Lords flop as EU 'snoopers charter' is approved

An EU Directive forcing the recording of data relating to every email sent and every website visited cleared a final hurdle towards becoming law yesterday.

In the process, the House of Lords revealed itself, sadly, to be an almost complete waste of space when it comes to holding the government to acceptable democratic practice and providing some form of check and balance against extreme and unnecessary laws.

A Communications Data Bill enforcing the blanket retention of data about everyone's internet and email usage was shelved back in October after additional plans it contained to collate the information in a huge central database came under heavy fire from the Information Commissioner, the (now former) Director of Public Prosecutions and the Government's own reviewer of terrorism laws.

Back door law

Under pressure from the EU to implement by 15 March the data retention elements of the Bill that were required by the EU Directive, the government schemed to enforce retention by the back door via a Statutory Instrument.

Yesterday, that draft Statutory Instrument (hat tip Open Europe for the link) made an appearance in the House of Lords.

According to an accompanying article yesterday on ConservativeHome by Shadow Security Minister, Baroness Pauline Neville-Jones, the Tories are opposed to the plans.

Sadly, that's not so much on the grounds that the blanket storage of the everyday web and email activity of millions of law-abiding people is wrong and unnecessary in principle.

Merely, it seems, on the grounds of concern about who will have access to it.

Nevertheless, Neville-Jones wrote; "I have tabled a motion calling on the Government to withdraw this instrument and bring forward primary legislation on the retention of communications data that will enable detailed – and rigorous – Parliamentary scrutiny to take place."

'No show' peers scandal

But when it came to the vote on her motion, the Baroness was unfortunately just four votes short. Consequently, the regulations were approved.

Bad enough in itself. But it's when you look at the voting record that the tale becomes utterly exasperating.

The Tory motion to strike down the regulations was supported by 55 Conservatives (out of 197 Conservative peers in total), 12 Crossbenchers (out of 205), and 18 (out of 72) Lib Dems. Together with two UKIP peers and one Independent Labour, plus a Bishop, that was 89.

Four Crossbenchers voted with 89 Labour peers, making 93 in support of the regulations as they stood.

This reveals that 196 opposition peers didn't vote (nevermind 189 Crossbenchers), yet the blocking motion failed by just four.

What a complete shambles.

Setting this number against the 127 Labour peers who also didn't vote (but would presumably have voted in favour of the regulations), blocking these sinister communications snooping plans was on the face of it eminently winnable.

Had a few more of the missing 196 opposition peers bothered to turn up.

Explanations needed

So where exactly were our 'noble' peers?

Given the critical nature of this vote - due to a toxic combination of the excessive snooping content of the regulations and the undemocratic 'EU-plus-Statutory Instrument' way in which they were being imposed - the scale on which people have been failed democratically by Conservative and Lib Dem peers is considerable.

An urgent explanation is required from those parties as to what on earth happened that so few of their peers were present and an opportunity to block these sinister regulations was squandered.

Broken democracy

It's hard to conclude anything from the progress of these communications data retention regulations but that our so-called democratic system is today broken - virtually ineffective.

To twist an old slogan, Westminster isn't working.

The combination of the blanket monitoring content of these proposals and the undemocratic way in which they have been imposed makes this an issue that doesn't only impinge seriously on our liberties but, worse, brings the whole idea of credible democracy still existing here in Britain, and indeed Europe, into further disrepute.

The political elite, it seems, can get away with doing anything, and in any shady way, yet hardly anyone in Westminster - parliamentarians or even the media - appears to be especially interested.

And then they wonder why so few people, in response, are interested in voting when it comes to elections.

Urgent need for change

Unless this erosion of democracy is soon stemmed, only radical change to our democratic structures - not merely a change of faces at the top - will be able to rebuild faith in responsive government.

This EU path that Britain and Europe are currently travelling of remote, ever more centralised law-making together with increasingly powerless - and perhaps therefore frequently absent - national parliamentarians, cannot lead to an appealing destination.

Healthy and responsive democracy is the only true guarantor of stability and prosperity on our continent, whatever the occupants of several lavish glass palaces in Brussels may like to tell themselves about their grandiose, 1950s-styled superstate project.

Refusal by so many of our MPs to recognise how democracy is being downtrodden by the EU - to recognise how serious are the dangers of the malaise its methods are spreading throughout the post-war European democracies that have ensured over sixty years of peace - cannot go on.

Linking MPs' pay to responsibilities

Peter Lilley brought some welcome common sense to the House of Commons yesterday, with an extremely relevant contribution to the on-going debate about MPs' pay and expenses.

