Lobbying of Ministers

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness makes an allegation under privilege; perhaps she would like to repeat that outside the House.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, will my noble friend take this opportunity to pay tribute to the trade union movement and the fantastic job that it has done in lobbying Labour and Conservative Governments?

[Lord True (Con)]

I would indeed; I am quite old fashioned and I greatly respect the trade union tradition. I also respect the freedom of politicians such as Mr Ed Davey, who became a lobbyist immediately after losing his ministerial job in 2015.

Veterans’ Strategy Action Plan: Gambling Addiction

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Thursday 27th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

I am sure that my colleagues will take note of everything said in this House; I certainly promise the noble Baroness that. I remind the House, if anyone doubts this Government’s commitment, that it was this Government who set up the first ever dedicated Office for Veterans’ Affairs, to champion veterans in every respect, at the heart of government. We have an action plan and we will have a veterans strategy refresh, drawing on all the wise advice given by your Lordships and others, but I think the Government deserve some credit for what has actually been done here.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, is not the truth of the matter that the explosion in gambling addiction is a consequence of the Labour Government’s decision to change the law which previously prevented people promoting and stimulating demand for gambling?

[Lord True (Con)]

My noble friend puts me in a dangerous place. The Government’s answer—and it is right—is to undertake as comprehensive a review of the Gambling Act as there has ever been, and that will be pursued. My personal view, as a sports fan, is that I am sick and tired of gambling advertising being thrust down viewers’ throats.

Devolved Governments: Public Expenditure

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Thursday 20th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton (Con)]

My Lords, as I said in my opening Answer, the Scottish Government are accountable to their electorate and to the Treasury here for how they spend their money. They have had a very generous settlement in the SR—an additional £8.7 billion went to the devolved Administrations, of which £4.6 billion per year has gone to Scotland. I encourage the noble Lord to keep his scrutiny up.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend realise that there has been a series of major financial scandals in Scotland, such as two ferries for the price of five? There is a whole series of examples of complete mismanagement of public money, and there seems to be no consequence. Following on from the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, about the Barnett formula, the Scottish Government have the gall to blame Westminster for cuts in the health service where they fail to spend the Barnett consequentials on health that they have been given. There is no transparency. Surely the Treasury has a responsibility to ensure that transparency is given.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton (Con)]

I agree with my noble friend that any wastage in government is extremely distressing, certainly to me. In October of last year, we reached an agreement with the Scottish Government to jointly commission an independent report covering the block grant adjustment arrangements. The independent report will inform a broader review of the Scottish Government’s fiscal framework later this year.

Health and Social Care Levy Bill

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

2nd reading & Order of Commitment discharged & 3rd reading
Monday 11th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, who speaks with such authority on this subject. I very much welcome the Prime Minister’s determination to fix social care. However, this Bill does not do that. It is a bit like going into a restaurant and being presented with a bill for the meal before you have even seen the menu. I have to say to my noble friend the Minister, whom I admire enormously, that to speak for less than five minutes on a Bill of this importance to the economy and to millions of families—a Bill which has been rushed through for reasons that I still do not quite understand—says something about the relationship between government, the Executive and Parliament itself.

The Bill certainly will not fix social care but it will massively increase the regressive nature of the taxation system, because, as has been made clear, it will place the burden on those who have least, not those who have most. Way back in 2006, when we were in opposition, George Osborne and David Cameron asked me to spend a year of my life with some very able people of all political persuasions to produce a tax reform document. One of the recommendations was to look at merging national insurance with income tax. This is an absolute missed opportunity for those of us who believe we need a simpler, fairer, flatter tax system in our country.

I have a number of questions on the tax aspect. What measures will be in place to prevent people getting round these national insurance increases? I can see even now—well, I cannot actually see it, but I can imagine it—people in the City thinking, “Those bonuses we were going to pay in April, perhaps we had better pay them in March.” How will we avoid the loss of expected revenue? Will measures be brought forward to avoid forestalling?

I will concentrate on social care. The Economic Affairs Committee, which I chair, produced a report more than two years ago called Social Care Funding: Time to End a National Scandal. We set out a series of arguments. Since then, we have had a number of debates in this House on this subject. There has been unanimity across the House on the need to deal with this urgently. Since then, and in the run-up to the publication of that report, demand for social care has grown and grown—and not just among the elderly. One of the really frustrating things about this debate is that everyone seems to focus on the elderly. We are told that it is not fair that young people have to pay for the needs of the elderly, yet half the budget goes on people of working age; the demand from that group is growing as well.

