Census (England and Wales) Order 2020
Lord Balfe Excerpts(4 years ago)
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Lord Balfe (Con)
My Lords, I first came into statistical life at the time of the 1970 census, when we had the job of devising a definition of a one-parent family. I realise that this is probably a bit of a surprise question but, first, I would be very pleased if the Minister could write letting me know whether that definition has evolved and what it now is. Secondly, I would like to make it clear that I, too, hope that this will not be the last census. It does not cost that much and has provided a great historical snapshot of Britain through the ages.
I have one or two questions. First, is there any aim to hit people who are not online? A number of people in the community, particularly senior citizens, are not online and will not be able to fill in the census. Will they be able to register in advance? If not, and secondly, what will the follow-up be? Presumably the online responses will all go to one centre. Will there then be local follow-ups of people who have not completed it, and will this be done by addresses? I assume that it will be.
My next question is about past service in the Armed Forces. Having been in the Territorial Army almost 60 years ago, I wonder how far back this will go. Will it contain data about the Territorial Army and national service? I cannot understand why past service in the Armed Forces has gone into the thing.
Finally, on the voluntary questions, I point out the lesson that we should learn from Boaty McBoatface. There may well be people who decide that there are jokes to be made out of nationality or religion. Are any steps being taken to eliminate obvious false answers?
Income Equality and Sustainability
Lord Balfe Excerpts(4 years ago)
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Lord Balfe (Con)
My Lords, I also congratulate the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York on securing this debate. I draw attention to my interests in the register.
I must start by mentioning that a basic income, an idea which has come up from time to time, has been trialled in Finland, where the trial was abandoned. It would be good to look at why that was before we go too far.
I want to talk about what I see as the real scandal: the perception that those right at the top end of the economy do not need to pay much in the way of tax. I read in today’s Times, for instance, that Deloitte has 669 partners in Britain, who earned an average of £882,000 each last year. In another, quite separate story, I read that the boss of Ocado was paid £59 million last year, and that the finance chief and the chief operating officer, somewhat more humbly, got only £14 million each—of course, the business recorded a loss of £214.5 million. When people read these mind-boggling figures they wonder where, at the bottom end, they are going to exist.
I am pleased that, when I was chair of the finance committee of the Reform Club, I managed to bring in the London living wage. It is still paid there. However, we need to look at how we can benefit people at the bottom of the scale and how we can get fair tax out of the people in the middle. When people see Sir Philip Green flying in from Monaco, or Richard Branson on his island in the West Indies, they are rightly very cynical. My message is that we need to get together with people, and internationally, to tackle the tax havens and the many ways in which it is possible to hide or move income. It is not tax evasion; it is tax avoidance, by transferring money to the most beneficial regime. In the same way, some companies transfer their rights to Luxembourg, and thereby reduce the amount of tax that they have to pay in the UK.
I therefore ask the Government to look at ways of co-ordinating international action with the OECD, the European Union and others, to close the tax havens in the Channel Islands, Monaco, Panama, the Virgin Islands and the like. We really must start to tackle these abuses, which I believe underscore the way in which people see unfairness in society. If we are to have a fair division of income, we have to start tackling those people who believe that they are above income tax law.
Budget: Economic and Fiscal Outlook
Lord Balfe Excerpts(4 years ago)
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Lord Balfe (Con)
My Lords, as many will know, I was a firm believer that we should stay in the EU, but I also happen to believe in democracy. The British people gave a very clear answer last December and we now have to do the best we can with that. It is no good fighting yesterday’s battles.
As previous speakers have said, this report is of course largely a waste of time; it was never of much use, but in the fast-changing scenario we are now in, it is of very little use at all. However, one thing that recent history has demonstrated is that not only are we not ruled from Brussels; no one is. I am afraid that the Covid-19 crisis has revealed the weakness of the EU and the way in which national Governments have taken quite different decisions in their own national interest. I do not blame them for that, but we need a more realistic view of the EU. We need to realise that the main winner from the Covid-19 crisis in Europe is China—Beijing, in other words.
I hope that we will use our remaining time in dealing with the EU as a fact-finding exercise to find out exactly what member states are doing to combat the Covid-19 virus and, more importantly, how they are paying for it. My concern is that the countries of Europe are running up debts which will bankrupt them. We have to look at how much we can afford to put into the economy at this time. There is a general assumption in Brussels that the transition will end on 31 December. Officials do not believe that the British Government particularly want a deal and there is a school of thought, particularly in France, that if we can tear it all up, they will end up with a better deal than they will by negotiating one.
