European Union

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Monday 4th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, is it not crucial that we have a British Government who are effective in office as soon as possible, and should not the members of the Conservative Party in the country bear that in mind?

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, yes.

EU Referendum: Voting Age

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Monday 1st June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, I hope that I said that there was no standard age of majority in the UK. The noble Baroness raises two crucial decisions which young people at 16 may wish to take. However, I gently remind the House that at that age they may make those decisions and carry them through only with the permission of their parents.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, is it not also true that they cannot smoke or drink legally? There are many in this House—I am sure my noble friend would agree—who were unhappy about the inconsistency and the precedent created in Scotland and who wholeheartedly approve of the fact that the Government have come to their senses on this one.

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

I agree with my noble friend.

Ukraine

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Tuesday 10th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, the noble Lord tempts me to paint a picture of Armageddon, which is not my wont. When we go forward in diplomacy with the next-steps talks tomorrow, their results will clearly be discussed with the Ukrainians on Thursday. I would not want to predict the outcome of those talks. I always go into these matters in a determined and positive way, and I am sure that given the characters of those involved in the Normandy format, they are far more determined and knowledgeable than I could be. I do not wish to go down the route of predicting whether there would be all-out war because it is the job of us all to stop that happening. That is where we must not end up, and the route being taken by the negotiators is one which does not have on it a signpost to war.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, in agreeing with what my noble friend has just said, could we try to cool the rhetoric all around? Invoking the spirit of Munich and talking about a new cold war, let alone a hot one, helps no one. If, sadly, the Minsk dialogue does not result in success, could we consider convening a conference here in London and taking a leading role, which we would be well fitted to take, to bring all the parties together? A future Europe that is at peace and in harmony needs a stable, prosperous Russia and a free Ukraine as much as it needs everything else.

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, none of us in the European Union is seeking a confrontation with Russia; it is the Russians who have sought confrontation with Ukraine and others. We need to work within those parameters. That is why I say that it is not business as usual with Russia, but it is business. We talk to the Russians—and indeed tomorrow the Normandy format will show that there is negotiation—but do not let us underestimate the determination of Mr Putin to try to drive a wedge between us. That must not succeed.

Russia

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Thursday 16th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, who made some extremely important and perceptive points. I begin, as others have, by thanking my noble friend Lady Falkner for introducing this debate and I congratulate my noble friend Lady Anelay on her new responsibilities, which I am sure that she will discharge with vigour, finesse and aplomb.

The first thing that I became really involved with when I was elected to another place in 1970 was the campaign for the release of Soviet Jewry. I sometimes think that we forget the enormous progress that has been made in the form of the Soviet Union since those days, when I and my colleagues were refused visas to go to Russia and we had the door of the Soviet embassy shut in our faces. Now what do we see? Only yesterday, I had to the House a young man whom I met earlier this year when I was giving a talk in Oxford, a Russian studying at one of the colleges in that great university. We talked—and, of course, he has great democratic aspirations, but he recognises, as we all should, that when the wall came down and the iron curtain ceased to exist there was no democratic infrastructure for the people of Russia to look back on. That country has never had a proper democracy. That young man recognised this—and he also recognises that Putin, for all the misgivings we may have about recent actions and pronouncements, has given the Russian people back a large measure of self-respect. He is enormously popular among Russians. Whatever the slight misgivings there may have been in the conduct of polls, there is no doubt that he won an overwhelming victory and, if there were an election tomorrow, he would win another one.

I have been greatly reassured by the realistic tone of so many of the speeches that we have heard this morning. We cannot envisage a stable Europe without good relations with Russia; that is essential. We have to recognise that every country, either implicitly or explicitly, regards itself as having a certain sphere of influence. What has happened in Ukraine this year has not been to our delight, but there are two sides—and that has been put most eloquently by a number of speakers in this debate.

The noble Lord, Lord Owen, echoed by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, made an extremely important point when he talked about the signatories to the Budapest agreement. We are one of the signatories. Therefore, we are in a position to take an initiative. These matters were not well handled earlier this year, and there is a certain amount of drift now. Let our Foreign Secretary seek to convene an international conference on the Budapest memorandum, and let us say to the Russians that we understand their worries. After all, we have to remember that the great patriotic war actually began with the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact and what happened thereafter, when the Germans turned on the Russians, seared their memories. We have to seek to understand and to engage, and I very much hope that there will be a real attempt to engage. Although the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, and others were right to say that this is not another Cold War, nevertheless much of the rhetoric of the past six months has been reminiscent of the rhetoric of the Cold War and has not advanced the cause to which we are all in this House dedicated—human rights and the equality of peoples, with a balanced and civilised world order.

We need to recognise that Russia has its legitimate interests. It must conduct itself in accordance with international law, but in the knowledge that we understand its worries and its background. Certainly, any question of Ukraine joining NATO should be completely off the agenda. Ukraine is a free country, and must be a free country, but there has to be a measure of devolution within that country that recognises the legitimate rights and aspirations of all citizens within that country. The attitude towards the Russian language adopted earlier this year was inimical to a sensible resolution of the crisis.