Our report set out a number of questions for the Government. I am very pleased that my noble friend Lord Bethell will speak later in this debate. At each and every debate, he has said that the Government will produce a White Paper but that they want to follow the recommendations of the Economic Affairs Committee and find a solution on an all-party basis, so that it is permanent and so we can move forward. This is certainly not an all-party solution. In case people think I have gone native, I also think it is a bit rich for the Opposition to keep criticising what the Government are doing, without putting forward their own proposals on social care.

In this context of increasing demand, our committee reckoned that it was necessary to spend £8 billion on social care just to get back to the standards of care that existed in 2010. This Bill aims to raise £12 billion, but that will not touch the sides of the problems which face the social care industry and the people who depend on it.

My right honourable friend the Chancellor said that it was a moral duty to ensure that the costs of this were met by an increase in taxation and not by borrowing. Personally, I think we need to think about how as a nation we can generate the wealth to meet our obligations to the elderly. If we are going to talk about moral duties, it is certainly a moral duty to ensure that there is a safety net below which those vulnerable people will not fall. And they are falling.

This Bill, and the Government’s proposals set out in that document, do nothing to address immediate needs. As the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, said, it is not clear how much of the £12 billion will actually go to social care. Last time we had an emergency payment for the National Health Service, it was £20 billion, and it disappeared into the health service. How much of it went to social care? Almost nothing. The entire cost of social care then was £20 billion. Some people refer to social care as the Cinderella service, but in this case, Cinderella never gets near to going to the ball. That is true of these proposals.

We are told that this will happen in 2023 and we are told that the Dilnot report is the answer. When our committee looked at Dilnot, we were concerned. If you have a cap on spending, the level at which the cap is set is very important, and £86,000 is quite high. Most people will, sadly, spend only three years in nursing care, so you would have to go pretty hard to spend £86,000. Does it apply then only to those who might spend a long period in nursing care? That is okay, but how will the £86,000 cap be calculated? Will we have an army of bureaucrats going through every invoice and every type of care provided in the course of a lifetime? No. I suspect—and the Government’s own publication hints at this—that it will be calculated on the basis of what the local authorities would have paid. But we know, and our report pointed out, that the local authorities’ rates are being subsidised by self-funders, who are sometimes charged as much as 40% more than the going rate for the local authorities. That is not to blame the local authorities; they do not have the money, so they try to squeeze.

What is the solution put forward for this? It is that everyone, even if they are a self-funder, can have their place found by the local authorities. That will not provide the revenue for the people who run the nursing homes. As a result, the nursing homes are going to disappear. Indeed, it is already happening that they favour self-funders because of the differential.

When we started our report on social care, I was attracted to the idea of a cap because the insurers would then be able to come in behind it. It will not work, however, because of the size of the cap and because, on the whole, people will not buy insurance for something they think will not happen to them. It is hard enough to get them to invest in pensions, when they know—or hope—that they are going to get old. They do not hope that they will require care in a nursing home or elsewhere.

The most chilling thing of all—because none of this money will be allocated to social care in the short term—is that it will all be left to local government. Over the weekend we heard the hints that the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, mentioned: that local government will need to pick up the strain here. It does not have the money. If it goes on the council tax, that will be even more regressive and damaging and will introduce a postcode lottery for care. The sad thing is that some of the local authorities with the broadest tax base have the least demand, and those with the narrowest tax base have the most demand. There would therefore be inequality. Building up? This is building down. A postcode lottery would be the consequence.

What will the Government do to fulfil the Prime Minister’s promise to fix social care? I have been watching the Brown-Blair films, and there is a bit where Gordon Brown is alleged to have said to Tony Blair: “You have stolen my”—expletive deleted—“Budget”. I have a feeling that the Chancellor’s Budget has been stolen a bit here, because we have a commitment in this respect, but where are we on local authority funding? If we are really to fix social care, I assume that the Chancellor will make a very generous settlement to local authorities in order for them to provide the means they need to deal with this problem now. I hear someone saying it is unlikely—have faith.