So, let us not imagine that everybody is lining up and saying, “Oh, we must have a deal with Britain—otherwise, everything will fall to bits.” A good group of people are saying, “The transition will end on 31 December and then we can start anew; we can negotiate a whole new series of things.” However, I disagree with the idea that we do not need to work together. We cannot retreat. We have to repair the economic fallout, not only in Britain but in the rest of western Europe—indeed, the whole of Europe. We will need to work together. Our neighbours’ problems are also our own. It is not for us to solve them financially, but it is for us to be concerned by them and to do our best to work with our EU partners even though we are outside the EU, just as Norway does.
Public Services: Update
Lord Balfe Excerpts(4 years ago)
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Lord Balfe (Con)
Our National Health Service may be wonderful, but it has a very sclerotic decision-making process, rather like the former Soviet Union. I live in Cambridge, where our local hospital has almost 400 empty beds. Cancer radiotherapy and cancer operations have stopped. The cardiology department has almost stopped and there are no face-to-face appointments available. When the hospital is questioned, it says that it is waiting for guidance; when the Minister is questioned, we are told that it is up to the hospitals. Will someone try to shake this up, because although we have to combat Covid-19 we must also remember that many very ill people in the community are not being looked after?
Lord True
My Lords, the fact that my noble friend points to—the indirect impact on people and their health in the Covid crisis—has been repeatedly stressed by the Chief Medical Officer in the press conferences over recent weeks. That is understood. I take the point that he makes about spare capacity, which is obviously a result of what was a necessary response to the crisis. Yesterday in the press conference, my right honourable friend the Minister for Health spoke—I cannot remember the exact phrase— about reopening the NHS to normal business. That is probably not the phrase but it was something of that sort. I assure my noble friend that consideration is being given to this.
House of Lords: Membership
Lord Balfe Excerpts(4 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Balfe
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the proposals contained in the report of the Lord Speaker’s committee on the size of the House, published on 31 October 2017, for new appointments to the House of Lords to be on a “two-out, one-in” basis.
The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Lord True) (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Balfe on being the first Peer in the history of the House of Lords to ask a virtual Question. Those who know me know that it will be the ultimate technological stress test for me to get through this. The Government are grateful for the work of the Burns Committee. I refer my noble friend to the response of the former Prime Minister in February 2018.
Lord Balfe (Con)
My Lords, I am sure the House will agree that, particularly at the moment, we need to look to our reputation. This is not helped by the mass creation of new Peers. However, no Peer can be introduced to sit in the House without following the Standing Orders, in particular Standing Order 1.12 of the 24th edition of the Companion, 2015. It would seem that alterations to the normal procedure are achieved with the agreement of the House. So, a resolution of the House to amend this resolution, to reduce introductions to the number in the Burns formula, would theoretically be the way to try to import the target set by the noble Lord, Lord Burns; new Peers could be created but would have to wait to be introduced. Does the Minister agree that this matter could usefully be referred to the noble Lord, Lord Burns, and his committee—to look at this suggestion as a way of bringing some discipline to the procedure?
Lord True
My Lords, it is not for me to decide what should be referred to the committee. The size of the House is reducing, given retirements and departures; we have sadly heard some today. However, some new Members are essential to keep the expertise and outlook of the House of Lords fresh.
Wellbeing of Future Generations Bill [HL]
Lord Balfe ExcerptsFriday 13th March 2020
(4 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Balfe (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Bird, on getting this debate and on the Bill. It is the beginning of a long process. We are getting to grips with, and trying to define, a whole new way of looking at society. An undoubted truth is that there is a lot of short-termism in society. That is largely because the generation that takes decisions frequently lets the next generation pay for its consequences. On occasions we are a bit too happy to take decisions based on our emotional view of the world, rather than a practical one. One of the most interesting points in yesterday’s debate was the admission by my noble friend Lord Tugendhat that austerity might not have been the best way of tackling the problems we have had in the last 10 years. That is quite a fundamental confession, because many in our party—I am guilty to an extent myself—accepted that the best way forward was reining in, cutting our cloth, and all the rest of the old sayings. We saw a complete change of direction in the Budget this week. If that had been taken some years ago, we might not have spent any more money, but we might have spent it slightly more wisely.
