European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Lamont of Lerwick Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 21st February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

That the Bill be now read a second time.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)]

My Lords, I made my maiden speech in the House of Commons in 1972, during the Third Reading of the European Communities Bill, in favour of our membership of the European Union. I little dreamt that 45 years later I would be standing up to advocate the reverse procedure—namely, that we should withdraw from the organisation that I advocated joining. However, it is not me who has changed but Europe, as was symbolised by its change of name from the European Economic Community to the European Community and finally to the European Union. Increasingly, I became concerned about the incompatibility of the growing integration and our national democracy and accountability. I also became more sceptical about the advantages of the single market.

I voted in the referendum to leave but I fully accept that we have to take account of the 48% who voted to remain. Many of us understand and share the concerns about links for universities and the status of foreign nationals in this country. That is, I think, common ground and those are objectives in the negotiations. Equally, I believe that those who voted to remain have a duty not to undermine the Government’s negotiating position.

I admired very much the speech made yesterday by the noble Baroness. I also admired very much the speech made by Keir Starmer when he led for the Opposition. He did not attempt to conceal the divisions in the ranks of the Labour Party. I assure noble Lords opposite that there is no temptation to gloat, because it was like looking in a mirror at the Conservative Party in the 1990s. Mr Starmer made it very clear that the idea that the referendum was, as he put it, consultative simply did not hold water.

I admired Mr Starmer’s speech but I did not admire the speech of former Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has an extraordinary ability to say two completely contradictory things simultaneously. He said that he did not dispute the result; at the same time, he called on people to rise up. He said that people might change their minds. What he meant was that he might be able to change their minds. All this from a man who promised a referendum on the EU constitution and even published a Bill, but then ensured that the constitution was written in a different order to avoid a referendum.

The former Prime Minister said that people were not given the full facts—that the decision was made on imperfect knowledge. Of course, in a negotiation no one has full knowledge of where we will end up. As for not being given the full facts, people have had more than 40 years in which to make up their minds. He said that Brexit was driven by ideology. I am not sure what ideology he had in mind. If anything, the opposite appears to be the case—European unification as a movement has been almost a religion.

Noble Lords have mentioned endlessly in this debate “membership of the single market” as though that in itself is simply an argument. They have made no attempt to calculate the costs, as my noble friend Lord Lawson referred to yesterday, of the rules of the single market, and they have not bothered to confront the fact that many countries that are not members of the single market have increased their exports to the single market more than members, and certainly more than we, have done. They never bother to comment on the fact that the three largest trading partners of the European Union have no special trading arrangements with the EU, while six of its 10 top trading partners have no special trading relationship or agreement. As my noble friend Lord Lawson said yesterday, there is no reason why there should be a cliff edge.

If noble Lords are sincere in saying that they accept the result of the referendum, it should be possible for them to do all they can to support the Government in their negotiations in the national interest. The amendments being talked about seem more like additions to the Bill, in that they attempt to lay down conditions on the Government’s negotiating position.

On EU nationals, I have great sympathy with what has been said. But the Prime Minister has made it clear that so does she and that this is an objective of the Government. There is, however, no response from other countries in Europe and it would make no sense to make a unilateral gesture that would simply leave the 800,000 British nationals in Europe subject to the leverage of other people in the negotiations.

Equally, when it comes to a parliamentary vote on the deal, the Prime Minister has again said that there will be a vote, so it seems naive to say that Parliament should have the right both to reject whatever deal may be negotiated and simultaneously to decide to stay in the European Union. There are two objections to that argument. First, it would be a denial of the result of the referendum and, secondly, as surely as night follows day, it would make it perfectly inevitable that the EU would offer the worst possible deal in order to have it rejected by Parliament.

I recognise and acknowledge the anxieties of the 48% that should be taken into account. Surely we all want the best possible deal and the best possible access for our exports. But as the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, the former leader of the Liberal Democrats, said on referendum night, I suspect before the result was announced:

“In. Out. When the British people have spoken you do what they command. Either you believe in democracy or you don’t. Any people who retreat into ‘we’re coming back for a second one’—they don’t believe in democracy”.


I believe in democracy and I believe that we should proceed rapidly with the Bill without amendment.

Outcome of the European Union Referendum

Lord Lamont of Lerwick Excerpts

Tuesday 5th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong, on one point: we should not turn our back on Europe. I hope we will have co-operation with Europe, but that is not the same thing as leaving the European Union. While I do not share the gloom of the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong, I confess to a degree of shock on the day after the referendum: shock that the side I had supported had won when I was not entirely confident that it would, and a much greater shock that so many people refused to accept the verdict of the people. There was far too much talk about reversing the result. I was stunned by the intervention of the former Prime Minister Tony Blair, complaining that the result of the referendum had been voted for by only 51.7% of the electorate. This compares with the 43.9% who voted for him, about which he never complained at any time. If we do not accept the result of this referendum, there will be a real awakening of bitterness next time.

