It must be deliberate

To clarify the government's position and the possibilities of any reform of the Common Agricultural and Common Fisheries Policies, Lord Pearson asked the following question:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Henley on 12 July (WA 97), which European Union countries support their position on reform of the Common Agricultural and Fisheries policies; and what voting power those countries have in the Council of Ministers.

There is a reason for that careful phrasing: as decisions are taken on qualified majority voting (QMV), a highly complicated system, which countries and how many votes they have in the Council of Ministers is of vital importance. Can reforms be carried through? Will there be enough votes for it?

HMG decided to ignore the question and produce irrelevant and well-meaning waffle:

There is broad agreement across the EU about the case for reform of the common fisheries policy, including the need to decentralise and simplify the current complex regulations. Few, if any, member states support the status quo, though views vary as to the changes needed. A draft legislative proposal will be published in 2011 and the UK is fully engaged in dialogue with other member states, the European Commission, industry, environmental NGOs and scientists to establish common ground for reform.

The UK's aim of a competitive, thriving and sustainable agriculture sector is supported by all member states. The Government are starting to consider their detailed position on reform of the common agricultural policy beyond 2013. Individual member states' positions will become clear in their responses to the European Commission's communication on CAP reform later this year.

This tells us nothing about the countries and their voting power should any question of reform arise.

As for there being broad agreement in favour of reform either of the CFP or the CAP, one cannot help wondering why, if that is so, there has been such a singular lack of it in the last three and a half decades.

A new Bill

Lord Pearson introduced a new Bill to the House of Lords, which was read for the first time yesterday. This is a formality that enables the Bill to be published and laid before the House properly.

A Bill to make provision for establishing a committee of inquiry into the economic implications for the United Kingdom of membership of the European Union.

When is a loan not a commitment?

When it is made by EU member states in contradiction of the EU's own rules. Or so it would appear from the reply made to Lord Pearson's Starred Question yesterday:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they will take under Article 125 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union to ensure that neither the European Union nor any member state shall be liable for or assume commitments of another member state.

Lord Sassoon's reply was:

My Lords, at the emergency ECOFIN meeting on 9 May, EU Finance Ministers agreed that up to €60 billion of emergency finance can be provided to any EU member state in accordance with Article 122(2) of the EU treaty. At the same time, euro-area Finance Ministers agreed a €440-billion package of assistance to be provided through a special purpose vehicle. Both these actions are consistent with Article 125 of the treaty.

Before we go any further, let us sort out what these Articles actually say. They are in the Consolidated Version of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.

Article 125 seems clear on the subject:

The Union shall not be liable for or assume the commitments of central governments, regional, local or other public authorities, other bodies governed by public law, or public undertakings of any Member State, without prejudice to mutual financial guarantees for the joint execution of a specific project. A Member State shall not be liable for or assume the commitments of central governments, regional, local or other public authorities, other bodies governed by public law, or public undertakings of another Member State, without prejudice to mutual financial guarantees for the joint execution of a specific project.

Article 122(2) is equally clear but is not entirely in agreement:

Where a Member State is in difficulties or is seriously threatened with severe difficulties caused by natural disasters or exceptional occurrences beyond its control, the Council, on a proposal from the Commission, may grant, under certain conditions, Union financial assistance to the Member State concerned. The President of the Council shall inform the European Parliament of the decision taken.

Whether the difficulties Greece is experiencing are caused by natural disasters or exceptional occurrences is a moot point but that is the way this is being read and Lord Pearson does have a point when he says that the EU is breaking its own rules.

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for that reply, which does not square with the Government's Answer of 14 June when they agreed that no member state should be allowed to bail out another. Are not the proposed bailouts yet another example in a long line of examples of Brussels riding roughshod over its own legislation? Going slightly deeper, does not history teach us that trouble lies ahead when a regime feels free to break its own laws with impunity, when it is supported by a puppet court, and when its people are powerless to get rid of it? Is that not exactly what we now have with the European Union?

Ah, says Lord Sassoon, this is not a bail-out, it is a loan.

The one thing I agree with him on is that Article 125 does indeed rule out any bailout. However, no bailout has been proposed or implemented under Article 122(2) or any other article because what have been proposed are loans, which are fully permitted under Article 125.

The trouble is that Article 125 does not talk of bail-outs but of commitments and a loan is a commitment, except, presumably when it is not.

All responses seem to be woolly

Presumably, the reason for the continuing woolliness of answers in the House is that it is the same civil servants who write them. But one would hope that occasionally Ministers would look at them and point out that what is supposed to be a response is nothing of the kind, even to relatively non-contentious questions.

Lord Pearson put down a Written Question on what must be a relatively non-contentious issue though the lack of clear response makes one wonder what is being hidden:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the value for money of their funding of £1.5 million to the Sarsen Housing Association in Cornwall for 20 affordable homes.

The response was a little odd in that it stated the obvious without replying to the question:

Grant funding to Sarsen Housing Association to provide 20 affordable homes was provided through the Home and Communities Agency's (HCA) National Affordable Housing Programme.

