Lords Sitting of 14 May 1998

Preamble
The House met at three of the clock: The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Carlisle.

Smoking in Public Places
Lord Janner of Braunstoneasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they will introduce legislation to ban smoking in restaurants and other eating places.
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Baroness Jay of Paddington): My Lords, as my noble friend may be aware, the Government will set out their plans to tackle smoking in a forthcoming Tobacco Control White Paper. This will include provisions on public places. The White Paper will build on yesterday's important vote by the European Parliament to ban tobacco advertising and sponsorship by EC directive. However, the Government are also aware that in the case of public places there is considerable scope to build on the voluntary progress which has been made over recent years.
Lord Janner of Braunstone: My Lords, does not my noble friend agree that adults should continue to have the freedom to endanger, damage or destroy their health through smoking if they wish, but that there is a matching freedom for those of us who do not smoke not to have our health endangered by those who do? Does she not agree that it is especially important that steps be taken—in the way that has been done in some parts of the United States—to ban or at least to limit smoking in public restaurants and other eating places, or to confine it to specified areas, preferably out of doors?
Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, I certainly agree with the first part of my noble friend's question and his remarks about the difference between children and adults being exposed to smoking. The House may welcome the fact—I am sure the business managers will—that the Government do not seek unnecessarily to legislate when we can achieve our ends through other means. There has been a great change in recent years in attitudes to smoking in public places. This has meant that many places such as workplaces, public transport, theatres and restaurants have become smoke free without changes in the law. We are encouraged by the extent to which these measures have been effective, but we shall keep the situation closely under review.
Lord Marsh: My Lords, the noble Baroness mentioned the excellent decision yesterday of the European Parliament. Will she confirm that this means that the European Union will no longer continue to subsidise tobacco growing at public expense?
Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, as I am sure the noble Lord is aware, that comes under another remit
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of the European Community. As I said, we have taken great steps to ban tobacco advertising. Perhaps the European Community will see the logic of the noble Lord's suggestion.
The Earl of Lauderdale: My Lords, will the Government's White Paper include hints on how to give up smoking for those who are addicted to it?
Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, the Government's forthcoming White Paper is very much directed at those 70 per cent. of smokers who say that they would prefer to give up.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords—
Lord Mason of Barnsley: My Lords—
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, I am happy to give way to a smoker.
Lord Mason of Barnsley: My Lords, I thank my noble friend. Is my noble friend the Minister aware that I understand that the Government's position on this issue of smoking in workplaces is one of self-regulation and not the intolerant imposition implied by my noble friend? Is she not aware that the Health and Safety Executive has suggested that the best course is the voluntary approach in order to avoid friction in the workplace?
Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, as I said in my original reply, we have been encouraged by the effective action which has been taken on a voluntary basis in relation to public places. I draw noble Lords' attention to the voluntary understanding which has been recently agreed in another place that there should be no smoking at all in the other place's Library.
Viscount Long: My Lords, does the noble Baroness agree that if there is one thing worse than smoking it is chewing gum?
Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, I am not sure what the noble Viscount is suggesting. Is he suggesting that we should legislate on chewing gum?
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the riskiest thing people can do in restaurants and eating places is to eat? Is it not a fact that thousands and thousands of people suffer from food poisoning after eating in such establishments due to infection from, for example, E.coli, salmonella, listeria—you name it, it is there—and worst of all due to infection contracted from human faeces of staff who handle food, go to the lavatory and do not wash their hands afterwards? In restaurants there is a far greater risk from eating than from passive smoking.
Finally, will the noble Baroness join with me in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Grade, on reaching the age of 91 and having a photograph taken with a great cigar in his mouth, and enjoying it, after 91 years of life?
Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, I am always ready to congratulate people who reach those extremely great ages, and who I am sure will lead active lives until perhaps 100.

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Perhaps I may add to my noble friend's extremely gloomy catalogue of risks that one runs in restaurants. The Scientific Committee on Tobacco and Health recently published a report on passive smoking. It stated that there is a 20 to 30 per cent. increased risk of lung cancer for those who had exposure to smoking; and that there is a clear increased risk of heart disease. Those are two factors that we should guard against in restaurants.
Lord Harris of High Cross: My Lords, perhaps I may ask a question on behalf of 15 million current British smokers. I must declare an interest as chairman of the leading European smokers' rights organisation. Fifteen million smokers represent a larger constituency than that which voted Labour—was it last year; it seems rather longer ago—in 1997.
Am I right in congratulating the Government on the fact that in their pursuit of inclusive policies they have now declared an intention to turn away from divisive legislative remedies and instead to support, for as far ahead as one wishes to look, the more mutually accommodating programmes of voluntary choice between smoking and non-smoking areas?
Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, I am glad that the noble Lord accepts that the European directive on tobacco advertising is non-divisive. I am grateful for his support.
The White Paper on tobacco control in its wider context will be published before the Summer Recess. The Government recognise that a large number of people in this country are addicted to nicotine. It has never been our policy that we shall ban tobacco.

Algeria: UN Human Rights Commission Visits
3.14 p.m.
Lord Aveburyasked Her Majesty's Government:
What steps they are taking to persuade the government of Algeria to accept visits from the United Nations Commission on Human Rights special rapporteurs on summary, arbitrary and extrajudicial executions and on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean): My Lords, we maintain a broad-based dialogue with Algeria at both political and senior official levels. This process offers the best chance of contributing to an improvement in the situation there. In our regular contacts, we encourage the Algerians to fulfil the obligations of UN human rights mechanisms, of which a visit by special rapporteurs would form an important element. We are disappointed that they have not yet done so.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, is the Minister aware that we welcome the forthright statement made at the
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Commission by Ambassador Audrey Glover on behalf of the European Union, in particular the statement on 22nd April under agenda item 3 on the necessity of compliance with United Nations mechanisms directed at Algeria? What happens if a state persists in its defiance of the United Nations and permanently declines to comply with the requests for visits by rapporteurs?
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, as the noble Lord knows, as EU president, we co-ordinated its discussions within the UNCHR to try to promote rapporteur visits to Algeria. We regret that that was not agreed with the Algerians. The EU's disappointment was made clear in a statement delivered at the UNCHR in Geneva on 22nd April. As that statement made clear, the EU will be watching closely developments in Algeria to ensure that there is progress. It will consider its position carefully at the UN General Assembly and the 1999 UN Commission on Human Rights if there has been no progress. We shall continue to raise this with the Algerians.
There is a way for special rapporteurs to compile reports without visiting the countries. Perhaps that is the point to which the noble Lord refers. Special rapporteurs can draw on that information. But direct information is more valuable than second-hand reports.
Lord Hylton: My Lords, do the severe loss of life, possibly the greatest in recent years in any single country, and the refugee flows coming from Algeria, indicate that there is an interest in all outside powers achieving non-violence within Algeria?
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: Yes, my Lords; I could not agree more. There must be that interest. I think we have all heard with increasing horror the reports of the violence. I remind noble Lords that the EU troika mission went to Algeria earlier this year, as did a group of MEPs. Our ambassador in Algeria has made a point of keeping us informed of what is happening and of looking at the sites of the alleged massacres. We continue to keep a close eye on what is happening.
Earl Russell: My Lords, will Her Majesty's Government enter into consultations with other governments about how far policies which send large numbers of refugees, often destitute, into territories of other countries, should properly be regarded as internal affairs within the meaning of Article 2 of the UN Charter?
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, the point that the noble Earl raises does not apply solely to the problems in Algeria. We could cite similar problems. The example of Burma springs to mind. The noble Earl raises an interesting point. I shall consult my colleagues responsible for policy on these issues and write to him after I have done so.
Lord Rea: My Lords, the Minister made the point that UN rapporteurs should be able to conduct inquiries from outside Algeria, or other countries, if those

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countries refuse an entry. Will Her Majesty's Government suggest that United Nations rapporteurs do that?
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, at present we are continuing to encourage the Algerians to change their mind. There seems to be a very strong view in Algeria, not merely confined to the governing party. When I met a group of Algerian women MPs earlier this year, it was not only those from the governing party but from opposition parties, too, who were very hostile to the idea of the UN rapporteurs. The matter must be pursued in the ways that I have described in answering the noble Lord, Lord Avebury. However, the noble Lord is right to return to my other point; namely, it is possible to do this without visiting the country. However, I think that we would all agree that the best way to do so at present is by visiting Algeria.
Lord Moynihan: My Lords, what is the Minister's response to the accusation of Amnesty International that the international community has failed to take action to break the cycle of violence in Algeria; and to its criticism of the United Kingdom—not least in its presidency of the European Union—for failing to table a specific new resolution on Algeria calling for the appointment of the UN special rapporteur at the recent annual meeting of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights?
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, those criticisms were not very fair at all, given the stance that the United Kingdom has taken, particularly during its presidency: my honourable friend Mr. Fatchett has led the troika mission; we have not only kept in touch, but have received regular reports from our ambassador, on which I have reported previously to this House; and we have encouraged groups of MEPs to visit that country. I mentioned the visit from the Algerian women MPs. A group of MPs from the United Kingdom will visit Algeria later this year. We hope that, through that sort of dialogue, we shall persuade the Algerians that a UN rapporteur is necessary in their country.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware that, of the women MPs who came to this country, those from the opposition side took a different line when they were away from their colleagues on the government Benches in relation to the visit by UN rapporteurs. Does she agree that there has to be a time-limit within which Algeria must comply with this process; and that it would be a good idea if the inquiry by the special rapporteurs from outside the country, which I was pleased to hear the Minister mention, could be initiated at some point in the future if an invitation has not been given by the Algerian Government at that date?
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I am extremely interested in the noble Lord's remark about the women MPs and their reactions when they were away from the others. There was, I know, one
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woman MP who did not agree with her colleagues. If there were more, I should be grateful to receive further information from the noble Lord. The noble Lord asked whether, if that does not work, we shall return to the idea of UN rapporteurs from sources outside that country? We really do want to pursue with the Algerians the idea of getting rapporteurs into the country. The problem with the noble Lord's suggestion is that, were we to go down that path, we should almost certainly sell the pass about not getting rapporteurs into Algeria. I can see the noble Lord nodding, I hope in agreement.

Teachers: Capability Procedures
3.23 p.m.
Baroness Blatchasked Her Majesty's Government:
How many incompetent teachers have been dismissed under the fast-track system introduced by the Government in 1997.
Lord Whitty: My Lords, my honourable friend the Minister for School Standards wrote to the chair of the National Employers' Organisation for School Teachers on 31st October last year to ask him to take the necessary steps to put in place the outline capability procedures drawn up by an ACAS working group, and to monitor implementation and report back to the Minister by the end of October 1998. The necessary steps for implementation are: review by each local education authority of the procedures that they recommend to schools followed, where necessary, by adoption by schools of new procedures which are consistent with the outline capability procedure. The national employers' organisation will therefore report on progress at the end of autumn.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, so the answer is "none". If and when an education action zone is established in areas where education is deemed to be failing—which is the rationale for the policy—will the education action forum have the power, if it is deemed necessary, to dismiss a teacher or teachers who are failing, using either the normal or the fast-track procedure?
Lord Whitty: My Lords, the answer is not, "No"; it is that these procedures have yet to be adopted, and we shall receive a report in October. As regards action zones, procedure agreements operate between local education authorities or governing bodies. Those will remain the employers in most cases. The fast track will be part of the normal procedure, and that procedure is with the governing body or the local education authority.
Lord Rotherwick: My Lords, will the Minister clarify a point that I do not quite understand? Is the fast-track procedure now actually occurring, or will it not occur until October?
Lord Whitty: My Lords, the local education authorities have to adopt separately the so-called fast-track procedure. The procedure is often represented

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as the four weeks' dismissal. It would apply in very limited cases, in extreme circumstances relating to the incapability of a teacher. The general approach is that a dismissal procedure should be completed within two terms; at present, it may take several stages and, in some cases, several years. Those procedures are in the process of being introduced, local authority by local authority and governing body by governing body. We shall have the full report on the process in October.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, my question was: who will have the power in the case of a teacher failing? When the education action zones are set up, will the power reside with the education action forum, or not?
Lord Whitty: My Lords, the position of the education action forum in those circumstances will be almost equivalent to that of the local education authority. But in many cases the governing body will be the employer. Therefore the procedure rests with the employer in the first instance.
Lord Gisborough: My Lords, how many local authorities have not adopted the procedure and therefore will not be able to comply by October?
Lord Whitty: My Lords, my understanding is that virtually all local authorities have now adopted the procedure. Negotiations are taking place with the local teacher unions. Virtually all bodies will have adopted the procedure within a very short time.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, is there any appeal procedure under the fast track in relation to dismissal for incompetence? If so, how does one establish the competence of those who judge competence?
Lord Whitty: My Lords, the existing procedures, and all procedures throughout industry, have means of judging incompetence, subject to a fair assessment by the person accused of incompetence. The point of the fast-track procedure is that in extreme circumstances teachers can be dismissed within four weeks from the beginning of a process to the end, but that in a normal assessment of incompetence no longer than two terms would elapse, whereas at present that period can be two or more years.
Baroness Maddock: My Lords, how will that process interact with the setting up of a professional body for teachers; namely, the general teaching council, under the Teaching and Higher Education Bill?
Lord Whitty: My Lords, the GTC will have no direct role, but clearly its advice on how to nurture the competence of teachers will be relevant.
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Suggestions for changes in the procedure may well be taken into account at a later date. At present no direct role is envisaged for the GTC.
The Earl of Lauderdale: My Lords, how are members of the educational forum to be appointed in the first place?
Lord Whitty: My Lords, if the noble Earl refers to education action zone fora, that matter is covered by the school standards Bill before the House. The noble Baroness shakes her head. It is included in a clause that we shall, I hope, debate reasonably shortly. The education action zone forum will consist of representatives of the schools within the forum and members from local business and other interested bodies, including in most cases the local education authority.

Sierra Leone: Sandline International
3.29 p.m.
Lord Roberts of Conwyasked Her Majesty's Government:
What reply they have given to the letter to the Foreign Secretary, dated 24th April, from S.J. Berwin & Co., solicitors to Sandline International regarding Sandline's involvement in Sierra Leone.
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, the exchange of correspondence referred to was in confidence. However, as S. J. Berwin have released their letter I can inform the House that a reply went from the Permanent Under-Secretary at the FCO on 1st May saying that the enforcement of UK trade restrictions imposed under UN sanctions orders is primarily a matter for the Commissioners of Customs and Excise, and that their investigation staff were aware of the matters outlined. He also pointed out that the FCO would co-operate fully with Customs.
Lord Roberts of Conwy: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that frank and open reply. I hope that a copy of the letter will be placed in the Library. Can the Minister explain to me why the Foreign Secretary regards this episode as a serious matter and cause for an inquiry or investigation, whereas the Prime Minister regards it all as an "overblown hoo-ha"? Is there a contradiction of attitudes there?
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: No, my Lords, there is no contradiction at all. I shall explain why to the House. First, I shall ensure that a copy of the letter goes into the Library of the House. We all regard this issue as a serious matter. The Prime Minister made that very clear when he spoke earlier this week. He made it very clear indeed that the alleged breaking of UN sanctions was something that the Government could never condone. In that he was supporting my right honourable friend who, throughout all this, has made his position very clear as well. I think what my right honourable friend the Prime Minister was referring to

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was perhaps what he described later as "the press hype" surrounding the issue. It is a serious matter, it needs to be treated seriously and it needs us all not to get too over-excited about it.
Viscount Waverley: My Lords, has Parliament lost sight of the essence of the problem and the practical reality? Have we forgotten that a murderous regime, unanimously condemned by the Commonwealth, the OAU and the United Nations, has been brought to an end, that the arms were probably always destined for ECOMOG and were therefore not in defiance of the UN resolution and that we should now be encouraging a transparent trial of the perpetrators?
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, of course I agree. What is important now is the future of Sierra Leone. On his return to Freetown, President Kabbah spoke of the need for reconciliation and the need to establish a broad-based government. We and others will continue to support President Kabbah and his government to implement such policies and to enable all Sierra Leoneans to participate in building a peaceful democratic future.
Lord Dormand of Easington: My Lords, since the Statement on Monday there have been press reports of a letter sent to the Prime Minister from President Kabbah. Without prejudice to the investigations which my noble friend mentioned, can she say whether the letter sheds any light on the situation?
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I think my noble friend is referring to President Kabbah's letter which made it clear that his government were told by my right honourable friend the Minister of State at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Edinburgh that we would provide diplomatic and other support to him, but that HMG could not provide arms.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, on the subject of President Kabbah's letter, would the Minister care to comment on the defamatory allegations made by President Kabbah against certain individuals in this country and the fact that copies of the letter were circulated by the Press Office in Downing Street?
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I am pleased to be able to confirm the Prime Minister's spokesman's briefing, which made clear that Her Majesty's Government could not associate with some parts of the letter, including the part to which the noble Lord referred. I can confirm that the Government do
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not associate themselves with that letter nor with the defamatory comments about the noble Lord or any other person mentioned in that context.
Lord Moynihan: My Lords, can the Minister say whether three days before Customs officers raided Sandline on Friday 3rd April, Tony Lloyd, the relevant Foreign Office Minister, was in fact in Sierra Leone?
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I regret to say that I am unsighted on that issue. I shall write to the noble Lord on it.
Baroness Williams of Crosby: My Lords, this side!
Lord Ewing of Kirkford: This side, Shirley, you will need to behave yourself! My Lords, will my noble friend accept my warm and sincere congratulations on the speed with which the Foreign and Commonwealth Office replied to the letter referred to in the Question? Seven days after the letter was received, the company received a reply. The noble Lord who tabled the Question is a very good friend of mine. He was a Minister in the Welsh Office in the last government. If you wrote to the Welsh Office at that time, you were lucky if you received a reply in seven weeks, let alone seven days!
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his compliments, which I shall pass on to the Foreign Office where I know they will be gratefully received.
Baroness Williams of Crosby: My Lords, I apologise for trespassing on the excellent question posed by the noble Lord, Lord Ewing. I wish to ask the noble Baroness one question about the wider implications of the relationship between the Foreign Office and Sandline. It arose earlier in Papua New Guinea when the High Commission was used by the director of Sandline for a press conference. It has arisen again over Sierra Leone. Will the noble Baroness ask her office to look closely at the relationship and ensure that it is in every way consonant with the Foreign Office's responsibilities?
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: Yes, my Lords, I can do that. I am unable to tell the noble Baroness whether the wider considerations to which she drew our attention will be within the terms of reference of the investigation which my right honourable friend has already announced. But I shall ensure that my right honourable friend is aware of the noble Baroness's suggestion.
Lord Hylton: My Lords, do the Government agree that the recent controversy indicates a real need to regulate mercenary companies? Will they do so within this country and seek mechanisms for international approval of mercenary operations?
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I am aware of that suggestion and many others which are coming forward at the moment. However, it would

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be sensible for us to await the outcome of the Customs and Excise investigation and then to look at what has really gone on in the Foreign Office as regards the issue with the investigation initiated by my right honourable friend. Then we should seek to draw sensible conclusions about this matter and others which have been alluded to.

Business
Lord Carter: My Lords, at a convenient moment after 3.30 p.m., my noble friend Lady Symons of Vernham Dean will, with the leave of the House, repeat a Statement that is to be made in another place on India: Nuclear Tests. I would like to take this opportunity to remind the House that the Companion indicates that discussion should be confined to brief comments and questions for clarification.

European Communities (Amendment) Bill
3.37 p.m.
Lord Whitty: My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill be now further considered on Report.
Moved, That the Bill be further considered on Report.—(Lord Whitty.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Lord Moynihanmoved Amendment No. 8:
After Clause 1, insert the following new clause—
QUOTA-HOPPING
(". This Act shall come into force only when each House of Parliament has come to a resolution on a motion tabled by a Minister of the Crown considering the legal protection for British fishermen afforded by the Treaty of Amsterdam on the issue of quota-hopping.").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this new clause returns to the issue of quota-hopping. Quota-hopping remains an area which, when measured against an index of tangible benefits secured for British people and British fishing communities, the Government's negotiation in parallel with the treaty negotiations at Amsterdam is found wanting.
The problem of quota-hopping was raised in our debate on Amsterdam last July. It was raised again at Second Reading of the Bill. It was again raised in Committee. It is raised today on Report because, despite all those previous debates, we still have yet to hear why the Government did not secure the deal at Amsterdam that they promised they would on behalf of British fishermen.
The Prime Minister told another place [Official Report, Commons, 18/6/97; col. 320.]:
"real progress…on the problem of quota hoppers"
was made at Amsterdam, thereby claiming to fulfil his promise to get the
"right changes to fishing policy in the British interest".
However, in the face of sustained criticism of his deal, not least from fishermen, even the Prime Minister admitted that it would be a "foolish illusion" and
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"wrong to suggest that" his deal solved the whole problem. The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, continued this low-key approach in Committee when he described the deal as
"small … in the face of the problem.—[Official Report, 28/4/98; col. 271]
That is a far cry from the tub-thumping vigorous pursuit of British fishing interests promised in opposition.
Noble Lords will remember Elliot Morley MP, the Opposition spokesman, who said, referring to Tony Baldry,
"The Minister said that it [quota-hopping] will be pursued vigorously at the IGC and we support that approach".
In Committee, the Minister skirted the issue of why the Government's gear-change on British fishing interests has shifted down from overdrive to reverse. He did the best he could—for that we are grateful—to present the Government's deal as a success, but yet again he saved up all his energy to attempt to reflect on the performance of the previous government, as he saw it, and to use the tactics of righteous rhetoric to conceal the present Government's failure.
The noble Lord spoke scathingly of "pre-election posturing". In the light of the Government's so-called deal at Amsterdam, the Prime Minister—then the Leader of the Opposition—must also be guilty of such pre-election posturing for he told the country,
"we certainly have not ruled out holding up IGC business in order to get the right changes to fishing policy in the British interest … where Britain's interests are at stake, we are perfectly prepared to be isolated. Of course we are".
Given the promises before Amsterdam, attempting to justify their failure on quota-hopping on the biased basis of the previous Government's record is a cheap trick to play on British fishermen whose livelihood depends on those promises.
I spent some time in Committee setting out the previous government's policy and the tough and consistent line on quota-hopping which was contained in a 10-point package, all of which was widely publicised as our agenda for Amsterdam and debated during Committee. But this new clause is not about the previous government; it is not about waging the election again. A year has passed since the election and the Government must stand up and explain why they did not achieve what they said they would achieve rather than weakly trying to pass the buck and insisting that they did their best in difficult circumstances. That was not what the Government promised.
The Prime Minister said that he would hold up IGC business if he did not obtain a deal on fishing. He said that he was prepared to be isolated in Europe if he did not obtain a deal on fishing. But he obtained no deal and his innate fear of isolation proved too much for him. The interests of British fishing communities were coldly discarded. The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, confirmed that when he said that the Government dropped the previous administration's proposed protocol to the treaty because there was no support for it among our European partners—not because the Government disagreed with the protocol, but because no other member state supported it.

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The protocol sought to deal with the quota-hopping problem once and for all by entrenching the condition that UK quotas must provide an economic benefit to UK fishing communities and not to fishing interests in other member states—and this is crucial—in a legally binding protocol attached to the treaty (something to which I shall return). However, the noble Lord dismissed the significance of that proposal for a legally-binding protocol. He went on to justify the Government's junking of it by implying that the previous government had not attached the same weight to its importance in Europe as they had at home. His logic for that assertion was that when the issue of the draft protocol was raised with the German Foreign Secretary, Herr Kinkel, prior to the Amsterdam negotiations, Herr Kinkel looked "totally blank".
The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, spoke with confidence since that information was on the good authority of the Foreign Secretary. Never mind that in June 1996 my noble friend Lady Trumpington told this House that the Government had already,
"notified the IGC, the Commission and other member states that [they] would be tabling proposals to deal with the problem of quota hopping … [in] the form of a protocol to the treaty which recognises that national quotas allocated under the common fisheries policy are intended for the benefit of national fishing communities and that, notwithstanding the treaty, individual member states may adopt appropriate measures which ensure that there are real economic links between their fishing communities and the vessels which fish their quotas".—[Official Report, 17/6/96; col. 82.]
Never mind that that protocol was tabled at the IGC back in 1996. Never mind the fact that the problem of quota-hopping has hardly been a low profile issue in European affairs, the resolution of which underpinned the previous government's negotiating stance during the very IGC process that the Treaty of Amsterdam concluded. It does seem somewhat unlikely therefore that the German Foreign Secretary would have been unaware of a protocol on this issue tabled by the United Kingdom the previous summer.
The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, claimed that, because the protocol was not supported, the previous government would have left Amsterdam empty-handed. It is easy to make such a claim in hindsight. The fact remains that the resolution of the problem was a key priority for the previous government. Crucially, the previous government's 10-point package sought to ensure that the quota-hopper problem was dealt with once and for all so that UK quotas provide an economic benefit to UK fishing communities, not to fishing interests in other member states.
The previous government intended to go to Amsterdam to achieve a solution, and that potentially included pressure to amend the Treaty of Rome if the problem could not be resolved within the framework of the existing treaty and the CFP. If treaty changes proved to be necessary, the previous government pledged that they would seek them. Of course I accept that we will never know what would have happened. The noble Lord may be right to say that we were outnumbered 14 to one and that we might not have made much progress. But the previous government had been in that situation before and successfully negotiated for British interests.
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So much for being prepared to hold up IGC business; so much for being prepared to be isolated in Europe; so much for the interests of British fishermen.
Let us look at the deal that the Government obtained, for if it represented real progress on restoring 20 per cent. of our national fishing capacity, the Government are to be congratulated. The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, said that the deal, though small, is of benefit to the fishing communities. If so, why have fishing organisations repeatedly criticised the deal? The chief executive of the National Federation of Fishermen's Organisations described it as a "hopelessly inadequate fudge". But the noble Lord had an answer for that too. He said that if the fishing industry did not like the deal—he doubted that it would—then yet again the previous government were to blame.
Despite the Government's fresh approach to Europe; despite their new and constructive partnership with all the other member states listening to Britain's voice with rapt respect; despite this lush landscape of harmonious relationships with the European Union, it is a sad state of affairs that this is the most constructive method that the Government can come up with to defend their record. As we heard in Committee, the fabled deal consists of the Prime Minister's exchange of correspondence with the former President of the Commission—the "Dear Tony" and "Dear Jacques" exchange of letters.
The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, told us that the President of the Commission's letter was an "important step forward". It,
"records explicitly the Commission's interpretation of how a member state may within the rules of the single market establish an economic link between the fishing activity and fishing communities and make that a condition of licence or access to quotas".
He said that meant that "we should"—tense and use of the auxiliary verb "should" is essential here—
"now be able to specify and enforce the economic links and establish rules which will ensure that the benefits flow to our fishing communities".—[Official Report, 28/4/98; col. 272.]
He added that the Government expected the Commission to respond to the proposals currently under preparation to implement the economic-link licence conditions.
I need to press the Minister on that and ask him what legal advice he has taken on the Government's proposals for economic relationships to be written into the licences? What legal advice has the Ministry sought to ensure that, as soon as the economic relationship requirements are written into a UK licence, the Spanish do not immediately refer the matter to the European Court? If that happens, the potential solution to quota-hopping—it is only a piece of paper at the moment—could be set back for three years.
Have the Government had any bilateral discussions with Spain and received assurance from that country that it, for one, will not challenge us on these proposals? If the solution is set back in the European Court, how can we rely on the assurance given to the House by the Minister for Transport when he was in Opposition that there would be no further reduction in fishing capacity or effort in this country until the matter was resolved?