If the Government really want to fix social care and are committed to the Dilnot solution, why on earth are they not doing it now? The legislation that provided for Dilnot was passed in the Care Act 2014—seven years ago. It is there on the statute book; they could do it now. What we are seeing here is a bit of: “I need money for the health service and I need money for social care. Let’s think of a number that’s not quite big enough, and we’ll say that we’ll do it first for the health service and then social care will get it.” If you believe that, you will believe anything, because the truth is that the National Health Service needs that £12 billion and, three years on, the money will not be available—just like the £20 billion put in before, as I mentioned.

I have a question for my noble friend: is domiciled property to be included in the means test for domiciliary care? At the moment it is not. If it is, it will create a huge incentive for people to go into nursing homes and a real unfairness for people who wish to be cared for in their own homes.

I did a few calculations, in case my noble friend thinks I was being unfair about the regression. If you are an average worker on an average wage and are paying the basic rate of income tax at 20%, and you work that little extra to create that extra £1 of value, 20% of that disappears in income tax, 13.25% disappears in national insurance and your employer has to give up 15.05%. In other words, 48.3% of every £1 disappears—and we wonder why our productivity is low when those are the incentives. I do not believe that national insurance was the right tax to use to achieve the purpose that the Government intend.

Of course, it is too late to say that now. We cannot change it in this House; we have to leave it to the House of Commons. A decision has been taken, but it is for the Government to fulfil the Prime Minister’s promise to fix social care and that means looking at the resources provided to local authorities, which have been absolutely heroic. My bins get emptied once a month now. Almost every service has been cut to the bone in order to try to help those people needing care. We look forward to the Budget at the end of the month and the fulfilment of the promises that have been made.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Agnew of Oulton (Con)]

My Lords, more detail will be set out in the Budget and spending review in the next two or three weeks to address the noble Lord’s question.

The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, my noble friend Lord Bethell and the right reverend Prelate asked about help for carers specifically.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

I apologise. My noble friend was about to answer the question on domiciliary care.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton (Con)]

Yes, sorry. I lost my thread. There will be no changes to existing procedures.

Noble Lords asked about support for unpaid carers. Of course, they play a vital role in the care system. I suspect that there is hardly anyone here in the Chamber who has not been involved in the care of their parents at the end of their lives on an unpaid basis. I certainly had to—but luckily I am one of seven siblings and we all live in the same county. None the less, it is a considerable burden.

The Care Act encourages local authorities to support unpaid carers and to provide preventive care to stop people’s early care needs escalating. A new cap on care costs will offer greater certainty to unpaid carers and support informed decision-making and planning for the overall costs of care.

The Government will take steps to ensure that the 5.4 million unpaid carers have the support, advice and respite they need, fulfilling the goals of the Care Act. We will work with the sector, including unpaid carers, to co-develop more detail in our plans and will publish further detail in the White Paper for reform later this year—and on the matter of the White Paper, I say to noble Lords that it is not long now. It is only a couple of months; it has been promised before the end of the year, and I am perhaps a little more optimistic than some Members of the House.

Devolved Administrations

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Thursday 16th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

No, my Lords, I do not agree, and I do not believe we should accentuate divisions within our United Kingdom. We are working with the devolved Administrations to develop an approach to how we consider the UKIM Act’s market access principles. For the union to thrive, we must respect devolved Administrations and their powers—but this Government will not abdicate their responsibility for the United Kingdom as a whole.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, since 2007 health spending in England has gone up by 25% in real terms. In Scotland it has gone up by 10.8%, because the Scottish Government have not spent the Barnett consequentials of health increases on health. At the same time, they are blaming Westminster for so-called cuts in health expenditure. How is it possible to have a constructive relationship with a Government who are so dishonest and are determined to destroy the United Kingdom?

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, as a proud and passionate native of Scotland, my noble friend brings pertinent facts before your Lordships’ House. I cannot answer for the actions of the Scottish Government, but I say to them—and indeed to everybody—that now is the time not to stoke divisions but to focus on what unites the people of Scotland and all of us around the rest of the United Kingdom.

Standards in Public Life Report

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Thursday 17th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I have already indicated to the House that the Government will study very carefully the interim findings of this report. I underline what I say every time I come to this Dispatch Box: I, and indeed the whole Government, attach the highest importance to high standards of probity in public life.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend share my concern about the precedent created by a former special adviser making money by selectively leaking, on a subscription website, inside information obtained while he was employed by the Government and trusted by colleagues? How can good government continue if this kind of outrageous behaviour is to be tolerated?