Funding was made available through a competitive bidding basis where bids were assessed against four main criteria, value for money-in terms of total public subsidy per home and per person housed, design and quality standards, deliverability and local and regional priorities.

So what assessment has been made?

The coalition does not agree with UKIP on everything

We have been told before that there is no real difference between the Coalition Government's stance on certain issue and that of UKIP. Apparently, this does not apply to all issues. For example the Coalition Government has different views from UKIP (and just about everybody else who has been following developments in the man-made global warming hoax) on Energy Renewables.

Lord James of Blackheath had a Starred Question on Monday:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to assess the assurances given by the previous Administration on the completion date and costs of the renewable energy programme required to meet the European Union target of a 20 per cent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2020.

The target is unattainable and one must pity any government that is stuck with it. Or one would pity it if one did not know that they would sign up to the same agreements.

My Lords, I believe that the noble Lord is referring to the European Union's obligation under the renewable energy directive to source 20 per cent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020, of which the UK share is to achieve 15 per cent renewable energy consumption by 2020. We are committed to meeting the UK's target for renewable energy by 2020, but we want to go further and have asked the Committee on Climate Change to provide independent advice on the level of ambition for renewables across the UK.

As part of the package of challenging energy and climate change measures, the UK has also signed up to the target of a reduction in new EU greenhouse emissions of at least 20 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020. Actual costs will depend on how the market responds to incentives, on barriers to deployment and on how technology costs evolve between now and 2020. We will continue to monitor and review the uptake of financial incentives and costs.

Admittedly, that reply does not exactly tell one what the government is going to do apart from consulting and asking for reports (which will not be all that healthy for the deficit) but the tone of the response does not suggest that anybody has actually thought at all seriously about the subject.

Interestingly, the noble Minister, Lord Marland, a Conservative Party apparatchik, as well as a businessman and what used to be known as a sportsman seems to have annoyed the House with the long-windedness of his replies. He must try harder. Nevertheless, he did manage to come out with an extraordinary number. According to the agreement, as mentioned above, this country is supposed to source 20 per cent of its energy from renewables (which does not include nuclear) by 2020.

The most recent statistics for 2009 show that the level of renewable energy consumed in the UK has reached 3 per cent. This puts us on a trajectory to meet our first interim target under the renewable energy directive, which is 4 per cent by 2012.

That 20 per cent may turn out to be rather hard to achieve at this rate.

Lord Pearson asked:

My Lords, are the Government wise to have committed £18 billion per annum for the next 40 years to combat climate change when the science underpinning it has collapsed? How many British people will suffer fuel poverty as a result of this discredited initiative?

Unfortunately, it would appear that the government is now not in agreement with UKIP and there is more than a cigarette paper difference between them. Then again, it is not prepared to answer questions on the subject of money, fuel poverty or the dubiousness of the climate change science.

I am not sure I thank the noble Lord for his question, but his party's views are well known and, I am afraid, do not coincide with ours. We think that climate change is one of the biggest issues to confront the nation. We are putting green awareness on the front of our agenda. We are going to be the greenest Government who have existed and we intend to deliver policies to show so.

They will do such things, what they are they know not, but they shall be the greening of the earth.

Lord Marland also refused to answer a question about nuclear generated electricity as it is, in his opinion, irrelevant to the question and was a little muddled in his response to Lord Lawson of Blaby, whose question was:

Is my noble friend aware that only a couple of days ago, Mr Bob Wigley, the chairman of the previous Government's Green Investment Bank Commission, stated that meeting the requirements of the absurd Climate Change Act will cost the United Kingdom £50 billion a year, every year, for the next 40 years. How-above all in this age of austerity-can this possibly be justified?

In his reply Lord Marland was short on definite investment figures and long on vague promises about those green jobs.

I am very grateful to noble Lords for fighting over a question for me; it is quite rare in this job. However, I must correct my noble friend; the Green Investment Bank was an initiative set up by our own party and one must not rule out the phenomenal business opportunities that it offers for this country. We must have 2 million heat pumps by 2020. We must have bioenergy, which will create 100,000 jobs at a value of £116 million. Wind alone should create 130,000 jobs at a value of £36 billion. At a time when the country needs investment, these are heartening numbers.

Since they are purely imaginary numbers they cannot really be called heartening.

Two more written questions

Lord Pearson has put down two more written questions [scroll down] to follow up certain inconsistencies in the information given out by the government.

Lord Pearson of Rannoch to ask Her Majesty’s Government what is the mean annual per-capita cost to the Exchequer, in total and broken down by salary, pension provision, expenses, staff salaries, staff pension provision and staff expenses, of each member of (a) the House of Commons, (b) the House of Lords, (c) the European Parliament, (d) the Scottish Parliament, (e) the National Assembly for Wales, (f) the Northern Ireland Assembly, and (g) the Greater London Authority.

