"At the moment it seems as if the Government are going to be campaigning for us to stay in the EU. Why would any report they produce be unbiased?..." Lord Hamilton of Epsom - View Speech
"The noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, mentioned South Korea, which has indeed been a great economic success. It is interesting that it has signed a free trade treaty with the European Union. If South Korea can do that, why cannot we?..." Lord Hamilton of Epsom - View Speech
"On the same principle, would the noble Lord, Lord Davies, advocate that we all had the same corporation tax rate?..." Lord Hamilton of Epsom - View Speech
"My Lords, the key to producing reports is who writes them. The answer is that the Civil Service writes them. Two things are wrong with that. First, the Government at the moment look as if they are going to advocate that we should stay in and the civil servants, if …..." Lord Hamilton of Epsom - View Speech
"My Lords, I take the liberty of correcting the noble Lord on what he said about the referendum being held in May or June next year. The fact is that this Bill is very unlikely to get Royal Assent before Christmas, and we need 16 weeks from then, which takes …..." Lord Hamilton of Epsom - View Speech
"My Lords, I very much agree with the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, that the grouping of the amendments is somewhat weird. I cannot quite understand why Amendment 1 was grouped with Amendment 2, other than that one followed the other. They do not seem to have an awful lot in …..." Lord Hamilton of Epsom - View Speech
"I am very grateful to my noble friend for that, but I am also mindful of the seemingly total support in your Lordships’ House, so I hope that we can get a better amendment tabled at Report. I am not quite sure who will be voting against it. I thank …..." Lord Hamilton of Epsom - View Speech
"My Lords, this is a rather more modest amendment, as you will see. Unfortunately, I cannot plead in aid the support of the Electoral Commission, which for some reason does not seem to want to support the amendment. The only point I would make about the question in the Bill …..." Lord Hamilton of Epsom - View Speech
"My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Wigley—at least he has some commitment from my noble friend the Minister to come back to him. I did not get the impression that there was the overwhelming support from the Committee for Amendments 3 and 4 that there was for Amendment …..." Lord Hamilton of Epsom - View Speech