Resetting the UK-EU Relationship (European Affairs Committee Report)

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Thursday 26th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I express my sympathy to the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, who has to wind up and present a coherent, responsible and constructive opposition position on this for the Conservative Party after hearing several speeches from behind her that would have done very well for members of Reform. I want to take from this report the comment that this is a process, not an event, and to make three points about the domestic conditions of a successful reset process.

First, as the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, said, we need to rebuild expertise within Whitehall, including training in other major European languages and multilateral negotiation. I am old enough to remember, when we first joined the European Community, the scale of the task of familiarising civil servants with the multilateral style of EU meetings and the skills required to negotiate successfully for British interests in that context. Whitehall developed an expert cadre of European specialists, familiar with not just EU regulations but the complexities of other countries’ domestic priorities. That pool of expertise has now been dispersed, and I hear from officials that fluency in French, German, Italian or Spanish is not highly valued in Whitehall. As we again work to build closer relations with our European neighbours, what efforts are the Government now making to rebuild negotiating and language skills and knowledge about both the EU’s institutions and other member Governments across our public service, from Defra to DESNZ to the MoD?

Secondly, Ministers and parliamentarians of all parties need to rebuild wider links with political parties and policy advisers in other member states. I was struck when I was in the coalition Government by how much closer and wider were the links that my Conservative colleagues had with Washington politicians and think tanks than with those from France, Germany, the Netherlands or Italy. That was partly a result of the unfortunate decision of the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton, to withdraw the Conservatives from the European People’s Party. I recall many occasions in the Foreign Office when I personally knew some of the Ministers we were meeting in Berlin, The Hague, Copenhagen and Brussels as fellow members of the Liberal International, and my Conservative colleagues did not. I hope the Labour Government are better than their predecessor in promoting international contacts with our neighbours, but are they planning any new initiatives in this sphere?

Thirdly, we need the Government to lead a national conversation on why closer relations with our European partners and their institutions are now central to our national interests. Political leadership is about changing the political agenda to tell the public that we are no longer in a world in which we can balance between the USA and Europe, let alone, as Reform is currently suggesting, imagine a “new Elizabethan age” in which British ships will sail away from Europe across the Indian Ocean and the Pacific, or put our trust in trade with China as the noble Lord, Lord Redwood, seems to be suggesting. The reset we need will not go far unless the Government carry the public with them and the Conservative Party resists retreating into imperial nostalgia or simple dependency on Trump’s Republican America.