Lord Pearson of Rannoch to ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Henley on 29 June (WA 264), which other European Union countries support their proposed reform of the Common Fisheries Policy; which are opposed to it; and what system of voting would apply to proposals for reform.

The answers to both should be instructive.

Some figures

There was a reply from the Government on June 28 to Lord Pearson's question about the allocation of resources.

To ask Her Majesty's Government what was the United Kingdom's gross financial contribution in sterling in 2009 to (a) the European Union, (b) the Commonwealth, (c) the World Trade Organisation, (d) the United Nations, (e) the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, (f) the International Monetary Fund, and (g) the World Bank.

The response is long with figures given from the different departments that deal with the different organizations. Readers will probably want to read them all for themselves. However, it is sufficient for the moment to point out that

The Government's latest estimate of the UK's gross contribution to the European Union, after taking account of the UK abatement, was published in Table 3, page 62, of the 2009 European Community Finances White Paper (Cm 7640). This was published on 20 July 2009 and is available in the Library of the House. The figure for 2008 is £7,791 million and the estimate for 2009 is £7,770 million.

That is a lot of money and when one adds to it the money that goes to the IMF, the WTO, the OECD, the UN (£75.6 million) that deficit begins to look a little more comprehensible.

Of course if they are British eurocrats ....

On June 24 Lord Eden of Winton asked HMG "what savings are being made in the administration of Government". Lord Sassoon's response was quite bracing:

My Lords, the Government have announced savings in the current financial year of £6.2 billion, of which £360 million will be made in the administration budgets of central government departments, and £400 million will be made in the administrative costs of quangos. The Government have also announced in the Budget £3.3 billion of savings from freezing public sector pay for two years from 2011-12 for those earning above £21,000. A portion of these savings will be made within administration budgets. The Government are committed to reducing the administrative costs of Whitehall and of arm's-length bodies by at least one-third. Further details and spending plans will be set out at the spending review on 20 October.

These measures will not be sufficient and there seems to be no mention of the newly instituted quangos such as the Office for Budget Responsibility, whose creation was so egregious that even Direct Democracy has been unhappy about it.

Scrolling down the Hansard page on can find Lord Pearson's question:

My Lords, did the noble Lord see the recent article in the Daily Telegraph which estimates that up to 2,000 Eurocrats are paid more than the Prime Minister? Why do we go on sending some £8 billion in cash every year to support these people, who then go on to inflict such ruinous over-regulation on our economy?

To which Lord Sassoon replied:

I thank the noble Lord for his concern about the costs of bureaucracy in Brussels, about which we, too, are of course very concerned. The Government will be taking steps to make sure that the budget contribution to Europe fully reflects the need for Europe to restrain its costs. So far as concerns Eurocrats, we want to make sure that the best-quality British officials play their part as senior officials in Brussels.

Translated into every-day language, this says that HMG will make lots of noises about the need for Europe to restrain its costs but nothing much will come of that. However, we are going to make very sure that our people can get as much from the trough as all others do.

No that was not quite the question

On Wednesday, June 23 there was a Starred Question in the House of Lords about this country's international competitiveness, asked by Baroness Valentine. It was very general, deliberately so, one assumes:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they intend to take to protect and strengthen the United Kingdom's international competitiveness.

The reply by Baroness Wilcox was also very general:

My Lords, we are committed to maintaining and improving our international competitiveness by restoring macroeconomic stability, helping provide infrastructure, science and research and better linking higher and further education into the economy. We will ensure that regulation is proportionate and will work towards having the most competitive corporate tax regime in the G20.

Then there were other general questions and answers. Towards the end of the allotted 7 minutes Lord Pearson asked:

My Lords, does the noble Baroness recall the estimates made by the EU enterprise and industry commissioner, Mr Gunter Verheugen, that EU overregulation was costing us some 6.4 per cent of GDP per annum-around £84 billion today? Why do Her Majesty's Government insist on staying on the "Titanic" when the iceberg of international competition is staring us in the face?

To this Baroness Wilcox gave a very curious reply:

The noble Lord will be very pleased to know that we have already said that we will look seriously at the gold plating that we have been doing to European Union regulations. I am sure that he will support us in that.

Very nice, too, except that this was a reply to a completely different question, one that had not been asked.

Apparently there is no difference between UKIP and the Coalition Government

This may sound slightly odd to readers of this blog but, according to Lord Strathclyde it is true. Well, let us have a look. Yesterday Lord Trimble asked a Starred Question about the eurozone and British economy.

To ask Her Majesty's Government what representations they have made to members of the European Union to protect the British economy from the financial situation in the eurozone.

The answer was bland, to put it mildly:

The Chancellor of the Exchequer and Treasury Ministers attend regular meetings of EU Ministers, including the Council of Economic and Finance Ministers-ECOFIN. These discussions cover a wide range of issues, including the ongoing situation in sovereign debt markets.