1181
Most important, can the Minister tell this House whether the letter from the President of the Commission has any legal authority and exactly how the provisions set out in that letter differ from the previous arrangements on quota-hopping?
The letter of condolence from the President of the Commission is no more than a piece of paper which restates the existing situation confirming Britain's rights to issue licences requiring 50 per cent. of fish caught against the UK quota to be landed in British ports, unless the noble Lord can guarantee that in a legal challenge from Spain, which incidentally, Spain has won four court rulings defending its rights to buy access to British quotas, the Commission will unequivocally support Britain. That is, after all, the same Commission which agreed to Spain's demands that quota-hopping should not form any part of the treaty negotiations. Will the Minister confirm that the Prime Minister's deal actually depends entirely on the Commission's good will, a Commission which will seek to look after the interests, incidentally, not just of this country but of the Dutch, the Spanish and other interests as well?
It is all very well the noble Lord protesting that the Commission helped to design this particular set of words, as he did in Committee, but is it not the case that this amount to the Commission's agreement to receive proposals based on a set of principles? The Government have made proposals but have not yet subjected them to the testing experience of European law. Can the noble Lord today stand up and say that the Commission's legal advice, or indeed the legal advice available to the Council, has said definitely that these proposals are not to be challenged in the European Court? In the debate on fisheries in another place last December, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food could not do so. In the interests of British fishermen today, can the noble Lord do so? I beg to move.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, as many noble Lords will know, I have over several years pursued this subject in debates and in Questions. I therefore propose to make a few comments today. On 18th February this year, following a Question of mine, the noble Lord, Lord Donoughue, supplied me with a copy of the paper which was the United Kingdom's proposals, as sent to the European Commission. His letter to me referred to the paper as resulting from the Prime Minister's exchange of letters with the president of the EU in May, a year ago. The key words in the British proposals are "real economic link". The proposal is that a fishing boat should be judged as eligible to fish for British quotas if there is a "real economic link" with this country.
That is very different from the impression given immediately before the general election—and immediately after it—that all was in hand and would be settled very soon. Fishermen's leaders are most disquieted that time is passing and that the basis of the United Kingdom's proposals in that memorandum are not at all certain of acceptance; and that is a year later.
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The letter of the noble Lord, Lord Donoughue, to me said that the aim of the UK's memorandum was to establish whether the proposals being put forward by Britain were compatible with the jurisprudence of the European Court. With respect, it is not so much a matter of jurisprudence. What is important is what the Court's judgment will be eventually and not whether the matter falls within its jurisprudence. Unfortunately, it probably will.
The last effort by a British Government, the Merchant Shipping Act 1988, which I strongly supported as it passed through this House as a Bill, made a very good attempt to define what should be regarded as a British fishing boat—a fishing boat with UK nationality. But it was found by the European Court to have failed to fulfil obligations under articles of the EEC Treaty. That judgment was in October 1991. I have the text with me but I shall not, in a short debate, weary your Lordships with it in full. The articles were specified as Articles 7, 52 and 221 of the EEC Treaty.
The UK Government had made careful provision in the 1988 Act for defining what should be regarded as fishing boats with UK nationality. I take now the opportunity again to point out the contradiction that exists in two conflicting concepts within the EU. I believe that this is the root of most of the trouble. European Union law on establishment—part of the treaties—seeks to make all EU nationals equal in business activities. The fisheries regime, in contrast, regulates fisheries and allocates quotas within EU countries specifically on separate nationalities. So one part of the treaty and of the Commission is trying to make all nationals within the EU as equal as possible, but the fisheries regime is dependent on allocating quotas in accordance with specific nationalities within the EU.
As a result, virtually any Spanish or Dutch boat operated by a company or an owner based in the UK can qualify for British quotas. Any assurance that towards the end of the present exercise the European Court will not again judge that these proposals fall foul of Articles 7, 52 and 221 of the EEC Treaty or successor articles coming from the Government Front Bench today will be welcome. That is really the main point. Can we be at all certain that the European Court will not find exactly the same kind of objections as it did on the last occasion?
The Government's attitude at Amsterdam has let our fishermen down. They feel exceedingly let down because they were given an impression that a much more robust attitude would be taken. I suggest that what is needed is definite and positive action now.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, I am not an expert on fishing; certainly not in the way the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, is. He has been at it a long time. But what I have done is to arrange some meetings with Mr. Ashworth and Mr. Hay in the Palace of Westminster. They represent Save Britain's Fish and are great experts on this matter. They believe that the only way in which the fishing problem can be resolved is if control of British fishing waters is returned to the United Kingdom. Their members and the fishing

1183
industry have been most upset over a long period of time by the handling of this issue. It is not just a question of what this Government have done in 12 months; it is a question of what has been done over the past 25 years since we acceded to the Treaty of Rome, or at least gave away our fishing rights. Does my noble friend Lord Randall wish to intervene? He has been jumping up and down.
Lord Randall of St. Budeaux: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for giving way and for showing such courtesy. Is it not the case that the common fisheries policy, which has caused a lot of concern particularly among Euro-sceptics, came into being in 1983?
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, my noble friend is not correct. We acceded in 1972 to the policy that fishing is a common resource. It is from there that the present policy derives. In 1983, when other nations acceded, the common rights were extended to the new entrants. That made the whole issue more complex, more difficult and more adverse for British fishermen. So my noble friend is both right and wrong. The fact is that Britain's fishing resource was handed over a long time ago. As I said, British fishermen at present believe that the only way the matter can be resolved is for control of Britain's fishing waters to be returned to the United Kingdom.
The pass on fishing was sold in 1972 when the Heath government gave away the right to control access to British fishing grounds and to manage them in such a manner to conserve fish stocks for the main benefit of the British people and British fishermen and to share any surplus with other nations prepared to work in accordance with British rules.
I remind noble Lords that fishing is still the only common resource in the European Community. There is no other common resource. The common resource which we gave away represented a huge loss for Britain—66 per cent. of the fish are in British waters—and a great gain for the other countries of the European Union. So it was a great handing over of British resources and British interests. It was an act of sheer, stupid folly. The fishing industry has had to suffer because of it.
Ordinary fishermen have been driven into bankruptcy, into burning their boats and into criminality because of absurd regulations. It is an Alice in Wonderland situation in which they are prevented from putting to sea themselves while watching Spanish and French fishermen happily catching the fish which they believe belong to them. That is the position. My noble friend really is very anxious this afternoon.
Lord Randall of St. Budeaux: My Lords, I express appreciation again to my noble friend for giving way. I know that he is aware that for 14 years I represented Hull where there is a fishing industry. Is it not the case that improved technology in terms of nets, identifying
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the location of fish and the capacity of fishing vessels now far exceeds the opportunities that exist for fishing? That is the essence of the matter.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, my noble friend makes a marvellous point. He makes my case for me. Under those circumstances it would be far better if Britain were able to control its own waters, its own management and its own conservation. That is the point I am making. I am most obliged to him for intervening to assist me in making the case, based on his expertise and service over a very long period of time in a fishing constituency.
British fishermen want the whole matter sorted out in a way which benefits them and the British people and which brings British waters back under United Kingdom control so that we can stop the depredation of irresponsible fishermen from other countries ruining a vital and valuable resource. I believe that this amendment will assist the Government in their very difficult negotiations with the European Union. Therefore, I support the amendment and I hope that other noble Lords will do so too.
Baroness Williams of Crosby: My Lords, my own intervention will be brief because, like some previous speakers, I am not an expert on the situation. I wish to set out the position as we see it on these Benches. We have a number of Members in another place who are deeply interested in the health and future of the fishing industry.
I do not believe that the previous government are in a position to point very great criticism at the present Government. As the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon, pointed out, the common fisheries policy was accepted in 1972 and the government of the day acceded to it. Later on, when the Irish Government tried to seek substantial changes to it upon Spain's entry into the European Union, the British Government rather left them on their own.
In 1983 a decommissioning scheme was brought in precisely for the reasons adduced by the noble Lord, Lord Randall of St. Budeaux; namely, that there was overcapacity in the fishing industry, not only in this country but elsewhere. From 1983 to 1986 there was a fairly effective scheme for decommissioning of which a number of fishermen took advantage. I am told by Members in another place from Cornwall and other counties dependent on fishing that this was a well-received scheme in the industry.
However, in 1986, in their wisdom, the UK government decided that they would not put up their share of the finance to continue with decommissioning. As a result many British fishermen were forced by sheer economic circumstance to sell their boats to others, among them the Spaniards. I suppose that one can argue that the free market makes its friends and its enemies. It operated very harshly in this situation. It must be said loudly and clearly that the scheme advanced at the time to ease that situation—it was a very unfair situation for fishermen and in that I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon—was largely undermined by the attitude of our own government.

1185
We have now reached the situation where in the year 2002 the common fisheries policy will be reviewed again. There is a central problem to which those advancing this amendment have not paid sufficient attention. There is an international crisis because of acute under-stocking and over-fishing. It affects all countries of the world and, of course, all countries within the European Union. I have had the not very great privilege of watching Russian fishing vessels literally vacuuming up the ocean bed. Members of this House have also seen a Japanese system which, I believe, has been ruled out of order recently. In that system the net is dragged across a distance of as much as one kilometre, taking with it almost everything in the ocean.
Let us move away for a moment from adducing national considerations to the wider interests with which our fishermen are bound up. It seems to me that, first, we need to look at effective enforcement. Here I sympathise with noble Lords who have pointed out serious breaches of fishing regulations on the part of Spanish ships, although not by them alone. It is right and proper to strongly reinforce European and international regulations as regards preserving fish stocks. I understand that the most efficient way of achieving that is an effective system of satellite inspection. There are a number of serious gaps in the system of satellite inspection which the European Union employs. That appears to me one constructive way in which to move forward. A second is to try out the principle of so-called "local economic interest". That is what Her Majesty's Government are trying to do. It may not yet meet the full demands of the fishing industry; it would perhaps be surprising if it did. It has not yet been effectively tried. We should at least see whether it will work. It lays down a series of quotas for the employment of crews from Britain and for the part of the stocks which are unloaded in British ports. We have hardly given the scheme a chance to see if it works before condemning it.
Thirdly and finally, it is simply unrealistic to believe that one can pull Britain out of the common fisheries policy without the gravest damage to our position in the single market. It is difficult to cherry-pick and to say that we would like greater freedom in manufacturing but we cannot allow common market fishing. Surely, the crucial point is that we have to see how we can best protect the interests of British fishermen; how the Government can best help them either to stay in the industry by raising the standards of their boats or get out of the industry if they do not wish to stay in. I plead that we try to find a constructive answer to what is an extremely difficult problem in the interests of our own fishing industry as much as anything else.
4.15 p.m.
Lord Whitty: My Lords, we have been over this ground many times. It is with a heavy heart that I rise once again to answer. I believe that all in this House sympathise with the plight of many of our fishing communities. However, it is deeply disheartening to hear the line adopted by the official Opposition.
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I believe that I speak for the whole House—or at least those noble Lords who have had the strength to sit through these debates—when I say that admiration for the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, has grown during these proceedings. His attention to detail and his forensic approach to amendments and to the treaty have deeply impressed us. It is unfortunate that with this amendment he has once again fallen into what I believe to be pre-election posturing. It is disheartening that the official Opposition have tabled this amendment. It comes from a party which for 18 years presided fairly passively over the decimation of our fishing communities. The official Opposition are attempting in this amendment to blame the incoming Government for not solving those problems in six weeks.
I, of all people, am anxious to avoid accusations of asperity of speech. Therefore, I shall not use the word "hypocrisy". Nevertheless, there is here a whiff of deliberate moral inconsistency. The fact is that in the 14 months of negotiation to which the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, referred the Conservative Government made no progress in convincing other member states of the merits of their proposals, and there was no prospect of doing so in the final six weeks of that negotiation. Not a single government among the other member states supported the proposed protocol. As the noble Lord has acknowledged, it is significant that many had never heard of it or did not regard it as a serious threat by the United Kingdom.
The protocol was submitted some time in July 1996 and circulated to the other member states by the then Irish presidency. That was the only time that it surfaced in the pre-IGC discussions, despite the fact that 3,000 other documents were circulated during that time. That was why I said that the German Foreign Minister and others were unaware of that draft or the alleged importance which the then British Government attached to it. Neither the Irish nor the Dutch presidency produced any draft proposals that would have incorporated it; nor would that protocol, had it been adopted, have secured the removal of a single quota-hopper from the UK register despite the impression given by the noble Lord.
The Labour Government have taken a robust but more cautious attitude. We fully agree that the current situation is not satisfactory, but in seeking to make progress we have tried to avoid posturing on the issue. What would the negotiating stance of the previous government, as described by the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, have achieved?
The noble Lord claimed in Committee and today that if other member states had not agreed to the protocol submitted by the then UK Government, the UK would have prevented the conclusion of the Treaty of Amsterdam. Let us examine that. It is claimed that they would have held up the whole business of Europe if they did not get agreement to their proposals on quota-hopping.
Just how credible is that proposition? To put it in context, that was not the only threat. The then government also threatened to prevent the completion of the treaty if there was any extension of QMV; any

1187
increase in the powers of the European Parliament; if there was not a complete revision of the powers of the European Court of Justice; if the Working Time Directive was not rescinded and if the beef ban was not lifted. It is perhaps not surprising that other member governments thought there had been too many cries of wolf. Those threats had varying degrees of credibility and vacuousness.
The fact of the matter is that it was empty rhetoric and recalls nothing so much as the phoney "beef war" in which they also attempted to block European business. A precious lot of good that did either the British beef industry or Britain's negotiating position in Europe. Did the Conservative Government really believe that to end up with no treaty, no quota-hopping protocol and an impasse in Europe would have benefited our fishing communities one iota?
There is an alternative explanation of the negotiating position. In a more sophisticated mood no doubt the noble Lord would say that it does not work like that and that there would have been negotiations and perhaps a trade-off between quota-hopping and some other aspect of the treaty. But what would that actually mean?
The noble Lord rightly said that the main stumbling block to reaching any solution, even if the other governments could have been convinced, was the position of the Spanish Government. Unanimity is required on changes to the treaty. Frankly, Spain would have blocked incorporation into the treaty of the quota-hopping proposals put forward by the previous government.
What concession would the previous government have been prepared to offer Spain in order to remove that block to incorporation, and at what cost to our national interests? I do not believe that, in honour, the previous government would have made such a substantial concession to Spain to persuade it to remove its opposition to quota-hopping. Any concession to Spain would have had to be of tremendous importance to that country. Frankly, such a negotiating stance was not on. If the noble Lord believes otherwise, perhaps he should inform the House.
In contrast, the Labour Party when in opposition and in government did not, contrary to the impression given by the noble Lord, claim that it would seek to deal with quota-hopping at Amsterdam by insisting on a change to the treaty. We pursued the question of the fishing policy vigorously and separately from other negotiations at Amsterdam. At Amsterdam, my right honourable friend the Prime Minister secured an exchange of letters with the President of the Commission which represented an important step forward. That exchange records the Commission's interpretation of how Britain or any other member state may, within the rules of the single market, require an economic link between fishing activity and fishing communities.
Since Amsterdam, we have taken forward that process. Last July we issued to the industry a consultation document, following which government officials met representatives of all parts of the UK fishing industry to discuss the implementation of the economic link and the licensing conditions that we
1188
proposed. Subsequent to that fairly prolonged period of consultation, we submitted draft proposals to the European Commission, incorporating contributions and comments from the industry. A copy of those proposals was placed in the Library of your Lordships' House on 12th May.
We are confident that that represents a substantial package of measures that is both effective and compatible with the treaty. We intend that all vessels with a UK licence should be required to comply with one of the following criteria: they must land 50 per cent. of their catch of quota species in the UK; or require 50 per cent. of the crew to be resident in UK coastal areas; or require a certain level of operational expenditure in UK coastal areas; or other measures must be taken to provide sufficient economic benefit to populations in the UK which are dependent on fishing and related industries.
The noble Lords, Lord Campbell of Croy and Lord Moynihan, asked whether the Government believed that that package of measures was based on sound legal advice. We took legal advice before Amsterdam. The President of the Commission also took legal advice. We believe that those propositions are in line with the legal advice that both we and the Commission have received. It is of interest that both the Belgian and French fishing industries are now considering similar proposals. We are confident that the measures would be upheld were they to be challenged in the European Court of Justice, principally because they do not infringe the right of establishment, as did the previous government's attempt at regulation.
We are in the process of putting the bones on the Amsterdam proposition. We await the Commission's final opinion on the details of the proposals and expect a response shortly. My right honourable friend the Prime Minister is right to say that real progress was made at Amsterdam and that further progress has been made subsequently. Of course, it is not everything that the industry would wish. The industry has criticised the extent of the proposals, as revealed by the contacts of my noble friend Lord Stoddart. But it is real progress, in contrast to the way in which the previous administration carried out their responsibilities to the fishing industry.
In considering the way in which the Official Opposition have approached this matter, I must repeat the points I made at Second Reading about the sad neglect of the fishing industry over 18 years of Conservative rule. If my noble friend Lord Stoddart is right, the neglect stemmed even from 1972. There was a complete failure to modernise our industry in anticipation of Spain and Portugal joining the common fisheries policy. There was a failure in the face of under-stocking to negotiate quota levels throughout the 1980s and 1990s which were favourable to UK fishermen. As the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Crosby, pointed out, there was a failure to match the money provided after 1986 by the European Commission to allow our fishing industry to decommission its inefficient and outdated boats. There

1189
was a failure to introduce a licensing system which would contain transfer of licences within the industry and not allow them to be sold off to the highest bidder.
As a consequence of those failures there was the further failure to prevent the sale by British fishermen of their licences, directly and indirectly, to Spanish and other non-British quota-hoppers and their agents. There was a failure to regulate this process and, when they did try to regulate it, there was a serious legal failure to recognise that the form of those regulations would inevitably run up against the European Court of Justice because they flouted the basic right of establishment in Community law. There was then a stubborn failure to recognise that the inevitable ECJ verdict meant that they had to change those regulations. Instead, they engaged in empty rhetoric and threats to derail the treaty.
This is a record of failure to tell the truth to the fishing communities and the public. It is a deplorable record. I do not see how, in any sense, the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, can regard this record as a tough and consistent line in favour of the British fishing industry and its communities.
As noble Lords have recognised, I do not claim that what we have achieved in Amsterdam is all that we would have wished and not all of it has yet come to fruition. However, we have moved further in defence of the British fishing industry in six weeks than the Conservative Party did in 18 years. That is why my right honourable friend the Prime Minister is proud of his achievements at Amsterdam.
The noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, is an honourable man and in his heart of hearts he must be ashamed of that record. At the very least he must be a little shame-faced today in pursuing his amendment. I have heard rumours that he may even pursue it to a vote. It is time we stopped posturing on this and told the truth to the fishing communities. The amendment is not about what the Government did at Amsterdam but about the terrible legacy left over in the fishing communities by the last government. If the noble Lord does not see fit to withdraw his amendment it will be a damning indictment not of the very real progress made by the Government in a relatively short period of time, but of 18 years of neglect of our fishing industry by the last Government. I would ask the noble Lord to think again and to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Moynihan: My Lords, I appreciate the Minister reminding the House about Second Reading. I also recall some exchanges on Second Reading, not least the excellent way in which the Minister undertook the responsibilities of the Minister of State for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office who, sadly, was not present. I recall that at that time I was keen and eager to praise the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, for his contribution. I do so again today. I am very grateful to him for his generous remarks about me.
I went further than to praise him. I urged the Government to recognise that as Minister with special responsibility for the European Union presidency he should be given a private office, a car and the full
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back-up services that a man of his capability and a noble Lord of his oratory excellence deserved. I went so far as to table some questions and I was deeply upset to receive a reply from the Government which did not accede to my request that the noble Lord should be recognised as a Minister. The reply simply said:
"As a Government Whip, Lord Whitty is a member of the Government and regularly speaks on FCO business particularly on EU issues in the House of Lords. In that context he frequently carries out official duties on behalf of the FCO, in particular in relation to the UK presidency of the EU. There are no additional costs to public funds."
I can assure the noble Lord that, after his eloquent performance today, we will continue to battle on his behalf. We hope that in the imminent reshuffle, not least in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, we will see him promoted.
The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, reflected yet again on the period of government and his interpretation of Conservative fishing policy. As he knows full well, this is not what the amendment is about. There are no grounds whatever for arguing to your Lordships' House that you could not really expect the Government to go to Amsterdam and achieve anything on behalf of the fishermen. How can he possibly say that in view of what his own Prime Minister stated? Given the way that the significance of this whole issue has been belittled by the noble Lord, it is worth repeating what the Prime Minister said:
"we certainly have not ruled out holding up IGC business in order to get the right changes to fishing policy and British interests … where Britain's interests are at stake, we are perfectly prepared to be isolated."
The Prime Minister did not say that about any other issue; he said it about fishing. He said it about British fishermen's interests. It is no good the noble Lord coming before this House this afternoon and saying, "Come on, you do not expect us to achieve anything. There was nothing we could really do", when his own Prime Minister considered this the one issue of top priority that he believed he could deliver in Amsterdam.
The noble Lord's speech was unconvincing. It was in stark contrast to the excellent contribution from my noble friend Lord Campbell, whose knowledge on this subject is second to none. I would need no more persuading to push this to a Division than simply to listen to my noble friend Lord Campbell. I was absolutely persuaded when I heard the Minster's rather pathetic defence of the Government's position at Amsterdam. The defence avoided recognising that the legal protection for British fishermen which the Treaty of Amsterdam afforded—and which was there to be grasped—was lost. The truth is that, as it stands today, the Treaty of Amsterdam affords no legal protection.
I repeat, the Government's guarantees have come to nothing, their promises to fishermen are broken, their deal is worthless. They clearly do not regard the fishing industry as key to British interests. My Lords, I ask for the opinion of the House.
4.26 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 8) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 160; Not-Contents, 108.

Division No. 1

CONTENTS

Aberdare, L.

Henley, L.

Addison, V.

Higgins, L.

Ailesbury, M.

Holderness, L.

Ailsa, M.

Howe, E.

Anelay of St. Johns, B.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Annaly, L.

Jenkin of Roding, L.

Ashbourne, L.

Johnston of Rockport, L.

Astor, V.

Jopling, L.

Astor of Hever, L.

Kimball, L.

Balfour, E.

Kinnoull, E.

Belhaven and Stenton, L.

Kintore, E.

Bethell, L.

Knight of Collingtree, B.

Blaker, L.

Knollys, V.

Blatch, B.

Lane of Horsell, L.

Bowness, L.

Lang of Monkton, L.

Brabazon of Tara, L.

Lauderdale, E.

Braine of Wheatley, L.

Lawrence, L.

Brentford, V.

Leigh, L.

Bridgeman, V.

Lindsey and Abingdon, E.

Broadbridge, L.

Long, V.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Lucas, L.

Bruce of Donington, L.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Burnham, L. [Teller.]

McColl of Dulwich, L.

Byford, B.

Mackay of Ardbrecknish, L.

Cadman, L.

Marlesford, L.

Campbell of Alloway, L.

Merrivale, L.

Campbell of Croy, L.

Mersey, V.

Carlisle of Bucklow, L.

Miller of Hendon, B.

Carnegy of Lour, B.

Monckton of Brenchley, V.

Clanwilliam, E.

Monro of Langholm, L.

Coleridge, L.

Monson, L.

Cope of Berkeley, L.

Mottistone, L.

Courtown, E.

Mountevans, L.

Cowdrey of Tonbridge, L.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Cox, B.

Moynihan, L.

Craigavon, V.

Munster, E.

Cranborne, V.

Murton of Lindisfarne, L.

Cuckney, L.

Naseby, L.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Newall, L.

Cumberlege, B.

Newton of Braintree, L.

Darcy de Knayth, B.

Norrie, L.

Dartmouth, E.

Northesk, E.

Davidson, V.

Norton, L.

Dean of Harptree, L.

O'Cathain, B.

Denbigh, E.

Onslow of Woking, L.

Dixon-Smith, L.

Oppenheim-Barnes, B.

Dundee, E.

Orr-Ewing, L.

Eden of Winton, L.

Oxfuird, V.

Ellenborough, L.

Park of Monmouth, B.

Elles, B.

Pender, L.

Elliott of Morpeth, L.

Peyton of Yeovil, L.

Erroll of Hale, L.

Plummer of St. Marylebone, L.

Falmouth, V.

Rankeillour, L.

Feldman, L.

Rawlings, B.

Ferrers, E.

Reay, L.

Flather, B.

Rees, L.

Fookes, B.

Rennell, L.

Gage, V.

Renton, L.

Gainford, L.

Renton of Mount Harry, L.

Gisborough, L.

Renwick, L.

Gray, L.

Romney, E.

Halsbury, E.

Rotherwick, L.

Harlech, L.

Rowallan, L.

Harris of High Cross, L.

St. John of Fawsley, L.

Harris of Peckham, L.

Saltoun of Abernethy, Ly.

1192

Sanderson of Bowden, L.

Taylor of Warwick, L.

Seccombe, B.

Teviot, L.

Selkirk of Douglas, L.

Thatcher, B.

Shaw of Northstead, L.

Thomas of Gwydir, L.

Shrewsbury, E.

Trumpington, B.

Simon of Glaisdale, L.

Vinson, L.

Skelmersdale, L.

Vivian, L.

Soulsby of Swaffham Prior, L.

Waterford, M.

Stoddart of Swindon, L.

Weatherill, L.

Strange, B.

Westbury, L.

Strathclyde, L. [Teller.]

Wharton, B.

Strathcona and Mount Royal, L.

Wilcox, B.

Sudeley, L.

Willoughby de Broke, L.

Suffolk and Berkshire, E.

Wolfson, L.

Swinfen, L.

Wynford, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Acton, L.

Lovell-Davis, L.

Addington, L.

McIntosh of Haringey, L. [Teller.]

Annan, L.

Archer of Sandwell, L.

Maddock, B.

Ashley of Stoke, L.

Mallalieu, B.

Avebury, L.

Mar and Kellie, E.

Bath, M.

Meston, L.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Milner of Leeds, L.

Borrie, L.

Monkswell, L.

Brooke of Alverthorpe, L.

Morris of Manchester, L.

Burlison, L.

Newby, L.

Calverley, L.

Nicholson of Winterbourne, B

Carlisle, E.

Nicol, B.

Carter, L. [Teller.]

Ogmore, L.

Cledwyn of Penrhos, L.

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L.

Cocks of Hartcliffe, L.

Prys-Davies, L.

Dahrendorf, L.

Puttnam, L.

Davies of Coity, L.

Ramsay of Cartvale, B.

Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde, B.

Randall of St. Budeaux, L.

Desai, L.

Rea, L.

Dholakia, L.

Redesdale, L.

Donoughue, L.

Rendell of Babergh, B.

Dormand of Easington, L.

Richard, L. [Lord Privy Seal.]

Ezra, L.

Rochester, L.

Farrington of Ribbleton, B.

Rodgers of Quarry Bank, L.

Gallacher, L.

Russell, E.

Gilbert, L.

Sainsbury, L.

Gladwin of Clee, L.

Sandberg, L.

Glasgow, E.

Serota, B.

Goodhart, L.

Sewel, L.

Gordon of Strathblane, L.

Shepherd, L.

Gould of Potternewton, B.

Simon, V.

Graham of Edmonton, L.

Simon of Highbury, L.

Hamwee, B.

Smith of Clifton, L.

Han worth, V.

Smith of Gilmorehill, B.

Hardy of Wath, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Haskel, L.

Symons of Vernham Dean, B.

Hayman, B.

Taverne, L.

Hilton of Eggardon, B.

Thomas of Macclesfield, L.

Hollis of Heigham, B.

Thomas of Swynnerton, L.

Hoyle, L.

Thomas of Walliswood, B.

Hughes of Woodside, L.

Thurlow, L.

Hylton, L.

Thurso, V.

Irvine of Lairg, L. [Lord Chancellor.]

Tordoff, L.

Turner of Camden, B.

Janner of Braunstone, L.

Walker of Doncaster, L.

Jay of Paddington, B.

Watson of Invergowrie, L.

Jeger, B.

Wedderburn of Charlton, L.

Jenkins of Putney, L.

Whitty, L.

Judd, L.

Wigoder, L.

Kennet, L.

Williams of Crosby, B.

Lester of Herne Hill, L.

Williams of Elvel, L.

Levy, L.

Williams of Mostyn, L.

Linklater of Butterstone, B.

Winston, L.

Lockwood, B.

Young of Old Scone, B.

Resolved in the affirmative, and amendment agreed to accordingly.

