European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Viscount Ridley Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & 2nd reading (Hansard)
Monday 13th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Ridley (Con)]

My Lords, I think I have spotted an issue on which absolutely everybody in this House will agree, and that is that a can of WD-40 should be acquired to deal with that hinge which keeps making a noise like a wounded heifer from that end of the Chamber.

The noble Lords, Lord Forsyth, Lord Cormack, Lord Taylor and Lord Bridges, all made the point—as did the noble Lord, Lord Maude, I think—that this House must send this Bill back unamended, because otherwise we are in trouble as a House. Others disagree. I am not 100% sure that they are right, but it is worth reflecting on why the British people and, to some extent, the other place, distrust our motives and suspect that we are once again trying to prevent getting Brexit done if we amend this legislation.

In this House, we have heard three and a half years of excuses for not enacting the wishes of the British people. We heard that the economy would collapse if people voted to leave, but the British people said, “Get Brexit done.” We have heard that people did not understand what they were voting for, but the British people said, “Get Brexit done.” We have heard that there was a need for a meaningful vote in Parliament before any withdrawal agreement be passed, and the British people said, “Yes, okay, fine, but get Brexit done.” We have heard that the Northern Ireland border was insoluble, and people said, “Yes, fine, but get Brexit done.” We have heard that the EU would not let us diverge, and the British people said, “Please get Brexit done.” We have heard that there is not time to scrutinise all the secondary legislation necessary before leaving the European Union, and the British people said, “Get Brexit done.” And we have heard that people might have changed their minds since the vote in 2016, so in 2017 we had another general election, in which people voted overwhelmingly for parties that wanted to get Brexit done.

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Lab)]

I am most grateful, as it is not usual to intervene in such a debate. Surely the question is: is it meaningful, without all the negotiations which we all know must take place over the next two or three years, just to say “Get Brexit done”, as if it makes sense, and to worship the people for saying something which might be rubbish?

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Viscount Ridley]

I think the noble Lord has rather made the point for me.

We then heard that it would be better to have a second referendum, and the people said, “Fine, but first, let’s get Brexit done.” We have heard that we had to postpone the date of leaving, and people said, “Yeah, okay, but let’s get Brexit done.” Then we said, “Let’s ask the judges”, and people said “Okay, but please let’s get Brexit done.” Then we heard, “Let the Speaker run the Government, or Mr Benn or Mr Letwin, instead of the Prime Minister”, and the people said, “Get Brexit done.” With commendable and quiet patience, the British people kept saying this. Finally, we came to the 2019 general election, in which the people spake with a clear voice and said, “Get Brexit done.”

European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 (Exit Day) (Amendment) Regulations 2019

Viscount Ridley Excerpts

Wednesday 27th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

I am extremely grateful to the noble Viscount forgiving us that information and I am delighted to hear it. If we have a new leader, we may well see very different results in our negotiations with the EU.

[Viscount Ridley (Con)]

My Lords, perhaps it is inappropriate to continue, therefore, with the speech that I was going to make, but I will start anyway. Earlier this afternoon, I was having tea with my son and past the window went a tugboat which was going against the tide. It was really struggling. I know how it felt. But I cheered myself up with the thought that the tide turns. The water goes down stream in the end—the tug was going up stream, I should explain.

Perhaps I can cheer up my noble friend Lord Framlingham by emphasising that 17.4 million people voted to leave the European Union and this genie is not going back in the bottle. If we fail on this occasion, there will be another chance to get it right. After the second Punic War, which imposed the Carthaginian peace that Mr Boris Johnson likes to talk about, there was a third Punic war. That did not end well either, but perhaps this one will end better—for the Carthaginians, that is.

As noble friends have said, the Prime Minister said 108 times that she would leave on 29 March, come what may. She said 50 times that we would not extend and she said 32 times that no deal was better than a bad deal. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, talked about the need to heed the will of Parliament. But surely we also need to heed the will of the people. There was a time when people on both sides of this debate, shortly after the referendum, emphasised that that is what they wanted to do. Hilary Benn said:

“You vote to leave? We’re out. That’s it. We’re going”.


George Osborne said:

“There’s no second vote. This is the crucial decision of our lifetimes. Do we stay in the EU, a reformed EU or do we leave?”


Yvette Cooper said, “I don’t think you should be trying to unravel a decision the public has made”, and so on and so on.

The noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, speaks of her hope that there will now be a U-turn on the second referendum issue as well as all these other issues. She is hoping for a Government who will do that. Maybe she should heed the will of MPs on this because the Wollaston amendment on a second referendum was turned down a few weeks ago by 334 votes to 85. But now they want a second vote on the second referendum and scheming is going on by Keir Starmer, Dominic Grieve and co to try to avoid an embarrassing defeat of that second vote on the second referendum. I understand that the Beckett/Kyle amendment, which is the result of this scheming, is a strange beast that tries to avoid getting blamed for this second referendum being turned down in Parliament.

Some of us wanted to abide by the result of the first referendum. Some of us are not convinced that there is any need to delay. Some of us are convinced that we were ready to leave. We may never get the chance to know just how wrong the scaremongering about no deal was. But we have known for three years that we were supposed to leave on 29 March. If we were not ready, then some people were preventing us from being ready. We have known for two years that the European Union was interested only in driving a very hard bargain and therefore we should have kept no deal firmly on the table.

Like my noble friend Lord Robathan, I deeply regret having to see this change enacted. I will not support the Government in making this change, but I cannot support the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

The resignation of any Prime Minister is an extremely sombre moment, and I think it will not be lost on the House that this is the second Prime Minister in a row who has—

EU Withdrawal

Viscount Ridley Excerpts

Wednesday 13th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

I am sure that the Minister has heard that, but I think that the Government have had some difficulty of their own in differentiating between what legislation is for a deal and what is for no deal. I am always delighted to receive any further clarification from the Minister, which I am sure the whole House would welcome.

I think we all understand that an extension to Article 50 would require the approval of the EU 27. However, faced with a choice between a limited extension to Article 50 and a no-deal Brexit, there is only one sensible option for both sides. Can the Government now stop dragging their feet, commit to asking for more time and therefore rule out once and for all, so that everybody knows, the most disastrous of all outcomes—a no-deal Brexit? Doing so would reassure citizens that they would not lose their basic rights, as well as businesses and communities. The fear of crashing out with no deal and of the consequences of that is not Project Fear; it is project reality. The Minister has to accept and understand those realities.

The Motion in my name also asks the Government to facilitate a further meaningful vote for MPs by the end of February and, as required under the EU withdrawal Act, to table a take-note Motion in your Lordships’ House. How timely this issue has now become. MPs will have the opportunity to vote on various amendments to a non-binding Motion tomorrow evening. That Motion was promised a fortnight ago to allow Government Whips to pick off potential rebels. Over the weekend, in an attempt to prevent a rebellion this week, the Communities Secretary committed to an extra vote by 27 February, confirmed by the Prime Minister yesterday. However, the exact nature of that vote will depend on the progress, or otherwise, of the negotiations. It could again, as will be the case tomorrow should there be a vote, be completely non-binding.

The Prime Minister is obviously trying to run down the clock and force a decision between her deal and no deal. We had confirmation of that Hobson’s choice last night, courtesy of ITV. It is only by securing a binding vote that MPs can apply the brake before we career off the cliff edge.

[Viscount Ridley (Con)]

The noble Baroness has been very free with her criticisms of the Government in the last few minutes, but I have not heard a squeak of criticism of the intransigence of the European Commission. Could she explain why that is?

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

My Lords, I do not have much responsibility for the European Commission, but I would hope that we in this House have some influence on the Government. If we cannot as a House express our concerns about how the Government should conduct the negotiations in the interests of this country, for which the Government are responsible, we would not be doing our duty. I suggest to the noble Viscount that he pay a little more attention to what the Government are doing and try to get them to behave in a way that is in the interests of all the citizens of the UK, because they have a responsibility to negotiate on our behalf in the same way as the EU 27 are negotiating on behalf of their citizens.

I would prefer not to divide the House on my Motion tonight; that is a matter for the Government. I am not the only one—the noble Lord, Lord Butler, referred to it in the previous debate and earlier this week in Questions—who has struggled to understand why the Government have not simply accepted the previous two Motions that I have tabled without us having to push the House to a Division. They recognised the supremacy of the Commons and reflected the stated intentions of the Prime Minister. The Government say that they want to avoid a no-deal outcome and that they want to engage Parliament and swiftly secure MPs’ approval for the withdrawal agreement. My Motion does not undermine any of those proposals; it reinforces them. For the third time of asking, will the Government accept that this is a common-sense Motion, take all the necessary steps in relation to Article 50 and ensure that MPs are able to engage in a meaningful and timely manner?

