Hurricane Irma

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Tuesday 12th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

I congratulate my noble friend on his excellent and detailed Statement today, and the passion which he obviously brought to helping British citizens in need in our overseas territories. I think he was right to be robust in his rebuttal of the noble Baroness, Lady Northover. I think her criticism that we were slow and tawdry is a bit unfair. The Americans have huge bases in the Caribbean and dozens of ships; we do not, and our response was as good and as fast as I believe it could be.

I want to look at the future and press the Government to ensure that we spend, from our overseas aid budget, whatever it takes to reconstruct these British Overseas Territories. I am told that DfID does not have brief to fund the overseas territories; if that is the case we had better change it. Thirty two million pounds is good for a few days or weeks of relief, but if it takes £132 million, or £1.32 billion, we should find it from the £13 billion spent on overseas aid. These people are British citizens, they fly the union flag, they are loyal to this country; they should take priority, followed by assistance to Commonwealth countries.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I thank my noble friend for his support and the suggestion that he has put forward. I am conscious of time, so all I will say at this juncture is that he makes important points and, as the Minister responsible for overseas territories, I assure him of the same passion and vigour in ensuring that we focus on the rebuilding of these communities at the earliest possible opportunity. On the wider discussion about reconstruction and financing, I think it is important to ensure that there is a full look across all funding, both public and private sector, to see how we can rebuild those communities and provide the essential services as well as the community services which will be required for the territories.

Recent Changes to US Immigration Policy

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Monday 30th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, as I have said before, my right honourable friends the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister have made it clear that this is divisive and wrong. I do not know what could be clearer than that. Today we have had the opportunity to give the detail of the implications for those who hold British passports, and they are still welcome in the United States. The noble Baroness referred to other countries. I appreciate that the list is of seven countries whose nationals President Obama had previously said would have to apply for visas and not be able to use the visa waiver scheme. The question of Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan is one for the US Administration, not us.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, when my noble friend gets back to her office, will she look at an article entitled “One million sign a petition” on the BBC news website and then scroll down to look at the 5,000 plus comments? She, and the whole House, would find it interesting. There is overwhelming condemnation of the “synthetic outrage” at the ban. She will see that there is massive support for President Trump coming here; that there is recognition that it is not a ban on Muslims; that the list of countries was drawn up by Obama, who banned everyone coming from Iraq for six months; and that the President was merely implementing what he promised to do when he was standing for election—a nice change from Obama. On the BBC website the silent majority are not opposed to the President’s visit and are not outraged.

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, I have carefully noted that, whenever President Trump has been asked about these matters, he has sought to stress the fact that it is not about Muslims, it is about the countries concerned. It is important for those who are responsible for carrying out the processes by which people now enter the US to hear that.

Populism and Nationalism

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Thursday 19th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord on his timing: tomorrow, under the populist President Trump, we will see American power renewed and reasserted, while this week the Davos elites are holding a wake at the death of their globalisation dream. I entirely support the rules-based international order as enunciated by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, but that is a million miles away from international liberalism, which I do not support.

Never have I more enjoyed reading the left-wing press—I read them all, every day—with its agonising articles, in the Independent, the Guardian, the New York Times, the Washington Post and the New Statesman, all complaining about the rise of populism. I have them all here. These articles are in four contradictory groups. First, there is absolute outrage that the right has commandeered populism, which has been, ought to be and is the sole preserve of the left; secondly, there is anguish that their enlightened socialism/liberalism has not been understood by the ignorant masses, such as white van man and redneck man; thirdly, populism must be completely denounced now that Brexit and Trump have won; and fourthly—but only in the Guardian, the Independent and the New Statesman—“How can we turn Jeremy Corbyn into a left-wing populist to capture the populist vote?”. I kid you not—I have the articles here.

Populism and populist leaders were to be applauded so long as they were all extreme left, such as Castro, Chavez, Fernandez de Kirchner and Evo Morales. However, as soon as the people in the US and England supported Trump and Brexit, the whole left, elitist, liberal establishment decided that populism is a bad thing and the very devil incarnate. In an article in the New Statesman entitled, “The Strange Death of Liberal Politics”, the left-wing writer John Gray writes:

“As it is being used today, ‘populism’ is a term of abuse applied by establishment thinkers to people whose lives they have not troubled to understand. A revolt of the masses is under way … the ordinary men and women at whom they like to sneer”.