India: Nuclear Tests
4.38 p.m.
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat a Statement on Indian nuclear testing which is being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary. The Statement is as follows:
"Madam Speaker, with permission, I would like to make a Statement on the recent nuclear tests in India.
"On Monday, the Government of India announced that they had conducted three nuclear tests, including one thermo-nuclear device. On Wednesday, the Government of India confirmed two further nuclear tests. According to a statement by the Government of India yesterday, these last two complete the planned series of nuclear testing. These were India's first nuclear tests since 1974.
"Nuclear proliferation is a serious threat to the stability and security of the international community. We and our partners have sought vigorously to prevent the technology and equipment for a nuclear weapons programme from being acquired by states which might use them to develop a nuclear weapons capacity. Last weekend the G8 Foreign Ministers committed our countries to strengthen further the safeguard systems against nuclear proliferation.
"The recent nuclear tests by India undermine the efforts of the international community to prevent nuclear proliferation and may encourage other states who wish to do the same. Nor will these tests help the security of India. An increase in tension in the region cannot be in the interests of India, and the escalation of an arms race in the Subcontinent cannot help to tackle the poverty in which millions of its people live. The sharp reaction by China demonstrates the danger that such tests will increase tension rather than strengthen security.
"We have already expressed our dismay to the Indian Government. Yesterday the Acting High Commissioner for India was summoned to the Foreign Office in order that we could express our concern at the test programme. In New Delhi our High Commissioner led a troika of European Union Ambassadors to inform the Government of India of the concern—not just of Britain, but of all of Europe. I can inform the House that I have today recalled our High Commissioner from Delhi for consultation on how Britain and Europe can effectively bring home to the Government of India our anxiety at the damage of these tests to the non-proliferation regime, and to the stability of the region.
"We will seek to co-ordinate our response with our major international partners. Tomorrow's G8 summit in Birmingham will consider how our countries can work together to bring home to the Government of India the dismay of the international community at the resumption of nuclear tests. And in a week's time, at the next meeting of the General Affairs Council, we will seek a common approach by Europe making clear our opposition to this new challenge to the non-proliferation regime.
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"The urgent task now is to do all we can to prevent these tests from provoking other tests in the region. Our High Commissioner in Islamabad has led representations by the European Union troika, making clear to the Government of Pakistan our strong view that Pakistan's interests also would not be served by a regional arms race. We are urging Pakistan's leaders to show restraint at what we acknowledge is a difficult time for them.
"Madam Speaker, we regret and condemn these nuclear tests. Britain is a leading advocate of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. We believe firmly that their provisions provide Britain and all members of the international community with the strongest basis for confidence in their international security. Nobody's long-term interests are secured by encouraging the spread of nuclear weapons. I am sure that the whole of the House will wish to support the Government in sending a united message on behalf of Britain that we oppose and condemn these nuclear tests."
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
4.43 p.m.
Lord Moynihan: My Lords, on behalf of the Official Opposition, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement made in another place. We strongly share the Government's concern about the nuclear tests which the Indian Government have carried out.
Does the Minister accept that the decision by the Indian Government to ignore international pressure not to conduct any future nuclear tests since its last "peaceful" test in 1974 has had important implications in terms of damaging India's relationship with one nuclear power, China? As a result there is a real danger that we may see a nuclear arms race developing in South Asia which would have grave ramifications for the international community.
What further representations do the Government intend to make to the governments of Pakistan and China to ensure that the situation does not escalate?
I think it is important to set this day's exchanges in context. I believe it is important to recall that there was an exceptionally good and strong relationship between our two countries built by John Major when he was Prime Minister. I have to say that it is regrettable that that relationship has been damaged by Robin Cook's visit. Otherwise today that may have provided an invaluable and very special relationship with important historical ramifications for our country.
Therefore it is important that we learn what the Minister can tell the House about the ways in which the Foreign Secretary has worked to build on a relationship which the previous administration valued greatly and worked hard to promote through a constant and busy two-way street of traffic between government, business and people.
But most important in terms of questions, I should like to ask the Minister to comment on the decision of Germany, Sweden and Denmark to cut their aid to India. Does the Minister expect them to ask Britain to do likewise? What consultations have been held between

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the Foreign Secretary and the Secretary of State for International Development? Would the Minister also comment on Canada's decision to ban military exports to India?
Can the Minister elaborate a little further on the discussions the Foreign Secretary has had with his American counterpart? Have the Government examined the nature of American economic sanctions and has the Foreign Secretary consulted the President of the Board of Trade on the advisability of the United Kingdom implementing similar sanctions?
These are all important questions, but one aspect that unites both sides of this House is the importance we attach to ensuring that in this busy time during our presidency of the European Union and in government the Minister and his colleagues will have our full support in seeking an early resolution to this problem, hopefully against the recognition that trade sanctions may well be unwise given the damaging effects that they would have on a society possessing the entrenched democratic credentials of India. Finally, can the Minister confirm that that will be raised as a matter of urgency at the G8 meeting this weekend?
4.36 p.m.
Baroness Williams of Crosby: My Lords, perhaps I may too thank the noble Baroness for the Statement. Perhaps I may ask her three questions. The first concerns the issue of monitoring. It is quite clear from both United States and British sources that there was no prior knowledge of what might happen, nor indeed any immediate result of monitoring of the tests that India held.
In view of the fact that during the Second Reading of the nuclear explosions Bill in another place the Minister of State, Tony Lloyd, specifically pointed out that a worldwide network of monitoring stations would
"detect, identify and locate the source of a suspicious event anywhere in the world".—[Official Report, Commons, 6/11/97; col. 456.],
can the Minister give us any information on the failure of monitoring in this case?
Secondly, perhaps I may ask her whether the phrase "co-ordinating our response", which was used in her Statement, means that we will follow the United States with respect to sanctions. In that I follow what the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition asked.
My final question is perhaps to me the most important question that I want to ask the Minister. The Minister will be well aware that India had a long record, until recently, of constantly seeking peaceful outcomes. Indeed, many of us admired Indian governments precisely because they had a record of constantly trying to find peaceful answers to difficult questions. It therefore is a great disappointment that India, of all countries, should have broken the terms—although she did not herself sign it—of the comprehensive test ban treaty. Given her record, given also that she is the second largest country in the world and the world's largest democracy, would the G8 Ministers consider whether the time might be right for pursuing a new initiative in the field of comprehensive nuclear
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disarmament along lines that would embrace countries that are on the edge of nuclear developments, whether civil or military, that bring them into the group of nuclear powers?
It seems to me and to many of my colleagues on these Benches that it is essentially in the resumption of comprehensive disarmament of nuclear weapons that may lie the best answer to this extremely troubling new situation.
4.50 p.m.
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I thank both the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, and the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Crosby, for their support and for what the noble Lord described as his party's strongly shared concern over this issue.
As I believe I indicated in repeating my right honourable friend's Statement, the tension which the tests have caused in China is something which causes Her Majesty's Government enormous concern. As I am sure the noble Lord is aware, there has been a strong reaction from China and the Government will be doing everything they can to try to lessen the tension in that part of the world, not only in relation to China but also in relation to Pakistan's reaction.
The only slight regret I have about what the noble Lord said is that he sought perhaps a touch of party political advantage when the rest of his remarks indicated what I hope will be the strong feeling of the House that the reaction from the United Kingdom should be one in which we all share the same feelings of condemnation. I am sure that that is the noble Lord's overwhelming feeling. Any suggestion that if things had gone a different way there would have been no nuclear tests this week is a little over-blown.
Dismay at the tests is shared by almost all the international community. India has chosen to isolate itself and as one of India's oldest friends we very much regret that. The strength of the relationship of this country and this Government with India was amply demonstrated at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in October last year.
The noble Lord asked some questions about banning military exports. That is an issue which must be discussed with our international partners. I suggest that there are a number of different issues which will have to be discussed, not just that of arms sales. I suppose that we are fortunate in that we have all our G8 partners in Birmingham tomorrow and there will be discussions at that time. The noble Lord asked what else we could do in that respect. We are not only discussing the matter with the G8 countries over the weekend. We shall also be discussing it with our European partners, as I indicated, at the general affairs meeting on 25th May. I understand that at the United Nations we are discussing at the moment the Security Council presidential statement. That shows, I hope, that in three arenas—the European Union, the G8 and the United Nations—the United Kingdom Government are doing what they can to co-ordinate matters, a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Williams.

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The noble Baroness asked about monitoring which, I am sure, will be of interest to many people. I have some difficulty in going into any great detail because much of the monitoring must depend on intelligence issues which, as the noble Baroness will know, it is improper for me to discuss in your Lordships' House. Without wishing to denigrate the point which the noble Baroness made, it is an obvious one which we shall need to look at. We shall co-ordinate with those with whom we share intelligence material. I hope that that covers most of the matters raised.
The noble Baroness referred to strengthening the comprehensive test ban treaty and the non-proliferation treaty. Many countries which are signatories to those agreements will wish to look at ways to strengthen them and ways in which we can ensure that the united feeling of dismay about what has happened this week in India is not left in any doubt at all.
4.55 p.m.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, from this side of the House, I express my support—I believe it will be widespread in this House—for the Statement which has been repeated. However, the Statement does not seem to go far enough. It refers to concern and dismay. But what about anger and determination? There should be a realisation of the dangers of the situation. Over the past few years, we have been moving gradually, even if there has been an element of lip service, towards, it is hoped, eliminating the nuclear threat. This incident could completely reverse that situation and we shall find ourselves marching in the opposite direction towards the ultimate of a nuclear war. That is the danger. In reply to questions the Minister has indicated that she is not without appreciation of that danger.
It seems to me that if we follow the path suggested by the Liberal Democrats just now it may be possible to rescue ourselves from the peril of this new position and move more vigorously towards the aim of nuclear disarmament. Unless we reach that point, the world will continue to remain in peril.
I express my general support, appreciation and approval of the actions which the Government intend to take. I would welcome a little more understanding and appreciation of the true horror which faces us unless we succeed in solving the present problem. It is that abyss which worries me. Although the Government may not wish to express it too clearly, I believe that it is that horror which is behind the Government's Statement. I should like to know from my noble friend whether I am correct in that belief.
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, the Statement is unequivocal in its condemnation of the nuclear tests. I repeat that my right honourable friend said:
"We regret and condemn these nuclear tests".
The United Kingdom reacted immediately to the news of the tests on 11th May. The Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, my honourable friend Derek Fatchett, summoned the acting High
1198
Commissioner yesterday. He left him in no doubt of the seriousness with which Her Majesty's Government view the tests. In addition, as I said in repeating the Statement, my right honourable friend has this afternoon recalled our High Commissioner for consultation.
I must remind noble Lords that at the conclusion of the Statement I said that my right honourable friend was sure that he would have the support of the whole House,
"in sending a united message on behalf of Britain that we oppose and condemn these nuclear tests".
One cannot be much more unequivocal than that.
Lord Naseby: My Lords, your Lordships' House will be aware that until this event we were celebrating the 50th anniversary of the independence of India. Those in this Chamber who have lived and worked in that great country will be extremely worried by this event. In the Statement, the Minister rightly said that there are three opportunities for Her Majesty's Government to co-ordinate a response to this outrage. Those opportunities should be seized. This House will pass judgment in about 10 days' time on whether the Government had the leadership to pull together the rest of the world to make sure that what is in effect a minority government in India should suffer to a degree for their transgressions.
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, all of us who consider ourselves friends of India will share the noble Lord's worries over the difficulty created by the tests in terms of the reaction of other countries in the region; in particular, Pakistan and China. Officials have spoken to the Pakistani High Commissioner in London and have urged restraint upon him. However, as the noble Lord noted from what I said, we have these three opportunities to try our best to co-ordinate our reaction to what is happening in India. I know that my right honourable friend the Prime Minister will be joining my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary in trying to co-ordinate that response.
Lord Desai: My Lords, I have two questions for my noble friend. Given the fact that exercising a nuclear option was a manifesto commitment of the BJP made before the election, is there not a failure of political intelligence, let alone of technical monitoring, in that neither the United States nor the UK anticipated that this would be the first step that that government would take, bearing in mind that when they previously held office for only 13 days they had already made such preparations?
Secondly, at the meetings this weekend, may I urge my noble friend the Minister not to do anything precipitate about imposing sanctions on India, which would reverse the good economic reform record that she has maintained? We must also remember that the situation is also very fragile on that level. Indeed, we should promote trade, investment and industry and not do anything to punish India to an extent that we have not punished China for similar transgressions.
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, my noble friend's points raise enormously interesting issues.

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One of the problems in India is that the reaction to these nuclear tests seems to indicate that they are very widely supported in the Indian Parliament. I am not aware of the exact measure of support, but it seems that that has so far been the case. I understand that this was a commitment of the Indian Government. Nonetheless, I feel that we must still do everything we can to urge upon India the realisation that what it is doing not only poses a threat to that part of the world; it also poses a very real threat to India itself.
My noble friend urges us not to do anything which will destabilise the Indian economy. Her Majesty's Government are enormously aware of the difficulties that might flow from different sorts of sanctions. That is why the Government have not rushed in and imposed sanctions; why we are considering these issues very carefully; and why we wish to discuss them with our partners in Europe, in the G8 and at the United Nations.
However, Her Majesty's Government are also enormously aware of the very real poverty in India and of the difficulty that some sorts of sanctions might provoke in relation to some of the most vulnerable people in the country. All these matters have to be considered when deciding what sort of co-ordinated and united action should be taken on such issues.
Lord Goodhart: My Lords, does the Minister agree that what has happened in the past few days emphasises the importance of achieving a solution to the problems in Jammu and Kashmir, which is permanent, peaceful and, so far as possible, acceptable to its inhabitants? Jammu and Kashmir has already been the cause of two wars between Pakistan and India and there is now every prospect that, if there should by any disaster be a third war, it would be a nuclear one.
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, what the noble Lord says has to be true. The fragility around Kashmir is a very worrying issue. Having been in both India and Pakistan in the past few months, it is very clear to me that it is the real gritty issue in their entire relationship. However, so much else in both those countries hangs on how the issue is treated. The noble Lord's worries and concerns about the way that the situation may develop lie very much at the heart of the concerns of Her Majesty's Government; indeed, they are very much at the heart of the reason why my right honourable friend wanted to recall our High Commissioner this afternoon.
Lord Kennet: My Lords, will my noble friend not allow the Government to stop short at punishing and scolding India and insist that they look beyond and consult human reason and history and inquire from those authorities whether it is so much worse to have seven nuclear weapons powers in the world than it is to have six, as has been the case for many years now? If they were to find that this was merely an incremental change in an awful situation, would they then adopt the thought put forward very ably by the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, and my noble friend Lord Jenkins of Putney; namely, that the only true answer is a reduction
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leading to an elimination of weapons of mass destruction, especially nuclear weapons, by all countries in the world, including this one?
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I hope that I do not have to tell my noble friend, nor, indeed, anyone else in your Lordships' House, that it is the reduction of nuclear weapons in particular—certainly weapons of mass destruction generally—that lies at the heart of the Government's thinking on the matter. Indeed, that was a very clear commitment in the Government's election manifesto. My noble friend asked whether it would be so much worse to have seven nuclear weapons powers than to have six. My answer is yes; it would be. What we are concerned with is the reduction of nuclear powers and non-proliferation. That lies very much at the heart of our policies.
I should also tell my noble friend that there is a particular problem, as we have just been discussing, with India taking such action because of the difficulties in its relationships with China on the one hand, and, on the other, with Pakistan. These countries have difficult and, in some ways, quite fragile relationships. Since the tests were carried out earlier this week, it is very obvious that the strength of the reaction in both those countries bears out the worries that we have had about how this may destabilise that part of the world.
The Earl of Carlisle: My Lords, the Minister mentioned that our High Commissioner in Delhi had correctly led the delegation of the other European Union nations to visit the Indian Government to make the protest. Can the noble Baroness tell the House if all the EU representatives accompanied him; what effect this representation had; and, whether the High Commissioner discovered if the Indians have any further plans to conduct these deplorable tests?
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, our High Commissioner led a troika of the European Union ambassadors. So three ambassadors went to see the Indian Government to express our concern. However, they did not speak just on behalf of the troika; they spoke on behalf of all EU members. I hope that that clears up the noble Lord's point. They will have made a very strong statement to the Indian Government, expressing not only dismay but also the unequivocal opposition and condemnation of the EU on these points.
Lord Archer of Sandwell: My Lords, although I support every word that my noble friend the Minister has said, does she agree that, until further progress is made on disarmament generally, the alternative will be continual crisis management of this kind and perpetual running to stay in the same place? Therefore, will the Government renew their efforts to ensure a fourth special session on disarmament at the General Assembly?
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I agree with my noble and learned friend that further progress on disarmament is highly desirable. At present we are talking with our UN partners to try to ensure that

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there is a Security Council presidential statement on what has happened in India. Further to that, I cannot make any commitments on behalf of Her Majesty's Government other than to say, in the context of what I have already been able to tell the House in relation to the three arenas where we will be pursuing these matters, that Her Majesty's Government will of course be doing everything possible to ensure that our position—one of opposition and condemnation—is shared as widely as possible.
Lord Monkswell: My Lords, I support the Statement and I thank my noble friend for repeating it. I remind the House of the result of the previous general election when the British people endorsed the Labour Party's manifesto which stated,
"We will press for multilateral negotiations towards mutual, balanced and verifiable reductions in nuclear weapons. When satisfied with verified progress towards our goal of the global elimination of nuclear weapons, we will ensure that British nuclear weapons are included in multinational negotiations".
Bearing in mind the significance of recent developments, will my noble friend take a strong message from this House that we hope that the Government will take further practical steps to achieve the object of the manifesto,
"towards our goal of the global elimination of nuclear weapons"?
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for reminding us all of the clear, unequivocal manifesto commitment of Her Majesty's Government. As I have on previous occasions been able to tell the House, we shall proceed on the basis of verifiable reductions. I shall be happy to convey the message of my noble friend, and indeed others, to my right honourable friend the Prime Minister.

European Communities (Amendment) Bill
5.11 p.m.
Consideration of amendments on Report resumed.
Lord Stoddart of Swindonmoved Amendment No. 9:
After Clause 1, insert the following new clause—
PRESIDENT AND MEMBERS OF THE COMMISSION
(". This Act shall not enter into force until a Minister of the Crown has laid before both Houses of Parliament a report on the implications for the United Kingdom of paragraphs 40 and 41 (President and Members of the Commission) of Article 2 of the Treaty signed at Amsterdam on 2nd October 1997 amending the Treaty on European Union, the Treaties establishing the European Communities and certain related Acts, and such report has been approved by resolution of each House.").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the proposed new clause states that paragraphs 40 and 41 of the treaty will not come into operation until a report of the implications has been made to both Houses and approved by them.
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We had quite a long debate in Committee on an amendment admirably moved by my noble friend Lord Bruce of Donington. I do not want to repeat all the arguments made then against paragraphs 40 and 41 of the Amsterdam Treaty. However, the two paragraphs are important as they hand more power to the European Parliament in that it will be able to veto the appointment of the Commission President whose appointment has been agreed unanimously by the elected heads of government who represent, and are accountable to, their own elected national parliaments. That is a transfer of power from the nation states and their parliaments to an institution of the European Union.
Under paragraph 40, the governments of the member states will in future be required to agree in common accord with the president of the Commission the other persons they wish to appoint as commissioners. This gives the President an ultimate veto of the candidate or candidates nominated by member states. In other words, the appointed President of the Commission could blackball the candidate of a member state's elected government. Surely that is a serious matter. After all, this involves democratic government and democratic accountability. It is important for that very reason.
When my noble friend Lord Whitty replied to the amendment in Committee on 27th April, he provided no satisfactory reason for this change. He did not say that the previous system was not working or that it had caused problems, so why this shift of power from elected Ministers to an appointed functionary? Perhaps we could now have a proper explanation of that.
Paragraph 43 states that the Commission shall work under the political guidance of its president. That proposition is, to put it mildly, quite startling and should have set alarm bells ringing in another place. That it did not do so was, I hope, an oversight and not neglect. The noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, pointed out in Committee that even Mr. Heath, Europhile extraordinaire, regarded commissioners, including the President of the Commission, as civil servants who took their instructions from elected Ministers. But now it is not elected Ministers who will give political direction apparently, but the unelected functionary".
Again, my noble friend Lord Whitty did not give a satisfactory explanation as to why it was necessary to include that article in the treaty. As we know, the treaty will be held by the Commission and the European Court of Justice to be sacrosanct. That is the problem with these treaties; once measures are included in them, the European Court of Justice rules in accordance with them. It does not rule in accordance with what we might like to think is in the treaty, but in accordance with what is actually in the treaty. The article states that the Commission will work under the political guidance of its President, not of the Council of Ministers or of the European Parliament or anyone else. So I should like an explanation as to why this article has been slipped into the treaty.
As I have already said, I do not want to rehearse all the arguments expressed in Committee but I have a final question. The Government believe that these new articles are minor adjustments. If they are so minor, why

1203
could they not have been made administratively? Surely amendments to treaties should concern only matters of great moment, not trivia. After all, you cannot take them out of the treaty without unanimity. Therefore it is important that what goes into the treaty concerns matters of great moment and is not trivia, which is how my noble friend described this particular provision in Committee.
The Government had better make up their mind. Either these articles are trivial, in which case they ought not to be in the treaty, or they are of great importance, in which case we and another place need a much better explanation of their meaning and practical effect. In any event, it is quite clear that the House of Commons, which is the true democratic authority representing the people of Britain, has not given proper weight to, and consideration of, paragraphs 40 and 41. I believe that many of its Members would like to do so. If this amendment is carried, it would give another place a further opportunity to consider this vital matter. I hope that noble Lords will therefore support this amendment for that reason alone so that the Commons can have another detailed look at this matter. Noble Lords can support this amendment in the sure knowledge that what they will vote for is democracy. I beg to move.
5.15 p.m.
Lord Moynihan: My Lords, I rise to support this amendment in the light of both the persuasive arguments put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, and the response given by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, during an earlier stage of our proceedings, particularly with regard to the implications for the United Kingdom of the provisions on the appointment of the President of the Commission and the Commissioners.
I think it is fair to say that of all the amendments debated in Committee, the Government's refusal to countenance the notion that the provisions in paragraphs 40 and 41 could have any effect whatsoever on the sovereignty of the nation state perhaps most vividly illustrates the discrepancy of their position in purporting to pursue policies to preserve and uphold the role of the nation state in the European Union.
We perceive the Government to have given away important national powers needlessly. We consider the European Parliament's new right to approve the new President of the Commission diminishes the power of this Government, whose authority is derived from this Parliament. We consider that the freedom of member states to appoint commissioners of their choice is diminished, as the President of the Commission has been given new powers to veto the appointment of new commissioners and can therefore effectively pick the other 19 commissioners. What is more, those new commissioners will be required to work under the political guidance of the president for the first time.
When I studied what the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, said in Committee, I was not convinced that his arguments for the changes benefit this country or this Parliament. On the new powers for the European Parliament, he told the House that these changes represent an improvement in democracy. On the
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President of the Commission's power of veto, he told us it was all right because it was just simple arithmetic. It was a little leap of logic to extend common accord from 15 member states to 15 member states plus one unelected official, but the fact that he was unelected did not matter because he had been agreed by elected governments. On the requirement for Commissioners to work under the political guidance of the President, he told us that it was all right. It was a lot of fuss about nothing because the President had a political role anyway.
I find the latter two arguments extraordinary. I fundamentally disagree with the argument when I hear from the Liberal Democrats Benches that the powers given to the European Parliament represent an improvement in democracy. However, I respect the legitimacy of that vision and the sincerity with which it is propounded. In a vision of a European state, the European Parliament represents all the people of that state, so to give more powers to the European Parliament would be a democratic move. But in a Europe of sovereign nation states, where national parliaments remain the guardians of true democratic legitimacy, that argument is far less compelling. For advocates of a federal Europe these changes represent a democratic gain to the European Union and the European Parliament which outweighs the democratic loss to nation states and national parliaments, because to improve the functioning of democracy and efficiency within the Commission it is worth diminishing the power and influence of member states.
For advocates of a federal Europe, the new rights of the European Parliament to approve, or refuse to approve, the name of the person put forward as President of the Commission is an extension, not a diminution, of accountability of a democratic kind. For advocates of a federal Europe, the fact that the nomination of the Commission lies in the hands of member governments, and that member governments must reach a common accord with the President of the Commission, represents an appropriate balance of power. That is another improvement in democratic accountability. For advocates of a federal Europe, the description of the President of the Commission as,
"more than a civil servant … he is a political figure who gives political direction",
would not even raise an eyebrow.
All of that is logical and consistent to a proponent of a federal Europe, a European superstate. It might even be possible to describe the provisions as relatively minor amendments. From these Benches we might fundamentally disagree with that position, but it would be a legitimate and consistent one. But are the Government advocates of a federal Europe? Not according to their election manifesto, in which they promise a commitment to Europe as,
"an alliance of independent nations choosing to co-operate to achieve the goals they cannot achieve alone".
The manifesto continues,
"We oppose a European federal superstate".
As I said previously, while the manifesto supports a Europe which is a partnership of nations, and opposes a federal Europe, it is disingenuous and discreditable to

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dismiss those provisions as "minor" and to brand our legitimate scrutiny as "fantastic constructions". The noble Lord did not argue that those "fantastic constructions" were impossible under the terms of the treaty. Indeed, he argued that he was justified in dismissing them by effectively saying, "Yes, theoretically those things could happen, but in practice it is very unlikely so I do not think there is a problem". I have the greatest respect for the noble Lord, but I believe that that is a poor and flawed argument. If Europe has taught us one thing, it is that we should not rely on lack of precedent as an indication of what the future could hold. Nor should we assume that, in future, treaties will not be interpreted imaginatively or, in this case, just to the letter.
For a Europe of nation states whose national parliaments are recognised as the primary guardians of democratic accountability and legitimacy, surely these are major changes, as the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, stated, with major implications. Yet they were not even mentioned by the Prime Minister in his Statement in another place on his return from Amsterdam. They represent a significant step towards an overtly political Commission in which unprecedented powers are concentrated in one individual's hands. Taken together with the extension of QMV and the substantial additional powers for the European Parliament, the treaty represents a significant shift from the nation state to the central institutions of the European Union. It is therefore vital that today we have the opportunity to hear why those proposals were agreed to by the Government; the implications to Britain of those proposals; and why the Government consider them to be in the national interest.
Lord Goodhart: My Lords, at present the European Union is not a federal state in the full sense of the word, as may be seen in states such as Australia, Canada or the United States. Nor, on the other hand, can it be regarded as no more than a forum for co-operation between its individual member states. The existing practice for the appointment of the President of the Union, before the Treaty of Amsterdam, leaving it wholly in the hands of the individual governments acting through the Council of Ministers, does not provide any satisfactory degree of democratic legitimacy or accountability. It is a notable and significant step forward that the European Parliament—it is a democratically elected body accountable to the people of Europe—should have a power of veto over the appointment of the President. In effect it becomes a matter of co-determination, recognising the proper balance between the individual governments, represented through the Council of Ministers, and the people of Europe, represented through the European Parliament.
We also welcome the amendment to the treaties through the Treaty of Amsterdam enabling the President appointed and elected by that process to have a say in the appointment of the individual members of the
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Commission. For that reason we support the provisions of Articles 40 and 41 of the Treaty of Amsterdam. We are unable to support the amendment.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, I touched on this matter at Committee stage and have no further contribution to make. However, I wish to ask the Government a question. I hope that they will be able to reply fully. What do Her Majesty's Government understand by the words "political guidance"? What do they believe that that empowers the President of the Commission to do? What do they believe is the real meaning in practice of the term "political guidance"?
Lord Monson: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, said that the European Parliament is a democratically elected body. Yes, it is elected democratically, but it is not a truly democratic body in so far as the smaller countries have many more seats per capita in Parliament than do the larger countries.
Lord Willoughby de Broke: My Lords, perhaps I may make one point to the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart. He mentioned that the President of the Commission will have a say. It is more than that. He has a right of veto in the provisions set out in the treaty at present. That is why those of us who have put our names to the amendment support it, and reject the wording of the treaty.
5.30 p.m.
Lord Whitty: My Lords, I am afraid it is probably still the case that I am seriously lacking in imagination: I do find some of the constructs put on these relatively minor clauses fantastic. The Government do not wish to accept this amendment. It would not prevent ratification of the treaty; however, it is in our view unnecessary. We regard these changes as relatively minor management changes, desirable improvements in the way in which the institutions of Europe do their business.
I know that there is enormous suspicion in regard to the Commission in certain quarters of this House, not least on the part of my noble friend Lord Bruce. However, a Commission which acts coherently and effectively is in the interests of the United Kingdom. The Commission has a key role to play in the Community and the functioning of the Union. It proposes legislation; it implements decisions made by the Council; and it acts as the guardian of the treaties. An effective Commission and effective president are in our interests and in the interests of Europe. The good running of Commission business is surely a sensible step to introduce into the treaty, particularly in preparation for enlargement.
It is surely right that the President of the Commission should play some part in ensuring that the Commission itself, which is a collegiate body, is made up of a spread of people of the right ability, right representation and right competences.
The change is a relatively minor one, as the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, and others have said. Under the Treaty of Amsterdam, the nominee for president is given

