asked Her Majesty’s Government:

In view of the European Commission’s proposal for cross-border enforcement of traffic offences of European Union-registered cars, what action they propose to deal with cars registered in other countries.

My Lords, we very much welcome the Commission’s proposal for a common system of information exchange to facilitate the recovery of financial penalties for drink, speed, seatbelt and red-light offences from non-resident offenders. We are considering the practical issues involved in implementation.

Provisions in the Road Safety Act 2006, when implemented, will also enable the police and Department for Transport officials to issue on-the-spot financial penalties to drivers of foreign-registered vehicles in the United Kingdom.

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that helpful reply. Is he aware of the problem—particularly in London, which has a large number of foreign-registered vehicles—of the unreadability of number plates by the automatic number plate recognition system? It cannot read plates in Cyrillic or Arabic and, in future, it will no doubt be unable to read Chinese. These drivers are escaping parking penalties and congestion charging simply because their number plates cannot be recognised.

I understand that some countries propose issuing such people with temporary number plates on arrival—perhaps they have to put up a bond for that. I think that our Government have such proposals for lorries, but not for others. Can the Minister tell me the position?

My Lords, the noble Baroness raises an interesting point about enforcement. All vehicles manufactured since 1 January 1973 must have a number plate made of reflecting material; that at the front must be white, that at the rear must be yellow and they must have black characters. We expect that for conformity. The typeface of number plates has to be substantially the same. If it is not, the police are entitled to investigate and to bring an offence. The issue is important and I accept that there is a problem. The police are aware of it and we need to deal with it. The noble Baroness’s point about foreign countries issuing temporary plates is very useful.

My Lords, the Minister has frequently answered questions from me about foreign lorries and consistent breaches, particularly of the drivers’ hours regulations, which are gross and very dangerous. When will the regulations come into force so that these people can be prosecuted? Will the penalties reflect the enormous advantage such hauliers are gaining over British hauliers?

My Lords, on the implementation of the Commission’s directive raised by the noble Baroness in her Question, we anticipate that we will resolve the issues and be able to do that at some time in the spring of 2009.

My Lords, can my noble friend assure me that the safety checks on foreign lorries entering the United Kingdom are at least as strict as those for lorries which are domiciled here?

My Lords, where checks are made by our enforcing officials, they will be to the same enforcement standard.

My Lords, can the noble Lord confirm that a new offence is to be added to the list of offences that he read out in the shape of a ban on our ordinary headlights and an insistence on the extremely nasty, glaring headlights used on the Continent? Is the noble Lord aware that the motor bike fraternity is worried about this new imposition from our masters in Brussels? How will it be enforced in this country?

My Lords, I was a bit concerned when I realised that this Question would appear on the Order Paper on the same day as the European legislation, and I anticipated that we might have a Eurosceptic view on road traffic enforcement. It is important that we have high standards in this area. Is the noble Lord saying that we should not have those high standards? I am not sure where he is coming from in that regard. We would like a higher degree of cross-border conformity in Europe because that would make it much easier for us to enforce traffic regulations and laws and for us to push up standards on an international level.

My Lords, how many fatal and serious accidents occur annually due to non-UK-registered vehicles of all types?

My Lords, in 2006, the year for which I have statistics covering all accidents of varying severity, 2,398 involved foreign-registered vehicles.

My Lords, could the Minister turn his attention to the United Kingdom’s only land frontier, where the issue of vehicles travelling across the border is particularly significant in terms of numbers? The Minister may be aware that some years ago there was a proposal to provide for the mutual enforcement of penalties—not only cash penalties but also points penalties—between the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. Has that proposal been progressed?

My Lords, progress has been made towards that objective. The noble Lord probably knows much better than I do that there is a disparity between the points system that we operate north of the border and that operated by the Irish Government. We are making progress, and I think that this will probably be the first area in which we achieve more effective joint working on cross-border issues.

My Lords, is my noble friend aware that there are enormous numbers of fraudulent plates on UK-registered vehicles and that there is no central collection of police information? Anecdotally, it is suggested that the figure is around 20 per cent. It might be useful to hold a pilot to show how many UK speeding and other offences cannot be prosecuted because the number plate is false.

My Lords, my mind stretches back to the Vehicles (Crime) Act 2001 which I took through the House some years ago. The proposal embedded in that legislation sought to ensure that number plates are chipped, thus allowing them to be read in greater detail for the purposes of enforcement. Progress is being made towards that and the issue of fraudulent number plates should begin to diminish over time.

My Lords, will the noble Lord address his mind to the question asked by my noble friend Lord Pearson? The Minister rather mobbed him up for asking a Eurosceptic question. I think that my noble friend asked whether it is true that our lorries will have to have different kinds of headlights in order to accommodate the laws in Europe. That is quite an important question, so can he answer it?

My Lords, I am not aware that that is the case. However, the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, has raised a question about which I shall be more than happy to write to him.

My Lords, is there any procedure whereby foreign drivers, especially those from the now expanded European Union, are enabled to be aware of our traffic regulations and to read our road signs—in England and in Wales, which also has its problems?

My Lords, I sometimes have difficulty with Welsh road signs, but I am sure that that is not a common problem on these Benches.

asked Her Majesty’s Government:

What steps they are taking to ensure a fair result for policyholders in the current negotiations over the reattribution of the inherited estates of with-profits funds.

My Lords, this is a matter for the independent regulator—the Financial Services Authority—and the courts. The Financial Services Authority sets the rules covering the management of with-profits funds. It requires firms pursuing reattributions to appoint an independent policyholder advocate to represent policyholders in negotiations with the firm. On completion of the negotiations, the FSA will assess the fairness of the deal and make public its conclusion on what fair treatment would require for consumers. Policyholders have a right to vote on the proposal.

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply, but the problem rests with the Financial Services Authority rules. My noble friend may not be aware that in the current negotiations relating to the reattribution of the inherited estate of the Norwich Union, amounting to £3.2 billion, both the policyholders’ advocate and Which? have expressed concern about whether policyholders will get a fair deal under the FSA rules. Although the FSA—

Question!

My Lords, are not the Government concerned that the effect of these rules will be that much of the 90 per cent of the inherited estate due to policyholders, as set out in the Government’s published policy on inherited estates, will go to shareholders rather than policyholders? Will they put pressure on the FSA to ensure that the government policy of 90 per cent of the inherited estate to policyholders and 10 per cent to shareholders will be followed in reattributions?

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for his question. There is a distinction between the distribution of surplus funds, which has followed and does follow the broad principle of 90 per cent to policyholders and 10 per cent to shareholders, and the issue of reattribution which arises in the Norwich Union case. This is because reattribution involves the buyout of policyholders and raises the issue of the company’s necessary assets for the future as well as accumulated assets in the past; it raises different issues. That is why the FSA scrutinises these arrangements with great care, as I indicated in my Answer. Negotiations are still going on between Norwich Union and the policyholder advocate. We await the outcome of those negotiations.

My Lords, in view of what my noble friend Lord Joffe has said, could not the FSA be reminded that the purpose of a regulatory framework is to protect the consumer rather than, inevitably, always the insurer? There would be nothing wrong in reminding the FSA of that requirement.

My Lords, there is nothing ever wrong in reminding the FSA of its obligations. That occurs from time to time, in this House as elsewhere, but the FSA is well aware of its responsibilities. At present it is carrying out consultation on whether the costs of compensation for mis-selling claims should be included in the settlement for the shareholders. As the House will appreciate, the Treasury Select Committee in the other place, to which the FSA will be obliged to give evidence, is also looking at these issues.

My Lords, have not successive Governments, including the present Government, said that the reallocation of this money should be in the proportions mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Joffe? Have the insurers not overprovided with money that was taken from the policyholders? Surely they must have a prior claim.

My Lords, I emphasise again the distinction I sought to make in my Answer. Where bonuses are paid on surplus funds, the allocation is generally on the basis of 90 per cent to policyholders and 10 per cent to shareholders, a formula that the FSA has recommended. The difficulties occur on reallocation, when shareholders are buying out policyholders. In that context, not just the interests of existing policyholders but the future operations of the company have to be taken into account. That is why the formula there is bound to be different from the 90 per cent plus 10 per cent that obtains on straight surpluses.

My Lords, I think we all accept that this is very complicated and that there is no single right or wrong answer. I am grateful to the noble Lord for setting out the legal position, if I can put it that way. The Question was really about the steps the Government are taking and what their view is. As and when the FSA gives its ruling, will the Government have a view and get involved or do they just say that it is entirely a matter for the FSA?

My Lords, I take solace from the fact that the noble Lord finds these issues difficult and complicated. I emphasise that the FSA is the statutory body concerned with this regulation. It has not had complaints about the distribution of surplus funds. There is no doubt that the issues on reattributions are more complex, but we have a clear framework for the FSA to work within. The policyholders will see the FSA judgment on the allocation that is made and they have the right to vote against the proposals if they find them unacceptable—they can even go to court. We recognise that there are difficulties in this area, but regulation means a regulator independent of government, and that is what the FSA is there for.

My Lords, the Minister will be aware that we face the greatest turmoil in financial markets in many decades and that many banks are being urged to increase their capital. Does he not therefore share my puzzlement—I am a director of a life insurance company with a large inherited estate—that insurance companies are being urged to do precisely the opposite; that is, to distribute more capital than their directors think is prudent in these times?

My Lords, if surpluses accrue in insurance companies, it is expected that they will be distributed. Such surpluses are unlikely to accrue in difficult times and are more likely to do so in more beneficial economic times. Several companies have surpluses at present, which is why my noble friend asked his Question.

asked Her Majesty’s Government:

What will be the impact of the Climate Change Bill on the provisions affecting the building of power stations in the Planning Bill and the Energy Bill.

My Lords, the Climate Change Bill, together with the provisions of the energy and planning Bills, will give the United Kingdom a coherent legislative framework to ensure that policy is designed from the very outset to deliver our principal objectives; namely, to tackle climate change, to guarantee secure and affordable energy supplies and to ensure sustainable development.

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his Answer. Will he explain why local authorities are required to consider climate change in relation to local developments, whereas there is no similar statutory obligation for the infrastructure planning commission to consider climate change when determining major infrastructure, especially nuclear power stations?

My Lords, I am in some difficulty. The Climate Change Bill has left this place; it has gone to the other place but has not yet started its journey. The other two Bills referred to have completed their Committee stage in the House of Commons; they await their Report stage. I am in no position to comment on the detail. They could be changed, and I have no doubt that the other two Bills will be bettered when they get to this place. But the fact is that the three Bills will be taken together. When the infrastructure planning commission is set up by the Planning Bill to deal with the large infrastructure and energy projects, particularly onshore generation of more than 50 megawatts and offshore generation of more than 100 megawatts, those projects will have to come under that commission, which will operate independently. It will have to take account of both climate change and sustainable development principles.

My Lords, how does the Minister square the decision to construct a coal-fired power station at Kingsnorth, with no carbon capture or sequestration, with the time that this House has spent on the Climate Change Bill?

My Lords, I am in the very happy position that I do not have to, because the application for that power station has been put on hold and deferred.

My Lords, is not the issue around the Climate Change Bill and power stations one of carbon capture and storage, as the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, suggested? In the UK, we have one minor-scale competition project for carbon capture and storage in an economy where we have the natural resources in the form of the North Sea, which is naturally ripe for carbon capture and storage. Will we not lose our leadership in this area, as we did in renewable energy, to the rest of the world, particularly to Australia and Canada?

Clauses in the Energy Bill, which is in the other place, set out the regulatory framework for carbon dioxide storage. All these issues—both the mechanics in the Energy Bill and the concept of and structure for regulation in the Planning Bill—can be fully debated in your Lordships' House, hour after hour and day after day, with the knowledge of what we have already done on the Climate Change Bill. It will not be too far away.

My Lords, does the Minister recognise how agreeable it is for an opposition party to hear a Minister say that he has no idea what changes will be made to three programmed Bills?

My Lords, elected Members of the House of Commons will scrutinise the Planning Bill and the Energy Bill on Report, so who can say what the outcome will be when they come to this place? No one can. When both Bills come here, they will be scrutinised in line with our normal, high-quality scrutiny procedures.

My Lords, will the Minister support all new power stations being made ready for carbon storage under the Energy Bill? Deferrals of applications should be made not just for coal-fired power stations, because we burn fossil fuels also out of gas. Every new gas power station should also have carbon storage and capture by law.

My Lords, I was warned that I might be asked that question, but, because of the deferral of that application, I was told that it made good sense not to make any comment. There is nothing on the agenda. There could be legal ramifications. That planning application is now deferred and on hold, so the issue does not arise.

asked Her Majesty’s Government:

What powers they and their agencies have to ensure that customer gratuities are received by staff rather than being retained in some form by restaurants.

My Lords, restaurants, like any other business, operate a wide variety of practices in relation to tips. The Government do not regulate them in detail, with one exception: every employer must pay their workers the national minimum wage. Tips may count towards the minimum wage only when they have been paid through the employer’s payroll.

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for her reply. Is it not clear that a minority of restaurants operate a dishonourable scam by retaining some of the gratuities or tips themselves or, in other cases, actually using the gratuities or tips to top up to the minimum wage? Will the Minister work with the British Hospitality Association to look at this whole question, which is clearly unsatisfactory at present? The association represents 18,000 restaurants. Would it not make sense if restaurants had to display on menus or bills what their policy is with regard to the distribution of gratuities or tips?

My Lords, as the Secretary of State said yesterday, this issue is of concern not only with respect to employees’ rights but with respect to the rights of consumers to know where their tips are going. The DBERR has therefore undertaken to consider the issue and take all representations into account. We will talk to the BHA as well as other stakeholders, including the unions and employers.

I should simply caution that this is quite a complex matter. Tipping does not automatically lead to improved employee wages. In tight labour market conditions, the money does not need to be passed on, because wages can be reduced over time or consumers may stop paying the tips if the employers’ costs go up. It is a complicated issue, but we will consider it.

My Lords, is it not the situation in law that when these gratuities are received by the management they are held in trust, either for the individual waiter or waitress or for the staff as a whole, in accordance with any agreement made?

My Lords, unfortunately, the law is not clear on that matter, which is why we have said that we will take all representations and consider it. Most restaurants are run on a troncing system in which a troncmaster holds the tips, usually for all the staff both in the front and the back. However, that does not mean that in all cases it is illegal for the tips to be shared by the owners or managers.

My Lords, does the Minister accept that, although certain aspects of the law may be unclear, following the very successful campaign by Unite to draw attention to this issue, if you go into a restaurant and it says on the bottom of your bill, “voluntary contribution to service”, and if your voluntary contribution is in fact a contribution to the minimum wage salary of the member of staff, that is clearly a breach of contract? Is that not something that trading standards officers should be addressing and stopping?

My Lords, the only regulation that actually applies to the disclosure of the service requirement is that customers are required to be told in advance that there will be a service charge if it is going to be automatically added on to the Bill. Restaurants do not currently have to disclose whether that is going to go to staff—and, in response to the Question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Lee, that is obviously something that needs to be considered.

My Lords, I declare an interest as a member of the Unite trade union. Given that Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs takes into account a notional amount of money earned by way of tips by staff in restaurants and hotels, would the Minister agree that perhaps the best thing is to follow my personal practice, which is always to leave the tip in cash on the table?

