and a great many branches of the National Childbirth Trust.
As a member of the farming community I know that if any of my pregnant animals should for any reason become malnourished their progeny, if the pregnancy comes to term, will in all probability be weak, possibly malformed and poor growers. We do our utmost to ensure that our animals are properly housed and that they receive an adequate diet, for they are our assets. That maxim should also apply to human mothers, particularly those who are unable to maintain themselves financially and for whom the Government assume responsibility.
The babies born to each generation are the assets of the community. It is for all of us to ensure that all children who survive are born whole, healthy and with the capacity to grow up to become happy, productive citizens. Try as they might, the Government have been totally unable to convince me and those concerned with the care of pregnant mothers that these young women need less money upon which to survive than those who are over 25 years old.
To say that the day-to-day living expenses of pregnant women between the ages of 18 and 24 are not significantly different from those of others in that age band is nonsense, for a number of reasons. Pregnant women of all ages and from all walks of life are constantly advised to attend ante-natal clinics regularly. That involves travelling costs over and above those for their non-pregnant counterparts. Once at the clinic the usual practice is for expectant mothers to be given a diet sheet and advice about supportive clothing. The diet sheets, which are substantially the same for each clinic, suggest three cooked meals a day with intervening snacks. They include a wide variety of foods which are well beyond the means of women of any age in receipt of income support.
As the Minister knows, Maternity Alliance has calculated that a woman needing to maintain herself and her unborn baby at the bare minimum nutritional level would have to spend over half of her social security benefits on food. That would leave her with about £15 a week to pay for her fuel bills, special clothing, personal needs and travel. She would also

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want to accumulate clothing and furniture for her baby, for the Social Fund maternity payment is about one-tenth of the amount needed to buy even the minimum of a new baby's needs. So what happens? Spending on food is the most elastic part of the budget of the poor. When other, apparently more pressing, expenses need to be met spending on food will have to be reduced.
Even the witnesses representing the Department of Social Security before the Select Committee on Health floundered when questioned about the ability of people on income support to provide themselves with an adequate diet. To say that the diet of clients must be adequate because there is no evidence pointing the other way is not 'by any stretch of the imagination a sound base. It is easier to refuse to confront a potentially embarrassing situation by stating repeatedly that there is ho evidence to prove that there is a problem in the hope that the statements will eventually be believed than it is to conduct proper scientific research which might prove just the opposite. If such research had been carried out I suspect that the Government would have discovered that the dietary needs of pregnant women aged between 18 and 24 would be substantially the same as those of the over-25s, though there would be variations in needs and tastes within both groups. There also appears to be an assumption that all the young women concerned have easy access to cooking facilities and shops and markets where they can purchase the fresh food they need cheaply. That, of course, is not the case.
Another excuse—I was going to say a reason—which is regularly trotted out by Ministers, is that the under-25s have lower earnings expectations and fewer financial responsibilities. When will the Government accept that income support is not a substitute for earnings? In those halcyon days when the Minister's department was known as the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance I was trained to advise clients that National Assistance was a subsistence allowance based on need. Has there really been a change in philosophy since then?
The needs of a pregnant woman, whatever her age, are for shelter, food and clothing. Suppliers do not discriminate. What evidence does the Minister's department have to substantiate his oft-made assertion that this group of young women have fewer financial responsibilities than their older counterparts? Does he have any evidence to show that pregnant women over the age of 25 are less likely to share accommodation than those under 25? Do they not all expect to contribute to the expenses of a shared household?
There is plenty of anecdotal evidence, but as far as I can ascertain no sound evidence, that young women get themselves pregnant in order to escape the parental home or to avoid work or training. The legal responsibility of parents for young children ends when the children reach the age of 16. It is natural for a young person to fly the nest and seek an independent life as soon as he or she is able to be self-supporting, but we must remember that there are a number of other reasons why young people leave home. Young girls do not need to become pregnant to do so. It is
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unlikely that the level of income support will be a sufficient incentive, and to become pregnant deliberately with all that parenthood involves, is surely a major disincentive.
There is copious medical evidence to substantiate that babies born to young, undernourished women are often premature. Those which go to term are frequently under weight and suffer chronic health problems. Mothers are often unable to breast feed and their children fail to thrive. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Rea, will expand on that point.
Finally, we come to the cost. The Government have estimated that it would cost £360 million to increase the level of income support for all 18 to 24 year-olds to the full adult rate. I am conscious of the fact that. the Exchequer could not bear such an increase. The rate of income support is increased to the full adult rate for 18 to 24 year-old women as soon as the baby is born. Why can it not be raised as soon as the: pregnancy is confirmed? The difference is only a. matter of months.
All that I ask tonight is that those babies born to young mothers who must rely upon income support are given the same chance. to live and thrive as those born to older mothers in the same situation. They are.. after all, our future.
7.10 p.m.
Lord Beaumont of Whitley: My Lords, if we are to do anything about the health and well-being of the least well off of our citizens—and I take i t for granted that everyone in this House will at least pay lip service to the thought that we should do that —we must start with pregnant mothers. Some time in the past few years Sweden reached a world landmark in being the first country to record equal average birthweights for all social classes. It is a real mark of shame that Sweden should be the first and only country to achieve that benchmark. One would have thought that it should be the aim of all countries and all political parties. Whether or not we agree with various forms of equality, there is agreement, I should have thought, on the necessity for an equal start for all children.
The Question may be about young mothers but, as the noble Countess pointed out, it refers even more to foetuses and babies. However much noble Lords may fight against it—and some will fight harder than others—there is a tendency to think that pregnant 18 year-olds or 20 year-olds, and especially those who do not have a husband or a supporting family, must somehow be undeserving. I know that that group is only a small number among those about whom we speak this evening, but it is an important small number. I believe that it is right that I should address my remarks today to that extreme case.
We are not talking about mothers and whether they are deserving. We are talking about children. There is nothing deserving or undeserving about a small child. It is the clear duty of any government of this country to ensure that no children born in this country are disadvantaged because their mothers, however marginalised they may be by society, are unable to afford a decent diet for themselves and for their children. I should like to think that it went without

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saying that the Government accept that duty. Nevertheless, I should like to hear the Government say that they do. Even more importantly, even if it can be shown that in a large number of cases, or even in a small number of cases, that situation does not arise, I should like the Government categorically to assure us that they will take the necessary steps to ensure that it does not arise.
The Government have heard the case that the noble Countess has deployed. When they have heard the evidence which no doubt the noble Lord, Lord Rea, will put before them—that in fact these mothers and children do not obtain sufficient nourishment to start the children off on anything like an equal footing in this world—it will be necessary for the Government to state that they will immediately take the necessary steps to put the situation right.
7.12 p.m.
Lady Kinloss: My Lords, I should like to speak in support of the Unstarred Question of my noble friend Lady Mar.
The dietary needs of a pregnant woman are very important all through her pregnancy, but especially so in the last three months. The Committee on Medical Aspects of Food Policy in the Commons recognised that there were probably modest additional requirements during the last three months of pregnancy. That would seem to be a step in the right direction, as additional requirements have been recognised; especially so during the last three months of pregnancy. That is a time when extra nutrition is desirable both for the mother and for the growing foetus.
Perhaps I may ask the Minister whether the Government would consider ensuring that in any benefit office there is one officer who is trained to assist those young pregnant girls of 18 years to 24 years on how best to manage their benefits. Many of them may have had little experience in managing their finances and are most likely to be worried and frightened, especially if they have been in care and perhaps have no family who will or can help them.
There is, of course, the need not only for a well balanced diet but also for clothing, especially in the later stages; and, of course, the need to keep warm. I should have thought that those requirements would be the same for a 24 year-old as for a 25 year-old. A young girl of 24 years and 11 months must be longing for the day when she is 25 if she is pregnant and on income support.
Perhaps I may ask the Minister to note the following quotation from a report on poverty in York in 1899, when Joseph Rowntree observed,
"That if York was typical, then the impediment to the rearing of healthy children is not the ignorance of the mothers so much or nearly so much as that the conditions of modern life do not enable them to supply their children with sufficient sustenance".
That is the vision of a man living in the last century. It could be said to apply equally today.
Evidence from the Department of Social Security to the House of Commons Select Committee on Health referred to in the second report for the session 1991–92
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on maternity services, estimated the cost. Assuming that income support was paid at the 1991–92 rate and was paid throughout pregnancy, and estimating the number of pregnant women aged 18 years to 24 years on that benefit, the cost would be about £4.5 million. The evidence also suggested that the additional annual cost of paying income-related benefits to pregnant women who in 1991–92 received the 18 to 24 year-old rates was around £5.5 million.
Those figures do not agree with the Answer given by the noble Lord, Lord Henley, to a Starred Question asked by the noble Earl, Lord Russell, on 3rd March, reported in Hansard at col. 657. The Minister stated that the added cost of increasing the rates for those under 25 would be about £360 million. Can the Minister say how that figure is arrived at? Does he include all 18 to 24 year-olds on income support, or only those pregnant 18 to 24 year-olds? The figures seem rather disparate and I am puzzled at such a difference in the amount.
I wish to return to the matter of a good diet. As I have already said, it is very important that a healthy diet is maintained, especially in the last three months of a pregnancy. That at least would try to ensure a healthy baby at birth, not forgetting the mother's health as well. Surely it could well save money if the child was healthy and not, sadly, in need of constant medical attention or care in residential accommodation and if possible psychological troubles for the mother which could be very distressing could be avoided.
7.17 p.m.
Lord Rea: My Lords, my noble friend the Countess of Mar is to be congratulated on bringing this issue before the House. I refer to her as "my noble friend" advisedly because it is seldom that I disagree with her when she raises, as she often does, questions relating to injustice or iniquity in the health or social services.
She has put the issue clearly before the House. I do not accept the Government's position in their reply to the Select Committee's recommendations any more than does the noble Countess who described them to us.
I remind noble Lords that we are not talking about the whole range of pregnant 18 to 24 year-old women; we are talking only about those entitled to income supplement, a sizeable proportion of whom may be, or are on the way to becoming, single parents. I suggest that it is highly likely that such young women may be very hard pressed financially, for instance in maintaining an independent dwelling, and in having additional expenses concerned with preparing for their babies' needs. The noble Lady and the noble Countess have referred to those issues.
As was pointed out in evidence to the Select Committee, expenditure on food is a flexible budget item. If other unavoidable expenses such as household bills are heavy, less than is desirable may be spent on food. The noble Countess expanded on that very successfully, I thought.
There has been much discussion about whether it is possible to purchase a "healthy" diet for an average price. I do not intend to enter that discussion, except

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to say that fruit, vegetables and whole grains, which have recently been shown to be even more important to good health than we already knew, are relatively expensive items. It has been shown in a number of surveys that those on low incomes buy much less fruit and vegetables than those who are better off. Fruit and vegetables contain, as well as vitamin C (which we all know about), dietary fibre, anti-oxidants, trace metals and essential fatty acids, all important in the development of nervous and vascular tissue—in other words brain and blood vessels.
It is now fully documented and accepted that the incidence of low birth weight and prematurity is associated with low socio-economic status, even allowing for other associated factors such as smoking, which is more common in people of low socioeconomic status. In particular, it has been shown that poor nutritional status is much more common among the mothers of low birth weight and premature babies than among those who deliver babies of normal weight. I refer the noble Lord to the work of Wendy Doyle and Professor Michael Crawford, of the Institute of Brain Chemistry, who have published a series of papers based on their work in Hackney, East London.
Low birth weight and prematurity are associated with higher perinatal mortality and subsequent physical and mental handicap—of considerable cost to the state. One estimate is that all cases of congenital mental retardation, blindness, deafness, cerebral palsy or autism cost us about £2 billion per annum in care. Of course, not all cases of those conditions are associated with low birth weight, but a high proportion are, and others are quite likely to be associated with maternal malnutrition or sub-nutrition in early pregnancy.
Doyle and Crawford, together with Professor David Barker of the Medical Research Council's epidemiology unit in Southampton, have evidence that many disorders of later adult life have their origins in early foetal life, just after conception, before the mother is even sure that she is pregnant. They depend on the nutritional state of the mother at that time. This would suggest that to wait until pregnancy is established before increasing income supplement is closing the door after the horse has bolted. (I felt that that was not perhaps the right metaphor, when talking about babies who have not yet been born, but I could not think of another one!)
Logically, all women on income supplement, of child-bearing age, should receive a special dietary supplement. I suggest that it should come with an information pack on how to spend it wisely. If all women of 18 to 24 who are on income supplement were paid at the same rate as adult women or women over 25—the noble Lord may confirm that it would cost £360 million—I believe that as a first step it would be a wise investment. However, I realise that that goes beyond tonight's Unstarred Question. I shall come back to your Lordships with such a suggestion as I have just made when the research necessary to back the proposal has been completed. Professor Crawford has just such a project in mind at the moment.
I am sure that the Minister will inform us that a
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young pregnant woman in real need can turn to the social fund for emergency help; that her income will be augmented in any case when the baby is born. That would miss the point that we are making and miss the boat as regards the pregnancy. I suggest that in any case personal stresses will be greater for such a young, single pregnant woman, as has already been pointed out. She may not be well enough organised to claim every additional benefit to which she may be entitled.
The number of women under 24, living alone, pregnant and in receipt of income supplement will not be all that great. I do not have the exact figure, but perhaps the Minister can help us in that respect when he replies. A cost of £5.5 million was mentioned by the noble Lady, Lady Kinloss. Possibly that sum would apply to that group of women about whom we are talking. I am sure that the noble Lord will elucidate. Whatever the number of women, the argument for following the advice of the Select Committee in another place, that pregnant 18 to 24 year-olds who qualify for income support should receive it at the full adult rate is to me unanswerable, both in terms of justice and, as the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, pointed out so well, of even greater importance in terms of the health of a vulnerable part of' the next: generation. Surely that is the responsibility of any government who claim the right to remain in power.
7.25 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Social Security (Lord Henley): My Lords, the noble Lady, Lady Kinloss. referred to the Joseph Rowntree report of 1899 relating to conditions in York. I should remind her and the House that we have moved on since then I should also like to say to the noble Lady, Lady Kinloss—and I accept that the noble Countess, Lady Mar, does not agree with what we have to say—that we have in this country what is arguably the most comprehensive social security safety net throughout the whole of Europe, far better than many of our colleagues. Things have moved on a great deal since then.
It is also important to remind the House to bear in mind that on this occasion the debate has been about increasing money directed towards social security benefits at a time when pressures on government: expenditure have never been greater. I shall return to the costs later on.
The debate has centred upon what many would consider to be the special needs of pregnant women. Previously, this question has been raised with the emphasis on the suggestion that young, pregnant women need additional nourishment. I think that. the noble Lord, Lord Rea, asked for a dietary supplement. I have to say that we would not want to return to the old days of supplementary benefit and the various complexities that existed with supplementary benefit. But on that point which the noble Lord raised about some supplement for pregnant women on income support, it is worth reminding the House that those pregnant income support beneficiaries also receive free milk tokens which entitle them to seven pints of milk per week—a very valuable addition, with the added calcium which comes with milk, for