Understandably, Lord Trimble was not satisfied and pursued the matter through two supplementary questions:

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his Answer, and I draw attention to my entry in the register of interests. I have two points to raise with him. Funds have been established to try and help countries in the EU that are in difficulties, but one of the underlying causes of those difficulties is the loss of competitiveness. Is that likely to be solved before the money and time run out? If it is not solved by then, what then happens?

Secondly, I draw my noble friend's attention to the alternative investment fund managers directive that is currently being imposed on us. The European Parliament estimated that that directive would cost the European Union as a whole roughly 0.2 per cent of its GDP, but, as most of the alternative investment funds are in the United Kingdom, the potential cost to us is much greater. Have the Government managed to draw any of this directive's teeth? If not, how much is it likely to cost the United Kingdom?

Lord Sassoon's response, especially to the second point was not very reassuring.

My Lords, I will deal first with the question of competitiveness. The UK Government, the European Council and the Union well recognise that competitiveness must be improved in parallel with steps that are being taken to deal with the immediate financial situation of a number of member states. I draw my noble friend's attention to the EU economic taskforce under the leadership of the President of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, which will report to the October Council. As well as dealing with crisis resolution matters, it has competitiveness indicators very much on its agenda. Indeed, it considers competitiveness absolutely in parallel with crisis resolution issues, as well as more broadly as part of the Europe 2020 exercise.

On the alternative investment fund managers directive, the European Council and the European Parliament have each taken positions that do not agree with each other, so the UK Government and the industry have a short window up to the end of July in which to make final representations and attempt to make sure that we get the best deal for what is a very important industry for the City of London out of this trialogue process.

A short window; final representations; the best deal - none of this fills anyone with any kind of certainty that the AIFM Directive will be anything but a catastrophe for the City. Indeed, those reforms that Lord Sassoon was appointed to supervise may well become unnecessary if the EU has its way - there will be no City to reform.

Lord Pearson intervened with a question that followed up matters raised during a previous debate:

My Lords, does the noble Lord agree that a good way in which to protect the British economy would be to refuse to underwrite massive sums for Brussels, such as the £8 billion mentioned by his noble friend Lord De Mauley on 8 June, which are illegal under the treaties? How many billions are we going to be exposed to through the illegal breach of Article 125, which forbids member states to bail out others?

Tut-tut, said the Minister, things are not as bad as all that. We may be handing money over but it is all completely legitimate. No rules are being broken.

I thank the noble Lord for his questions. First, to be clear, it is the view of the UK Government that no illegal action has been taken under Article 125 or any of the other relevant articles. On the UK's exposure, we have not as a country participated in the €440 billion special purpose vehicle for assistance. We do, however, participate in the €60 billion finance facility, which is available to any member state under Article 122.2 and which we think strikes an appropriate balance between the eurozone taking primary responsibility for stabilisation within the eurozone and the important part that we have to play as part of the wider EU 27. For completeness, we participate in the IMF standby facilities.

Later in the afternoon came the statement about the European Council and its achievements, which, in the short term, have been minimal though the intention to strengthen economic governance will, if carried out, have a dire effect on all European economies, regardless of how they are performing at the moment.

During the subsequent debate Lord Pearson asked about the ever-present threat to make all governments submit budgets to the Commission (the decision on that will be taken in September):

Turning to the Statement, does the noble Lord agree that it really is beyond belief that the EU should presume to examine our Budgets before Parliament debates them when its own internal auditors have been unable to sign off its own accounts for the past 15 years? Can he comment on that? Will he also comment on Mr Van Rompuy saying last week that the Government's refusal to submit our Budget to Brussels is unfinished business? How will the Government react if they are outvoted on this in the autumn? Finally, and more widely, the Government's protestations of their innocence do not exactly chime with the wording of the Council's conclusions. I shall read three extremely briefly. First,

"we fully agree on the urgent need to reinforce the coordination of our economic policies".

Secondly,

"All Member States are ready ... to take additional measures to accelerate fiscal consolidation".

Thirdly,

"The crisis has revealed clear weaknesses in our economic governance, in particular as regards budgetary and broader macroecononmic surveillance. Reinforcing economic policy coordination therefore constitutes a crucial and urgent priority".

Which one is right-the Government's Statement or the Council's conclusions?

It was while replying to this question that Lord Strathclyde explained that there really are no differences between Lord Pearson's views and HMG's, on some subjects, anyway.

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, is right when he says it is beyond belief that the EU should wish to inspect our Budget before it is presented to Parliament. He is entirely right. In that there is not a cigarette paper of difference between him and the Prime Minister, or I suspect even the Opposition. We would all agree that the EU has no role and no place to look at our budgetary arrangements and, indeed, our parliamentary procedures. That position has been made entirely implicit in the Statement that I repeated a few minutes ago. It is not unfinished business; it is firmly finished business and we will be leaving it entirely the way that it is currently.

The noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, made great play of looking at the conclusions and the Statement that we made. This is an old game to play and the noble Lord does it with great skill. I assure him that again there is no difference between the conclusions and the Statement that we made. They can live together entirely side by side and there is no difficulty for the Government.