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I think that many will pay attention to my noble friend’s words, as ever. I will not comment on individuals but, as we set out last week, we expect all current and former advisers to act in full accordance with the Code of Conduct for Special Advisers. This includes full accordance with its ACOBA provisions. Both the Cabinet Office and ACOBA are able to offer advice to current and former employees to help fulfil these requirements.

Finance Bill

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

2nd reading & Committee negatived & 3rd reading
Tuesday 8th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, I begin by expressing complete agreement with everything the noble Lord, Lord Butler, has just said, in particular what he said about the officials who supported the sub-committee and about the chairman, my noble friend Lord Bridges. When I asked him to take on the chairmanship of the sub-committee so that I did not have to chair both, I thought it was something of a hospital pass—but he did it absolutely brilliantly and with great distinction in what is a very complex area. We were very grateful to him for the leadership he gave in his indefatigable way. As the noble Lord, Lord Butler, said, we should be grateful that some of the recommendations have been accepted. I am probably the cynic: they were the ones of general principle, rather than the specifics.

I want to focus on this doorstep of a Bill. The papers I am holding are the Finance Bill and the papers that enable us to understand what is in it. I cannot help but ask my friend on the Front Bench: whatever happened to tax simplification? Whatever became of the Government’s declared policy of lower, flatter, fairer, simpler taxes? That policy was grounded in the belief that individuals, families and companies will make better investment decisions than Governments and that wealth creation is essential to the support of key public services such as health, education and social care. We wait with bated breath for the Government’s response to the Economic Affairs Committee on social care and on higher and further education.

We face the biggest financial crisis of our lifetimes—even our lifetimes in this House. It is an enormous challenge facing the Government, but the Covid measures continue to destroy our productive economy. Like a scorpion, the virus leaves behind its sting in the huge backlog of patients requiring serious procedures; the damage done to our young people’s education and career prospects; the impending crisis in housing caused by rent arrears; and the unemployment currently disguised by the furlough scheme continuing. Major industries have haemorrhaged cash on an enormous scale. Substantial debt provided by the Treasury has been taken on and, frankly, will never be repaid. Are we seriously going to take £20 a week from some of the poorest people in the land, just as electricity and food costs are rising? That decision alone is some £6 billion.

What is the Government’s strategy for facing this challenge? Tax and spend is not the answer. Nor can we continue selling IOUs to ourselves, which is given the name “quantitative easing”—a subject the main committee is about to report on. Inflation is already coming down the track, with the costs of raw materials soaring and pressure on wages rising because of labour shortages at a time when the Government are maintaining employment for many people through the taxpayer.

The Bank of England’s reassuring messages that there is nothing to see here and nothing to worry about, and that it will delay interest rates as soon as there is inflation—which will be a short-term effect—worry me. I remember, when I was a young man first engaging in politics, how quickly inflation got out of control, as people started pricing for anticipated rates of inflation. It ended in inflation of over 20%, interest rates of 15% and a lot of pain faced by the Conservative Party in government and the country as a whole. Inflation may be convenient for Governments with big debts but, as Jim Callaghan put it, inflation is the father and mother of unemployment.

The only way we can get through this crisis is by getting our economy growing again. That means recognising that the current long-term growth projections of just under 2% from the Government’s own statisticians are wholly inadequate and not acceptable. We need to change our strategy.

Increasing corporation tax—here I disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Butler—is the opposite of what is needed if we want to see more investment, growth and employment. Entering a cartel to set a minimum level of corporation tax may be good news for the United States, with revenues from its increasingly overmighty tech companies, but what happened to that vision of global Britain—the place to invest and create jobs and prosperity? The thinking embodied in the Chancellor’s welcome vision for free ports needs to be applied to the nation as a whole. If we believe in competition as the way to secure innovation and prosperity, why are we suddenly abandoning competition in taxation? “Take back control” was as much about setting our own taxes and laws as about regulation. It should be for the other place to decide tax matters and tax policy, not the President of the United States, and not by international treaty. It is the other place’s duty to vote means of supply, and it is wrong for the Executive to circumvent that in this way.