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pregnant women—and free vitamin supplements. It is therefore not true to say that pregnant women receive no more than others aged 18 to 24 on income support. Further, once the child is born, it is entitled to free liquid milk or dried baby milk and free vitamins. That help will continue as long as the family receives income support and the child is under five years old.
I accept that there has been considerable concern expressed on the question of diet for this particular group. The noble Countess, Lady Mar, stressed this matter very much. I should just like to refer to the report by COMA which advises the Department of Health. In its report on dietary reference values, COMA set down a framework for the United Kingdom of nutritional requirements to be met through diets. Those can be met through an endless variety of diets but, more important, COMA (the committee on the medical aspects of food policy) did not conclude that pregnancy incurred significant additional contributions. Further, the MAFF National Food Survey indicates that the diets of people in all income groups contain adequate levels of most nutrients. However, I am advised that as a whole—and this is what we are informed—the population needs to eat less fat, more bread, cereals, pulses, seasonal vegetables and fruit in order to maintain good health and prevent major diseases. The calculationsby MAFF have shown that a diet which meets the latest dietary advice need not be more expensive, indeed it can very often be cheaper, as I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Rea, who is a doctor, would confirm. In addition, advice from MAFF and the Department of Health indicates that there is no need to buy special, more expensive food in order to eat more healthily. The whole range of foodstuffs available at affordable prices is so wide that a healthy diet is obtainable within anyone's means.
The noble Countess referred to the health of babies generally. I am afraid that I have no break-down of figures dividing them up according to social classes and according to income groups. But I think it is worth reminding the House and the noble Countess of just what has happened to figures showing still-births or deaths within seven days of birth per 1,000 births in England and Wales over the past 10 years. In 1982 it was 11.3—historically, a very low figure, as I think the noble Lord, Lord Rea, will accept. The figure has been coming down steadily over the years. But in as short a time as by 1992 that figure had dropped to 7.9. That is down 3.4 per 1,000. By my calculations, that is a drop of some 30 per cent. That is a fairly large drop between 1982 and 1992 and it belies any accusation that there is a large number of people for whom a healthy diet is not available.
The noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, referred to Sweden and that country's admirable record—it is praiseworthy—and that only Sweden has an average birth weight more or less the same for all social classes. The noble Lord, Lord Rea, referred to low birth weight in the lower social classes, and obviously that was something to be deprecated.
We accept that there is evidence of an association between ill-health and adverse circumstances, but
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there is little to identify specific causes, such as diet or nutrition. Possibly, there are other causes. The nutritional content of the diets of all people is remarkably familiar. If I may refer back to COMA, that committee and the nutrition task force have jointly commissioned a study looking at methods of investigating the links between nutrition and low income. I can certainly give the assurance that is something we would certainly take into account and bear in mind according to what they might report.
But on the general issue, our support for 18 to 24 year-olds does of course escalate notably following the birth of a child. When their baby is born, single mothers are entitled to a higher personal allowance and additional income support in the form of family premium, the lone parent premium and personal allowance for the child. Taken together with child benefit and one parent benefit the extra income support gives an overall income of £73.60 per week to 18 to 24 year-olds. That is, an increase of £38.80.
Again, it is worth stressing and, to be fair to the noble Countess, she did stress this point, we are talking only in relation to the single 18 to 24 year-olds. When we are dealing with couples in this particular class—this is a very important point to get over to the House—there is no distinction between the 18 to 24 year-olds where at least one is over 18 and 24 year-old or over 24 year-old couples. As I said, as soon as the child is born they will be getting the higher rate. Furthermore, a maternity payment will normally be available from the Social Fund to help with any additional costs due to the arrival of a baby. The maternity payment has increased substantially since its introduction in 1987. Currently it is £100; that is a 25 per cent. increase on the original figure from 1987. That makes the maternity payment a substantial and useful contribution from the state towards the additional expense a new baby brings. Of course, anyone receiving income support is also entitled to receive housing benefit, should they so need it.
The needs of the family figured prominently during the deliberations that led up to the 1988 social security reforms. The cornerstone of those reforms was the creation of a benefit system that would enable us to do more for those in greatest need. It has been the establishment of these benefit reforms that has enabled us to target extra help to low income families with children worth something around £1 billion a year from this April.
There has also been general comment on the lower level of income support paid to all people between the ages of 18 and 24. As I said on earlier occasions, the levels of benefit for this group take account of the fact that the majority live in someone else's household.
I was asked what evidence there was that under-25s were less likely to live independently. I believe the noble Lord, Lord Rea, asked how many there were living independently. The latest available figures reveal that of the more than half a million—that is, 561,000—people receiving the 18 to 24 rate of income support, only around 100,000, a little under 20 per cent. are receiving housing benefit. The implication

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must be that the others have fewer financial responsibilities and are therefore less likely to live independently.
The noble Countess again pressed me on how we justified the different rates of income support for the 18 to 24 year-olds. The noble Lady, Lady Kinloss, mentioned the Starred Question in the name of my noble kinsman, Lord Russell, on 3rd March. I can only repeat the explanations that I gave on that particular occasion. There are four reasons why we have different rates. The first, as I stressed on that occasion, is the added cost of increasing the rates of those aged under 24—some 360 million. I accept that that is for all 18 to 24 year-olds. The second is that there are the lower earnings expectations of people under 24. The fact that they have fewer financial responsibilities is again a point that I have mentioned. The third reason, as I have just mentioned, is that they are likely to live as part of someone's household. On that occasion, the figures, which were last year's figures, showed something around 15 per cent. of those on income support—it is now something like 20 per cent.—to be in receipt of housing benefit. The fourth reason is that we do not believe that levels of benefit should be an incentive to leave home or an attractive alternative to seeking work or training.
Earl Russell: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble kinsman for giving way. I would be very grateful if he could explain to us why lower earnings when in work are reason for lower benefit when out of work. I simply do not understand this.
Lord Henley: My Lords, my noble kinsman did not listen to me. Lower earnings and financial responsibilities go along together. As I am trying to explain, where there are lower earnings, there are frequently lower financial responsibilities. For that reason, we think that it is quite justifiable having a lower rate of income support. 'We do not see a case, as I have made perfectly clear—and further to that I can add the explanation that there are massive costs involved which even my noble kinsman accepts—for increasing the rate for the 18 to 24 year-olds to the same rate as that for the 25 year-olds and above.
Further, at the last up-rating in April 1993, all income-related benefits were increased by 3.6 per cent., which is fully in line with the Rossi index and the same (the two coincided in that year) as the RPI. Further, 18 to 24 year-olds will have gained from the fact that people receiving income support are no longer required to pay local taxes.
The noble Lady, Lady Kinloss, also asked whether special advice was available in the benefits agency offices. That was a very good point and certainly something which ought to be addressed. I can inform the noble Lady that 16 to 17 year-olds, who are the most vulnerable of this group, are dealt with by specially trained officers advised by a member of the management team. Further, money management advice is available for all income support recipients as part of the Social Fund service. In addition the benefits agency has devoted much effort to improving customer service. I know that certainly from my own personal experience of visiting benefit offices, one of
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which I visited only today. Certainly, it is something that they would very much wish to do in providing the best possible service for all those who have to make use of the Department of Social Security.
Many points have been made during this debate. I have to say that we see no convincing evidence to suggest that the needs of pregnant women aged 18 to 24 are so significantly different from others in that age band (the 18–24 year-olds) that any special treatment is appropriate over and above what is already available. I can, however, give the assurance that income support is, and will continue to be. closely monitored. We shall continue to ensure that the position of 18 to 24 year-olds and others receiving benefit is maintained.
Viscount Goschen: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now adjourn during pleasure until eight o'clock.
Moved accordingly and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
[The Sitting was suspended from 7.40 to 8 p.m.]

European Communities (Amendment) Bill.
House again in Committee.
Lord Holme of Cheltenham Lord Holme of Cheltenham moved Amendment No. 421:
After Clause 6, insert the following new clause:
Provisions for uniform electoral procedure
(". Before 31st December 1993, Her Majesty's Government shall lay before each House of Parliament a Command Paper setting out how they intend to adopt provisions laid down by the Council in accordance with Article 138(3) of the Treaty on European Union.").
The noble Lord said: It will not have escaped the attention of the Committee that we on these Benches take every possible opportunity to urge the case for reform of the electoral system both to achieve more representative outcomes and to give voters more choice and involvement in elections. It seems particularly important in the case of the European Parliament that there should be a fair and representative electoral system. I say that for three reasons.
First, Article 138 of the Treaty of Rome calls for a uniform electoral procedure in all member states. In March of this year, as the Government will know, the European Court of Justice ruled that the treaty should be upheld in this matter by the Council. The Council now has in front of it a proposal from the European Parliament for a common system based on proportional representation. The proposal originates in a committee chaired by Mr. De Gucht. The last time that I had the privilege of discussing the matter in this Chamber with the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, he was pleased to describe Mr. De Gucht, I think pejoratively, as a Belgian socialist. I was not quite sure which of those two terms was the greater term of abuse. But he then redeemed what might appear to have been a slightly chauvinistic approach from a Government that wishes to be at the heart of Europe by pronouncing his name rightly. I shall not seek to emulate him; I shall stick with the rugged Anglicised pronunciation.
In producing the proposals, Mr. De Gucht said:
"I have made it as difficult as possible for Britain to say no"
Despite his hopes, I dare say that the Government will find ways of saying no.
The second reason that we need to reform the system by which we vote in Britain for the European Parliament is that without proportional representation the overall balance of the European Parliament could be seriously disturbed by the British election results. The Committee will be aware that of the Members of the European Parliament, in the Socialist group roughly one-quarter come from the United Kingdom; in the People's Group (the Conservative group) roughly one-fifth come from the United Kingdom. I can quite see that for those who do not like the European Parliament and believe that it should be kept as weak as possible, that is a very good reason for resisting reform. I understand that. But for those who believe that a strong and credible European Parliament is part of the solution to the so-called democratic deficit, such deformation of the will of the people of Europe by one country must be a matter of considerable concern.
There is a third and final reason for having proportional representation for European elections. It is incumbent on those who want proportional representation to acknowledge the fears of those—it may include the Government—who see PR for Europe as the thin end of the wedge. They feel that if there is reform of European elections, it would lead, as night follows day, to a demand for reform of parliamentary elections. On these Benches, we would certainly say so. But it would be right to accept that European elections are in kind completely different from Westminster elections. They do not produce a government or purport to do so. There is no coalescence of parties to form a government in Europe. The argument of the thin end of the wedge is particularly difficult to sustain when one considers that for 15 years in Northern Ireland there has been a system of proportional representation for certain elections.
So the case for reforming British elections to the European Parliament to conform with the uniform electoral procedure seems to be a strong one. I note that Amendment No. 422 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, which has also been grouped with this amendment for debating purposes, calls for a report on progress towards a uniform electoral procedure but expressly excludes the question of proportional representation.
Perhaps I may anticipate the arguments that the noble Lord intends to use. He will forgive me if I have got them wrong. It is difficult to know what "a uniform electoral procedure" is capable of meaning unless it has to do with the electoral system. Simply to say that it means that all adults shall vote or all adults shall vote by secret ballot is almost tautologous in terms of democratic elections. It does not advance the argument any further.
For those three reasons I believe that the case for reform of the British electoral European system is
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almost irrefutable. That is probably why on several occasions—to be more accurate, on more than one occasion—this Chamber has supported proportional representation for the European Parliament. Turning to the Labour Benches, that is also probably why the Plant Commission, which was set up by the Labour Party, has recommended proportional representation for the European elections. The noble Lord, Lord Plant, the eponymous chairman of that commission, asked me to say that he had hoped to be here and in his capacity as chairman of that group he would have wanted to support the amendment that we put forward tonight.
The amendment does not call for proportional representation for European elections. It is much more modest and appropriate to the Bill. It does not itself propose electoral reform. It simply asks the Government for a report by the end of this year on how they intend to move ahead to a uniform procedure, which they signed up to in the Treaty of Rome. Several amendments this afternoon have called for reports from the Government to Parliament. That seems right. I argue that this is an area of such central importance that a report from the Government seems more than appropriate. I very much hope that in responding, the Government will feel able to accede to this modest proposal. I hope so all the more as I see the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker, on the Government Benches and know of her long-term and constructive interest in these matters.
If the Government were wise they would greatly widen the basis of their support for the Bill. To some extent they have depended on the support from these Benches in this Chamber. They would widen support in Parliament and the country if they showed themselves generously open to the concerns of a substantial body of their fellow citizens which goes far beyond the ranks of the Liberal Democrats.
This evening in another place the European Parliamentary Elections Bill is being debated. The Government must find a way to have elected six extra Members of the European Parliament. Shortly this Chamber will be considering that Bill. It is right at this stage to say that I do not propose to press the amendment to a Division. However. I hope that in responding to it the Government will try to take the sense that if they are to introduce new Members to the European Parliament and look for wider support in Britain for their adhesion to the Maastricht Treaty, they should accept the sense of this amendment. I beg to move.
Lord Swinfen: As the noble Lord, Lord Holme of Cheltenham. said, the amendment in my name and Amendment No. 423 are grouped with his amendment and I shall speak to the one in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Beloff.
As the noble Lord said also, the amendment goes rather wider than his amendment in a way that should commend itself to my noble friend and to the Government. It would preclude the use of proportional representation in elections to the European Parliament. As the Committee will know, the

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Government have set their heart, mind and shoulder against such an electoral system and should therefore have no objection to Amendment No. 422.
There are some countries, such as Italy, that use some form of proportional representation. But we should look at the speed at which Italy—which has had a terrific number of governments over the past few years—is trying to ditch that system and change to our own much more satisfactory system of first-past-the-post.
Lord Holme of Cheltenham: I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. He is right to describe a variety of electoral systems. However, will he accept that for European Parliament elections all our fellow Members use the system of proportional representation?
Lord Tordoff: Before the noble Lord responds to that. he should understand also that the Italians have not gone for a total first-past-the-post system. They have gone for something much closer to the German system of additional Member seats.
Lord Swinfen: That may be. It was my understanding that the Italians had gone for a first-past-the-post system but I shall look further into the matter.
Baroness Seear: There is no need to look further into the matter. We are telling you; you are wrong!
Lord Swinfen: I can be wrong on occasions.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: Perhaps I can be of help to my noble friend. The Italians have abandoned the system of proportional representation which served them so badly. But is he aware that what they will go to, if it can be agreed, is a system where most of the Parliament will be elected by the system of first-past-the-post? There will be additional Member seats, as in the German system, but the basis of the system is first-past-the-post. He is correct that they have abandoned the usual variety of proportional representation.
Lord Tordoff: With respect to the noble Lord, once one gets into an additional Member system, one is getting into a proportional representation system. The whole purpose of the additional Members is to have a proportion in the Parliament according to the voting. The fact is that the Italians have not changed their system in relation to elections to the European Parliament. That is what we are talking about tonight.
Earl Ferrers: As we all seem to be chipping in during my noble friend's speech, perhaps I may also. It may be more suitable to allow my noble friend to continue; otherwise, we shall be not only out of order, but also out of cog with our thoughts.
Lord Swinfen: I thank my noble friend for that interruption. However, I have no objection to other noble Lords from around the Chamber trying to put their point of view. There have been arguments throughout the whole of the Committee stage of the
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Bill as to whether or not Members should be allowed to put their points of view. I am delighted that that is the case.
My view is that proportional representation in many countries leaves long periods of uncertainty after an election while negotiations between parties take place in order to produce a coalition government which, if the parties disagree, does not always last very long. The system has also given the opportunity to small extremist parties to wield undue influence, an example of which is the party in France led by M. Le Pen. The ultimate example of that was the seizure by the Nazi Party in pre-war Germany which brought Hitler to power with only 32 per cent. of the vote.
In many forms of proportional representation the vote is merely for the party and not for an individual. One of the great strengths of our present system is that the elected Member of Parliament, whether of our own national Parliament or indeed the European Parliament, is answerable to his constituents. If they do not approve of the way in which he acts, they will ensure that they get rid of him at the next election, which is not always possible with some forms or proportional representation.
8.15 p.m.
Baroness Elles: I support the amendment of my noble friend Lord Swinfen. I should imagine that he will not have any problem in asking the Governrnent to resist any change in the electoral law of the United Kingdom to any system of proportional representation. Therefore it should not be an argument that takes too long in your Lordships' Chamber.
Perhaps I may say a few words, having been a Member of the European Parliament for 10 years—I was an elected Member from Thames Valley—about my experience with my other colleagues in the European Parliament. I represented nearly 500,000 electors who knew me, I am happy to say, considering the post I used to receive every weekend from my constituents and the number of times I was invited to speak to them.
On asking my colleagues in the European Parliament how often they visited their constituents, one charming Frenchman said to me. "If I get three times a year a letter in Le Monde, I am satisfied". That was the only link he had with the people of France. In fact, if one spoke to ordinary Members of Parliament they were extremely jealous of our system; they' recognised that we had responsibilities to our electorate; we knew what was going on on the ground and they did not. They had no connection.
Another point that I should like to make is that in the first Parliament I was in, from 1979 to 1984, by the time we reached 1984 there were well over 70 Members who had failed to be elected in 1979. It is an abuse of the democratic system. They were on lists and as soon as somebody either died, was promoted, made President of the European Commission or a Member of their own nation's government, the person lower down on the list was put in their place. Therefore those people had failed to be elected during the European parliamentary elections.