--- Later in debate ---

[Viscount Ridley]

My Lords, it is an honour to follow the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer. I wish to make a simple point about accountability. My noble friend the Minister was generous in his opening remarks about the work of this House, and I would like to repay the compliment. My noble friend has spent hundreds of hours in this Chamber being accountable to us, however unreasonable, long-winded and bad-tempered our speeches. I salute his stamina, patience and skill. He and his colleagues are democratically accountable. Where is the same level of accountability of Mr Juncker, Mr Tusk, Mr Selmayr and Mr Barnier? They work for us too. How often do they show up in the British Parliament? Never. Or the European Parliament, for that matter—once in a blue moon. Why is this? British taxpayers contribute to their salaries, £350,000 tax-free in the case of Mr Juncker. In fact, when you think about it, it is a bit odd that the Commission is negotiating on behalf of 27 members against one. How did that happen? Should the Commission not have said, “We cannot arbitrate between our bosses, so we’ll stay out of this”?

Last week Mr Juncker and Mr Leo Varadkar allowed themselves to be filmed cooing over a card sent by an Irish citizen. Part of the message in that card said:

“Britain does not care about peace in Northern Ireland”.


This is blatantly untrue and disgracefully disrespectful to many who have given their lives and their bodies to try to preserve peace in Northern Ireland. More than that, it is a very odd thing to endorse about a country that is not an enemy and not even an ally, but still a member.

Last Sunday my old colleague Andrew Marr said this at the start of his television programme:

“I just want to say one thing about our line-up of interviews. We are at a moment where negotiations with Brussels are absolutely critical, and it has been a long moment. And week after week I get the chance to cross-question British Ministers and opposition politicians. And week after week, we ask the likes of Donald Tusk, Michel Barnier and Jean-Claude Juncker to answer questions as well. And week after week they say no. We try. We keep trying”.


Yesterday the EU’s ombudsman, Emily O’Reilly, published a report about the appointment of Martin Selmayr. I would like to read part of it:

“This complaint-based inquiry concerned the appointment of the European Commission Secretary-General, Martin Selmayr, in 2018 … Following an extensive inspection of Commission documents and written questions put to the Commission as part of the inquiry, the Ombudsman identified four instances of maladministration in the handling of the appointment and made a recommendation … Following the Ombudsman’s findings, the European Parliament in December 2018 passed a resolution calling on the new Secretary-General to resign … The Commission’s reply to the Ombudsman’s recommendation presents no new information and does not alter the inquiry findings, which showed in detail how Mr Selmayr’s appointment did not follow EU law, in letter or spirit, and did not follow the Commission’s own rules”.

[Lord Balfe]

Would the noble Viscount like to comment on the recent appointment of the British Cabinet Secretary?

[Viscount Ridley]

No, because I do not know the details, but I have not heard that it broke any rules. I have not actually finished the quote, which goes on:

“It is highly regrettable that the Juncker Commission chose not to implement this recommendation. The Ombudsman looks forward to its implementation by the next Commission”.


Good luck with that, because we all know who is going to be pulling the strings in the next Commission —Mr Selmayr. We are asked to put our faith in a good faith pledge from an organisation that will not even obey its own rules. We should remember that Mr Selmayr was the prime suspect behind the—

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

Allow me to correct an error. Mr Juncker regularly appears before the European Parliament where in the past he has been heckled by Nigel Farage, who I am sure the noble Viscount feels is doing his best to hold him to account. That is part of what the Commission has to do and the European Parliament is part of that accountability mechanism. Of course, the European Union is a 28-member country, therefore accountability is complex, but it is not entirely absent.

[Viscount Ridley]

If the noble Lord reads Hansard he will find that I did say that he appears before it—I said “once in a blue moon”. There is no question that he appears before it an awful lot less than my noble friend Lord Callanan appears before us, which was my point.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

He does not smirk as much.

[Viscount Ridley]

Did the noble Lord say from a sedentary position that my noble friend does not smirk as much?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I did. Those of us on this side notice, I suppose I should say, the ironic expression which often flits across the noble Lord, Lord Callanan’s, eyes. I hope that that is a little more polite.

--- Later in debate ---

[Viscount Ridley]

I personally think that my noble friend Lord Callanan is extremely patient and polite in this House.

As I was saying, Mr Selmayr was the prime suspect behind the leak about a dinner in Downing Street, at which untrue and personal remarks were made about the Prime Minister. It is he who is keen to block the UK’s access to the Galileo satellites. The Napoleonic behaviour of the Commission gets more blatant every day. It is not just pursuing a so-called European system of protectionism like Bonaparte, but brushing aside democratic and accountability constraints in pursuit of the self-interest of an imperial bureaucracy.