I fear that, as the President of the United States now appears to want to opine on the Northern Ireland protocol, it may be time for Boris Johnson to have his “Love Actually” moment and not just make the speech but unleash the talents of the British people. That means supporting the self-employed and encouraging outsourcing. While it is commendable that HMRC tackles tax dodgers and abusers, this should not be at the expense of struggling self-employed businesses by imposing additional costs. The self-employed are not the same as those on PAYE. There is no statutory sick pay for them and no holiday entitlement, and the next penny depends on identifying the next job. IR35 is having a severe impact and will discourage others to set up on their own. I talked to someone in exactly that position just over the weekend. These small and medium-sized businesses are the seed corn of our future growth, and the Government should honour their long-standing promise to bring forward a new status for self-employment following the Taylor report, as my noble friend Lord Bridges indicated in his excellent speech a few minutes ago. This was also a manifesto commitment; I cannot remember how many manifestos ago it was, but it was certainly a clear commitment from this Government.

It now seems every Finance Bill brings forward new powers for HMRC, even before the review of the use of existing powers is completed. This Bill is no exception, taking away the right of appeal to a tribunal for financial institutions to provide specific information about a taxpayer. The disgraceful and effectively retrospective treatment of loan charge victims, such as local authority and health service workers placed in schemes by their employers without full understanding of what they meant, has not been matched with the same zeal in pursuing those responsible for marketing those schemes, now languishing on their superyachts with their ill-gotten gains. I am disappointed that the Government have refused to apply measures retrospectively to these promoters, as recommended by the Finance Bill Sub-Committee, but I welcome the proposals for tougher action that are currently subject to consultation. It is beyond belief that these schemes are still being promoted, and some are targeting workers returning to the NHS. HMRC itself has been using firms that use these schemes.

To conclude, we need a clear vision from the Prime Minister and the Chancellor and a strategy to get our economy going again if we are to meet our duty to secure a safety net for those most vulnerable and disadvantaged in our country. Higher taxes, more bureaucracy and continuing uncertainty are anathema to achieving that, for, as the Book of Proverbs reminds us,

“Where there is no vision, the people perish.”

Budget Statement

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Friday 12th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I join others in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Khan, and my noble friends Lord Cruddas and Lord Benyon, on their maiden speeches.

I hope that the usual channels are hanging their heads in shame this morning. The country is facing its worst ever economic shock in peacetime, and we are asked to debate these two Motions in two minutes. Not even the late Nicholas Parsons would have expected the profound questions facing our country to be dealt with in “Just a Minute”, although our new imposed procedures ensure that ministerial replies are delivered without interruption.

We are sleepwalking into an unemployment crisis. Public sector borrowing is at astronomical levels. Productivity is almost stagnant. Quantitative easing is on an industrial scale. The independence of the Bank of England is being questioned, as the noble Lord, Lord King, indicated earlier in the debate. We need a strategy that shifts public spending from job protection to job creation. The youngest and lowest paid in our country have suffered the most damage to their livelihoods, with folk under 25 more than two and a half times more likely to work in a shut-down sector. Businesses and families are saddled with crippling debt, and the Budget does not provide for inevitable future demands in areas such as social care, local government and transport.

Higher taxes are not the answer now. We need an economy that is growing again, with supply side measures and encouragement and support for the self-employed and small business, for technology, for the seed corn of recovery. To reduce all of these and other questions for consideration to speeches of two minutes makes a mockery of this House. Why we could not have had two days’ debate or started at 9am and finished in the evening escapes me. If this House cannot hold the Executive to account, it has no purpose, and there are an increasing number of critics outside who will relish spectacles such as today’s.

Ministerial and other Maternity Allowances Bill

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 25th February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I echo the sentiments just expressed by my noble friend Lord Mancroft. I do not think that I have ever done this before, but I circulated to a number of people the speech made by my noble friend Lady Noakes. It was outstanding and my only regret is that I was not able to be present to participate in the debate on Second Reading.

This is an important matter. In the 38 years or so that I have been associated with both Houses of Parliament, I have seen a steady decline in respect for both Houses and for the proceedings in Parliament. It is important that we should produce legislation which carries consent and that uses language which people find acceptable and is made as understandable as possible. I cannot imagine—not that any of us are allowed to go to the Dog and Duck or the Rover’s Return, or indeed to any pub—people in the pub referring to “a person” who is pregnant rather than “a woman”, or to “a person” who has given birth to a child, as opposed to “a woman”.

I have to say to my noble friend Lord True that he has done a great piece of work today because I know, having spoken to him earlier in the week, that there were a number of difficulties that needed to be circumvented in order to bring forward his proposition today that he would support the amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Lucas. Like others, I would have preferred the use of “woman” to “mother”, but I am not going to argue about that. My noble friend has done a brilliant job and I share the view that, had my noble friend Lady Noakes not taken her stand, this legislation, I fear, would have gone through in its original form.

