"Will the Minister correct the noble Lord who spoke before and remind him that the idea of getting Syria to surrender its chemical weapons was raised in this House rather before President Putin raised it? More seriously, will he state that in the event of Syria transgressing the Security Council …..." Lord Hannay of Chiswick - View Speech
"My Lords, ever since President Obama’s new Secretary of State, John Kerry, began, as his top priority, to reassemble the well-worn components of that oxymoron known as the Middle East peace process, he has been subjected to a deluge of denigration, disparagement and weary cynicism from the serried ranks of …..." Lord Hannay of Chiswick - View Speech
"My Lords, when this House last had a debate on Syria, on 1 July, I urged the Government to try to prevent any further use of chemical weapons by tabling a UN Security Council resolution requiring President Assad to admit UN chemical weapons inspectors and to give them unfettered access …..." Lord Hannay of Chiswick - View Speech
"My Lords, this is a very good and very necessary time for the House to debate the work of its EU Select Committee during the previous Session. Whatever view one takes of the future role of the EU, and of the UK’s role within it, it is surely a debate …..." Lord Hannay of Chiswick - View Speech
"I would like to save the Minister from sending an unnecessary letter in the Recess. This is not about statistics. I have said it an awful lot of times. Others, including the noble Lord, Lord MacGregor, in the debate that he initiated, also said it. It is about government policy …..." Lord Hannay of Chiswick - View Speech
"My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt again, but I have to tell the noble Lord that the Select Committee did, in fact, recommend that the Government opt in to the data protection directive currently under negotiation in Brussels. Mirabile dictum, the Government did opt in...." Lord Hannay of Chiswick - View Speech
"My Lords, I speak as a habitual complainer about the dilatoriness of the scheduling of debates on the reports of this House’s Select Committee on the European Union, and indeed of other committees. However, it is only fair on this occasion to congratulate the usual channels on having arranged this …..." Lord Hannay of Chiswick - View Speech
"I am most grateful to the noble Lord for allowing me to intervene to say that I am not hanging my head in shame. I explained the situation in my speech, which perhaps the noble Lord did not hear properly. I did not say, and the report does not say, …..." Lord Hannay of Chiswick - View Speech
"My Lords, does the Minister agree that one of the best ways of ensuring that great concerns are not caused by British European policy would be to accept the sage advice of the Foreign Affairs Committee in another place? In its report published earlier this week it said that the …..." Lord Hannay of Chiswick - View Speech
"My Lords, trying to judge the performance of the European External Action Service less than three years after it was first set up, a period during which a massive amount of time and effort necessarily went into the administrative complexities of that teething process, given the impossibility of doing more …..." Lord Hannay of Chiswick - View Speech