1207
a right of common accord together with the member states when it comes to choosing Commissioners. That is to say, we are replacing a common accord of 14 other member states with a common accord of 16, including the Commission President, the key institution.
The initiative still clearly rests with member states. Some noble Lords have suggested that the nominee for president might reject a whole series of potential Commissioners. I do not consider that to be a feasible situation. It is surely fanciful to think that the Commission President, just appointed by the 15 governments unanimously, would go ahead and offend the member state concerned unnecessarily, particularly given that it is the member state alone that can nominate any candidate.
The proposal regarding the president's right to give political guidance to the Commission recognises the reality that has existed since the Treaty of Rome first came into force. It is again a relatively minor change confirming current practice. The president does play a political role. He is more than a civil servant, but is substantially less than a political overlord. At the end of the day the Commission carries out decisions reached by the Council. The president remains an appointed, not an elected, figure. Ministers in the Council are national Ministers responsible to national parliaments. The position of member states is totally safeguarded. To say that there is a sudden translation of the President of the Commission into a political figure is surely nonsense. Since we first became members of the European Union, successive governments have appointed senior politicians to be Commissioners. Why did they do so if the Commissioners, and the President of the Commission in particular, were not to have a political role?
My noble friend Lord Bruce asked me to explain what I mean by "political role". I mean a political role in the sense of presenting and implementing policy, offering advice and opinions and dealing as an institution of the European Union with each of the member states and the other institutions of the Union. That is a political role; almost all nominees to the Commission have been politicians, and it is a political task that they carry out. However, at the end of the day, the political responsibility rests with the Council of Ministers, and the Council of Ministers is responsible to its national parliaments and in certain respects to the European Parliament.
Far from being an anti-democratic move, there is another change in this part of the treaty which relates to the increased democratic accountability of the Commission and consultation with the European Parliament as regards appointments to the Commission. This is a package, not for a federal Europe, not for a superstate, but for a more democratic Europe, a more efficient Europe, a Europe which is more prepared for the challenge of enlargement.
I may not be able to convince my noble friend Lord Stoddart and others that their constructs do not indeed flow from those changes. However, I hope the noble Lord will accept that I have given sufficient explanation, and that this amendment, requiring further explanation
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to Parliament before this Bill can be passed, is unnecessary. I ask my noble friend to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, I am afraid that my noble friend has not convinced me one bit. Indeed, I have been impressed with some of the arguments that have come from the other side. The noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, fundamentally disagrees with paragraphs 40 and 41 in the same way as I do. Those paragraphs are not about a Europe of nation states. They represent a further turning of the ratchet towards a federal Europe. If the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, is worried about that—and he is not as sceptical about Europe as I am—then I am entitled to take comfort from that. The noble Lord has reached the same conclusion as I have, although we take a slightly different view on the whole concept of Europe, and that has to be taken into account.
The noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, as I expected, believes that the new proposals are perfectly all right. Since the Liberal Party takes a federalist view, I suppose they are all right because they are federal in their concept. But we should make no mistake about it, in a Europe of nation states it is the national parliaments that have democratic legitimacy. It is they that are elected directly by their own people, and they have the final say. They cannot, and should not, hand over any of their real power of sovereignty to another body for decisions to be made not by their own nationals but by the nationals of 14 other states. Therefore, while I understand the noble Lord's point of view, this is nevertheless a recipe for a federal European state.
Lord Goodhart: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. Does he agree that the new procedure under paragraph 40 comes nowhere near the sort of procedure that would be found in a genuinely federal state? In the USA, for instance, there is no question of the governments of individual states being asked to take part in the election of the President.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: No, my Lords, but we are talking about federal states. Here we have the European Parliament, which can veto the appointment of the President of the Commission, a decision which has been agreed by all the national leaders presumably with the consent of their national parliaments. That weakens the democratic accountability of this Parliament, and particularly the House of Commons. That may very well be all right for the federal system, but not for a Europe of nation states.
The noble Lord also mentioned the president in relation to the appointment of Commissioners. He said that the president will have a say. Nobody objects to the president having a say. But under these articles, he has a veto. That is the problem. He does not merely have a say; he is not being consulted. If the article stated that he was to be consulted, nobody would be concerned about the matter. But he does in fact have an effective veto, as was pointed out by the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke.

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My noble friend says that he still considers those matters to be minor managerial adjustments. I have to say to him that if they are mere managerial adjustments, why can they not be dealt with administratively? They may need alteration later if they are merely managerial adjustments. Once they are in the treaty, we have to have unanimity before they can be altered or taken out. So even on my noble friend's argument, it is very unwise to put such matters into the treaty.
My noble friend says that it is not feasible that the President-elect of the Commission would use his power of veto. How do we know? We are not futurologists. It may well be different once the President of the Commission has been appointed. What if the president does not like a particular representative, such as Mr. Kinnock? If he had had those powers when Mr. Kinnock was appointed, what would we have said if he had blackballed Mr. Kinnock? It is feasible for the President-elect of the Commission to use his power of veto, but I do not think it is a power he should have.
Finally, in relation to the political role of the President of the Commission, as I have already said, what goes into the treaty is what will be interpreted by the Commission and the courts. When we talk about having a political role and giving political guidance, we think we know what we mean. We think that politics is about making political decisions. The impression given by the article is that the President of the Commission will in future make political decisions. I believe—and I hope that many other people believe—that political decisions are for elected political leaders and elected parliaments, and not for appointed functionaries.
I shall press the amendment to a Division and I hope that noble Lords will support us in the Division Lobby.
5.42 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 9) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 78; Not-Contents, 97.

Division No. 2

CONTENTS

Alexander of Tunis, E.

Dartmouth, E.

Anelay of St. Johns, B.

Denbigh, E.

Annaly, L.

Denham, L.

Ashbourne, L.

Dixon-Smith, L.

Attlee, E.

Dundee, E.

Belhaven and Stenton, L.

Elliott of Morpeth, L.

Bethell, L.

Falmouth, V.

Biffen, L.

Feldman, L.

Birdwood, L.

Flather, B.

Blatch, B.

Fookes, B.

Brabazon of Tara, L.

Gage, V.

Bruce of Donington, L.

Harmsworth, L.

Burnham, L.

Harris of High Cross, L.

Byford, B.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Carnegy of Lour, B.

Jenkin of Roding, L.

Carnock, L.

Kintore, E.

Clanwilliam, E.

Knight of Collingtree, B.

Colwyn, L.

Lane of Horsell, L.

Cranborne, V.

Lindsey and Abingdon, E.

Cumberlege, B.

Liverpool, E.

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Long, V.

Rawlings, B. [Teller.]

Luke, L.

Rees, L.

McColl of Dulwich, L.

Rennell, L.

Mackay of Ardbrecknish, L.

Renwick, L.

Marlesford, L.

Rotherwick, L.

Massereene and Ferrard, V.

Rowallan, L.

Miller of Hendon, B.

Saltoun of Abernethy, Ly.

Monson, L.

Seccombe, B.

Mountevans, L.

Stoddart of Swindon, L. [Teller.]

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Strathcona and Mount Royal, L.

Moynihan, L.

Sudeley, L.

Newton of Braintree, L.

Swansea, L.

Noel-Buxton, L.

Swinfen, L.

O'Cathain, B.

Torrington, V.

Oppenheim-Barnes, B.

Vivian, L.

Park of Monmouth, B.

Weatherill, L.

Pearson of Rannoch, L.

Wilcox, B.

Plumb, L.

Willoughby de Broke, L.

Rankeillour, L.

Wynford, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Acton, L.

Maddock, B.

Archer of Sandwell, L.

Mallalieu, B.

Avebury, L.

Mar and Kellie, E.

Berkeley, L.

Milner of Leeds, L.

Borrie, L.

Mishcon, L.

Brooke of Alverthorpe, L.

Monckton of Brenchley, V.

Burlison, L.

Monkswell, L.

Calverley, L.

Montague of Oxford, L.

Carlisle, E.

Morris of Manchester, L.

Carter, L. [Teller.]

Newby, L.

Cocks of Hartcliffe, L.

Nicholson of Winterbourne, B.

Dahrendorf, L.

Nicol, B.

Davies of Coity, L.

Norton, L.

Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde, B.

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L.

Desai, L.

Prys-Davies, L.

Dholakia, L.

Ramsay of Cartvale, B.

Donoughue, L.

Randall of St. Budeaux, L.

Dormand of Easington, L.

Rea, L.

Farrington of Ribbleton, B.

Redesdale, L.

Gallacher, L

Rendell of Babergh, B.

Gillbert, L.

Richard, L. [Lord Privy Seal.]

Gladwin of Clee, L.

Rodgers of Quarry Bank, L.

Goodhart, L.

Russell, E.

Gordon of Strathblane, L.

Sainsbury of Turville, L.

Gould of Potternewton, B.

St John of Fawsley, L.

Hamwee, B.

Serota, B.

Hanworth, V.

Sewel, L.

Hardy of Wath, L.

Shepherd, L.

Simon, V.

Haskel, L.

Simon of Highbury, L.

Hayman, B.

Smith of Gilmorehill, B.

Hilton of Eggardon, B.

Strabolgi, L.

Hollis of Heigham, B.

Symons of Vernham Dean, B.

Hoyle, L.

Taverne, L.

Hughes of Woodside, L.

Thomas of Gresford, L.

Hylton, L.

Thomas of Macclesfield, L.

Irvine of Lairg, L. [Lord Chancellor.]

Thomas of Swynnerton, L.

Janner of Braunstone, L.

Thomas of Walliswood, B.

Jay of Paddington, B.

Thomson of Monifieth, L.

Jeger, B.

Tordoff, L.

Turner of Camden, B.

Walker of Doncaster, L.

Jenkins of Putney, L.

Watson of Invergowrie, L.

Judd, L.

Wedderburn of Charlton, L.

Kennet, L.

Whitty, L.

Levy, L.

Williams of Crosby, B.

Linklater of Butlerstone, B.

Williams of Elvel, L.

Lockwood, B.

Williams of Mostyn, L.

Lovell-Davis, L.

Winston, L.

McIntosh of Haringey, L. [Teller.]

Young of Old Scone, B.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
5.50 p.m.
Lord Moynihanmoved Amendment No. 10:
After Clause 1, insert the following new clause—
REPORT ON QUALIFIED MAJORITY VOTING
(". A Minister of the Crown shall lay before both Houses of Parliament an annual report on the action taken by Her Majesty's Government in accordance with paragraphs 6, 13, 26, 31 to 33, 44, 45, 52 to 55 and 57 of Article 2 of the Treaty signed at Amsterdam on 2nd October 1997 amending the Treaty on European Union, the Treaties establishing the European Communities and certain related Acts.").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I do not intend to speak at length this evening on qualified majority voting. The Committee looked into this in considerable detail, particularly in relation to the constitutional implications. At that stage I outlined my view that certain agreed areas, such as the single market, would bring real benefits to the peoples of the member states.
There has been a clear need for majority voting to ensure that decisions are taken in a timely and effective way. That is not because there is virtue in majority voting per se; there is not. Between nation states, consensus is always preferable in principle, but sometimes majority voting has been necessary to provide effective and, above all, uniform implementation of a single set of rules for a common policy, the underlying objectives of which have already been agreed.
I believe that the case has been made for making it easier to override the objections of member states. The burden of proof is on those who advocate more majority voting to explain why it is needed. I indicated that I do not believe the Government have succeeded in making a case for the so-called sensible extension of QMV to which they agreed, which the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, claimed would greatly benefit this country and the decision-making process both immediately and in anticipation of enlargement. He did not explain how, but at least we have the opportunity today to learn from him.
I turn briefly to the new power of co-decision granted to the European Parliament by the Treaty of Amsterdam which was only raised briefly in Committee. At that point I agreed with the noble Lord, Lord Whitty; he is quite right. The co-decision procedure was introduced in Maastricht and we do not object to it in principle. We recognise that it enables the European Parliament to exercise democracy directly within the European institutions. However, in practice, it also enables the European Parliament to exercise a veto over decisions of the Council.
We recognise also that in most areas co-decision has been extended to those areas where QMV will now apply in the treaty, so we are not objecting that co-decision alone constitutes a loss of sovereignty. We object to the extension of QMV and, by definition, the extension of the co-decision procedure on this occasion. The treaty extends the co-decision procedure to 23 areas in total—eight new provisions and 15 existing ones. Co-decision now applies broadly to where there is majority voting, so the European Parliament now has equal decision-making rights to those of European Ministers in all areas decided by QMV, which in fact amounts to most of the European Union's policy areas.
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That means that the European Parliament now has the power of veto and the ability to check the decision-making of the Council of Ministers in important areas such as social policy; employment and incentive measures; public health and transport policy. Parliament is now in a position to insist on modifying Council measures in accordance with its view in all those areas. Those are major new powers for the European Parliament, as is confirmed by an internal briefing note produced by the European Community on 7th July last, which stated;
"The European Parliament made two major gains at the conference to become a genuine co-legislator and a full arm of the European legislature alongside the Council".
First, the co-decision procedure has been considerably extended, essentially along the lines of the principles suggested by the Commission in its report of July 1996 whereby any instrument of a legislative nature should be adopted under the co-decision procedure between the European Parliament and the Council. The co-decision procedure is nothing short of a veto over decisions of the Council of Ministers handed to the European Parliament, and the Government agreed to that veto in 23 new areas.
It is important this evening that we hear from the Government the justification for those new powers. Can the noble Lord tell us what impact it will have on the role of the national parliaments and how we will benefit from any weakening of the powers of the British Parliament? Can he assure the House that, with that massive extension of co-decision taken together with the European Parliament's new powers to approve the nomination of the President of the Commission, we are not in danger of weakening the direct link between member states and European decision-making as qualified majority voting replaces unanimity, as the European Parliament is able to veto more and more and as we lose the ability to secure our own choice of Commissioner—an issue we have just covered extensively under the previous amendment?
It is against that background that in 1997 the Conservative manifesto contained a pledge,
"to defend the rights of national parliaments and oppose more powers being given to the European Parliament at the expense of national parliaments".
Can the noble Lord also guarantee that the European Parliament will not use the co-decision procedure to enhance its status at the expense of the substance of legislation? The Prime Minister concluded his remarks to the House on his return from Amsterdam with the statement,
"We said that we would … make [Amsterdam] more relevant to the concerns of the peoples of Europe, and we did".—[Official Report, Commons, 18/6/97; col. 316.]
I have difficulty with that. Can the Minister tell the House how Europe can be more relevant to the peoples of Europe when they have less say because their veto has been taken away; when they have less control because more power has gone to the European Parliament at the expense of national parliaments, and when they have less say because more power has gone to unaccountable judges in Brussels?

1213
It is important to examine the role in which this Parliament appears by some who have argued the case to have become less than a beneficiary of these new powers; indeed, it is strongly argued that the European Parliament has become the beneficiary of these new powers. Does it deserve the 23 areas of veto and its new powers over the appointment of the President of the Commission? What will be the effect of the European Parliament having those new powers?
We are considering that against the recognition that the European Parliament is a young institution which already plays a significant role in the European legislative process. But it is not a parliament in any Westminster sense of law-making. Indeed, its democratic credentials, which again were debated at some length on the previous amendment are, one can argue, tenuous. A voter in the United Kingdom—or even all the voters in the United Kingdom—have reasonably little influence on the composition of the whole parliament or its policies.
When one reflects on the turnout in the European parliamentary elections—well known to everyone here—the results are interesting. In many cases, the turnout is hardly surprising since many Members of the European Parliament failed to turn up to the sessions of that parliament. A few years ago, the Sunday Times—as noble Lords will recall—investigated the evidence that MEPs were not compelled to appear for plenary sessions. The survey found that a French Conservative failed to register at all; a French Socialist and an Italian were present for only one day out of 58; two more Italians (a Christian Democrat and a Socialist priest and journalist) attended twice.
The article went on to say that,
"Many of the absent members may be ill, some may be dead. But the Parliament's administration was unable this weekend to produce a list of those who have died since the last election in 1989".
It is not wholly surprising that there has not been overwhelming support for the impact of the European Parliament. What hope can we have—perhaps the Minister can assist on this—that the situation will be improved after the forthcoming elections?
Moreover, the Government themselves have clearly had a less than favourable opinion of their own MEPs, who have had a track record of pushing a radical socialist agenda in Europe, which is very different from the one propounded by New Labour. Since June 1994 these MEPs have established patterns of playing what are undoubtedly irresponsible party politics in Europe, voting for intrusive, bureaucratic and extremist policies, earning epithets of "infantile" and "incompetent" from the Prime Minister himself. Having taken positions substantially to the left of the New Labour leadership in the UK, Labour MEPs have proved to be a large and painful thorn in the side of the Prime Minister's attempts when as Opposition leader he was seeking to modernise the Labour Party at home. Their behaviour in Brussels and Strasbourg has marked them out as advocates of the high spending and interventionist policies of old Labour.
1214
Indeed, the words of David Martin, the former leader of the Labour MEPs, sum up their views neatly:
"A socialist superstate is exactly what we do want to create".
We considered at an earlier stage some examples to support this argument—the Clause 4 fiasco and the Labour MEP suspensions. There are, as noble Lords on both sides of the House know, many such examples. I think it would be wrong to rehearse them again today, but I believe the point I made was a strong one. No doubt the Minister, in his usual courteous way, will also comment on that very point.
In conclusion, I should like to know how the Amsterdam Treaty achieves the objectives which the Government said it would by the extension of QMV. Let us be clear about exactly what Amsterdam does. First, it creates a significant transfer of decision making from the member states of the European Union to the European Parliament. While the power of the member states is weakened by extending QMV in 15 new areas, plus five areas included in the social chapter, the power of the European Parliament is increased, giving it a veto in 23 new areas. Secondly, as I have already demonstrated, Amsterdam allows the Commission to become politicised. The president is now nominated by the European Parliament, individual Commissioners are subject to approval by the president and the Commission is to work under the political guidance of the president. In short, the European Parliament is able to influence the political agenda of the entire European Union.
Taken together, it is clear that these changes are a considerable alteration of the balance of power between Brussels and member states and between the Council of Ministers and Parliament. The power exercised in the European Union is, and should be, a delicate balance between national parliaments, national governments, the Commission, the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament. If the Government have agreed to extensions of power to the European Parliament, which the Commission says they have, will the Minister tell us from whom that additional power has been taken? Has it been taken from the Commission? No, it has been taken from national governments and national parliaments; and I would argue, in this instance, for nothing in return. Therefore, I look forward to hearing why. I beg to move.
6 p.m.
Baroness Williams of Crosby: My Lords, on this amendment we reach a major distinction between the Official Opposition and the Liberal Democrat Benches with regard to the role of the European Parliament. Indeed, if there is a direct conflict between accepting the idea of democratic control over the European Community—I use the word "community" advisedly as part of the Union and not the whole of it—then the role of the European Parliament is central to that. There is no direct way in which the specifically European legislation under the Community can become fully accountable to a single national parliament. However, as is clear from later amendments, it is the view of the Liberal Democrat Benches that there is no zero sum gain, that both the national parliaments and the European parliaments can

1215
have greater strength and power of scrutiny over the Acts of European legislation, and that there is no necessary conflict between them.
I am pleased to see that Her Majesty's Government have taken steps to strengthen the powers of national parliaments to scrutinise European legislation and have not seen that as being in conflict with the strengthening of the decision-making powers of the European Parliament. Strengthening the power of the European Parliament does not subtract from the powers of national parliaments over Community legislation—that is to say, legislation initiated by the Commission and agreed to by the Council of Ministers. What it does is to limit the powers of the Council and the Commission by making them both responsive to a parliamentary institution. I therefore believe that there is a strong case for saying—my colleagues on these Benches share this view—that the processes of decision making in the European Community part of the European Union should be made much more transparent, much more simple and much more well known and for that to happen we will need to strengthen the role of the European Parliament.
Let me pause for one moment to set out what Amsterdam fundamentally did. It reduced the processes of decision making from a confusing shambles of many, many such processes basically to three. Those three were assent, to a convention or a treaty; consultation, which applies where the matter lies largely outside the remit of the European Parliament; and co-decision making, where in effect the parliament exercises a veto. There are still one or two areas where the complicated process of the so-called co-operative procedures still obtains; and the sooner those turn into the co-decision procedure the better for everyone.
I cannot see how any argument can be made for maintaining the extraordinarily complex and confusing structure of decision making that existed before Amsterdam. Having said that, it is also right and proper that the European Parliament should exercise a veto in the areas where no other veto by a parliament effectively exists. I find it extremely strange that those noble Lords who have advocated democracy all the way through these long debates do not seem to perceive that the elected European Parliament is itself a democratic institution.
I fully share the criticisms that some have made. For example, I fully share the criticism made by the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, of some individual members of the European Parliament who see fit to be absent from parliament for periods of time and who appear to think they have a right to sit in parliament and to give us the benefit of their views without effectively representing their constituents. I have to say that that is not unique to the European Parliament. Would that it were so. It is not a good reason for not making the European Parliament as effective a democratic institution as possible.
The Earl of Dartmouth: My Lords, the whole point of the European Parliament is that there are not any constituents.
Baroness Williams of Crosby: My Lords, with great respect to the noble Earl, I find that puzzling since I know many people who engaged in voting at the last
1216
European elections for members of the European Parliament. I do not quite agree that they have no constituents. My view is rather the opposite of the noble Earl's. The sooner they realise they have, the better for everyone.
The Earl of Dartmouth: My Lords, I must apologise for some imprecision of language on my part. There are no European parliamentary constituencies outside the United Kingdom. As a consequence of the Government's legislation, at the United Kingdom European elections in 1999 there will be no parliamentary constituencies here either. In that sense, there are no constituents. There are just a mass of party lists. Hence, there is very little connection between the electors of Europe and the members of the European Parliament.
Baroness Williams of Crosby: My Lords, I take the noble Earl's point. I was assuming that by "constituents" he meant "electors"; and electors there certainly are.
I wish to resume my theme just for a moment. I shall not detain the House for very long. The other part of what I want to say concerns the responsibility of the European Parliament with regard to some matters that have been brought within its purview by the Treaty of Amsterdam. The veto has been extended primarily by the change in decision making, which is entirely to clarify the way in which it is done. It has also extended into certain areas, one of which is the environment. There must be a strong case for having some qualified majority votes in the area of the environment. Indeed, I found it interesting that earlier in the debate there was passionate argument about the fact that Spain could actually veto a change in the Schengen arrangements on her own because she had managed to have included a clause as regards unanimity. I understood that a number of noble Lords believed passionately in the principle of unanimity. One cannot have it working one way and not another.
In my view—and I shall conclude on this note—there are certain crucial cross-border issues which affect all member states of the European Union. The noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, understood that about the single market. Her Majesty's Government understand that about certain aspects of environmental and social policy. I do not see any great conflict between these two on issues of the kind that go well beyond the scope of any individual national parliament, including our own. It must be right and proper that there should be a straightforward, transparent and democratic decision-making structure.
Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, when the Minister replies can he say a word about the Conference of European Affairs Committees which is mentioned in the protocol in the treaty? During the previous parliament there was a good deal of debate about the way that representatives from these committees from the national parliaments, which included both Houses in our case, could, when meeting together, exert some kind of linkage or influence on the proceedings of the European

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institutions and on the whole process of European law-making and decision-making. It was felt that that would fill a gap.
It was rightly pointed out—as indeed it was pointed out during debates in your Lordships' House this very Tuesday—that however much scrutiny we have and however detailed our examination of legislative proposals, directives and regulations from the Commission, possibly in this House the real problem is not at the precise legislative stage. The real problem about engaging national parliaments in the European policy-making process lies in the need for national parliaments and their representatives to be more involved in the initial processes which give birth to the Commission recommendations to the Council of Ministers and to the regulations and directives which sometimes descend on a surprised House of Commons or your Lordships' House or which, in many cases, bypass the national parliamentary procedures altogether and leap straight from the Commission into our national laws and our statute book.
That is where the "aggro", if I may use that word, arises. It is the feeling that the whole European legislative machine is rolling forward in an unaccountable way. As the noble Baroness reminds us, there is the European Parliament and it has its role to play. But the European Parliament is a curious arrangement. It does not have Ministers to hold to account. Many of the representatives in the parliament do not have constituents. When one asks whether they have constituents and ask what they are saying, they look very surprised and say that they have not arrived by that process.
So, however much one wants to see the European parliamentary system play its part, it cannot really ensure the thread of legitimacy that ought to run from the top; that is, people and voters in the nation states down to the ultimate servants of the system which are the institutions at the bottom. I know that many people like to put that triangle the other way up, but I put it with people at the top. That system cannot ensure that that thread is continuous and legitimacy is maintained. That is why some of us in the previous parliament urged that at least in some areas there was a coming together of the Conference of European Affairs Committees—whether legislative committees or foreign affairs committees was a matter for debate—or other specialist committees in transport and education which might provide a better way for national parliaments to involve themselves in the initial thinking and the initial mixing, long before the cake is baked, when the ideas are put forward which subsequently lead to legislation. It would be very good if the Minister could say more on that subject which is mentioned in detail in the Amsterdam Treaty.
6.15 p.m.
Earl Russell: My Lords, perhaps I may add a short footnote to the speech of my noble friend Lady Williams of Crosby. I agree with every word she said. What she really brought out is that those who criticise the Bill are making two incompatible objections. On the one hand
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they are objecting that the European Union is supranational; on the other they are objecting that it has a democratic deficit. They cannot have both of those objections at once for reasons that my noble friend explained very clearly. If they want to tackle the democratic deficit they must do it through the European Parliament which is, of its nature, supranational. So they are making two incompatible objections. Which one are they going to give up?
I say to the noble Earl, Lord Dartmouth, who made so notable a maiden speech yesterday, that if he follows proceedings on the European Parliamentary Elections Bill, he may find that we have a little more in common than he believes.
Baroness Park of Monmouth: My Lords, I wish to make a small point which is really a question of elucidation. In the protocol on the role of national parliaments, provision is made for a six-week period between eliciting the proposal and it being adopted. In that time it has to be made available to the European Parliament and the Council. That is excellent. But I cannot understand why, if we regard six weeks as appropriate in such cases, the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Crosby, is suggesting, in her Amendment No. 16 on parliamentary scrutiny, only 10 working days for a national parliament. Perhaps I have misunderstood something. It seems curious. National parliaments need the time much more because they have to translate the consequences in terms of cost benefit analysis and everything else. I wonder why there are only 10 days for national parliaments whereas there is provision for six weeks for the European Parliament.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, as usual, I listened with great interest to the speech made by the noble Baroness, Lady Williams. I do not know whether she was here at the time, but I invite her to recall an occasion recently when the member of the Government representing the Home Office was putting forward a Bill through this place for the regulation of the forthcoming elections to the European Parliament. He was doing his very best to prove that Members of the European Parliament are nothing like Members of Parliament as we understand them.
He made a brave point. He said that they did not have contact with constituents to the same degree that we have in elections in this country. He gave them the status of "representatives" rather than legislators. I invite the noble Baroness to consider that and to read the speeches made by the noble Lord who spoke for the Home Office.
I ask her to take into account another factor. It is becoming dangerously easy to equate an election carried out on the basis of party lists as being the same, and carrying the same democratic connotations, as the election of a Member selected by local constituents or the constituency party within the district they hope to represent. I suggest to the noble Baroness and to the House that we are in very considerable danger of equating, in almost precise, meaningful terms, an election on the basis of a party list, particularly where it