Back in 2015, I did not want the UK to leave the EU. Naively, I did not know how the Commission carries on. I helped to edit a 1,000-page plan called “Change, or go”. The EU refused to change in response to David Cameron’s reasonable requests, so I concluded that we should go. I was reminded of those days by the excellent television series by Norma Percy over the last three weeks, which gave inside views of that renegotiation and the events that led up to it. It brought back memories of how much the Commission disliked Britain then, thought our affection for democracy was stupid and quaint, and how it kept wishing we would go away. Yet now it wants to stop us leaving.

The most sobering thing I have read today is from Jim Ratcliffe, Britain’s successful chemicals businessman. In an open letter to Jean Claude Juncker, he says:

“Nobody but nobody in my business seriously invests in Europe. They haven’t for a generation”.


He says the EU is scaring away investment with heavy green taxes, with Europe’s share of the world chemical market having halved to just 15% in the last 10 years. He says the EU has,

“the world’s most expensive energy and labour laws that are uninviting for employers”.

The UK’s growth last year was better yet again than Germany’s, France’s and Italy’s, so it is clear that the reason for our sluggish growth—and it is sluggish—is that we are still in the EU. It is precisely for the people at the bottom of the pay scale that we need to leave and rediscover growth and enterprise.

My noble friend Lady Wheatcroft worries about the wages of a broccoli picker going up lest it put up the cost of vegetables. If it means that broccoli farmers have to pay a little more so that people in the north of England can afford to work for them rather than seasonal workers from abroad, that is quite good for people at the bottom of the pay scale. That, I think, is why we are leaving.

--- Later in debate ---

[Viscount Ridley]

May I just point out that I was talking about 2015, long before the referendum? I did read Article 50 in the run-up to the referendum.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

Well, that is very good, but I am sorry that the noble Viscount came to the conclusion that he did. It was available and there is no surprise in it. It was precisely what was laid down by a treaty, which this House, along with the other place, ratified not all that long ago. We seem to have a rather cursory attitude to the treaties that we enter into, but we should not have, because they matter.

Anyway, here we are, another week, another debate, which brings us no closer to an agreed and parliamentarily- approved outcome to this whole sorry saga. Two more weeks have gone by of not very useful activity by a Government who have not so much lost their way but never found it in the first place. If the Prime Minister is not deliberately aiming to run down the clock, she is giving an extraordinarily plausible imitation of someone who is doing so.

In the last two weeks, the Prime Minister has visited Brussels in an attempt to dismantle an international treaty provision to which she had agreed in good faith a mere two months ago. We agreed to it not once, but twice, because we agreed first in December 2017 and now again in November 2018. She told us in November 2018 that this was the best deal that was available, but I suspect her visit to dismantle that has been to no avail. She visited Belfast to tell a population that voted by a substantial majority to remain that leaving was going to be just fine—to no avail. She visited Dublin to persuade a Government to put their survival at risk—to no avail.

Meanwhile, on all sides we are seeing evidence, which is accumulating, of the serious damage that this policy of stubborn procrastination is inflicting on the economy. We have seen inward investment cut—that is Nissan. We have seen growth forecasts cut pretty sharply. We have seen ferry contracts for non-existent ferries axed. We have seen billions of public expenditure being squandered to give some pretence of credibility to a policy which should have been discarded months ago.

What is to be done, as Lenin once said in a rather different context? First, the option of leaving without a deal should be shelved now once and for all. The Government say that that cannot be done. That is simply untrue. It can be done by scrapping some of the Government’s red lines. It can be done by seeking a prolongation of the Article 50 cut-off period. It can be done by giving the electorate another say. Eschewing those options, as the Government do, which is totally legitimate on their part, does not mean that they cannot be carried out.

Secondly, not a single option available to us at this stage, not even approval of the Prime Minister’s plan, can actually be completed and implemented before 29 March. Talks should be initiated with the EU on a prolongation of that period, to which all 27 member states have to agree.

Thirdly, the option of another referendum should be recognised as providing the clearest route that is now available to us to achieving closure on this matter. The outcome of such a referendum could be made mandatory so as to avoid the risk of an endless process. Preparations for holding such a referendum could be put in hand quite quickly if the will was there to do it.

I agree that these are not easy choices but they are ineluctable ones and we are going to face them in the next few weeks. They should be made by the end of this month at the latest, and it is for that reason that I will support the Motion in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Smith.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Viscount Ridley Excerpts

3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 16th May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb]

No, no, no. These protections are for our air, our food, our animals, our countryside and ourselves: it is for us that we are doing this.