My Lords, naturally, I urge noble Lords to be generous in their tipping, but it must be said that it is not the case that every time you leave a tip in cash it automatically passes through to the waiters, because there could be a contractual arrangement that requires it to be passed back either directly to the employers or on through a troncing system. The Low Pay Commission has found a large variety of practices and it is not possible to say that one method is preferable to another.

My Lords—

My Lords—

My Lords—

Cross Bench!

My Lords, we have not actually heard from the Conservative Benches.

My Lords, may I suggest to the noble Lord and the noble Baroness in her suggestion about leaving cash that there is an even simpler method of solving this problem? Noble Lords will probably remember that the French word for tip is pourboire. If noble Lords are worried about this matter, I suggest that they buy the waiter a large glass of red wine and leave that instead of money. The proprietor would get the message very quickly.

My Lords, I am not sure that the waiter’s family would entirely appreciate that if it is relying on the tips.

My Lords—

My Lords—

My Lords, we have already heard twice from the Liberal Democrat Benches and once from the Cross Benches, but if both noble Lords are reasonably speedy, both will get in.

My Lords, will the Minister assure us that all the tips given in this House go to the staff?

I am sorry, my Lords, but I do not know. I shall look to one of my colleagues and get the answer.

My Lords, is it not plain that, if I leave money which is plainly intended as a tip and not as a payment to the restaurant and the restaurant takes it to itself, that is not just a breach of its contract with its waiters but is theft of the money and is prosecutable?

My Lords, I completely appreciate the noble Viscount's view. However, the situation is not clear in law because the restaurant could take the service charge as part of its revenue, pass it on to the employee and pay NICs on it. In response to the earlier question, I understand that the answer is yes.

My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.

Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.

House in Committee accordingly.

[The LORD SPEAKER in the Chair.]

Clause 1 [The Treaty of Lisbon]:

[Amendment No. 1 had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.]

moved Amendment No. 2:

More!

I have plenty more here but I shall spare them that.

Let us get to the amendment.

If the noble Lord wants to make points of that ilk, will he tell us what a Conservative Government would actually do, assuming this Bill goes through?

I certainly intend to do that during the Committee and Report stages of the Bill. We have plenty of things to do. We have a major agenda for improving the European system and for being extremely constructive and pro-European, as this party has always been, unlike the party of the noble Lord who has just intervened.

In moving this amendment I confess that I have an overwhelming, almost eerie sense of having been here before. It is a sort of Groundhog Day experience. This is not surprising because the treaty embodied in the Bill we are looking at includes 96 per cent of the measures in the rejected constitutional treaty. Many of the amendments that we shall move will follow exactly the same track as those tabled by the Government at the time of the initial convention which gave birth to all this process. We shall seek to learn how and why they failed, as most of them did, and what damage the Government believe will be caused by their reappearance in this treaty. That is something to which the public are entitled to know the answers. I hope that we shall get very full explanations from the Government.

It will be contended by some—and has been already—that an amendment of this sort is wrong because the last treaty was not really a proper constitution in the first place. I agree that it certainly was not the tight, limiting and circumscribing constitution that my noble friend Lord Lawson, who is not in his place, argued for on Second Reading, and for which I confess I argued myself some years ago in a book. In my view, which I stated even before the convention was set up, the whole idea of the convention, which was a top-down rather grand affair, was bound to be a disaster. One disaster leads to another so we are where we are now as a result of those errors.

I know that the Government keep claiming that the constitution concept has been abandoned. That is their main claim although the argument comes in two parts. First, it is argued that while the measures are the same—that seems to be admitted—there is no bundling of all the previous treaties into one document, so it cannot be labelled a constitution or even of constitutional significance. No doubt we shall hear that again today. Secondly, it is argued that for the UK it is all different anyway because the opt-outs, safeguards and red lines make it so.

Our amendment challenges both these contentions and seeks to ensure that the Bill states the truth from the outset. First, it is by no means necessary for all measures to be in one document for them to have deep constitutional significance and implications and to convey new constitutional arrangements, as our amendment suggests. As I said on Second Reading, every schoolchild knows that the unwritten British constitution exists outside the boundaries of one document and always has; and just because the wrapping has changed it does not mean that the contents have changed. In the words of Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor,

“The substance of the constitution is preserved”—

in the Lisbon treaty—

“That is a fact”.

I thank the noble Lord for giving way, but can he answer a simple question for me? Why did the Government who he supported introduce the Single European Act and the Maastricht treaty, both of which contained many more far-reaching provisions than this treaty, without inserting the words of the amendment in the Bill brought before Parliament?

It is not actually a simple question. I would not expect a simple question from such a learned and authoritative source as the noble Lord, Lord Hannay. Why were these worries not as great then as they are now? It is a principle that the committee in the other place made very clear. It is a question of accumulation and a tipping point. As we advance with yet another 41 or 51 vetoes, or whatever the figure is, with yet another huge step towards integration, one reaches the point when it has gone too far. Those of us who love Europe—a sensible and modern Europe and not an overcentralised Europe—can see that point clearly in perhaps a way that the noble Lord cannot.

That is why, at this stage, we perhaps need to take even fiercer and stronger steps to protect our parliamentary accountability than other countries which have their own constitutional courts—which we do not have. I do not know whether the noble Lord has grasped that point. If he has not, I suggest to him that we need very strong accountability in our Parliament, because we do not have the constitutional court back-up that is available in France, Germany, Spain, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Italy or any other European member state. I think that that answers the noble Lord’s question and I hope he will be convinced by what I say.

We will of course be moving amendments on all these matters, but, as I was saying, it is necessary to state clearly on the packaging what is inside the parcel. We believe that it is proper, transparent and honest to state openly in the Bill the real nature of this treaty. Accordingly, we urge that these amending words now be added. I beg to move.

I support the amendment. It does not matter, I suppose, if it is not put in the Bill, but its intention and the clarification that it incurs seems pretty important to me. One of the more distasteful aspects of this debate has been the pretence that we are not dealing with constitutional points.

I shall deal with the point raised by my noble friend Lord Hannay. There is no question that the treaty of Maastricht was a constitutional treaty that was put to the people of this country in the general election of 1992 by the then Prime Minister, John Major. He won the election and that greatly reduced the case for a referendum, although I believed that, because so much division of opinion remained, it would have been beneficial to have had a referendum. The European Union amendment Act, which brought in the single market, was also constitutional, although less so than the Maastricht treaty. I believe that the Maastricht treaty was extremely important and good. Its pillared structure tried to introduce a much needed clarification of the separation of powers exercised predominantly by the Commission and the Parliament.

The supranational elements should be defined as such and we have to accept that that is an aspect of the European Union, of which we are a member. There is a supranational element within it, and that has always been controversial. It was hotly debated in the House of Commons, of which I was a Member when the original treaty went through. I believed that some measure of pooling of sovereignty was a reasonable part of the European commitment and I have never changed from that view.

The question, which was becoming more clouded prior to Maastricht, was: was any element specifically not supranational? The great benefit of the pillared structure was that it defined those elements that were not supranational and were the province of the member states. They included foreign policy, defence policy and some aspects of the judicial process. In my view, it would have been much better to maintain that separation in the current negotiations, and I believe that it was a triumph for those who want all aspects of European activity to be supranational to have got rid of the pillared structure and to have, in effect, no great distinction. That is one reason why I believe that this treaty should never have been negotiated in the first place.

However, it can be claimed by the Government that in the past year, when there was an attempt to renegotiate the treaty, that was the one area where significant improvements were made. I pay tribute to the legal advice given to the Government during that period and to the determination to try to improve the treaty. Of course, we were greatly helped by the fact that the French and Dutch knew perfectly well that there was no possibility of avoiding a referendum unless there was more clarification. The way in which the treaty was drafted and the reversion to an amendment Bill have led to some considerable improvements in defining foreign and defence policy as being between the nation states—the signatories to the treaty—and not supranational. However, other aspects are not fully clarified.

Whatever else, and as I have already indicated, the Government can claim great success in doing that, and no doubt we shall hear that that is the case. That only goes to demonstrate that this is a constitutional Bill. The Government have to grapple, first, with the decision to get rid of the pillared structure of the Maastricht treaty, which is itself a fundamental constitutional question, and then, post-Giscard d’Estaing, they have to try to restore some of the structures of Maastricht but in a different way through amendment. Therefore, as I said, I cannot possibly argue that this is not constitutional.

The other argument has been used very effectively in another place—perhaps not in the Parliament but certainly in the country. When the former Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, argued for a referendum, he made it clear that this was a constitutional Bill because it created a new post—that of the European president of the Council. He also mentioned the double-hatting, with the special representative for foreign affairs becoming also a vice-president of the Commission. These are deeply constitutional questions. If you have previously argued that the special representative for common foreign and security policy, Javier Solana, who in my view has done the job with incomparable skill and demonstrated that we needed that post, should also be made a vice-president of the Commission, you blur the distinction between foreign policy being for the member states and a member of the Commission being supranational. I shall not go into the arguments for or against it now. There are arguments for it and it tidies up some aspects, but its fundamental weakness is that it blurs that distinction. Nevertheless, it is a constitutional question.

I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Owen, is an enthusiast, as I am, for the political novels of Anthony Trollope, but if he is, he will remember that there was constant reference by parliamentarians throughout the last part of the 19th century for what they called Constitutional Questions, and the Radicals, Liberals and Conservatives argued back and forth whether something was or was not a constitutional question; it could have been 1880, although it is now 2008. I do not think there is any value in spending a lot of time on that question.

There would be value if we had a written constitution and if, as the noble Lord, Lord Howell, seems to wish, we had a constitutional court that had to decide whether something was or was not a constitutional question. We do not have that. We have a rubbery, elusive, unwritten constitution with all the benefits and burdens that that creates. If one were serious in seeking to answer the question posed by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, the answer would not be that of Karl Marx given by the noble Lord, Lord Howell, that a change of quantity brings about a change in quality—dialectical materialism. I was pleased to hear that the Conservative Benches had become Marxist. That is not the right answer. The right answer is that in truth the constitutional arrangements between this country and the European Union were profoundly altered when we joined the Community, when the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe of Aberavon—I am not sure whether he is in his place—

He is here.

The noble and learned Lord and Edward Heath performed a masterly exercise in their short Bill in profoundly altering the constitutional relationship. Other pieces of legislation have done so. Whenever we enter into a treaty—not just a treaty under the European Union—we alter what could be called constitutional relationships.

I had the pleasure and burden of having to read the whole treaty in this case as a member of Sub-Committee E of the Select Committee on the European Union. I am bound to say that compared with previous treaties, including Maastricht and our original adherence, this is an important one but I would not dream of attaching the term “constitutional importance” to it, making it more important to our arrangements than all the other treaties to which we have adhered as members of the European Community.

The real questions, as I think the noble Lord, Lord Owen, indicated, are not formalistic ones about whether a Bill is constitutional or whether a treaty is right for us to join. It is the merits that matter, and I would find it extraordinary if Parliament were to decide to write into this Bill for this treaty the words in the amendment, which could apply to a great string of Bills implementing international treaties over the past 40 years. The question posed by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, is the right one, and the answer given by the noble Lord, Lord Howell, is not the proper answer.

I would not have intervened but for the fact that the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, intervened. With respect, I do not agree for a moment that his question was the right one. First, we need only listen to what the noble Lord, Lord Owen, just said. Secondly, we have to take into account the fact that this is a self-amending treaty, which traduces the sovereign interests and entitlements of this country. Thirdly—and I shall be brief, as I had not intended to speak, as I said—the assertion from the Liberal Benches that what the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, said, is justified is totally misconceived.

I was involved at a very early stage at Messina—long before many of your Lordships because I am so old—where there was a fundamental disagreement. There were two prisoners of war there; I was interested in the issue because I was a prisoner of war, and we did not want any more wars in Europe. That was the fundamental basis of what we determined to do, and I have lost faith in what is happening now. There is a totally different objective; we are a large group of 37 states, bordering on the former Soviet Union, creating problems that we cannot resolve with it or, indeed, with China, which could be better resolved by ordinary diplomacy.

As my noble friend Lord Howell said some time ago, we are moving in the wrong direction and we have to watch it. The fundamental distinction has never been resolved—not at Messina, not at Maastricht and not with ever-closer union—and will not be until we ratify this treaty. We have never accepted a federalist administration. We stood against it. We would not have gone into it with one. I know that from my little experience. So what happened? At Messina, they decided that they could not resolve it and so would leave it out of the Rome treaty, and they did. There it was. A court of justice was set up and left to resolve it, and my word, it did. It inevitably went for it with a federalist approach, unlike our approach of retaining our own sovereignty—incidentally, that was de Gaulle’s approach too.

I shall not go on any more. Here we are today. This has not yet been resolved. I do not want it resolved against the interests of the sovereignty of my country and therefore, as matters stand, unless we can come to some accommodation, I am not happy with the treaty.

The noble Lord, Lord Lester, is absolutely right. The European Communities Act 1972 fundamentally altered relations in this country and this country’s constitution. That is why some of us who were against that treaty spoke and voted against it and have been against any further erosion, if I can put it that way, of British sovereignty through the various treaties that have been passed by this House and another place over the years. The country and Parliament were undoubtedly misled by the idea that we were simply joining a common market. They should not have been; anybody who read the treaty of Rome, as the noble Lord, Lord Lester, has, realised that that was the start of a great journey that was bound to end in a federal European state. There is no question about that in my mind, and that is why I have remained an opponent of our membership of the Common Market, which has now become the European Union. I believe in the unity, freedom and nationhood of the United Kingdom, and I believe that that cannot be maintained as long as we are in the European Union.

However, we are not discussing staying in or going out, we are talking about this treaty. We talk about democracy in this country; indeed, we lecture other people about it, but democracy is not about having elections every five years or about putting something in a manifesto and then saying things have changed, although they have not changed, so we do not need to implement that part of the manifesto. I am talking about the promise in the manifesto of each major party that there would be a referendum on the constitutional treaty. The Government say, “It is not the constitutional treaty”, although some of us have read the Lisbon treaty and the constitutional treaty and took part in the debates on the constitutional treaty in the Joint Committee set up between both Houses of Parliament. We know that the constitution has been transferred to the Lisbon treaty.

I concede that we are at the warm-up stage of the Committee and that we will perhaps move with slightly greater speed on amendments on our second and third days than we are at the moment. I note that the noble Lord, Lord Howell, promised us line-by-line scrutiny of the Bill, but so far I have heard only a number of familiar arguments about Europe, Britain, national identity and sovereignty and not line-by-line scrutiny. As a veteran of the debates on the ratification of the Amsterdam and Nice treaties, I must say that these arguments are very familiar, although I regret that this time we will not have the 25-minute speeches that Lord Shore used to make on these occasions in the middle of Committee.

We do not need line-by-line scrutiny of the Bill. Well over 100 Members of your Lordships’ House have already given the treaty detailed line-by-line scrutiny in our committees. Many of us have waded through their massive reports from different committees. That is the sort of scrutiny that we need and to which we should return in Committee. Scrutiny is, however, also an ongoing process, and the Chamber and its committees should continue to do it. We must be very careful about claiming that Members on our Benches are speaking the truth and that others are not: that we are presenting the truth, if I may quote the noble Lord, Lord Howell, for what it really is. That takes us down all sorts of conspiratorial roads in deciding who is not speaking the truth and who is really identifying the underlying issues. These are charades familiar to many of us from previous ratification debates.