One of my hopes for the well-being objectives and the commissioner—if we get that far—is that we will have a more nuanced view of the future and that we will look at the way society can get better. Society has got better. I do not intend to turn this into a great personal thing, but I grew up as the child of alcoholics. Nobody cared. That is my overwhelming memory of growing up in the 1950s in that sort of family. People turned the other way, and the well-being of future generations has to mean us helping future generations—I was very struck by what the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, said—to come to terms with and to give a fair life chance to people as they mature, grow up and face the future. According to the recent survey, 200,000-odd children are unhappy. It is no good rubbishing that unhappiness and the way it is measured; we have to accept that they are unhappy. A child defines its own unhappiness. It does not need someone else to do it for it.
My hope is that we will look at the French commission mentioned in the Library briefing—the Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussi commission—and the work of Thomas Piketty. I do not think he has necessarily got everything on his side, but it is a different way of looking at welfare economics and the way we can build society. I greatly welcome the initiative of my friend the noble Lord, Lord Bird—I do not mind calling people in other parties friends. I hope that this can be built upon to get us to a much better place than where we are now. He is great pioneer in bringing this forward.
European Parliament Elections: Non-UK EU Citizens
Lord Balfe Excerpts(4 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Balfe (Con)
My Lords, the Minister may well want to write to me with the answers to some of these questions. I declare an interest as someone who has had a residence in Brussels for the last 40 years, although of course I have been able to vote in only the last couple of elections. I think there is a misunderstanding about what this directive says. The Minister stated that all member states are required to,
“send the details of any EU citizens’ declarations to the state they are a citizen of, ‘sufficiently in advance of polling day’”.
What is the definition of “sufficiently in advance”, and how many declarations did we send to other member states? Could he write saying how many declarations were received from each member state for the elections in 2014 and 2019? Could he also tell us what use they were put to? When I filled in my declaration in Belgium, I was not asked for an address in the United Kingdom, so how is this used to check that people have not voted twice? As a further complication, being a joint citizen of the Irish Republic and the United Kingdom, this year I registered myself in Brussels as a citizen of the Republic of Ireland. How, in any way, could the Republic of Ireland know this, since I am not eligible to vote in the Republic of Ireland as it has different regulations? I just ask—
The Countess of Mar (CB)
My Lords, does the noble Lord appreciate that Urgent Questions should be treated in the same way as Oral Questions? Members should ask two questions, briefly.
Lord Young of Cookham
At the beginning of his questions, my noble friend generously suggested that I might write to him. It is an offer which I accept with alacrity.
Brexit: Stability of the Union
Lord Balfe Excerpts(5 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Balfe (Con)
My Lords, I add my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, for initiating this debate.
My overall conclusion is that there will be no effects of Brexit other than it being weaponised by individual political parties for whatever they see as their own advantage, but I believe there will be unforeseen consequences of Brexit which may now be coming to the surface. All my political life, devolution has been an issue. I began in the middle 1960s. Gwynfor Evans had been elected as a Welsh nationalist Member of Parliament and in November 1967 Winnie Ewing became a Scottish National Party MP in a by-election caused by Harold Wilson putting Tom Fraser into the chairmanship of the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board, having learned nothing about losing by-elections from Lord Sorensen. Winnie Ewing won. She went on to have a long and distinguished career in Europe and became known as “Madame Ecosse”. I say that by way of background.
I am not particularly a fan of devolution. I take a very similar view to Gordon Brown about the advantages of countries and nations working together. That is one reason why I am a strong supporter of the EU. However, I also counsel people to believe that the people who voted in the referendum were not concerned about the United Kingdom. In East Anglia, they were concerned about immigration, taking back control and what Brussels might do to them. As an active campaigner in the referendum debate, I did not hear Scotland or Wales mentioned on a single occasion.
People have mentioned our precious union. That is rather like the special relationship. We often mention it here, but you never hear it mentioned in Washington. I am afraid the precious union does not play to the gallery in East Anglia at all. As far as people there are concerned, Scotland is a very different country, as are Wales and Ireland.