I campaigned and voted for the leave side, partly because I have long been sceptical about the allegedly unique benefits we are supposed to get from Europe. More importantly, I am totally opposed to political union, progress towards which seems to me to be going down a blind alley with a dead end. If Europe wants political co-operation, that is one thing, and it should be on an evolutionary basis. It should not be engineered and manipulated by an elite with its own agenda. Europe is an entity without a demos and, thus, it is without the potential for real democracy. Various speakers have referred to their own sense of European identity. Europe has a weak common identity compared with the nation state, which has a strong sense of identity, plenty of life in it and plenty of legitimacy left in it as well.

I agree with the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury and the noble Baroness, Lady Smith; I do not believe the status of EU nationals residing in this country and working in this country ought to be a bargaining chip in the negotiations at all. That ought to have been cleared up already. I also agree with the most reverend Primate, the noble Baroness and others, who have very forthrightly condemned the attacks on Polish and other immigrant communities. This is totally unacceptable and must be roundly condemned. At the same time, it is totally wrong to label people who have legitimate concerns about immigration as racist. That seems to me an extremely dangerous thing to do. If we do not listen to concerns about the pressures of population, the pressures on the housing market and the effects on the lower-paid, we are making a great and serious mistake. It is clear from the referendum results in individual areas that there was a very firm rejection of complete free movement of labour. This issue will not go away and will have to be addressed.

We are where we are. The question is, where do we go from here and what do we do about it? I welcome the unit that has been set up under the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. I hope he and his work will cut through some of the myths that have been accepted uncritically for far too long as conventional wisdom. Myth number one is that the single market has been of unique benefit to the UK. The noble Lord, Lord Birt, repeated that in his speech. But one ought to look at the trade performance of countries that are not members of the EU, such as the United States and Australia, which have managed to increase their exports into the single market faster than we have. You do not have to be a member of the single market to benefit from it.

Another myth is that the UK has free access to the single market. As we pay a budget contribution equivalent to a 7% tariff on all the goods we sell, it is free only in the sense that someone who belongs to a golf club and does not have to pay for every round of golf has free golf: it just is not true. Then we are told that it is impossible to have access to the single market without accepting complete free movement of labour. I was concerned that the Foreign Secretary seemed to accept this. Look at the arrangement that Turkey has. Since 1996, Turkey has enjoyed tariff-free goods access to EU markets with no free movement of people. Turkey accepts the present EU external tariff—about 3%—and there is no restriction on Turkey-EU trade. The important point about the Turkish arrangement is that it avoids the rules of origin. If we set our own tariffs with the rest of the world outside the EU, we would have to accept clearance under the rules-of-origin arrangements, of which there are 9,000 different classifications. This is what Switzerland has to do and there are limits of 30% to 35% placed on the non-Swiss, non-EU content of Swiss goods going into the European Union. The beauty of what Turkey does is that it bypasses all the difficulties of rules of origin. I am not suggesting this should be the final solution or the final arrangement, but it could be an interim one.

Undoubtedly, we face economic challenges. There will be short-term difficulties but, in the medium term, I believe there will be new opportunities. I also believe that what will happen will not be nearly as dire as predicted. Brexit is part of a wider reaction against centralisation in Europe. The Global Attitudes survey released the other day showed that ever-closer union is now rejected by 73% of voters in Holland, 85% in Sweden, 86% in Greece, and 68%, 65% and 60% in Germany, Italy and France respectively. We are not alone. Things that have happened in this country are also beginning to stir in other European countries. Indeed, the impact of Brexit may well be greater on Europe than it is on Britain. We are not alone. The other day, the editor of the Italian newspaper Libero wrote: “The only true functioning democracy is the English one. The United Kingdom proved for the umpteenth time that it believes in the will of the people and that it knows how to respect it with elegance”. We should respect with elegance each other’s views and we should also respect, with elegance, the views of the people.

European Council

Lord Lamont of Lerwick Excerpts

Monday 22nd February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Framlingham (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

We have not heard from the Cross Benches for some time.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

Or you might say, “Better the devil you know”. Basically, I agree with the noble Lord: you do not have to be a raging Euro-enthusiast and to have been so for donkey’s years to support staying in the European Union. As I said to the noble Lord, Lord Kinnock, this is patriotic. We believe very much in the power and sovereignty of the United Kingdom, and we believe that by being in Europe we can have, as the Prime Minister described it, the best of both worlds. As to the point of the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, about making more of the way in which we are a gateway to the rest of Europe, I agree with him, and the Prime Minister is already making that case. We have four months to go and he will keep making that case. I hope that the noble Lord and others will help us in that task.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

Does the Minister recall an interview given some time ago by Jacques Delors in the German newspaper Handelsblatt in which he said this:

“If the British cannot support the trend towards more integration in Europe, we can nevertheless remain friends, but on a different basis. I could imagine a form such as a European economic area or a free-trade agreement”?

Does not that show, without prejudging it, that there is an alternative available, or was Delors just completely wrong?