The British constitution is famous for its flexibility, its pragmatism and its ability to adapt to different circumstances. That is also true of Britain’s foreign policy and our participation in international institutions. Those who cling to a wish that the world would stand still form part of the bedrock of those who vote for the UK Independence Party. I well remember during the last election campaign a BBC interview with a woman who said that she had just voted for UKIP because, “I would like England to be the way it was 40 years ago”. Many of us would like that, although we would like to have today’s income in the England that was 40 years ago, but the world changes and our unwritten constitution adapts. When I listen to the noble Lord, Lord Howell, and others on his Benches, I am also reminded a little of Trollope in the 19th century. For the Conservatives and unionists, the EU is the equivalent of the Irish question in the late 19th century. It is the one they stub their toes on all the time. They cannot come to terms with it, and they grapple with it as a constitutional issue. However, all international treaties limit national sovereignty. Membership of the United Nations limits British sovereignty.

The noble Lord has left his less than flattering allusion to the UK Independence Party, of which I have the honour to form part. When he refers to the change in the British constitution, does he not understand that the fundamental element of the British people is that they should elect and dismiss those who make their laws? I should be grateful if the noble Lord would answer that. Or has he abandoned that element in his great, brave new world?

Does he not realise that leaving the European Union would be immensely advantageous to us not only constitutionally but economically? Unless he addresses those problems, which are the questions of the future, and if he goes on dwelling in the past, he will not advance his case.

I should have congratulated the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, on the new addition to his party in the House of Commons. I hope that it is not the last from the Conservative Benches. I realise that the overlap in the Conservative Party and the UK Independence Party is a matter of great delicacy which we will see many on the Conservative Benches struggling with as we deal with the Bill.

I do not agree with him about the absolute defence of British sovereignty. When I was a history student, I read through some of the debates on the Irish question in the late 19th century. For the unionists, the sovereignty of the Westminster Parliament was absolutely inalienable. One could not allow Dublin, let alone Edinburgh, to have its own Parliament, because that would somehow destroy the essence of what was the United Kingdom, which of course was about English supremacy.

The noble Lord should also have noted that David Cameron, the leader of the Conservative Party, in a rather good speech on the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation at Chatham House two weeks ago, proposed common funding for NATO defence—a common budget for defence operations which would be a huge loss of British sovereignty. In that respect David Cameron recognises that we are in a different world from 50 years ago, let alone 100 years ago. The leader of the Conservative Party recognises such a pooling of sovereignty as worth while at least in the Atlantic context, even if in the European context he still stubs his toe on those who do not speak English, who are therefore not trustworthy.

We have US bases on British soil, and they are an immense invasion of British sovereignty. I passed RAF Menwith Hill at sundown two weeks ago and stopped to watch US soldiers taking down the RAF flag that marks the British presence there. There were no British soldiers present although there were one or two MoD police outside. It is a huge incursion on British sovereignty which most of us recognise to be worth while for our security.

The right-wing conservatives in the United States, with whom some on the Conservative Benches are highly familiar, believe that American defence of sovereignty is indeed absolute. Justice Scalia of the US Supreme Court and others argue that the United States cannot accept that international law overrides American domestic law. I do not think that we in this country wish to accept that; we accept that, in a changing world, international law has to limit domestic law. So we are talking about a number of international obligations—of which the European Union is the most extensive—of a political character.

I should like to remind the Committee of what Sir Alec Douglas Home said in June 1971 when opening the debate on Britain’s application to join the European Community. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart—since one of the great myths is that no one told us what we were going into—that Sir Alec, in his first sentence, said that the first thing he wished to say was that,

“our application is a step of the utmost political significance … I don’t think that it is true to suggest that the political case has been allowed to go by default or that the political implications have been suppressed”.

He went on to talk about the desirability of co-operation in foreign policy. He said that,

“it is inevitable, and I use that word advisedly, that Western Europe will begin to carry more of the burden of its own defence”.

In 1971, he was clearly talking about foreign policy and defence co-operation as part of the implications of joining the European Community. He ended by saying:

“Perhaps my real fear for this country at this moment is that we are in danger of getting out of date in our thinking”.

That could be a motto for the UK Independence Party, but not, I hope, for most of the remaining speeches in this Committee stage.

I have to say to the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, that his plea for proper line-by-line scrutiny of the Bill would carry a bit more weight if there was a single Liberal amendment on the Marshalled List. There are no Liberal amendments. I find that very surprising as his party made a great play in the other place of tabling an amendment for a referendum on a slightly different question—which, of course, under the rules of this House would be perfectly in order. I dare say that the scrutiny to which the Bill will be subject certainly on these Benches will prove to be excruciatingly embarrassing for him and his party.

The noble Lord, Lord Lester, talked in his speech about how he was mystified as to why there was so much interest in the use of the word “constitution”, because we do not have a constitutional court. He told us that he had read the treaty as part of his duties in this House—we all sympathise with him, and no one more than Giscard d’Estaing, who has described how impenetrable the treaty is—and said that he could not understand why so much emphasis has been put on the use of the word “constitution”. I suggest that he read page 13 of the Liberal Party’s 2005 manifesto, which states:

“We are therefore clear in our support for the constitution which we believe is in Britain’s interest—but ratification must be subject to a referendum of the British people”.

My noble friend’s amendment, which I support, will not be supported by the Liberal and the Labour Benches, despite the fact that what it says is blindingly obvious. They are opposed to it because it draws attention to the embarrassment that they carry, having told a lie to the British people during the general election campaign when they promised a referendum on this treaty. That is why the words which my noble friend wishes to add to the Bill are so important. They remind people that a promise was made and a promise has been broken.

It is the deceit that is central to the handling of this Bill, a deceit which was underlined in the debate on Second Reading. I usually enjoy the speeches of the Leader of the Liberal Party in this House. However, when he said that the Liberals had changed their position on these matters—from one of promising a referendum, to one of abstention, to one of being determined to vote in this House against a referendum—he gave as one of the explanations that the arithmetic in this House is different from that in the House of Commons. That a party should decide its policy on arithmetic, having given a solemn pledge to the British people, is quite extraordinary. So this amendment is important. It draws attention to the blindingly obvious, and it is something for which two parties in this House will have to account to the electorate in due course.

I am grateful to the noble Lord for allowing me to intervene, and for his reference to me. Would he accept that one of the differences between this House and the other place is that we in this House are capable of transcending narrow party advantage and looking at issues more freely? Would he also accept that none of the main parties has covered itself in glory when it comes to the questions he has raised—not his own, my own or the government party? What we need to do is not hurl abuse at each other about deceit, being misleading and matters of that kind, but actually look at the merits of what we are discussing.

I would be more persuaded by the noble Lord’s suggestion that we transcend party advantage if his party had not stood its position on this matter on its head in the House of Lords compared with the position adopted by his party in the House of Commons. A number of the elected Members of the Liberal party in the House of Commons were sacked by the Leader of the Liberal party for abstaining on the Bill, and in this House the unelected Members on the Liberal Benches have decided to take a completely different position. I have considerable respect for the noble Lord, not least for his intellectual abilities, but for him to try to make the argument that his colleagues on those Benches are transcending party politics is the height of absurdity. Clearly they are playing party politics. They are rescuing the Government from the defeat they would suffer on the referendum question were his party to maintain its position.

The noble Lord raised the issue of the role of this House. What is the role of this House? If this House is not able to stand up for the promises that were made to the electorate by almost every single Member of Parliament standing for election and insist on a referendum, people will begin to question what exactly this House is for. The noble Lord and his colleagues will have played a major part in bringing the House into disrepute by the way in which they are playing party politics and denying the people the right to speak on these matters as they were promised. Governments can govern only by consent.

I am not a committed Euro-federalist. I believe that we should be in the European Union, and I want the European Union to work. One of the ways in which Governments have to operate is by consent. By forcing political structures on the people without consent, they will destroy the very institutions they support. It is not anti-European to insist on the people having a say; it is pro-European. It is in the interests of Europe that this should be seen to carry consent. The reason noble Lords on the Liberal Democrat Benches are denying the promise which their elected colleagues made to the voters is that they know that if there were a referendum, they would lose it very substantially.

That is the difficulty. It has been compounded by the attitude that has been displayed, and I have pages and pages of quotes from leading Europeans. I have mentioned Valery Giscard d’Estaing. In a letter to Le Monde on 27 October—it has been quoted a number of times but we should keep it in mind—he said that the new treaty is designed to avoid having a referendum thanks to the fact that the articles are spread out and constitutional vocabulary has been removed. There is that word “constitutional” again.

The reason why the noble Lord, Lord Lester, is puzzled and why the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, asks why the amendment is not appended to our Bills is that it is central to the whole debate about whether this new European institution will carry the consent, and be seen to carry the consent, of those who are affected by it. The amendment, though strikingly bland, is therefore necessary. In any other circumstances both the Government and the Liberal Democrat Benches would accept it.

They refuse to accept it because of deceit. That is not a party-political point. It is a deceit to tell people in a general election campaign—in order to get elected, to get on the red and the green Benches—not to worry about the European constitution, and that it is not an issue for the campaign and they will have an opportunity to discuss it properly later, but then to turn round and say, “We are withdrawing that opportunity”.

I had not really intended to intervene in this debate; I thought that it was going to be a rather cathartic experience for Eurosceptics opposite and I would just sit and listen. But I have listened with great interest to a number of the contributions, in particular that of the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, who has just sat down. He appeals to us that he is really one of those Tories who is a good European and that he wants to be in Europe. But everything he then said showed that he wants to be a good European and in Europe providing that the other 26 countries of the Union change their opinion of what the Union is and bend their will to his. That is not pro-Europeanism. It is an individual sort of arrogance: “We are the people who will tell Europe how to run its affairs and what it ought to do. If they were really good Europeans they would all change their minds and join in with our rather eccentric, limited view of what Conservative Europeanism is”.

Earlier we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart. He took us for a wander down memory lane, through 1972 and the circumstances leading up to the 1975 referendum. That referendum is deeply ingrained upon my memory; I felt we were being dragged along by our own Eurosceptics in the Labour Party, and we had a fix of a referendum. That was not in order to paper over fundamental constitutional issues—there was no such issue to sort out—but to patch over the divisions inside the party and stay in power for the rest of the 1970s. That is what it was all about.

My own recollection of that referendum was of even more concern to me. I approached the parliamentary bookmaker in the House of Commons, Mr Ian Mikardo, and asked him what odds he would give me on getting a yes vote in every constituency in the United Kingdom. He offered me 200-1, on which I had £10 with him. My big regret was not the fact that we won the referendum, but that those marginal parts of the United Kingdom, stuck there in the Western Isles and Orkney and Shetland, cost me the £2,000 from Mikardo. That indicates that we got a yes vote in every constituency in England, Wales and mainland Scotland; those two island constituencies were the only part of the United Kingdom that let us down.

The David Stoddarts of this world, and the people who were leading the campaign to destroy our European engagement, were promising that the referendum would resolve the issue for all time. So far as I am concerned, in my party that issue is resolved.

It was not only the David Stoddarts of this world but also the Neil Kinnocks who had that point of view at that time.

I am sure we all recognise that my noble friend Lord Kinnock has shown great maturity as he has aged. He has changed his mind definitively and made a positive contribution, whereas the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, is telling us the same fairy tales that he was telling us 40-odd years ago.

What I did was much simpler than what my noble friend suggests. I heeded the words of a former Member of this House, Lord Keynes, who advised that when he discovered he was in error he changed his mind. “What do you do?”, he said—and I am still asking that question of some dear friends who are erstwhile comrades.

I do not wish to delay the House much longer. I have only two more points to make. The noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, told us that we would have full, frank and accurate analysis. I suppose one out of three is not bad; it was certainly full—but frank and accurate it was not. It was a distortion of the historical position.

I agree with two points made by other noble Lords. Importantly, the noble Lord, Lord Owen, clearly said in his opening remarks that we can do without these words that Amendment No. 2 would add. He would prefer to have them there, but they are clearly not imperative to the Bill. I also agree with the analysis of the noble Lord, Lord Lester, and the views that have emerged from the legal sub-committee of your Lordships’ House, which has examined this question in great detail and come to a conclusion that is completely opposed to the rhetoric that we have heard from opposition spokesmen here today.

I remind the Committee of the important words of John Palmer when he gave evidence to the Select Committee, which were echoed by Professor Damian Chalmers of the London School of Economics. Describing this amending treaty, they said that it was much ado about not very much.

I declare an interest as having spent a large part of my life working on European affairs in the United Kingdom Civil Service and some part of it in the European civil service. As part of my conditions of employment, I have pensions from both sources. That is fairly straightforward. I hope that this declaration of interest will last for the whole of the Committee stage, because I would not like to have to say it every time.

I congratulate the noble Lord on being the only Member of your Lordships’ House to declare that he is in receipt of an EU pension, which can be lost if one fails to uphold the interests of the Communities, as we shall discover as we proceed.

It is a great pleasure to be a friend of the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, while not being a friend of the United Kingdom Independence Party. As an independent Peer, I am in a remarkable position; that is, I have no political baggage whatever; I have no commitment to a referendum on the original constitution; and I have no commitment of a political kind to having no referendum on this treaty. I offer only the view of a citizen. I do not have to transcend, as everyone else over there has said, political points or political history. There will be no transcending on my part.

I fully understand that we will have nine days of debate and come to a serious decision at the end, with a vote no doubt, on whether this treaty should be discussed with a view to ratification, as the Government propose, in the parliamentary procedure, or whether it is of such importance and such a constitutional nature that there should be a referendum. That is the main part of the issue ahead of us. It is the soap. Today, we have the trailer, because we have not come to that decision, and there are disagreements in the Committee on whether there should be a referendum.

For the moment, I shall stick to the narrow issue of the amendment as proposed. We are sometimes so wide of perspective in this Chamber that we do not quite notice the narrow points, so I allocate to myself a chance of looking at the specific point. I heard the arguments of the noble Lord, Lord Howell, but I question whether it is right to change the system under which we simply list treaties, as we have in the past, important or not, in the European Communities Act. On the whole, I would prefer not to do that, because we have followed a different procedure, even on important treaties, in the past.

My second point has not been made and may be disagreed with by the movers of the amendment. The amendment as proposed is in Eurospeak. When people start talking about altering constitutional arrangements, they are easily understood in this Chamber. However, in the greater part of our kingdom, people do not clearly understand what that implies. I can understand that some Members might like to spell out in much greater detail, as suggested here, not in these words but in a fuller description, what this treaty is concerned with, but, as it stands, it does not tell the citizen very much. It tells us that we are specialists; we know about constitutional arrangements or think that we do; but ordinary citizens do not gain very much from there being written in at the beginning of a list of treaties something which says that this treaty alters constitutional arrangements. I understand the motivation behind the amendment, but it does not do much good for the consumer for this to be written out. It tells them very little. I make that point because I have not heard it made by others. In the course of nine days of debate, it is extremely important that one or two points be made which have not been made by other Members of this Committee.