I very much hope that when my noble friend comes to respond she will indicate that the British Government are not only willing and able but determined to take a role in seeking to bring the signatories to the Budapest memorandum around the table to discuss and give the sort of safeguards that were implicit in the sensible and sensitive questions asked of my noble friend by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard. If we can do that, this debate, as with so many debates in your Lordships' House, will not only have been a good debate in itself but might even be of some help in resolving a problem which, if it is allowed to develop, can only play into the hands of those wicked people in ISIL, against whom we are all united.

European Commission: UK Member

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Thursday 10th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warsi]

I take real issue with what the noble Lord has said. I try not to bring party politics to this Dispatch Box but it is important that, when the Prime Minister of this country takes a principled stance on an important matter—a matter on which his party agreed—we should stop the sniping and get behind him.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, would there not be much relief all round if Mr Clegg were asked to go to Brussels?

[Baroness Warsi]

Mr Clegg is an incredibly effective Deputy Prime Minister and a Cabinet colleague for whom I have great respect. If he were to take on that role, I know that he would be deeply missed at Cabinet.

Russia: Arms

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Wednesday 18th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warsi]

I can tell the noble Baroness that four members met their target and a further four have indicated that they intend to meet the target. However, of course, there are 28 members of NATO.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, is it not important that we try to have constructive and as friendly as possible relations with Russia if we are to have a stable Europe? Can we do a little to cool some of the recent rhetoric, which has been conducive to encouraging a Cold War atmosphere?

[Baroness Warsi]

I am all for encouraging a reduction in rhetoric. That is why I have always said at this Dispatch Box that we must make sure that the language we use is measured and that we always look for diplomatic means to resolve those matters.

Libya: Arms to the IRA

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Tuesday 25th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warsi]

The noble Baroness makes an important point. Libya is going through an incredibly difficult period and we need to be realistic about what is actually possible on the Libyan side. There is very little chance at the moment of securing a Libyan payment for compensation. The Libyan Government see themselves as victims of the Gaddafi era, and it is therefore important that we try to build a political space, which is what we are doing, to allow the Libyan Government to engage on these and other issues.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, do we not have to be careful that we do not visit the sins of the previous regime upon a very shaky one? Is it not fundamental to all our interests that there should be a stable and prosperous Libya?

[Baroness Warsi]

It is, and my noble friend makes an important point. It is when we have that stable and prosperous Libya that we can deal with the legacy issues, including the tragic killing of WPC Fletcher, the aftermath of the Lockerbie bombing and, indeed, the Gaddafi support for terrorism.

Ukraine

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Tuesday 18th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Goodhart makes his points persuasively and briefly, and I do not disagree with much of what he said. However, at the same time, no one can condone the manner in which recent events have been conducted by the Government of Russia.

Nevertheless, I would like to set my remarks in a personal context, if your Lordships will forgive me. I sit here on this Bench every day and look up at the Barons of Magna Carta—we will be celebrating them next year—and I think of how long it took from 1215 for us in this country to have a fully-fledged democracy. I also look up at the armorial bearings on one of those windows, on which the words, “Be mindful”, stand out. We need to be mindful of the history of the post-war world.

When I was first elected to the other place in 1970, the Soviet Union was a tyranny that dominated the whole of eastern Europe. I well remember my noble friend Lord Janner of Braunstone—I deliberately call him my noble friend—coming to me and persuading me to take on the chairmanship of the campaign for the release of Soviet Jewry. We worked hard, sometimes unavailingly, for those people who did at least have a door marked “Exit” if they could be given a visa to get out. I remember an instance when my noble friend and I tried to send a prayer book to a young man who was celebrating his bar mitzvah. We had it signed by Mr Wilson—as he then was—Prime Minister Heath, and some 300 Members of the House of Commons. It came back; not only was it not admitted, not only did the young man then know nothing about it, but my noble friend Lord Janner and I, and the other members of the committee, including my noble friend Lord Dykes, were not allowed to have visas to go to the Soviet Union. We were emphatically personae non gratae.

I had the great privilege, 20 years later, of taking part in an Epiphany communion service conducted by Father Ted Hesburgh, who had been the chairman of President Kennedy’s Civil Rights Commission, in the hotel in the Kremlin which had always previously been given over to visiting Soviet-bloc country delegations —Prime Ministers of East Germany and so on. During that visit, Mr Gorbachev’s chef de cabinet received from us a Bible that was symbolic of a million that he had agreed to accept to be distributed around the Soviet Union.

