European Union Referendum Bill

Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes Excerpts

Tuesday 13th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes (Con)]

My Lords, I know that I am right in saying that I am the only living Conservative remaining who voted against joining the Union in 1971, when the decision was taken in the House of Commons on the principle of joining. The Government of the day had a huge majority in favour; a few months later, on the Bill itself, that was diminished to a majority of four. So I think that I have the right to say, “I told you so”, because everything that I feared has, little by little, turned out to be more or less right. I did not take that stand lightly; I held a full referendum in my constituency, which I paid for, which was overwhelmingly against joining. A great deal of argument had gone on, on both sides, before the vote was taken.

I was not satisfied just to go by the result of the poll because that would not have been democratic, in my view. I then visited the four major cities and four different members to speak to people—they were twinned with Gloucester at the time—to find out about them and see what their views were of living in what was then a fairly new form of government. It is a form of government because it governs us and does so throughout. The most important thing to be established before any referendum takes place and before the Government give any advice about the outcome of the negotiations is to know what bottom line they are negotiating for. They need that to be known by those who oppose them. That is the fundamental requirement before the whole referendum takes place.

I fear that so many of the things that one dreaded happening have happened rather quietly and through the back doors. There have been endless, ghastly regulations, debated for long periods in the common market itself and then negotiated once again in this country for long periods, none of which has brought any benefit to the people of this country. There have been stupid regulations. In a recent one, especially at a time when payday loans are such a problem, it was forbidden in regulations to put the cost of the loan in money figures. It had to be done only by means of the AER. How many Peers could stand up at this point and say what the AER is? I cannot see any volunteers. That meant that people entering into small loans could not see the actual cost of the loan in money terms. We renegotiated and renegotiated over years, and at last we can now put the actual cost of a payday loan, although we can do it only on the basis that it is printed in letters smaller than the printing of the AER. That is just typical. It is not in itself a huge issue or one of the great things, but I assure noble Lords that there are many more such stupid regulations that we have had to adopt over the years.

The stupid assumption that this has been some huge advantage to us in terms of trade has been waylaid by my noble friend already, who said that in fact probably less than half our total imports and exports are affected by the European Union. I understand that at the moment we are negotiating for a special trade agreement with the United States. I am sure that if that were achieved it would be of great value to this country, if not exclusively, and would certainly sit alongside our membership without any problems whatever as the two would not cut across.

At this stage, I do not know whether I want a come-out solution. Nobody knows that because they do not know what will be achieved at the end of the negotiations—or even what they want to be achieved. It is quite right that that should be an open decision throughout people’s prospects. So many people we have known for years and who have not had strong feelings now say, “I want to come out, I only want to come out and there is no other thing that would be satisfactory”.

I personally identify very much with all the views strongly expressed by our Foreign Secretary, who was here earlier. They give very little way to anything other than what I imagine we want as our bottom line. I will want them to be adhered to throughout negotiations of such importance. Finally, I congratulate this Government on being the first one since the inception of the Union, since the early vote when I voted against, to give this country the opportunity to see what we have gained, what we have lost and what we can improve—and, if we cannot improve it, get out. My congratulations remain firmly with the Government.

European Union (Referendum) Bill

Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes Excerpts

Friday 10th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes (Con)]

My Lords, I confess from the very first that I am Eurosceptic and always have been. I voted in 1971 against the principle of joining. However, this Bill is not about Euroscepticism; it is about giving an opportunity to the people of this country, who are very confused in many ways about various things that have happened. It is crucial that they should be given this opportunity and should be given it at a time when the principles of what had been accepted have been discussed, expressed and investigated. They need to be informed and they need a referendum because at this moment in time they are very puzzled indeed.

We all know what the main issues have been—it is not a question of UKIP; these things have come up over and again—which have been disturbing to the general public and have never fully been explained. I remember that when we were on the Benches opposite there was a huge question of millions and millions of pounds, or rather euros, that had been spent or not spent and had vanished down some black hole. There never was a proper explanation. My only slight dismay is that I do not think this should be an issue of a very narrow number of situations about which people have concerns, any more than it should be about the nitty-gritty. I was extremely impressed by the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Owen, with a whole part of which I found myself in great agreement.

I believe so strongly in referendums that when we faced the question of entering Europe, I told my constituents at the time that they would get the benefit of my advice. I visited all the cities twinned with my constituency of Gloucester and held a referendum at my own expense, which was organised and carried out by the Hansard Society.

I do not want to rake up a lot of old and certainly worrying issues that have occurred over the years or any of the matters which I believe have left the people of this country worse, not better, off. I will be very satisfied indeed if this Bill is given a Second Reading in this House. I regard it as a very important step that should be taken as soon as possible, as long as the British people are given the right answers.

A young lady working for me yesterday wanted to see me today. She is a very—I shall not say ordinary—normal person. She has just got her mortgage, and she is very pleased. I said, “I can’t come tomorrow because of this European debate”. She replied, “I just don’t know about Europe. Do you?”. That is it.

European Union Bill

Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes Excerpts

Tuesday 26th April 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tomlinson]

My Lords, I was not going to speak to this group of amendments, but I have been provoked by the previous speaker. He seems to suggest that we are implying in these amendments that there will be circumstances in which we seek to hide behind amendments such as these in order to deal with circumstances of economic and monetary convergence. We should, however, look at the current reality.

I have just come back from spending two and a half weeks with some of our continental friends in the European Union. Even though I am a teetotaller, I spent a number of hours in a number of quite agreeable bars speaking to expatriate Brits there, among others. They are not complaining about the strength of sterling and the weakness of the euro; they are complaining about the exact opposite. They are complaining about how weak the pound sterling is and how few euros it buys them in what they had anticipated would be golden years spent in the sunshine. I recall, when I first became involved in buying a property in Spain some five years ago, buying euros at the rate of 65p to the euro. Now I have managed to sell my house in Spain, I was able to repatriate money at the rate of 89p to the euro. That shows that the euro has improved by 38 per cent vis-à-vis sterling. There is a serious point to this, because when we talk about the rising costs of our membership of the European Union, they are the rising costs of a budget that is denominated in euros.

[Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes]

Does the noble Lord agree that, in view of what he said, it is somewhat surprising that the German economy is booming at the moment because of the weakness of the euro?

[Lord Tomlinson]

The euro might be weak in relation to some other countries, but it is certainly not weak in relation to the pound sterling. The pound sterling is doing abysmally in relation to the euro, and partly in consequence of that so is our budgetary contribution to the European Union, about which there are permanent complaints from Members opposite. Complaints are being made very merrily at the moment about what will happen if Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne fail to control the Commission with regard to the budget for next year, for which the aspirations are for an increase of 4.9 per cent. The 4.9 per cent is largely the product of the relationship of the pound sterling to the euro. We, and not just the countries in euroland, have a responsibility in that regard.

I think that your Lordships are becoming engaged in a rather tortuous argument. That started off with the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, who I think should be a worried man when he gets praise for what was the alleged excellence of his speech by the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch. In his speech, he flipped over quite a number—