I support my noble friend’s amendment and speak to Amendment No. 125 in my name, which is in the same group. Like other noble Lords, I should very much like to get down to the substance of these treaties but it is difficult when the Government continue to deny in effect the substance of what we are supposed to be debating—the consolidated text, or the end result of it. This is not a historical textbook; it is not even a novel by Trollope. It is a substantive document that sets out the basis on which the EU will be run and governed over the coming years. It is very difficult for a common-sense reader not to conclude that it is a constitution for the European Union.

There is an executive answerable to the European Parliament, increasingly sharing powers with the Parliament rather than answerable to the nation states, as was originally intended. The treaty declares for the first time that the European Parliament creates democratic legitimacy for the European Union as a sovereign entity in its own right, with increasing powers for that Parliament. It has a powerful president, who will shape the agenda of the Union, and its own court, which is not answerable to any other court but is the highest court in the territory in which it operates. It gives the European Union a legal identity and the power to enter into international agreements. The nation states, which used to be in charge of this thing, are now relegated to the status of members of a senate, in which they have majority voting to decide what they do or do not agree with, and can be taken to court under a number of provisions of this treaty if they do not do as the European court has ordained it that as nation states they should do.

Any common-sense description of this treaty would say that it was a description of a sovereign entity called the European Union, and that this was its constitution. Noble Lords do not have to take my word for it, because the Government published exactly the same text two or three years ago with the label “EU constitution” on the front of it. Yes, the articles have been put in a different order—but at Second Reading I made the point to the Minister that I could find only two articles in the constitutional text that were not reproduced in whole or in part in the Lisbon consolidated text. The Minister did not reply at that stage and the Government have studiously avoided giving us that comparison. If they seriously want to make the argument that this document is different from the constitution, I challenge the Minister to set out which articles she thinks are in this text that were not in the constitution and which articles were not in the constitution that are not in this text. I say that there are two—and I should like to hear her contradict that, if she wants to take these arguments seriously.

I move on to Amendment No. 125, which is related and refers to the provisions at the front of the constitution that set out the objectives. It is not uncommon for constitutional documents to set out the objectives under which the rest of the constitutional clauses fall. These have particular significance; they are in Article 3 of the consolidated text. The House of Lords report on the impact of the treaty, to which we have referred, notes that the objectives are not just there for window dressing and are not just nice narratives, but that they are,

“likely to have some effect on the way in which other provisions of the Treaties are interpreted, not only by the European Court of Justice but also by the other institutions when undertaking their tasks”.

So the initial objectives of the constitution have a real significance for us.

The Lisbon treaty adds new objectives, which this House needs to take note of, because they may in many ways cut across objectives that UK Governments may wish to deploy. In particular, the treaty introduces the objective in Europe of creating a social market economy, aiming at full employment and promoting social justice and protection. We all know that those words are code words; they have a political meaning and are not just nice objectives. They will be interpreted by European Governments and the European Court to imply a particular kind of social market policy—a protectionist, high-cost and, as it turns out, uncompetitive market. It is a particular view with which many of us in this country disagree.

When those objectives are put alongside the Charter of Fundamental Rights, there is real concern that it creates scope for rulings by the European Court that directly impact on the UK’s freedom of action, and, in particular, on the labour market. The House of Lords report I referred to earlier also notes that these objectives may be taken as justifying the extension of European Union competencies under what was the old Article 308 and is now Article 352. In other words, the fact that these objectives are set out there will allow the European Union to extend its powers under its constitution in new areas.

These are political objectives and have no place in a constitution. The consequence is that a future Government could sign up to things as a result of them, which would bind their successors to a particular political format of Europe that may not be the political philosophy that they wish to pursue. In that way, the constitution may end up constraining the freedom of action of a future UK Government.

My amendment seeks to bank the Government’s assurance that future governments will not be bound in that way. I am sure that the Government will ensure that this is not a constitution and that the use of these objectives to constrain the UK law will not be possible. I wish to bank that assurance by my amendment which makes clear that the UK laws cannot be constrained by the wording of these objectives. I ask the Minister to confirm—since I am sure that she will want to make those assurances—that she is perfectly happy to accept my amendment that puts that provision in the Bill.

It may be helpful if I follow my noble friend Lord Blackwell as my name is on Amendment No. 126, which follows his Amendment No. 125, to which he has just spoken. The wording my colleagues and I have used on the amendment reappears often in the Marshalled List. Its purpose is to ensure that whatever amendment we pass into the Bill—and I very much hope that we will eventually pass my noble friend’s amendment—actually bites, and that the wording of the original European Communities Act cannot be used to circumvent whatever we decide in the Chamber. I am afraid that, without our amendments, that is the position.

I am sure that I do not need to remind your Lordships of the whole of Sections 2 and 3 of the European Communities Act 1972, but can paraphrase it. Section 2 for the first time passed the power of the British courts to the Luxembourg Court of Justice. The particular part of the 1972 Act which I fear should go on record in your Lordships’ proceedings—Section 3(1)—reads as follows:

“For the purposes of all legal proceedings any question as to the meaning or effect of any of the Treaties or as to the validity, meaning or effect of any Community instrument, shall be treated as a question of law (and, if not referred to the European Court be for determination as such in accordance with the principles laid down by and any relevant decision of the European Court)”.

In other words, from then on the European Court ruled. Our amendment would exclude those words from any amendment that we may pass to the Bill.

Secondly, my contribution to the debate will be to ask the Minister two questions, which I asked her in writing and which she has not yet answered. I think they will help to inform the Chamber about whether this really is a constitution. I will end by making a third suggestion which I hope will allow the House better to understand these proceedings.

I found two contributions to today’s debate on the amendments very persuasive. First, I thought that the contribution from the noble Lord, Lord Owen, made a telling point about constitutional amendments and that when we think that something affects our constitution we should be clear and straightforward about that. I also found that the detailed analysis by the noble Lord, Lord Blackwell, reflected the very thoughtful and penetrative contributions that he made during the work of the Select Committee on this treaty.

For me, the whole question comes down to two issues: what is a constitutional arrangement and what changes amount to real alterations and real amendments? That is the first point. Secondly, are they of sufficient importance in this treaty to merit particular mention in the Bill? There is no doubt, looking at the changes in this treaty, that there are institutional changes, operational changes and definitions of competences. There are the red lines that have been drawn that affect the extent of the changes in the relationship between the European Union and the United Kingdom, and no mention has been made of those. It seems to me that what the Bill is talking about at the moment has no more of a constitutional impact than that which we have seen in previous treaties, and that what we really see here are changes to who does what and the operational way in which we conduct our business between ourselves and the European Union.

I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, would be more persuasive if he could possibly be a little bit less offensive in how he expresses his very forthright views. People who disagree with us are not necessarily liars; they are not necessarily deceitful, monstrous people. There can actually just be straightforward political disagreement, and that is what we are dealing with here, not some horrible perfidy on one part of the House rather than the other.

I did not call anyone a liar; I said it was a lie to the British people to say that they would get a referendum on this treaty. Listening to the noble Baroness, I would remind her that she was a member of the Government who argued that the previous treaty was no more than a simple tidying-up exercise. The Prime Minister subsequently changed his position to argue that it was a constitutional treaty that required a referendum. I believe that that was a deceit and I do not withdraw that in any way. It is not a matter of having a disagreement; it is a matter of what her party promised the British people, what elected Members promised and what is now not being provided.

The trouble with that is that I think that someone who tells a lie is a liar. I do not know how the noble Lord draws a distinction between saying that those who have told a lie are not liars and that those who told a lie are something else. But we will let that stand. If the noble Lord is willing to say that we are not liars, but that we have told a lie, we will let that stand. It seems a peculiar distinction to want to make.

Even if some do want to describe the changes as constitutional, we must all admit that this is an argument about whether or not we support the move towards a referendum. We went over this point in enormous depth for more than 12 hours at Second Reading. I fully understand that we will go over and over it again, but it seems that essentially what the noble Lord, Lord Owen, based his very powerful argument on was the question of whether the words in the amendment merit inclusion in the Bill. He said that he believed that the changes were constitutional and, therefore, merited inclusion in the Bill, because that should have been done with Bills on previous treaties. I do not think that that argument stands up. To make an unprecedented move to include these words in the Bill is to single it out and to single this treaty out as being of paramount importance and having more constitutional impact than its predecessors. Otherwise, why single it out? Why say that this treaty merits that sort of treatment when other treaties do not?

I do not believe that anyone who has looked at European treaties over the years can honestly believe that this treaty has more constitutional impact than the treaty of Maastricht or the Single European Act. It simply does not. I do not know of an academic, any colleague of mine who has held office in the Foreign Office, a politically neutral civil servant or anyone else who would say that.

I—

I have obviously had some impact.

I apologise to the noble Baroness for interrupting her flow. On her point about the comparison with Maastricht, I ask her three questions. First, is she aware that the Foreign Secretary himself has said there is more movement to QMV in this treaty than in Maastricht? Secondly, is it not a major point, as the noble Lord, Lord Owen, pointed out, that in huge areas the pillared approach continued under Maastricht? Thirdly, the most important area that was not part of the pillared approach was the single currency. A referendum was, indeed, promised in the single currency provisions.

I am aware of the last two points, but I was not aware of the first. I would like to check that before accepting the noble Lord’s word for it, because it would be pretty peculiar if that was what the Foreign Secretary said. I will certainly go away and look at that, but the points that the noble Lord has made do not undermine my argument in any way.

My first point is that a constitutional arrangement is not the same as an institutional arrangement, an operational arrangement or defining competencies, all of which are clearly in this treaty. Even if you take the view that there is a constitutional impact, I would argue that it is no more than the constitutional impact of any treaty, because a treaty has an impact on sovereignty, as the noble Lord from the Liberal Democrat Benches described when he spoke earlier. It seems to me that we are setting a bizarre precedent in wanting to put these words in the Bill when most of us—obviously not the noble Lord, Lord Lamont of Lerwick, and probably not the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth—do not believe that this treaty has anything like the constitutional impact of its predecessors. Why take this one and make a precedent now? There can be only one reason: it is because it is the bridge-head into the argument about the referendum. The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, has been very clear on that point but I do not believe that his argument stands up. I think that I have an honest disagreement with him and we will debate that further, as we did at Second Reading. I do not think that the words “lie” or “deceit” are appropriate but the noble Lord will go on using them and I shall go on objecting.

Could we compromise with “breaking a promise”? Would that do?

Before the noble Lord goes any further, that will not do either, but I am sure that we will come to that in due course. This is a Second Reading matter and we will come to amendments later. Let us leave it until then.

This is not Second Reading. Surely the noble Baroness accepts that there is something in the cumulative argument and the cumulative effect of all these treaties and that this is the one that breaks the camel’s back. Does she see no force in that argument?

No, I do not. For the reasons that I explained clearly at Second Reading—the noble Lord was in his place at Second Reading because he beamed at me when I made the points—I do not accept his argument. However, it is an argument of honest political debate, not of the name-calling that we have heard this afternoon.

I want to make a very brief intervention. Is it not the case that relinquishing full control of our defence policy by agreeing to QMV is a major constitutional decision that affects everything in this country? I cannot see that that is not an issue affecting the country.

Answering that specific question, I had the honour to be a member of Sub-Committee C of the European Union Committee, and the effect on our foreign and defence policies was explored exhaustively under the excellent chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Roper. We took extensive evidence and came to a wholly different conclusion to that of the noble Baroness.

At least the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, is honest and clear in his objectives. He wants to leave the European Union and reverse all our policies since we joined. It is sad that the objectives of the Conservative Party in this debate on the European Union are not so clear. The Conservatives retreat into an attempt to recreate the Union in their own image, but that image is not shared by any other member of the European Union and it is therefore a total illusion.

The dangers in today’s debate are, first, the temptation to anticipate the debate on the referendum which is to come—I think that the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, fell into that trap, as though he were unaware that we will no doubt have several debates on the referendum at different stages of the Bill—and, secondly, the temptation to enter into semantic argument not about lies but about whether this is a federal or confederal matter and whether the treaty is or is not a constitution. We can lose ourselves in the highways and byways of such arguments. Indeed, objectively, the high water-mark of federalism within the European Union was probably the Maastricht treaty. Since then, a number of modifications have moved away from that high water-mark, including the safeguards contained in the Lisbon treaty, which, for example, give much greater powers to national Parliaments. I believe that the spirit of many leaders in the European Union, not least President Sarkozy and Chancellor Merkel, has moved substantially in that direction, probably following their electorates.

I do not follow the noble Lord, Lord Owen, in saying that in effect the 1992 general election was, at least in part, a substitute for a referendum on Maastricht. Even if there were a referendum, it would probably be on a wholly different issue from the purported issue for the referendum, as happened, for example, in the Welsh referendum of 1979. I played a large part in that at the time and the issue was: “Do you or do you not favour the Callaghan Government?”. When I campaigned with the French socialist party on platforms in France on Maastricht, the issue was not the Maastricht treaty, but “What do you think of President Mitterrand?” and various other matters which were basically irrelevant to the terms of the treaty. I remain wholly sceptical about referendums. I think it was President Mitterrand who said that in referendums the French people always answer the wrong question.

Sadly, the real danger is how the Conservative Party will react. Will there be a genuinely positive, line-by-line examination of the Bill, or will its members act in the spirit of destruction of all that is there, yet at the same time purport to be good Europeans? Scrutiny, yes; negativity and destruction, no. I look forward to seeing whether there is a scintilla of a positive approach to Europe emerging from the Front Benches opposite.

Surely the main point in this debate is that made by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay. The amendment simply says,

“which amends and alters constitutional arrangements between the European Union and the United Kingdom”.

It is absolutely clear, as the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, said, that such a form of words was not used in previous treaties. In previous treaties, all that happened was that the name of the treaty—whether Maastricht or the Single European Act—was simply transmitted from the decision of the intergovernmental council into the form of a Bill which enacted that treaty. So one is bound to pose the fundamental question: what is the difference? Why now, when it was not considered appropriate in those earlier treaties?

Perhaps I can turn to the Metternich question. After several days of eyeball-to-eyeball negotiation with his Russian counterpart, news was brought to him at the start of the next day that his Russian interlocutor had died during the night. It is alleged that Metternich said, “What was his motive?”. I will pose that same Metternich question: what is the motive of the opposition Front Bench in moving this amendment to the Bill when there was no similar provision in earlier Bills? The only reason that I can see for inserting the word “constitutional” at this stage is to use it as a kind of paving stone for a referendum.

I will avoid the semantic, the tempting discussion of saying what a constitution is. Do we in the UK have a constitution? Yes, we have elements of a constitution. Even written constitutions can be altered fundamentally. Look at the difference between the US constitution of the founding fathers and that which exists today. Look at the way in which, for example, the different presidents—President Roosevelt as an activist president and President Eisenhower as a more placid president—led their country, or look at President de Gaulle and President Pompidou and the constitution of the Fifth Republic. Let us avoid that and come back to this amendment. Of course much will depend on experience, but, in my judgment, this amendment is not necessary. It is a departure from earlier precedents and it is bad practice to seek to amend the clause and to insert this amendment at this stage.