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I consider that to be a gross abuse of the system. There were at least 70 people in 1984 who held such a position. I have not checked how many there are today. I know personally that three were not elected in 1989 and are now there enjoying the privileges of being a Member of the European Parliament. I am happy to say that that cannot occur under our system and I hope that we shall never opt for a proportional system.
Lord Holme of Cheltenham: Before the noble Baroness sits down, it is worth saying that if she represented 2 million people I am sure that they would remember her and her name would be familiar to them. However, in one regard the noble Baroness inadvertently misled the House.
It is the European Parliament that is recommending that the British adopt a proportional representation system. Therefore the distaste that she describes on the part of her fellow Members of the European Parliament of different countries for their own systems and their hankering after the British system, does not seem to have come to effect in practice.
Baroness Elles: Perhaps I may be allowed to reply to that comment. Of course, Mr. De Gucht does not answer for all the Members of the European Parliament. I am happy to say that people are gradually beginning to change because they are beginning to understand, as in Italy, the folly of having proportional representation.
Lord Tordoff: Whether or not all Members of the European Parliament agree with Mr. De Gucht has been shown by the vote in the European Parliament, which supported the De Gucht proposals. Those have now gone forward as the proposals from the European Parliament. Therefore the European Parliament made it clear that a uniform system as a minimum should be a proportional system.
It is not a question of Mr. De Gucht's personal preference. The noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, referred to Mr. De Gucht as being not only a Liberal, but a Belgian, in terms that suggest it is something particularly nasty. The fact is that that is the wish of the European Parliament, and for good reason. The balance in the European Parliament has been totally distorted by the unfortunate electoral system that we use in this country.
Lord Beloff: We have now been discussing for almost six days a very important measure which involves, in my view, the incorporation of the United Kingdom into a European superstate. But even those who deny this interpretation assert its importance. From the Benches opposite me we have had almost no contribution of substance. Their Benches have largely been empty. And yet this evening, all of a sudden—
Lord Tordoff: Will the noble Lord give way?
Lord Beloff: No, I shall not give way. There are things on which one gives way and things on which one does not give way.
Lord Tordoff: I wish to—
Noble Lords: Order, order!
Lord Beloff: But this evening the Pavlovian instinct works. Mention proportional representation and a Liberal will emerge from behind every bush. Yet, if they are so interested in the European Parliament as to be worried about the electoral system, why did they not take the opportunity to examine the very real problems of the European Parliament—to which the noble Lord, Lord Holme, referred in passing with regard to the need immediately to have six extra members to balance those from the former East Germany—because it is clear that in its present form the parliament will not survive enlargement?
If there were proportional numbers of members from the countries which it is proposed to admit they would not be able to go on using the Council of Europe building in Strasbourg. They would need Wembley Stadium or its equivalent. It is a body which already finds it difficult to do serious work—for instance, on financial control—and when enlarged would find it impossible to do any work. Therefore, one would think that it is much more important to concentrate on how that parliament is to operate in the new circumstances, if we are to have the new circumstances, than to go on peddling the old nostrums which almost every country in Europe is beginning to despair of. Italy is only one example.
It is perfectly clear that what people want, as the noble Baroness, Lady Elles, said, is some relation—personal or active—with their representative. What we have in the European Parliament is a democratic deficit because it cannot be considered a serious parliament alongside the parliaments of our several countries. That would have been a worthy subject, once the Liberal Democrats turned up. I am sorry that they have not made use of the opportunity.
Lord Tordoff: Perhaps I may respond to what has been said from the Benches opposite. In the first place I thought that it was customary in your Lordships' House that if someone rose he was given leave to intervene. But apparently the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, has a different set of standards. I wish to make two points to him. First, these Benches have not been empty. They have been attended throughout the whole of these long hours of Committee stage. There have been on average five or six people on these Benches at all times. There have been moments when the number has been down to two or three but we have been well attended. We have not spoken because, frankly, we made our Second Reading speeches at Second Reading and not at the Committee stage.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: I wish to oppose Amendment No. 421, which was moved by the noble Lord, Lord Holme, and support Amendment No. 422, which was moved by the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen. I say straight away that it would have been better if the European Parliament had still been composed of delegates from national parliaments. That would have ensured the national control of the European Parliament and indeed I believe that there would have been better control of the legislation coming from the Commission.

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As it is, the European Parliament is a totally irresponsible body, no matter how it is elected. Indeed, I believe, as the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, pointed out, that there are grave dangers in electing that parliament by proportional representation. We must not believe that because certain people say that proportional representation is more democratic than first-past-the-post that is necessarily so. We can show in many instances that PR is very much less de:mocratic. Indeed, there are dangers in the system, particularly the election with only 5 per cent. of the votes of some very peculiar people and parties to a particular organisation. That may be democratic or not, but there are dangers about PR. There may be benefits—I do not see them. I believe that, in this country anyway, first-past-the-post has served us very well over a long period of time. It may not have served the Liberal Party, although it seemed very satisfied with the system when it was able to form governments, and did nothing to change it.
There is another reason why I am concerned about this amendment and why I support the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen. A document was given to me tonight which is apparent)/ put out by the European People's Party, which is the Conservative Party in Europe. I have read through it very quickly and some of the things said there worry me very much and make me an even more fervent opponent of PR. Paragraph 201 of the document states:
"The European Union alone can secure Europe's future".
It goes on to say:
"The EPP"—
the European People's Party—
"calls for the gradual but resolute transformation of the European Community into a genuine political union on a federal model".
It continues:
"A federal Europe is now more than ever a necessary and realistic political objective".
The final quotation I shall make is this:
"It is the European Parliament, elected by universal suffrage, which primarily ensures that Europe is built on a basis of democratic legitimacy. It must therefore have the final say on constitutional and legislative matters".
I have read that for the benefit of the Committee and in particular for the benefit of Members of the Committee opposite. They may not have seen this document. It is a very serious document because the Conservative Party is part of the European People's Party.
Lord Tebbit: I am grateful to the noble Lord. He says that it worries him. Will he give a moment's consideration to how much it worries me? I have read the wretched thing. But I beg of the noble Lord to be absolutely factually correct because he has no need to overstate the case for it to be devastating. My friends who are Conservative Members of the European Parliament are not members of the EPP. They are affiliates of it. But: I am unable to get replies from them or from the chairman of the EPP when I ask whether they are committed to that document, which is the manifesto of the party to which they are affiliated. I do not know.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: That was a very helpful intervention from the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, and of
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course he knows far more about the matter than I do. But the fact of the matter is that here we have an organisation which wants to displace national parliaments as the engine for legislation and all kinds of other things. It would be quite wrong under all these circumstances to support the amendment tabled by the Liberal Democrats although it would be very worthwhile for the Committee to take a vote on Amendment No. 422 because we would all then be able to use a cross or our mouths—I do not know where our hearts are.
8.30 p.m.
Lord Hylton: I do not disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, when he suggests that the European Parliament should not necessarily be enlarged pari passu with the number of members of the total community. Nevertheless, this short debate has shown very clearly that the very idea of proportionality is like a red rag to a bull with some of the larger political parties in this country. That does not put me off from supporting Amendment No. 421 moved by the noble Lord, Lord Holme of Cheltenham. I hope that: the Government will not approach this particular amendment with a totally closed mind.
Lord Plant of Highfield: I wish to add a sympathetic word to the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Holme of Cheltenham. I am sorry that I was not in the Chamber at the beginning of the debate on the amendment. In fact, I have been discussing the issue of proportional representation with quite a large number of Conservative supporters at the Centre for Policy Studies until a few minutes ago.
It seems to me that there is a good case for accepting the principle of proportional representation for the European Parliament. I wish to rest the case on three general points. Irrespective of what one's view might be about proportional representation for other political bodies, there are three reasons why one might think that the European Parliament is a special case. To some extent representation should depend on function. The function of the European Parliament is rather different from that of the House of Commons.
First, the executive is not drawn from the European Parliament and that worries the defenders of the first-past-the-post system who wish to preserve that procedure in the House of Commons as the source of the Executive's authority. That is not so in the case of the European Parliament. Secondly, the size of the constituencies in the European Parliament undermines the case for standard first-past-the-post types of constituency representation. The relationship between an MEP and his or her constituency cannot be the same as that of a Member of the House of Commons and the constituency.
Baroness Elles: I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. Does he accept that the United States Congress is also in an unfortunate position in that a Congressman represents more than half-a-million constituents?
Lord Plant of Highfield: The argument is cumulative. There are three reasons and I have just

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given the second reason. I do not believe that any particular reason in itself is overwhelming, but the three taken together are important. I do not believe that any of the arguments are overwhelming. At the end of the day they are matters for political judgment. Those who argue in favour of first-past-the-post in the sense that it secures a close relationship between an elected Member and the individual constituent must be on weaker ground given the larger size of the European constituencies. Thirdly, the evidence that we had in the working party which I had the privilege of chairing for the Labour Party, was that the actual role of the constituency Member of the European Parliament is different from that of a Member of the House of Commons.
A Member of the House of Commons does a great deal of individual case work with individual constituents. The view we have, both from observers and from Members of the European Parliament, is that Members of the latter tend to relate far more to groups and institutions within constituencies and less so with individuals than is the case with Members of the House of Commons.
So for those three reasons, coupled with the general principle that representation might be thought to depend on function, there is a case for electing the European Parliament by a different method from that used in the House of Commons. That was the unanimous proposal made by the working party which I chaired and which was in fact endorsed by the Leader of the Labour Party. It is not yet, of course, party policy until after the party conference in October. Therefore, I am speaking about this matter from the Back Benches rather than as someone who has some responsibility for constitutional affairs on the Front Bench. There is a strong case based on the reasons that I have given.
Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone: Come along!
Earl Ferrers: My noble and learned friend Lord Hailsham says "come along". I was only waiting for some other noble Lord to speak because the last time I tried to "come along", I "came along" too quickly and nearly deprived the noble Lord, Lord Plant, of participating in the debate, which would have been a great pity.
Amendments Nos. 421, 422 and 423 are grouped together. The noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon, got so wound up with the thought of proportional representation being used in the European Parliament that he failed—possibly on purpose—to address his thoughts to Amendment No. 423. So I shall concentrate my thoughts on Amendments Nos. 421 and 422.
I do not blame the noble Lord, Lord Holme of Cheltenham, for moving the amendment because the Liberal Democrats, as we all know, are very keen on proportional representation and they never refuse or miss an opportunity to press their points home. The intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Plant, was quite interesting. He is in the difficult process of trying to
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turn his party round from the system of first-past-thepost to proportional representation, which is not an uncontroversial thing to do. We shall see what happens about that.
The amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Holme, seeks to find out how Her Majesty's Government intend to adopt the provisions for a uniform electoral procedure which is required by Article 138.3 of the Treaty of Rome. The Maastricht Treaty does very little to change the provisions of the Treaty of Rome on this matter. It is important to remember that the only change is that Article 138.3, as amended, will now stipulate that the Council must act unanimously if and when it adopts a uniform electoral procedure, but it can only do that after it has obtained the assent of the European Parliament to the Parliament's proposals and they have to be approved by an overall majority of the European Parliament.
It would make little sense for the Government to have to lay a Command Paper describing what the United Kingdom would do in circumstances which have not yet been discussed by the Council of Ministers—still less which have not been, as the amendment says,
"laid down by the Council".
At present, we have received no indication as to when the subject of a uniform electoral procedure is going to be discussed by the Council. The European Parliament has agreed, with amendments, the proposal that was prepared by the Institutional Affairs Committee of which Mr. Karel De Gucht, a Belgian MEP, was the rapporteur. The noble Lord, Lord Holme of Cheltenham, chivvied me for saying that he was a Belgian MEP. He said that he thought that I was being pejorative. He is a Belgian MEP and neither the adjective nor the noun is supposed to be pejorative; it is merely a fact. He was the rapporteur.
At present we do not know whether or when the Council will discuss the proposals, or whether that will be done before 31st December 1993; the date which is specified in Amendments Nos. 421 and 422. I do not think that it would be sensible for Her Majesty's Government to publish a Command Paper before the matter had been fully discussed in the Council, when the proposals themselves may well be altered. We must look at this situation realistically. The fact is that the great diversity of national electoral systems which are used within the Community may well make it very difficult to reach a unanimous agreement of the Council on a uniform procedure.
I can assure my noble friends, Lord Swinfen and Lord Beloff, as regards Amendment No. 422, and my noble friend Lady Elles and the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon, that the Government have no intention of changing from the simple majority system, which we use for electing representatives to the European Parliament from constituencies in Great Britain. When the Council examines the proposal from the European Parliament we shall, of course, consider it on its merits. I should make it clear—this is very important—that any agreement on a uniform electoral procedure can only be reached by unanimity in the Council.
Lord Holme of Cheltenham: As I had hoped, this has been an extremely lively debate. The Government will probably wan. to take note of the fact that all the speeches from noble Lords who spoke against the principle of proportional representation were from those opposed to the passage of this treaty—
Baroness Elles: I am sorry, no. Will the noble Lord kindly amend what he has just said?
Lord Holme of Cheltenham: I take the noble Baroness's point. What a terrible thing to have said. She is a notable exception to the fact that all the other speeches were from opponents of the Maastricht Treaty. I apologise to her.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: I did not know that the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, had indicated that he was opposed to the passage of the treaty.
Lord Holme of Cheltenham: I am glad to say that the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, was speaking in favour of proportional representation. I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, detected that. On the question of a democratic Europe, it would be prudent for the Government to recognise who their friends are.
I do not want to detain the Committee except in one respect: I must advise the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, that what he said about these Benches being deserted was unfair. My noble friend Lord Tordoff has already referred to this. Throughout the debate there have been between two and sometimes up to 12 Liberal Democrats on these Benches. I venture to suggest that in proportion to our membership of this House there has probably been a higher proportion of us sitting here through these debates than is true of the two major parties in this House, so I do not think we have anything to apologise for. The fact that we have not spoken quite as often as some other noble Lords may indicate that we should like to get the treaty through and to stop these Second Reading-type speeches being made for ever and ever. As I have said, I should like to withdraw the amendment although I am sure that we shall return to the subject many times—
Lord Bruce of Donington: Before the noble Lord sits down and since he is discussing proportional representation and the putting into operation of paragraph 3 of Article 138, would he care to take cognisance of the present position whereby the state of Luxembourg, with a population the size of Bristol, has six representatives, and to bear in mind that if that were followed through to the United Kingdom and the same proportionality were involved, the United Kingdom would be entitled to approximately 600 Members of the European Parliament? Would he like to comment on that?
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: Before the noble Lord, Lord Holme of Cheltenham, prepares to answer that, perhaps I may say that I know that the Liberal Democrats are extremely keen that everything should be proportional, but I do not think that he should assume that the number of speakers in favour of proportional representation out of the total number of noble Lords sitting in the Chamber represents the
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opinion of the Committee because there are a great many of us who are also keen to get the treaty through but who decided to sit quietly and listen.
Lord Holme of Cheltenham: I am sorry, but I am not sure that the noble Baroness and I are speaking about the same thing. Could she clarify the point that she has just made?
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: I am sorry if I was not clear. The noble Lord seemed to assume that because more speeches were made in favour of proportional representation than not—I am sorry, I mean the other way round—because more speeches were made against proportional representation than in favour of it (the noble Lord has confused me), that seemed to be associated with an antipathy towards the treaty. The noble Lord was making assumptions from that. But many of us who want to see the treaty through but who are not too keen on proportional representation were sitting quietly. I hope that he will agree that that was the case.
Lord Holme of Cheltenham: Yes, but the only point that I was making was that, on the whole, the Liberal Democrat Benches have not been as vociferous a:; normal simply because we hope to get the treaty through. I made no comment about the balance of speeches in the Committee save to identify those who have spoken against.
In conclusion, this is a subject to which I am sure the House will return on many future occasions, so I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
8.45 p.m.
Lord Swinfen Lord Swinfen moved Amendment No. 422:
After Clause 6, insert the following new clause:
Provision for European elections
(" . Before 31st December 1993, Her Majesty's Government shall lay before each House of Parliament a Command Paper setting out arrangements for adopting provisions laid down by the Council in accordance with Article 138(3) of Title II, Article 21(3) of Title 111 and Article 108(3) of Title IV of the Treaty of European Union, but not including any provision for change in the electoral law of the United Kingdom to any system of proportional representation or otherwis,;.").
The noble Lord said: We have already discussed this amendment with Amendment No. 421. but it is such an important matter that I think that I should test the opinion of the Committee. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment negatived.
[Amendment No. 423 not moved.]
[Amendment No. 424 had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.]
[Amendments Nos. 425 to 427 not moved.]
Clause 7 [Commencement (Protocol on Social Policy)]:
Lord Richard Lord Richard moved Amendment No. 428:
Page 2, leave Out line 27 and insert ("calling for the adoption into United Kingdom law of the Agreement on Social Policy").
The noble Lord said: I should tell the Committee right at the outset that we now come to an amendment