I have had a lot of flak from people for voting for Brexit, and one of the biggest things that they are unhappy with—obviously I get a lot of green people emailing me—is the risk of losing our environmental protections when we leave the EU. It is something that I worry about as well. Currently, our Government are policed by the Commission and the European Court of Justice. But our Government cannot be trusted on environmental issues, on which they have routinely lost legal cases. Examples include ClientEarth forcing the UK to make good on reducing our lethal levels of air pollution, and the Commission forcing us to reduce the disgusting levels of human waste in the River Thames. So I agree with the criticisms levelled against me and levelled against Brexit. If we do not replace the legal powers of the Commission and the ECJ and maintain the environmental principles that underpin them, Brexit will be a disaster from an environmental point of view. This amendment is our chance to put that right.

The naysayers to this amendment—if there are many in the House—might suggest that the whole point of Brexit is to remove ourselves from EU institutions and so it is wrong to try to recreate their functions. This is plainly wrong. Parliament can, and should, determine what our environmental principles are and who should enforce them. It is perfectly right for Parliament to insist that a statutory body, with real enforcement powers, should hold the Government legally accountable to its national and international environmental obligations.

To me, the crucial part of this amendment is proposed new subsection (1). The Government have repeatedly promised us that leaving the EU would not mean any diminishment of rights, obligations and protections. But, clearly, if we do not pass this amendment, we will be diminished.

Other Members of your Lordships’ House have said how feeble the option is that the Government are offering us. The reason for this feeble environmental watchdog is probably because of the divisions in the Government. On the one hand we have a wonderfully ambitious Environment Secretary, whom one can almost imagine frolicking in a field of wheat. On the other hand we have an International Trade Secretary who dreams of GMO-fed beef and chlorinated chickens from factory farms in America.

[Viscount Ridley (Con)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb]

Really? Really?

[Viscount Ridley]

I am most grateful to the noble Baroness. Surely her speech and many other speeches would do very well as submissions to the consultation. The supporters of this amendment asked the Government for a consultation and they got a consultation. If they have criticisms to make of what has been proposed in the consultation, let them submit them to the consultation. Is that not how it is supposed to work?

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb]

I thank the noble Viscount for his intervention. I will most certainly do as he suggests. That is a very good idea.

A compromise appears to have been reached between the Trade Secretary and the Environment Secretary. They seem to have said, “Okay, let’s have a watchdog but let’s make it toothless, so that it won’t actually have the powers and duties it needs to be effective”. So the Government propose that the new body will not be able to initiate legal action, will have no legal obligation to operate the current environmental principles—such as polluter pays—and will be kept out of anything to do with dangerous anthropogenic climate change. The consultation fails to propose anything close to what we have already.

The amendment is therefore inconvenient for the Government, so they will oppose it. Of course, a real environmental watchdog could not be anything but inconvenient to a Government. We want it to be inconvenient to a Government. We want it to actually hold them to account. We want it to stop them doing bad things. We want it to uphold all the principles of clean food, clean air and clean seas that we currently have.

The Minister has made good on his promise to put the issues out to consultation ahead of Third Reading, but it is simply too weak. It is weaker than the EU law that we have already and it could, of course, be weakened after the consultation. We have no guarantee that the issues will not be kicked into the long grass under the weight of other legislation coming through from Defra.

It is less than a year to Brexit day, and it is obvious that the Government’s promised Bill on the environment simply cannot be passed until long after we leave the EU. That means that there will be a governance gap, which we cannot afford. So I urge every Member of this House to vote for this amendment.

Brexit: North-East of England

Viscount Ridley Excerpts

Wednesday 9th May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

Of course, I share with the noble Baroness ambitions for the north-east of England. I thought she was being unduly pessimistic. She might have recognised that unemployment in the north-east is down to 5.2%, the lowest rate for 40 years. The north-east economy is doing extremely well. It is an exporting area: exporting to Europe, yes of course, but also to other parts of the world. We are committed to getting the best possible deal for frictionless trade. The analysis that she referred to was an incomplete analysis. Importantly, it did not analyse the type of deal we are seeking, which is a full and comprehensive free trade agreement, the most ambitious anywhere in the world, with the EU.

[Viscount Ridley (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend welcome the proposal from Ben Houchen, the Conservative mayor of Teesside, for a free trade zone in that area, and other exciting ideas that are being developed for the north-east?