Nobody seems to have quite twigged to the fact that there is a big difference between Scotland and Ireland over Brexit. The difference is simply this: one day there will be a vote, and if Ireland votes for reunification, Northern Ireland will automatically become part of the European Union. It will not need to apply because it is covered by the German Democratic Republic convention that a country that unites itself peacefully will have automatic entry. If the island of Ireland united, it would join the EU instantly. It could not be stopped under the treaties and the way the EU is structured. Scotland would have a very different perspective. As my friends in Madrid will tell you, it would be a long and difficult negotiation because Madrid, which does not recognise Kosovo, for instance, is not going to set any precedent that might damage its internal cohesion, which is as fragile as ours. That is possibly one of the unforeseen consequences.
I would like to see a greater sense of solidarity in the United Kingdom. We seem to spend all our time talking about devolving and getting away from each other. We will soon be the most overgoverned nation in Europe. At the moment, that trophy is held by Belgium, where I live part of the time. All I will say is that for every layer of government, there is an added layer of confusion, so on the settlement, let us settle down and leave it for a time because nothing is to be gained from constantly meddling with it. It may need tidying at the edges, but I do not think it needs fundamentally looking at again.
My final word is to a party not represented in this Chamber. I wish that the other parties in Northern Ireland would get together and get the Administration in Northern Ireland up and running again. It is very difficult to treat Northern Ireland seriously when you see parties deliberately stopping the development of the democratic process there. If they believe in Ireland, I ask them to respect the people of Ireland.
House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) (Abolition of By-Elections) Bill [HL]
Lord Balfe Excerpts(6 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
My Lords, I shall make only a short contribution. If it looks like a duck and walks like a duck, it is a duck, and I know a filibuster when I see one. We have this ridiculous amendment to the Motion when, as my noble friend has pointed out, we have had a vote at Second Reading. We have all these other amendments tabled in the names of my noble friend and the noble Earl, Lord Caithness. What is going on here is an attempt to frustrate what is the majority view of this House. It is a majority view because we value the hereditaries and the important contribution they make to this place. I personally am opposed to an elected House and I thought the argument made by the noble Lord, Lord Tyler—that hereditary by-elections meant that the Prime Minister could not appoint people who would be compliant—was an insult to us all. None of us is compliant in this House, as my noble friend the Chief Whip will remember from yesterday. We act appropriately on our judgment, and that is the value of this place.
I saw in the Sunday papers that the Speaker in the other place had spent a bit of money on devising a new logo. When I looked at the new logo, I could not see the difference. Then I realised that it was not just about a few balls on a portcullis; rather, there was a huge difference. It has been proposed that the existing logo of the portcullis and the words “Houses of Parliament” should be replaced by one saying, “UK Parliament”, thus downgrading this House. Again and again, this House produces excellent reports—I declare an interest as chairman of the Economic Affairs Committee—which are largely ignored.
The reputation of this House has fallen considerably because of the numbers, and frankly, as the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, pointed out in his excellent article in the House magazine and as the noble Lord, Lord Steel of Aikwood, has pointed out, this is about the reputation of this House. If we wish to maintain the hereditary presence—I was privileged enough to join the House while the hereditaries were still here and they make an excellent contribution—we have to get rid of a process that generates ridicule and damages us. It enhances the argument of those who would wish to get rid of the hereditaries and make this House an elected Chamber—one, as the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, has suggested, in which the Prime Minister’s patronage and the patronage of the Chief Whip and others would run well. That is not what this House is about and it is not its function. I hope that my noble friend will withdraw not only his amendment to the Motion but these ridiculous other amendments, which are designed to prevent this House taking a decision and sending it to the other place for it to take a view.
Lord Balfe (Con)
My Lords, perhaps I may make a couple of points as someone who gave both written and oral evidence to the Burns committee. The Burns committee did not deal with this subject. It decided specifically not to do so because it felt that it would be outside its terms of reference. We hear that the resolutions of Burns have not been implemented, but then, parliamentary reform is an ongoing process. From the 1832 Reform Act through to votes at 16, which will inevitably come, we have reformed the way we run the country and how parliamentary systems work. I believe that we are passing up an historic opportunity if we do not back the noble Lord, Lord Grocott.
