Brexit: Horizon 2020 and Erasmus

Debate between Baroness Stowell of Beeston and Lord Kinnock

Thursday 7th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kinnock (Lab)]

My Lords—

[The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Stowell of Beeston) (Con)]

My Lords, it is the turn of either the Cross Benches or the Conservative Benches. We will go to the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, and I hope we can get in a Conservative next.

European Council

Debate between Baroness Stowell of Beeston and Lord Kinnock

Monday 22nd February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

My Lords, I do not think the House will be surprised to hear me say that I very much agree with my noble friend. He is absolutely right: anybody campaigning for Britain to leave the European Union will have to spell out what that means and what they are suggesting the people of this country would be voting for. They need to be specific about the model that is being proposed. If it is a model like Norway, they need to explain to the people of this country that there is no cost-free alternative; that is important for people to understand. There is not another way in which there is no disadvantage. It is quite possible for the United Kingdom to survive and prosper outside of the European Union, but we believe that Britain would remain stronger in the EU, and it is for others to make their case as to what “leave” means.

[Lord Kinnock (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Leader of the House agree that it is neither pessimistic nor defeatist for us to argue for the United Kingdom to remain in the European Union? It is total commitment to advancing and upholding the stability, security and well-being of our beloved country. It is practical patriotism instead of the risk-riddled leap into the unknown of leaving. Will she therefore dismiss the glib and duplicitous suggestion that voting to leave will somehow compel the European Union to amenably accommodate the economic preferences of the United Kingdom outside the EU? Being pro having cake and pro eating it is an infantile desire, not an adult reality. I hope she will agree that the choice is in or out, not “in, out, shake it all about” and then rashly hope that something helpful will turn up for a country that has abandoned all rights, influence and power by leaving the EU.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I certainly agree with the noble Lord that voting to remain in the European Union is very much a patriotic decision. If we cast our vote in that way, we are recognising the power and influence we wield as our country in that European Union, and that we will have both the benefit of being in that Union and—because of what has been renegotiated—greater control of our destiny than we have been able to have up to now. The noble Lord is absolutely right about voting to leave. To vote to leave means to leave, and that will be it: it is about being either in or out.