International liberalism is easily identified by looking at its principal proponents, such as those regular Davos attenders, just denounced by the Prime Minister this morning. It says something about the Davos elite when the keynote speaker defending globalisation is that paragon of democratic and human rights—the President of China. It is people like Juncker, with his notorious saying,

“If it’s a Yes, we will say ‘On we go’, and if it’s a No, we will say ‘we continue’”,


or President Obama, interfering in our referendum vote telling us to vote yes, and then the preposterous John Kerry saying that Trump should not have commented on internal German politics. To paraphrase the late, great Willie Whitelaw, he wanders the world “stirring up apathy”.

Tomorrow, we will be rid of the most useless American President I have ever seen in my entire lifetime, whose only legacy is rhetoric. He has withdrawn America from the world stage and left a disastrous vacuum that has been filled by Putin and China. He withdrew troops prematurely from Iraq and allowed ISIL to flourish. He laid down “red lines” on the use of gas in Syria, but did nothing to enforce them when they were breached. He turned a blind eye to Russian hacking for seven years and nine months but suddenly became concerned about it after Hillary lost the election. But never mind, he has his place in history: the next time I visit the United States, I will be able to use the transgender toilets.

I quote President Obama because I consider him to be a perfect example of the liberal international order which is now being routed around the world. But among all the articles I have read in the last two months, crying about the death of international socialism, the odd bit of truth and self-awareness creeps in. Mr Timothy Garton Ash, writing in the Guardian on 13 October, says:

“Liberal internationalists have to own up: we left too many people behind”.


The BBC home affairs editor, writing on 23 December about his visit to Port Talbot, said that people,

“did not think anyone was listening to them. They felt powerless and ignored ... people all over Britain were desperate for a democratic system that gave them some semblance of control over their destiny, in a globalised and interconnected world where decisions often seem to be made by anonymous elites a long way away”.

I say to the noble Lord that there is no challenge to the current international order because I think that its time is over and it is finished.

No one can accuse the Labour Party of not being democratic. I would never dream of doing that, because it is democratic. The Independent of 20 December reported:

“The Labour Party is ‘ramping up’ preparations to relaunch Jeremy Corbyn as a left wing populist”.


It continues that senior party officials believe that his,

“unpolished authenticity could gather support from the same anti-establishment sentiment that has heralded the popularity of … Donald Trump and Nigel Farage”.

So there you have it: populism is a wicked and evil thing if it is a right-wing President Trump but a great thing if it is a socialist Corbyn. Nobody can do hypocrisy better than the left liberal elites.

Brexit: UK-EU Relationship

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Thursday 1st December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the right reverend Prelate and I look forward tomorrow, in the debate led by the most reverend Primate, to discuss in more detail the cultural aspects of our European heritage. I will stick to the economic arguments today. The options for the UK’s future relationship with the EU are straightforward. As an independent country in Europe, the fifth largest economy in the world and the second largest contributor to NATO, we will be indispensable to European security and prosperity, as Mark Carney pointed out yesterday. We are a powerful country and getting more powerful as the discredited EU empire stagnates and begins to crumble.

This week the OECD, which has consistently got every forecast wrong, now agrees with the Bank of England, the Office for Budget Responsibility and the IMF, which also has an appalling track record of forecasting, that we will be the fastest-growing economy in the western world this year. So why do some embittered remoaners suggest that we do not have a strong hand to play against EU countries whose economies are suffering? I think their objective is clear—they want to stay in the EU and ignore the referendum result. They have largely given up on the ploy of a second referendum, except for some noble Lords, and will now try to make the case that the single market is essential to our future and that the people did not vote to leave the single market, just the EU. It is not so. People voted to take back control of our money, our borders and our laws and staying in the single market completely thwarts those aims. If we stay in the single market, the ECJ decides our law, we will have to pay in to the budget and accept freedom of movement. That is not taking back control.

Since the referendum, we have had nothing but good economic news. Countless businesses have voiced confidence in a UK free of the dead hand of Brussels. Nissan and Aston Martin have announced massive new investment. Jaguar Land Rover has just announced that it wants to double UK car production and make the UK the centre for electric vehicle technology. I hope that the Government will find the £400 million infrastructure investment needed for the Midlands to make that happen. Facebook, Apple and Google are expanding their UK operations. Massive new office blocks are going ahead in the City. Employment is at a record high, retail sales have rocketed and exports are surging, thanks to a lower pound. The pound needs to fall a bit more, in my opinion, if we are to boost our manufacturing industry.