I hope that today, or at some future date the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats will combine to defeat this amendment because then neither I nor the British people will ever have to read their manifestos again. I am not going to engage in some philological discussion about whether the Labour Party manifesto was a lie, but the British people—and we are an unelected Chamber—were told this:

“We will put it to the British people in a referendum and campaign wholeheartedly for a ‘Yes’ vote”.

The Liberal Democrats said:

“We are therefore clear in our support for the constitution, which we believe is in Britain’s interest—but ratification must be subject to a referendum of the British people”.

I alone in my old constituency argued in favour of a yes vote in the referendum in the 1970s, and not a single member of the Labour Party supported me. We had such a heated meeting that Norman Godman, who I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Kinnock, will remember was subsequently the Member of Parliament for Greenock, stood up in a public meeting and said, “Not everybody in the Labour Party is campaigning for a no vote but in this constituency we are”. That was the situation.

I am not in favour of referendums; they are not a good idea. It is the responsibility of the elected House of Commons to come to a decision on this. But the British people were told by the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats that there would be a referendum and that they need not engage themselves in this issue at the general election. That is the point. It is not whether one is for or against Europe, or about any attitude along the line, but about the fact that the British people were misled. That is fundamentally anti-democratic and I shall be saying so at the next general election.

I hope noble Lords will forgive me for absenting myself for 20 minutes while I attended the European Union Select Committee and if I fall into the trap offered by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, and speak to the amendment before us and examine it line by line. The amendment would add to the rubric of the Bill the words,

“which amends and alters constitutional arrangements between the European Union and the United Kingdom”.

I will vote against it for the reason that it does not improve the Bill and could be thought of as misleading because it highlights a constitutional basis to the Bill.

I listened hard to the noble Lord, Lord Owen, in his interesting intervention. It may be true and that all such Bills have some constitutional element, but it is for Members of the Committee to judge how potent or otherwise the constitutional element is. Despite what the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, said, the 1972 Act establishing the European Community, the Single European Act 1986 and the Maastricht treaty in 1992 all contained clear and obvious elements of constitutional change in respect of the United Kingdom vis-à-vis the European Union, and might be considered transparent. As far as I know, we did not have any such rubric saying, “Watch out, there is a constitutional change being made”. It would be misleading to add this now to the Bill.

I have heard some interesting examples from both the leader of the Conservatives and the leader of UKIP in this House today. They have both invoked the familiar idea of the straw that breaks the camel’s back. My memory of recent political history is that back in the 1970s the Conservative Party brought along bales of straw and loaded the first load on this unfortunate camel. Mrs Thatcher’s Administrations brought further bales of straw to put on its back; then Mr Major, in his turn, brought his tithe of bales of straw. By now, the poor camel was labouring under the European constitution in all its brightest form, yet it is now our Government who bring along the single straw that breaks its back. All the constitutional elements that the men of straw opposite have brought over the years are as nothing compared with the straw that now breaks the camel’s back.

I shall come back to these matters later, but I am afraid it is just more arithmetic. If 242 out of 250 measures in the constitutional treaty are in the Bill, that works out at 96 per cent. It is just straightforward maths; there is nothing dramatic about it.

The maths admit what I was going on to say which is that the element of revision—which would be, in the noble Lord’s words, so useful as the British public and the public of the European Union could read the simplified and cleaned-up version of all that governs us in the European Union—is more than 4 per cent of the original constitutional treaties.

I think the noble Lord may have misunderstood what I said. I referred to the Government’s line on the previous document, which was called the constitutional treaty before the Prime Minister gave his commitment to a referendum. The Government’s line against a referendum was that it was a simple tidying-up exercise and there was nothing in it of major or constitutional importance. The Government then changed their line when they promised the referendum and are now using the previous line. It is not about simplifying. As my noble friend said, they are identical documents; all that has changed is the Government.

I hope the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, will concede that an element of the original constitutional treaty was the attempt to summarise and simplify all the treaties that had gone before and that, in that, it was a useful exercise. I ask the noble Lord, Lord Howell, to clarify that.

We are now being asked to include in the rubric of the Bill words trying to emphasise the constitutional arrangements. That would be misleading to the British public. It was not done before, when clearly there was every right and purpose in doing so. That is why we should vote against the amendment.

I do not often treasure the words of the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, but I shall treasure his description of this treaty as a straw, because I feel that in the next six weeks we will hear quite different weights given to this treaty by the noble Lord and each time I shall be thinking of that straw.

The cumulative argument, which the noble Lord has made use of to justify the amendment, which was made use of also by the noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, does not wash. We are asked to ratify, or to prepare the ground to ratify, this treaty. We are not asked to give further parliamentary consideration to all the other treaties to which this rubric was not attached. So the cumulative argument cannot wash; nor can one accept that it was only an unfortunate oversight by the various Governments formed by Members opposite who put the Single European Act and the Maastricht treaty to this House and the other place that they forgot to mention that there were some constitutional implications.

I am addressing this simply because it is the noble Lord, Lord Howell, who has proposed the amendment. He has now revealed that the thrust of it is because of the cumulative effect of all the treaties. That will not work, so I argue very strongly that we should follow the practice that we have followed with previous European treaties and simply list this treaty with no qualification and no reference to its nature or style.

The noble Baroness, Lady Symons, has a very beguiling bedside manner, but I fear that I cannot follow her prescription. I much prefer the prescription offered by Dr Owen—I beg his pardon, the noble Lord, Lord Owen—who advocated constitutional medicine. This is definitely a constitutional treaty. To pretend otherwise is utterly absurd. We have not heard many quotes, so I will give the House a few quotes this evening. My noble friend Lord Howell mentioned Angela Merkel, who said:

“The substance of the constitution is preserved. That is a fact”.

The Spanish Prime Minister has said:

“This is a project of foundational character, a treaty for a new Europe … We have not let a single substantial point of the Constitutional treaty go”.

It has also been said that 96 per cent of it is still there. The Czech Republic said:

“Only cosmetic changes have been made”.

Denmark said:

“The good thing is ... that all the symbolic arguments have gone, and that which really matters—the core—is left”.

So we go on. Belgium said that the new treaty takes up the most important elements of the constitution. Speaking for Luxembourg, Herr Juncker said:

“The substance has been preserved from Luxembourg’s point of view.”

Monsieur Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, the author of the constitution, was delighted, and notes on his blog that:

“a rerun of a great part of the substance of the Constitutional Treaty”

is still there.

Then up pipes the small voice of our Foreign Secretary who says, suddenly, against all the evidence:

“The constitutional treaty has been abandoned”.—[Official Report, Commons, 3/7/07; col. 803.]

How very odd. He is the only person, the only Foreign Minister, to say that, and only our Government seem to believe that this is not a constitutional treaty, so they are not having a referendum.

The amendment proposed by my noble friend Lord Howell is absolutely right. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, and the noble Lords, Lord Hannay and Lord Anderson, that you can justify not having a referendum on the Maastricht treaty because it was in no political party’s manifesto, whereas having a referendum on this treaty was a manifesto commitment. That is a major difference.

Will the noble Lord once and for all understand that the promise of a referendum was on the original constitutional treaty? That died with the two referenda in France and the Netherlands. The constitutional treaty was abandoned. We now have an amending treaty. The promise in the manifestos was made in relation to the former, not the latter.

The noble Lord obviously was not listening when I read out the quotations from all 26 heads of state in the European Union, who said, “This is a constitutional treaty, thank you very much”. Of course it is a constitutional treaty. I do not accept it, and I will not accept it. I am sorry about that.

I said that the fact that none of the Governments had offered a referendum on the Maastricht treaty was one reason why we did not have a referendum on this treaty. We should have a referendum, however, first because it is in the manifesto, and secondly because, as my noble friend Lord Pearson said, several wrongs do not make a right. Where do we stop? Why should we not have a referendum on this treaty just because we have not had one on previous treaties? Do we stop and say, “Yes, let’s consider this. Let’s offer it to the British people”, or not, even though we have not had referendums before? All parties gave a manifesto commitment to have a referendum on this treaty, so we should have one. My noble friend is quite right; five wrongs do not make a right, and it is time to have a referendum. I am quite sure that we will debate that in due course. Meanwhile, I support the amendment wholeheartedly.

I am somewhat unused to, or perhaps bemused by, the inclination of the more profound and chronic Eurosceptics in the Chamber, especially those from UKIP, to endow the words of other European leaders with massive authority, which contradicts very strongly their otherwise unblemished record of regarding with contempt the judgment of the very same people. It is quite extraordinary.

I rise only to reinforce the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay; that is, to emphasise that among the other features of this amending treaty, which distinguish it clearly and implacably from the previous constitution, is the fact that that constitution would have displaced and replaced every single treaty of the European Community. This treaty does not do that. It amends, which is distinctly different from accumulating, replacing and codifying all that has gone before. It simply takes its place alongside the treaties of Maastricht and of Nice, the single Act and the assortment of other adjustments that have had to be made over the 50-year lifetime of the European Union, in order to be able to face the altering realties of the world and the continent in which we live and to equip the sovereign democratic states of a larger European Union with the collective means of dealing with the common threats and opportunities much more effectively than would otherwise be possible.

Will the noble Lord deal with a point made by my noble friend? He has described how the treaty is not a consolidation measure but an amending treaty. Will he tell us how it differs from the original constitutional treaty and what makes it not a constitutional treaty, rather than describe the consolidation aspect?

The noble Lord must have suffered untypically from a momentary lapse in concentration, because I just told the Chamber about just one of the features that categorically and irreversibly makes a difference between the amending treaty, which is currently under consideration, and the constitutional proposal that was previously before Europe until it was killed off by the electorates of the Netherlands and France.

For the record—this may permit me not to have to cover the same ground again and again in the days stretching out before us, although I live more in hope than in expectation on that point—I never favoured the necessary amendments to the procedures, practices and systems of the enlarged Union being called or supported as a constitution. The noble Lord, Lord Patten, was here earlier. I am certain that he would bear testimony to the fact that in the European Commission when we considered these matters with the two representatives that we had on the so-called convention, I repeatedly made the point—to his credit, he made similar points—that since what was being proposed, despite the grandiose terminology of Giscard d’Estaing, did not alter the way in which any of the democracies of the European Union were to be governed, it could not therefore justifiably be called a constitution. I continue to insist on that valid point and I had some pleasure in putting it directly to Giscard d’Estaing when we had the opportunity to discuss these matters.

I should like to make another brief point, which is connected to my former point. Publicly, repeatedly, and sometimes in contradiction of the leadership of my party, I made it very clear, well before the 2005 general election and the compilation of the manifesto as well as after, that since what was being proposed could not be regarded justifiably as constitutional, it did not in this parliamentary democracy warrant a referendum.

With his usual distinction, the noble Lord, Lord Kinnock, has done the service to the Committee of trying to disentangle the issues of what is a constitution and what is a treaty. He also has done us the service of trying to flesh out the difference between allegations made from one side of the Committee and those from the other.

Like others who have declared their positions during these debates, the first political meeting I went to was called by Mr Grimond, held in the town where I then lived, in favour of the Common Market. I was in favour of that and, as a teenager, went to that meeting with great enthusiasm, not least because my father was one of five brothers who had served in the Armed Forces. One brother died in the RAF. My father was in the Desert Rats and survived. They all believed, as I did, that the community of the European nations should come together and do what they could to create reconciliation in Europe. I believed in the ideas of Maritain, Mounier, Monnet, De Gasperi and others who had created the European Community.

Throughout the 1970s, alongside others who fought for that idea, in the difficult environment of Liverpool where I was a Member of Parliament, I fought in favour of the retention of our membership of the European Community when the then Labour Government called a referendum, which was the right thing to have done. It was right also when I stood alongside the late Peter Shore and the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, and argued for a referendum in favour of Maastricht, although I was in favour and they were against.

It is right that there should be a referendum now on the Lisbon treaty. The reason why I think that, and I agree with my noble friend Lord Owen on this, is that this is an issue of trust. The question placed before the electorate at the last general election was clear. Like other noble Lords, I have been out on the streets in the most recent local elections campaigning for candidates of different political persuasions—I am an independent Peer, so I can do that—and I heard again and again people raising their concerns about this matter. The issue for them is one of trust. They ask why it is that they were promised the opportunity to vote in a referendum on the Lisbon treaty when it is now being withdrawn. We are in grave danger of misunderstanding the feeling among many people who believe that elites are driving them into something of which they are not in favour. That is what the House has to consider.

The goal for the European Community that the original founding fathers had in mind was a good and noble one, but in some ways it has left people behind. In that sense the noble Lords, Lord Pearson and Lord Willoughby de Broke, and others have expressed a sentiment that we should at least be alive to in this House. To drive this on without any consideration for those concerns would be a huge error. And what is it that we are so frightened of? I have no fear of campaigning in a referendum, and indeed if it were on the referendum question that was begged by some of my former friends in another place recently—whether we should remain a member of the European Union—I would argue that we should. Surely that is not a question we should be frightened to put to the people of this country. I am concerned that we, in these confined spaces and rather refined environment, are losing sight of that.

I apologise for not being present at the beginning of this debate. There is one point which it is important to make: we should keep in mind the bearing this matter has on the issue of the reform of this House. Some noble Lords—I can see one of them in their place—are vehement Europhiles and believe that this place should remain a largely nominated Chamber. But a lot of people are watching this House, and if the nominated House does not use its powers to make the elected Members in the other place honour the promise that every single one of them made to the electorate to support a referendum on the matters set out in this Bill, quite frankly, we might as well all go home.

We have debated this amendment for two hours and 14 minutes. I begin by saying that I have been looking forward to our debates, and I have not been disappointed. I say that because assuming that we can keep the temperature down just a little, this debate is already proving to be a fascinating opening to our consideration. I want to say something about how I intend to approach this because the noble Lord, Lord Howell, was good enough to say how he would do so at the beginning of his remarks. I have had the privilege of talking to many noble Lords about the course of our consideration, and I hope that in the six days of debate we will have the opportunity to do what the noble Lords, Lord Howell and Lord Hunt, in particular, but other noble Lords too, have asked for: as far as possible and led by the amendments that have been tabled, we should go through the Bill line by line. Doing so will allow us on many occasions not only to have high-quality debates about particular issues, but also to question, as noble Lords have begun to do today, the issues that lie at the heart of some of the divisions between the different Benches of this House.

That comes down to questions such as: what this treaty amounts to when considered in detail; how different it is, or not, to the constitution that was put before; whether that should have been put down, as my noble friend Lord Kinnock, who is not in his place, said, as a constitution in the first place; or as we look further forward, whether that should have led to a referendum based on the genuinely held view of some noble Lords that that was a commitment which should be kept to because there is no fundamental difference. I hope that scrutiny of the treaty will bring forward all the issues of detail that will enable those noble Lords who have not yet reached a decision to do so. I have to say that all the contributions I have heard today reflect the strong views held by noble Lords in one direction or another. None the less, it is important that our colleagues who do not have strong views have the opportunity to hear what is good or bad about this treaty in other people’s minds and eyes.

At Second Reading I made a promise to the noble Lord, Lord Howell, that I intend to keep. I have 50 pieces of paper covered in quotations, many from leaders of other European states and from all over the place. I do not intend to use them. I intend to quote only Members of your Lordships’ House and another place. I pay great tribute to, and will use substantially, the reports of the European Union Select Committee in another place, the committee in your Lordships’ House and the Constitution Committee. All of these reports have been quoted and, alas—as my honourable friend Michael Connarty said in the Commons—misquoted from time to time. If I can encourage noble Lords to stick to using those we know and those who can stand before us and tell us what they meant when they wrote what they wrote, I think our debates will be substantially better. I am not going to resort to quotations from a variety of leaders and I would welcome other noble Lords’ agreement that that is a substantially better way forward.