I relate those two separate anecdotes to show the progress that was made while it was still the Soviet Union after the coming to power of Mr Gorbachev—the man with whom Mrs Thatcher famously said she could do business, and did. There is no democratic infrastructure or democratic history of what we now call Russia. The Soviet Union was of course dismembered within a couple of years of our giving those Bibles. A superpower ceased to be and the Russian Federation was created. The Baltic states, Poland and Hungary—it was the situation in Hungary in 1956 that brought me into politics—all became independent nations and Czechoslovakia then split into two.

That was extraordinary progress and it had one effect in Russia. People who had been part of a superpower no longer felt themselves to be part of a great nation. We have to recognise that, for all his recent behaviour, Mr Putin gave back to the people of Russia a degree of self-respect. That is something that we should not set aside. I am not here to act as an apologist for Mr Putin or to justify the way in which recent events have been conducted, but I would say to your Lordships that we in the West, for all our tradition of developing democracy, have not always got it right. We have done things internationally, even in recent years, which have been questioned, and we should bear that in mind. We also have to bear in mind that a peaceful and prosperous Russia is essential to a peaceful and stable Europe. We must also remember that in recent history—I go back no more than a couple of hundred years—the concept of the sphere of influence has been recognised in international diplomacy. One has only to think of the famous Monroe doctrine of 1823.

It is against that sort of background that we should be careful. I am not saying that we should not apply certain sanctions but I am saying that, frankly, we have got off on the wrong foot here. We could have seen this coming—as a lot of us did—and a message should have been conveyed that it was crucial that the sovereign independence of Ukraine should be recognised, but it should also be acknowledged that Russia had its own legitimate interests in that part of the world.

The noble Lord, Lord Soley, in a very perceptive, persuasive and interesting speech, referred to the tragedy of Russian history. You have only to go to Moscow and see the monuments to where the German tanks were stopped to realise what the Russians went through. Yes, of course, they inflicted terrible things on others afterwards, for which they were rightly condemned, and we all rejoiced when the ghastly Berlin Wall came down and when the nations that I mentioned became free. I said a moment ago that it was Hungary in 1956 that brought me into politics, and it was. I shall never forget the issue of Picture Post which had on its cover the words “Cry Hungary!”. It was full of terrible photographs of what the phosphorus shells fired into Budapest by the Russians had done. We all remember what happened to Imre Nagy, the brave man who tried to stand up, just as we remember—and I had the privilege of meeting him—Alexander Dubcek, who 12 years later in Czechoslovakia tried to stand up.

Much progress has been made since then. We have, for all its imperfections, a free Europe. Many of the countries that were subjected to Soviet domination and tyranny are now members of the European Union—which is why I rejoice at the Union and will fight and fight to keep it—and most are members of NATO. I understand why there is a certain degree of concern and diffidence about seeing Ukraine become a member of the European Union and of NATO. Although I would like to see it allied to both, we have to recognise that it is not just a simple matter. Most of all, we have to recognise that we have a duty not to escalate the situation. We have a great responsibility resting on us for what we say in this Chamber today. I would hate to think that anything said here today encouraged a mindless bellicosity that could be only inimical to true freedom, peace and stability afterwards.

Yes, there has to be mutual recognition. I hope that there can be a pause, that the elections on 25 May can be properly supervised, and that the Government elected—it is only an interim Government at the moment—in Ukraine will be fully recognised. I hope also that there will be a role for Ban Ki-moon. We pay lip service—very often, it is only lip service—to the United Nations but if ever there was a case for the Secretary-General of the United Nations to seek to call together those who are at odds, this is it.

We must be under no delusions. The Baltic states are members of NATO. An attack on one member of NATO is an attack on all members of NATO. History does not repeat itself but it teaches us lessons and we should be mindful of what happened 100 years ago when people did not want to go to war. For corroboration of that, one should read Professor Margaret MacMillan’s recently published brilliant book, The War that Ended Peace. Although it sounds unthinkable, it is not utterly impossible that we could drift into a situation where the brinkmanship that took us almost to war in 1962 over Cuba could place us in a very parlous position.

I beg my noble friends on the Front Bench and, through them, the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary to do everything possible to establish a constructive dialogue and to recognise that the world cannot be a safe and secure place if there is continuing animosity and even cold hostility, as there was during the Cold War, between Russia and the nations of the West. To connive, however unwittingly, in the creation of that sort of situation in a world that is going to be increasingly dominated by the great power blocs of China and India as the 21st century progresses would be a disservice to our own continent and nation, and to the civilisation of which I hope we are all proud to be members.

There should be firmness but also caution and calmness. Let us remember that Mr Putin, for all his faults—we all have plenty of those—is not the devil incarnate. We must not strive to try to make him appear an isolated figure who becomes the devil incarnate.