Therefore, as a pre-eminent economic power in Europe we need not fear the end deal. We are in a position of strength. I hope that our opening bid to the EU will be, “We will not put tariffs on you if you do not put tariffs on us or try to freeze out the City of London”. We want a free-trade deal between us and the EU. If they do not accept that view then we should move quickly to World Trade Organization rules, since that is the only alternative. As my right honourable friend Peter Lilley said at the weekend,

“it is better to end uncertainty by reaching a second-best outcome speedily than haggle endlessly over a better deal that may never materialise”.

So we either have tariff-free trade or WTO rules—rules which benefit us.

The EU exports about £80 billion more to us than we do to them. Yes, that includes German cars, French cheese and Italian Prosecco, as Boris pointed out recently, perhaps not in the most diplomatic way. If they impose tariffs on us then we can reciprocate and we will make a huge profit out of it, but we do not need to go down that route. Of course, the EU is desperate to save this failed project at empire building. It has to keep the political project together even if that means accepting huge economic losses to make a political point. However, it could be a very different EU we face in 12 months’ time, and it may be one which is in no position to punish the United Kingdom.

We are a great country and we should have confidence in our ability to go from strength to strength, working economically and militarily with all our friends in the whole world who share our value systems, our culture and our belief in freedom. That is what the British people voted for, and the Government must deliver full and fair Brexit.

I conclude with this point. I am a passionate defender of this House and the role we perform. However, the Daily Mail, which may not be favoured reading among noble Lords, put it in its own unique way last week:

“If the Lords tries to sabotage such a move, that house of washed-up cronies and dodgy donors will be signing its own death warrant”.

I am one of those, too. The people have spoken and we should know our place.

European Union Referendum Bill

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Wednesday 4th November 2015 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Blencathra]

60: After Clause 6, insert the following new Clause—
“Creation of EU Referendum Broadcasting Impartiality Authority
(1) The Electoral Commission shall establish, for the purposes of the referendum on whether the United Kingdom should remain a member of the European Union only, an authority to rule on the impartiality shown by the sound and vision broadcasting media based in the United Kingdom regarding all news and media stories relating to the referendum.
(2) The authority shall be created by the Electoral Commission and be operational within 3 months after the passing of this Act, and shall cease to operate when the polls close on the day of the referendum.
(3) The authority, for the duration of its existence, shall assume and exercise all the impartiality functions currently vested in OFCOM and the BBC to the extent necessary for the fulfilment of its functions.
(4) The decisions of the authority shall take precedence over any decision by OFCOM or the BBC.
(5) The authority shall adopt all the rules on neutrality and impartiality currently applied by the BBC and OFCOM during General Elections but shall be authorised to amend them as it sees fit in relation to the referendum.
(6) The authority shall publish its neutrality and impartiality guidelines as soon as practical after its creation.
(7) It shall be a criminal offence for any relevant broadcaster to breach the guidelines or fail to follow instructions from the authority.
(8) The cost of the authority shall be kept to under £50 million and the costs shall be met from public funds.”

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I beg to move the amendment standing in my name and those of my noble friends. I think that the new clause tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, is superior to my version, so I will not go into detail on mine.

I have found it a bit of a long and tiring day, so I ask permission to conclude my remarks from a sedentary position.

An Evening Standard report in April 2012 had extracts from a leaked report carried out by the BBC when my noble friend Lord Grade was in charge. It admitted bias on a range of topics. In that report Andrew Marr is quoted as saying:

“The BBC is not impartial or neutral. It’s a publicly funded, urban organisation with an abnormally large number of young people ... It has a liberal bias, not so much a party political bias. It is better expressed as a cultural liberal bias”.

As Mr Rod Liddle, a former “Today” editor, repeatedly says in his splendid column in the Sunday Times, BBC staff do not set out to be biased and believe utterly that they are neutral and represent middle England. They take their guidance from the Guardian, which they think is an absolutely centrist paper, with the Times a bit to the right and the Telegraph off the right-wing scale. I believe that recently some senior BBC insiders, such as Robin Aitken and Peter Sissons, have also confirmed that there are still institutional prejudices prevalent in the BBC. Of course, when accused of bias, the BBC denies it; but I can recall at least two occasions in the last 10 years when the BBC has said, “Well, yes, we looked at our coverage of immigration issues in the past and it was a bit biased but it’s all okay now”. I think it also said, “We looked at our coverage of the welfare debate and yes, it was biased in the past but we are getting it right now”. So that is the standard defence: we were biased in the past but we are perfect now.

