European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Monday 20th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, every day we start our deliberations by asking for wisdom and understanding. We pray that our counsels may result in,

“the public wealth, peace and tranquillity of the Realm, and the uniting and knitting together of the hearts of all persons and estates within the same”.

Whether or not we are religious, these objectives should unite us all. Currently this country is very divided and very angry.

When I came to the House of Lords, I knew that I did not represent a geographical constituency. I understood that I was here to represent all the people of the United Kingdom and to do what I judge the right thing according to my conscience. That is what I propose to do. Last time I looked, every Member of this House was equal. His or her opinion was equal and his or her conscience was equal. Last time I looked, it was customary to treat the opinions and consciences of other Members of the House with some civility and respect. I have to say that the speech before last did not do that and did not serve that Member’s cause very well.

Your Lordships’ House has a duty to scrutinise legislation in detail and to ask the Government to think again when they are going in the wrong direction. There is precious little detail in the Bill but I judge that the Government have chosen to take the country in the wrong direction. There is no mandate for it. There is no majority to leave the single market. If we continue along this path, our people will be poorer and our country will be more isolated and less influential in the world. So I will be supporting amendments to protect the rights of citizens of other EU countries who live and work here, to protect our access to the single market and to allow the people of this country to have the last word, for the sake of our unity and democracy. That is what I believe democracy is.

As your Lordships will be aware, I speak for these Benches on health and social care. There are three main healthcare reasons why I believe the Bill should be amended. They boil down to: people, healthcare and Donald Trump. There are tens of thousands of EU citizens working in our health and care system and the Government are using their future, and the future of those they care for, as a pawn in a misguided game of cat and mouse with the other 27 countries. Without them, the staff shortages we are already experiencing will be a lot worse and patients will suffer. 1 am pleased there has been a cross-party outcry from your Lordships about this, so I hope all will vote for an end to that foolishness.

Secondly, the businesses which provide the drugs, medical devices and treatments that British people need will be badly affected by a hard Brexit. That is why I support access to the single market rather than just waving a white flag and not even trying. The pharmaceutical products most of us depend on are developed by research by networks of scientists working together across Europe. These networks are already suffering and the massive EU funding from which they benefit is being put at risk. Clinical trials taking place here in the UK are at risk. UK patients get access to new and cutting-edge treatments because of them. The UK has played an enormous role in the regulation and licensing of medicines for the whole EU. Indeed, much of the expertise is here. It makes no sense to develop our own system. We could lose a lot of that expertise.

Companies will always develop products for big markets where the profits are. Why would they want to develop a product to satisfy the regulations in a market of 68 million people when they could sell to a market of 400 million? Medicine distributors warn of cost increases, decreased access and even shortages. Harmonised regulation is not a burden. It gives us the freedom to sell and the confidence to buy. Why throw it away? Medcare products frequently cross borders in the course of their manufacture, packaging and labelling. Having tariffs imposed on them will increase their costs and decrease their competitiveness. So, for the sake of UK patients and their access to affordable and cutting-edge medicines and treatments, I will be supporting an amendment to give us continued access to the single market and the customs union.

Then there is Donald Trump. Our NHS is probably our most valuable asset. Already a lot of American healthcare companies are sniffing around to see what they can pick up. We all heard what Trump said about trade deals putting America first—America first, not the UK first. So anyone who thinks a trade deal with the USA will not result in a lot of our health services being run by American companies must be completely mad.

Finally, I will be supporting an amendment to ensure the approval of the British people for the deal put before them by the Government. All those who are most affected should have a say, including those who were denied one in the last referendum with its gerrymandered electorate, such as: citizens of other EU countries who live here; British citizens who have lived for many years in other EU countries; and 16 to 18 year-olds whose future study and work opportunities will be damaged by Brexit.

We have a representative Parliament and we are not used to referenda. But perhaps, having ventured into that area, we should have taken a leaf out of the book of the Swiss. Here, our future wealth and well-being are being hijacked by an advisory referendum in which only 37% of a gerrymandered electorate voted for the change. That means that 63% did not. I believe I am here to speak for the 63%, along with all those groups that were not allowed to vote at all. So for those reasons, and, as other noble Lords have mentioned, because times have changed since 23 June, we need a referendum on the final proposals. You cannot start the process with some form of democracy and finish with a stitch-up. The long-term future of the UK and its population is at serious risk and this House must do its duty and ignore bullying threats about its own future.

Outcome of the European Union Referendum

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Tuesday 5th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, I am proud to speak from the Liberal Democrat Benches, where we have a leader whose position is secure and who has the support of all of us. I am also proud that it was a Liberal Democrat MP, Tom Brake, who took the only real action to secure the position of EU citizens living and working here. Yet these are small consolations to me today because I have such concern about the effect on the NHS.

Of all the disasters that will result from the EU referendum, one of the worst is the effect on our health and social care services, on which the outcome is likely to inflict significant damage. It was also the subject of the biggest, fattest lie of the leave campaign, one of those that was retracted almost before the ink was dry on the result. “Three hundred and fifty million pounds extra per week for the NHS” was plastered all over the campaign buses and, even though it was frequently pointed out that this could not happen, the leave campaigners cynically waited until after the result reluctantly to admit that it was not true. Where does that leave those who voted leave because they thought it would help the NHS which so desperately needs more funding? Betrayed and angry, that’s where it leaves them. They were conned into delivering their precious votes into the hands of a bunch of charlatans. I know that the noble Baroness the Leader of the House would prefer us to sweep these facts under the carpet and be positive, but they matter—not least because some of those now seeking to lead this country had every opportunity to correct this misinformation, and they did not take it.