European Union (Referendum) Bill

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Friday 24th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

Presumably they thought that there was a greater intellect here to be able to examine it in more detail, with such people as the noble Lords, Lord Armstrong and Lord Kerr, and a whole range of people like that. I am sure that they will welcome all the suggestions from this House, as well as the wisdom that we are about to receive.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

I am grateful, but the noble Lord knows only too well that the other place had neither the stamina to talk the Bill out nor the courage to go into the Lobbies in any numbers from either his party or the Liberal Democrats. All the Divisions had huge majorities, where the negative vote was derisory. He knows full well that the question asked by my noble friend Lord Forsyth comes to the heart of the matter. We are being used.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

Maybe the noble Lord does not realise that those Divisions in the House of Commons were artificially constructed. The Conservatives put in the Tellers on both sides; they manufactured those Divisions deliberately.

[Lord Cormack]

In other words, it was unanimous in the other House.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

Everyone knows that this is a Tory party Bill masquerading as a Private Member’s Bill. Today it is also a disgrace that we are discussing it because the coalition government Chief Whip, the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, has used her position, I think improperly, to put it ahead of all other Private Members’ Bills. There are 23 Private Members’ Bills waiting to be discussed—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Grenfell (Lab)]

My Lords, I support these amendments very strongly indeed. I find it curious that, so far, not one word has been spoken from the Benches opposite in defence of their wording. That is rather curious, until you look at why the Bill is before us. Let me remind noble Lords of what the commission concluded. It said that the question,

“should be amended to make it more direct and to the point, and to improve clarity and understanding”.

Nothing could be clearer and more easily understood than that. However, it appears to all of us on these Benches that we are being asked to forget what it said and to go along, without question, with the wording proposed by Conservative Central Office, if that is where it emanated from.

Why do we have to do that? The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, for whom I have great respect and affection, who knows this House well and, in fact, is a very sane voice on all matters to do with House of Lords reform, astonished me with the attitude he has taken towards the Bill. He said at Second Reading:

“Let us say that this Bill is imperfect and has got here by a most peculiar route”—

that is somewhat at odds with what the Government Chief Whip has said—

“but let us speed it on its way so that those outside this House cannot say that the House of Lords stood between them and having their say on perhaps the most important international issue of modern times”.—[Official Report, 10/1/14; col. 1808.]

We are not saying that they will not have a say. You will not find anywhere in our amendments a clause saying that there will be no referendum on the EU. It is a complete canard to go on suggesting that this is what we on these Benches are saying. I want to make it perfectly clear that the reason why one can support these—

[Lord Cormack]

I never said such a thing. I said what I said in the context of the other place having not opposed this Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, this morning said that the Divisions were contrived. That confirms my case rather than confounding it. The other place has sent this Bill here when it would have been quite within the capacities of the noble Lord’s party and the Liberal Democrats either to have talked it out or to have amended it in the other place. They chose not to do so and therefore we face a Bill that was almost unanimously supported in the House of Commons and we have to look at it in that context.

[Lord Grenfell]

I am sorry to disagree with the noble Lord but I was quoting directly from Hansard. That is exactly what he said:

“Let us say that this Bill is imperfect and has got here by a most peculiar route”.—[Official Report, 10/1/14; col. 1808.]

It could not be clearer. In whatever context you wish to put that, it is pretty plain language. It is the sort of language one is used to hearing from the noble Lord, Lord Cormack. In this case, I do not quite understand his response.

Finally, in support of these amendments, please let us scrutinise this Bill properly. We have a right and a duty to do so. We must not just wave it through, as some would have us do, because that is not what our function is here. This first group of amendments is a very good test for this House. What we are proposing is not party political—it could not be further from party politics. These amendments seek to bring clarity to the people when they have a referendum. I repeat, let us not hear more, please, from the opposite Benches saying that, on our side, this is all a conspiracy to prevent the British people having a referendum. It is not.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard]

I am sorry; I spoke loosely. I was talking about the Government of the day in the United Kingdom seeking treaty renegotiation.

There are four stages to treaty amendment, and the Conservative Party has argued that renegotiation will end in treaty amendment. It has defined success as treaty amendment. Stage one is that one has to find 14 other member state Governments who agree that one’s proposals for change make sense, or at least that they are worth considering in a convention. You have to have a simple majority.

The second stage would be a convention in which the national Parliaments, the European Parliament, the Commission—

[Lord Cormack]

I just want to say that many of us cannot hear the noble Lord. There must be something wrong with the loudspeakers.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard]

I hate to deprive the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, of my wisdom, and he has been far too polite in the past.

The second stage of the process of amending the treaty is the calling of a convention. The last and only convention so far lasted for just over 18 months. The convention has to end up with consensus. The next stage is an intergovernmental conference in which one needs the unanimous agreement of every other member state to one’s propositions. Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. The final stage would be ratification of the outcome. If it involved treaty amendment, the changed treaties would require new national ratification in every member state’s capital. I assume that before we have the referendum, we would want to know, and be able to tell the country, whether the renegotiation deal had stuck and had been accepted in other member states. A very awkward and complex situation would arise if you had a referendum on the assumption that the renegotiation deal would be ratified everywhere, and that turned out not to be the case.