So, have we just been given a cast-iron guarantee that the government will never allow the Budget to be vetted by the Commission before it is debated and decided by the House of Commons?

Lord Stoddart of Swindon seemed doubtful:

I want to make two points. First, with regard to the reference to budget surveillance on page 4 of the Statement, this does not go far enough. It says that,

"the UK Budget will be shown to this House first-and not to the Commission".
It is not a question of showing the Budget to the House; it is a question of the House of Commons agreeing the Budget before the Commission has its way. Surely that is right.

Secondly, why on earth do the Government continue to harp on about 40 per cent of our trade being with the European Union? The world is a much bigger place than that these days, so would it not be better if we expanded our trade with China, South America, India and indeed the Commonwealth, instead of concentrating on the backyard of Europe?

In response, Lord Strathclyde seemed to agree even with Lord Stoddart without actually saying anything much:

My Lords, on the question of the Budget, the noble Lord is in danger of tilting at windmills. We are not playing any verbal gymnastics that somehow when we say that it will be presented to Parliament first it means that round at the back door we are busily presenting it to the Commission. We are not. Tomorrow there will be a British Budget which will be presented to the British Parliament first. After it has been presented it will be a matter of public record and knowledge. I dare say that the Commission may be interested; it may indeed be very interested in looking at it before it is finally agreed by Parliament. Therefore, I do not think that there is a fundamental difference between the two of us on this issue.

Neither, incidentally, is there about what the noble Lord Stoddart of Swindon, said about trade with the rest of the world. It is an important plank of British foreign policy to expand our trade beyond Europe. That is vital to our long-term prosperity and the creation of jobs in this country. We are using all the natural advantages that this country has built up over many decades-centuries even-with countries whose economies are growing extremely quickly. To ignore them would be an enormous mistake. So I hope that I can put a smile on the face of the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, by saying that I very much agree with what he said.

We have not sorted out the question of who will be making decisions on the post-September Budgets; neither has the Minister admitted that he was misleading the House with that figure of 40 per cent.

More on that Article 125

Lord Pearson continued to question HMG (or the Coalition as it seems to be referred to even in official replies) on the subject of possible financial bail-outs. Yesterday's Hansard published his Written Question:

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether Article 125 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union can be used to require member states to provide financial support to other member states in financial difficulty; and, if so, whether it can be applied to the United Kingdom.

To which Lord Howell replied on behalf of the Coalition:

Paragraph 2 of Article 125 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union offers scope for the definitions attaching to the prohibitions in Articles 123, 124 and 125 to be more clearly defined by the Council. Nevertheless, Article 125 clearly provides that the Union shall not be liable for or assume the commitments of any member state and that a member state shall not be liable for or assume commitments of another member state. It is our interpretation that the article cannot be used to require member states to provide financial support to other member states in financial difficulty.

Well, that is good to know. However, it does not stop countries from "voluntarily" and as part of a "consensus" from offering help and if all the countries do so simultaneously, well that just will be a coincidence.

How much money are we handing over?

On Tuesday of this week, June 8, Lord Pearson asked a Starred Question:

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether Article 122.2 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union has been or could be used to require the United Kingdom to underwrite £9.6 billion of other European Union member states' debts.

The subject has been raised before. Then it was Lord Myners who was replying, now it is Lord De Mauley and matters have moved on.

My Lords, EU finance Ministers agreed on 9 May that up to €60 billion of emergency finance can be provided to any member state in accordance with Article 122.2. Only where there are defaults on loan repayments would there be a cost to the EU budget. Member states would be liable for a share. Based on the United Kingdom's contribution to the 2010 EU budget, the UK's share would be approximately 13.6 per cent, or up to a maximum of around €8 billion. Euro-area finance Ministers have also agreed a €440 billion package of assistance to be provided through a special purpose vehicle. The United Kingdom has chosen not to participate in this, and there is therefore no question of any liability arising to the United Kingdom.

So, it seems that in certain circumstances, like defaults on loan repayments, the UK will be liable for a share of the emergency finance to the tune of €8 billion, not a sum to be sneezed at.

As has been mentioned before, Article 122.2 contradicts Article 125 as Lord Pearson pointed out in his follow-up:

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer, and I welcome him to his new position. However, I have to point out that this article can only be used legally to help with natural disasters, such as earthquakes and so on. Is he aware that the Eurocrats are also violating Article 125, which prohibits financial bailouts of any kind? If so, can he tell us what the sum of all this illegality is going to cost us?

Indeed, it is illegal, as Lord De Mauley more or less admitted but there is a way round that:

I shall first answer the noble Lord's question about Article 125-the so-called bailout clause-which states:

"The Union shall not be liable for or assume the commitments of ... governments ... A Member State shall not be liable for or assume the commitments of ... governments ... of another Member State".

That does not rule out member states lending each other money.

Indeed, it does not.