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is a closed one—which is the situation in many cases in Europe—as being of the same democratic nature as an election from constituencies.
It is a long time ago, but when I first joined the Labour Party I went to the occasional summer school organised by the illustrious father of the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd. He was Sir George Shepherd. I was warned of the dangers of what he described as "democratic centralism". He said, "Bruce, my boy"—because I was young at the time—"that is the doctrine of the Communist Party". What does it mean? It means that the policy is determined at the top and that those below are required not to argue about it but to accept it and propound it. I begin to detect in our affairs in Europe a tendency towards that, too. I detect a tendency for similar institutions to try to pass as here credible examples of "democracies". In the UK, let alone in Europe, I detect a return to Leninism which is dictation of policy from the top with all the rest below in the party requiring to conform.
Under the party list system in the main it is the party machine that is responsible for selection. If an individual is not on the party machine approved list—there have been occasions when I have been dangerously close to going outside it—he does not stand very much chance of getting into Parliament. Yet our Parliament has always been enriched by the degree of independence among its Members.
Earl Russell: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, has to my pleasure made a number of comments with which I agree, but since they relate to proceedings on a future Bill perhaps I may defer that pleasure until the appropriate moment.
Lord Tordoff: My Lords, I hesitate to intervene because I was not here for the beginning of the debate. However, thanks to the electronic wonders of the Palace, I listened to the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Howell. I wondered whether the Government intended to reply to his remarks about the role of Parliament in relation to Amendment No. 10 or Amendment No. 11 and those grouped with it. If it is the former, I shall sit down again very rapidly, perhaps having first taken the opportunity to say to the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, that single-Member constituencies are not always in the hands of the electorate but rather in the hands of the party chairman of that constituency.
Lord Monson: My Lords, in introducing this amendment the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, said (if I paraphrase him correctly) that where agreements between independent sovereign nation states were contemplated, consensus—as opposed to coercion—was always the best path to try to follow. In effect QMV by definition leads to coercion and opens the floodgates to yet more cynical horse-trading, examples of which we have seen month after month, year after year.
The noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, declared that the Treaty of Amsterdam had introduced a total of 23 new or modified areas to which QMV was to be applied. My brief lists a total of 27. One way or the other, I can identify only three areas in which the application of
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QMV would be of benefit to this and other countries and disadvantageous to no honest person; namely, countering fraud, the preparation of statistics and transparency. Many of the other areas may appear to be superficially innocuous, but could be twisted and turned against us as has happened in the past, notably over matters such as the 48-hour week.
I would have thought that one of them would be unattractive to any country which wished to remain an independent sovereign nation state. I refer to the implementation of decisions under a common foreign and security policy. If a nation cannot make its own decisions in that area in perpetuity, what is the point of it remaining an independent sovereign state? For this and other reasons, I fully support the amendment.
Lord Whitty: My Lords, I was grateful that the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, did not spend a good deal of time on the question of qualified majority voting and that he took a somewhat more pragmatic attitude to it than perhaps was the case at earlier stages of this debate, and certainly earlier in the history of the Conservative Party. I believe that the Conservative Party was just as pragmatic and sensible when negotiating treaties with an extension of QMV as the Labour Government were at Amsterdam. The Single European Act extended QMV to 12 new areas. Maastricht extended QMV to an extra 13 new areas. At the time, most of them appeared to be very sensible and now have total support across Europe. The extension of QMV at Amsterdam was substantially less than that, and in my view that was also very sensible.
If the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, challenges me to prove that it is sensible, I make the general point that some extension of QMV is probably sensible in preparation for enlargement. Indeed, his noble friend Lady Rawlings almost made that point last night. I take research and development as an example. If R&D policy were always subject to veto by, say, Spain or one of the newly arrived member states, we would not achieve very much in that field that would benefit Britain. As I pointed out in Committee, earlier this year Spain threatened to block the R&D framework until it was satisfied about its future receipts under the structural funds. In the event, Spain removed that threat. However, had Spain persisted, that would have been an excellent example of the way in which QMV could be in the interests of Europe and Britain—and especially of British industry and British universities securing a European framework for R&D.
We believe that the extension of QMV within the Treaty of Amsterdam is helpful. We shall not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, about its extension to the social chapter and in the field of the environment, but we believe that it is important. I believe that there is a consensus in this House that the extension of QMV to measures to prevent fraud is a very important decision flowing from the intergovernmental conference. Earlier, my noble friend Lord Bruce gave the example of Greece which vetoed the investigation of fraud in the tobacco trade. This provision removes the ability of the Greek Government in those circumstances to veto such moves.

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We also agreed to the extension of QMV to transparency, with which I believe most Members of the House agree.
But it is right that in a treaty between sovereign nations certain areas should remain subject to unanimity. We retained unanimity, as we said in the manifesto, in keys areas of national interest, such as taxation, the Budget, foreign policy, defence and immigration. We are not in the business of extending QMV for its own sake, any more than we are in the business of dogmatically resisting it. I believe that the extension of QMV at Amsterdam was defensible and sensible.
However, I was surprised by the noble Lord's almost root-and-branch attack on the European Parliament. It was a slightly strange attack, for throughout much of the passage of this Bill the noble Lord has objected to the lack of democracy. The noble Baroness, Lady Rawlings, heard only half of it. The noble Baroness has represented her nation, party and constituents in the European Parliament, as have other noble Lords in this House, on the basis of a democratic vote, as the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, and others have pointed out. Admittedly, the noble Lord's attack on the European Parliament seemed in part like some of the remarks of my noble friend Lord Bruce, to be more concerned with the internal affairs of the Labour Party. I am always happy to debate the internal affairs of the Labour Party, of which I have some experience, but I must inform the House that Clause 4 (in its existing form or its previous form) is not part of the Treaty of Amsterdam. Therefore, I do not believe that it is particularly relevant to this debate.
We support co-decision because, contrary to what I believe to be the stance of the Opposition, the European Parliament is an essential part of the democratic process in the European Union. The extension of co-decision is a limited but sensible enhancement of that democratic role. It does not enable the European Parliament to propose a measure or to insist upon a proposal proposed by the Council, but it ensures that it cannot go ahead in the areas now subject to co-decision without the approval of the European Parliament. The noble Lord refers to that as a veto; I call it democratic decision-making. In most cases, it relates to areas in which there is an extension of co-decision to which qualified majority voting applies.
This is not an issue of transferring powers or sovereignty from the national parliaments to the European Parliament. It is a question of decisions which are already being taken by majority vote at European level being subject to a degree of national democratic accountability. It is not at the expense of national parliaments. If anything it is at the expense of the Commission and the Council.
The European Parliament is an essential element of European democracy. It is not an alternative to strengthening the role of national parliaments, which we will debate in the next amendment. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, this is not a zero sum game. It is quite the opposite. The two are
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complementary and mutually enhancing. We strongly support both the extension of the European Parliament's powers and the new protocol on national parliaments.
Additional points were raised by other noble Lords. The noble Baroness, Lady Park, raised an issue which is really more adjacent to the next amendment and if she does not mind, I will leave it until that discussion.
The noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, raised the question of co-operation between national parliaments at earlier stages of preparation of European legislation. This is an important point, which also is germane to some extent to the next amendment. The Amsterdam Treaty envisages an enhanced, institutionalised role for COSAC—which deals with co-operation at parliamentary level. It will meet together and have a non-binding, consultative but important role, in assessing the way in which European legislation is being developed. The noble Lord wishes to see this extended further to specialist committees. This is a useful point which we ought to assume in our consideration of the role of national parliaments.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, said, at the end of the day it will not be 15 or 26 national parliaments which provide the detailed scrutiny of European legislation in the first instance, but the European Parliament. It is important that we do not cast aspersions on the democratic nature of the European Parliament, as the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, and my noble friend Lord Bruce and others have done. It is true that the turn-out in European Parliament elections has been relatively low compared with national parliament elections. It has, however, been higher than that for a whole range of democratic institutions in this country and across Europe. It is not healthy or sensible for us to impugn their democratic status by suggesting that that of itself proves that the European Parliament is not part of the democratic accountability of the European Union.
A more positive approach to the European Parliament will lead to a greater status for it and a greater degree of transparency, accountability and democracy in the European Union as a whole.
There are differences between ourselves and the approach of the noble Lord. On QMV there are no differences in principle but differences at the edges. In relation to co-decision, there might be a difference in principle on various points, but the Conservative Party, particularly in a year when it is preparing for European elections, may come to express a greater appreciation of the role of the European Parliament in the coming months than the noble Lord is prepared to do today.
6.30 p.m.
Lord Moynihan: My Lords, in drafting my remarks this afternoon, the European elections were not in the forefront of my mind, but the exchange that we had during Committee stage was. The debate that we have had this evening has been one of the best during these lengthy proceedings. It has crystallised the views that are held on all sides of the House.
The noble Baroness, Lady Williams, began by pointing out that we have polarised, different views on one or two of these issues. We do. I respect her for

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holding her views; I disagree with them. I have attempted to put the arguments as clearly as I can as regards my position. So be it. That is the case. If we are not going to meet on this issue, I am pleased that we meet on other issues of foreign policy.
I did not make a root and branch attack on the European Parliament. I might have gently pointed to the antics of some MEPs—you would not expect me to do otherwise. There is plenty more material on that subject but, in the interests of progress on the Bill, it is best to leave the matter and not return to it in the context of this Bill.
I was, I hope, pointing out that there are many areas where historically, as the Minister has pointed out, there is agreement about the benefits of QMV. Where there is a single purpose, where there is a clear purpose to achieve a specific objective—and I mentioned the single market—it is important that majority voting is used to ensure that those decisions are taken effectively. I made that point to begin with. I may be in disagreement with some noble Lords on that point but, for once on this Bill, I am in agreement with the Government Front Bench.
I was trying to state that it is very important when you extend QMV for the Government to come before the House to make the case for that extension—and to make a case in each and every area—because there is, unquestionably, the issue of the transfer of sovereignty and power. One can argue whether it is from the Commission to the Parliament or from one national parliament to the European Parliament but, when you accept that there are new areas where you extend decision-making to QMV, it is important for the Government to come before the House and defend that extension. As in Committee, my argument this evening is that that case has not been made on the specific cases. To that extent I am being as pragmatic as I can be, despite the noble Lord's chiding in that context.
As for co-decision, I was not objecting. When the noble Lord has had the opportunity to read Hansard tomorrow, he will reflect that I was not objecting in principle to co-decision. I recognise fully that the European Parliament is enabled to exercise its role more effectively and democratically within the European institutions where the principle of co-decision is recognised. What I have done is reflect in some detail on QMV and the areas of QMV that concern me.
I can add very little more to this debate. As I said at the outset, it represents one of the most constructive exchanges of view in this area that we have had. I disagree with the Government and I strongly disagree with the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, in the specific point that she made at the outset of her speech.
I do not intend to press this amendment to a vote. I am grateful to the Government and to noble Lords on all sides of the House for participating in a debate in which I knew we would not come to agreement. I do not think there is any benefit at this stage in dividing the House and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Bruce of Doningtonmoved Amendment No. 11:
After Clause 1, insert the following new clause—
REPORT ON ROLE OF NATIONAL PARLIAMENTS
(". A Minister of the Crown shall, no later than 1st June 1999 and at annual intervals thereafter, lay before both Houses of Parliament a report on the action taken by the Her Majesty's Government in pursuance of the Protocol on the role of national parliaments in the European Union annexed to the Treaty signed at Amsterdam on 2nd October 1997 amending the Treaty on European Union, the Treaties establishing the European Communities and certain related Acts.").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, you will recall that I dealt very briefly with the essence of this amendment in Committee.
Will the Minister explain the origins of this extraordinary protocol? Just who is responsible for producing it? Under what conditions was it produced?
Your Lordships will recall from the diaries of Mr. Alan Clark, now the MP for Kensington and Chelsea, and Mr. Lamont, who was sometimes Chancellor of the Exchequer and attended Council meetings from time to time, the rather realistic and graphic descriptions of how Council business was discussed—for example, the recumbent or otherwise attitude of some of those attending, the doubt as to whether some were awake at the time, and one or two other matters—which placed the Council in rather an unfavourable light.
I am not for the moment suggesting that this applies now. I suggest that all members who attended the council meeting at which the text of the treaty and the protocols were agreed were alert people, bent on arriving at a solution and determined to meet the requirements of their countries in so far as possible and on a normal give-and-take basis.
When I last discussed this matter with your Lordships, I indicated that one of the preambles exhibited a less than vigorous attitude towards the provision of information to the members of the national parliaments. I should like to read it in order to refresh your Lordships' memories. It states:
"DESIRING, however, to encourage greater involvement of national parliaments in the activities of the European Union and to enhance their ability to express their views on matters which may be of particular interest to them".
According to those who drafted the protocol, that was the main purpose.
I may be wrong, and once again I may be out of step with the Government I am pleased to support. However, I did not and do not take that attitude in regard to information provided to us by the European Commission. I thought that one of the principal purposes was to enable parliaments to advise their own Ministers on what they thought about proposed legislation. It was not merely a matter of passing interest; it was because under parliamentary government, to which most of them are strangers, it is customary for members of parliaments to want to be fully informed in order to advise their governments and if necessary—and perish the thought—occasionally to rebel in order to establish their will. That is why I am curious to know how the provision originated.

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My second inquiry relates to what the Government propose to do about it. The protocol states:
"All Commission consultation documents (green and white papers and communications) shall be promptly forwarded to the national parliaments of the Member States".
I want to know what is the Government's concept of the word "promptly". I do not wish to refer to domestic matters too much, but from time to time I have been in correspondence with government departments here and have been promised prompt responses. "Prompt" may mean as much as four or five months, even in our domestic affairs. I wonder at what understanding they arrived in order to determine what was meant by "promptly".
Paragraph 2 of the protocol states:
"Commission proposals for legislation"
and this has a certain resonance with a comment I made earlier—
"as defined by the Council in accordance with Article 207(3) of the Treaty establishing the European Community, shall be made available in good time so that the Government of each Member State may ensure that its own national parliament receives them as appropriate".
Paragraph 3 states:
"A six-week period shall elapse between a legislative proposal or a proposal for a measure to be adopted under Title VI of the Treaty on European Union being made available in all languages to the European Parliament … subject to exceptions on grounds of urgency".
All that sounds a little vague. What I want to know, and what the House may be interested to know, is exactly how the Government propose that the protocol shall be adhered to principally by the Commission. What sanctions do they believe they have to demand that proposals are sent to them in good time so that they can be considered by their parliaments? What arrangements have they come to with other members of the Council who may or may not think on similar lines? I would have thought that we wanted something a little more definite.
For a time I was a member of the Select Committee on European legislation. I will not bother to relate to the House the history of my participation in that committee or the circumstances of my departure. But from time to time we were hampered—and I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, will agree—by lack of information provided in good time. Indeed, the noble Lord complained eloquently and most efficiently to the various parties in Europe in order to have that difficulty rectified.
These are important matters. It is not only a question of getting information to us on time but also of bringing to a halt the flood of proposed legislation which the European Commission, as a trained bureaucracy, knows very well we cannot possibly scrutinise before it is enacted in law. I refer your Lordships, for example, to the latest progress of scrutiny document issued by the House of Lords on 1st May. It sets out a list of the various proposals and communications received from the European Commission on which explanatory memoranda have already been prepared by the
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government department concerned and which it will not send for scrutiny and recommends should not be scrutinised at all.
That is reasonable because the committee knows quite well that even if the members of the sub-committees of the European Community Select Committee in this place were doubled they would not get through all the documents at all promptly. In the three weeks up to 1st May, 60 such items were not sent to any sub-committee or to the Select Committee; they were passed through as not requiring scrutiny.
Your Lordships may have different views; all our priorities are different according to our preferences, our subjects and possibly even our skills. But if your Lordships look at List A in the progress of legislation document you may believe that it would have been a good idea if such-and-such a document were sent to the committee and scrutinised. It illustrates that even now the flood of communications—perhaps proposals for decisions, directives or regulations—coming to the British Parliament is too much for it to deal with.
Do not let us kid ourselves. The Commission is a bureaucracy, and I have had a long experience of them in business and elsewhere. I know that one of the easiest ways of overwhelming your adversaries is to flood them with so much work that they cannot possibly deal with it. It happens in professions and in associations in exactly the same way and that is what is being done by the Commission.
We are not free from blame in this matter, I regret to say. I must be fair because there are deficiencies in our own parliamentary institutions which match some of the decisions of the bureaucracy in Brussels. For example, on 28th February the Annual Report and Statement of Assurance of the European Court of Auditors concerning the financial year 1996 was passed through on the nod late at night at about a quarter past ten without examination by Parliament. That hardly indicates a degree of devotion to duty of Members of another place. There is another one too with regard to the budget itself, about which the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, made representations because we did not get the documents in time to consider them. On 25th November 1997 at 10.15 p.m. the following Question was put without debate:
"That this House takes note of the European Community documents Nos. 10153/97, the draft general budget of the European Communities for 1998, and PE262.699, the European Parliament's proposed amendments to the draft general budget of the European Communities for 1998; and supports the Government's efforts to maintain budget discipline in the Community.
Question agreed to".
That means that we ourselves, as a British Parliament, will have to pull up our socks a little as well and look at these matters on which we demand particulars and on which we have a right to have particulars.
Noble Lords may feel that I am too particular about these matters. It is a very old saying but the price of liberty is, of course, eternal vigilance. And before we make political judgments, judgments which affect our citizens not only in this country but elsewhere, it

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behoves us to be provided with the information and the documents enabling us to reach a balanced and true judgment. I beg to move.
Baroness Williams of Crosby: My Lords, it may be to the benefit of the Report Stage of this Bill if I speak to Amendments Nos. 16 and 17 briefly at this stage so that we can take part in the general debate. Then, of course, they will be moved separately.
I should make it absolutely clear that in my view Amendments Nos. 16 and 17 address themselves to the issue of how Parliament can most effectively deal with European legislation. I believe that a report would be unnecessary because one could almost issue the first report immediately. I intend, in the few moments which I shall take, to try to do that.
If one goes back first to the issue of legislation under the Community part of the European Union, that is to say the part which falls within the non-intergovernmental areas, so-called pillars 2 and 3, there has been, as the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, pointed out, a scrutiny machinery set up in this House which I believe has been one of the most striking developments of this House's functions in recent years. It has been most effective.
Like the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, I have had the great honour to be a member of one of the sub-committees of the European Communities Committee. It is an excellent development of Parliament's powers and a most effective way to have Parliament's views brought to bear on European legislation.
I have also had the pleasure of going with the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, to a meeting of other parliamentary groups looking into the issue of scrutiny. I heard how effectively and brilliantly he has put forward the way in which scrutiny is conducted by the Houses of Parliament in this country and how that has influenced other countries.
Over recent years there have been a series of reports by committees of this House dealing with the issue of the scrutiny of European legislation. I take just a couple of examples. The 27th report contained a long list of the ways in which scrutiny is delayed, held up or made difficult. The problems range from explanatory memoranda not showing up to drafts of documents not appearing. And, in many, many instances, the responsibility lies, unfortunately, with our own government departments.
The same 27th report gives an example of an important piece of legislation concerned with the environment. It was presented to the sub-committee on 27th November but the Minister was obliged to explain that the matter had already been decided a few weeks previously. Not even a draft had reached the sub-committee.
There are, unfortunately, recent examples, even under this Government, of similar somewhat—how can one put it—"high-handed" treatment of sub-committees. Frankly, it is not in our interests, if we care about democratic scrutiny, to make sure that this machinery does not work well. Fortunately, the Government have
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taken the matter very much to heart. The noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, referred to the protocol and did so, I thought, in somewhat critical terms. The protocol is a very substantial achievement. The fact that the protocol says that all Commission consultation documents, both green and white, should in future be forwarded to national parliaments for their consideration goes a few steps towards meeting the extremely powerful point made by the noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford. The noble Lord said that it was important that these matters were discussed before decisions were taken upon them and not, as so often, after those decisions had effectively been made. To have Green and White Papers coming before national parliaments is an important element in ensuring that the views of national parliament are taken much more seriously into account.
I draw attention also to the six-week period now laid down in the protocol. That is a huge step forward. We now have six weeks before any Council can reach a decision and during which the documents must be made available to the Council and to the national parliament.
With respect to the point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Park of Monmouth, it is the case that the six-week period could largely apply to a national parliament if our own Government got the document to us fast enough. It will be laid before our own Government in the Council of Ministers within the same requisite six weeks. The reason why my amendments refer only to 10 working days stems from the miserable experience of all too many documents that became totally stuck in a government department. I am allowing, frankly, three and a half weeks for them to be stuck in government departments before they have to be laid before the scrutiny committee of the respective Houses. I consider that not an ungenerous amount of time.
The second substantial achievement appears in the European Communities Committee report called Enhancing Parliamentary Scrutiny of the Third Pillar. The report draws attention to the wholly unsatisfactory absence of any effective scrutiny over an area of intergovernmental legislation here which directly affects in one area after another the liberties of the individual. Anyone who has studied carefully the sections dealing with Europol and other aspects of internal security will know how sensitive such material is. I was appalled to discover how extraordinarily weak the accountability in this area was. It seemed that we were spending all our time seeking to ensure that it did not drift towards the Community pillar but doing very little indeed to establish the rights of our Parliament to be heard on these matters.
I share as emphatically as the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, a sense that Parliament has a significant role to play. In that document, the sixth report, noble Lords drew attention to the importance of a formal scrutiny reserve on intergovernmental documents—specifically, in this case, internal security. They drew attention to the need for the Government to refuse to agree any adoption of such legislation within the intergovernmental structure of the Council of Ministers unless the scrutiny reserve had been removed.

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Many of your Lordships know how much they have been concerned about that and how much it has been pressed over recent years. It was therefore a delight for me to see that in her memorandum, the President of the Council, the Leader of the House in another place, brought forward two very striking commitments.
The first commitment is that:
"The Government undertakes, subject to certain exceptions, not to give agreement to the Council of Ministers to any proposal in which either House has not completed scrutiny—the so-called scrutiny reserve".
That applies specifically in that area to the intergovernmental pillar. She went on to say that the scrutiny reserve would apply to documents deposited in both Houses for scrutiny under the intergovernmental pillars.
Those two commitments by the President of the Council extend very substantially the ability of this House and of another place to scrutinise crucial legislation affecting individuals in this country and the liberty of those individuals. It is crucial that we support the President of the Council in what she is doing. It is crucial that we follow this up.
I do not intend to press either of the amendments to a Division. It would be wholly inappropriate to do so because the Government have already taken very long steps—much longer steps than their predecessors—in the very direction which my colleagues and I wish to move. I congratulate them on what they have done. It substantially strengthens the role of Parliament. I hope that the Government will respond to what is essentially a probing amendment to establish how far we can now go and what they hope for from the Modernisation Committee in another place. That is why I have tabled the amendments. Again, I should say how glad I am that we are moving in that direction as quickly as we are doing.
7 p.m.
The Principal Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Tordoff): My Lords, it may be appropriate for me to intervene at this stage and say a few words on this important subject, which is the bread and butter of my daily life these days.
I hope that I can stay until the end of the debate and I apologise if I cannot. However, I must catch the last train back to the South West this evening. Normally, in the circumstances, I would have stayed overnight but I must be back in London on Sunday for the start of the COSAC meeting which we are hosting on Sunday evening, Monday and Tuesday of next week. I shall return to COSAC in a few moments.
I have heard some interesting remarks in the last few moments from all sides of the House. I overheard, as it were, the noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, through my monitor, talking about parliamentary scrutiny, and I listened with interest, as always, to the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, and my noble friend Lady Williams of Crosby.
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Matters have improved over the past few years but, as the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, said, they are far from perfect. One of the issues which the noble Lord did not stress in what he said was the synergy between the two Houses of Parliament. One must remember that the other place provides a different form of scrutiny. It vets each document and decides whether it is of political or legal importance. If it is, it is passed either to a Standing Committee or to the Whole House. Finding a slot to debate the issue thereafter is a matter with which we all have difficulty. That is the case also in this House in relation to reports from your Lordships' Select Committee. Particularly later in the year, it is difficult to find a slot so that matters can be debated at a reasonable time. Such matters tend to get pushed to the back of the queue after government legislation, which is quite understandable.
The noble Lord, Lord Bruce, mentioned the number of A-list matters which do not normally go to the sub-committees for scrutiny. However, a sub-committee chairman, assisted by the clerk and the legal support that we have in the Select Committee, can always have such measures brought back for further consideration if it is felt that there is something that the system has missed.
In your Lordships' Select Committee, we are looking to focus on those matters which we can consider in depth and on which we can look outside for expert witnesses who are prepared to come and give their time and wisdom to our sub-committees. As your Lordships may know, there is a report being considered at the moment by Sub-Committee A on the central bank. When that is published fairly shortly, it will be seen that the list of witnesses is most impressive—Mr. Eddie George, Herr Tietmeyer, Mr. Duisenberg, M. Trichet and so on. It is a list of the great and the good in central banking. Those people are prepared to give up their time to answer questions because they recognise that your Lordships' Select Committee is serious and produces serious reports. That is our role: to look at issues in depth. The House of Commons tends to take a horizontal approach.
The noble Lord, Lord Howell, is quite right in terms of the timing of documents coming to Select Committees or to Parliament. It is not quite as simple as all that because the tendency is to say, "We want to have the document as soon as we can". One may then find oneself becoming involved in in-depth scrutiny and then suddenly find that the document is changed completely; that there is a new draft; or that its terms have changed. While I accept that it is better to be in at the early stages rather than to be too late, an awful lot of time and effort can be wasted if there is a significant change in the draft directive before the committee.
I believe that the question of the six weeks is one of the most important features of the Amsterdam Treaty for this House. Our Select Committee and our colleagues in another place recommended that there should be a four-week period and, to their credit, the Government managed to extend that to six weeks. There are provisos. There may be exceptional circumstances.
At present, as our presidency reaches its latter days, there is a tendency by Ministers to say, "I must have this cleared by next Tuesday because I want it to go

