European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Lord Bilimoria and Lord Tebbit

Report stage (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Tuesday 7th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tebbit (Con)]

I wonder whether in 1975 the noble Lord knew about the Maastricht treaty?

[Lord Bilimoria]

My Lords, in 1975 I was barely a teenager.

I conclude by saying that the main reason why we need to support this amendment is for the sake of future generations and to protect them. I am sure that noble Lords have received several tweets, emails and letters from individuals. Just this morning I received an email that said, “Please support parliamentary democracy and our young people’s future”. One of our doorkeepers reminded me of an ancient Gaelic saying: “We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children”.

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Lord Bilimoria and Lord Tebbit

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 1st March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tebbit]

Of course we do not have the power to look after our citizens overseas—not in these days when we do not have many gunboats—but we have an obligation to look after the rights of those people and to look after those rights first. The best way we can preserve the rights of all those concerned—EU citizens here and our citizens on the continent—is to allow Article 50 to be proceeded with as expeditiously as possible, to get the worries over, and for a decent and proper arrangement to be made. I only wish that European statesmen such as Mrs Merkel would come forward, perhaps arm in arm with Herr Juncker, and say that that is exactly what they want, too. We do not need this amendment; it would make it much more difficult to get to that solution.

[Lord Bilimoria (CB)]

My Lords—