[Lord Callanan]

It is an excellent idea put forward by Conservative colleagues in the region who are setting the agenda for the north-east becoming a global manufacturing hub exporting to all parts of the world. I think it is an excellent proposal and we are looking at it very closely.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Viscount Ridley Excerpts

Report: 6th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 8th May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

The House will be pleased to know that I shall not repeat all the arguments against the amendment, but, following on from the questions that the noble Lord asked me in Committee, it would perhaps be helpful for him to know that the Government intend to commence this provision of the Bill shortly after Royal Assent. That was a question that the noble Lord asked me in Committee and I wanted to be up front with the House about it.

[Viscount Ridley (Con)]

I had prepared an enormous speech on this amendment which your Lordships will be glad to hear I will not give, but after all that we have gone through so far on this Bill it is appropriate that some of us put on record our admiration for the endurance, patience, diligence and good manners of my noble friend Lord Callanan.

[Lord Callanan]

It is very kind of my noble friend to say so; I am very grateful for his comments. I look at the vast expanses of empty Benches on the other side; perhaps they do not share that sentiment, but it is nevertheless nice that we have finally reached the end of Report. I am sure that we will return to some of the issues in the future.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Viscount Ridley Excerpts

Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Wednesday 18th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Ridley (Con)]

My Lords, many of the arguments we have heard on these amendments almost boil down to saying that nothing can ever be changed for the better. This is, indeed, a peculiar psychological quirk of human beings, but it is not borne out by history. As my noble friend Lord Lamont said, if this amendment is passed and we are in a customs union but not in the European Union then the UK will be obliged to operate a system of external tariffs with no say in setting them. The UK would not be able to enter into new trade agreements with other countries around the world and would be bound by the rules and standards of the European Court of Justice—and that would apply even in the domestic economy. The UK would be significantly worse off than it is today.

A customs union is, by definition, a form of discrimination. Ricardo, Cobden, Gladstone: those great liberals would be spinning in their grave at the thought that their descendant party today is in favour of this form of trade discrimination. The answer to growing protectionism in the world is not to retreat inside a protectionist bloc of slow-growing countries that constitute just 10% of the world’s future economic growth, but to seek free trade opportunities wherever we can find them. The answer is not to discriminate against African and Asian economies, but to be open to all. It is not to turn our back on our friends in the Commonwealth, eager to do trade deals with us in this week of all weeks. It is not to yearn to,

“keep a-hold of Nurse

For fear of finding something worse”.

It is to embrace a model not of harmonisation and identical regulation designed to prevent and extinguish innovation, but one of mutual recognition, to learn how to achieve better ends by better means. It is not to rely on a wall of protective tariffs to keep the world at bay, but to play to our strengths as a common-law, English-speaking, scientifically advanced nation of shopkeepers and entrepreneurs. It is not to be parochial and regional, but to be ambitiously global. And it is not to listen to millionaire loveys and Trekkies gathering in Camden.

I am genuinely surprised that some in the parties opposite want to discriminate against Africa, with an average agricultural product tariff of 14.8%, 25% on sugar refining, 20% on animal products and 31.7% on dairy products.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords—

[Viscount Ridley]

I thought there were to be no interventions.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

I just want to ask the noble Lord where he gets his idea that being in a customs union with the European Union will mean imposing tariffs on Africa when the European Union has zero tariffs on all African countries.

[A noble Lord]

Middle stump!

[Viscount Ridley]

The European Union has an external tariff. It applies to not all products from Africa, admittedly, but to a considerable number. It also applies to Caribbean and Asian countries: there is a 20% tariff, for example, on tomatoes.

I beg those who have not yet made up their minds how to vote to recognise this amendment for what it is. It is an attempt to wreck the Bill and to prevent Brexit.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

I defer to the noble Viscount in his knowledge of millionaires. Maybe he is right, maybe he is wrong, but I do not think that they particularly enter into it. It is ordinary, hard-working people who will, of course, suffer the consequences if our trade collapses, and they are the people we should have at the front of our minds. However, on the point about trade with the wider world, almost two years ago a very thorough analysis of our trade and trade policy was made by a prominent politician in a speech. This is what she said:

“It is tempting to look at developing countries’ economies, with their high growth rates, and see them as an alternative to trade with Europe. But just look at the reality of our trading partnership with China—with its dumping policies, protective tariffs and industrial-scale industrial espionage. And look at the figures. We export more to Ireland than we do to China, almost twice as much to Belgium as we do to India, and nearly three times as much to Sweden as we do to Brazil. It is not realistic to think that we could just replace European trade with these new markets”.


That was the current Prime Minister speaking on 25 April 2016, and I do not think anything has changed since.

