Queen’s Speech

Baroness Crawley Excerpts

Monday 13th May 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Crawley]

My Lords, at this point in the evening, one wag in the House will say, “Surely everything has been said”, and his fellow wag will respond, “Ah, but not everyone has said it”. Despite that, I congratulate our new colleague, the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox of Soho, on her maiden speech. I believe that we all feel that her contribution was a master class in riveting, resourceful and modern rhetoric. I look forward to her further interventions in your Lordships’ House.

Those colleagues who say that the gracious Speech was a bit thin this year may have a point because when I held it up to the light I could just see the letters “U-K-I-P” in the watermark. However, I was perhaps mistaken because most noble Lords will know that chasing UKIP on immigration or European policy will not turn our country’s economy around—and turn it around we must if 1 million unemployed young people are to enter work; if real wages, which have fallen rapidly since the election, are ever to recover; if the downward trajectory of bank lending to SMEs is to be reversed; and if growth is to be put back on track.

The only thing that seems to be growing in Britain today is the Prime Minister’s bewilderment at the antics of his own party on the issue of Europe. When asked by our leading polling organisations what their main concerns are, the British public continue to put the state of the economy first. Only one in 10 respondents, when asked, will put Europe as their main concern.

Therefore, the unseemly spectacle of Conservative MPs disagreeing with their own Queen’s Speech is indeed “strange” and “extraordinary”, to quote the Prime Minister today. However much we may all wish to see reform in the European Union and work towards it, the idea that we can just vote to leave Europe, putting at risk the British jobs that depend on our 40%-plus trade with the rest of the EU and putting at risk the inward investment that comes to us because we are part of the largest trading bloc in the world, is bizarre. The idea that we can just start over with the BRIC countries, which make up a fraction of the trade that we have with Europe, is indeed strange and extraordinary. The PM and I are at one on this, as I am sure he will be thrilled to know.

My specific interest in the gracious Speech, as president of the Trading Standards Institute, is the draft consumer rights Bill, which sets out to establish, as the speech says,

“a simple set of consumer rights to promote competitive markets and growth”.

So far, so good. The main elements of the Bill are to consolidate legislation in one place, bringing together eight separate pieces of legislation on consumer rights, and it will cover goods, services, digital content and unfair contract terms. Again, we would all welcome such a consolidation.

The main benefits of the Bill, being to give consumers greater confidence when buying, to introduce new protections for consumers and businesses, to update the law to take account, finally, of the purchases of digital content and to reduce burdens on business are all to be welcomed, as my noble friend Lady Hayter made clear. So where is the catch?

I hope that it is not the Government’s intention in this draft Bill to dilute the powers of the enforcement agencies—of trading standards officers in particular—to enter suspect premises unannounced. If that were the case, a vital aspect of consumer protection would be done away with and those Members of your Lordships’ House who champion consumer rights would oppose such a move strongly.

In this very difficult economic climate, it is more important than ever to boost markets by boosting consumer confidence, yet the regulatory services in local government, including trading standards, have lost a substantial number of key posts in the budget cuts of the past three years, and that policy continues. This has not left us, for instance, in a strong position to deal with the horsemeat scandal or whatever is next to come round the corner, and consumer confidence has taken a knock as a result. If the Government’s Bill were to damage further the enforcement role of the regulatory services, carried out in the interests of both consumers and businesses, then I am certain that many noble Lords would find that unacceptable.

The gracious Speech needs to be part of a toolbox for building growth and prosperity back into our country. I am not confident, with the exception of High Speed 2, as made clear by my noble friend Lord Faulkner of Worcester, that this gracious Speech will do that job.

Euro Area Crisis: EUC Report

Baroness Crawley Excerpts

Monday 21st May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Crawley]

My Lords, I add my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, on the work of his committee and on his contribution today. He is a friend and a colleague of many years’ standing—indeed, going all the way back to our years in the European Parliament, where he was especially renowned for his championing of small and medium-sized businesses. I know that he continues with that cause in your Lordships’ House.

This evening, my noble friend Lord Harrison has presented the House with a first-class, thorough and, I think, essentially pragmatic report on the most vital economic issue of the day—the euro area crisis. I had a first read of the report over the weekend. I know that it will repay further study and that it will be a guide to all of us in this time of extreme difficulty and uncertainty throughout Europe.

This is a time, if ever there was one, for stout-hearted men—and, in my case, just stout women—to rally to the European vision while holding our nerve, if both actions can be achieved together. This is certainly not the time for the rather startling questioning of the whole basis of our membership of the European Union, as some in our political parties, especially but not solely in UKIP, are engaging in currently, and this is where the bulk of my short remarks tonight will be concentrated. As the report before us says unequivocally:

“The EU, and the euro area in particular, face massive challenges and there is a need for effective and proactive leadership both from the EU institutions and Member States, in the interests of the wider Union”—

leadership, not carping, questioning and indecision. The importance of maintaining the euro cannot be overstated for our fiscal and economic health internationally.

As we know, these are perilous economic times, as the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, said. The UK is running a trade deficit of £2.7 billion per month, unemployment is an extremely worrying 8% and our annualised rate of GDP growth is so small that it can be detected only inside the Hadron Collider. Meanwhile, we still sell around £15 billion-worth of exports to the EU27 alone each month. Around 30% of all imports to Ireland, for example, are from the UK.

So I say this to those in the political class who are raising the possibility of referendums: with the turmoil in the eurozone and seriously depleted growth prospects in Spain, Portugal, Greece, Italy and Ireland—although, as the report says, Ireland is giving us some hope for the future—are we seriously suggesting that it is in the best long-term interests of British companies and British workers to start the debate about EU membership all over again, to revitalise the politics of what I would call the very worst of provincial isolationism in Britain and to tolerate the possibility that we could start dismantling every piece of European legislation introduced in the UK since the 1970s? Do we think that it is in the long-term interests of British workers and British companies to send the signal to large global corporations and the Governments of the USA and China alike that, in our troubled but emphatically interdependent world, the British political class would prefer to give the British economy over to a kind of nervous breakdown just because some people, who probably wear Union Jack waistcoats when alone in their homes, want to go back to the days of Commonwealth preference, pounds, shillings and pence, black and white television, jumpers for goalposts and long queues at airports for anyone without that old black passport?

It is not a question of being pro- or anti-European these days; it is a question of pro- or anti-economic sanity. Withdrawing from Europe makes as much sense as the people of Hampstead declaring UDI from London, or trying to divert the flow of the Thames, or shifting the UK’s longitude. No major party represented in your Lordships’ House went into the general election campaign promising a referendum on the European Union and this is certainly not the time to start.

Instead, I respectfully suggest that we should steer our focus to what the report refers to as,

“ultimately the resumption of sustainable economic growth”,

across the European Union. We should also listen to people such as Mario Monti, the Prime Minister of Italy, or President Hollande, who are beginning to construct a serious debate about the bridge between austerity measures and the vital necessity for growth. As my noble friend Lord Monks said in his excellent contribution, this should be our sole focus in these difficult times.

Before resuming my seat, I shall, if I may, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Boswell of Aynho, and welcome him to his new duties, and thank the noble Lord, Lord Roper, for his excellent work over many years.