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upon which, unless there is a clear change of heart expressed on the part of the Government, it will be my intention to test the view of the Committee.
Amendment No. 428 is a clear amendment which calls for the eventual adoption by this country of the Agreement on Social Policy contained in the Maastricht Treaty. Its acceptance would mean that Clause 7 would state that the Act shall come into force only when each House of Parliament has passed a resolution calling for the adoption of the Agreement on Social Policy. More nonsense has been talked about this part of the Maastricht Treaty than probably any other part of it. And as your Lordships who have sat through this debate and who have read the debates in another place will know, that is saying a very great deal.
The issue that the Committee has to face tonight is not only that of the opt-out and of the institutional gyrations which that has produced; the issue is really whether or not we should sign up to the social agreement. It raises the whole question of Community competence on social policy. Indeed, in many ways this goes to the heart of one of the issues that we have been considering during the past six weeks.
It is therefore right that we should look at the treaty and see whence comes this competence and whence come the present provisions of the treaty. We go back to the Treaty of Rome and back to the Single European Act. I am looking at Command Paper 455 which incorporates the Treaty of Rome and the Single European Act—at Title III (Social policy), Chapter I (social provisions), Article 117. The Committee should note that we are talking about the Treaty of Rome of 1972—nothing new, nothing modern, nothing being sprung on anybody and nothing that was negotiated at Maastricht.
What was agreed in the Treaty? The article states:
"Member States agree upon the need to promote improved working conditions and an improved standard of living for workers, so as to make possible their harmonization while the improvement is being maintained".
That is a clear statement of aims. There was clear acceptance by the countries which signed up for the Treaty of Rome that we agreed upon the need to promote improved working conditions and an improved standard of living so as to make harmonisation possible.
I remind the Committee of Article 118 because so often in our debates on the social protocol and the social chapter in relation to Maastricht, it has been presented as though it is something totally new and a major departure for the United Kingdom, with the Community trying to take competence and power in areas over which it has not had it before. I hope to satisfy the Committee that that is not true. Article 118 states:
"Without prejudice to the other provisions of this Treaty and in conformity with its general objectives, the Commission"—
I repeat, "the Commission"—
"shall have the task of promoting close co-operation between Member States in the social field, particularly in matters relating to"—
I invite the Committee to note this—
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"employment; labour law and working conditions; basic and advanced vocational training; social security; prevention of occupational accidents and diseases; occupational hygiene; the right of association, and collective bargaining between employers and workers".
Those are the areas in which the Community is given competence to act and the Commission is specifically enjoined to act under the original treaty accepted by this country as long ago as 1972.
Article 118A, which follows, was introduced in the Single European Act. That is even more interesting. It introduces the concept of qualified majority voting in that general area in paragraph 2. There is nothing new in the concept of majority voting being brought into social policy. There it is in the Single European Act, accepted by the Chamber and another place. Paragraph 1 says:
"Member States shall pay particular attention to encouraging improvements, especially in the working environment, as regards the health and safety of workers, and shall set as their objectives the harmonisation of conditions in this area".
"Harmonisation" was then considered as the "f" word, although it started with the letter "h". One heard so many speeches at the time against the Commission's activities in respect of harmonisation. But there it is in the treaty accepted by the Government and the country in the Single European Act.
Then there is something that I am bound to say that I find even more interesting. Article 118B says:
"The Commission shall endeavour to develop the dialogue between management and labour at European level".
I repeat, "at European level". In other words, we should encourage a dialogue between European-wide employer organisations and trade unions,
"which could, if the two sides consider it desirable lead to relations based on an agreement".
Where does that come from? It comes from Article 22 of the Single European Act. It is not a new introduction. There is nothing cataclysmic or totally new coming in Maastricht. There it is in the old treaty.
I turn now to Article 119 which refers to equal pay and equal work. That is not a new concept. As I hoped to show earlier, all the concepts in the Maastricht Treaty go back to 1961 to the Social Charter of the Council of Europe which was accepted by this country in 1961 and ratified in 1965. I see the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, shaking her head in agreement.
Baroness Thatcher: No.
Lord Richard: I am delighted that we are in agreement on this occasion.
There is no doubt whatever that many of the concepts contained in the Treaty of Rome go right back to 1961. The starting point is 1972 with the Treaty of Rome and the Single European Act.
I now turn to Maastricht and the social provisions that are contained therein. If one looks at it in a fairly objective way, I have to say that it seems to me to be a rather modest and somewhat pallid document. For the life of me, I have never understood the furore that was caused when people actually looked at the treaty and saw what was in it. Many of the same concepts as were in the Treaty of Rome reappeared in Maastricht;

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and many of the same concepts as were in the Social Charter of the Council of Europe reappeared in Maastricht. It says:
"The Community Member States shall have as their objectives the promotion of employment"—
Lord Hacking: I am trying to follow the noble Lord's argument. Can he tell the Committee the section from which he is quoting?
Lord Richard: Article 118 of the Maastricht Treaty, which refers to any agreement on social policy concluded between the member states of the European Community with the exception of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. I am trying to show the Committee that the opt-out by Britain is, quite frankly, ludicrous. Perhaps we should study further what it says and then we can argue as to whether or not we should have signed it.
Article 1 says:
"The Community … shall have as [its] objective the promotion of employment".
Surely we agree with that, do we not?—
"improved living and working conditions"—
I think that we agree with that—
"proper social protection"—
I assume that we agree with that—
"dialogue between management and labour"—
I believe that we agree with that; at least, we have always said that we agree with that—
"the development of human resources with a view to lasting high employment"—
we agree with that—
"the combating of exclusion".
I am bound to say that I am not quite sure what that means.
"To this end the Community and the Member States shall implement measures"—
I hope that members of the Committee will note the proviso that follows—
"which take account of the diverse forms of national practices, in particular in the field of contractual relations, and the need to maintain the competitiveness of the Community economy".
Anyone looking at that statement of general aims and intent would frankly have to work extremely hard in order to find a point of disagreement.
Article 2 says:
"With a view to achieving the objectives of Article 1, the Community shall support and complement the activities of the Member States in the following fields".
But what are those "following fields"? They are:
"improvement in particular of the working environment to protect workers' health and safety".
Are we against that? Surely not? We are not against improving working conditions; indeed, I have never heard a spokesman for the Government saying that they were not in favour of improving working conditions. Then there is,
"the information and consultation of workers".
I am sure that we are in favour of that. The Government told me often enough between 1981 and 1985 when I was in charge of such matters in the Commission how much they were in favour of information and consultation as regards workers, although they did not like the particular form proposed. The article goes on to cite:
"equality between men and women".
I assume that we are all in favour of that concept. Then there is,
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"the integration of persons excluded from the labour market …To this end, the Council may adopt, by means of directives",
and so on.
Perhaps I may just read to the Committee two other passages: Paragraph 3 of Article 2 says:
"The Council shall act unanimously".
The latter word is one of which the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, will appreciate the true flavour. The passage continues,
"on a proposal from the Commission, after consulting the European Parliament and the Economic and Social Committee, in the following areas".
What are the areas in which we would have a veto if we had gone in? Well, one of them is,
"social security and social protection of workers".
Then there is also,
"protection of workers where their employment contract is terminated".
We also have a veto on that one. There then follows,
"representation and collective defence of the interests of workers and employers, including co-determination".
There too, we have a veto. Following that there is,
"conditions of employment for third-country nationals legally residing in Community territory".
There we also have a veto. Finally, we have a veto on,
"financial contributions for the promotion of employment and job-creation, without prejudice to the provisions relating to the Social Fund".
Those are specific exclusions set out in the social agreement. To describe them in the terms that they have been described is, frankly, absurd. If Members of the Committee would like the example or just one other proviso, perhaps I may just read from paragraph 6 of Article 2:
"The provisions of this Article shall not apply"—
I emphasise the word "not"—
"to pay, the right of association, the right to strike or to the right to impose lock-outs".
All those have come out. What are we left with? We are left with a series of aims in the field of social policy —that is, aims which are designed to improve the working environment and conditions of workers and the availability of information and consultation for them, equality between men and women and integrating people excluded from the labour market. That is the lot.
If one looks in the Social Charter for provisions which, somehow or other, will affect the whole of British industry and which will be Brussels-imposing upon the industrial lifeblood of this country—terms and conditions that Britain finds basically unacceptable and repugnant—one looks in vain; they are just not there.
Faced with that Social Charter, what did we do? Well, we opted out. But how did we opt out? Frankly, again, in the most absurd way. We said to the other 11, "We don't want to participate, but the rest of you, if you wish, should go ahead and carry on with your social policy; we shall have no part of it". We therefore agreed. I am bound to say that it is the most extraordinary agreement. We agreed to authorise those 11 member states—that is, all the others except Britain,
"to have recourse to the institutions, the procedures and The mechanisms of the Treaty for the purposes of taking among themselves and applying as far as they are concerned the acts and decisions required for giving effect to the above-mentioned agreement".

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I am bound to say that I find that a somewhat mind-boggling proposition, so far as concerns the practical effects involved.
What will happen during the United Kingdom presidency? There will be a President of the Council. There will also be a social affairs council and a Social Affairs Minister. During my day I had the pleasure of meeting the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, at many Council meetings. The Social Affairs Minister will sit at the meetings and someone will say, "Now we are going to discuss the policy under the social agreement". The Minister will then vacate the chair. Presumably someone else—I am not sure who—will sit in the empty president's chair and the other 11 will continue with the discussion. The other 11 may or may not reach a conclusion, I know not.
Let us suppose that there is a proposal for a directive emerging from the other 11 under this extraordinary opt-out. What will happen at COREPER? Is the British Ambassador to the Community supposed to withdraw from COREPER when social policy is discussed? What will be the relationship between social policy being discussed by the 11 under the terms of the agreement on social policy and social policy being discussed under the original terms of the Treaty of Rome? I do not know how it is supposed to work and I do not believe that anybody knows. It is certainly unprecedented and, with great respect, it is totally unthought-out. What will be the relationship between these affairs and competition policy? How is the competition directorate supposed to react to the British opt-out? I do not know what is being said about it and perhaps at some stage the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker, may be able to tell us.
Are we to participate in the health and safety provisions under Article 118a of the Treaty of Rome or are we not? If we are, on what kind of basis? As regards social policy, one leg is in if the label on it is Article 118a of the Treaty of Rome but the other leg is out if the discussion is to take place under the agreement on social policy merely by the other 11. As an example of Britain being at the heart of Europe that almost defies belief.
It is worthwhile putting on record that there are only two political movements in the whole of the Community which are opposed to the agreement on social policy. One is M. Le Pen's movement in France and the other is the British Conservative Party. I am bound to say that the company which the Conservative Party keeps is entirely a matter for itself but I really should have thought that that fact might be one which they would seek to ponder. All the other conservative parties in Europe and all the other members of the People's Party group in the European Parliament have signed up to the social protocol. UNICE, the European employers' organisation, does not object to the existence of the social protocol. Indeed, according to discussions that I have had with some of its members, it believes that the protocol is positively advantageous because there is a point of contact between them and the other social partners. It is also interesting that a recent conference of the
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European People's Party's heads of government and party leaders commented on the Government's opposition to the social chapter. It stated that it:
"deplores the fact that the British Prime Minister and leader of the British Conservative Party, took a negative position at Maastricht concerning European political union, particularly with regard to a common social policy".
What a position to get this country into. It is not only people such as me and my political allies in Europe who are saying that the Government's position is wrong but every other conservative party in the Community and every other natural ideological ally of the Conservative Party is saying precisely the same thing. I find it difficult to understand why the Government find themselves in this position.
When one goes back to 1961 and looks at the social charter of the Council of Europe one sees that the aims were, if anything, more comprehensive than those set out in the Maastricht Treaty. We accepted that and we signed that treaty. Incidentally, a Conservative government signed the treaty; it was ratified in 1965. In the Treaty of Rome we accepted Community competence in the areas of social policy —and that was done by a Conservative government. In the Single European Act we accepted further competence in the area of social policy—and that was done by a Conservative government. When it comes to Maastricht the policy is suddenly presented as something totally new and utterly unacceptable which will ruin the British economy.
Perhaps I may conclude on this note. If being without the social chapter was so marvellous for the British economy I should have thought by now that we would be the most prosperous country in Europe, we would have the fewest people out of work and the best balance of trade in the European Community. I need not put the comparable figures for the other side of the picture. Our standard of living has fallen to eighth place in the European Community. Our unemployment is the highest; it rose by 65 per cent. between January 1990 and January 1993. Despite Britain having the unique advantages of North Sea oil and gas, only Spain in the European Community has a worse total deficit. That does not say much for opting out of the social protocol. I beg to move.
Lord Rochester: Like the noble Lord, Lord Richard, I have found it difficult to understand why the Government have been so determined not to subscribe to the agreement on social policy reached by the other 11 member states. The Government are rightly concerned about the need to preserve our competitiveness in the face of competition not only from Europe but from the United States, Japan and countries in the Pacific basin. As someone who was employed for many years in a large multinational company, I sympathise with that concern. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Richard, has said, Article 1 of the agreement states specifically that the measures to be implemented should take account of the diverse forms of national practices and the need to maintain the competitiveness of the Community economy. That article could well have been inserted to satisfy the United Kingdom. Much as I dislike some of the Government's recent trade union legislation, there is

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nothing in the agreement which calls for the repeal of that legislation. Article 2—and the noble Lord, Lord Richard, referred to that—excludes specifically pay, the right of association, the right to strike and the right to impose a lock-out.
There is one clause in the agreement which has troubled me; that is, paragraph 3 of Article 2, which gives the Community competence with regard to representation and collective defence of the interests of workers and employers, including co-determination. There is a danger that that provision could give to representatives of employers and trade unions too privileged a position in the legislative process. However, even that clause requires the Council to act unanimously on a proposal from the Commission so that the Government could easily veto any proposal coming forward under that clause if they so wished.
In my view, it is, to say the least, regrettable that instead of continuing to be in a strong position to fight our corner within the Community, Britain has been excluded by the Government from the agreement on social policy. We are now barred by the protocol from taking part in further deliberations on matters covered by the agreement. Therefore, we shall be unable to influence the future development of European policy to ensure that it is suited to conditions in the United Kingdom.
If we wish to join the club later, we shall find ourselves barred by rules which have been framed without our taking a part in framing them. It would be much better if we were to accept the agreement now and I support the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Richard.
Lord Kilmarnock: I, like the Liberal Democrats have preserved a Trappist silence since Second Reading and I am afraid that I must part company with them on this amendment. The A,greement on Social Policy to which the amendment refers and from which we opted out by means of the protocol pledges the other member states to continue along the path laid down in the 1989 Social Charter.
I was initially fairly relaxed about that document. I questioned its rather grand claim to constitute a:
"Draft Community Charter of Fundamental Social Rights".
However, we already do quite a number of things described in that document. In effect, we have a minimum income through our social security system. We have the right to freedom of association and collective bargaining. We afford European Community citizens the right to training and education courses on the same terms as our own people. We have reasonable health and safety regulations. We protect children and adolescents under various Acts of Parliament and so on. In some respects, we are ahead of our fellow member states. We welcome freedom of movement and I agree enthusiastically with Section 4 of the Social Charter, which refers to the elimination of those obstacles constituted by the non-recognition of certain categories of qualification or occupational skills. We have a better record on that than our neighbours. Try setting up as a doctor in France.
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We may fall down on equal pay for equal work by men and women but one wonders what effect that would have on women's employment unless practised sensibly with scales of pay agreed at plant or local level.
The things that we do not do are the daft ones. We do not have a maximum duration of working time per week, which attacks the liberty of the individual and the freedom of contract. We do not have works councils and there is no sign of much demand for them from the Labour Party. There is a present tendency towards smaller production units, where the main hopes for growth lie. Profit-sharing schemes and workers' shares in the company are much more to the point.
When we come to the social agreement to which the amendment refers, we receive slightly confused messages as to what the other 11, without us, have signed up to. On heavy issues such as social security, employment contract and co-determination—which I presume means industrial democracy—unanimity is required. On other matters like equal pay, that is not required. Therefore, overall, I am left with an uneasy feeling that the social agreement to which the Labour Party invites us to subscribe, is backward-looking and smells more of the corporatism of the 1970s than the flexible labour market which the 1990s already demand and indeed impose.
There are other dangers. There have been alarming stories in the press recently about the decline of the EC's share in world trade, about which the noble Lord, Lord Aldington, will know a great deal more than I do. But, if true, then labour costs are likely to lie close to the heart of the matter.
On the employment side the most optimistic forecasts predict 2,700,000 unemployed at the end of the century. Although that is lower in percentage terms than in several Community countries, it is far too high for the health of our public finances and indeed for the health and happiness of the people. Every conceivable effort must be made to reduce that figure. It is far higher than when the committee on unemployment under the chairmanship of the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, started its work in, I believe, 1980, when there was a shock, horror response to 1.5 million unemployed.
The Committee may be interested to know that our long-term element of unemployment, which we so much deplore, is lower as a percentage of the total unemployed than in most of the rest of the Community. The noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, is not present but he suggested in a recent paper that this may be due to the lower costs of hiring and firing in Britain which make it easier for employers to shed labour in hard times and take it on in good times. British workers may therefore be more vulnerable to short-term but less vulnerable to long-term unemployment than our neighbours. Adopting rules which make it more difficult if not impossible to enjoy this flexibility seems to me frankly misguided. Social protection is fine in principle but not so fine when it is protection against employment.
I am in favour of convergence and the main economic indicators set out in the treaty, whether they