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before the energy council", or it may be the agriculture council and so on. That is on the increase and must be decreased. I have had some slightly terse correspondence backwards and forwards with Ministers in the past few weeks. Although I had hoped that the British presidency would set an example to other countries and future presidencies, I am not at all sure that that has been achieved. However, we shall have a postmortem when the presidency is finished and I shall continue my correspondence with the Lord Privy Seal, which noble Lords may already have seen in the publication of letters to Ministers. The noble Lord the Lord Privy Seal has been helpful and understanding and he has used his clout to make sure that Ministers understand the position, as has Mrs. Ann Taylor in the other place. But things are still not satisfactory. I understand the temptation for Ministers and their staff to want to chalk up successes during the course of a presidency but that must not be at the expense of parliamentary scrutiny.
I turn now to the Conference of European Affairs Committees, which is known by the French acronym of COSAC. As I said, that is meeting on Monday and Tuesday of next week. The view has been expressed by the British delegation on many occasions—and it is my view—that there is a limit as to how formal that can become. There was a lot of pressure from the French National Assembly and Senate to try to formalise that; to have formal votes; and to produce documents from COSAC. I have believed always that that is a mistake because if you are sending three people from each chamber of each parliament across Europe, you cannot pretend that they are representative of the parliament. Once you go down that road, they will become representatives of the government. We know that in certain countries, the way in which their democracies work, even now, they are representatives of the government. But at least on the part of this country and the Scandinavian countries in particular, they are certainly not; they are representatives of the parliament. Indeed, in the case of some of the Scandinavian countries, they actually mandate their Ministers before they go to meetings of the European Council. I am not suggesting that we go down that road, because it seems to me that it could delay matters interminably if we all did so. Nevertheless, it means that there is proper scrutiny to a degree that we do not know in this country.
So, here we have this strange body of people from right across Europe. I believe that it is useful for exchanging ideas on how to keep our governments on their toes. To that end, in the COSAC which is due to take place on Monday and Tuesday, we have on the agenda a paper from the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, dealing with the European Central Bank, which my noble friend Lady Williams will introduce. We shall also have a paper from my noble friend Lord Wallace of Saltaire on scrutiny of the third pillar.
As my noble friend Lady Williams has already said, the third pillar scrutiny is perhaps more important than anything else we do, because the European Parliament cannot scrutinise third pillar matters as they are entirely matters for the Council. If we do not do it, no one will. In the main, these are subjects which are very close to
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the whole area of human rights. Therefore, I believe that we have a special responsibility and that we are starting to do it quite well, especially through Sub-Committee F, which is chaired by my noble friend Lord Wallace of Saltaire. Moreover, we want to encourage other parliaments in the European Community to do the same and, in that way, to bear on the Council through Ministers to ensure that it abides by the rules.
One of the problems with the Council has been its refusal to allow documents to be released. There was a time when it was impossible to get the agenda. Indeed, there was a time when, after a meeting, the agendas were all burnt. However, things are improving from that point of view. One recent route has been through the European ombudsman. He is not someone about whom one hears much; indeed, I do not know that he has been mentioned in the whole of this arena. Nevertheless, there have been recent findings by the European ombudsman which have begun to open up access to the Council of Ministers and the documentation. Although the Commission comes in for much criticism, the culture of secrecy in the Council has been much greater than in the Commission.
I have intervened in this debate to say that I believe matters have been improved. However, governments really do have to abide by the new rules and ensure that, when they attend Council meetings, they are not brow beaten into accepting things that have not been completely scrutinised by their Parliaments.
Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, I must frankly confess that the remarks I made during the debate on the last amendment would have been more suitably addressed to this one. I can only plead that I was carried away by the eloquence of the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, in her remarks about the European Parliament, into issues related generally to parliamentary control over the activities of the European Union. However, without tedious repetition, I should like to say, first, that many of the queries that I raised have been marvellously eliminated by the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, in his intervention. Indeed, he described the progress that the COSAC concept is making.
As regards the second and third pillars, especially the third pillar, the noble Lord rightly said that, because we are dealing with intergovernmentalism, there is no European parliamentary role. The European institutions are not equipped to call to account the decisions reached on the intergovernmental basis and we have a real task in strengthening our own democratic methods of examining such matters.
The noble Lord also rightly said that our Parliament is not like other parliaments in that we cannot just produce people who can claim to represent something called, "the views of Parliament". Indeed, every Member of the other place represents himself. They are equal in that sense and have very interesting views, but they do not represent Parliament and never can. So there is a difficulty there which I can recall being conscious of in relation to representatives of other parliaments. They sometimes spoke as though they carried a mandate of a very authoritative kind—sometimes they did—from

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their parliamentary groups and committees. Therefore, I hope that we can hear more from the Minister about how he or she sees the COSAC concept developing.
There is one route that I hope we will not follow. In the late 1980s, I seem to remember being summoned to something called a parliamentary assise in Rome where groups from all the parliaments of the EU member states gathered with a view to developing the role of national parliaments. However, when we got there, the whole thing had already been fixed, hijacked and arranged by the European Parliament and by some officers of the Commission. We were rapidly told that we could not even sit in parliamentary groups but that we must sit in party groups. That removed the whole point of the exercise and we came away deeply disappointed. Therefore, I hope that no one will attempt again that kind of approach which merely had the tone of satisfying the grumblings of national parliaments and actually hoped that they would all go home without noticing. We did grumble and go home; but it seemed to us that national parliaments must play a stronger role in the areas that the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, so eloquently and clearly described.
7.15 p.m.
Baroness Park of Monmouth: My Lords, I hesitate to speak after the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, on an issue which is so peculiarly his own. However, I should like, first, to add my support and feeling to the issue of timing. I believe that the strength of our committees lies in the fact that they take evidence; but evidence takes time to assemble. Therefore, I very much hope that the Government—I welcome the way that they have succeeded in this so far as regards obtaining a much longer time—are prepared to insist in Council that, if by the time six weeks have expired there are still important matters to be established, no one should be forced into making a decision. That is particularly true in issues like cost/benefit analysis, as we found in the committee on which I had the honour to serve.
The other problem that we encountered, which is another aspect of the same thing, is that of transparency. So many of the specialist committees refused—and, indeed, continue to refuse—to give the reasons for the recommendations that they had made or even, in many cases, to say who made them and their competence to do so. I know that this Government, and the previous one, certainly intended to secure much greater transparency in the Amsterdam Treaty. I can remember report after report in the committee on the environment, stretching back for six years at least, where we had to say every single time that we were unable to establish why the recommendations were made, by whom and what their competence was. Therefore, we cannot stress too strongly that scrutiny which ultimately has to say, "We didn't have the facts", is not, in the end, scrutiny. That point must be stressed to a very considerable degree.
I am also somewhat disturbed by a few words in paragraph 3 of the protocol on national parliaments
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regarding the provision of information; namely that such provision is,
"subject to exceptions on grounds of urgency".
I—and, I believe, every committee—would need very considerable evidence to show why the "urgency" made it impossible to provide the information. One does not make decisions of national importance without knowing why. I simply wanted to stress that, although I am pleased that the amendment urges the period of six weeks, I am depressed by the noble Baroness's probably accurate assessment that, if we are to get any sense in terms of explanation from the department, another fortnight at least would have to elapse. It is quite unreal to consider major issues in the time-scale proposed.
Therefore, on the grounds of the need for transparency and for a truly responsible scrutiny, which actually rests on full knowledge of the facts, we must hope that our Government will be able to be extremely strong in Council. I see absolutely no reason why— I think of such provisions as the quality of water—there should not be a much longer period of time given to the consideration of many of the directives before decisions are required.
Lord Monson: My Lords, one remembers well when this treaty was first published what a warm welcome everyone gave to this measure—be they Euro-enthusiast, Euro-sceptic or something in between—to provide a greater role for national parliaments. Here at last was something which we could all agree was an unmitigated good thing. Good thing it may be, but the more one examines it the less meaningful and significant it appears, which is not to deny that it still produces some benefits.
The noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, has explained to your Lordships how parliamentary scrutiny has improved over recent years and months quite independent of the treaty. What the treaty appears to do—which may be of some use, of course—is to dot a few i's and cross a few t's. What, after all, are the primary purposes of any national parliament? The first is to legislate. The individual national parliaments will still have no power to legislate on purely Community matters.
The second primary purpose of any national parliament is to hold the Executive to account. It was only yesterday in an excellent five-hour debate that the vital importance of Parliament being able to hold the Executive to account was emphasised time and time again by noble Lords from all quarters of the House. Of course, as regards the EU, national parliaments will have no real powers in this regard either. For that reason I believe that this amendment—so well introduced, as always, by the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington—is well worth considering.
Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne: My Lords, I have listened to all the speakers in this interesting debate. First, I support the general thrust of the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, in seeking more information from the Government on the important Titles V and VI. Despite my relative disagreement with the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon, I believe that the Government now in power should look carefully at ways

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and means of ensuring that the national Parliament of the United Kingdom plays its full part in the Council, Commission and Parliament of the European Union. The noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon, expressed surprise that the Treaty of Amsterdam should chivvy national parliaments to consider material that they should already be considering. He said that in his view the European Union produces more material than we can get through. That is perhaps a little ambivalent.
In my experience in the other place on European Standing Committees A and B and on the Employment Select Committee I found, sadly, that the material given to committees was insufficient and was presented in an untimely way. That did not enable us to function properly. I was particularly interested in the social chapter which reflects the major strides the European Union has taken for women, low-paid workers, the disabled and ethnic minority workers—the kinds of people without whom the famous single market could not operate at all. It was galling to discover that other national parliaments had been involved over months and years in discussing the social chapter with the Commission. Our Parliament and our Employment Select Committee had not done so because we had neither knowledge of the meetings nor the relevant information. That material had been kept in the Whips Office of the then government in the House of Commons. I believe therefore that scrutiny and analysis of information are called for now so that we can be confident that in the future we shall be able to contribute as fully as other national parliaments have done in matters which affect our people, through subsidiarity.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, the protocol on national parliaments is a small bone tossed to national parliaments to try to assuage their doubts about this matter. When we talk about scrutiny that is all we are talking about. What I am concerned about is accountability. All this protocol gives us is six weeks to scrutinise some difficult and complicated legislation which is proposed. Frankly, I am not impressed. Six weeks is not always sufficient, bearing in mind the examination which must take place. What is more, when that scrutiny by Parliament has taken place, and when Parliament has made its decision known, Ministers can then go off to Europe and do exactly as they like. That may be scrutiny, but it certainly is not accountability. I would much prefer us to do as Denmark does—some people may not prefer this—namely, to hold our discussions and to mandate Ministers before they go to Europe to make decisions supposedly on behalf of Parliament. However, in actual fact they make the decisions on behalf of themselves. I give an example.
I, too, served on the European Communities Committee. The members do an enormously good job and work hard. Those who sit on Sub-Committee E probably do the hardest work of all because they are inundated with "legalities" and documents which they strive hard to understand. Generally only judges, Law Lords and barristers can understand those documents. I served on that committee. We examined a directive on consumer protection. We sat long hours and worked hard. We summoned countless witnesses. In the end we decided that the directive was not good enough and that our
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present arrangements were rather better. We recommended against adopting the directive. What happened? The Government completely ignored what we said and they proposed the opposite of what our committee had suggested. That scrutiny did not do much good, did it? I fear that much of the scrutiny and much of the work that is carried out by the Select Committee in this place and in another place is non-productive. Unless we are to have accountability, all the work we do is largely wasted.
I remember when I worked for the Central Electricity Generating Board we had what was called a local advisory committee. I was once a member of it and then I became the secretary of it. We had long discussions with management and we advised them from the point of view of ordinary working people. The management said they had listened to what we had said and had reached a decision which was usually the opposite of what the working people had recommended.
I repeat that I am not impressed by this protocol, particularly when so much more power and influence have been given to the institutions of the European Union through the Amsterdam Treaty. A far greater power of co-decision has been given to the Parliament. Much more power has been given to the Commission, as we heard in our earlier debates, although perhaps not so much to the Council. Nevertheless, the institutions of Europe have gained more power and we have been thrown this little bone of two weeks' extra scrutiny. Frankly, it simply is not good enough. As I said in an earlier debate, and have said no doubt from the point of view of some noble Lords ad nauseam, gradually our power in this Parliament and the powers of the House of Commons are being eroded. They are being transferred from this Parliament, from the people of this country, to institutions which in the last analysis the people do not control. It is not good enough. I hope that we shall vote on the amendment. Small though the concession is, as my noble friend proposes, we should have a proper report as to what it means.
7.30 p.m.
Lord Moynihan: My Lords, I support the new clause. It is such a reasonable request that I am sure the Government will find it in their wisdom to accede to the arguments deployed so eloquently by noble Lords in favour of it. I wish to say a few words on the role of national parliaments. Unsurprisingly, it has become something of a theme throughout our deliberations on the Bill. I shall then focus specifically on points made by the Minister in Committee.
I was pleased to hear the noble Baroness's reassurance that she considers the principal source of democratic legitimacy in the European Union to be national parliaments. In Committee, she pointed to the fact that it is to national parliaments that governments are answerable, and that it is with national parliaments that the people most readily identify. I also welcomed her commitment to reinforcing the role of national parliaments in the context of the European Union; and her confirmation that the treaty will provide a stronger role and a clearer voice for national parliaments, in particular since there have been occasions during these

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proceedings when some of us have had good cause to question, or even to doubt, the Government's position on this point, not least in our lengthy debates on qualified majority voting.
As I said in Committee, it is not a matter in respect of which there we have any difference of principle with the Government—another good reason why the Government should accept the amendment. I wish to make it clear again that that is the case. I believe that there is a good deal of common ground between us on the matter. We welcome the fact that the treaty includes measures to permit better scrutiny of Community legislation by national parliaments. Our debate in Committee was a timely opportunity to pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff—I do so again this evening, not least following his insight, and his useful contributions to this stage of our proceedings—and the work of the Select Committee which considers European legislation. Many of the measures we are considering today had their origins in the important work that they carried out.
Nevertheless, two important issues were raised during our debate on the protocol, upon which the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington focused, relating to the role of national parliaments in the European Union. I believe that matters relating to the starting point for the six-week period of notice and the issue of urgency were not fully debated in Committee. I put precise questions to the Minister on both issues. I fear that I was not as happy as the noble Baroness would like me to be with either of her two answers. I therefore take this opportunity to return to the specific issues I raised.
First, I asked the Minister to be specific on the starting point for the six-week period of notice. I appreciate that the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, sees this as an important step forward in its own right; and it is. I should like it to go further. I argue that we need to be absolutely clear when the starting point for the six-week period of notice will be between the depositing of Commission consultation documents before the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers and the date on which they are to be discussed in the Council. I wanted an assurance that that will be the date when the relevant documents reach national governments. This is a critical point and relates to the possibility of a delay in transmission. National parliaments have control over national governments. They do not have control over the European Parliament and the Council as a whole.
The Minister was clear in her answer. She stated that the six-week scrutiny period will begin when the document is received by the Council Secretariat after which it will be translated and distributed to member states. I appreciated her clear argument as to why that is the case. I recognised that the period was extended from four to six weeks to enable those additional two weeks to be used for the delivery of such documentation. I was grateful that the Minister recognised that it is an important issue. Although I was not wholly clear about her reference to the electronic pilot transmission project, it sounded as though it was a serious step in the right direction.
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No doubt the Minister will be unsurprised to learn that I am somewhat disappointed in my hope that the six weeks will start when the documents arrive at Westminster. The critical issue to take into account is not so much the date on which the documents are received by the Council Secretariat, but the date on which Westminster receives its copy. If we knew that delivery of documentation from the Council would be speedy, efficient and reliable, we should be far more confident. Much of my concern on the issue depends on whether or not we can find a mechanism to ensure that Westminster receives the paperwork well in advance of consideration by the Council, and preferably on a specific date.
On the question of sufficient time for scrutiny, my noble friend Lady Park made a valuable point about the problem of the incomplete nature of information arriving from the Commission. If documents arrive without vital information, as sometimes they must do—the noble Baroness quoted cost/benefit analysis in this context—it is important to recognise that extra time is then spent on consultation and hearing evidence from the relevant agencies.
Scrutiny must be done properly so that a serious recommendation can be made to the Government. It is a necessary part of the process. That fact must be taken into account when determining an appropriate period for scrutiny by national parliaments. I fully endorse my noble friend's comments and reflections and join in urging the Minister to take this dimension into consideration—although I know the Minister needs no urging about the importance of time for due consideration of documents.
I echo the comments made by my noble friend Lady Park. I asked about the exception to the six-week rule for national parliamentary scrutiny on the ground of urgency. I wanted to know who would define an exception on the ground of urgency. I wanted an assurance from the Minister that it is essential that that provision is tightly defined to avoid the exception becoming the norm; and that there should be a requirement for the Council to state formally the ground for urgency.
I fully understand that it is difficult to give precise hypothetical examples for the future. But the thrust behind my question was not so much to request a detailed list of exceptions on the ground of urgency, but rather to seek an assurance that Parliament will know the moment the Council has determined that a subject is an exception on the ground of urgency so that it can be aware that the procedure outlined on the six-week rule would be waived.
In the context of the memorandum published by the President of the Council in January setting out the Government's four proposals, which has been sent to the committee of the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, I ask the Minister to give due weight to the arguments put forward during debates in Committee, and to the importance which the Opposition attach to the need for the Council to be required to state formally and immediately when it decides that there will be an exception on the ground of urgency.

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I appreciate that I have asked some specific, detailed questions on an important part of the work done by the Government in negotiation. I am sure that the Minister will have no difficulty in clarifying the points that I have raised and giving assurances where I have requested them. To reiterate, I welcome the Minister's assurance that the Government intend the provisions of the new protocol to strengthen the role of national parliaments in ensuring democratic legitimacy; likewise, that they intend them to help to rectify weaknesses in our national scrutiny system—important points were made by the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, in that context; and that they will build on the new provisions in separate proposals to update and strengthen our national arrangements.
As in Committee, my remarks underpin this important point. On these Benches we believe that national parliaments remain the primary focus of democratic legitimacy within the European Union, for it is they that hold national Ministers to account. In moving this amendment, the noble Lord has given the House the opportunity to receive regularly a report, to be laid before both Houses of Parliament, so that we can assess how effectively the issues that we have raised in this debate have been delivered and bring new ideas forward as a result of the report which will be debated. When, I hope, rather than if, the noble Lord presses this amendment to a vote, I assure him that he will have my support.
7.40 p.m.
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, we have had a very good debate on these amendments. I shall do my best to answer the points that noble Lords have raised. I shall cover all three amendments, Amendments Nos. 11, 15 and 16.
I assure the House, as I did on Tuesday, that the Government are determined to build a European Union that is more open and more democratic. The Council of Ministers, the European Parliament and, in particular, national parliaments all have a part to play in this effort. We believe that national parliaments are the principal source of democratic legitimacy in the European Union, as I reiterated in the debate on Tuesday. We must therefore reinforce the role of national parliaments, nationally and at the EU level. I do not believe that there is a single Member of this House who has spoken on these matters this evening who would disagree.
During our debate on Tuesday I described the steps that we take nationally to facilitate scrutiny of EU issues, and how we plan to build on that. I shall return to that matter when I respond to Amendments Nos. 15 and 16 on parliamentary scrutiny. However, perhaps I may turn first to Amendment No. 11.
At the European level, Her Majesty's Government agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, that the protocol on national parliaments, which is the subject of Amendment No. 11, provides the right way forward. For the first time the role of national parliaments is recognised in a legally binding form. The protocol strikes the right balance between preserving the efficient conduct of business and allowing proper scrutiny. We
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have to bear both of those matters in mind. Proper scrutiny is extremely important, as I have emphasised. But so, as I am sure all noble Lords would agree, is the necessity for the efficient conduct of business.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, said, the protocol's main feature is a new legally binding minimum period of six weeks between the circulation of a proposal and a Council decision on it, except in genuinely urgent cases. That will greatly facilitate scrutiny by national parliaments. The protocol also provides for an enhanced role for COSAC. It is of a non-binding consultative kind only, as COSAC wanted.
Two specific aspects of the protocol were raised when we discussed it in Committee. The noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, reiterated them. The first is the starting point for the six-week period; the second, how to define genuinely urgent cases.
On the first point, the period begins when a text reaches the Council Secretariat. That is clear. It would be impractical to start the clock when, say, it has reached all capitals. Arrangements for that are for each member state, and vary from one to another. So the point the noble Lord makes about starting the clock at that point, is simply not a practical option. Instead, we ought other ways to ensure that a reasonable minimum period was preserved. I am pleased to say that in negotiation we succeeded.
The average time taken for texts to be translated and sent from the Secretariat to capitals has fallen sharply over the past two years, from 40 days to 14. That is an improvement, but it would still consume two weeks of the scrutiny period. We therefore argued, and partners agreed, that the period must be extended to six weeks. This means that national parliaments will still have about four weeks to study draft legislation—the minimum suggested when the Westminster Select Committees, including the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff s, first proposed the idea. So we believe we have met that point.
The second point raised by the noble Lord related to exceptions for genuinely urgent cases. It is right to make provision for such cases, as I am sure the noble Lord himself would agree. We do so in our national scrutiny system. There may be cases where sanctions measures are needed rapidly against a third country, or an environmental or health crisis may demand a swift response.
But there are two potential risks: first, if it is too easy to invoke the period, that full scrutiny will be by-passed without good and proper reason; second, if it is too difficult, that one country can block a genuinely urgent measure for its own ends.
The protocol therefore includes a provision to lessen both risks. The Council must state specific reasons in the Act for invoking the urgency clause. The same majority is thus needed to invoke the urgency clause as to approve the Act itself.
The new protocol will greatly strengthen the role of national parliaments in scrutinising EU business. We support the protocol strongly and are determined that it should work effectively. We believe the provisions I have described should ensure that it does.

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There may be one or two noble Lords who are still worried on this point. So perhaps I may give your Lordships a further assurance. The Government will keep the operation of this under review. If we see any instances of the abuse that I have described as one of your Lordships' worries, we will raise the matter with our partners and will seek appropriate action. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, will also take a very close interest in how that works. The Government will respond to any reports that his committee, or its counterpart in another place, may make on this matter.
The noble Lord, Lord Bruce, raised a couple of additional points. He asked how the protocol originated. The protocol was originally tabled before this Government came into office. I hesitate to speculate on whose hand actually held the pen that originally put the document into being. What we can say is that it clearly reflects the views of the Committee of this House chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff.
The noble Lord also asked how we can enforce the protocol. The protocol is a binding commitment. It will be open to a member state to challenge before the ECJ an Act adopted in a way that breaches the terms of the protocol.
I hope that I have been able to say enough to your Lordships to explain why the Government believe that this amendment is so unnecessary. It is for that reason that the Government oppose it, and I urge the House to do the same.
I now turn to Amendments Nos. 15 and 16. The intention of the amendment is to strengthen existing parliamentary scrutiny. We sympathise with that desire. We are committed to enhancing Westminster scrutiny procedures. That will reinforce the Amsterdam Treaty provisions I have just described to strengthen the role of national parliaments in the EU. We therefore welcome the positive spirit in which the amendments have been tabled. However, we do not believe that they offer the right way forward in practice.
I described on Tuesday the steps we had taken to keep Parliament informed and to encourage discussion of EU issues. We have also undertaken to deposit all legislative proposals, and other texts, in Parliament within two days of their receipt, and not to agree them until parliamentary scrutiny is complete. As a result, in the great majority of cases Parliament has several weeks at least to consider new legislative proposals.
The existing system does not cover all EU documents and does not work in every case. We have therefore made the proposals which I described on Tuesday to strengthen the system. We propose to extend it to cover the second and third pillars as Amendment No. 16 proposes. Meanwhile the Amsterdam Treaty provides for a minimum six-week period for national parliaments to examine new proposals. Even with a two-week delay for the text to be translated and reach capitals, that exceeds the 10-day period in the amendments.
Our proposals and the provisions of the Amsterdam Treaty go far beyond the position under the last government. I hope that the noble Lords who spoke from the Liberal Democrat Benches will welcome our
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readiness to strengthen the system we inherited. Where we differ from those who tabled these amendments is over the idea of regulating those matters in primary legislation. Such business has traditionally been covered by convention and by standing order. We believe that there are good reasons to continue with that, particularly given that that route allows greater flexibility.
The scrutiny reserve resolution illustrates the point well. It allows exceptions for documents that are urgent, trivial or confidential. Ministers may agree such proposals before clear scrutiny, but must explain why to the House at the first opportunity. The Amsterdam Treaty also allows exemption of urgent business from the minimum notice period. In this case the reason for that urgency must be stated in the Act.
I note the reference by the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, to the failings of government departments in meeting their obligations under the scrutiny process. I believe that generally the record is improving, but I accept that we must strive for the highest level of efficiency and accuracy. I can assure the noble Baroness that the Government have ensured that all departments dealing with scrutiny business have reviewed their procedures in an effort to meet the test.
I was grateful for the intervention from the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff. I am sure that the whole House welcomed his expertise on the issue. I can assure him that the Government are determined to ensure effective scrutiny. It is particularly appropriate that he should have intervened in the debate in that way. I fully agree with him that COSAC should not have the status which would allow it to appear to represent national parliaments. That was why we supported the protocol which gives COSAC a non-binding and consultative role.
I hope that I have been able to answer the major points of difficulty raised by your Lordships in support of the amendments and that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, I am deeply grateful to the noble Baroness for having replied in such terms in this debate. It appears that we are completely at one. She has emphasised the importance of our national parliament and in non-party terms. It is important for me because I have tried throughout my political life to fight precisely for that: the British Parliament reflecting British democracy. It seems, therefore, that we are at one.
The Minister gave an indication that she intends, and that the Government intend, to ensure meticulous observation of the provisions of the protocol. Therefore, there is no division between us. It is a completely non-party matter. There is no reason why the provision should not go into the Bill. It would be a completely non-controversial clause. It has the complete support of Ministers. In case there might be marginal difficulties lower down the bureaucratic line, the fact that the provision is incorporated in the Bill itself, would be an added authority to make quite sure that the will of the political leaders of the country becomes all-pervasive. The provision would then be enshrined in an Act of Parliament.

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So in the spirit of complete unanimity between myself and the Government —which is pretty unusual in these fields—I had rather hoped that the Minister would immediately accept the amendment. That would call old Bruce's bluff. However, it has not gone that way. So, with the utmost friendship, I regret that I shall be unable to withdraw the amendment. I ask for the support of the entire House, both Front Benches and all Back Benches, for the amendment.
7.55 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 11) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 39; Not-Contents, 66.

Division No. 3

CONTENTS

Annaly, L.

Liverpool, E.

Belhaven and Stenton, L.

Luke, L.

Blatch, B.

McColl of Dulwich, L.

Bruce of Donington, L.

Monson, L.

Burnham, L.

Montrose, D.

Byford, B.

Moynihan, L.

Clanwilliam, E.

Newton of Braintree, L.

Cumberlege, B.

Northbrook, L.

Darcy de Knayth, B.

Norton, L.

Dixon-Smith, L.

O'Cathain, B.

Park of Monmouth, B.

Eccles of Moulton, B.

Pearson of Rannoch, L.

Fookes, B.

Rankeillour, L.

Gage, V.

Rawlings, B. [Teller.]

Harris of High Cross, L.

Rennell, L.

Howe, E.

Selborne, E.

Jenkin of Roding, L.

Stoddart of Swindon, L. [Teller.]

Kinnoull, E.

Wharton, B.

Kintore, E.

Willoughby de Broke, L.

Lawrence, L.

Wynford, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Acton, L.

Irvine of Lairg, L. [Lord Chancellor.]

Archer of Sandwell, L.

Berkeley, L.

Janner of Braunstone, L.

Borrie, L.

Jay of Paddington, B.

Brooke of Alverthorpe, L.

Jenkins of Putney, L.

Carlisle, E.

Kennedy of The Shaws, B.

Carter, L. [Teller.]

Levy, L

Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde, B.

Linklater of Bulterstone, B.

Desai, L.

McIntosh of Haringey, L. [Teller.]

Dholakia, L.

McNally, L.

Donoughue, L.

Maddock, B.

Dormand of Easington, L.

Mallalieu, B.

Elis-Thomas, L.

Milner of Leeds, L.

Farrington of Ribbleton, B.

Mishcon, L.

Gilbert, L.

Monkswell, L.

Gladwin of Clee, L.

Montague of Oxford, L.

Goodhart, L.

Nicholson of Winterbourne, B.

Gordon of Strathblane, L.

Nicol, B.

Hacking, L.

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L.

Hamwee, B.

Ramsay of Cartvale, B.

Hanworth, V.

Randall of St. Budeaux, L.

Hardy of Wath, L.

Razzall, L.

Haskel, L.

Richard, L. [Lord Privy Seal.]

Hayman, B.

Russell, E.

Hollis of Heigham, B.

Sandwich, E.

Hoyle, L.

Scotland of Asthal, B.

Hughes of Woodside, L.

Simon, V.

Hunt of Kings Heath, L.

Simon of Highbury, L.

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Strabolgi, L.

Whitty, L.

Symons of Vernham Dean, B.

Williams of Crosby, B.

Thomas of Swynnerton, L.

Williams of Mostyn, L.

Thomas of Walliswood, B.

Winchilsea and Nottingham, E

Walker of Doncaster, L.

Winston, L.

Wedderbum of Charlton, L.

Young of Old Scone, B.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
8.4 p.m.
Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale: My Lords, I beg to move that further consideration on Report be now adjourned. In moving this Motion, I suggest that the Report stage begins again not before five minutes past nine.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.

Tax Credits (Initial Expenditure) Bill
Brought from the Commons endorsed with the certificate from the Speaker that the Bill is a money Bill; read a first time, and to be printed.