We do not begin those four stages until after an election in 2015. It does not add up. The first stage, the bilateral diplomacy, we do not appear to be doing. We do not appear to be collecting the 14 friends to get past the first hurdle. As to the second stage, the convention, I do not know how long it would take. It might take much less than the 18 months taken last time, but it is a finite hurdle to get over and it will take time. As to the third stage, the intergovernmental conference, Maastricht took a year. This one might take less but, on the other hand, it sounds as if the propositions that the Conservative Party envisages bringing forward are rather fundamental. Finally, as to ratification in 2017, one would be asking the French and the Germans in their election years to agree with the British on, say, restraining free movement of persons, taking human rights out of the treaty, exempting the British from social law or giving them a veto on financial law. You would be seeking agreement on that in the year in which a French Socialist President was seeking re-election, and a German Government who strongly believe in human rights would be facing the polls.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

My Lords, each of the last three speakers has put very significant questions to the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, and we all look forward to his response. The House will have listened with particular attention to the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, as he has long experience of public life and the logic of his intervention seems to me very compelling.

I very much enjoyed the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan. I agreed with every word of it. He and I have had pretty much the same views on this subject during the 25 years we have known each other. I am as confident as I ever was that the judgment that we have taken on these matters over the years will be vindicated by history.

The noble Lord, Lord Kinnock, said some very wise things that I hope have been taken good note of. It will have struck the House—and I trust that it will strike the public—that we have heard in the course of the past two or three hours from the four Members of the House who have the greatest experience of dealing with the European Union and European Union affairs— that is, the noble Lords, Lord Kinnock, Lord Tugendhat, Lord Hannay and Lord Kerr, coming from the two major parties and from no party. All that they said and the advice they gave to the Government, which I think was very sound, was strikingly in harmony. That is probably a very significant point.

I put my name to several amendments in this group, a number of which—Amendments 13, 14 and 15—I saw, and continue to see, essentially as probing amendments designed to illuminate the issue and clarify the options. In that respect, as I shall explain in a moment, my expectations have been more than fulfilled. However, if we want to make the Bill a little more viable and a little less absurd, the right agenda for the House now is to agree Amendment 10 of the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, and Amendment 16 of the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, to which I put my name. That would produce a coherent solution to the problem the House now faces.

There has been a lot of comment in the course of these debates to the effect that what we are faced with in the Bill is a series of absurdities. It is absurd to have a referendum that is supposed to take place up to four years after the decision to hold it is taken. I do not think that in the whole history of referenda, which as far as I can recall started with Napoleon I’s plebiscites, anybody has ever had such a ridiculous notion before. How could the Government possibly have come up with such an extraordinary notion? The whole thing looks suspect from the start.

What also looks very suspect from the start is the fact that the Prime Minister, the Chancellor, the Foreign Secretary and the other Conservative members of the Government have all apparently had this damascene conversion over the past year and a half in favour of having a referendum Bill when a short time ago they opposed it, using very much the arguments that we continue to use quite genuinely against the whole idea.

It is also very suspect that intelligent men—they are intelligent men; they are not fools—cannot have worked out for themselves the compelling logic set out by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, which makes this date an absurdity if there is to be a renegotiation or some sort of change in our relationship with the European Union as a result of the initiatives launched by this Government. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, has persuaded everybody, including—this is the point that I am coming to—those who have brought forward the Bill, have pushed for it and have forced the Prime Minister to go along with this initiative: that is, the people who have been described in this House several times already today as the Tea Party.

The most eloquent spokesman I know of the so-called Tea Party—the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth—appears to have accepted the logic of the noble Lord, Lord Kerr. I noted that in his intervention, which was a dramatically important one, he said that the referendum might take place before the renegotiation. He had obviously abandoned the idea of making anybody believe that there was a reasonable chance of concluding the negotiation before the referendum, so he decided to switch it round and say that the referendum might take place first. I think what has happened this afternoon is that one more cat has been let out of the Tea Party’s bag, because a referendum which took place before the negotiation would make our leaving the European Union almost inevitable. Why? Because, in having a referendum, the Government would have to get a mandate for a particular negotiating agenda. They would have to say, “We are going to change this, change that, demand this and demand that”, and that would be the agenda that the public would then endorse.

Unless the Tea Party believes, rather like Napoleon I, that we could proceed in our European policy on the basis of diktat and simply lay down to 27 other nations exactly, in the finest detail, what they will and will not do, and what they will and will not subscribe to, there is no way in hell, if I may say so, that we would ever end up with a final agreement that corresponded exactly with the negotiating mandate that the Government had obtained the consent of the British people to pursue. In other words, such a referendum would be doomed to certain disaster. It could not possibly lead to a successful conclusion or any position other than there being a gap between what had been promised at the time of the referendum—and the deal that the British people had presumably endorsed if they had accepted the referendum and supported the Government’s negotiating agenda—and what emerged from that negotiation.