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lead to a common currency or not, because they must help towards achieving a more stable economic environment for businesses and trade. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said this in his recent Mansion House speech. I agree with him. However, I am much less in favour of convergence on social policy because that is the area of freedom we at present retain to deal with the results of the globalisation of the market in our own way.
We have a big debate coming up on social security and the welfare state. It is quite wrong in my view that we should surrender any freedom of action in that area to a supranational regulatory body. This is a field in which we have a right and a duty to make our own democratic experiments and grope towards our own solutions—which is what a number of individual states in the United States of America are currently doing.
On all these grounds my earlier relaxed view of the Social Charter as something we could rub along with and live with not too unhappily has hardened into support for the protocol. As I said on Second Reading, it may erode under challenge in the courts but it is worth trying to preserve. I believe it was an important achievement on the part of the Prime Minister.
If the Labour Party presses and wins this amendment, as it well knows, it risks losing the treaty in its entirety. I gather that that is not the policy of the Labour Party. Gesture politics would cost the Labour Party dear. That is no doubt why that party would be supported by the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, and his noble friends, who want precisely that. Unholy alliances have their costs. I shall be helpful to everyone this evening, except perhaps to the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, and his noble friends. If there is a Division I shall vote against the Labour Party's amendment, which it does not in fact seriously want to win —I do not see how it can want that—and I shall enlist as an irregular guerillero in the ranks of the noble Lord, Lord Hesketh, on a temporary basis of course, to assist him in winning a Division he wants and needs to win.
9.15 p.m.
Lord Cockfield: I start with what may be regarded as a purely technical point but I believe there is substance in it. I wonder whether the noble Lord, Lord Richard, has succeeded in drafting his amendment correctly because, if one amends the words of the Bill, one still retains in line 26 of page two the words,
"has come to a Resolution on a motion".
In ordinary English usage one can come to a negative resolution just as well as one can come to a positive resolution. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon, has assured us time and time again that we must not look at the way he has drafted his amendments because he had to draft them the wrong way round to enable him to debate particular points. However, the noble Lord, Lord Richard, is a distinguished lawyer and I should have thought he could at least have got his drafting right. It is not that
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I wish to attack his professional competence, which is of the very highest order; it is simply that if he has his drafting wrong, possibly he has his arguments wrong too.
It was always a matter of enormous relief to me that when I was in Brussels I never had to deal with the question of social policy. That was simply because while I produced the single market programme in six months, it took my colleagues another four years before they produced the Social Charter and by then, by the kind offices of my noble friend Lady Thatcher, I was safely back in the United Kingdom and could shelter behind the barricades. One may have excellent policies but there can, of course, be occasions on which the best of policies can be taken too far.
In this country we have a very long and honourable tradition of social policy, running right through the Factory Acts, to the recognition of trade unions—which was introduced by Disraeli, a Conservative Prime Minister—to the establishment of the welfare state. It was not the Liberal Party of Mr. Lloyd George which invented the welfare state. The welfare state was invented by Otto von Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor of Germany, who was normally regarded as a Right-wing conservative, although I do not know whether he was as Right-wing as my noble friend Lord Pearson of Rannoch.
It was Bismarck who introduced the concept of insurance against unemployment, sickness and old age. He did so on a very valid principle that we ought always to bear in mind. In those days, he faced the growth of communism and socialism. I do not equate the two; I am simply saying how Bismarck saw the situation. He felt that the best defence against socialism and communism was for the state as a whole to look after its citizens in times of difficulty and distress. We then moved that system to the United Kingdom when Mr. Lloyd George was Chancellor of the Exchequer in the early years of the present century.
I said earlier that even the best of policies can be taken too far. Perhaps I may give the Committee a specific example. When I was young and earning a great deal of money. the top rate of tax on earned income was 97.5 per cent.
A noble Lord: It must have been a Labour Government!
Lord Cockfield: No, it was not. That was under a Conservative Government, with Mr. Winston Churchill as Prime Minister. I am sure that not even my noble friend Lord Aldington would regard Mr. Winston Churchill as a socialist or a supporter of the Labour Party.
As time went on, it became recognised in the country generally that rates of taxation of that kind on personal income were insupportable and did great economic damage. It is to the perpetual credit of the Liberal Party that twice it forced the Labour Government to reduce the standard rate of income tax. If one ever wants an argument in favour of a hung Parliament, that is the only one I can think of.
Therefore, however valid, right and proper social policies are, they can be pushed too far. I am very

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sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Richard, did not complete his story of what was happening in Europe because even if one reads the memorandum which was produced by Jacques Delors (for whom I have the utmost admiration and with whom I had a very close and effective working relationship) for the Summit at Copenhagen, one will see the doubts creeping in about the competitiveness of European industry.
Much more importantly, yesterday the ruling Christian Socialist coalition in Germany decided to cut government expenditure by a figure which would rise to 50 billion deutschmarks a year. Being up to date I would have thought that that would have been on the tip of the tongue of the noble Lord, Lord Richard. Not even the British Government have remotely had the courage to cut government expenditure in this country by a figure approaching that level. That has been done because of a recognition that the burden of social security has reached a level that even German industry, with its great competitiveness—and it is highly efficient—can no longer meet the competition it is having to face in the world. In other words, progress on social policy has reached the point where it is imposing a burden that cannot be borne without doing serious economic damage. To me, the only question is whether it would have been better for us to be inside the Community advancing that argument and seeking to get sense; or whether we are better off outside, saying, "A plague upon all your houses. You go your way and we'll go ours".
It is a difficult issue. I do not seek to answer the question. But to me that seems to be the essential issue. It is not a question of defending the present social policy at the barricades. Something has to be done about it; there is no question about that. It is purely a question of what is the best way. In the present difficult circumstances the line that was taken by our own Government may well have been the best line to take, in particular having regard to the vulnerability of British industry. I wish at times that we were a little more honest about our own failings. We have great strengths but we also have failings. Possibly, from time to time we ought to face up to them. We are in a more vulnerable position than many of the countries on the Continent. It may well be that in those circumstances the judgment of the Prime Minister was right.
Lord Ewing of Kirkford: Having listened to the noble Lord, Lord Cockfield, perhaps I may say as kindly and gently as I possibly can that if it was a great relief to the noble Lord during his period of office in Europe that he had no responsibility for social policy, that is absolutely nothing to the great relief of workers and people in this country that he had no such responsibility.
It has been noticeable in the debate that claims that this country should have freedom from the conditions of the social protocol have implied—it has not been stated explicitly—that that is so that our Government may hold down wages and earnings and have the freedom later this year, when a unified budget is 'presented to another place in November, to modify and reduce social benefits. It has never been stated by the Prime Minister or any other Government
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representative or supporter, including the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, that the opt-out was obtained in order to improve the social conditions of the people of this country. The Government talk about the need for flexibility. Their approach to flexibility is totally different from mine. My approach would be that described from the Front Bench by my noble friend Lord Richard. We ought to agree to the social protocol: to work to improve working conditions.; to improve employment prospects; to improve employment levels; and to meet the target of equal pay for equal work between men and women.
How on earth the Prime Minister can claim that to negotiate the opt-out of this country from all those provisions in the negotiations was an outstanding success on his part is beyond belief. Traditionally, a Conservative Government have sought to depress wage costs and other benefits by their unremitting attack on the trade union movement through the various trade union Acts, and amendments to those Acts.
Recently we had the astonishing situation on the trade union Bill where, on Third Reading., a rnajor amendment was introduced which took away further rights from workers. Local authorities were forced to contract out to private companies. Employees of the local authorities would have the choice of going to work for the private company or accepting dismissal.
That is the method that has been used by Conservative Governments since 1979 and which will go on being used in this country until a change of Government. It has nothing to do with the social contract. The CBI talks about the burden that the social contract would place on British industry, but it has failed to produce a single piece of evidence to show that it would do that. It does not happen. In the four or five key elements of employment costs, the United Kingdom has the veto. The elements have to be approved unanimously and therefore our country has the veto.
We are forced firmly to the conclusion that the reason why the Government want flexibility is not in order to meet or better what our 11 partners are doing in Europe but to depress living standards, wages and social benefits in this country because of the mismanagement of the economy over the years.
I wish to respond to two points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock. The whole question of the maximum number of working hours is clearly misunderstood, particularly by the noble Lord. The agreement does not state that working people can only work 48 hours. What it says, and what the Government astonishingly object to is that an employer cannot force an employee to work more than 48 hours in each week. That is totally different from saying that an employee can only work 48 hours.
I have heard it said that there is no demand for works councils. There are some in the United Kingdom, but I regard them as domestic works councils. However, the works councils that are being discussed in the context of this debate and of Europe are those which are set up across the boundaries of member states of the EC. Through them, we may deal with the situation where companies—and this is

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particularly true of American companies—set up plants in different countries in the EC. Hoover is an excellent example: it established a plant in Dijon in the south of France and one in Cambuslang, near Glasgow, in Scotland and played one group of workers off against the other. Both factories have finished up with the worst of all worlds.
The protocol suggests that works councils should be set up across the boundaries of Europe so that workers in all factories can get together and discuss problems relating not only to their plant but also to the company as a whole. It is no great credit to the British Government that they have opted out of the social compact. Recently, the Department of Trade and Industry ran those disgraceful advertisements in Germany where posters published two league tables, one of earnings in this country and the other of earnings in Germany. The tables showed that labour costs through earnings in this country were only about two-thirds of those in Germany. It was meant to be a credit to the United Kingdom, but how insulting!
I point out to the Government that that difference had absolutely nothing to do with the opt-out and the social chapter. The labour cost differential has been there for the past 14 or 15 years but is nothing at all to do with Maastricht. For the Government to try to present that as evidence in support of their position on opt-out is misleading beyond belief. I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, was speaking for all the Cross-Benchers; I am assuming that he only speaks for himself—
Lord Kilmarnock: Perhaps I may ask the noble Lord to give way for a moment—I know that he has not been with us for very long. All Cross-Benchers speak strictly for themselves.
Lord Ewing of Kirkford: I understood that all Members in this Chamber spoke strictly for themselves—at least, that is the impression that I have gained during the debates on this Bill. I hope that what I have said has been able to attract support for the amendment of my noble friend Lord Richard from parts of the Committee other than the Liberal Democrats and the Labour Benches. We would be far from defeating the treaty if it were passed tonight. There is no point in the noble Lords, Lord Cockfield and Lord Kilmarnock, saying to the Labour Party: "If you support the social contract and it is carried by the House tonight, you will wreck the treaty". That is saying that the Prime Minister is prepared to abandon absolutely everything else that we negotiated at Maastricht on this one single point. I do not believe that for a minute, and I do not ask the Committee to believe it either.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: I must say to the noble Lord, Lord Ewing, that during the late 1970s and the early 1980s I was representative of the Scottish local authorities on the Manpower Services Commission, which was responsible at that time for employment services and employment related training. It was a very great struggle to try to improve things at that time. In the late 1970s industry was desperately
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uncompetitive in comparison with our European friends, the United States and Japan. The markets were there, but it was hard to win them. We had what was called "the British disease". Civil servants, as the Committee may well remember, talked of their job being "the orderly management of decline". The conventional wisdom, even in my own political party, was that there would never be so many jobs again, and we must simply accept that.
Then, in 1979, there was a general election and my noble friend Lady Thatcher took over the reins. Before long the Manpower Services Commission was being asked to work to a completely different set of assumptions. I remember one of the trades union representatives on the Manpower Services Commission coming back from a meeting with my noble friend and saying: "Believe me, the parachute brigade has arrived". High employment was not now seen as inevitable. The markets were there. The problem was inflexibility in the labour markets, in our jobcentres and employment services, and in our employment practices and skills. The problem lay in lack of incentive to employ people.
My noble friend and her employment Ministers, to whom I was responsible—first my noble friend Lord Prior and then my noble friend Lord Tebbit—were very determined indeed in their demands upon the commission. We were extremely surprised at their optimism. But it began to work. We saw it on the Manpower Services Commission and, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Ewing, we saw it equally on the Scottish Economic Council, of which I was also a member.
We have come a long way since those days. We have improved our productivity and work practices as well as the energy and enthusiasm of our workforce. A million more women came into the workforce during the 1980s, yet unemployment overall was halved. World recession has been a setback in our markets. But the productivity and potential of our business is there, ready to respond to the markets as they return. More than half those markets are within the European Community.
The social chapter threatens all that. It seems to me that Parliament owes it to our workforce not to reverse what has been so hard won by the workforce and the employers. Were we in any doubt of what the social agreement will mean in that respect, we need look only at the comparative figures for the non-wage employment costs across a number of countries. In Japan and the United States they are 24 per cent. and 27 per cent. respectively of the whole of employment costs. In the United Kingdom—not much worse than those figures now—those costs are 30 per cent. In Germany, France and Italy the figures are 46 per cent., 47 per cent. and 51 per cent. respectively.
The noble Lord, Lord Cockfield, reminded the Committee of what is happening in Germany. There may be changes in that respect. It may well be that there will come a moment when the social agreement changes and we shall be extremely glad to take part in it. It seems to me that at the moment Parliament owes it to the British workforce to opt out of that agreement.
Baroness O'Cathain: I fear that we are in danger of being lulled into believing that the Treaty of Rome, the Single European Act and the Treaty of Maastricht are all one when it comes to the social contract. Certainly the marvellous rhetoric of the noble Lords, Lord Richard and Lord Ewing, made me feel that there is perhaps not much difference between them.
The noble Lord, Lord Richard, went through Article 118 of the Treaty of Rome and Article 118A of the Single European Act. Let me repeat to the Committee the words in the extracts that he read:
"member states agree upon the need to promote … shall act in close contact …shall make studies delivering opinions and arranging consultations …shall consult … shall encourage … encourage improvement".
But the Maastricht Treaty states:
shall adopt by means of directives".
Lord Richard: I am sorry to interrupt the noble Baroness but I am sure that she will not wish to mislead the Committee. I ask her to look, please, at Article 1 of the Maastricht Treaty. It talks about "the promotion of".
Baroness O'Cathain: Yes, but there seems to me to be a measure of coercion in Maastricht. I believe that we are right to opt out in this respect. The other measures "encourage" and "promote" and there is definitely a method which states that it,
"shall adopt by means of directives".
The Maastricht Treaty also says that such directives:
"shall avoid imposing administrative, financial and legal constraints in a way which would hold back the creation and development of small and medium-sized undertakings".
It says nothing at all about large undertakings. It seems to me that the difference between the Treaty of Rome, the Single European Act and the Treaty of Maastricht is that there is compulsion and that there will be discrimination against large organisations. I believe that that is not right. As I pointed out at Second Reading, the imposition of the additional higher social charges, which would be equivalent to the social charges in the mainland European countries at the moment, as the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, said, would impose an enormous burden on our industry and indeed on our major companies.
The noble Lord, Lord Richard, said also that of all the political parties in the European Community, only two did not agree to the social contract; namely, the party of Le Pen and the United Kingdom Conservative Party. That may be true of political parties, but the reality is different with businessmen on the ground. One can find a large measure of agreement between the businessmen in Germany, France, Belgium and in this country in regard to the imposition of social charges and the huge burden which would emanate from the Maastricht Treaty.
At Second Reading I referred to those charges; and in practically every case—certainly in the cases of Germany and France—the figures were over 70 per cent. compared just over 30 per cent. in terms of the United Kingdom. As the noble Lord, Lord Cockfield, said, it is important that we maintain the competitiveness that has been won in such a difficult way over the past few years. British industry is much better that it was. It is winning the markets. Let us not
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do anything that will militate against it. The UK Government have done the right thing in opting out, and I hope that the amendment will not be accepted.
9.45 p.m.
Lord Tebbit: I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady O'Cathain. But she also made another valuable point (perhaps unintentionally) in regard to the progressive nature of the duties which have been imposed with the succession of treaties. We can all assume that the next treaty will go in the same direction.
I should like to say something also which may be helpful to the noble Lord, Lord Richard. I am sure that he does not expect that and will be slightly hesitant when I offer it to him. Contrary to what my noble friend Lord Cockfield said, the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Richard, makes good sense from his point of view. After all, he speaks of two essentials in the debate. First, that he wants the treaty to be ratified; secondly, that if possible the social chapter should be part of it when it is ratified. My feeling is that, at the end of the day, if push came to shove, he would take the treaty without the social protocol rather than lose the treaty. Therefore his amendment is well judged. If he required that the outcome of the Motion concerning the protocol on social policy had to be one which came down against the social policy, he would have lost the social chapter. If the vote came down against the social policy, he would have lost the treaty. Therefore, from his point of view, the amendment is logically constructed.
However, I take a different view. As the Committee will know, I am opposed to the social chapter for the excellent reasons set out by the noble Baroness, Lady O'Cathain, among others. In any case., I am against matters in this sphere being decided outside this Kingdom. Whether or not we should have a 48-hour week should be decided by British people in Britain and not in a forum where we are in a permanent minority. I know that that is not the view of all Members of the Committee. There are many who feel that they have a better chance in that larger forum; that is, they have an instinct that the British people would not do what they wanted and therefore they will look for their will to be imposed on the people of these islands by foreigners.
I take a contrary view, and I have the feeling that in that I would have the support not only of most Members of this House but the overwhelming majority of the people of these islands who are still attached to the idea that they like to pick their own governments and to make their own laws to the maximum possible extent. But I want also to say why I think that the social protocol, as it is in the treaty, is not of any great protection to us in the United Kingdom.
Let me put it this way. If that protocol was not in the treaty, if there were no mention in the treaty of social policy, we would be back to the situation winch was described by the noble Baroness, Lady O'Cathain. Now let us consider the manufacture of widgets in, shall we say, Lyon. Under those circumstances—that is, the circumstances of today —if he finds that he is losing business to a

