King’s Speech

Lord Frost Excerpts

Thursday 14th May 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Frost (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I am delighted to speak in today’s debate on the humble Address. As noble Lords will probably expect, I plan to focus on European issues and, in particular, the sadly misnamed European partnership Bill, which would be better called the European subordination Bill, for in reality that is what it will achieve: it will deprive this Parliament of any say in areas where the Government have agreed to accept EU law and dynamic alignment. I look forward to debating the Bill at great length when it reaches your Lordships’ House.

The bigger question behind it, of course, is: why are the Government going down this road at all? Why are they embarking on this reset? There are three reasons. The first is slightly surprising, and we heard about it this week: the apparent belief of the current Prime Minister that we can get Britain to be at “the heart of Europe”—a retro phrase if ever I heard one. It takes me back to John Major in 1990, and a lot has happened since then. There has been a lot of back and forth, but at no point in that period has this country ever been at the heart of Europe, and I doubt very much that it ever will be, for we do not share the goals of those who run and manage the European Union.

Looking back over that period, we spent almost our entire period of EU membership under both parties resisting any kind of European defence agreement. Indeed, last year the Polish Foreign Minister celebrated the fact that we left because Europe could now get on with such an agreement. That is not being at the heart of Europe. Neither party wanted to be part of the justice and home affairs agreement, and neither wanted to join Schengen. Of course, the reason we are not in the euro is thanks to the many efforts of the man who is now apparently an adviser to the current Prime Minister, the former Chancellor Gordon Brown. The truth is that any policy based on trying to put this country at the heart of Europe will be based on an illusion and will lead the policymakers astray. I suggest that that is exactly what is happening. That is the first reason.

I turn to the second reason. Ministers ask us to believe that there has been significant economic damage from leaving the EU. Unfortunately for them, the truth is that our growth pattern has not changed compared with those of our European comparators. However you cut the figures, Brexit does not show up, and the noble Lord, Lord Redwood, has already embarked on this point. Look at the World Bank figures since the 2008 crash. If noble Lords think that 2016 was the inflection point, I note that before 2016 we grew at about the same speed as Germany and faster than France, and after 2016 it was the other way around. If noble Lords think that 2020 was the inflection point, I note that before 2020 we grew a bit slower than Germany and faster than France, and since 2020 we have grown faster than both. If noble Lords think that 2022-24 is the most important period, I note that then we grew faster than France, Germany and the eurozone. There is an alternative world where Ministers might be talking about this morning’s growth figures as reinforcing what the British economy could achieve outside the European Union, for none of the reset measures is actually in force yet. I do not expect to hear that argument from the Front Bench today.

What is going on, then? Why can you not see Brexit in the figures? My view is that there has been some small transitional effect from leaving the single market and the customs union—maybe 1% or 1.5% of GDP. It is hard to tell. I certainly would not put it anything like as high as the OBR does. But of course that is not the only thing that is going on. We have made reforms since 2020. We have, happily, stayed out of the worst of the EU’s legislation. In particular, EU laws on AI have helped make this country the third centre in the world for AI and brought in much investment, which is probably the major reason for the growth figures we have seen. We have reformed some financial services, and we have reduced tariffs to the rest of the world and made food cheaper. Indeed, the Government themselves have just done another wave of that, which makes one think that they must think there is some value in it. We have innovated in food and gene editing, with fewer obsessional bans of pesticides and so on.

Of course I wish we had done more—we should have done much more—but what we have done very plausibly makes up additional growth of perhaps 1% to 1.5%, which is why you cannot see Brexit in the figures. The costs of Brexit, such as they are, are paid, but the benefits are still to come, and there are many more to be had. But, sadly, this Government are doing the best they can to squander them. The real economic risks do not come from Brexit at all; they come from bad policy-making here and in the European Union. Perhaps that is why the latest Deloitte poll of CFOs shows that they are now more worried about

“economic weakness in the euro area, and the possibility of a renewed euro crisis”

than about the effects of Brexit. So, in summing up, instead of repeating the zombie figures of 4%, 6%, 8% or whatever, can the Minister perhaps comment on what the real-world data actually shows us, and therefore explain why it is so important for us to give away our legislative and economic power to deal with a problem that does not exist?

Finally, the third reason is that the Government have messed up the negotiations. They did not know what they were doing. It is clear to see what happened: in opposition, they believed that the EU would simply warm to them, and it would be easy to negotiate something better than the TCA while remaining within the so-called red lines. They believed that some of the outstanding problems from the TCA were outstanding because we had simply chosen not to deal with them for ideological reasons, rather than because the EU was not interested in negotiating collaborative solutions. They thought that a few token offers in the manifesto and lots of warm words would fix things. Well, they did not and they have not, and I imagine our negotiators are a bit more realistic now.

However, instead of drawing the correct conclusion that it would be better to try to make the TCA work and focus on economic reform in this country, they cannot admit the misdiagnosis. They have got sucked into the machine. They realise that what they promised cannot be delivered, so their only option to avoid looking like they got it all wrong is to take whatever the EU is prepared to offer. So now they are in the traditional position of British Governments: colluding with the EU about what is being agreed, with the EU saying, “If you accept our way of doing things, we will help you tell your own people there’s nothing to see here”. That really is the only explanation for why the Government have achieved so little while being dragged so far from its manifesto commitments; they are simply misleading the British people about what is going on.

Let us have a final look at what their manifesto actually said. It promised only four things, actually. On help for touring artists, they have got nothing. On mutual recognition of qualifications, they have got nothing. On the UK-EU security pact, they have got an agreement to attend meetings. On the veterinary agreement, the fourth, they have got that, but they have got a lot else besides: they have been sucked into the EU single market on food. Against that, they have agreed lots of things that were never in the manifesto. Where in the manifesto is the 12-year extension on fishing grounds? Where in the manifesto is the commitment to dynamic alignment and obeying EU laws with no say? Where is the product standards Act, which would allow Ministers to align with the EU by fiat? Where is the commitment to follow EU rules on cars? Where is joining EU carbon pricing? Where is joining the single market for electricity? Where is joining the EU’s customs union rules for carbon-intensive goods? Where is rejoining Erasmus for £1 billion a year? Where is the youth mobility scheme that is apparently going to be more ambitious than ever, according to the PM on Monday. The answer is: nowhere. The dams of the red lines are long since broken and the incoming tide of EU law is once again flowing up the estuaries and rivers of this country’s independence.

Only once we have ended this constant attempt to try to pretend the British people did not take a decision will we get back to a proper relationship, without passive aggressiveness on the EU side and a chip on the shoulder on ours. We know what needs to be done: we need to reverse the reset and we need to remove EU law and foreign courts, and we need to do that in the whole country, in Northern Ireland as well as in GB. Next time, I hope we will finish the job. It needs to be done and it cannot come soon enough.