Patient Pack Initiative
8.5 p.m.
Earl Howerose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will support patient organisations, doctors and the pharmaceutical industry in promoting the patient pack initiative.
The noble Earl said: My Lords, a simple definition of a "patient pack"—for those who are not aware of it—is medicine that is user friendly. A patient pack is one that has been prepared by the manufacturer rather than one made up from bulk supplies by the pharmacist. It is a pack which is of a size appropriate to the specific course of treatment and one which includes all the approved labelling and user information which may be necessary for the patient to get full benefit from the medicine.
Why should that be desirable? All too often medicines dispensed by the pharmacist in little brown bottles are taken home and then, out of ignorance, consumed incorrectly either in the wrong dosages or at the wrong intervals, or both, with the patient frequently omitting to finish the course. Not only does that fail to achieve the desired outcome for the patient; it is also wasteful and expensive for NHS budgets.
If instructions are misunderstood and a course of treatment is followed wrongly, the results may well be a return visit to the GP and repeat prescriptions, neither of which would be necessary if the medicine had been taken properly in the first place. The main benefits which spring from a patient pack are that the patient, because he is better informed, is more likely to take the medicine safely and correctly. Repeat prescriptions and waste are more likely to be eliminated and quality control of the medicine can be assured.

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How significant are the problems I outlined? One indicator is a recent OPS survey which found that more than 40 per cent. of medicines prescribed had no information on the label about the length of time over which the medicine should be taken. It is no wonder perhaps that surveys which appear from time to time in relation to unused medicines suggest that large amounts of such medicines are thrown away every year because the patient failed to read the instructions properly and did not finish the course, had simultaneous courses of different lengths and wasted what he did not need—or thought he did not need—or simply did not understand that every course of medication needs to be completed.
The other side of the problem relates to over-prescribing. In 1993 the National Audit Office found that 14 per cent. by value of the items on multiple item prescriptions appeared to be excessive in terms of the underlying clinical requirement. Either way, its estimate was that up to £60 million worth of medicines dispensed in England each year may not be fully used.
Patient packs, every one of which contains a leaflet telling the user in simple terms everything he needs to know in order to understand his treatment and use the medicine properly, are a major step forward in reducing waste and wrong dosages and in improving awareness of possible adverse reactions. They bring benefits also to pharmacists. Up to 40 per cent. of a pharmacist's time is spent physically counting and repacking medicines. That leaves him commensurately less time in which to do what many would regard as his principal job; namely, giving advice and guidance to his customers. That advice and guidance can itself prevent waste and promote better compliance to the obvious benefit of the patient.
Those advantages for the patient pack have been widely acknowledged for a number of years. In 1995 it was agreed by all the major organisations involved in the delivery of healthcare in the UK—doctors, pharmacists, the pharmaceutical industry and the Department of Health—that an initiative to introduce patient packs as the standard method of dispensing all medicines should be commenced over a three-year period.
In the light of that agreement, the UK based pharmaceutical industry made a substantial investment in the equipment necessary to enable patient packs to be produced. Unfortunately, however, nearly three years on, not all is well. The initiative, though it is still proceeding, is faltering. It is doing so not because anyone has had second thoughts about the merits of the patient pack as a concept—if anything the reverse is true—but because the Department of Health expressed worries about the implementation of the project and, significantly, its cost.
The noble Baroness will, I hope, accept from me that it is not my purpose in this debate to cast a party political slant on the subject under discussion, but it is a matter of acute disappointment to many people that the present Government should have chosen to resile from the clear commitment of the previous administration to give unequivocal support to the patient
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pack initiative. Indeed, there are many who think that it is an extraordinary thing to have done in the face of the EU directive, due to come into force at the end of this year, which will oblige the UK to supply patients with information leaflets about their medicines and clear and accurate labelling on all packs.
Personally, I do not believe that there can be any better way of complying with that directive than to manufacture and supply medicine in a patient pack. That is because some of the information is safety related and can only be provided by the manufacturer; for example, the batch-specific information which identifies the production run and governs the expiry date. The idea that pharmacists could simply keep a stock of loose leaflets in the shop to hand out to customers as and when needed fails to meet that important requirement, quite apart from imposing a gigantic shelf-space problem for pharmacists.
It is worth taking a moment or two to scrutinise the department's current position. It is saying, as I understand it, that the introduction of patient packs will bring with it unwelcome complexity in terms of the changes to dispensing rules that are needed. I simply do not understand that point. The changes to dispensing rules are quite straightforward. Their aim would be to enable a pharmacist to round up or round down the quantity of medicine dispensed to match the size of the patient pack.
The real issue here is the need to educate both doctors and pharmacists in what they should now be doing. But that complication is hardly a show-stopper. Doctors and pharmacists have already been on the receiving end of a large amount of information designed to encourage a rapid shift to patient pack prescribing and dispensing. Any mismatch between prescribing patterns and pack sizes will not be a major difficulty and there is agreement among pharmacists that it is less complex for them to dispense using the bounded rounding rules than to continue to split packs of medicine inappropriately.
The department's other concern is cost. It has assumed that the whole programme of conversion to patient packs will involve a transition period lasting three years, during which costs will rise. In a Written Answer in another place last December from the Minister of State, Tessa Jowell, the net costs for the family health services and the Prescription Pricing Authority of implementing the previous government's proposals were put at about £60 million over the next three years. The pharmaceutical industry does not understand this calculation or its underlying assumptions. Those calculations which the department has shared with the industry suggest that not only are they a worst case—perhaps even an impossibly worst case—but that they omit altogether any savings arising from the two main benefits of this initiative.
The first of the benefits relates to generic medicines. There is a perfectly valid concern that the price of generic medicines that are switched across to patient packs will go up. It is certainly true that more generic medicines than branded medicines have still to come on board the scheme and costs will indeed rise more markedly for this group of drugs. But the real question

1247
is how much difference patient packs will make to the overall drugs bill for the NHS. The introduction of patient packs for generics will almost certainly enable more GPs to feel confident enough to prescribe generic products in circumstances where they would have prescribed a branded product before. As little as a 1 to 2 per cent. swing from branded to generic use would give a net saving in one year equal to the estimated costs of the entire patient pack initiative over three years. And that is before any account is taken of the savings to be generated from a reduction of waste.
I hope the Minister will not say that the reduction of waste cannot be relied on with certainty and is therefore a matter of speculation. For obvious reasons it is impossible to quantify such savings with any precision. But if it is true, as I mentioned earlier, that £60 million worth of medicines is thrown away every year, the scope for a very dramatic improvement is clear.
I should be grateful if the Minister would give us her own perspective on these issues. Does the department accept that significant savings are in the offing from the introduction of patient packs to offset—indeed, substantially offset—any additional costs? If she does not feel able to answer that question today, will she agree to allow representatives of the industry to sit down once more with Ministers and with DoH officials to look at the whole issue again? It is not too late to do so. The industry expressed its grave misgivings about the department's costings as soon as it saw them and it feels that it has not been given the opportunity to go through them in detail with officials.
The end that we should have in view is that all parties—industry, healthcare professionals and the Department of Health—should work together to ensure that patients benefit from the new regime which the European directive was designed to usher in. The regrettable fact is that this initiative, which is all about better care for patients and is supported by numerous professional bodies and patient organisations, cannot succeed as it should without the Government's backing. That backing, as the Minister will know, needs to include an amendment to prescribing and dispensing regulations. I believe that the barriers to agreement are not insuperable and I hope very much that the Minister will feel able to approach this matter again in her customary constructive spirit to the ultimate benefit of patients.
Lord Winston: My Lords, before the noble Earl sits down, will he clarify one point. He referred twice to £60 million of drugs being thrown away. Is that the basic NHS cost of prescribed drugs or is it based on retail prices, as there is a considerable mark-up in chemists' prices?
Earl Howe: My Lords, as I understand it, the figure was estimated by the National Audit Office and relates to the cost to the NHS of the drugs that are thrown away.
8.16 p.m.
Lord Jenkin of Roding: My Lords, my noble friend has admirably set out the case in favour of the patient pack initiative and has raised a number of questions for
1248
the Minister to reply to. I share his concern that what started three years ago as an agreed, collaborative rolling programme, with the Department of Health giving what has been described as "unequivocal support", seems now to be bogged down because this Government are now refusing to make the necessary changes in the regulations. That is what is really required of them.
I only want to add three points to the case made by my noble friend. First, there really can be no doubt whatever that to give every patient supplied with a prescription drug a full information leaflet is of great benefit to all concerned. Patients and their carers now, perfectly reasonably, demand more information. They want a clear statement of the benefits and a note of the possible side-effects of drugs. They want advice on storage and on the length of the treatment. For their part, doctors can assume that every patient will get the required information in a readily understandable form, which he or she can study at leisure. It is well recognised that patients do not always remember what is said to them in the doctor's consulting room. Pharmacists can dispense in an easily identifiable pack with the information already enclosed. As my noble friend said, the system should reduce the quantity of loose tablets and capsules stored, not always safely, in bathroom cabinets at home, which should not only reduce waste but should prevent the accidental poisoning of children.
My noble friend mentioned the EU directive which will require us to ensure that essential information is provided to patients. If this is to be given effect to, the Government will have to take the steps necessary to ensure that this country complies. The patient pack initiative has until now been seen as the way ahead. My first question to the noble Baroness is this. Do the Government still accept this case; and if not, why not? If they do, why do they not get on and deal with it?
My second point—I am glad to see the noble Lord, Lord Winston, in his place—arises from the report published by the Select Committee on Science and Technology a week or two ago entitled Resistance to Antibiotics. There is much said in that report about the need to ensure compliance with prescribing recommendations.
I had the honour to serve on that committee, as indeed did the noble Lord. We said at paragraph 2.47,
"The Royal Pharmaceutical Society has addressed this problem in a valuable document entitled From Compliance to Concordance".
It is a very interesting study. We went on to say,
"The RCGP observe that compliance can be encouraged by drug and regimen design, and by patient information, on which there is recent EU legislation which they support. The ABPI are 'particularly keen' on improving compliance by means of new formulations; and they support the Patient Pack Initiative on patient information".
We have some fairly convincing evidence to support that statement in the report from the evidence presented to us by the Royal College of General Practitioners at paragraph 3.7. They said,
"We also support better provision of written information and instructions to patients in line with recent EU legislation and we support the recent initiatives of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain in respect of compliance/concordance".

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The ABPI also gave us strong evidence. This is all in the context of avoiding the continuing build-up of resistance to antibiotics. They pointed out in their evidence that,
"Antibiotic resistance is a global problem and"
needs "better education". They said,
"The Patient Pack Initiative will ensure that all patients will receive a patient information leaflet with all their medicines. The leaflet for antibiotics will remind patients that they should take the medicines as prescribed and must finish the course even though they may well feel better. The reason for this will also be explained.
When the report was published the Government made it clear that they regard the whole problem as a desperately serious issue, as indeed it is. The committee was very alarmed by much of the evidence that we heard. I suggested that we might call our report, "How can we stop the bugs winning?". How can we avoid going back to the horrors of the pre-antibiotic age? The committee indicated that the patient pack initiative can help in that battle and yet here, almost at the first hurdle since the report was published, we have the Government dragging their feet and refusing to work with the industry and the professions to make the PPI effective.
My last point is that I believe it is really a matter of good faith. In 1995 the Department of Health, at ministerial level, gave the pharmaceutical industry what it describes as "an unequivocal assurance" that the scheme had the department's support. On the basis of that assurance, the industry has spent millions of pounds in gearing itself up in order to be able to implement the initiative only now to find, three years later, that the department is resiling from its commitment.
Therefore, I ask the noble Baroness how the Government will ensure compliance with the EU directive which, as I understand it, is binding on us and has to be effective by the end of this year? Can they not, even now, come clean and give the industry and all the professions involved, who support this initiative, as my noble friend made clear, the assurance that they, the Government, will play their part in implementing this initiative?
I regard this as a sorry tale of a government apparently reneging on a clear promise made to those with whom the 1995 agreement was concluded after 18 months of negotiations. It is not too late to make amends and I hope that the noble Baroness will tell the House this evening that that is exactly what they are going to do because I believe we should expect nothing less.
8.23 p.m.
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, I am sure that the Minister will have rejoiced with me if she saw the recently published annual report of the World Health Organisation which stated that more people reached the age of 50 in Britain than anywhere else in the world. Five years ago the WHO cited the Government's policy for the health of the nation as a model for other countries to follow. I would not for a moment claim that 18 years of Conservative Government is solely responsible for the healthiest middle aged population in the world.
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Likewise the pharmaceutical industry, which is recognised globally as being outstanding in its development and manufacture of therapeutic products, would not claim that it has been responsible for achieving this cadre of energetic and healthy 50 year-olds.
But I believe that we would all acknowledge that its contribution has been immense, not least in the field of HIV and AIDS, a field in which I know the Minister has extensive knowledge and expertise. It is wonderful to see these young people who were previously doomed to die, now living and working, leading almost normal lives, thanks to the ingenuity and the investment of drug companies in producing effective combination therapies.
However, medication, if not treated responsibly, can be exceedingly dangerous. As my noble friends have said, its use does require a partnership between patients, doctors, pharmacists, manufacturers, the MCA, the Committee on the Safety of Medicines and the Government.
Close working between all parties is essential and from the patient's point of view there is a very strong wish for better communication, as my noble friend Lord Jenkin has said, and a thirst for knowledge on the efficacy and side effects of the medication prescribed, which is, of course, why the patient pack initiative is so crucial. This in no way erodes the duty of care that doctors have in carrying out their prescribing, but it is essential for safety both in use and manufacture.
The Minister, after a year in government, will have discovered the difficulties of introducing any new initiative, especially where the Treasury has an interest. In my experience there is hardly a nook or cranny in government in which the Treasury does not have an interest.
My noble friend Lord Howe has raised the issue of costs so I am not going to go into those in detail, but simply ask the Minister, as he has done, on what basis the department has reached its figures. There is a suspicion that they are based on a worst case scenario and that in itself has been exaggerated. We really do not know whether there is a solid foundation for these estimates. I am not suggesting that the figures are at all false, but we need to know on what they are based. I did give notice earlier today to the Minister that I was going to ask these questions. I hope that she will be able to go into some detail to help us understand how the figures are made up.
The Minister will be aware also that the industry, frustrated by the Government's procrastination, has recently announced its decision to go ahead to introduce patient packs itself, and that is not surprising since it has invested many millions of pounds in this initiative. Therefore, it would be understandable if the Government felt that there is no need to lay the necessary regulations.
But there are two points that I wish to make here. The first is the safety of patients and, secondly, the European dimension. When the initial launch took place two or three years ago, there was strong support from not only the bodies which had a direct interest such as the BMA, the ABPI, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society and so on, but also from seven of the leading voluntary

1251
organisations: the National Osteoporosis Society, the Parkinson's Disease Society, the Depression Alliance, the National Eczema Society, the British Epilepsy Association, the National Asthma Campaign and the Patients Association.
I mention all these organisations because they are highly respected for their integrity and professional approach and represent a vast number of patients. These organisations have continued to campaign for the patient pack initiative on the grounds of safety, saving on wastage, non-compliance and repeat visits to the GP. They also make the very cogent argument that if the packs contain information on the availability of confidential helplines, they will be able to give advice and answer the queries which some patients find too embarrassing to ask their doctor.
Perhaps I may give an example of HRT for osteoporosis. I know that some women, once they are prescribed that medication, go home and then think, "If I am taking this drug and I have a period, will that mean I could get pregnant?" That person may be far too shy to go back and ask her doctor, whereas an anonymous osteoporosis nurse, at the end of a helpline, would be of enormous value in answering her concerns. I do believe that men taking HRT are not worried about this particular issue, but they also have very real worries. Information on helplines accompanying the medication, would be of enormous value to patients.
Since the pharmaceutical industry is going to introduce these packs and leaflets of its own volition, there is a danger that the Government may feel that the issue has evaporated. But that is a non sequitur as the pharmaceutical industry cannot cover all prescriptions and it will miss around 20 to 25 per cent. a year. In percentage terms this does not sound much but it represents about 125 million prescriptions a year which is a huge amount. That is why it is essential that the Government should produce the necessary regulations.
Both the ABPI and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society are anxious that some discretion should be built into the regulations so that common sense can prevail. With the cutting of packs there is no guarantee that leaflets will not be separated from the medication to which they belong. The cutting of packs anyhow is a nonsense if it can be avoided.
There are a number of very good reasons for the patient pack initiative, many of which have been or will be raised in the debate. But there is also the requirement referred to by my noble friend Lord Jenkin to comply with the European Council Labelling and Leaflet Directive which comes into force in January 1999. In a Written Answer on 12th December of last year the noble Baroness's honourable friend the Minister of State, Tessa Jowell, said:
"We … are considering whether it will be necessary to implement the European Council Labelling and Leaflet Directive by other means".—[Official Report, Commons; 12/12/97; col. WA 736.]
Can the Minister inform the House whether in the intervening five months the department has reached a conclusion on that matter? If there are other means can she outline them? Listening to those who are involved in this issue, there is a genuine desire to resolve it in
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partnership with the Government. Perhaps the Minister can be generous tonight and give an undertaking that her door will be open to all those who are anxious to see this matter concluded and that she will work closely with them in the spirit of partnership so extolled by the Government.
Dr. Peter Read, the recently retired and distinguished president of the ABPI, has stated:
"Patient packs are the best, simplest and most convenient method of ensuring that patients get full details about their medicine. This has been standard practice throughout Europe for many years now, and I can see no justification for continuing to deny it to large numbers of people in this country".
I say amen to that.
Finally, I have a cutting from Tuesday's edition of the Daily Telegraph which bears the headline, "Ministers to get a 'school report—. The article went on to explain the plans drawn up by the Cabinet Office to monitor the performance of Ministers. None of us can have any doubt about the competence of the noble Baroness, but if she is to receive an alpha plus I believe that she must lay these regulations before the House. I believe that from the point of view of the National Health Service and those who are involved in this issue she will certainly get top of the class.
8.32 p.m.
Baroness Eccles of Moulton: My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend for tabling this Unstarred Question as not only does it give us an opportunity to discuss the important subject of the dispensing of drugs but also to touch on one or two of the wider issues relating to the part that drugs play in the health service as a whole. When the initiative on patient packs was launched in 1995, four advantages were highlighted—compliance, assurance, safety and effectiveness—and there can be little doubt that these are objectives worthy of support. The initiative also took account of the EC directive that came into force in 1994 which sets out in detail the information that should be available to patients when drugs are dispensed.
However, nothing is ever as simple as it may appear at first sight. At present, the majority of branded drugs are pre-packed and accompanied by the appropriate information. This is not always the case with generic drugs. One of the considerable impacts on the NHS drugs bill is caused by the difference in cost of branded and generic drugs. If every generic drug were blister-packed, for instance the 75 milligrams of aspirin which is taken to prevent coronary heart disease, the cost would become prohibitive. On the other hand, there are other drugs where the advantages of pre-packing outweigh any additional cost that may be incurred; for example, where medication is prescribed for high blood pressure. Hypertension is asymptomatic, but the drug therapy can make the patient feel dizzy and unable to sleep at night. Compliance is essential to prevent further cardiac problems and other organ damage. A patient pack which has the days of the week printed on it would encourage the patient not to miss a dose. Therefore, it is very important that the campaign to provide drugs in patient packs where this is known to have considerable advantages is vigorously pursued.

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My noble friends Lord Howe, Lord Jenkin and Lady Cumberlege have emphasised most effectively the importance of the patient pack initiative. Rather than repeat what has already been said, I take a minute or two to describe a pilot scheme involving regular repeat instalment dispensing which is now running in Ealing, Hammersmith and Hounslow Health Authority of which I am chairman. This is one of five schemes supported and funded by the Department of Health. The scheme has several purposes: first, to involve the pharmacist more directly in the continuing drug treatment of individual patients; secondly, to increase compliance; and, thirdly, to prevent waste. In the authority nine GPs and 240 patients have been recruited to the pilot scheme. Our pilot is slightly different from the other four in that patients may take their prescriptions to any pharmacy in the three boroughs. This means that there is 100 per cent. participation in the scheme by pharmacists, although those who operate within the catchment areas of the nine practices will obviously be most involved.
Under present arrangements, if medication is prescribed for six months the patient is usually issued with a prescription for one to three months, depending on individual practices' repeat prescribing policy. The patient will then go back to reception at the surgery for a repeat for a further three months without necessarily seeing the GP.
Under the pilot scheme, the difference is that the patient is issued by the GP with an initial prescription and five repeats, all with a distinctive identification. As each prescription expires, the patient returns to the pharmacist and together they complete a patient assessment form. The next month's medication is then issued and this is repeated until the six months are up. If the patient is having problems, these are discussed with the pharmacist who can take one of three courses of action. He can try to persuade the patient to continue with the medication, or agree with the patient that it is right to stop the medication, or refer the patient back to the GP. The pharmacist receives a fee for each intervention and the trial runs for six months.
The data that has been returned so far from the Prescription Pricing Authority indicates that already savings can be identified. However, it will not be until October, when data covering the whole of the six months is received and analysed by the authority, that it will be known what effect the scheme has had on the prescribing pattern. After the project ends in June there will be meetings with patient and GP focus groups and a full report will be written up by the beginning of next year.
Already a number of benefits can be identified. For instance, the scheme creates an incentive for pharmacists to monitor medication and not issue drugs where that is inappropriate. It also has benefits for the patient. Regardless of whether or not it is rolled out nationally when the results of all the pilots are known, it is a system which would lend itself very well to being operated by individual primary care groups. The co-operation and enthusiasm that patients, GPs and pharmacists are all demonstrating is most encouraging.
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I have spent some time describing this pilot, although it is not directly connected with patient packs, because it is another way of increasing patient understanding of the drugs they are taking and compliance with their drug regime. It seems to me to be a very good way of increasing the involvement of our highly skilled body of pharmacists in direct patient care.
Although waste has already been referred to, I should like to remind noble Lords that 10 per cent. of the total NHS budget goes on funding drugs. Historically, this percentage has been rising despite the rise in the total NHS budget. Of all drugs issued, 64 per cent. are for repeat prescriptions. Of that 64 per cent. it is calculated that 50 per cent. is wasted. This is a staggering amount. Any initiative which not only reduces waste of NHS funds but increases patient compliance—non-compliance has the double effect of reducing benefit to the patient and wasting resources—must be vigorously pursued.
My noble friend Lord Jenkin used the word "concordance". It has been drawn to my attention that that word should now be used instead of "compliance" because "concordance" more accurately reflects a sense of partnership and co-operation between patient and doctor or pharmacist.
Another factor that increases pressure on the budget is the coming on stream of expensive new drugs. This is probably occurring on an unprecedented scale. For instance, my health authority has recently received a request for the funding of a new drug with life-saving properties to treat a rare condition. At the moment, that drug could cost up to £300,000 per year per patient. The benefits to the patient versus equity and opportunity costs are still being calculated in this case. New drugs such as Orlisat for the treatment of obesity, and the much publicised Viagra, will add to funding pressures and difficult decisions which could involve rationing will have to be taken. Progress in drug technology is controlling hitherto uncontrollable symptoms and extending life. At the same time new drugs are becoming available at ever-increasing cost to the NHS.
There is so much that can be done to advance the four factors set out in the case for patient packs, with considerable benefit to patients, but also with the effect of directing the budget in a way which prevents waste. I hope that all sensible proposals will be listened to, and pilots that prove successful will become widespread practice.
8.40 p.m.
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: My Lords, in the absence of my noble friend Lord Alderdice it falls to me to welcome the debate which has been stimulated by the noble Earl, Lord Howe's Question.
I come to this matter with a lack of prejudice born of ignorance. I have become increasingly sceptical as I read the sort of material, which has clearly been used by other people, about the Minister's stated reasons for putting into question the introduction of patient packs to which the previous government committed themselves in 1995. It is bad practice in this kind of case to renege on commitments made by previous governments.