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manufacturer of widgets in Birmingham, he might feel that the competitive field was not fair and that it was slanted towards Birmingham rather than towards Lyon. But if he were to go to the court and say, "My Government imposes these costs on me which the British Government do not impose on my competitor in Birmingham", I think that the European Court would say, "We have the greatest sympathy with you but that is not a consequence of European law". If the treaty is ratified, even with the protocol, that same widget maker would go to the court and the court would say, "Ah, yes, it is European law which is imposing these costs upon you; European law which applies only to 11 states but nonetheless it is European law. And it is European law that is allowing the field of competition to be sloped against you". Now the court would not say, just like that, "We shall impose the whole of the social chapter", but it would be what I referred to this afternoon as the growing salami—slice, by slice, by slice, until we had got the whole sausage, one judgment after another, on grounds of competition, or perhaps of health and safety, until we had got the lot. So I take the view that we would be better off without that protocol.
I acknowledge that we shall not be able to get it out of the treaty because we have the saga, of which I shall remind the Committee as briefly as I can, of Amendment No. 27 and its successors in the other place. Let me remind the Committee that on 27th January Members in another place were told that, if they enacted Amendment No. 27—the famous Amendment No. 27—which said that the social chapter should not be part of the treaty, two things would happen. First, in doing so they would impose the social chapter on the United Kingdom; and, secondly, they would destroy the treaty by making our treaty different from that signed by the other 11 and that therefore it would require a new round of negotiations.
Enormous pressure was put on Conservative Members of Parliament over that issue at the end of January—all manner of threats were made against them—because it was said to be such a vital issue. It had been explained with great clarity by my right honourable friend the Minister of State, Mr. Garel-Jones, in exactly the way I have described. But on 15th February it had all changed. The Attorney General was produced and my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary appeared. He said that Amendment No. 27 was totally ineffective and that it really did not matter a scrap. Because of the Royal Prerogative, it did not matter what the other place said or indeed what we say; and the Government would ratify, under the Royal Prerogative, the treaty which they signed at Maastricht. Since there was no discordance in British domestic law it did not matter a scrap. Incidentally, Amendment No. 27 would not have the effect of bringing the social chapter to Britain.
That is why we have in the Bill, on page 1, the little note, excepting the social protocol. We are told that it is just a little piece of flummery which does not matter. I shall not go through the whole process, but in
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consequence we also have in the Bill Clause 7 which the noble Lord, Lord Richard, would amend. That clause requires that the Act will not become effective until after there has been a debate on a Motion on the social policy. That has been described by some people as the ticking bomb under the treaty and by others as an issue which does not really matter because it does not matter which way the vote goes as the treaty will be ratified anyway.
I wish to help my friends in government. It seems to me that the debate which is provided for by Clause 7 has some rather severe risks for the Government and that is why they did not want Clause 7 in the Bill. It was not their idea to have this debate; it was forced on them. If Parliament should vote to adopt the Protocol on Social Policy, the Government will have a very nasty problem. What should they do? Should they simply defy Parliament? I believe that to be very difficult indeed. So should they adopt the social chapter and say to our partner countries "We should like a very quick adjustment to the treaty"? I am sure they would agree to that without too much trouble. We shall all then have the social chapter.
I should not like that to happen—nor indeed would the Government. I believe it was this afternoon that I asked my noble friend—the days spent on this debate merge one into the other at times, but it is now almost over—whether she would say that it was a vital British interest to ensure that the social chapter was not imposed on us. She managed to avoid saying that. She escaped by saying "We have arranged it all by having the protocol". But is it a vital interest in the Government's view? If the vote went the wrong way for them, which would they abandon—their commitment to oppose the social protocol and social chapter or their commitment to see this treaty ratified? Which way would they jump? I do not know, and I very much doubt whether my noble friend the Minister will tell us. I should be very surprised if she did.
But I have a way of saving my friends in government from all this potential embarrassment—and that is for them to join me and my friends in voting against Clause 7 standing part of the Bill. That is what the Government wanted in the other place. I have given them the opportunity to achieve it in this place. Whether they join me or not, I shall vote this evening for what they believe in.
10 p.m.
Baroness Williams of Crosby: I was riveted by the discourse of the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit. I was waiting to see just what rabbit would come out of the hat. I am waiting with even more anxiety to hear the Minister's response because the noble Lord asked the 64,000 dollar question, to which we should all like to get a reply. I should add that the debates may all merge, day by day, one into the other, but each one is lightened, coloured and infused by the tenacity and determination of the noble Lord.
I should like to follow the noble Lord on one other point, and to underline something that he said. I believe it is of great significance and that we have talked about it only briefly. I refer to the possible "salami tactics" which he described when the decision

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by the British Government to abandon or move away from the social protocol is tested under competition policy in the European Court. I suspect that the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, was not entirely wrong in believing that under the terms of competition policy it might be extremely difficult to retain the advantages that the Government believe that they will get by opting out of the social chapter. Indeed, it is difficult to believe that the court would not find some elements of that to comprise unfair competition. Such advice as I have been able to take from very expert people in this area suggests that there may be a good deal in what the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, said on that point.
I should like to refer to two other contributions to the debate. I refer first to that made by the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, for whom I have great respect. I should like to underline what the noble Lord, Lord Ewing, said with regard to the misunderstanding about the 48-hour week because it was an important and significant misunderstanding. This House often refers to that particular directive as if it were related to a decision stating that employees could not work more than 48 hours a week. That is not the case. The case is that they cannot be obliged to do so. I should have thought that anybody who declares themselves in favour of the right of individual choice would regard that as upholding, not overriding, individual choice. It must be right that people cannot be compelled to work more than 48 hours a week. To oblige them to do so is a form of abuse that I should have thought that we had put behind us a very long time ago.
Lord Monson: I am grateful to the noble Baroness for giving way. Is it not the case that what she has described applies only until 1999, after which the 48-hour week will he obligatory?
Baroness Williams of Crosby: I believe that is correct. But that is not the point at issue in the present discussion. The argument which I am about to put forward is that as members of the social chapter, we would be in a very strong position to influence that discussion which has not yet in any way been concluded. It is not the case at present that we would be bound in the way in which the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, suggested.
The noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, for whom I have the greatest respect, said another thing which I do not believe to be quite accurate as he put it. He mentioned the advantages enjoyed by states in the United States as a result of being able to operate flexible labour markets. He is not wrong in that respect, except in three ways which are very close to the social chapter. Federal law determines that there shall be a minimum wage payment. Federal law determines that there shall no discrimination between men and women on the grounds of the amount that they are paid for equal work. Federal law determines that there shall be no discrimination against people of ethnic minorities on the grounds of the pay or conditions for which they work and to which they are subject. Those three sweeping provisions do, I think, go quite a long way to cast doubt on the claims for
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flexibility in the United States that the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, made. In that context he specifically referred to equal pay.
I should now like to spend a few moments on the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Cockfield. I have the greatest admiration for the noble Lord. I have always found him a consistent and logical arguer and thinker in every context. He arid I worked together for many years. However, for once, I have to say that I did not find his argument convincing. As the noble Lord, Lord Richard, pointed out, both the original Treaty of Rome and the Single European Act made specific reference to health and safety, working conditions, equal pay and other social provisions. To all of those the noble Lord, Lord Cockfield, was in one sense or another party, either as a Commissioner or as a member of Her Majesty's Government. Therefore, we have to ask ourselves why he now regards the social protocol as something in respect of which we should stay outside. However, I felt that his argument was very finely balanced.
Perhaps I may press the noble Lord for just a moment. The argument that he has consistently put forward is that the United Kingdom should attempt to influence the European Community from inside and that that is the proper place for it. He has advanced that argument in this Chamber and in other places time and again in respect of the position and the active involvement of the United Kingdom. However, that suddenly comes to a stop with regard to the social chapter. I do not understand why.
The noble Lord, Lord Richard, pointed to many of the provisions in the social chapter which go a long way to meet the interests of the United Kingdom. However, there are two declarations to which he did not have time to refer, one of which makes it plain that those provisions shall be minimal and that they shall have full regard to the needs of small and medium-sized industries. Time and again in the chapter reference is made to flexibility, to the need for there to be a response to the needs of small companies and, in many other ways, the whole provision of the social chapter is expressed in extraordinarily moderate terms. If the noble Lord, Lord Cockfield, is right—he may well be—that we are now about to enter a major discussion of the social costs that any modern economy can bear, then surely it is better that we should be inside the Community to debate such issues and not outside.
It is by no means clear that the greatest economic advantages invariably go for one side of the argument about ideology. Perhaps I may give the Committee just two instances. The noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy of Lour, referred to unemployment. I do not think that she was quite right in suggesting that it had been halved since 1979—at least, that is not my impression of the statistics. However, there is one respect in which, undoubtedly, the Community countries of the Continent have a major advantage over this country. Perhaps I may take the examples of France and Germany. In both cases, the levels of youth unemployment compared to the general levels of unemployment are very much closer than they are in the United Kingdom. That is not because of what is

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called "flexible labour policy"; it is because the Federal Republic of Germany and the other countries of the Continent have had worked-out and detailed apprenticeship policies which mean that the great bulk of young people in those countries are trained in a way that they are not in this country. That is a major advantage for those countries which believe in social policy.
Before I conclude, I shall refer to another instance. There is one area in which the United Kingdom has shown an immense level of social efficiency compared to most other countries. The National Health Service costs just over 6 per cent. of gross national product. The health services of the United States cost just over 13 per cent. of GNP; that is, more than twice as large a proportion of GNP, although 32 million American citizens are not even covered.
I simply wish to point out once again that the United Kingdom could make a major contribution to the discussion on social policy. There are steps that we have taken which would assist us in keeping public expenditure down without doing it at a cost to the most disadvantaged people in our society. I believe that we are right to believe that we should remain members of the Community and of the social chapter. I believe that we should have great reason to want to be part of a discussion which the noble Lord, Lord Cockfield, believes will take place and that we have much to contribute to that discussion.
Lord Eatwell: A number of references have been made to the likely impact of the social protocol on the competitiveness of the Community and the UK. We have heard today of the impact of the heavy social costs in France and Germany on the competitiveness of those countries. Since the share of world trade of France and Germany have stayed the same or increased since 1979, where the share of world trade of the UK has fallen, it seems to me that the impact of those social costs has not obviously inhibited their competitiveness vis-à-vis the UK.
The real reason why there is a discussion about the issue of competitiveness and why at the Copenhagen Summit, referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Cockfield, there was a degree of nervousness about European competitiveness is, to paraphrase a famous document, that there is a fear stalking Europe. It is the fear of the Pacific rim countries and the competitiveness of the European Community as a whole vis-à-vis the Pacific rim. That fear is being used as the pretext for the dismantling of social provision in this country and in other European countries; looking backwards at the gains that have been made and looking forwards with respect to resisting the implications of the social protocol.
I wish to refer specifically to the argument that the social protocol will result in a loss of competitiveness for the EC as a whole. Perhaps I may say as an aside that even if that is true —and for reasons which I shall sketch out I do not accept that argument—the impact on Community competitiveness of the common agricultural policy, which the Government accept, is vastly greater than any impact there might be of the social protocol.
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I turn to the question of competitiveness and the role of the wage costs in competitiveness. Let us suppose that the technology used in Europe is the same as the technology used in the Pacific rim where wage costs are lower. One might expect that because wage costs are lower the prices are lower and that those countries are more competitive. That is true at any given exchange rate but it is not true when the exchange rate can adjust between Europe and the Pacific rim to balance the competitiveness which derives from different wages. That is exactly what has happened during the past 100 years as industrialisation has spread from one region of the world to another.
The real issue in the difference in competitiveness between ourselves and the Pacific rim countries is not wage costs but the fact that in many cases their techniques are superior. It is not the price of Japanese cars which ensures their competitiveness but the quality. It is not the price of video recorders which ensures Japanese dominance of the market but the fact that they are the only producers of video recorders. In particular, it is not the wage costs involved in Korean steel—wage costs are an extremely small proportion of the total cost—that have allowed the Koreans to steal markets from the US, but the quality of the steel that is produced. We have, therefore, the fear of the competitiveness of the Pacific rim. We should focus not on wage costs but on technique and skill. Investment in the labour force is a vital ingredient of technological superiority.
I suggest that the social protocol is a simple measure designed to protect individuals, yes, but especially to give them a stake in the system and to create a framework within which a high quality labour force can be developed.
As the noble Lord, Lord Cockfield, pointed out, in a period of change Bismarck saw how important it was to give the labour force a stake in the system. In providing that stake the social protocol is an assistance to competitiveness and not a barrier. It encourages the commitment of the labour force to technological change; it encourages the labour force to invest in itself; and it encourages change and progress. The social protocol can be part of a competitive recovery for Europe. It is not a threat to that competitiveness.
10.15 p.m.
Lord Harris of High Cross: Taking part in a debate at this hour recalls the schoolboy joke about the noble Lord who dreamed that he was making a speech in the House of Lords and woke up to find that he was. I have not partaken of any discussion in this Chamber at this hour and it is impossible to do justice to the many issues that have been raised.
I recall the winning way in which the noble Lord, Lord Richard, introduced these amendments. He described them as trivial, trifling matters in the Treaty of Rome, the Social Charter and successive statements which should not trouble us. He asked why the Government should oppose them? The exact reverse question is: why should we be so concerned about them if they are so trivial? I have the answer. I hesitate