This is another example of the cat being let out of the bag. These are people who are devising methods, fair or foul, to ensure that, whatever happens, we come out of the European Union. Another cat was let out of the bag last week. A letter from 95 or, as some people said, 100 members of the Tory Party told the Prime Minister that the Government should introduce a Bill that would give the British Parliament the right, whenever it wished, not to fulfil but to derogate from any rule, directive or resolution of the European Union.

Again, these are not stupid people. They knew what they were doing. What would happen if we were to pass such a Bill in this Parliament? De facto, we would have left the European Union, because immediately we would be in breach of the treaty of accession. De facto, we would be out, but without a referendum. We would be out without the British people having realised what the process was that was leading to our inevitably having to get out. Unfortunately, they still have not woken up to that.

So much for democracy and for the idea that you cannot make such a move without the consent of the British people. We must be quite clear what the agenda of members of the Tea Party is in taking over the Conservative Party in this way, which they have done so successfully—to get us out of the European Union by hook or by crook. It is therefore important that in our debates we throw light on that and open up the truth, because it is a terrible truth, about which the British public should be in no doubt.

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, I do not think that the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford, could accuse me of being a member of any Tea Party. I well remember when he was a Conservative and enthusiastically cheered on the party, sitting by my side in another place. He has had a dramatic conversion, but I do not want to talk about that.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

I have to ask the noble Lord to let me intervene because he said something about me that I cannot accept. Of course I have never suggested that the noble Lord is a member of the Tea Party, and I do not know why he supposed that I was saying that or could draw any such imputation. He has indeed known me for a long time in two parties; he reminds me of an embarrassing part of my past. However, I hope he will acknowledge that I have never changed my views on this subject, and I am glad to say that many other Members of this House here, including on this side of the House, will vouch for that. I have not moved on that question, and any imputation to the contrary—the idea that I was cheering a contrary view at some point—is utterly wrong, and I hope that he withdraws it.

[Lord Cormack]

I did not suggest any such thing. The noble Lord should keep his cool. He may always have supported Britain’s membership of the European Union, and so have I. I made it plain at Second Reading that I had advocated an “in or out” referendum since the Maastricht negotiations. I felt that the boil needed lancing. I also made it plain that in any such referendum I would campaign enthusiastically for our continued membership. If I had to give a single reason for that, it is that I was in the House of Commons long before he was. I remember when Romania, Bulgaria, Poland and all those Eastern bloc countries were in the Soviet bloc and under the grip of the Soviet Union. I rejoice that they are members of the European Union today. That alone is a reason for keeping the European Union in being.

I have been somewhat chided today by the noble Lords, Lord Grenfell and Lord Richard, for what I said at Second Reading. I take it in good part, as they meant it in good part. However, in my speech I sought to put a case for giving the Bill a fair wind. I think it was a reasonable case and anyone reading the whole of the speech, and not merely quoting selectively from it, could come to only that conclusion.

I wanted to intervene at this point today because we are now in a rather different place. The advice that I gave was certainly not heeded. It was comprehensively unheeded in the first vote. I say to my noble friend Lord Dobbs—whom I have been very glad to support and will continue to support and who has been doing a valiant and very difficult job—that the Bill has not been ruined by the two amendments that have been passed, and it is now up to the House of Commons to grasp that fact. When the Bill goes before another place on 28 February, all it has to do is to accept our amendments and the Bill will pass into law. I hope that that counsel of pragmatism will prevail and that is what will happen.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

My Lords—

[Lord Cormack]

Perhaps I may just finish and then I will give way. I hope that we will complete Committee stage here today. I hope that we will not have a contentious Report stage. I hope the Bill will go to another place on 28 February, suitably amended and improved, and then it will indeed pass into law.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

I am most grateful to my noble friend, who was a Member of the House of Commons for rather longer than I was—I was a Member for only 14 years. As he said, the Bill has been amended, and my noble friend Lord Higgins argued that we can just add more amendments, but that will require time. I do not understand his point when he says that this can be dealt with by the House of Commons. The reason that we are dealing with a Private Member’s Bill and not a government Bill is because the other half of the coalition—the Liberals—refused to give the Bill time. In the absence of a commitment from the Liberals to do so, and indeed from the Front Bench of the Labour Party, how is it conceivable that this Bill can get through? Is my noble friend not kidding himself?

[Lord Cormack]

No, I do not think so, and I will point out that today I have voted, with a certain lack of enthusiasm I have to admit, in the government Lobby and will continue to do so.

[Noble Lords]

Conservative Lobby.

[Lord Cormack]

I would say to my noble friend, in answer to his perfectly reasonable question, that just as we are sitting beyond our normal hours today, it is entirely up to the House of Commons to sit beyond its normal hours on 28 February—and if there is a strong and passionate feeling that the Bill should become an Act and go on to the statute book, then it can have a very long Friday and do that. Of course, constraints are called for, and the more amendments that are passed, the more difficult it will become. I absolutely accept that. My reference was in particular to the amendments that have already been passed, which could be incorporated without any great difficulty.