Brexit: British Citizens

Viscount Ridley Excerpts

Thursday 29th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Ridley (Con)]

Is the Minister aware of a new poll showing that, by 65% to 35%, the British people oppose a second referendum, the flagship policy of the Liberal Democrat party?

[Lord Callanan]

I had not seen that poll but I am aware that the British people oppose most Liberal Democrat policies.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Viscount Ridley Excerpts

Committee: 10th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 26th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Ridley (Con)]

It seems from what the noble Lord is saying that the purpose behind these amendments is to keep open the possibility of preventing or reversing Brexit, which is very different from the purpose that my noble friend Lord Tugendhat outlined, of getting a better deal for Brexit. Will he clarify that difference?

[Lord Dykes]

All the amendments are designed, rather like the noble Lord, Lord Tugendhat, inferred, to improve the technicalities of the Bill, despite people having different views on our future membership or not of the European Union. There may be a stronger content in, for example, some of the suggestions made by the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, which I fully support, but that is perhaps the only such example in that cluster.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Viscount Ridley Excerpts

Monday 19th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby (LD)]

My Lords, I speak primarily to Amendment 227BH. It is identical to Amendment 181, which we agreed, in the interests of time, not to debate last Wednesday. This amendment seeks to give Parliament the opportunity to consider whether a referendum should be held on whether the UK should accept the outcome of the negotiations between the EU and the UK or seek to remain in the EU by revoking Article 50 —that is, it provides for a public vote on the deal.

The reasoning behind the amendment is simple. There is now near unanimous agreement that Parliament must have a meaningful vote on the outcome of the Brexit negotiations. Clause 9 provides one mechanism for a vote to be held. As we discussed when we debated Amendment 150 and other amendments last week, there are potentially more satisfactory mechanisms for doing this, and we will revert to those on Report. In any event, there will be such a vote. By definition, it could result in Parliament, and the Commons in particular, voting not to accept the negotiated terms. In those circumstances, what should happen?

It is our contention that in those circumstances Parliament should ask the people for their view and give them the final say. There are two principal reasons for that. The first is the in-principle argument that, the people having been asked to vote on the principle of Brexit, they should also be asked whether they approve of the concrete provisions of any Brexit deal. The second is the political reality that Parliament, having ceded the original decision to the people, does not have the moral and political legitimacy to override the earlier expressed will of the people on its own authority. This might be called the “Hamilton” argument in deference to the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton of Epsom, who I am extremely sorry to see is not in his place. At Second Reading, he said that if Parliament voted against a deal:

“I have no option then but to take to the streets because I cannot get representation in Parliament. All I can do is protest outside Parliament”.—[Official Report, 30/1/18; col. 1470.]


This amendment saves the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, the necessity of becoming a street protestor—a role in which I struggle to see him; but more importantly, in an era when parliamentarians do not command universally high regard, it gives the people the final say on a process which they initiated. It is also what they clearly now want.

Recent polling shows that a clear majority of people now want a vote on the deal—even Conservative voters. Noble Lords no doubt saw the results of the Survation poll at the weekend which showed that a clear majority of Conservatives wanted such a vote—by 43% to 34% across the country and by a massive 61% to 25% in London.

[Viscount Ridley (Con)]

Does the noble Lord agree that what he has just said is very different from this quote from September 2016:

“The public have voted and I do think it’s seriously disrespectful and politically utterly counterproductive to say: ‘Sorry guys, you’ve got it wrong, we’re going to try again’. I don’t think we can do that”?


That was the current leader of his party.

[Lord Newby]

We have had that quote umpteen times in your Lordships’ House. I will deal with it, but many people said many things many years ago which are not necessarily the principal subject of discussion today.

Given that a majority of people, including a very clear majority of Conservative voters, want a vote on the deal, how can anybody possibly oppose it? At Second Reading, no fewer than seven arguments were advanced against it. The first was that referenda are anathema to a parliamentary system of democracy. This view was forcefully set out by, for example, the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, and the noble Lord, Lord Patten of Barnes, who I am very pleased to see in his place, who called referenda,

“a sin against parliamentary democracy”.—[Official Report, 30/1/18; col. 1475.]

I understand that strength of feeling, but the question I must pose to them and to others, on all Benches, who could well vote to oppose a Brexit deal, is this: do you really believe that a House of Commons vote against a Brexit agreement and in favour of remaining in the EU, with no recourse to the people, would be politically sustainable? If not, what is more important: the “sin” of a referendum or the long-term impoverishment of the country? Many noble Lords might find that an unpalatable choice, but I am afraid it is the hard reality.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bilimoria]

We do, because if what I feel will happen happens and people decide to remain in the EU, we will have a future that is much better than if we crash out. When people voted to leave they did not say to the Government, “We allow you to leave on any basis”. It was not a carte blanche. It was not a blank sheet of paper.