When an organisation called Minotaur Media Tracking measured the level and content of the BBC Radio 4 “Today” programme’s coverage of the European Union, it found that the BBC gave less coverage to EU issues than the newspapers, gave roughly twice as much coverage to pro-EU voices as anti-EU voices and consistently presented the Eurosceptic case as wanting to leave Europe instead of the European Union. I read somewhere recently, but I cannot find it now, that the BBC has concluded that its past coverage of EU issues was slightly biased, but it is going to be okay in the future. In that case, I look forward to interviewers referring to the BSE campaign as the “Britain Stronger in the European Union campaign”—but I do not hold my breath for that.

The EU’s transparency website shows that £20,152,000 was disbursed to the BBC from EU funds between 2007 and 2012. A lot of that went to so-called research and development projects and to creating programmes to bring about change in countries outside the EU. In 2009 alone, the BBC got almost £1 million to,

“provide support for media capacity in the area of EU integration”.

Noble Lords may say that I am biased on this, but surely there is an element of conflict of interest somewhere which calls into question the ability of the BBC to police itself on EU matters when it is receiving funding from the EU.

My new clause suggests that broadcast coverage of this referendum is too important to be left to a combination of Ofcom and internal BBC policing. Everybody trusts the Electoral Commission for its impartiality. I suggest that for the duration of the referendum only, all media monitoring of TV and radio currently carried out by Ofcom and the BBC should be transferred to a unit under the control of the Electoral Commission. Noble Lords can read the subsections for themselves, and I will not bore the Committee by reading and explaining them. Indeed, I will go further: I know that this new clause is going nowhere, so I do not expect, and the whole Committee would not want, my noble friend to spend a long time demolishing the eight subsections and pointing out their inconsistency, inappropriateness, illegality and everything else that is wrong with them.

My intention is to highlight to the Government that there is a track record in the BBC of bias on EU issues and it would be intolerable if it continued right up to referendum day. No one wants to interfere with the independence of the BBC, but I believe that we should interfere with the bias of the BBC, since I believe it exists. All I want to hear from the Minister—my noble friends may wish for other things—in her wind-up tonight is what the Government will do to ensure that the broadcast media are absolutely fair, impartial and unbiased in all their reports, news and programmes leading up to polling day. As soon as the exit poll is issued, I do not care what happens. I beg to move.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch (UKIP)]

My Lords, my Amendment 61BA is similar to Amendment 60, to which I have also put my name and which has just been moved by the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra. I suppose the inspiration for both these amendments— I confirm that my amendment is also a probing amendment—is that we do not entirely trust the broadcasting media to be impartial throughout the referendum campaign, so we feel that they need a little extra assistance in this regard in the shape of the temporary broadcasting adjudicator suggested by this amendment. The noble Lord’s amendment suggests a temporary broadcasting authority.

My experience of the BBC’s EU coverage goes back to 1999, since when I and others have been sponsoring independent analysis of that coverage, to which the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, was good enough to refer. I had a debate in your Lordships’ House on 11 March 2002 which revealed the early results of our initiative, and another on 7 May 2014. Both debates are relevant to these amendments and suggest the need for them. Both amendments require the impartiality of broadcasters in dealing with the conflicting claims made by each side of the argument. However, my Amendment 61BA goes further and requires the new adjudicator to judge whether the BBC has covered a sufficiently broad scope of subjects about our EU membership to allow the electorate to reach an informed opinion about their future. Broadcasting bias is not only bias about the subject in question; there is of course also bias by omission.

I have singled out the BBC because only the BBC, under its charter and guidelines, has the duty to educate and inform. That duty would still apply to areas which may not have been raised by either side of the referendum debate. Your Lordships may feel that every conceivable argument under the sun will be raised by one side or the other during the campaign, but I am not so sure.

For instance, I suppose it is possible that neither side will deal with the founding big idea behind the project of European integration, which was that European nations had caused so much bloodshed that they had to be gradually emasculated and put under a new form of technocratic government—hence the EU’s claim to have brought peace to Europe since 1945. Hence also the almost unbelievable powers of the European Commission at the expense of national Governments. I am not sure that either side will go sufficiently into all this, and so I feel it should be the duty of the BBC to do so if they do not.

It can be difficult to know where you want to go if you do not know why and how you have got to where you are—the direction of travel. Even if the campaigns do touch on these areas, I fear they do not lend themselves to soundbites, and so they may be covered inadequately. If so, I suggest the BBC should examine them dispassionately and in some depth—and very interesting it would be, too.