[Lord Deben]

I hope my noble friend will agree that those who say that the House of Lords should not have debated this Bill and tried to improve it because somehow or other it was trying to destroy it, have got entirely the wrong end of the stick. We are trying to make this Bill passable: therefore, it is up to the House of Commons to accept a better Bill from us, which is what our job is, and then pass it. To say that we cannot deal with it because somehow or other we are being disloyal seems to me to be entirely wrong, and a media invention.

[Lord Cormack]

We are not going to redebate the Second Reading. I agree with much of what my noble friend Lord Deben has just said. At Second Reading I believed there was a case for giving this Bill, imperfect as it—I made it plain that I would not have started from here and that I did not like the Bill very much—a fair wind. I tried to make that case as effectively as I could but it was not accepted. I was merely pointing out that we are now in a different position. Amendments have been passed. It is indeed, as he and I have just said, up to the other place. The principle of the referendum remains. In spite of what my noble friend Lord Spicer said, these are not wrecking amendments. If the other place will give itself sufficient time on the last day of February, it will be perfectly possible for this Bill to become an Act of Parliament, suitably improved.

[Lord Giddens]

My Lords, I have the aim of supporting the amendment with the briefest speech ever given in the House of Lords. There has to be flexibility in the date because, for the Prime Minister’s position to be feasible, there almost certainly has to be treaty change. Treaty change cannot be achieved within two years, and therefore there must be flexibility.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

Amendment 42A puts in the word “consultative”. This is the point I made earlier. The noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, said that it is implicit in the Bill; this would make it explicit. Why do I want to do that? All referenda that we have had in Britain have been, by nature, consultative, and Parliament has chosen to comply with the will of the people as expressed through referenda. In other countries, such as Italy, France and Turkey, legislative assemblies have no choice but to accept them as binding referenda. Because it happens in other countries, some people have come round to the view that referenda can be binding. There is a fairly widespread—although incorrect—feeling that they are binding. If referenda are consultative by constitutional design, Parliament will surely, as always, go along with the choice of the majority in any future referendum. However, I want to guard against the possibility of a disputed result, numerous varieties of which may call for a second referendum.

For example, there might be a low turnout or perhaps, as with the AV referendum, there might some allegations of dirty tactics. Equally there might be an incredibly close result. As my noble friend Lord Anderson said, it was not close in 1975, it was a very clear result, but a referendum might be incredibly close, by one or two percentage points. In all those scenarios, a rerun may be the only way to definitely resolve the question. However, a rerun may also frustrate and alienate many voters who have assumed that referenda are binding. In order to avoid any feelings of betrayal or anger, we must make clear that it is a consultative referendum and that Parliament is sovereign at the end of the day and could, if it wished, ignore or repeal a referendum, should circumstances demand it.

The 1979 referendum was mentioned earlier. It would have been open to the Government, if they had been a Labour Government after 1979, to accept the result of the referendum, notwithstanding the 40% rule. However, because they were a Conservative Government, they decided to abandon devolution.

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, the noble Lord will acknowledge that it was an amendment tabled by a Labour Member of Parliament, George Cunningham, that led to the threshold.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

Indeed. Perhaps the noble Lord was out having his tea earlier when I said precisely that in a previous speech.

The noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, has said that trust in politics and politicians is very low. Therefore, we must not allow the fact that it is a consultative referendum to remain unclear; otherwise, what he said earlier will apply a fortiori—we will be deceiving the people. The people deserve not only a say, which is their democratic right—I hope that the people’s choice organisation is listening to me—but full disclosure. I hope that we will therefore clarify the situation and put in the word “consultative”.

We have already had two amendments agreed. This would clarify things. It is a very simple thing, putting in just one word. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, that he should not feel inhibited by the procession of Tory Whips I have seen whispering in his ear. He should have the courage to say, for once, “That is a good amendment even though it is proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, so I will accept it”. I hope he will.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, briefly, I support what my noble friend said. I very much adhere to the Burkean view that the Member of Parliament owes his constituents his initiative, industry and judgment. However, there is something that we need to take very carefully into account. My noble friend Lord Dobbs has several times in speaking on this Bill referred to the sense of disappointment people felt when successive Governments appeared to promise a referendum and then did not deliver on that promise. That disappointment would pale into insignificance by comparison with the ignoring of the verdict on a national referendum. That is why we will have to look very carefully at the threshold problem, because this addresses that in an indirect way. I was one of those who supported George Cunningham and Tam Dalyell when they campaigned in 1978 as that Bill went through another place. We will have to come back to this at some stage. The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, has done the House a service in moving this amendment. Surely it can be accepted. If my noble friend Lord Dobbs says that it is implicit anyhow, let us put it beyond any shadow of doubt and make it explicit.