Many years ago, I remember having a conversation over dinner with the late John Smith, a man I greatly admired. I asked him, “What is the most difficult thing you face?”, expecting him to come up with some problem in the House of Commons. He replied, “The queue of people outside my door who think that they should be in the House of Lords”. It is inevitable that at some point there will be a change of government. At that point, there will be a big difference between the number of Peers on each side of the House. In the city of Cambridge where I live, there is not only seething anger at what is seen as a party that is somewhat out of touch with aspirations of home ownership and the like; there are a lot of people who think. Let me tell noble Lords what I think will happen. If the Labour Party has any sense, which it does occasionally, it will include in its manifesto a line saying, “We will remove the right of hereditary Peers to legislate”. This would then be covered by the Salisbury convention, and the measure could be passed. When there is a change of government, there will be a great demand for radical measures—and this is an easy radical measure. The balance of the House would change very quickly because there are more hereditaries on this side of the Chamber than on that side. That would get the Labour Party out of a difficult corner and reduce the number of people.
I urge my colleagues to think carefully before they reject what I stress is a very modest proposal. I would like to see it passed, to see Burns implemented and to see us demonstrate to the country that we are capable of reforming ourselves. We should not have this charade of pretending that somehow, this or that has not been completed. This is a challenge for the whole House: to show that we are not, as was described to me by students at a recent meeting in Cambridge, the “pensioners’ party”, but that we are actually a part of the living government of this country. We play a vital role in the governance of this nation and the House of Lords has a definite place in the running of this country. We should get on with it, take the reforms on board and settle down to some sensible work. I hope that the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, will be supported.
Finally, I appeal to the Government because it is the Government who can help. With great respect to the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, I believe that, in the 1960s, we had the greatest Home Secretary of the past 100 years—Roy Jenkins. He dealt with a lot of radical measures by the simple means of saying, “I will give government time to these Back Bench initiatives”. I ask the Government to seriously consider taking this Bill under their wing and enabling it to pass, because if they wanted to, they could. If the Bill falls it will be in part because of this House, but also because our Government have not willed it to pass. I hope they will look carefully at making time available for this Bill to go down the Corridor, where I do not detect any great opposition to it.
Lord Grocott (Lab)
My Lords, I am very grateful to everyone who has spoken, all of whom have spoken in favour of the Bill. We are simply debating an amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, that regrets the fact that the Bill will be considered in Committee. I need to remind the House, and maybe even the noble Lord, what he had to say about the timing of the consideration of my Bill when it had its Second Reading in September. He said that the Bill is “untimely”. The reason he gave was that the noble Lord, Lord Burns, was,
“chairing a Speaker’s Committee to examine the size of the House, which will … have a bearing”,—[Official Report, 8/9/17; col. 2155.]
on my Bill. He is now suggesting that we should not consider the Bill because not all the recommendations of the Burns committee have been met yet. I tend to get the feeling that the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, would not be in favour of the Bill going into Committee whatever the circumstances of the Burns committee or any other. But he was absolutely right in one respect when he said that the Burns committee would have an effect on this Bill. It does indeed: it makes the case for it even more powerful.
I remind the House that the principal recommendation of the Burns committee, which has overwhelmingly found favour in all parts of this House, is that the House should reduce its size over time to 600 Members. One of the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne—I have to keep a straight face as I say this—suggests that we should delay any further consideration on the Bill until the House has been reduced to 600 Members. He is saying that the whole of the House can start reducing itself, apart from the 92 hereditary Peers. I hope, in the course of his response, he will explain the logic behind that argument, because it escapes me.
I am a chap of generally sunny disposition, but I am strained at the moment because I fear the tabled amendments do not try to improve the Bill, which is the point of Committee; they are designed to wreck the Bill and/or delay it indefinitely until some time in the future. Nothing has changed in the noble Lord’s approach, or that of the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, come to that, since we last discussed the Bill, but lots of other things have changed, including the Burns report. The noble Lords have tabled a large number of amendments—I think they put their name to 57 on a two-clause Bill. There are 13 groups, so they have at least reduced the number of groups that were considered last time. Normally a two-clause Bill should be able to get through Committee in two and a half hours, which is roughly the time we will have to deal with it today. Their position will be tested on whether they agree to see the Bill through its Committee stage in the time left to it.