For the purpose of this short contribution, I am going to concentrate on the amendments before us. I am not doing that in order to run away from the bigger questions.

I am just taking in what the noble Baroness said. Is she seriously suggesting that we should have a debate about this treaty in which we do not quote from Prime Ministers, leaders of Europe and Brussels? The only conceivable explanation I can have for her suggesting that is because so many of them have said things which are in direct contradiction to the Government’s line.

The noble Lord is completely and utterly wrong in that. The week before last, during the Recess, I spent three days in Brussels talking to a variety of people and having many conversations about the treaty. Obviously I have had the opportunity to obtain information through our Foreign and Commonwealth Office and my fellow Ministers about the views of many others. My point was meant to be more substantial than the one for which noble Lord has given me credit.

I do not believe that it will necessarily help our colleagues and other noble Lords who are looking at this debate and looking at the substance of the treaty if all that happens is that we read out quotes or parts of quotes from a variety of leaders who are not here to explain the context of what they said or, indeed, what happened next. If other noble Lords choose to do that, it will be fine. I was merely saying that, for my part, in looking at the questions that are to be raised in this Committee stage of the debate—in delving through, at the request of the noble Lord’s Front Bench, a line-by-line examination—I feel it much more important that those who have scrutinised the treaty as it stands now are best placed to be quoted in terms of what is being suggested within it. If the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, wishes me to revert to my 50 pages of quotes, I shall be very happy to do so, but I am not sure that noble Lords will find us trading quotes any more helpful than listening to noble Lords debate the issues from their knowledge and background. That is the point I wish to make.

As I said, I intend for today’s purposes to focus on what is in this group of amendments. That is not to shy away from the broader discussions that have been raised. We were in danger of moving into a second Second Reading debate, but there will be many opportunities to discuss the issues. One can see from the amendments that have been tabled that there will be many opportunities to look at the issues about which noble Lords are very concerned. I expect that on one of our days in Committee there will be a particular focus on the question of a referendum. The noble Lord, Lord Blackwell, has already tabled amendments, for example, and there may well be others by now. This is a consequence of the last clause in the Bill, where the commencement date will give us an opportunity to debate the issue.

I am not moving away from that but I am not prepared to turn it into a Second Reading debate. Noble Lords who did not hear what I said at Second Reading are very welcome to read it; it was an extraordinary debate of 12 and three-quarter hours. Today I want to begin the process of dissection; of looking at the individual issues that have been raised. This is notwithstanding the strength of feeling—which I absolutely understand—of noble Lords who wish to raise other issues as well.

I hope that the Minister did not misunderstand me. I was not saying that if we were to have a referendum on this treaty and for any reason we were to reject it, that would lead to the United Kingdom leaving the European Union. When we come to the debate on the referendum, my arguments will be precisely the opposite: we would stay in the European Union, and we would be stuck in it for a very long time.

The noble Lord was not saying anything; he was nodding. By that, I thought he was agreeing with what I said—that if you move away from the 1972 Act and the primacy of European Union law, the logical conclusion would then be to leave the European Union. I am deliberately talking not about the referendum but only about the amendments as they stand.

The Lisbon treaty does not alter anything in that area. When we come on, as I hope we will, to look more closely at what is proposed for the role of national parliaments, we will see that that role is strengthened. Noble Lords of all persuasions should welcome that because it gives parliaments a direct say in EU law-making for the very first time. I have no doubt that some noble Lords will argue that they wish to see more, or perhaps less, of that and they will want to understand what it actually means. There is a lot to do, particularly in talking to our European Union Select Committee about how we make that a proper reality in a way that both Houses of Parliament would wish. None the less, that measure is there, and I hope we will have good and interesting debates on it.

The Minister said that we would be doing this for the first time, but that is not the case. The European Assemblies Act 1978 made it clear that control would be by primary legislation in this House. The proposal from the Government is merely a single vote in both Houses.

The noble Lord and I may be talking at slightly cross purposes. I am suggesting that, within the Lisbon treaty, the European Union for the first time is making it clear that it wishes to see direct involvement from national parliaments. I think the noble Lord is referring to what happened in 1978 from the UK perspective of its relationship with the European Union. In that case, neither of us is wrong, but I am saying that from the EU’s perspective it is the first time that the EU has offered this. When it was in Brussels it was clear that this was an important part of current thinking about how, if the treaty is ratified, it could be made a reality when it is implemented.

I shall say something briefly about each of the specific amendments in turn. What we have done in Clause 1 is standard practice. Other noble Lords, with far greater experience than I, have talked about specific experience of putting together the beginnings of a Bill. We have defined the treaty in standard, neutral terms. I will not repeat many of the arguments that have been made by noble Lords about the purpose of Amendment No. 2. On one hand, it is argued that the wording would signify the reality; on the other, one could argue that the wording would be there in order to ensure that we raised the issue of the constitution in such a manner that it would lead to a referendum. There are different views on that. None the less, we believe that the wording is unnecessary and, indeed, inappropriate. We on the government Benches believe that the treaty of Lisbon does not amend or alter our current constitutional arrangements with the European Union and will not have any fundamental implications for the constitutional position of Parliament.

I turn to the Constitution Committee report, on the basis of what I have already said about those I shall quote. On the impact of the Lisbon treaty on the European constitution, it says:

“the Lisbon treaty would make no alteration to the current relationship between the principles of primacy of European law and parliamentary sovereignty”,

as I, too, have said—in fact, it strengthens the role of national parliaments.

When I look through that important report, it is difficult to find anything about which there are serious concerns. There are interesting points that the Government must respond to, and we aim to respond as quickly as possible so that those responses can form part of the debates we have in your Lordships’ House. However, when the committee looked at fundamental rights, accession to the EU, the European Convention on Human Rights, citizenship and competencies, it concluded that there were no significant implications for the UK constitution. That conclusion comes from an important committee, and I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Goodlad, is not in his place. I hope that noble Lords who have not yet had the chance to look at the report will do so. It raises questions for the Government, of course, but it is interesting in terms of that important principle.

Amendment No. 125 would undermine the application of the principles of primacy and direct effect. As I have said, they are long-established principles that were there before we joined the community; principles that are fundamental, I argue, for the effective and uniform application of laws across all EU member states, and that remain unchanged by the Lisbon treaty in any way. I have already indicated that it is for Parliament to decide if it wishes to repeal the Act. By passing the Act, Parliament, not the EU or the European Court of Justice, decided to accept the obligations of European Union membership—or, as it was then, EEC membership—for the United Kingdom. We have continued to exercise our sovereignty in passing the legislation necessary to implement every amending treaty. Parliament remains free to repeal the treaty, but let us be clear what that would mean—it would mean leaving the European Union.

Some noble Lords have indicated that they remember being part of the discussions and debates in 1972. I am going to quote the then Solicitor-General, now the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe of Aberavon, who unfortunately is not in his place. I do not think he will mind me repeating what he said then:

“It would make a nonsense of the necessity for Community law to have the same effect in every member State if the United Kingdom, any more than any other member State, could choose by national law to override what it did not like. The principle of Community law having precedence throughout the Community is one that operates for the mutual benefit of all member States”.—[Official Report, Commons, 13/6/72; col. 1317.]

I quote the noble Lord because I could not conceivably have put it any better. His words from 1972 echo through the decades, describing precisely why it is important to ensure, if you have an agreement and you implement the law, that it is implemented in the same way throughout the Community.

Amendment No. 126 from the noble Lords, Lord Willoughby de Broke, Lord Stoddart and Lord Pearson of Rannoch, adds a further sentence—

When the Minister says that Community law must be implemented in the same way in every state within the European Union, how does that apply under the arrangements the Government are defending whereby the protocol relating to the Charter of Fundamental Rights would apparently shield non-UK citizens who are resident in this country? They would presumably find that they were not subject to the Charter of Fundamental Rights in the same way that they would be in their own country.

The Charter of Fundamental Rights does not create new laws; it does not say that there is a justiciable reality for people in this country that is different for residents or citizens. With luck, we will have a debate later today that will take us into the whole question of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, the purpose of what we have done with the charter and what it does and does not do. There is no contradiction in what I have said regarding the implementation of EU law, but we will discuss that in greater detail later.

Perhaps I may clarify what the noble Baroness the Lord President is saying. My Amendment No. 125 refers solely to the new powers created by the treaty of Lisbon. If she is not prepared to accept it, is she saying that we are giving the European Union the power to decide whether laws and actions of the UK Government are compatible with the new objectives that are built into the treaty by the treaty of Lisbon—that of a social market economy, for example? Is that the import of what she is saying, because that change is introduced by this treaty?

I am not saying that. We are a part of the European Union. The noble Lord described it as if it were something over there. I am saying that when a decision is made by 27 member states to move forward on a proposition, and when that proposition comes to be implemented across them, the European Union law that applies to that has primacy. It does not affect what we do in our own domestic legislation per se, except where the EU legislation covers subject matter where we have agreed that it should. We will look at that in greater detail. The noble Lord’s amendment would take away what we accepted in 1972—I have already quoted the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe of Aberavon, speaking at that time—namely, that if one is going to belong to a group of countries collaborating on aspects of economic or other policy, where one agrees to work in a particular way, that law must apply. That is the difference between what the noble Lord proposes—we would in effect take away what we agreed in 1972—and the current position.

Noble Lords have tabled an additional amendment, the purpose of which would be the same. We are a member of the European Union; we derive practical benefit from it; and we are bound to implement the law. That position has served us well over the decades and, for these purposes, will serve us into the future. I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment on that basis.

I thank the noble Baroness the Lord President for setting out frankly and openly her view of how we should proceed with the amendments and how we should develop the debate as we go along. I shall form a good—I was going to say unholy—alliance with her in avoiding quotation fatigue, which would bear us all down. In fact, I shall adopt the approach of the Japanese towards their finest treasures and antiquities, which is to bring out one a month and to admire it. So, during the debates, I shall bring out one superb quotation each time to underline our devastatingly strong case on these matters.

The noble Baroness broke her own truce by quoting the excellent report of the European Union Committee.

I did not. I would hate for the noble Lord to think that I immediately broke my truce. What I think I indicated—I ask noble Lords to nod if that is what they thought I had said—is that I would quote only Members of your Lordships' House or of another place and the three committees: the Constitution Committee, the European Union Committee in this place and the European Scrutiny Committee elsewhere.

Hear, hear!

If your Lordships settle for that bargain, I shall do so as well. I shall quote from the excellent report of the House of Lords Constitution Committee. It states in its conclusion, which is in heavy black type, that part of the TFEU treaty will,

“inevitably have constitutional implications. In practice, much will depend on how the Government choose to exercise the opt-ins they have negotiated. We conclude that the importance of how the opt-ins and opt-outs are used is such that Parliament must be fully involved in their use”.

It also quotes with approval one of its witnesses, who, talking about the changes to the TFEU, said that the reform clearly implied “fundamental constitutional change”. Those statements are in black and white, so the noble Lord, Lord Tomlinson, is quite wrong in saying that none of the reports from your Lordships’ House supports us or that their conclusions are the opposite of what we are saying: they are right in line with what we are saying. They are right in line with the fact that there is a constitutional significance which merits a change in the wording about constitutional arrangements in the terms which we have set out. That is a matter on which we will probably not agree, but at least let us have the facts either side aligned; they cannot be gainsaid.

I can make the response immediately. On his terms, we agreed to differ. I am irreducibly against robbing Parliament of the responsibility; he was disposed to take a different view on what he then regarded to be a constitution. His view has since been repaired in accord with the great change that has taken place in the document that will partially determine the way in which the EU conducts itself.

Nothing that the noble Lord says surprises me in the very slightest degree. I am sure that views have evolved and changed in every direction, sometimes at a bewildering speed which is quite hard to follow.

Does the noble Lord agree that no referendum can take away the right of parliamentary decision? We are a parliamentary democracy. The idea of a referendum is to advise Parliament. Parliament should perhaps think very carefully before rejecting that advice, but referenda do not undermine the principle of parliamentary democracy.

I do not want to enter that debate now, but it is probably correct that referenda, as the previous Prime Minister, Mr Blair, obviously believed at the time, are in certain circumstances justified in giving the people a say before Parliament reaches its final conclusion. There is a lot in what the noble Lord said.

The noble Baroness the Lord President began her speech with a major point about the primacy of EU law. It is correct that it was not in the Rome treaty; it evolved from the diktats and judgments of the European Court over the years, and was then given a boost by our own European Communities legislation when we joined the Community in 1972. This Bill and this treaty extend the powers of the ECJ enormously because of the collapse of the third pillar. Suddenly, they extend over a very wide area.

Would the noble Lord like to reconsider his use of the word “diktat”? The European Court of Justice has been there since Ted Heath onwards. Has he always thought of it as giving diktats?

The noble Lord is quite right—it is the wrong word. It slipped out. I should not have used the word diktat; I meant “judgment”. I tried to correct myself, but not quickly enough for the noble Lord, who is very sharp on these matters. But the point is that there is a big extension of the area—

Surely a judgment against which there is no appeal is a diktat.

That is another very relevant point. Perhaps the right word that we are groping for is “ruling”. What I am trying to get to is that the outcome of the rulings of the European Court of Justice and the powers of that court, which now extend over a very wide range of bodies, as they never did before, with its powers to impose large fines and many other penalties, are vastly extended with the collapse of the third pillar.

I shall not go into the points that the noble Baroness raised about national parliaments. There is room for a very wide debate about whether in practice there is any enlargement of the role of national parliaments at all under this treaty. I know that the intention was there but whether it works in practice is something that we shall discuss at another time.

The noble Lord, Lord Lester, implied that I was in favour of a constitutional court. I am not. I was merely saying that other countries had those courts and that as we did not have one it was all the more vital that we underpinned our systems of parliamentary accountability to uphold our constitution in the most effective ways.

The core of the issue that we have been debating is the “previous treaties” issue, embodied in the interventions of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, who raised—as has often been raised before—the question why. Why are we worried about this now and why are we trying to amend this treaty? Why are we critical of many aspects of it and why has the party for which I am speaking argued in favour of a referendum when we did not do any such thing for previous treaties? I gave one answer—the straw theory, as the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, put it. Of course, it does not have to be a straw by itself; it can be one in a very large bundle, as it is in this case and as the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, perhaps recognised. One more very large bundle is the thing that can sink the poor, wretched camel.

There are other substantial arguments, and the noble Lord, Lord Owen, reminded us of a very good one—namely, that after the Maastricht treaty an election was held. There was a general election. Are we being offered now another general election on this issue? If so, I think that my party would be quite happy to proceed.

Is the noble Lord seriously suggesting that the 1992 election was held on the issue of Maastricht?

I am saying that the people had an opportunity at a general election to discuss and debate it very fully. Also, as my noble friend Lord Lamont reminded us, a referendum was on offer on the euro, although luckily, so far, it has not come to that. Later on we will want to know whether we can be sure that this Government, if they are still in office—which I do not think that they will be—will offer a referendum on the euro again.