[Lord Wigley]

My Lords, I do not want to introduce a slightly discordant note on this but we must be very careful if we go down the road of saying that the vote of the people might be overturned. Considerable cynicism could arise from that. I accept entirely that if it is a consultative referendum that should be in the Bill and beyond any misunderstanding. I agree wholeheartedly with the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, on the fact that we have a representative democracy and do not send every issue back for a referendum or plebiscite, or weigh how many letters we have had in or all the rest. We must make a judgment on things. In the House of Commons they make a judgment and here in this House we must, too. If we say that the matter is one that we, as representatives of Parliament, cannot come to a conclusion on and give it back to the people, we would seem to cause enormous potential for discord if we then said, once the people had taken that decision, “We don’t like it and will ignore it altogether”.

In the context of Scotland, the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, referred to what might have happened had there been a Labour Government in 1979. In 1997 in Wales, there was a very tight result but there was no question of the incoming new Labour Government not accepting it. It had been on a relatively small turnout of about half the people and there was about a 1% majority within that, but accepting that result defused the issue and when the subsequent referendum came on having greater powers there was a 2:1 majority. Even if people did not accept the principle of devolution in the first place they came to accept it because that was the will of the people. All I counsel is that we should be very careful indeed if we set up a mechanism that ignores the will of the people, whatever that will is.

European Union (Referendum) Bill

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Friday 10th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, this has been quite a debate. We have seen Mitterrand reincarnated and the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, buried. I am bound to say that, like the proverbial Irishman, I would not have started from here, but there is a very serious issue to address and I will seek to do so in a moment. Let me just make it plain that I am one of those who have for many years—indeed, since the Maastricht treaty ground its way through another place when my noble friend Lord Spicer and I were in opposite corners—advocated an “in or out” referendum to lance the boil and have made it quite plain at the same time that in any such referendum I would campaign, as I did alongside Labour parliamentarians in 1975, for this country to remain within the European Union. That is my position.

I am somewhat tempted by the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong of Ilminster, to recount a story. I was standing outside this House, before I entered it, talking in Prince’s Chamber to the late Lord Carter, the Labour Chief Whip, much loved by many people in both Houses. One of his colleagues came up to him and said, “They’re going on in there. It’s all been said”. “Yes”, said Lord Carter, “but not by everybody”. One is reminded of that in this debate.

I want to address the most serious subject to arise: the position of this House as a revising Chamber. I do not think that anyone in this House could reasonably accuse me of not being devoted to it or of not being prepared—as indeed I did on Wednesday this week—to vote against the Government of the day if I felt that the legislation before us could be improved, but we are dealing with something rather special here. We are dealing with a Bill that had a fair amount of time in the other place and was never seriously opposed by either the Official Opposition or our partners in the coalition. If noble Lords need to be reminded of that, all they need to do is look at the figures and the Division lists. In other words, this Bill has come to us with the other place having had the time to revise and amend it but having decided, for a variety of reasons, not to do so.

In a sense, what the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats have said to us is, “Let the House of Lords do our dirty work for us. Let them be the ones to defeat this Bill by making it run out of time”. I believe that any constitutional arguments have to be measured against that. The noble Lord, Lord Richard, may be shaking his head, but he cannot deny the figures or the fact that this Bill was not properly scrutinised, even though there was an opportunity for it to be scrutinised, in the other place.

[Lord Richard]

The noble Lord said it was not scrutinised in another place. It may be so. Is that not an additional argument for it being scrutinised properly here?

[Lord Cormack]

No, because it came to us—and the noble Lord, Lord Richard, ought to know this as a former distinguished Member of another place—with massive majorities. In other words, they said, by their votes, “We don’t want to do anything about this. Your Lordships’ House should have it”. Your Lordships’ House having been given the Bill, it now has a duty to allow the people of this country to have the referendum. I would not have tackled it in this way but, in those famous words, we are where we are. We are confronted with a particular situation and we have to respond to it.

I hope that it may be possible for the Government to devote a little more time. I would not be against having amendments debated, but for this House, by whatever means, to kill this Bill would not be acting in the best interests of our parliamentary system or of this House. I believe that I am entitled to say that, having played a reasonable part in ensuring that the malevolent schemes of the Deputy Prime Minister were seen off, as they rightly should have been.

I find the position of the Liberal Democrats, our beloved partners in the coalition, for many of whom I have individual affection and regard, a little queer. If your Lordships’ House found itself the butt of criticism, the Liberal Democrats would quite welcome it, because it would advance their case for abolishing this House and replacing it with an elected second Chamber. Therefore, do not let us be deceived by those who sit by our side and let us not be seduced by those who sit opposite. Let us say that this Bill is imperfect and has got here by a most peculiar route, but let us speed it on its way so that those outside this House cannot say that the House of Lords stood between them and having their say on perhaps the most important international issue of modern times.