I feel very strongly that it is important that the House has an opportunity to express its view on the approach of the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, to the Bill. He is asking us to delay it. My feeling is that the overwhelming view of Members of this House, on all sides—including, my guess is, a majority of the hereditaries, many of whom have come to me and said that they support the Bill, notably including the noble Countess, Lady Mar, who cannot be here today, who is the only woman among the 92 hereditaries—is that they want us to get on with the Bill. It might be that the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, is right that he has a lot of support here, but I think it is something he would want to test so that he and I can both judge the strength of feeling there is on this piece of legislation. I hope the noble Lord will stand up now and seek the opinion of the House.
Lord True
My Lords, I do not see any distinction at all, though I am always grateful for a compliment from the noble Lord, whom I esteem highly. I do not particularly follow the argument about independence. It is true that hereditary Peers come here by a different route, but I have never made that argument. As was said in a challenge to the noble Viscount, it is an objective fact. They come here through election by a political college and they take a political place. I therefore have some doubt about the argument. There are nuances in all these things.
Lord Balfe
Does the noble Lord accept that his point about the disproportionate effect on these Benches is exactly why such a reform might appeal to certain elements in the Labour Party when they become the Government of this country, as they inevitably will?
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill
Lord Balfe Excerpts(6 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Balfe (Con)
My Lords, I begin by drawing attention to my entries in the register as the serving chairman of the European Parliament pension fund and vice-president of its former members association, both of them 28-country organisations. I am not a UK president of something but a European one, and that probably gives noble Lords some idea of where I am coming from on this.
I have been involved in international affairs all my working life, from the age of 16, when I began as a junior official in the Crown Agents at 4 Millbank, opposite this House. Indeed, my first visit to the House of Lords—to sit up there—was when I was an official in that department. Whether it did any good or not I will leave to noble Lords to judge.
I regard this as the greatest single failure of my political life. I firmly believe not just in the European Union but in the wider concept of multilateralism: the idea that we need to do things together, whether through the UN, the Council of Europe, the European Court of Human Rights, the UN agencies or the European Community. I am a firm believer in that idea, and all the evidence, from a lifetime in international affairs, leads me clearly to the point that we work better when we work together. We may not get everything, but we certainly work better.
This is a withdrawal Bill. I know of no club, anywhere, where you get better terms from being outside it than from being in it. That is why they set up the club: to give members benefits. We, outside the European Union, can talk about what sort of result we want, but the fact is that we cannot get as good a result. I have returned this afternoon from talking to a delegation to Parliament from Norway, and I put that specific question to them. They told me, “Yes, we’re outside the main decision-making structure. When we want to influence something, we have to go to another country and convince them to raise our case alongside theirs”. Indeed, when I was in the justice ministry in Oslo not that long ago, someone said that the most important desk in that ministry was the one with the direct telephone line to Stockholm. However we delude ourselves, the fact is that whatever deal we get, it will not be as good as if we were inside.
I am particularly concerned at the impact that withdrawal may—I say may—have on organised labour. As some noble Lords know, I have a long connection with the trade union movement, and I have noted that the Government have given a good number of assurances. I will, however, be carefully reading three excellent briefings I have had: one from Greener UK, one from Liberty, one from Amnesty, and of course one from the TUC. We will be watching very closely and seeking agreement and undertakings from the Government that the safeguards won from Brussels will not be threatened. We need to protect existing rights, for instance to equal pay, and to transpose Article 157 of the treaty of the European Union—and its judgments—into the situation that we have after we leave the European Union. We also need to safeguard all the other labour advances that have been won.
We need to make sure that we do not, as Philip Hammond indicated we might, start competing by reducing workers’ rights. In an interview in the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag, “World on Sunday”, a year ago, he stated quite clearly that,
“we could be forced to change our economic model and we will have to change our model to regain competitiveness. And you can be sure we will do whatever we have to do”.
We will be watching Philip Hammond carefully. We will obviously not be the only people watching him, as he has a whole raft of people watching his every move—he probably has a spy cam in his bathroom. But we will watch carefully to see that things are protected.
Finally, Clauses 7, 8 and 9 give Ministers powers that seem worryingly wide. I hope that the Opposition will join us in opposing them, but to my own side I say: “Would you be happy for Mr Jeremy Corbyn and Mr John McDonnell to have these powers in their hands, to change legislation in ministries without reference to the democratic structure? That is what these clauses do”. I was always brought up to believe that you should look at the worst-case scenario, and believe that the person whom you really do not want driving the train is in the driver’s seat. So I challenge my Front Bench: how many powers are you willing to give our dear friend Jeremy?