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to deploy it because it may provoke the noble Lord, Lord Cockfield, into a further instructive disquisition. However, the answer that I have, I have from him.
At an earlier stage in the debate the noble Lord, rather uncharacteristically, harshly chastised the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher. He said that she had caused all the trouble by signing the Stuttgart Declaration in 1983. He went through that declaration and remarked on how radical the noble Baroness had been to have assented to what is described as a "solemn declaration". He listed the great statements of the vision of a united Europe, social progress, political and monetary union and so on. He said that the noble Baroness should have understood that 1983 sealed our fate. I am paraphrasing his words. The noble Lord is part of the Euro-mafia which sees those matters more amiably than some of us can manage to do.
The noble Lord said that Maastricht was quite trivial and he asked what all the fuss was about. He kept extraordinarily calm, as he usually does. He said that it is merely dotting i's and crossing t's and that it does not amount to anything. The noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, explained how Ministers often find documents in their boxes and they occasionally initial them without understanding fully what has been placed before them by their civil servants. However, the fact is—and this explains the often uncharacteristic depth of feeling that has now divided friend from friend in this wretched debate—that we have watched the story unfold since Stuttgart and before. We have seen the devious and slippery ways in which the Commission has taken advantage of certain words, terms and expressions in order progressively to create the sausages that the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, keeps waving about.
From very general expressions about improving working conditions and developing and promoting various matters and so on, we get down to detail about hours of work, conditions of part-time working and all of that. We will shortly approach the proposal of a uniform European bedtime. That would be fair. We should have a level playing field. We should all pack up at the same time and not leave these industrious Germans and Italians to go on through the night.
The proponents of Maastricht really must understand that we are not merely tilting at these particular proposals, but we are full of fear and foreboding about the progressive, accelerating speed of development. Some Member of the Committee on the Government's side of the Chamber talked about the change in the mood at the Copenhagen summit which enabled our Prime Minister to return home without having been battered and bullied as the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, had been in the past. But still our man is isolated. He is still in a minority of one. The noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, lost her job for being in a minority of one. It was said her bat was being broken. 'Who is breaking Mr. Major's bat, because he is still in a minority of one? The difficulty is that there is a totally conflicting vision not merely about Europe and the future but about the nature of competition and the nature of a market.
I only have time to touch on a couple of points
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because I do not see how anyone can get past the position of the noble Baroness, Lady O'Cathain, that social costs, non-wage employment costs, on her figures, are double in Germany and France what they are in this country. We are discussing labour costs per unit of output, other things being equal. The noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, referred to employment., investment, technology and training. Those latter aspects may be of help in some period ahead but here and now we are faced with loading those costs on to our production and we are not in a position to bear those costs and as the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, said, we do not want that kind of decision to be made in a foreign land.
I have rehearsed my final thought many times and I wonder whether everyone will break into a respectful silence and say "Hear, hear". The greatest vehicle in history for the transformation of standards of living has not even been technology; it has been trade and commerce. Trade and commerce are the means by which all other contributors to efficiency and progress are transmitted around the world more quickly through competition and all the rest of it. Trade and commerce are the ways in which we can achieve these objectives of the social chapter and the Social Charter. The noble Lord, Lord Richard, referred to improved working conditions and higher standards of living. However, all he can think of is that the Government must achieve those aims and the Government must enforce better conditions. He believes the Government must take more power to do that.
The noble Lord, Lord Ewing, believes that standards of living are still on the edge of indigent poverty, but they have risen through the market. The market after all is not such a remarkable thing, it is people who have sought to benefit their own position and in the process have benefited the position of others. If we have a vote and it is held at a reasonable hour, I hope that we shall absolutely reject this nonsense from the noble Lord.
Earl Russell: The noble Lord, Lord Harris of High Cross, has a wonderful gift for exaggeration. He said it was so late at night he felt he was addressing the Chamber in his sleep. I must tell the noble Lord he has seen nothing yet. He has not taken part in the debates on the Education Bill. The latest time at which I have addressed this Chamber is twenty to nine in the morning. I am extremely glad not to be beating that record on this Bill.
I shall not deal with the noble Lord's other exaggerations, as it would take too long. I support this amendment and I support the social chapter with the same reservations as my noble friend Lord Rochester. It is not a perfect social chapter. In this world very few things are. However, we believe that it is much better to support it than not to do so.
I listened with great care to the very impressive speech of the noble Lord, Lord Cockfield. Listening to it, I was reminded of a story my father told of standing on the watershed between the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi. He said that it was flat ground so far as the eye could see, yet the water that fell on his left boot ran into the Gulf of Mexico and the water that fell on his right boot ran into the North Atlantic. The noble

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Lord, Lord Cockfield, and I are very close indeed, but the water that falls on the boot of the noble Lord, Lord Cockfield, will run into the Not-Content Lobby and the water that falls on my boot will fall into the Content Lobby.
There are arguments both of pragmatism and of principle. To me, one of the most important arguments is I believe, that we should accept existing treaty obligations. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Richard, in his reading of Articles 117, 118a and 118b. I listened with great care to the noble Baroness, Lady O'Cathain. If the Committee will forgive a repetition, I was reminded of a passage from the Renton Report on the drafting of legislation, which I quoted in the Chamber yesterday, describing with the noble Lord's usual clarity the differences between the methods of British and European legislation. The noble Lord said that the key in understanding European legislation is to establish the intent. When one has the intent, the rest follows in explanation, clarification and interpretation. The intent of harmonisation is expressed in the Treaty of Rome. When I ask the Committee to accept that, I am not asking the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, to accept any foreign law. I am asking him to accept the European Communities Act 1972 as passed by this Parliament.
There is the further obligation that under the general principle of the Single European Act we are bound to equal competition, in which there is a social dimension. The 48-hour directive comes under the health and safety provisions of the Single European Act. I accept that the Government have a doubt whether it properly belongs under the health and safety provisions. I ask the noble Baroness the Minister only one question on this. When the European Court comes to give judgment on this matter, will the Government undertake to accept the judgment of that court and to implement it?
I am surprised that it should cause so much concern whether the length of hours of work can properly come within health and safety. I had thought that that principle had been established when this Parliament passed the 10 hours Act in 1847. Exactly the same speeches were made then about the appalling burden on business costs and the disastrous consequences that would follow. But so far as I can see, they did not.
Under the principle of the single market, there has to be equal competition. I share, as does my noble friend Lady Williams of Crosby, the doubts of the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, about what the European Court will do when asked to consider our position in the light of the doctrine of equal competition. I shall not use the phrase "level playing field". I cannot see how a party led by my right honourable friend the Member for Yeovil can possibly do that. I remember Yeovil Town's sloping pitch. I shall say that the whole of the single market rests on the principle of equal competition. I cannot see how we can accept that without accepting the social dimension in some form or other.
It is argued that the key point is acceptance that we compete within the global economy, and that we face competition from the Pacific rim and from other
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countries. That argument is true. But I shall also ask noble Lords opposite to agree that in accepting that argument as true we do not have to accept it as the end of the matter. It is not the only argument to be taken into account. I take the point that the noble Lord, Lord Cockfield, made about the need not to go too far in developing social policy. That is a powerful point. But it applies equally to the need not to go too far in the policy on which the Government have embarked of cutting labour costs.
We have said that we live in a global economy. In that global economy there has to be demand or there are no markets and there is no employment. The image that used to be used regularly a few years ago of the locomotive pulling the world economy has some force in it. If we take the power out of the locomotive, it does not matter how many cattle wagons we tie on at the back; the train will not move.
I believe, too, that attempting to lower one's social costs below those of one's competitors in the end becomes a form of protectionism. It is then open to all the objections which are usually made against protectionism: in effect, that it therefore reduces the total bulk of world trade; and that it therefore reduces the total size of the cake which we have to divide up. It is an argument which the Conservative Party has found familiar. I should like to ask the party to consider the argument in the circumstances.
I was very glad that the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, said what he did about competition. Competition is not only in terms of price. Free marketeers much too easily think that it is. Competition is also in terms of quality. If we consider quality, I shall not at this time of night go into the question of trade. I shall only say that what my noble friend Lady Seear has "told us three times is true". Costs do not involve wage costs only. We have to think about health costs. My noble friend Lady Williams reminded us of that. Forcing wages down so that people may become ill may generate extra costs. Forcing them down so that people become dependent on benefits again may generate costs; and because those costs fall on the taxpayer they fall on all of us. That includes business.
I am very far from convinced that wage costs are the only costs that we have to take into account, or even necessarily that they are the biggest factor. In any case, we have accepted the principle already and we could not get out of it if we wished to do so.
10.30 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Worcester: I am sorry that no one from these Benches has contributed anything during two days of great debate. Even at this eleventh hour I wish to speak. I cannot possibly represent the Church of England; no one man could do that. I am relieved that we are not expected to express any view other than our own.
The Earl of Onslow: That is subsidiarity.
The Lord Bishop of Worcester: Subsidiarity is a theological term.
When I attended the Committee this week I thought that I would vote against the amendment. First, I actually wish to see the bus moving. It is only

911
when the vehicle moves that one is able to find out whether the gears work and one can then steer it. One cannot steer a stationary vehicle. Furthermore, I believe that we are European; we should be in Europe. We have fought many battles on the soil of Europe in the past. Now we have to fight them, not with cold steel, but with ideas, with battles of the mind, even with moral battles. Therefore I wanted to see this legislation go through.
Secondly, I was of the opinion, when Maastricht was first spoken of, that many of the Eleven voted for the social chapter without thinking about it. I have no interest in anyone voting for something merely for the sake of it and then ignoring it. Furthermore, I do not take a great deal of notice of anyone who says to me: "You've got to vote for this, all the others are doing so". That would be to do the right thing for the wrong reason. I also heeded the warning that, if we put up our social costs, we should be uncompetitive and British industry, which is at present going through a fragile and vulnerable emergence from the recession, would be knocked.
However, I am now of the opinion that, if this Chamber and the Government were to accept the social chapter, that would not involve a major re-run of the debate in Europe. I believe it would be accepted gladly and we should be able to go forward. Further, if other nations have voted for it mindlessly, without looking into it, how better to bring them to a further consideration of the social issues than by being there ourselves, involved in the debate, on all fours with the others?
There will be many debates and negotiations in the years ahead. There is no way in which we can work together in Europe as I believe we should, though in an uncertain world we have a common culture, a common faith and, to a certain extent, a common experience of democratic institutions. That is something which we might well preserve for the world. Let us be there to help do that. There will be minute particulars of which we must take account. I do not believe that accepting the social chapter will set matters in concrete. There are bound to be meetings and proper compromises.
Then there is the question of whether we can afford it. I go along with those who say, "There is not only one kind of cost". On every management course to which I go—and I go to quite a few—there is much talk of the importance in a company or institution of the good feeling, the achievement of participation and commitment among the members of that company or institution. Here I repeat, possibly as many times as the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, repeated a phrase which I had not heard before, self-interest often dictates that which justice demands. There is no way that we can rebuild the economic prowess and success—
Lord Vinson: Will the right reverend Prelate give way? I am sure he is deeply concerned about unemployment, but does he realise that a 10 per cent. increase on productivity costs could possibly, taking the nation as a whole, put another 100,000 people out
912
of work? That would be the penalty for adopting the social chapter at the moment. Would that concern him?
The Lord Bishop of Worcester: I was glad to give way. Of course that concerns me, but I do not believe that we can rebuild an economy on cheap and under-rewarded labour. I agree with the noble Earl, Lord Russell, that the cost of that might be too great in trying to achieve success in the competitive markets.
With those thoughts in this fascinating debate, I conclude that not to pass the amendment would be to suggest all the wrong things, give all the wrong signals, and to indicate a curmudgeonly approach to the whole participation in Europe which I believe lies with the future.
Baroness Seear: I shall be very brief at this time of night; but I want to make one or two points that arise out of the issues which have been raised, and mention some points which have not been adequately raised, although the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, touched on the issues which I believe are of primary consideration.
There is no doubt that countries of the European Community, including our own, will be up against very tough competition in the global economy of which we are now part. The competition will get tougher. The noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, implied that it had very little to do with labour costs. That is only partially true, as I believe the noble Lord knows. He must know that many companies nowadays send a great deal of their less skilled work overseas because the labour costs are lower. That is not something that we can afford to ignore. Europe will find it very difficult to hold its own.
The growth rates in China only last year were 12 per cent. in GNP. When that great country takes off, the competition that it will present to Europe as a whole will be enormously difficult to meet. That means that there must be very drastic economic cha:nges in all the European countries if we are to meet that competition.
I argued in favour of, and not against, the social policy. If one is to make drastic economic changes of the order that will be required, one will get acceptance for them only if the people who are involved in those changes—it will mean people having to change their jobs, losing their jobs and retraining for new jobs—see that for them there is something in the changes. If one is able to offer them social policies and policies of retraining on a very large scale, and if they can see that those policies offer hope and a future, then they will accept drastic economic changes.
We have not yet begun to contemplate the scale of the changes that will be necessary. Therefore we need good social policies, ones which will convince the people who will be affected that it is worth their while to go through all the pain of change in order to get advantage in the longer run.
We may ask whether those social policies will be the same as we are talking about at the present time. I believe it may well be that we shall have to allocate the resources that we have for those changes in rather different directions from those that we have taken in the past.

913
I went a very long way with what the noble Lord, Lord Cockfield, had to say. The noble Lord knows a great deal about the matter and his argument was very convincing. But at one point towards the end I completely part company from him. If these changes are to be effective, they have to be carried out on the basis of the Community working together. Of course the changes will be drastic. It is essential that we should be there taking part in the formulation of the new types of social policy that will be needed to meet the new economic challenges.
Noble Lords: Hear, hear.
10.45 p.m.
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: Amendment No. 428, put down by the Labour Front Bench, as we know, seeks to amend Clause 7 of the Bill—the clause which my noble friend Lord Tebbit would like to see be deleted from the Bill. We accept that clause is the result of a new clause put forward by the Opposition during the Committee stage in another place. We shall come in a few moments to the questions that the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, asked.
It was the requirement to consider the question of adopting the protocol on social policy that requires us to come to a resolution on a Motion before the Act enters into force. The reason that the Government accepted that new clause was not that we were afraid to debate the issues. We are debating them now, and we shall debate them again. We are confident that a majority in both Chambers favours Britain's opt-out from the social agreement. If we joined it, the social agreement would do a number of very serious things. It would transfer more power from Westminster to Brussels. I believe that it would price British workers out of jobs, as the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, intimated, and it would make Europe as a whole less competitive. If there were no reasons other than those three, they would be the grounds on which we should have our opt-out from the social agreement. It will do nothing to help solve the unemployment to which many noble Lords pointed on Second Reading as one of the greatest challenges facing Europe.
The Labour amendment would require a government Minister to table a Motion abandoning the opt-out. We have no intention of doing so. It is already open to the Opposition to table an amendment to the Motion that the Government put forward under Section 7 (as it would be post Royal Assent) as it currently stands. I understand that a Labour spokesman in another place made it quite clear that they intended to do that.
The United Kingdom's opt-out contained in the social protocol is in any case an integral part of the treaty. That treaty has already been ratified by 10 of our partners. An amendment of this kind has no place in the Bill because it tries to prejudge future negotiations not consequential upon the present treaty. It is therefore outside the purpose of the Bill as stated in the Long Title, which may well be why similar amendments tabled in another place were not selected for debate. The change should not be made.
914
Clause 7 already gives both Houses of Parliament the opportunity to debate the social protocol. I am sure that we shall be doing that before long.
Perhaps I may say to my noble friend Lord Tebbit, who has notified the Committee of his intention to oppose the Motion that Clause 7 stand part of the Bill, that as it stands Clause 7 is a commencement provision. Instead of coming into force the day that the Bill receives Royal Assent, it is to come into force only when each House of Parliament has come to a resolution on a Motion considering the question of adopting the protocol on social policy. As I said, the Government accepted the clause because they recognised that the other place wanted to hold a further debate on the social protocol. They are therefore prepared to see the inclusion of this clause in the Bill.
I turn to what my noble friend Lord Tebbit called his 64,000 dollar question. He asked whether the social chapter opt-out was vital in the national interest. I remind him that at Maastricht my right honourable friend the Prime Minister took the view that we could not sign up to the social chapter that the other 11 members wanted.
My noble friend asked what the Government would do after the Clause 7 votes. Was opting out of the social chapter a vital national interest? I have to tell him that the Government are confident that there is a majority in both Chambers in favour of our opt-out, as I said a few moments ago. Therefore, the question that he posed does not arise. I shall not speculate, as he tried to tempt me to do, about his wrecking tactics.
I should like to turn to some of the many excellent contributions made in the debate. But perhaps I should deal with the proposer of Amendment No. 428 before I deal with anyone else. I give way to my noble friend.
Lord Tebbit: I am grateful to my noble friend for giving way. I am at a slight loss to understand quite how a proposition to do in this Chamber what the Government wanted to do in the other place, but ran away from doing because they did not believe that they could carry the vote, would be an act of wrecking. It would be an act of kindness—not wrecking.
Baroness Chalker of Wallasey: My noble friend sorely tempts me to enter into a wider debate with him, but because of the lateness of the hour I shall not do so. However, there will surely come a time when my noble friend might get rather more than he bargained for.
In proposing the amendment the noble Lord, Lord Richard, quoted extensively from the social agreement. However. I noticed that he did not mention Articles 3 and 4. He also asked me a number of questions. The agreement of the 11 to the social agreement allows for a wide range of legislation in social affairs by qualified majority voting. That is contained in Article 4, to which he did not refer. The potential cost of that may be substantial, as was pointed out by the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, and the noble Baroness, Lady O'Cathain.