In conclusion, I am happy to report that the BBC’s coverage of EU matters has improved recently. We have had John Gray delivering a learned critique of the euro on “A Point of View”. We have had an Icelandic politician assuring us that the UK would be welcome and better off in EFTA. We have had a Nissan executive explaining why his company would not necessarily relocate outside the UK if we left the EU. We have had Nigel Farage being interrupted only by rapid fire instead of his usual machine-gun treatment. Best of all, the wonderful Labour MP Kate Hoey has even been allowed to make some of the case, on the “Today” programme, for the UK to leave the EU.

These are all absolute firsts for the BBC. Nothing like them has ever happened before. I trust that they are the first signs that the BBC is at least going to try to be fair in the forthcoming campaign. But old habits die hard, and so I trust that it and the other broadcasters will welcome the additional encouragement proposed by these amendments.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, these amendments are totally without merit, but I just want to remark that the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, has suggested that we need controls on the broadcast media. I assume he means we should be as tough on Sky as on the BBC, or perhaps he wishes to take on only the BBC under that heading. Perhaps we should take on all the media. We had a great debate about how much we need tougher press regulation. I am sure noble Lords would want to consider the biases of the Daily Mail and occasionally the Daily Telegraph, whose Brussels correspondent for many years was a joker called Boris Johnson, who used to make up the most wonderful stories, most of them entirely without basis, about what was wrong with the European Union. Is it perhaps that we are having an attack on just the BBC?

I have read in the Spectator and various other publications that, because the BBC has received a certain amount of money over the years, amounting to a maximum of 0.3% of BBC income for any given year—largely to fund the development of broadcasting in Serbia, Moldova and other eastern neighbourhood countries—it is unavoidably biased in favour of the European Union or perhaps has almost become a vassal of the European Union, which is the phrase used by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth.

The BBC does have a certain bias: it is a bias in favour of evidence—that may be the liberal bias, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra. I know that evidence is sometimes a little difficult for some. The part of the “Today” programme that I find to be biased is its tendency to take the headlines in the Daily Mail as the basis for some of its stories. That is a bias with which I am rather unhappy.

The BBC has had two reviews in the past 10 years on accusations of bias, the Wilson review in 2005 and the Prebble review in 2013, both of which were thorough and both of which said that the BBC did not display a deliberate bias. I have seen Nigel Farage on “Question Time” more times than I really wanted to in the last 18 months. They have given him a fair crack of the whip. I do not see that the BBC should be pushed further in one direction or another. We understand what is going on. While the right-wing press’s dominance in the print media, with the competitive broadcast media interest that the Daily Mail and the Murdoch press have—hence their constant attacks on the BBC—is acceptable, the BBC, because it is seen to be prepared to explain how globalised the world has become and how difficult it sometimes is to manage national economies without a degree of international co-operation, must necessarily be biased. As I have said, there have been BBC reports; they have both cleared the BBC of bias. The accusation that the BBC has been significantly funded by the European Commission and is thus dependent on it is not valid.

[Lord Blencathra]

I was not suggesting that the BBC is so heavily funded that it is dependent on EU funding. The funding of £20 million over the past five years, running at around £3 million per annum, is not to be sneezed at. Floating voters, or the public, get 75% of their information from the broadcast media, not from the press. The press is largely irrelevant in influencing elections because it is read by people who are already committed. As far as press balance is concerned, the Mirror, the Guardian, the Independent and the Financial Times will be rabidly pro staying in Europe. That leaves the Times and the Sun sitting on the fence until Mr Murdoch does his opinion poll to decide who is going to win. The Telegraph will probably be against staying in and the Daily Mail probably will be as well. Finally, I respect the intellect of the noble Lord, but if he seriously thinks that the editors of the “Today” programme are spouting Daily Mail propaganda or taking that for their lead stories, he is living in another world.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I merely observe as a frequent reader of the Daily Mail that the broadcast media, in particular the “Today” programme, take their cues from the stories that are in the morning press, particularly the Daily Mail, which, as we all know, is the most influential printed newspaper in this country and we all follow it.

I think I have said enough. I see no merit in this amendment. I know where it is coming from. I have read those who have suggested that the BBC is significantly dependent on the EU as a result of this—that is part of the paranoia of the Bruges Group right. I note that the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, used the expression “rabidly” for those who are pro-European and “moderate” for those who are not. Again, that is a perhaps a matter of unintentional bias on the part of the noble Lord, but I leave it there.