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Obviously you cannot keep everything, but if you have a situation where large numbers of partners—including the companies which produce the drugs—have been involved in taking a decision, which has been confirmed by the department, and has resulted in them taking actions affecting their own businesses, and then the whole thing is put into doubt, it is a marginal case but it is not an attractive way of conducting government.
This is particularly so in the case where the Government have committed themselves to the standing programme of their predecessors which contained, no doubt, an element for the expenditure which it was then anticipated would be involved in pushing this initiative further. There is a question over this whole action.
Earlier speakers, the noble Earl, Lord Howe, the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin of Roding and the noble Baroness, Lady Eccles of Moulton, have all made out very clearly the advantages of this particular approach of patient packs. Without going through it all in detail, it aids prescription and dispensing of medicine. The packs provide not just the right dose which the patient requires, but the information which enables the patient to take control of his own use of that medicine and to understand why he should complete the course. That is a particularly important point which the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin of Roding, made because of his particular knowledge. The need to complete courses of antibiotics is something of which some of us are aware, but many people are not.
There is a safety element in the home in that it reduces the amount of left-over and unlabelled bits of medicine lying about in people's houses. There is an element of the reduced cost to the health service in as much as there is greater efficiency in the dispensing of medicines, in the prescription of medicines, and there is therefore less waste.
Dispensing chemists are not obliged to spend large proportions of their time counting pills and can therefore spend more of their time performing the other part of their job which is advising the customers who come to their shops and counters for their prescriptions as to how they can best use the information and the drugs with which they are being supplied.
Noble Lords would not expect me to underestimate the importance that the use of such packs would have in enabling the UK to comply with the 1994 EU directive on drug labelling and leaflets, an initiative which the previous government supported. This could ensure that the UK met the deadline for that compliance.
A number of reasons have been put forward as to why the Government might have changed the approach of their predecessor. The one that strikes most strongly is the question of cost. Is it the cost of £60 million to £67 million over four years which has deterred the Government from continuing with this agreed approach to solving a particular range of projects? I have seen some material with some information about government costs in this connection—obviously that material is not very detailed—and I support the questions asked by other people about what the basis for these calculations has been.
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I spent 12 years in local government and I learned—as many hundreds of thousands of people have before me and, no doubt, many more thousands since I left—that when you read a paper provided by officers you should ask yourselves not only whether you agree with what is in that paper, but what has not been included. When you are providing a rationale for taking or not taking decisions, normally the officers provide a cost benefit analysis. The financial benefits of this particular approach have been clearly outlined by the noble Earl, Lord Howe; I will repeat only one of them. If clear labelling of all the generic medicines, and the accompanying of those medicines with the correct information, were to increase the proportion of generic medicines prescribed by only 1 or 2 per cent., you would much more than offset the cost, on an ongoing basis, of the introduction of this pack system. One has to ask why the cost benefit of this new system has not apparently been considered, at any rate not recently.
My second question is directed at the value-for-money concept. Even if there are some costs associated with the patient pack approach, is not the value which the approach brings worth at least some cost? We are not talking about better value for no money at all but better value for money in public services.
My final question is if the Minister is unable to reassure the House that the patient pack initiative will go ahead in a co-operative way between the Government and other partners rather than by the decision of one partner how do the Government propose to meet the EU directive in time and in an orderly fashion?
8.40 p.m.
Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Earl for raising this Question and to those other noble Lords who have taken part in this short but nonetheless interesting debate.
The brief answer to the noble Earl's Question is that the Government, of course, support the intentions of the European labelling and leaflet directive. We particularly always support provisions which enable patients to have a better understanding of the treatments they are being offered and, in the case of medicines, the medicines that they are using. However, we do not support the details of the complex and costly plans developed by the previous administration, which have become known as the patient pack initiative. The present Government cannot justify diverting large sums of money from the NHS budget to meet the additional costs involved in these plans. We believe, to put it simply, that as far as possible NHS resources should be spent on direct patient care.
I find it somewhat extraordinary that the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin of Roding, and the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas of Walliswood, should be surprised and see it as almost politically unacceptable that the Government should change health service policy this area. I am almost tempted to ask them whether they regard it as dishonourable that we move to dismantle the GP fundholder system in which many people under the

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previous administration had a vested and large interest and under which many commitments were given by the previous government—
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: My Lords, I did not suggest that it was dishonourable. I said that it was a marginal case and not very desirable.
Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, perhaps "dishonourable" was the stronger language used by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin of Roding.
Lord Jenkin of Roding: My Lords, with respect, I said that it was a breach of faith. And that it most certainly is. The Minister has been the most ready to defend every action of the Government by reference to their manifesto, but there was nothing in the Labour Party manifesto about this.
Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, I hesitate to enter a long debate on this not totally central point of the discussion. But, frankly, what is agreed between officials and Ministers in a previous administration does not in any way constitute a faithful commitment to a subsequent administration.
It is worth reminding your Lordships of the present state of play as regards this issue. The basic requirements of the European legislation have already been introduced into British domestic law. It is the case that in most other member states the directive has been simple to implement because medicines are placed on the market in pre-packed packs with patient information sealed into them. In this country, our pharmacists are required to dispense precisely what a doctor prescribes and not to dispense packages of fixed size with a fixed number of pills chosen by the manufacturer rather than by the doctor. The question has therefore been how best to ensure that patients in this country receive the information which they should have and which now by law they are entitled to have.
For many medicines, the question is already answered. As the noble Baroness, Lady Eccles, pointed out, according to the pharmacy industry's information—I refer to the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry 1997 annual report—more than 80 per cent. of medicines are already available in patient pack form and 67 per cent. of prescriptions are dispensed in this way. Where possible, the Department of Health has been working closely in partnership with the industry and the professions to match pack sizes to appropriate treatment lengths to avoid waste and additional costs.
However, over many years NHS patients have benefited and continue to benefit from so called generic medicines. The suppliers of these medicines have kept prices low by supplying them in bulk to pharmacists. Pharmacists then dispense them in the exact amounts shown on any prescription in small containers. It is therefore in respect of those medicines that we need to be sure that patients receive proper information leaflets on compliance or concordance, dosage and other relevant matters. They need that information when they receive their medicines.
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The previous government developed a complex and costly set of proposals—those which we have discussed tonight as the so-called patient pack initiative—in an attempt to cope with the situation. Plans were based on detailed changes to pharmacists' dispensing rules with a view to moving rapidly to a situation where manufacturers' packs could be routinely dispensed for every medicine. The Government's analysis of the money which would be diverted from direct patient care to meet the additional costs associated with these plans would have been up to £60 million extra over the first three years of any scheme and some £15 million a year after that.
I am well aware that the industry has challenged these figures which were provided to it in detail by officials last November. However, the industry has been invited to provide its own detailed costings, but it has not yet done so. The noble Earl was kind enough to inform me that he might raise the issue of sufficient discussion between the department and the industry on these costings. I took the opportunity of his early warning to consult with officials in the department. Frankly, they expressed incredulity at that accusation. Without referring to detailed diaries they suggested that they had had at least half a dozen meetings on this issue with members of the industry. The accusation of lack of information may therefore be somewhat misplaced.
As the noble Earl and the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, asked me to detail some of the costs and explain how they were arrived at, I am delighted to do so. I apologise to the House if it may seem somewhat detailed. Officials at the Department of Health wrote to the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry and other groups in November last year with an explanatory note on the costings. The projected cost of the proposals had an overall figure of about £60 million. Those were the figures for the plans developed under the previous government.
The main cost component was an increase in the price of generic drugs. The industry has said that it would have to increase its prices if it were producing medicines in small patient packs rather than in bulk supplies. The industry apparently reached an agreement with the previous government that the cost increase would be up to £25 million.
The alleged justification for these price increases was that there would be a corresponding saving of around £25 million in the allowance paid to pharmacists and dispensing doctors for repackaging medicines; the so called "container allowance". But the actual savings would have been much less than that, according to the department's analysis, and would have been around £16 million to £18 million by the end of the implementation period. This is because pharmacists would relatively often have needed to break the packs in order to meet doctors' prescriptions. Even with some degree of rounding, obviously within clinically acceptable bounds, there will remain a number of cases where the amount the doctor prescribes is not sufficiently close to an available pack size to justify rounding. The net effect of these two factors—the price

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increases and the container allowance savings—would, it was estimated, have been a cost to the NHS of around £8 million by the end of the implementation period.
The other main cost elements were, first, some upward drift in the quantity of drugs dispensed in the NHS as a result of the proposed rounding rules at an annual cost of between £2 million to £5 million. In essence, there would have been more rounding up for acute medicines than rounding down. Secondly, there would have a pharmacists' compensation claim of £9 million for residual stock which became unusable as a result of a switch to patient packs. It was estimated that the cost would be £3 million a year during the implementation period. In addition, increased operational costs for the Prescription Pricing Authority to administer the complex new dispensing and reimbursement rules for pharmacists and dispensing doctors were estimated to be around £3 million a year.
It was estimated that the total cost would have been just under £20 million, with these major components, by the end of the implementation period, or around £15 million once the compensation for residual stock was no longer payable. During the implementation period, the analysis showed that the average annual cost would have been slightly higher, primarily because reductions in the container allowance would have lagged behind increases in prices.
I am sorry if the explanation has been drawn out and long-winded, but I was asked for the details and I am happy to give them. It is important to emphasise that the costs were associated with a particular set of proposals which we inherited from the previous government; the so called patient pack initiative. There is no inherent reason why the price tag has to be attached to having a greater number of prescriptions met by patient packs and certainly not to providing patients with the right information when they need it.
Progress is being made on several fronts. As already mentioned tonight, the pharmaceutical industry, through its representative body, the ABPI, announced last month that it would be moving in any event into patient packs because, as it said in its press release when it made the announcement, it had not struck a deal with the Department of Health. We welcome this—not that it has not struck a deal but that it is moving ahead under its own steam.
The size of the packs which it seeks to introduce has to be determined primarily on the basis of clinical decisions by doctors. As I said earlier, what a GP prescribes should be determined by what is right for the patient and the NHS rather than simply a marketing decision by the manufacturer. We will, of course, encourage close working between industry and the professions to facilitate that.
We are also willing in principle, and this is in the light of the noble Earl's request to me to be constructive, to consider some rounding rules, perhaps downwards, within clinically acceptable limits. But for the foreseeable future there will continue to be a bulk supply of some medicines. To ensure that these medicines are dispensed with appropriate labels for pharmacists and leaflets for patients, the Medicines
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Control Agency will shortly be starting a consultation process on regulations. The NHS needs to be certain that manufacturers and suppliers are providing sufficient quantities of the right quality information.
In conclusion, I should like to repeat that for the Government and the health service the important principle is that patients must get the information they need and the medicines they want in a form which is most clinically and cost effective.
We will indeed work with the manufacturers and suppliers of medicines, with the clinical professions and with pharmacists to achieve what we see as this common aim. But we do not intend to spend up to £60 million of public funds to underwrite a commercially very successful industry to comply with the legal requirement to market its products in a safe and appropriate way.
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, before the noble Baroness sits down, I thank her for that detailed reply on the costings. Some of the elements that she has mentioned have been challenged by the industry. I have the correspondence here but I think it would be inappropriate to go through that tonight. Perhaps I may also ask her if she would answer my question about complying with the EU directive, especially in the light of the comments made by her honourable friend, Tessa Jowell, as to how the Government propose to get over this problem. She said that the Government are considering whether it will be necessary to implement the European Council labelling and leaflet directive by other means. Can the Minister say what those other means are?
Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for raising the question of the challenge to those costs which I mentioned as being something the industry has taken up with the department. However, I should like to repeat that it has not come up with an overall figure of its own to counteract that.
On the issue of the alternatives I hope that in the later stages of my remarks when, for example, I spoke about the Medicines Control Agency consultation on regulations and on our willingness to consider in principle the possibility of rounding down prescriptions in order to extend their use, I gave some indication of the direction of travel on implementing the directive.
Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do adjourn during pleasure until 9.5 p.m.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
[The Sitting was suspended from 9.3 to 9.5 p.m.]

European Communities (Amendment) Bill
Consideration of amendments on Report resumed.
Lord Moynihanmoved Amendment No. 12:
After Clause I, insert the following new clause—
RE-WEIGHTING OF VOTES IN THE COUNCIL
(". No provision of the Treaty signed at Amsterdam on 2nd October 1997 amending the Treaty on European Union, the Treaties establishing the European Communities and certain related Acts which extends the procedure for co-decision-making with the European Parliament shall have effect in the United Kingdom until the re-weighting of votes in the Council of Ministers anticipated in Protocol 11 to that Treaty has been agreed upon and implemented.").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 12 standing in my name. I have tabled this amendment because of the paramount importance the Opposition, and indeed the Government, rightly attach to enlargement of the European Union, as the historic and moral challenge of our generation—a sentiment which I know is shared across all sides of this House.
The present union, its institutions and mechanisms, were designed nearly half a century ago for six states. No one expects these to serve effectively a Europe of the 21st century in all its diversity. To fulfil the mission of enlargement—and it is a mission—difficult issues must be addressed and difficult decisions made, including the re-weighting of votes in the Council of Ministers. Without re-weighting, the smaller member states will have power disproportionate to their populations, enabling them to outvote the larger member states. That situation will only worsen as the European Union is enlarged to include the smaller states of central and eastern Europe.
The proposed new clause delays the extension of powers to the European Parliament until agreement is reached on overall institutional changes which the Government failed to achieve at Amsterdam. As I made clear earlier today, I do not wholly agree with the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, that the advance in the powers of the European Parliament is an important gain in its own right, certainly not in comparison with the need for the institutional changes required for enlargement. Nor can I understand how the Government can claim to have increased democracy in the Union when they failed to address the issue of re-weighting the votes in the Council of Ministers, which would more closely relate each country's influence to the size of its population.
A major goal of this IGC—perhaps the major goal—was to reform the European Union's institutions in order that they should continue to be effective after further enlargement. As I have said before, if Amsterdam had a raison d'être, an idea behind it, a purpose to achieve, it was the acknowledgment that Europe does not end at the Elbe and that institutional changes and reforms were necessary to pave the way for enlargement. We are all agreed on that. The re-weighting of votes is not just necessary; it is vital before the process of enlargement can succeed.
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In the present voting system, the United Kingdom, like France, Germany and Italy, wields 10 votes out of 87. Yet those four states represent more than two-thirds of the European Union's population. Democratic legitimacy demands that the relative influence of the more populous states is increased. At present, the system gives one vote for every 200,000 Luxembourgers but only one vote for every 8 million Germans or 6 million people in the United Kingdom, France or Italy. Without reform, the bias against the more populous member states, which are also the largest net contributors to the European Union budget, will become even more pronounced with the accession of more, mainly small, states. Malta has only 400,000 inhabitants, Cyprus 700,000 and Estonia, 1.5 million. A European Union of 27 members containing all the current candidates for accession would include 15 with populations of fewer than 10 million people, about the size of Greater London, and only six, including the United Kingdom, with populations of more than 30 million.
Clearly, the bigger the European Union becomes, the more necessary it will be for states like our own to ensure that any risk of QMV is based on a weighting of votes which reflects the population of individual member states.
The present voting system gives rise to the possibility that small states will be given overweening power and we are drifting towards a situation in which, if many more states enter the European Union, we might have Germany, Britain or France or Germany, Britain and Italy voting together and being voted down by the combined weight of all the other member states despite the fact that in population terms, nothing like an adequate majority would have been achieved.
I have no doubt that the noble Lord will agree that a system which allows countries representing a significant percentage of the European Union's population or the major net contributors as a group to be outvoted would not be acceptable to the United Kingdom. Given the late hour at which the matter was discussed in Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, understandably, did not wish to burden the Committee with the mathematics which the Government will use to determine acceptable criteria for re-weighting. But perhaps today he will comment on the two broad approaches which have been suggested for overcoming the present bias; namely, either changing the number of votes within the current system or the introduction of a second voting criterion.
Given that other less tangible factors beside population, such as the sovereign right of even the smallest states to have a say and member states' global political responsibilities, are also relevant in achieving a sensible balance for determining relative influence, does the Minister agree that, of the two broad approaches that I have mentioned, it would be by far the better solution for this country and for the Union as a whole to reflect those wider considerations of sovereignty and global political responsibilities by changing the number of votes within the current system rather than by introducing the second voting criterion?
The issue of re-weighting votes in the Council of Ministers was raised by the former Prime Minister, John Major, during the Greek presidency. He was

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rightly concerned that the qualified majority voting should not continue on the present basis whereby votes in an electoral college are given to individual member states rather arbitrarily in a way that bears no relation to their population. So as to avoid being accused of excluding the Scandinavians and others from membership, it was agreed at the informal Foreign Affairs Council in Ioánnina in March 1994 that the IGC would discuss the arrangements for majority voting, and notably the weighting of votes in the system.
Prior to the conclusion of the IGC at Amsterdam, the Foreign Secretary was unequivocally bullish in his confident assertion that he had the negotiating skills to secure voting reform in the Council of Ministers when he told another place:
"I believe we can look forward with confidence to obtaining more votes for Britain and the larger countries from the Amsterdam summit. Enlargement could create the perverse outcome of the three largest nations, with the majority of the population of Europe, not having a blocking minority in the Council of Ministers. We have every reason to believe that we shall emerge from Amsterdam with an agreement that will give Britain greater weight in the Council of Ministers".
But, as the House knows, despite the Foreign Secretary's confidence, he failed at Amsterdam. The final text of the treaty demonstrates that this issue proved too controversial for his negotiating skills.
Protocol 11 on the institutions, with the prospect of enlargement, represents the fruits of his negotiation and is a bad apple or an unripe lemon, if ever there was one. In fairness, however, the Foreign Secretary attempted to rally and said that he was,
"pleased to say that we have had it explicitly written into the treaty that the issue of the rebalancing of votes in the Council of Ministers must be addressed before any further enlargement takes place".
Why, when prior to the summit the Foreign Secretary was so confident that he would return with the key institutional reforms necessary for enlargement, does Article 1 of the protocol simply state the requirement, apparent since the last enlargement took place in 1995, to reweight the votes in Council and to adjust the present number of Commissioners?
The immediate effect of Protocol 11 is to postpone changes to the size and composition of the Commission and to the voting weights in Council to a later date. It also provides that, when further enlargement takes place, the Commission shall comprise one national of each of the member states. This has committed the Union to reform of the Commission; but, again, as the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, very helpfully explained in Committee, only if greater influence is given to Britain in the Council of Ministers' weighted voting, as we are one of the countries which will lose our second Commissioner.
As I understand it, Britain's position has always been that we would agree to give up our second Commissioner provided that we were compensated through vote reweighting. On Second Reading, the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, sought to confirm that that was still the Government's position. He quoted Article 1 of the protocol; namely, that the Commission
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will consist of one Commissioner per member state on enlargement, but only if,
"by that date, the weighting of the votes in the Council … has been modified in a manner acceptable to all member states".—[Official Report, 16/2/98; col. 111.]
However, the only problem—and your Lordships will appreciate that I wrestled with this as I drove home late at night after the Committee considerations—is that I was sure that the Minister had missed out nine key words from his quote. The full text in the protocol reads that the provision will only apply,
"provided that, by that date, the weighting of the votes in the Council has been modified, whether by reweighting of the votes or by dual majority, in a manner acceptable to all member states".
Therefore, in the context of the full quote, I should like to ask whether the loss of our second Commissioner by the year 2003, to which the Government agreed is in fact compensated for by a watertight, legal guarantee to reweight the votes in Council.
Naturally, I turned to the memorandum of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, which, I regret to say, did not inspire confidence in me on the point. It said:
"The major institutional issues of vote reweighting and reform of the Commission were not resolved by the Amsterdam Treaty. Instead, the Protocol envisages a move towards one Commissioner per member state to take effect only on the next enlargement of the Union and provided that a satisfactory vote reweighting formula can be agreed at the same time, notably compensating larger members'".
Therefore, can the noble Lord confirm that we are committed to giving up our second commissioner in a legally binding protocol, upon which others may indeed rely in the Court of Justice, in a treaty which actually only envisages a satisfactory vote reweighting formula? Can the noble Lord also confirm that there is no specific commitment in the protocol to the reweighting of votes in the Council of Ministers, and that the future arrangements envisaged provide for either a reweighting of votes or the incorporation of dual majority into Council decision-making? Does the Minister accept that the latter is not an acceptable solution for Britain?
The Minister of State in another place insisted that he would not agree to our second Commissioner being removed without reweighting. We on these Benches strongly support that stance. But why, then, did he agree to the inclusion of an alternative to reweighting; namely, the use of dual majority in the treaty text? The Prime Minister, Foreign Secretary and the noble Lord have on several occasions recorded their bitter disappointment that no further progress on the institutional reforms necessary for enlargement was made. We share that disappointment. Indeed we on these Benches share not just that sense of disappointment but also the alarm that has been echoed throughout the central and eastern European applicant nations.
Until Committee stage it was not clear why no progress had been made. During our debate in July the noble Lord said that at Amsterdam agreement was near. Last July the explanation of the failure to reach agreement was as follows. The noble Lord said:
"We failed on the institutional side to agree the size of the Commission or the reweighting of votes but we came close to agreement. The noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, asked me why. One slightly flip answer is that we did not reach that item until four

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o'clock in the morning. It may be that the heads of government or other states were not quite as alert at that point as my right honourable friend the Prime Minister".
To be completely fair to the noble Lord, in Committee he substituted for that flip explanation a rather more sober and thought-provoking one. He told the Committee that when the Government came to the negotiating table there was already deadlock on the linked questions of the size of the Commission and the weighting of votes on the Council, although the Government did their best to broker a deal in six weeks. That is a little different from the Foreign Secretary's brimming confidence prior to the Summit that a deal would be reached. The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, told us that with a little more time agreement might have been reached on the issue of institutional reform.
What lead did the Government take at Amsterdam and what trade-offs did they demand so that the treaty could contain those necessary institutional changes to hasten enlargement to the east? Although no progress was made at Amsterdam, and despite the deadlock on the linked questions of the size of the Commission and the weighting of votes in the Council that the noble Lord described, he is optimistic. He does not think that it will be,
"such a colossal problem for the existing members of the European Union to achieve agreement even though ultimately there was no consensus at the summit".
Nor is he of the opinion that the present impasse will delay the enlargement process. But given that the Government's explanation for the lack of progress relies largely on the dearth of political will amongst other member states—notably not the United Kingdom in this context—and deadlock in the Council of Ministers as a result of the intransigence of other partners, will the noble Lord give the House some more detail as regards the reasons for his optimism that the issue will shortly be smoothly resolved? I sincerely hope that is the case.
The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, who has considered this matter in detail, has also said that he does not envisage a further IGC will be needed to enact the necessary treaty revisions. I am concerned about that because as I read Agenda 2000 it recommends a further IGC to deepen political integration and reform Europe's institutions before enlargement takes place—interestingly enough it mentions an objective of the generalised introduction of qualified majority voting. As Protocol 11 effectively postpones the need to take any decisions on the forms of voting weights and Commission size until a new member is on the threshold of joining, when and in what form does the noble Lord envisage such decisions will be made?
I hope the House will forgive me for having gone into this matter in such detail. Finally, what lead did the Government take in ensuring that further progress was made on institutional reforms at the Luxembourg Summit in December? Where do we go from here? That is of critical importance in the context of this amendment. The presidency conclusions last December were largely dedicated to setting out the timetable for the accession negotiations which we are all proud to have begun under the British presidency. But the
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absolute prerequisite for enlargement of the Union was given only in one sentence which states that,
"the operation of the institutions must be strengthened and improved in keeping with the institutional provisions of the Amsterdam Treaty".
Was that what the Minister of State meant when he told another place that the Government would continue to pursue institutional reforms which would,
"be one of the issues that would be taken forward from the conclusions which will, we hope, be reached at the Luxembourg Summit in December"?
Again the Minister's optimism was not sufficient to persuade his European colleagues.
It is to seek answers to this question that I have analysed the issue in some detail. I apologise to the House for going into that detail. However, it is critically important that these issues are resolved: the re-weighting of votes; enlargement; and the institutional changes that we all hope to see come out of Amsterdam.
It is against that background that I have tabled these questions to the Minister in the context of this amendment. I am grateful to the House for listening to me for so long on this point. I hope that some of the many questions I have asked will be able to be answered at the conclusion of the debate. I beg to move.
Baroness Williams of Crosby: My Lords, I see no reason for the noble Lord to apologise for having detained the House even at this late hour on a matter of extreme importance. He spoke about it in a knowledgeable and helpful way, and I agree with a great deal of what he said. I shall be brief in my remarks because I do not think there is need to go over the same ground.
It is vital to reform the institutional structures as we move ahead to further enlargement. We all recognise that if the next six countries—the so-called first wave—were to join the European Union it would be difficult to run the institutions. If the second six were to join the Union, it would be almost impossible in any effective way to run the institutions of the Union well. I do not put too fine a point on it in saying that most people will agree that with 15 members states it is already difficult to find jobs of adequate weight for all the commissioners. One does not tell a story out of place by saying that there is a good deal of jockeying to decide which responsibilities commissioners will have, since clearly some tasks have more heavy, weighty and significant responsibilities than others.
As regards the consensus which has begun to form around the idea of one commissioner for each member state, I regret that it removes what I believe is the excellent principle that certain of the large countries should have commissioners drawn from different political parties. In the United Kingdom, it has become the custom that one of the two commissioners comes from the leading opposition party and the other from the government party. In Germany, one of the two commissioners normally comes from the junior partner in the coalition. The idea that the commissioner should not necessarily be of the same party as the government of the country is valuable. In many ways it is an

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example to countries which do not understand that people from different parties can share a common patriotism towards the country of which they are part.
I should like to see commissioners becoming junior ministers to other commissioners so that we can develop a greater degree of integration within the Commission than exists at present. That is the way things are going. As the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan said, if they go in that direction, it is essential that there should be a re-weighting of votes. From these Benches, we somewhat prefer the idea of a dual voting system. We think it important that the populations of the member states should be reflected in the decisions made. That requires a system under which there is weighting for population as well as the existing weighting of votes. That is vital because of the disproportionate contributions to the budget made by different member states, and the probable increase in weighting of responsibilities that will occur if we move towards a common foreign and security policy, even in a limited way.
I do not wish to detain the House further. It is an issue which Amsterdam hardly had time to more than pass by. It will be a major responsibility for either the next IGC or some European Council in the next few years. What is clear is that we need to resolve this issue as soon as possible, otherwise it will be a difficult issue in the centre of the enlargement discussions, and I think all of us would regret that.
9.30 p.m.
Lord Belhaven and Stenton: My Lords, while I cannot disagree with anything my noble friend Lord Moynihan said, he observed that most of the applicant states are small. That is true of countries such as Slovenia and Estonia. However, I should remind the House that the population of Poland is between 40 million and 45 million. When it is compared to the other countries in Europe, it cannot really be described as a small country.
Lord Whitty: My Lords, as I believe the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, will recognise, I have some sympathy with much of what he has said. The fact remains that the amendment he asks us to agree would prevent the UK from ratifying the Amsterdam Treaty until agreement had been reached on the re-weighting of votes in the Council. As such, it would delay not only progress in Europe, but progress on enlargement.
I understand the concern in the House that we were not able to reach agreement. Her Majesty's Government accept that that was disappointing. When we came to the negotiating table, after 1st May last year, there was some degree of deadlock on this matter, and the Dutch presidency decided strategically to leave the matter until the endgame of negotiations at Amsterdam. At Amsterdam, both the Dutch presidency and ourselves did our best to broker a deal. Given a little more time, we might even have reached agreement. I think I can say that we ought to have reached agreement. Ultimately, however, there was no consensus, and no definitive reforms were written into the treaty. That is a disappointment, but not a disaster. We did make some
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progress. We have come away with a protocol setting out the mechanisms by which those outstanding issues will be resolved in advance of the next enlargement of the Union.
I accept much of what the noble Lord says in relation to the need to change the voting systems prior to enlargement. However, I shall not be drawn tonight on the arithmetic or the different systems. I note that the noble Lord, speaking for the Official Opposition, seems to favour a system based on the existing weighting system; and I note that the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, seems to favour, on balance, a dual system. Either approach could safeguard Britain's relative position. Therefore they will be subject to further negotiations.
I draw the attention of the House to the terms of the protocol. Article 1 states that when the next enlargement takes place, the Commission will comprise one national of each member state, but only provided that the weighting of votes in the Council has been modified to increase the relative clout of the large member states. The noble Lord suggested that in my previous quotation from the protocol I missed out nine words. He is of course right. But either way, my final words—namely, that it would increase the clout of the large member states—apply, whichever route we take.
We consider that that protocol represents in the circumstances a sensible deal. We have agreed to surrender a second British Commissioner. I understand the anxieties of the noble Baroness. Nevertheless, we believe that on balance it is sensible to do that, but only if there is an acceptable change in the voting system. Amsterdam recognises for the first time explicitly in the treaty that the weighting of votes in the Council is inequitable and needs adjustment.
Moreover, there were other changes in the Amsterdam Treaty—I would argue, on qualified majority voting; on flexibility; and on the limit of the size of the European Parliament—which were designed to prepare the way for enlargement. However, in order to achieve the enlargement challenge, our first priority is to get the Amsterdam Treaty effectively out of the way and to achieve ratification in all 15 member states. When that is secured, we can start focusing and finding a political agreement to settle the outstanding issues of vote re-weighting and Commission size.
The noble Lord argued that this failure at Amsterdam puts at risk the whole enlargement process. We do not believe that to be the case. I went into some detail on Tuesday night to say that we have already launched the whole process of enlargement. The agreement at Amsterdam has allowed that to happen. The issues of Commission size and voting weights would have to be addressed anyway in accession negotiations. Any new member state means changing the voting weights. All member states will have to examine the issues, just as they had to at every previous enlargement.
However, Article 2 of the institutions protocol states that at least one year before the membership of the Union exceeds 20 following the accession of five new members, an IGC would be convened to review the composition and functioning of the institutions. That

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does not mean that we are committed to another major comprehensive root-and-branch analysis of the institutions of the Union. We are talking about the leftovers from Amsterdam; not about an unlimited re-examination of the institutional structure of the Union. It is therefore a limited exercise. It is technically an intergovernmental conference and will require treaty changes, but it is a limited exercise. We believe that it can be achieved relatively easily—not entirely easily because political deals will have to be done—but it can be achieved simply if it is limited to those objectives.
We believe that it can take place well before any accession of a new member state. There is talk of it happening during the German or Finnish presidency next year. Perhaps that is true; perhaps it will take a little longer, but it will take place before there is any accession of a new member state.
The fact that Amsterdam did not involve substantial moves towards solving the issues is not a problem in terms of engaging in the enlargement process; nor should it be a problem for us now in agreeing to the ratification of the treaty. The amendment would prevent us ratifying the treaty. The noble Lord's objectives of resolving the issues and moving into the proper enlargement process are worthy ones which we on these Benches share. However, if the amendment were carried, it would slow us down, if not entirely prevent us ratifying the treaty. I therefore ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Moynihan: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his response. He displayed greater support for the arguments I was deploying than I anticipated this evening. That in its own right will lead me to withdraw the amendment in a moment because I see the power of his argument with regard to the amendment. To be fair, I was aware of it from the outset.
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The points that the Minister made are important and will be studied in detail. I have only one brief observation to make at this stage. I believe the Minister is being over-optimistic in believing that an IGC which he now defines as a "technical IGC" will necessarily, in the context of what he has said, become a limited exercise. I have a feeling that on this subject the chances of such a technical IGC being a limited exercise are slim. However, I may be being a little cynical at this late hour of the evening. Perhaps the noble Lord is right; we shall see.
Having made that passing observation, I am grateful to the Minister for his comprehensive reply and for his support for the many points raised. He did not go into detail on all the questions I asked; nor, sadly, into the mathematics. I was looking forward to that. Those reflections apart, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, for her comments and observations on the matter. In the light of what the Minister said, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 13 to 17 not moved.]

Shrewsbury and Atcham Borough Council Bill [H.L.]
Reported from the Unopposed Bill Committee with amendments.

Social Security Bill
Returned from the Commons with certain amendments agreed to and with the remaining amendments agreed to with amendments; the Commons amendments ordered to be printed.
House adjourned at twenty minutes before ten o'clock.