It was a narrow point that we were trying to debate this afternoon. We are simply arguing that the Bill should be honestly described. The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, made much of the point that the other people of Europe do not agree with us—and I am not sure that he is right about that either. In fact, the latest independent poll from Open Europe found that 75 per cent of all people in the EU want a referendum on any new treaty that gives more powers to the EU. It also found that in the UK 83 per cent would want such a vote to be held. The majority in all 27 countries would want a referendum. So we are not quite as isolated as he makes out.

With respect, that was not the point that I was making. Since the change of policy towards the European Union by the Conservatives, there are no natural bedfellows within the European Union, as evidenced by the problems of the European People’s Party in the European Party.

The noble Lord makes the wonderful universal error of confusing Governments and elite groups with the people of Europe, who, as we found with the last treaty, suddenly took rather a different view from that of their Governments. That is a very deep point and one that we will come back to again—whether we are talking about the Europe that elites want or the one that the people want. I think that they are very different.

The question of constitutional significance is at the centre of our amendment. As we have been reminded, Mr Straw, the previous Foreign Secretary—now, I think, he is the Lord Chancellor—said that if it was a question of a Foreign Secretary or President being introduced, that would be constitutional. This Bill does that. Someone else said that if there was a vast increase in ECJ powers that affected individual citizens, that would be constitutional—and this Bill does that. In a way, I rather admire those who have spoken in opposition to the amendment this afternoon, because I think that they are on the defensive. They are besieged in the Alamo fort and are fighting very hard by simply denying the facts and the truth, which everyone else in the wider world recognises. Every commentator and most national leaders throughout Europe know perfectly well what we are talking about.

Other issues were raised in the debate. The “Ode to Joy” has words by Friedrich Schiller and music by Beethoven. I have nothing to add, except that it is a wonderful sound. We can all enjoy it without the benefit of elaborate new centralising laws and treaties. We do not need a law to listen to Beethoven, thank you very much.

So we have come to the conclusion that it would be extremely wise to add these words now. As the noble Lord, Lord Alton, very wisely reminded us, there is a very great danger of isolating ourselves by our refined language and ideas from the deepest and best feelings of the British people and the people of Europe. That is an issue to which we will return. In the mean time, having noted the depth of feeling and the strength of our argument, which I think has swept right over the protestations and defence of the Government and the silent, or nearly silent, Liberal Democrat party, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Amendment No. 3 not moved.]

Clause 1 agreed to.

moved Amendment No. 4:

The noble Lord made a number of important points. It is absolutely correct for him to say that there are a number of blurry edges and unanswered questions. He very properly mentioned a number of them, including the salary, the role of the proposed EU president and of the External Action Service, and defence co-operation.

The noble Lord’s argument for a six-monthly report is rather overtaken by the important points he made that the relationships are in any event in a state of perpetual flux. He talked about the informal politics of the European Union. I am sure that he would agree that in any constitution there is no settled position, like the final struggle in the great “Internationale”. There is no final struggle. All constitutions are by nature dynamic; none are in fact static. We may be interested in parliamentary accountability, but that will not be done in one six-monthly report—it will be a continuous process. That is the important point about this. There will be constant modifications. We will be part of the debate which leads to those modifications. We are part of the European Union. We do not have bilateral relations with the European Union; it is part of ourselves.

Much of the development will depend on matters such as the personalities of the individuals who are there, the external matters that confront Europe and the challenges we face—for example, matters in the External Action Service, such as the pressures on our own budget in terms of the foreign diplomatic service and the extent to which we want to co-operate. That important point has been made in earlier debates by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace. There will be continuous modification. It is therefore impossible to reach an end-point.

It is important that we ensure an active role for national parliaments. I have acknowledged that there are questions about how the proposed role will work out in practice. In conclusion, the key fact is that we must ensure parliamentary accountability. There is a moving target and therefore there should be a continuous form of accountability.

I preface my remarks on the amendment with a few remarks about how we conduct ourselves in Committee. We are in Committee. I hope that we will now be able to make progress in Committee style. The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, is not in his place, but I think that he should have carefully read and absorbed the words of Standing Order 33 about asperity of speech. I felt that he was not only making a Second Reading speech in Committee, but raising the level of passion beyond what we should be doing when attempting to follow the words of the noble Lord, Lord Howell, and examining the Bill—that is what he said, but it has to be the treaty and its implications—line by line.

Perhaps I should also say a little about the intentions of these Benches. We strongly support continuing scrutiny of our engagement in the European Union. That is what this Parliament should be doing and what this Chamber has been doing rather well, and I hope will continue to do. We are very happy with the detailed work which committees of this House have conducted in examining the implications of this treaty. That is a little different from what we do, sometimes rather more messily, on the Floor of the Chamber.

I feel that the amendments are very unconservative. Conservatism, as I learnt about it, is about practice and pragmatism but accepting that politics flows; it is not about theories, structures and absolutes. It seems to me that the noble Lord, Lord Howell, is asking us to know exactly where we will end up before we have started. He says that what we need from this is proper parliamentary scrutiny. However, I refer him to the very wise words that he used when we discussed the previous amendment, when he said that he knew the intention was there but whether it worked in practice was another matter. I agree strongly with that remark, which he made about parliamentary scrutiny, but it is also true of how these new procedures will work. We do not yet know how the President of the European Council will operate. I think this is a better procedure for an EU of 27, moving from a situation in which for six months the Prime Minister of Malta will chair the European Council and then the Prime Minister of wherever else it may be will chair it.

This is a useful improvement for an enlarged European Union. The United Kingdom is in favour of the enlargement of the European Union and that has implications. Part of the argument for this treaty is precisely to deal with a European Union which has grown in the last decade from 15 to 25 to 27, and some of the adjustments are to allow for that. But how these various new adjustments will work in practice depends on who is appointed and how well they work with others. We do not yet know that. We have to avoid the politics of “stop the world, I want to get off” in this. Britain is involved in the European Union. Through our officials and sometimes through our Ministers, we play an active role in shaping the European Union. I very much hope that we will continue to do so. When this treaty is ratified, I trust that our Government—getting over their great hang-up about what Rupert Murdoch wants us to do—will play a very active role in shaping where we go from here. I hope that the Conservative Opposition will not spend too much time bumping along behind, trying to pull them back at every stage, so that we can continue to have active scrutiny and an open and honest debate at last about Britain’s engagement in the European Union. For those reasons these Benches do not support these amendments.

I support these important amendments. As a member of your Lordships’ Select Committee on the European Union I was fortunate enough to discuss some of these issues when we visited Brussels. As other noble Lords said, it is clear that there is huge uncertainty and work still to be done on turning some of the institutional arrangements that are described in this treaty in very outline form into practical and settled arrangements. That matters, because the way in which those institutional arrangements develop has a profound impact on the way in which Europe will operate and the kind of constitutional settlement that it puts in place.

I want to dwell in particular on the relationship between the various presidents. We should remember that three presidencies will be concurrent in Europe: the new term-elected President of the European Council and the existing President of the European Commission, and there will still be the rotating presidency of the Council of Ministers. What is not at all clear is how those three concurrent presidencies will interact. One model would maintain that the national presidency—the rotating six-monthly presidency —should still be the predominant presidency as it represents the member states, and that the others should be the servants of the nation states with the president of the Council merely orchestrating the agenda as a kind of chairman of committees and the President of the Commission continuing to manage the legislature. Another view states that what we are creating here is more like the tiers of a presidential state where the president of the Council, who is elected for a longer term, acts like the President of France or the President of the US with a Cabinet around him and sets the agenda, and that the President of the Commission becomes in effect a First Minister or Prime Minister as the head of the Executive, in the same way as the Prime Minister of France relates to the President of France. In that model the rotating national presidency is merely there to arrange the venue and clean the floors.

How this turns out is a matter of substantial importance in the model of Europe that we are building. It is no accident that it is not clear, because there are differing views on what model different members of the European Union and different members within each delegation might want, as was made clear in the Select Committee’s discussions. It is fundamentally significant that this House knows whether what is envisaged is indeed a French-type model of a president of Europe and a Prime Minister, with the rotating presidency kicked into the sidelines, because it has an impact on the constitutional settlement that we have just been discussing. In saying that this amendment does not go far enough, my reservation is that I think we ought to have this settled before the House and the country are asked to agree to this treaty. That ought to be one of the things we consider as we go through this debate. We should as a minimum ask for a report-back six months later to ensure that we have clarity on this.

The noble Lord talks of the matter being settled, but does he agree that much will depend on the personalities who appear? For example, if the President of the Commission were a Delors and the other president were a former Prime Minister of Luxembourg—I have great respect for Luxembourg—there would be a certain dynamic between those two and the situation could be reversed. So how can it be settled? How can we know ultimately what that relationship will be?

The noble Lord’s intervention illustrates exactly the danger of not having it settled. The relationship between the President of France and the Prime Minister of France does not depend on which individual is elected to which office. Those offices are settled. If we have a Europe where the individuals who take those places can land-grab and turn the European Union constitution to their advantage, that is a very dangerous constitution for us to sign up to.

I seek clarification. I am afraid that I am not up to date with the procedures, but a report on European affairs used to be made to Parliament every six months. It seems to me that that vehicle would incorporate all this. More than most previous ones, this treaty has a very large area of important unclarified material. It is perfectly possible to take the view which has been argued, particularly by the noble Lord who served a very useful purpose as chairman of the foreign policy Select Committee in the House of Commons. However, you cannot narrow these things down; they are matters of practice.

This is a view with which I have a good deal of sympathy but, when looking at amendments to this legislation, the real problem, apart from these general well-meaning reports back to Parliament, is how to clarify the actual meaning of these words. This relates to a later amendment that I have tabled.

When she replied at Second Reading, the noble Baroness was very clear that there was no problem with the commitment to allow the European Court of Justice to adopt a new role in the European Council. In my view that is quite a big step and we cannot change it. But there is also a commitment in the legislation that the European Court of Justice will not involve itself in foreign affairs. However, the President of the European Council is definitely involved in foreign policy. The noble Baroness has the best of intentions as regards these commitments but I assume she means that, when dealing with foreign affairs, the President of the European Council will not be subject to the European Court of Justice and that will still be an area in which he will effectively be exempt. These wordings are very important. I hope that the Minister will put on record exactly the limitations on the European Court of Justice. In listening to the earlier debate, this is the issue that worries many people; the capacity of the European Court of Justice to expand the role of the European Union powers beyond that which the House of Commons and the House of Lords at various times under different Governments have fought to be the limits.

It is therefore really the main focus of parliamentary scrutiny and debate to set limits. I am sure that the honourable gentleman agrees—sorry, I mean the noble Lord; I am used to the other place, and seeing the same face makes it even harder—that it is important if we can to nail down these areas, and I particularly draw attention to the European Court of Justice. I ask the noble Baroness in preparing for these debates if she could be as precise as possible about the Government’s understanding of the role of the European Court of Justice and where it is constrained and where it is not constrained. That would be very helpful.

I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Owen, because he raised some interesting questions; but they are so interesting that they would not be covered by the amendment. The amendment is headed:

“Treaty of Lisbon: clarifying arrangements”,

but it does not clarify most of the important questions that were just raised by the noble Lord, Lord Owen. We have just agreed that Clause 1—a very simple clause of three lines—should stand part of the Bill, and we now have “clarifying arrangements” adding a further 21 lines after Clause 1, the total effect of which is to create more confusion, because those lines will raise more questions than they answer.

The situation is very clear—that we as Parliament hold our Ministers to account when they come back from Council meetings, and we will have the opportunity to ask every one of the questions that are listed in the so-called clarifying arrangements, plus any others that we have the ingenuity to think up. The amendment is unhelpful, and I will not support it.

I—

The noble Lord, Lord Tomlinson, has just epitomised the project of European Union; it is all right if we ask these questions when Ministers have come back from Council meetings after matters have been decided and there is nothing that this Parliament can do about it. That is one of the central complaints of the growing number of people in this country who do not want to continue with this project.

This is a very good amendment, except that I am afraid that, like the noble Lord, Lord Tomlinson, it shuts the stable door after the horse has bolted. It is not helpful to have a report in six months’ time detailing these matters. We want the answer to all these questions before your Lordships reach a decision on the referendum and before the people are invited to vote on a referendum, if we reach that happy conclusion.

When the noble Baroness replies, could she answer some of the rumours, doubts and questions that are surrounding the Eurosceptic community in this country? One of those important rumours is that quite a lot of initiatives have already been agreed, or nearly agreed, and they have been put in the drawer of the Council in Brussels and hidden away from the people, particularly the British and the Irish people, who will have a referendum on this new treaty, until the treaty has gone through. Is there any truth in that?

Also, has an understanding or agreement been reached that no fewer than 10,000 British troops will in due course be committed to the new European army with its independent command centre in Brussels? It would be very good to have that completely denied. If not, have any troops been agreed?

Another interesting suggestion—

That is an interesting statement. Could the noble Lord, before we discuss the CFSP and defence dimension, provide noble Lords with the exact source of the statement that he has just made?

Of course. At the moment, I was merely posing a question. When we come to that, I will be happy to provide the noble Lord with my source.

Another rumour is going around of borderless healthcare. Has that been agreed and put in the drawer? Is there any prospect of this treaty leading to that? The first of those suggestions is something of an anathema to what the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, would call the right wing in this country. The second suggestion of borderless healthcare, where we could all wander over the health systems of Europe checking in as we wished to avoid the appalling state of the National Health Service in this country, might appeal to this country’s middle classes, but I understand it is fiercely opposed by the trade unions.

The other question that I wish to put to the noble Baroness is on tax. Indirect tax is covered by the treaties of Rome, but direct tax is not covered in the present treaties as they stand. That has not stopped the Court invading corporation tax or reaching over 120 judgments in favour of national companies—

I just want to help the noble Lord. I can give the source; it is the Open Europe briefings. I have them all, and they include the point about the contribution of 10,000 troops. It is completely untrue, but it is in that briefing.

At the moment, I cannot remember whether that was my sole source, but I will come back to it. That rings a bell. We would like to know, more than that, what further arrangements there are for military integration and the advance of the French dream in that area.

I think I was dealing with tax. Indirect tax is in the treaties; direct tax is not. I think I was saying that the Court has already invaded corporation tax to the detriment of national exchequers and to the benefit of finance directors and shareholders of international companies. I gather that Mr Barroso has been in Ireland recently, assuring the Irish that they need not worry that this treaty will lead to any change in their tax system, which has done so much to improve the state of their economy.

Those are the sort of specific questions that we would like answered now. I put it to the mover of the amendment that it would be very helpful to have the answers to all these questions before we vote on a referendum and before the people vote on it. While I am on the subject of the noble Baroness answering questions, I was remiss when she finished her answer to the previous amendment in not pressing her on the legal status of the flag and the anthem, what areas of our national life Brussels cannot negotiate on and—most importantly, and I hope a question that finds sympathy with other noble Lords—an index to the treaty of Lisbon.

Perhaps I can help to answer one of the questions that has been asked about the powers of the European Court of Justice over common foreign and security policy. I draw noble Lords’ attention to Article 275 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. It states:

“The Court of Justice of the European Union shall not have jurisdiction with respect to the provisions relating to the common foreign and security policy nor with respect to Acts adopted on the basis of those provisions”.