He proposed a Bill that would require the Senior Salaries Review Body to "take account of transfers of powers between Parliament and European Union institutions when making recommendations on the pay of Members of Parliament."

The Bill is a cross-party effort, co-sponsored by the Labour MP Gisela Stuart. Ms Stuart is particularly well placed to know about power transfers involved in the Lisbon Treaty, having been a leading member of the Convention that drew up the original EU Constitution.

In his introductory statement, Lilley said:

"In virtually every occupation, it is recognised that pay should reflect responsibilities. If people receive more responsibilities, they get higher pay. If they move to a post with fewer responsibilities, they expect to receive lower pay.

"The same should be true of Parliament. If, as is contemplated under the Bill that deals with the European constitutional treaty, this House hands over more of its powers to European institutions, MPs’ remuneration should reflect that diminution of their responsibilities."

Could anyone possibly argue with that? And is there any doubt that the EU has steadily increased its powers at the expense of Parliament?

So the thrust of Lilley's case is a very hard one for MPs to refute credibly. His opening remarks on the scale of Parliament's reduced responsibilities are well worth reading in full.

Lame response

Only one MP attempted to respond to Mr Lilley's proposed Bill. That was Hugh Bayley (Labour, City of York), who back in March voted in favour of the renamed EU Constitution treaty and against the referendum he promised local voters at the last election.

He grandly dismissed the notion of linking MPs' pay with responsibilities (like every other occupation) as a "nonsensical proposal", making two main counter-points.

First, he claimed that it can't be true that MPs have fewer responsibilities as the volume of legislation being considered by Parliament continues to increase year by year.

However, had Mr Bayley been listening properly, he would have heard Lilley's key point that much of that 'volume' now has its origins in the EU - laws which MPs have no power to change once they reach Parliament, but which they are required by the EU Treaty to approve.

Hence volume does not equal responsibility when all that MPs increasingly do is wield a rubber stamp.

Second, Mr Bayley pointed to the difference in spending as a proportion of total wealth between the EU and our own government, presumably implying that as our government spends much more, then our political leaders must be doing the work.

However, as even most "Euro-enthusiasts" will acknowledge, while the EU makes laws it is national governments that must implement them. Which explains why governments and parliaments still shoulder the bulk of the costs and spending, while nevertheless having less and less responsibility as law-makers.

As Mark Leonard of the Brussels-financed Centre for European Reform put it, in a moment of rare candour: "Europe's power is easy to miss. Like an 'invisible hand', it operates through the shell of traditional political structures. The British House of Commons, British law courts, and British civil servants are still here, but they have all become agents of the European Union implementing European law." (Europe's Transformative Power, Centre for European Reform, Bulletin 40, February/March 2005).

So Mr Bayley's second point betrays either a complete ignorance of the basics of how the EU works, or an intention to mislead.

MPs in the dark

However, the most penetrating part of Peter Lilley's remarks came when he tried to explain how so few MPs ever seem to realise the true scale of power transfers to the EU in every new treaty, or how many have already been transferred. He gave three reasons:

1. that Governments of all persuasions always deny that any significant powers are being transferred;

2. once powers have been transferred, Ministers engage in a charade of pretence that they still retain those powers. Even when introducing measures that they are obliged to bring in as a result of an EU directive, they behave as though the initiative were their own.

Lilley cited the recent examples of home improvement packs, fortnightly bin collections and hospital reconfiguration which, he said, have all been triggered by EU directives. But there are many others, as has been so well illustrated by Open Europe's study The EU and You: the hidden power of Brussels.

An example in the pipeline is the proposed Communications Data Bill - the 'Big Brother' Bill that will permit the collection and retention of all communications data, designed to transpose EU Directive 2006/24/EC on the retention of communications data into UK law.

Consequently, the national media idly report these issues without mentioning their EU origins, leading also to little public awareness of the true extent of the EU's role in how we are governed;

3. that the transfer of power is easy to miss because it occurs not all in one go but by a process of salami-slicing, resulting in Parliament sleepwalking into becoming little more than a provincial assembly.

Why do our political leaders behave this way? Lilley concludes that the EU benefits from their self-importance, saying that they "prefer to claim paternity rather than admit impotence—the fate of the cuckold across the ages."

Posture without power

Sadly there's little prospect of Lilley's proposed Bill being passed. As he himself recognises, turkeys don't vote for Christmas.

The truth, as he went on to say, is that "Too many Members are happy to avert their eyes from what is happening, so long as they retain the prestige and emoluments that were appropriate to a fully sovereign Parliament."

But his initiative must nevertheless be welcomed as an attempt to wake MPs up to how the process of handing ever more powers to the EU will ultimately have for them some very personal implications.