Inadequate answers

Some of Lord Pearson's Written Questions have been replied to, and very inadequate those replies are, too.

On June 7 HMG, in the form of Baroness Neville-Jones, responded to a question about the Common Immigration Policy in a bland and reassuring fashion:

Any EU legislation giving effect to the common immigration policy for non-EU migrants under Article 79 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union would be subject to opt-in arrangements. The Government will not opt into any measures that are contrary to their policies for immigration control.

The trouble with that response is definition. For example, how does the noble Lady and those advising her, nay, writing her replies, feel about Council Directive 2003/86/EC, on the right to family reunification? Would this be part of a common immigration policy? Article 17 of the Preamble says that the UK is not obliged to participate in this Directive. But is it actually going to? Will it decide to opt in to individual and, apparently, humanitarian measures of this kind?

On June 8, Baroness Neville-Jones (again) replied to the following question:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what is the status of the proposed European Public Prosecutor; and whether United Kingdom citizens may be extradited to stand trial in other European Union member states under its powers, or under those of the European arrest warrant.

One cannot help describing the bland and reassuring reply as being inadequate:

The Government do not support the creation of a European Public Prosecutor (EPP) and have made it clear that they would not participate in its establishment.

The Government are giving careful consideration to the UK's current extradition arrangements worldwide-including the European arrest warrant (EAW)-to ensure they operate effectively and in the interests of justice. A range of options are being considered and the Government will make an announcement in due course.

The noble Lady seems to have missed the status of the European Arrest Warrant. It is not an extradition treaty but EU legislation that has been implemented into British legislation through a Statutory Instrument. Are we to understand that HMG intends to review that piece of legislation?

On June 9 there were two Written Answers. One concerned the European Gendarmerie:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what is the status of the European Gendarmerie Force; what is its purpose; and whether they plan for it to be deployed in Britain.

Lord Howell's reply gives a detailed explanation of what the EGF is and assures us that:

The European Gendarmerie Force (EGF) is a police force with a military status that has full police powers in the jurisdiction of participating states, capable to respond to the full spectrum of police missions, both under civilian and military control. The UK is not part of this initiative. The Government see no circumstances in which they would consent to an EGF operation in the UK.

Well, that is good to know.

The second question was one that has cropped up year after year under various governments with the same inadequate response being given by them all.

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will commission an independent cost-benefit analysis of the United Kingdom's membership of the European Union.

To be fair, Lord Howell's response was a little different from past ones; it did not say that the benefits of Britain's membership of the EU were incalculable. But it was clearly written by the same civil servants and delivered with the same aplomb as the noble Lord's predecessors used to do it:

The Government have no plans to commission such an analysis. We believe that membership of the EU is in the national interest of the United Kingdom. We intend to champion vigorously the interests of the UK and play an active role within the EU on areas of common interest.

Lord Howell must recall similar sentiments being expressed by Mr Major's government and where that got the country.

Back to business

Lord Pearson has a Starred Question down for June 8 [scroll down]:

to ask Her Majesty’s Government whether Article 122.2 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union has been or could be used to require the United Kingdom to underwrite £9.6 billion of other European Union member states’ debts.

It will be interesting to see whether this government's answers will be as vague as the last one's.

There are also several Written Questions [again, you need to scroll down}:

Lord Pearson of Rannoch to ask Her Majesty’s Government whether Article 125 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union can be used to require member states to provide financial support to other member states in financial difficulty; and, if so, whether it can be applied to the United Kingdom. HL28

Lord Pearson of Rannoch to ask Her Majesty’s Government what is the status of the European Union’s proposed common immigration policy; and what is their stance on it. HL29

Lord Pearson of Rannoch to ask Her Majesty’s Government what is the status of the proposed European Public Prosecutor; and whether United Kingdom citizens may be extradited to stand trial in other European Union member states under its powers, or under those of the European Arrest Warrant.
HL30

Lord Pearson of Rannoch to ask Her Majesty’s Government what is the status of the European Gendarmerie Force; what is its purpose; and whether they plan for it to be deployed in Britain. HL31

Lord Pearson of Rannoch to ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will commission an independent cost-benefit analysis of the United Kingdom’s membership of the European Union.

We await HMG's response, especially to the last one. Will this government tell us as previous ones did that benefits are too numerous to enumerate?

Last day

This is the last day of the campaign and, according to all the polls and reports, the result is still too close to call. Nobody is venturing on a detailed prediction but it seems likely that the UKIP vote will play an important part in individual constituencies and, therefore, in the overall outcome.

It seems reasonable to recall what it is that UKIP stands for first and foremost and why: the issue that the three main parties carefully avoid, and that is in the most literal sense, who governs Britain.

The fact that not one of the three main parties' campaigns managed to catch fire in this campaign would indicate that a large part of the electorate has managed to understand that, strictly speaking, it makes no difference who is to be in Number 10 after tomorrow's vote.