So where are we now? We have an NHS which has to rely completely on funding from a thriving economy if it is ever to be able to deliver on the needs of an ageing population—one that rightly demands the benefits of the latest medical and scientific research. It also relies on immigrants. It is estimated that 10,000 EU doctors and 52,000 EU nurses are working in our NHS today. What have we heard from the Government and from those wishing to lead it about these people? Only that they are to be used as pawns in the negotiations to leave the EU. There are 335 EU citizens working in the Norfolk & Norwich University Hospital alone. They do not know what will happen to them in two years’ time. How would that hospital manage if they got fed up waiting for some assurances and went home? It is disgraceful to play a game of poker with these people’s lives and their contribution to our health service. The Government must do the right thing now and give these workers the confidence of knowing that the UK wants to keep them here, contributing to our care and to our economy. What about the thousands working on very low pay in our social care sector, caring for the old and vulnerable and putting up with minimum wages for doing a very difficult job? It is time that the Government took the initiative and said that these EU citizens will be allowed to stay if ever the UK leaves the EU.

Then there is the effect on our ability to recruit the best research talent from abroad and on the pharmaceutical companies that have to invest millions of pounds to develop new drugs and treatments. Reducing corporation tax is not going to reverse the damage to them. Investment decisions are already being made or postponed. Why would highly qualified researchers and medical staff come here when they do not feel welcome and have to jump through all sorts of hoops to get here? The UK is part of a worldwide marketplace for talent and there is a chronic global shortage of highly qualified research and clinical staff. We have just made it more difficult to attract the best.

On the big issue of resourcing, we have heard many times in your Lordships’ House about the £30 billion gap in NHS funding and the £6 billion gap in social care funding. My right honourable friend Norman Lamb has long called for a new Beveridge commission, an independent commission to look at how health and social care should be funded. This is needed now more than ever because the economy is in crisis and it is our taxes that pay for the NHS.

In the next few months, the biggest threat to the NHS will come from a recession-driven round of additional spending cuts, hitting non-ring-fenced budgets such as social care. Such cuts would be almost as bad for the NHS as direct funding cuts and would significantly exacerbate the financial problems of the acute hospital trusts. The promises from the current Chancellor and at least one of the candidates for Conservative leader to abandon their manifesto promise to remove the deficit by 2020 is quite sensible, as they are hardly likely to be able to deliver it if we have an economic recession. While I welcome this pledge, I cannot see how a failing economy will be able to deliver the funding that public services need to survive. The Government need to steady the ship, but we have no captain. This captain is to be elected by 0.03% of the electorate. I do not call that democracy.

Changing models of care are essential for the sustainability for the NHS, but there are now far too many uncertainties to allow health service managers to plan for change. Uncertainty is just as bad for the NHS as it is for the City of London. One recent change with great potential for patient benefit has been the devolution to Manchester of the powers to deliver health and social care. However, even if the Government remain committed to this kind of devolution, the Civil Service will be so busy disentangling us from Europe that they will not have the capacity to do the work. In the longer term, there will be issues about the working time directive. The junior doctors and all the other staff will have to negotiate new maximum working hours and all the other elements of contracts that have been so hard-fought.

Will the Government now pledge that there will be no further cuts to public services? Brexit could undermine staffing, research, service reform, devolution and funding. I find it very difficult to obey the exhortation of the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury in his excellent speech to be hopeful and positive. The only thing that gives me hope is the ability of the NHS and care staff to keep calm and carry on in the interests of their patients, despite the turbulent waters into which we have been steered by the man without a plan.

Rugby World Cup 2015

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Wednesday 11th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

To be brief, I agree that the television coverage of the Rugby World Cup was amazing. We all watched a lot of games, even though the home countries did not do as well as they should have done. Good television coverage is very important.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords—

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords—

House of Lords: Question Time

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Monday 7th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

I will certainly stress the rules to all Members of the House, both Front Bench and Back Bench.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

Does the Minister agree that question time is primarily for Back-Benchers? Does he also agree that, unless it has become obvious that nobody else wants to ask a question, it is not appropriate to have two or even three consecutive questions from any Benches?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

I agree that question time provides an important opportunity for Back-Benchers. Noble Lords may be interested to know that, so far this year, 370 Members of your Lordships’ House have asked an oral or a supplementary question. That is an encouragingly large number, although it sometimes feels as though certain Members of the House ask more than that number might suggest. The House at Oral Questions is generally pretty good at working out whose turn it is to ask a question, but I agree with my noble friend that none of us should make an assumption that we automatically have a right to ask a question or a flow of questions from one side of the House.

House of Lords: Oral Questions

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Thursday 21st March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

That is a very good principle in life, my Lords.

[Baroness Walmsley]

Does my noble friend agree that there are occasions when certain Members of this House who find some difficulty in standing up quickly should be shown a little more patience by the rest of the House?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

I do agree with that, my Lords. I think that all the Front Benches and the Convenor try extremely hard to look around and see which Members might need that little bit of latitude.

Draft House of Lords Reform Bill

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Tuesday 20th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, the Parliament Act is a matter of statute law. It is our view that it would be illegal to use the Parliament Act when changing the composition or powers of this Chamber.

[Baroness Walmsley]

Does my noble friend the Leader of the House agree that it should not surprise any noble Lord that the Government wish to bring forward legislation to realise a matter that was in the manifestos of every single major party in the last election—and that we should get on with it?