I add for the sake of completeness:

“However, the Court shall have jurisdiction to monitor compliance with Article 40 of the treaty on European Union”—

I think that is the one that says that what is done under CFSP should not impinge on Community competence—

“and to rule on proceedings … reviewing the legality of decisions providing for restrictive measures”.

I think that that refers to the rules on the blacklisting of terrorist organisations, where the Court of Justice does have competence, which it is increasingly exercising. That very restricted competence in the second pillar of the CFSP for judicial review by the Court of Justice is spelt out in Article 275 and is very limited.

I am most grateful to the noble Baroness. We will come back to this on Amendment No. 14.

Like the noble Lords, Lord Blackwell and Lord Pearson, I am a bit concerned that the questions in this amendment are being asked after the horse has bolted, so to speak. Surely these are all questions that need answers before we agree to ratify the treaty. Once the treaty is ratified, they can do just as they damn well like. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Howell, that the questions are superb. They have been very well thought out. They need to be asked, and they need to be answered—but before the treaty passes from this House. I hope we can get some of the answers.

I should like to put one or two other questions to the Leader of the House because many serious rumours are circulating and they worry people, not only Euro sceptics but others as well. One of them is that there is a move for the amalgamation of the posts of President of the European Commission and president of the Council. The Leader of the House is shaking her head, but that is one of the rumours and it is a very strong rumour indeed. If such a post were to be created, it would be a very powerful post indeed. Therefore, if the noble Baroness can give us an assurance that there is no truth in the rumour and that the British Government would oppose and veto it if it were ever brought forward, it would be extremely helpful.

If the noble Lord looks at Article 1(18) of the treaty he will find it clear that the President of the European Council must not be President of the European Commission. That is explicit. It is clearly laid down and is there for anyone to read. There is total clarity.

We read all sorts of things and we know that sometimes they do not mean exactly what they say. If I can obtain an absolute assurance, not only for me but for many other people as well, that there is no truth in this rumour, it would be helpful for our further debates.

Then we come to the question of the powers and trappings of the presidency. I mentioned to the Leader of the House—who was very kind to see some of us yesterday—that a lot of suggestions were going around that the post will be made very powerful and that the president will have a plane, a staff of 36, a fleet of limousines and a palace. That seems to me to going over the top. She said that that was rubbish, and I took her word that this was mere rumour mongering by people opposed to the whole concept. I can assure noble Lords that it was not me who sent the rumours around. But this morning, lo and behold, when I looked at the EUobserver, I found that the European Parliament itself is concerned about it. This is what was said:

“‘The treaty is very clear about the duties [of the president],’ the head of the parliament’s budget committee, Reimer Boege, told EUobserver, noting that it says the person can have an administrative role, ‘but not take over an executive function.’”.

That is very good, and fortunately—as far that report is concerned—the European Parliament can control the purse strings. I should therefore like to know whether Her Majesty’s Government agree with the European Parliament, or at least with the head of the budget committee, that the role is administrative and will not be executive, and whether Her Majesty's Government will see to it that that situation remains. If they do not, the post of president will grow and grow until it supersedes and overrides the Heads of State or Government in the nation states.

I hope the noble Baroness will be able to give assurances on the matters I have raised. They are current; they are circulating; and they need to be put in proper and truthful context.

This amendment highlights a highly unsatisfactory situation. I could not possibly vote for it, for some of the reasons that have already been advanced, for instance by the noble Lord, Lord Tomlinson. All the amendment does is highlight some of the most unsatisfactory aspects of the agreement signed up to by our Prime Minister without giving any hint of a solution to the problem that has arisen as a result of his signature. The amendment does not for one moment, for instance, provide for Parliament’s agreement to changes that may occur after the treaty has been ratified. It cannot and it does not.

The real question, therefore, is why did the Prime Minister sign up to the deal without agreement being reached on all the matters listed in subsection (2) of the proposed new clause? Why on earth did he sign up to an agreement without,

“the powers and duties of the”—

new-style—

“President of the European Council”

being properly defined? Surely that is a matter of the most immense importance.

If you are going to have a semi-permanent President of the European Council, it is inevitable that the balance of power between the President of the Commission and the President of the European Council will change from the situation as it is at present. I quite understand those who say that, as a result, certain changes in the powers of the president will have to come about. But for goodness’ sake, we are supposed to be giving our approval to an agreement. If we are asked to sign up to an agreement that leaves all of these important matters undefined, it is a pretty ridiculous state of affairs.

Why on earth should we be asked to ratify a treaty without being told what is,

“the detailed role of the President of the European Council”?

What is his,

“relation to the Heads of Government of the nation holding the rotating presidency of the EU”?

Goodness me, why on earth should we ratify this treaty without even being told what will be,

“the powers and duties of the EU High Representative”?

Is the noble Lord not asking in fact for a constitution? Looking at the President of the United States, the President of France or the president of any of the countries where these various rumours or mirages may be built up, you see that they have a constitution. There is also the high representative, and therefore there will be an evolving role. However, is not what the noble Lord asks for the complete opposite of normal Conservative philosophy, as the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, said? It is moving us to demand something rather like a treaty signed in Philadelphia in 1787.

I do not want a constitution but even less do I want half a constitution. If we are to have thrust on us all these constitutional changes of great importance, we should obviously know what they really mean. That is the answer to the noble Lord’s question, and we should certainly be told what the powers and duties of the EU high representative are to be. If we are not to be told that, I am blessed if I can see why we should be asked to ratify this treaty. It seems odd in the extreme that we should be asked to ratify a treaty which leaves all these very important matters entirely undecided.

Again, we have had a very interesting and important debate. I begin where the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, ended. I think that close study of the treaty will demonstrate that these questions are not left unanswered in the way that he implied. I know that, like me, the noble Lord had a late night last night but I hope that he will be able to go back through the proposals in the treaty and see that some of the detail is more coloured-in than he indicated.

In our deliberations on this group of amendments, I think we all agree that it is very important to continue the current scrutiny and, as the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, says in his report from the European Union Committee, to consider how best to take forward some of the proposals in the treaty—particularly, as I indicated earlier, in relation to the role of Parliament. As the noble Lord, Lord Owen, suggested, we have a system for reporting back to Parliament. It takes place after every European Council meeting, although I accept that doing so after the event is not necessarily what noble Lords are seeking. There is correspondence with the committees before every Council of Ministers meeting and there is a six-monthly White Paper, to which I think the noble Lord, Lord Owen, referred, on forthcoming developments in the European Union, normally looking ahead to the next presidency. Of course, all forward-looking work programmes—the five-year programme and annual work programme from the Commission and so on—are deposited so that they can be scrutinised. Speaking from experience, I can say that Ministers are regularly invited to appear before Select Committees and sub-committees in order to describe and discuss particular points of interest of aspects of negotiations that are under way. Those discussions—again, I speak from personal experience—do not last for minutes but for hours as we take great note of, and scrutinise, the issues that are currently before the individual councils. I pay tribute to the members of the committee whom I have appeared before.

I take issue with a proposition underpinning the amendments which suggests that there are articles that require further negotiation. That is not the case. No articles in the treaty of Lisbon require further negotiation. I have already indicated that I spent three days in Brussels during the recess, when I discussed with the head of the Council’s Legal Service, Jean-Claude Piris, the Secretary-General of the Commission, Catherine Day, and others their views on the treaty and on the future. What was striking about these discussions was that not only did these people think that the treaty addresses far better some of the questions that have reasonably been raised about how to ensure that the European Union delivers for its citizens but they also believed that it sets a proper and, they would argue, lasting institutional framework. There was no appetite at all for further treaty negotiations.

I turn to the specific points that have been raised. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, who, as a Member of the European Parliament, has great experience of the European Court of Justice. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Owen, that this is a very important issue, and later we will be able to have much chunkier discussions about the ECJ. I know that there will be a lot of interest in aspects of foreign policy, about which the noble Lord, Lord Owen, is particularly concerned, and justice and home affairs issues with the collapse of Pillar 3, and there will be an opportunity to discuss the opt-ins for the UK more fully. Perhaps I may write to the noble Lord, Lord Owen, between now and the next Committee sitting, with a copy placed in the Library for all noble Lords who have participated in the debate, setting out what I consider to be the role of the European Court of Justice. I do not suggest that in order to evade debate—far from it—but to provide a backdrop to the discussion which the noble Lord, Lord Owen, in particular, and others can use as a template in taking our discussions further. I should be very happy to do that if it would be helpful. I see several noble Lords nodding, so I shall ensure that it is done.

I realise that I did not answer the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Blackwell, about the two articles that are different. The evidence that I have is from Essex University, which talks about 35 differences between the two treaties. I do not have the documentation in front of me and so I propose to share it with the noble Lord and take it from there. I am conscious that he was very specific about articles and I have been very specific about differences.

I am very grateful to the noble Baroness. That would be very helpful.

Again, I apologise for not dealing with the matter there and then.

It could be circulated.

That would be even better. The noble Lord, Lord Pearson, asked specifically about an index. I wonder whether he has seen the comparative table of the treaties. I know that it is not an index as such but I found it incredibly helpful, and I draw noble Lords’ attention to the fact that it is in the Printed Paper Office. It goes through each of the articles and relates them to the previous treaties, although it does not do what I think the noble Lord was after. Article 26 refers to the ECJ and Article 27 refers to the Council, and so on. We do not have an index of that kind—at least, if we do, I have never seen one—but I hope that it will deal with some of the issues that noble Lords have.

I was aware of the document to which the noble Baroness refers but I was simply asking for an index such as that printed in the British Management Data Foundation’s analysis of the treaty of Lisbon. That index runs to several pages. Under A one can look up, for example, administrative co-operation, advisory bodies, agricultural and animal welfare. Everything covered by the treaties is in this index and that is what we need, with a page number and an article number relating to the new treaty of Lisbon. I am sure that in the noble Baroness’s department there are many people who could run that up overnight. It would be enormously helpful to your Lordships.

In those famous words, “I shall see what I can do”, but I am not sure about running it up overnight. That sounds like an interesting proposition, but the noble Lord makes a point of sorts. I shall come on to that document in a moment because it relates to something else that I want to mention. The flying of flags is covered by regulation in this country under the Town and Country Planning (Control of Advertisements) (England) Regulations 2007. In response to a specific question asked by the noble Lord, for the avoidance of doubt, neither the European Union flag nor the anthem have any legal status in the UK or in the rest of the European Union.

They do not lack status in the United Kingdom. I am aware of the legislation that the United Kingdom passed to allow the flag to be flown here in parity with national flags and so on. I also asked where that legislation is rooted in European legislation. Is this just one of those areas that are part of the doctrine of the occupied field that the European Union went into, inventing a flag and flying it? It has been withdrawn from the constitutional treaty of Lisbon. As I understand it, 16 countries have signed a document saying that they want it to be their official flag. What is its legal position? Does it have a legal basis? The same questions apply to Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy”.

It does not have a legal status. That’s it—it does not have a legal status, full stop.

The noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, asked me a question. I was waiting for someone to ask me about the private jet, lots of staff and so on. When I was in Brussels this was running as a news story, that there had been a discussion on a Tuesday evening, I think, where a jet and lots of other wonderful things had theoretically been discussed. Our permanent representative there—our ambassador, if I may call him that—was at the dinner and there was no discussion of that kind. There has been no suggestion of a private jet, no proposals or discussions about the residence and the salary and no formal discussions about the precision of that job, though obviously there have been informal discussions on the respective responsibilities of the different people defined within the treaty—for example, the President of the Commission, the high representative, the rotating presidency and the President of the European Council, which are exactly the issues raised by Members of the Committee here. As I indicated, the briefing about the 10,000 troops is not true. As we go through the line-by-line scrutiny, issues such as defence and other matters will be raised, and I have no doubt that the noble Lord will have an opportunity to have any myths exploded or, who knows, any clarification or confirmation that may be appropriate.

There has also been confusion about whether the president of the Council and the high representative could be a merged job. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, is reassured about that—that that is not allowed under the treaty. A specific reference says that if you hold office for the Commission you cannot hold any other office. I think the problem goes back to the glorious blue book. I must again thank the noble Lords, Lord Pearson, Lord Willoughby de Broke and Lord Stoddart, for presenting me with a copy of the book. On page 36 of the opening section, under “President of the European Council”, it states:

“A clause in the earlier drafts of the Treaty specifically excluded the President of the Commission from becoming the President of the European Council. However, this clause has been removed … and there is nothing in the text of the Treaty”,

of Lisbon,

“to prevent the President of the Commission also becoming the President to the European Council”.

That is not true; they have it wrong in the book. I hope that the person who wrote it, whom I have met, will get in touch and have it corrected. It is absolutely clear in the treaty—with luck I shall find the right bit—that if you hold a Commission role you cannot hold another role. So the vice-president of the Commission, who is also the high representative, cannot become president of the Council; the president of the Commission cannot become president of the Council; and the president of the Commission cannot become the vice-president of the Commission, because you cannot hold two roles.

This is a self-amending treaty under the passerelle arrangements, which we will discuss later. Is it not conceivable that the Council could vote by unanimity to make this a matter for qualified majority voting? Therefore, there could be a double-hatter.

The UK Government do not agree with double-hatting or allowing two of those three positions to be put together. A change would therefore require the UK to do something that it does not want to do. In theory one could make a decision to go from unanimity to QMV and therefore arrive at another conclusion. I lose the plot here a little. I have worried about why noble Lords think that the two jobs could be together, but I think it is just the way that the provision reads. I make no slur on it, but it is the way that it reads.

One of the reasons why this has caused concern is that the Dutch Government—on exactly the same wording as is currently in the treaty, it has not changed—have told their parliament that they believe it would be possible to double-hat the president of the Council and the president of the Commission. I will be very happy to give the noble Baroness the reference to that. The Dutch are international lawyers of some distinction. I welcome the British Government’s position and I think that their judgment is correct. I am worried about the reference to the ECJ and a creative interpretation of the power.

I have the consolidated text before me. If I look at the Treaty on the European Union and go to Article 17(5)—this is for the connoisseurs—and then go to Article 244 in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, I see that Article 245 says:

“The members of the Commission may not, during their term of office, engage in any other occupation, whether gainful or not”.

It is pretty clear to me.

It continues:

“Members of the Commission shall neither seek nor take instructions from any government or from any other body”.

That is Article 1(18), which seems to add substance to the initial article mentioned, Article 2(198).

I am very grateful to my noble friend. As far as we and our lawyers are concerned, it is very clear. I cannot speak for the Dutch Government and their interpretation.

I do not have the page before me, but in the EU Committee report, which we debated at the same time as Second Reading, there was a reference to a Commission official saying that double-hatting was not an issue at present, but that it might well become a live issue in the near future. I seem to remember that that was said in the report.

I will have to check whether an official said that. I am going, first, on the conclusions of the committee, regardless of what evidence was put before it—and there was much and varied evidence; secondly, on what is in the treaty and the consolidated text which tells me what it would look like if this is ratified; and, thirdly, on how the legal interpretation will be taken forward. I am keen to make progress, if I may.

I say on the basis of a lot of experience that you do not have to believe every word that a Commission official says.

I could not possibly comment.