This seems an appropriate moment to look at Lord Pearson's last speech in the last Parliament on the triple subject of "code of conduct, the scrutiny reserve on EU legislation and the scrutiny of opt-in decisions on EU legislation".

There have been certain assertions that the Lisbon Treaty gives national parliaments greater powers with regards to EU legislation, which, as it happens, still cannot be rejected by those parliaments.

I can deal even more briefly with the new rules on our scrutiny of European legislation and of opt-in decisions under Title V. Put briefly, none of these manoeuvres will make any difference to the powers already acquired by Brussels under the Lisbon treaty, nor to the steady advance of the project of European integration at the expense of our national parliamentary sovereignty. They are pure window dressing, designed to fool the people into thinking that the project has somehow become more benign and democratic.

On the scrutiny reserve, I remind your Lordships that the Government admit to overriding it no fewer than 435 times in the past five years. As most EU legislation is now agreed by majority voting, the Government, who have some 9 per cent of those votes, are powerless to respect this new code even if they wanted to. The best that can be achieved under the scrutiny reserve is that, after either House merely debates the legislation in question, the reserve is automatically lifted. We do not vote
on it because we have no power over it - some safeguard, that.

Nor do I take any comfort from the eight-week delay in agreeing new measures because Ministers can simply override it, and they will. The whole concept of national Parliaments being able to stop EU legislation under the Lisbon treaty is, in any case, fraudulent, because in the end Brussels can go ahead with whatever it wants to do. I give one brief, current example. The Government say that they will not opt in to the proposed new European public prosecutor, but of course the octopus has a tentacle ready to deal with such futile posturing. It will extract British citizens for trial in another European jurisdiction by using the infamous European arrest warrant. There will always be a way around any national interest.

Whatever the UKIP vote will be tomorrow, the battle will go on for this election campaign has made it quite clear that the battle lines have been drawn up and whatever the outcome of the election will be they will not be altered.

The battle lines are now clearly drawn between the political class and the people-between those who are determined to appease the project of European integration, to its inevitable and frightening conclusion, and those of us who have decided to join the resistance. I very much regret that the Government and your Lordships' House have decided to throw in their lot with the former.

The fight is about that vitally important issue.

It seems we do not have to ask the Commission

Lord Willoughby de Broke, the other UKIP peer in the House of Lords asked HMG about the proposed ban on mephedrone, which is widely opposed and has been described by various analysts as being illegal under EU rules, "whether they were required to consult the European Union before banning mephedrone".

HMG, in the person of Lord West again, thinks no.

The UK Government do not consider that they are required to consult the European Commission before controlling mephedrone under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971.

The technical standards directive is not designed to cover action by member states to control dangerous drugs and consequently no consultation with the Commission is necessary prior to laying a draft order before Parliament to control mephedrone under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971.

It will be interesting to see if HMG's lawyers will turn out to be right on the subject.

More on those arrest warrants

And more on whether HMG feels at all responsible in this matter.

On April 7 Hansard published the following Written Question from Lord Pearson of Rannoch:

To ask Her Majesty's Government further to the Written Answers by Lord West of Spithead on 19 November 2008 (WA 199) and 25 March 2010 (WA 324-5), how many British citizens have faced proceedings under the European arrest warrant; how many have been surrendered; and what accounts for any difference between the number arrested and the number deported.

Lord West answered on HMG's behalf:

On 19 November 2008, the Home Office replied to the noble Lord stating that, from 1 January 2004 up to 30 September 2008, 203 British citizens had been arrested pursuant to EAWs. 101 British nationals had subsequently been surrendered to other European member states pursuant to EAWs. Due to changes in late 2008 in the way the information was recorded it is not possible to provide figures for the remainder of 2008-09 without disproportionate effort. However, a new system introduced on 1 April 2009 will allow SOCA to provide more detailed figures once these have been validated.

The difference between the number of arrests compared with the number of surrenders over any period is due to the judicial processes in the UK. Once the subject has been arrested on the European arrest warrant, it can take from a matter of days to many months before the subject is surrendered to the requesting territory.

It would appear that HMG remains ignorant of the numbers and is not over-anxious to find out.

Abrogation of responsibity

On March 25 there was a response to Lord Pearson's Written Question:

To ask Her Majesty's Government which United Kingdom citizens have been extradited under the European arrest warrant; for which alleged crimes; to which European countries; and how long they have spent in custody awaiting trial.

HMG's response, as conveyed by Lord West of Spithead, was:

The Serious Organised Crime Agency and Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (for Scotland) are the designated authorities in the UK responsible for processing European arrest warrants (EAWs). It is not possible from current systems to break down the number of EAWs received by the UK into nationality, alleged offence type and requesting EU member state. To do so would require a manual examination of all files and incur disproportionate cost. Once a person has been extradited from the UK to another jurisdiction, the designated authorities' involvement in the EAW process ceases.