I would say to the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, who we all respect enormously, that I think that she has gone off the rails a bit here. If the argument is that any Bill should avoid words that are not gender-neutral, the very title of this Bill, which includes the word “maternity”, would not have been able to pass that test, as the noble Lord, Lord Winston, pointed out.

I was intrigued by the Government’s argument that they were simply following the procedure established some time ago by Jack Straw. Parliamentary counsel’s drafting guidance, which is perfectly sensible, states that it is necessary to avoid

“nouns that might appear to assume that a person of a particular gender will do a particular job or perform a particular role.”

It is clear that in the case of childbirth, referring to “mothers” or “women” in this context is certainly not contrary to that drafting guidance. I therefore congratulate my noble friend Lord True, who on this occasion has proved to be the midwife delivering common sense.

I should say to noble Lords that my name is down to speak to Amendment 32, but in the light of the Minister’s generous acceptance of the amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Lucas, I do not consider it necessary for me to detain the House by speaking to it.

[Baroness Goudie (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I was pleased to hear from my noble friend about the drafting rules, as I have tried to fathom them out over the past 24 hours. I thank the Minister for coming round to our view. It is the first time in some while that he and I have agreed. I also thank my noble friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath and the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes. Without their persistence on this issue, we would not be where we are today.

However, there is the unfinished business of maternity leave not only for Members of the House of Commons, who are Members of Parliament, but also for their staff and for Members of the House of Lords who become pregnant, and other Ministers. I would like the consultation on these issues to be brought forward quickly, so that everyone is in line and has the same support, and the same rules apply.

Further, I am supportive of trans people and it is important that we have respect for language in every way; that is why I accept the language to be used in this Bill. It would have been better to have used the word “mother” rather than “woman”, but be that as it may, I am happy to accept the amendment.

European Union (Future Relationship) Bill

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

3rd reading & 2nd reading & Committee negatived & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & 3rd reading (Hansard) & 3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & Committee negatived (Hansard) & Committee negatived (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 30th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I associate myself with the immense chorus of colleagues who have paid tribute to my noble friend Lord Cavendish. His good humour, balance and wonderful contribution to this House are a very great loss, and I am personally sad to see him go.

On Brexit, your Lordships’ House has not covered itself in glory. In the battle of Peers versus people, today the people triumph and we are within hours of becoming an independent country again. All those endless debates aimed at overturning the result of the referendum have been for naught. Four years of Question Time being hijacked by Project Fear have ended without the predicted planes that could not fly to Europe, the expat pensions that would not be paid, the impossibility of getting a free trade deal and, most sinister of all, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, and my noble friend Lord Robathan have pointed out, the claim that Brussels would soon bring Britain to heel.

Before the general election, I warned the Leader of the Opposition, the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, not to underestimate my right honourable friend Boris Johnson, and that he was a winner. Today, with the passing of this Bill, he has his triumph. His courage and determination have restored our sovereignty and freed Britain from rule by a foreign court, with its determination to advance the acquis. He and all of us owe a great debt to my noble friend Lord Frost and to Oliver Lewis for their determined, gruelling and successful conduct of the negotiations.

Can it be true that, as we say goodbye to the old year, the new year will mean zero tariffs, no quotas, freedom of Parliament to legislate as it pleases, MPs accountable to the electorate for our laws, an end to huge net annual payments to the Brussels bureaucracy and control of our borders and waters as a sovereign coastal state? Surely there must be a catch—something in the small print, perhaps. No. There are things I do not like, such as the arrangements for Northern Ireland, and there will undoubtedly be difficulties in transition, but the fundamental point is that our country is free again to make whatever arrangements it sees fit for our country, as the noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport, pointed out.

Lenin once said that liberty is

“so precious that it must be rationed”.

The President of the European Commission—and, it seems, some Members of this House—seems to believe the same is true of sovereignty. Today we take back our sovereignty. Now the challenge for the Government is to use it well in rebooting our United Kingdom and delivering the conditions necessary to enable our people to create new jobs and prosperity. The Prime Minister has been given the tools; now he must finish the job.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Russell of Liverpool) (CB)]

Since the noble Lords, Lord Whitty and Lord Krebs, have withdrawn, I call the noble Lord, Lord Lamont of Lerwick.