915
It is impossible to predict what proposals are likely to come forward under that agreement, but perhaps I can take some of the potentials. The following is merely an illustrative list of a few improvements in particular of the working environment to protect workers' health and safety. That provision goes beyond the limits of minimum standards for health and safety of workers to include, perhaps, facilities for the welfare of workers. The working conditions go into working patterns, minimum paid annual leave, parental leave and special leave. They continue into atypical work, pro rata access to all terms and conditions of employment for part-time, temporary and fixed term workers.
It is easy enough to ask, as the noble Lord, Lord Richard, did: are we against good working conditions'? But there are matters, as many Members of the Committee have said tonight, that should be decided at national level. European-level agreements in areas such as these social areas are likely to put up our labour costs and increase labour market inflexibility. That means, as my noble friend Lord Vinson said in his interjection, putting people out of work. We already know that Europe's competitiveness is declining against the United States and the Far East. The last thing we should do—and that was the point of the debate at the Copenhagen summit—is to accelerate the process. That would be not only thoroughly unwise, but it would set a pattern which I do not believe the Community, for all its sensible policies (of which there are many), would be able to arrest.
The noble Lord, Lord Richard, asked also how the United Kingdom would be able to participate in the EC social affairs activity. I can tell him. We will continue to participate in the activity in the social field under the Treaty of Rome. We remain committed to a sensible policy in this area; for example, a sensible policy in the area of health and safety. And we expect the Commission to continue to bring forward proposals for legislation by the 12. But the social agreement allows the 11 to go further, if they so choose, on a qualified majority voting basis.
We agreed to the 11 using the institutions of the Community when they discuss the measures brought forward under the agreement between the 11. It will be obvious whether or not a measure is being brought forward under the Treaty of Rome in which we are involved, or under the agreement in which we are not, because the measure would say so. It would cite as its legal base an article of the agreement of the 11, if that is what it came under, rather than an article of the treaty.
The noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, said that the protocol might not stand up to challenge but it is still better than nothing. I took a note rather quickly, but I think those were his words. I have no reason to think that the protocol will not be effective. But I agree with him that even if it proved not to be a complete shield, the protocol would be worth having. As my noble friend the Foreign Secretary put it in another place: just because a burglar may climb over your fence, that is no reason to open your gate to him.
916
The noble Baroness, Lady O'Cathain, referred to the concerns of business about excessive social legislation. I shall never forget that when I was a Member of another place the trade unionists in one of my local factories came to me and begged me to fight against the social protocol because of what it would do to their work and their opportunities for working. That is the story one hears when one talks in simple straightforward terms about the social. protocol to workforce after workforce. This Government's decision has been wholeheartedly supported by the CBI throughout British industry. The President of UNICE, Mr. Carlos Ferrer, referred to the working time directive along with the other social policy measures currently before the Council. He said:
"It seems very wrong—especially al a time of high unemployment—to be pressing forward with such measures which will destroy jobs and bring virtually no benefits in return".
He went on to call for some negative action. It was an appeal from the heart, on behalf of the millions of companies which UNICE represents. He said we should,
"stop taking measures which unnecessarily destroy jobs".
He went on to list those. He said that it was time the truth were told about the directive—the directive which disregards subsidiarity; the "top-down" measure from Brussels for rigid application in the four corners of Europe. He noted that it took no account whatever of the views of companies nor of existing practice. He said that it would not improve information and consultation of workers; rather, it would damage existing systems. He said that, above all, it would reduce competitiveness by seriously delaying the freedom of companies to take vital decisions in good time.
There is much more that one can say cif this. But the most important question is: are we doing what is right for growth in this country and employment in this country? Were we to accept the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Richard, we would not do so.
The noble Earl, Lord Russell, winding up for the. Liberal Democrats, used the phrase, "In legislation, intent is all". That is not so. It makes a great difference what legislative powers are given to carry out that intent. That is exactly why the Prime Minister chose to draw the dividing line and say that this is a protocol we cannot accept.
We have had a long debate. The hour is late. Clause 7 as it stands will provide the opportunity for both Houses of Parliament to hold another debate and vote on these issues. At the same time Amendment No. 428 would only serve to cause unnecessary complication. In fact, it would do us no good in our obligation to this nation, which is not only to get people back to work as quickly as possible but to make sure that vie do not put unnecessary barriers in the face of people seeking to provide employment as well as those who want it. If the amendment is pressed to a vote, I urge the Committee to reject it because it is in the best interests of Britain that it should be so rejected.
Lord Richard: I shall be extremely brief at this hour of the night. I wish to make but three points. Perhaps I may say to the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker, that her representation of the social chapter was a travesty

917
of the wording of the treaty and that her flesh-creeping as to how it would come out was overdrawn, exaggerated and inaccurate.
I wish to take up two points on the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady O'Cathain. She chided me with the fact that I had not quoted part of the Treaty of Maastricht and she said that the wording in Maastricht was worse than the wording in the Treaty of Rome. I have to tell her that she is wrong. I do not want to spend a lot of time going through it tonight but perhaps she would be kind enough, in the still wee hours of the night when we are all sitting up poring over our Maastricht Treaty at three in the morning because we cannot sleep for worrying about the effects of the social charter on production costs in the United Kingdom, to look at the wording that she quoted and compare it with the equivalent in the Treaty of Rome. She will find that not only are they virtually identical, but that Maastricht is actually weaker than the Treaty of Rome. In that treaty it says that the Council "shall" produce directives, but in the Maastricht Treaty it states that the Council "may".
There is one major difference in which Maastricht is actually a step back from the position contained in the Treaty of Rome. It is not a step back which I particularly enjoy, but since we are being textual about this—as we should be about these very important treaties—we should get them right.
Secondly, the noble Baroness, Lady O'Cathain, talked about the non-wage costs. The figures that she gave prompted me at least to ask one question: if our non-wage costs are so much better than those of Germany, why is Germany doing so much better than we are?
Noble Lords: They are not!
Lord Richard: Over the past 25 to 30 years and under successive administrations, is it seriously being argued that the German economic performance has not been better than ours? Could it be—
The Earl of Onslow: Will the noble Lord give way?
Lord Richard: No. We should come to a conclusion on this debate. Could it be perhaps that the Germans have a better trained and more highly skilled workforce than we have; that they have greater technological investment in their industrial processes and that they have perhaps a better informed and better consulted workforce? Dare one say in this Chamber that perhaps they might even have better management?
The last point I wish to make concerns the noble Lord, Lord Cockfield. He made a speech in which he marginally came down in favour of the opt-out. That seemed to run counter to almost everything else that he has said in relation to this treaty. His theme, and that of many other noble Lords in this Chamber who have been in favour of it, has been that if one wants to influence the way in which the Community is moving one has to be involved in the discussions which are taking place. On the one issue alone where that is
918
focused; namely, in the social chapter, the noble Lord feels that perhaps the Government are marginally right to persist in their opt-out.
I say to the noble Lord, Lord Cockfield, that he put his argument with great skill, but his conclusion lacked the conviction that his conclusions usually have. We have come to the end of this debate and I do not propose to take up any more time on it. The issue is simple: do we want this country to sign the social chapter and participate in European social policy or do we not? For our part and that of the party which I represent in this Chamber, we want this country to participate in the formation of European social policy.
11.2 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 428) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 63; Not-Contents, 129.

Division No. 1

CONTENTS

Archer of Sandwell, L.

Mclntosh of Haringey, L.

Ardwick, L.

Mallalieu, B.

Barnett, L.

Merlyn-Rees, L.

Blackstone, B.

Milner of Leeds, L.

Blease, L.

Monkswell, L.

Brooks of Tremorfa, L.

Morris of Castle Morris, L. [Teller.]

Carmichael of Kelvingrove, L.

Carter, L.

Murray of Epping Forest, L.

Castle of Blackburn, B.

Nicol, B.

Cledwyn of Penrhos, L.

Peston, L.

Clinton-Davis, L.

Pitt of Hampstead, L.

David, B.

Plant of Highfield, L.

Dean of Beswick, L.

Rea, L.

Desai, L.

Richard, L.

Dormand of Easington, L.

Rochester, L.

Eatwell, L.

Rodgers of Quarry Bank, L.

Ewing of Kirkford, L.

Russell, E.

Gallacher, L.

Seear, B.

Gladwyn, L.

Sefton of Garston, L.

Graham of Edmonton, L. [Teller.]

Serota, B.

Shackleton, L.

Gregson, L.

Shepherd, L.

Healey, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Hollick, L.

Taylor of Blackburn, L.

Hollis of Heigham, B.

Tordoff, L.

Howell, L.

Turner of Camden, B.

Howie of Troon, L.

Varley, L.

Hylton, L.

Williams of Crosby, B.

Jay, L.

Williams of Elvel, L.

Judd, L.

Williams of Mostyn, L.

Longford, E.

Winchilsea and Nottingham,

Lovell-Davis, L.

Worcester, Bp.

McCarthy, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Aberdare, L.

Bruntisfield, L.

Ackner, L.

Burton, L.

Aldington, L.

Butterworth, L.

Alexander of Weedon, L.

Caithness, E.

Annaly, L.

Campbell of Alloway, L.

Archer of Weston-Super-Mare, L.

Campbell of Croy, L.

Carnegy of Lour, B.

Arran, E.

Carr of Hadley, L.

Astor, V.

Chalker of Wallasey, B.

Astor of Hever, L.

Clanwilliam, E.

Attlee, E.

Clark of Kempston, L

Barber, L.

Cockfield, L.

Belstead, L.

Coleraine, L.

Blatch, B.

Colnbrook, L.

Blyth, L.

Colville of Culross, V.

Brabazon of Tara, L.

Cranborne, V.

Braine of Wheatley, L.

Crickhowell, L.

Brightman, L.

Cumberlege, B.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Darcy (de Knayth), B.

919

Denham, L.

Murton of Lindisfarne, L.

Denton of Wakefield, B.

O'Cathain, B.

Dudley, E.

Oppenheim-Barnes, B.

Elles, B.

Orr-Ewing, L.

Elliott of Morpeth, L.

Oxfuird, V.

Elton, L.

Park of Monmouth, B.

Faithfull, B.

Pender, L.

Ferrers, E.

Perry of Southwark, B.

Flather, B.

Platt of Writtle, B.

Foley. L.

Plumb, L.

Fraser of Carmyllie, L.

Prentice, L.

Gardner of Parkes, B.

Prior, L.

Gilmour of Craigmillar, L.

Pym, L.

Gisborough, L.

Raglan, L.

Goschen, V.

Reay, L.

Hacking, L.

Rennell, L.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L.

Renton, L.

Rippon of Hexham, L.

Harmar-Nicholls, L.

Rodger of Earlsferry, L.

Harmsworth, L.

St. Davids, V.

Hayhoe, L.

Seccombe, B.

Henley, L.

Selborne, E.

Hesketh, L.[Teller.]

Sharples, B.

Hives, L.

Sherfield, L.

HolmPatrick, L.

Simon of Glaisdale, L.

Hooper, B.

Skelmersdale, L.

Howe, E.

Slynn of Hadley, L.

Howe of Aberavon, L

Stewartby, L.

Jellicoe, E.

Stodart of Leaston, L.

Johnston of Rockport, L.

Strathclyde, L.

Kilmarnock, L.

Strathmore and Kinghome, E. [Teller.]

Kimball, L.

Kintore, E.

Swinton, E.

Lawrence, L.

Thatcher, B.

Long, V.

Thomas of Gwydir, L.

Lucas, L.

Trefgarne, L.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Trumpington, B.

McColl of Dulwich, L.

Ullswater, V.

Mackay of Ardbrecknish, L.

Vinson, L.

Mackay of Clashfern, L. [Lord Chancellor.]

Wakeham, L. [Lord Privy Seal.]

Macleod of Borve, B.

Waverley, V.

Mancroft, L.

Weatherill, L.

Marlesford, L.

Whitelaw, V.

Masham of Ilton, B.

Wise, L.

Monk Bretton, L.

Wolfson, L.

Montgomery of Alamcin, V.

Wynford, L.

Mottistone, L.

Young, B.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
11.11 p.m.
On Question, Whether Clause 7 shall stand part of the Bill?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 156; Not-Contents,16.

Division No. 2

CONTENTS

Aberdare, L.

Bruntisfield, L.

Ackner, L.

Burton, L.

Addington, L.

Butterworth, L.

Aldington, L.

Caithness, E.

Alexander of Weedon, L.

Campbell of Alloway, L

Annaly, L.

Campbell of Croy, L.

Ardwick, L.

Carnegy of Lour, B.

Arran, E.

Carr of Hadley, L.

Astor, V.

Carter, L.

Astor of Hever, L.

Chalker of Wallasey, B.

Attlee, E.

Clanwilliam, E.

Barber, L.

Clark of Kempston, L

Belstead, L.

Cledwyn of Penrhos, L.

Blackstone, B.

Clinton-Davis, L.

Blatch, B.

Cockfield, L.

Blyth. L.

Coleraine, L.

Brabazon of Tara, L.

Colnbrook, L.

Braine of Wheatley, L.

Colville of Culross, V.

Brightman, L.

Cranborne, V.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Crickhowell, L.

920

Cumberlege, B.

Mottistone, L.

Darcy (de Knayth), B.

Murton of Lindisfarne, L.

David, B.

Nicol, B.

Dean of Beswick, L.

O'Cathain, B.

Denham, L.

Oppenheim-Barnes, B.

Denton of Wakefield, B.

Orr-Ewing, L.

Desai, L.

Oxfuird, V.

Dormand of Easington, L.

Park of Monmouth, B.

Dudley, E.

Pender, L.

Eatwell, L.

Perry of Southwark, B.

Elles, B.

Peston, L.

Elliott of Morpeth, L.

Pitt of Hampstead, L

Elton, L.

Platt of Writtle, B.

Faithfull, B.

Plumb, L.

Ferrers, E.

Prentice, L.

Flather, B.

Prior, L.

Foley, L.

Pym, L.

Fraser of Carmyllie, L.

Reay, L.

Gardner of Parkes, B.

Rennell, L.

Gilmour of Craigmillar, L.

Renton, L.

Gisborough, L.

Richard, L.

Goschen, V.

Rippon of Hexham, L.

Graham of Edmonton, L.

Rochester, L.

Hacking, L.

Rodger of Earlsferry, L.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L.

Rodgers of Quarry Bank, L.

Russell, E.

Harmsworth, L.

St. Davids, V.

Hayhoe, L.

Seccombe, B.

Henley, L.

Seear, B.

Hesketh, L. [Teller.]

Selborne, E.

Hollick, L.

Sharpies, B.

Hollis of Heigham, B.

Sherfield, L.

HolmPatrick, L.

Simon of Glaisdale, L.

Hooper, B.

Slynn of Hadley L.

Howe, E.

Stewartby, L.

Howe of Aberavon, L.

Stodart of Leaston, L.

Howell, L.

Strathclyde, L.

Howie of Troon, L.

Strathmore and Kinghorne, E. [Teller.]

Hylton, L.

Jellicoe, E.

Swinton, E.

Johnston of Rockport, L.

Taylor of Blackburn, L.

Kilmarnock, L.

Thatcher, B.

Kimball, L.

Thomas of Gwydir, L.

Lawrence, L.

Thomas of Swynnerton, L.

Long, V.

Tordoff, L.

Lovell-Davis, L.

Trefgarne, L.

Lucas, L.

Trumpington B.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Turner of Camden, B.

McColl of Dulwich, L.

Ullswater, V.

Mclntosh of Haringey, L.

Wakeham, L. [Lord Privy Seal.]

Mackay of Ardbrecknish, L.

Mackay of Clashfern, L. [Lord Chancellor.]

Waverley, V.

Weatherill, L.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Whitelaw, V.

Mancroft, L.

Williams of Crosby, B.

Marlesford, L.

Winchilsea and Nottingham, E.

Masham of Ilton, B.

Wise, L.

Monk Bretton, L.

Wolfson, L.

Montgomery of Alamein, V.

Wynford, L.

Morris of Castle Morris, L.

Young, B.

NOT-CONTENTS

Belhaven and Stenton, L.

Onslow, E.

Beloff, L.

Pearson of Rannoch, L.

Bruce of Donington, L. [Teller.]

Skelmersdale, L.

Stoddart of Swindon, L.

Hamilton of Dalzell, L.

Swinfen, L. [Teller.]

Hardinge of Penshurst, L.

Tebbit, L.

Harris of High Cross, L.

Vinson, L.

Monson, L.

Willoughby de Broke, L.

Morris, L.

Resolved in the affirmative, and Clause 7 agreed to accordingly.
[Amendments Nos. 429 and 430 not moved.]
Clause 8 agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported without amendment.

Pension Schemes (Northern Ireland) Bill [H.L.]
Reported from the Joint Committee with amendments and recommitted to a Committee of the Whole House.
Health Service Commissioners Bill [H.L.]
Reported from the Joint Committee without amendment and recommitted to a Committee of the Whole House.

Probation Service Bill [H.L.]
Reported from the Joint Committee with amendments and recommitted to a Committee of the Whole House.
House adjourned at twenty-one minutes past eleven o'clock.