How long a person is held on remand awaiting trial, whether in custody or on bail, is governed by the law of the requesting state and this can vary from country to country. Internationally accepted standards usually allow for a two-year period of detention before trial, depending on the circumstances of the case. While the UK is unable to interfere in the legal processes of another country, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, if appropriate, will consider making inquiries with local authorities to establish the reason for any delay in trial proceedings for any British national held on remand for more than 24 months.

How nice. We have surrendered our right to examine whether that extradition request is acceptable and, apparently, we have lost all interest in what happens to the unfortunate person thus handed over. Undoubtedly, being part of the EU makes us stronger in the world.

All a bit foggy

Another one of the Starred Questions yesterday was asked by Lord Avebury:

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will make a statement on the reductions in support payments to asylum seekers while they are awaiting a decision on their application.

Lord West of Spithead replied:

My Lords, on 5 October 2009, we removed the distinction between rates of asylum support provided to single adults aged 18 to 24 and those aged 25 and over. The new unified rate was based on the lower rate provided to 18 to 24 year-olds, uplifted by 5.2 per cent. The rates paid to children and couples were also increased by 5.2 per cent. We continue to provide the over-25 rate to those who were in receipt of it prior to 5 October 2009, so no individual saw a reduction in their rate of support.

The rest of the discussion was moderately interesting and showed that some noble peers (like their brethren in the Lower House) seem unable to realize that money has to come from somewhere and there is a limit how much the government can squeeze out of the taxpayer.

There is also a problem with numbers of asylum seekers, successful or otherwise. Lord Pearson asked:

My Lords, of the figures given by the noble Lord, how many applicants are successful every year and how many applicants are returned overseas?

Lord West could not, in all honesty, give an adequate reply.

My Lords, I do not have that specific figure at my fingertips, but I think around 13 per cent were being returned and around 30 per cent were successful. Any expert in mathematics can work out that that is not 100 per cent. That is because many of these cases involve dual counting, duplication, wrong names and so on. There are a huge number of those. We have to take into account all of the backlog as well as the people currently coming in. If I have a specific figure for those coming in now, I will write to the noble Lord.

That may give us some idea of what is going on but it is this lack of hard information that makes the whole subject so bothersome to the electorate and so hard for the main parties to tackle.

Lord Myners does not exactly answer the question

As news, "Minister does not exactly answer the question" ranks somewhere around dog bites man and gardener digs soil in surprise. However, there was another example of this egregious non-activity in the House of Lords yesterday.

Lord Pearson of Rannoch asked HMG:

whether Article 122.2 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union can be used to require them to provide financial assistance to another member state which is "threatened with severe difficulties caused by exceptional circumstances beyond its control".

Hmmm, said Lord Myners on behalf of HMG, maybe yes or maybe no.

Any request for financial support in accordance with Article 122.2 would need to satisfy the specific criteria set out in the treaty and would be
considered on its individual merits by the ECOFIN Council, where it would be
voted on by qualified majority.

Qualified majority means that no country can block it and all countries will be liable.

Lord Pearson then followed up:

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that reply. I hope that he will forgive me if I say that illegality under the treaties has never bothered the Eurocrats. Will he give a clear guarantee that the United Kingdom will not, willingly or unwillingly, contribute to any out bail-out of the member states, including the proposed European monetary fund? Will he also confirm whether any such initiative would require a treaty change or whether it could be done by majority voting?

Lord Myners moved on to another Article in the Treaty and, to be fair to the noble Minister, there is a slight contradiction between Articles 122 and 125. That is why we should like to know what HMG intends to do, though one cannot help suspecting that they do not really know themselves.

I do not propose to comment on market speculation about the possibility of a European monetary fund. This is being discussed by the eurozone nations, but the UK is not part of those discussions. However, Article 125 of the treaty is very clear in stating:

"The Union shall not be liable for or assume the commitments of ... governments ... A Member State shall not be liable for or assume the commitments of governments ... of another Member State".

The rest of the short debate was of some interest, not least Lord Dykes's attempt to move the discussion on to the subject of Nigel Farage's behaviour in the European Parliament and his censure (shock, horror) by another MEP. All one can say is that Lord Dykes's verbose contribution did not go down very well with the House.

Lord Myners was accused of equivocation by Lord Stoddart of Swindon and replied with more equivocation. Lord Anderson of Swansea expressed his sorrow that the Conservatives have not said anything positive about the European Union and Lord Tebbit acquitted the Minister of equivocation:

My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that I acquit him of equivocation? Can he confirm that in his earlier answers he made a statement that would cause us to believe that, should any costs fall on the British taxpayer in respect of the bail-out of Greece, he would forthwith resign?

It would appear, however, that Lord Tebbit was premature in his assumptions as Lord Myners made it clear with yet more equivocation:

We are talking about European Union support and I have been very clear in my response about that; I have been very clear in my response about what the treaty says.

We can assume, therefore, that if the British taxpayer ends up bailing out Greece or any other member of the PIIGS, neither Lord Myners nor any other Minister will see fit to resign. Another dog bites man story.