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

My noble friend is right to say that there is an alternative—of course there is an alternative. That is why there are two choices for the British people: to leave or to remain. The alternative—and it may be something like the Norway model—is not inconceivable, but it would not be without cost and is not something that we should walk blindly into without recognising that it brings with it its own disadvantages. We have to be clear what the alternative is. That is what the next few weeks and months will have to be about in this debate: if there is an alternative, what is it?

House of Lords Reform

Lord Lamont of Lerwick Excerpts

Tuesday 15th September 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)]

My Lords, Anthony Trollope, the Victorian novelist, once observed that the cure for admiring the House of Lords was to go and actually have a look at it. If he went and had a look at it today he might admire the valuable work that the noble Baroness the Leader of the House referred to; or he might see an assembly bursting at the seams, overflowing into what used to be space reserved for visitors, and a somewhat untidy Question Time. If he ventured into the Library on a crowded night, he might see something resembling a Belgian battlefield. There is a problem of size.

The emphasis in my noble friend’s admirable speech was on incremental reform. Of course the reform can only be incremental; we are not discussing the ultimate solution—the ultimate reform of this House. What we are discussing can only be provisional, though we should be encouraged by the fact that nothing tends to last as long as the provisional. There needs to be action to reduce the size of the House. It is not just bursting at the seams; I very much agree with what the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, said—that the problem of numbers is actually making it more difficult for the House to do its job. As she said, there are debates in which expert speakers are restricted to two or three minutes. It is the same when these people try to get in at Question Time. The problem of numbers is related to the purpose of this House, which is to revise and to hold the Executive to account.

I have great sympathy with the Motion that has been put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Steel. I think he demonstrated with the arithmetic—I had some other figures which were not as up to date as his—that what he proposes would make a very significant difference to the size of this House. He has put in an escape clause for there to be certain exceptions, and I am sure that we can all call to mind certain people who might reach the age of 80 but who make a very valuable contribution to this House. When people go and consider all the alternatives that will be offered, they will probably find that the proposal put by the noble Lord, Lord Steel, is pretty unavoidable.

One alternative would be to consider ending by-elections for the 92 hereditaries. That would also have an effect on numbers but would very much affect the party balance on this side of the House; it would affect the representation of the Conservative Party. Again, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, said, proposals that disadvantage one party at the expense of another will not be agreed, so that would have to be considered alongside the question of the overall balance in this House.

I, like other noble Lords who have spoken, believe that we ought to have a cap. However, that cap ought to be introduced now on the present numbers, and it should be a reducing cap. The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, both today and on a previous occasion, proposed a cap and a one-for-one solution; that is to say, one new Peer appointed for every one that goes out. I suggest that it ought to be something like one for three—three out, one in—and that the cap be slowly reduced over time. We want a whole series of measures that will reduce gradually. It cannot be done overnight, as the Leader of the House very rightly emphasised.

It has been reported in the press that the Prime Minister believes that reform has to come from this House. Well and good. However, it also has to come from restraint on the part of the Prime Minister in the number of peerages that he appoints. I would suggest that that discretion ought to be exercised within a reducing cap. We made a mistake some years ago when we bought into the idea that Governments who win elections are then entitled to make more Peers to reflect the result of the election, whether it be in seats or in the percentage of the vote. That is just a recipe—particularly if there is an alternation of Governments—for an ever-increasing size of the House, which is just not practical. No Government, Conservative or Labour, will have a majority in this House—there are too many Cross-Benchers for that—but we have to accept that a Government of whatever complexion will always be in a minority. As has been said by my noble friend Lord Strathclyde, Labour Governments operated for a long period when there was a very large Conservative majority against them. That is the reality which Governments in the future will have to operate against.

The question was asked, I think by the noble Lord, Lord Stevens: “Why should we bring in other people when we have been appointed for life?”. But, of course, we have to recognise that experience grows old and the Government need to bring in fresh talent. Experience is a wonderful thing but it can get out of date. The Lords is also a convenient way of appointing Ministers who may have special expertise or have come from a commercial background with no particular political involvement. Often, when they have been a Minister, they lose interest in this House and return to the City or their businesses. Why cannot the same statutory mechanism for retirement be used for those who, having been Ministers, wish to go back to their businesses? Perhaps they could be appointed Ministers of this House on the understanding that they will use the statutory mechanism once they cease to hold office.

Lastly, in passing, perhaps I may just say, although I do not want to make too much of this, that I do not think that people should be appointed to this House who, for various reasons such as Civil Service practice, are not allowed to speak. The Leader has previously commented on this, but I think it is quite wrong to appoint people to this House who are not able to make a contribution actually by speaking, particularly when so many other people might be candidates for this House. I was very surprised that this passed the Appointments Commission—perhaps someone will comment on that later. I agree with my noble friend the Leader of the House that we want simplicity; this cannot be done in one leap; and we need to work with other parties to achieve a consensus. However, we need action on the size of the House, and quickly.