We all loved my noble friend Lord Lisvane’s story about his aunts. One of the most well-known philosophers in the world today, at the University of Cambridge, gave me this analogy. He said: you go to see a doctor with your arm hurting and you say, “Please, doctor, take away the pain from my arm”. The doctor takes you into the operating theatre. You come out of the operating theatre and the doctor has cut off your arm. You say, “I did not ask you to cut my arm off”. The doctor says, “Well, you told me to stop the pain. I have done what you told me to. You did not say I should not do this or that”. That is the exact analogy: if we leave on any basis we will be letting down the British people.

Call it a referendum part 2 or a second referendum—we have to allow the people a chance if we are a truly democratic nation.

[Viscount Ridley]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, as I did at Second Reading, and to answer some of his points. The noble Lord, Lord Newby, did not like it when I quoted the words of his current leader to him, for some reason. He said that I should quote from my own party.

[Baroness Ludford]

I remind the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, of the words of Jacob Rees-Mogg, who has said:

“Indeed, we could have two referendums. As it happens, it might make more sense to have the second referendum after the renegotiation is completed”.—[Official Report, Commons, 24/10/11; col. 108.]


The Brexit Secretary, David Davis, has said:

“Referendums should be held when the electorate are in the best possible position to make a judgment. They should be held when people can view all the arguments for and against and when those arguments have been rigorously tested. In short, referendums should be held when people know exactly what they are getting”.—[Official Report, Commons, 26/11/02; col. 202.]

[Viscount Ridley]

I was going to quote David Cameron because I was asked for the words of a Conservative. On 10 November 2015, after announcing the referendum, he said:

“It will be your decision … Nobody else’s. Not politicians’. Not Parliament’s. Not lobby groups’. Not mine. Just you. You, the British people, will decide … And it will be the final decision. So to those who suggest that a decision in the referendum to leave … would merely produce another stronger renegotiation and then a second referendum in which Britain would stay … I say think again … There will not be another renegotiation and another referendum … Think very carefully, because this choice cannot be undone”.

[Viscount Hailsham]

My noble friend really must face the possibility that Parliament will take a different view, in which case the Government will do what Parliament says—or we are not in a parliamentary democracy.

[Viscount Ridley]

I was under the impression that that is exactly what we are debating right here and now, and it is what the other place debated fully—and came to a very different decision from the one that we might come to here.

[Lord Adonis]

The noble Viscount just quoted David Cameron. Was that the same speech in which he said he would not resign if he lost the referendum?

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Viscount Ridley]

My Lords, I do not know the answer to that question but I can easily look it up. I will write to the noble Lord about it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Viscount Ridley]

My noble friend is talking about the sovereignty of Parliament. Does he recall that just an hour or two ago we were debating different amendments, which were essentially about putting standards from the European Union into the Bill to make sure that this country does not diverge from them later? Essentially, the basis of those amendments was not having faith in Parliament to do these things correctly.

[Lord Cormack]

That is a complete travesty, a total misreading or a fundamental misunderstanding. If Parliament decides to have these standards, they are there at the insistence of Parliament. That is all that those of us who took part in that very brief but rather graphic debate were arguing.

I go back to the point that I was seeking to make: we should be seeking to underpin the sovereignty of Parliament in this place. If the deal is a very bad deal, I hope that Members in another place will have the courage to vote according to their consciences. I never had any problem voting against the Government in the other place: I frequently voted against Mrs Thatcher’s Government, much as I admired the noble Baroness Thatcher. I frequently found myself in different Lobbies on issues such as the poll tax, or community charge, and did not believe that I was doing anything other than representing my constituents to the best of my ability on issues that were contentious and where I took a particular line.

We all know what a bad deal is, and I very much hope that if the deal is a bad one, they will have the courage in another place to reject it. We cannot make that ultimate decision: although I hope we give it support, this is fundamentally a House of Commons matter, and if it decides that the only proper, ultimate way out is to put that to the people, then that is up to the Commons. A sovereign Parliament has the right to do that.

I end on the note that I am very disturbed about a proliferation of referenda, because it goes a long way towards undermining parliamentary sovereignty. If it is the ultimate decision of the other place, so be it, but it is premature to seek to insert this amendment in this Bill at this time.