[Lord Blencathra]

I applied “rabidly” to the Financial Times, which is more rabid than the Guardian in wanting to stay in Europe—and being wrong.

--- Later in debate ---

As such, it is right that both the BBC and Ofcom put in place enhanced complaints-handling mechanisms for the referendum period that can provide swift and effective redress to serious concerns, as they have set out that they will do in writing to the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. On the basis of that response, I request that my noble friend withdraw his amendment, and invite the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, not to move his Amendment 61BA when it is reached in the list.

[Lord Blencathra]

My Lords, I am most grateful to the Minister for that incredibly robust response: it is a tougher response than I anticipated when I tabled my amendment. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Collins, that I was not “having a go” or probing: it was more a shot across the bow, or rather flagging up a very important issue, because we cannot have biased reporting in this campaign from any broadcasting media outlet.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

If this is to be brought back at Report, can we be assured that Sky and other broadcast media will be included in the coverage?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Blencathra]

I do not intend to bring it back on Report, now that I have heard my noble friend’s response —but if I do bring it back on Report, it would be a very detailed clause that is much more accurate than the one we are discussing at the moment.

I was going to say that I had no idea that my right honourable friend John Whittingdale had actually written to the BBC, the other broadcast media and Ofcom, and I had no idea about the reply. That might explain why the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, says that he has identified—as I have as well—that the BBC has been more neutral on EU issues over the last few months. That is all that we wanted to achieve: we want that neutrality.

This very important little debate has taken only 30 minutes, and it is on the basis of two new clauses that were shot full of holes to begin with, but we have got some very important answers. As a little aside, I see my noble friend Lord Tebbit in his place; he has, in the past, as Conservative Party chairman, complained about BBC bias. Perhaps if he had bunged them £3 million a year from the Conservative Party, he might have got more favourable coverage. I am very grateful to my noble friend for her response tonight; I look forward to reading the letters and I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 60 withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

At this time of night, it is tempting simply to say, “I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Collins of Highbury”, and thereby with my noble friends Lord Tebbit and Lord Forsyth, but I have a duty to put on record the reasons why the amendments are not welcome.

Amendment 61, moved by the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, on behalf of the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, seeks to ensure that votes cast in the referendum are counted and declared separately for Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England. I can give an assurance that, under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 and the Bill, that is already the case. Counting officers will declare separate results for Northern Ireland and Gibraltar. Regional counting officers will declare separate results for Scotland and Wales. In addition, the chief counting officer will declare results for the combined UK and Gibraltar, which will then be the overall result of the referendum.

It may assist the Committee if I set out briefly how the 2000 Act already achieves this, just to put to bed—so to speak, at this time of night—any remaining questions. The Bill provides for the UK and Gibraltar to be divided into different voting areas and for groups of voting areas in Great Britain to be treated as different electoral regions. The referendum will be administered on the ground by counting officers, one for each voting area. In England, Scotland and Wales, these will be the returning officers who act at local elections and the voting areas will mirror local authority areas. Northern Ireland will form a separate voting area and its counting officer will be the Chief Electoral Officer for Northern Ireland. Gibraltar will also form a separate voting area and its counting officer will be the Clerk to the Gibraltar Parliament.

The chief counting officer may also appoint a regional counting officer for each electoral region in Great Britain. The electoral regions mirror those for the European parliamentary elections. Scotland and Wales will each form an electoral region; separately, clearly. England will be divided up—I prefer that to “broken up”—into nine regions. Regional counting officers will co-ordinate the actions of counting officers and deliver the referendum in their region. Under the 2000 Act and the Bill, each counting officer must count the votes cast and make a declaration as to the votes cast in his or her voting area. Each regional counting officer must do the same in his or her region and the chief counting officer must make a declaration of the votes cast across the whole of the UK and Gibraltar.

[Lord Blencathra]

Does that mean that we will not have individual declarations in each district council area but that they will be aggregated and we will hear a declaration from a European region? I presume that we will still get access the next day to the figures for each district council.

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

The short answer is pretty much yes—there will be local reflection of that. The effect of the provisions is that there are separate results declared for the regions that are the subject of this amendment; Scotland and Wales separately, because they are electoral regions and that is their process; Northern Ireland and Gibraltar, each of which is called a voting area, separately; and further declarations will be made by the regional counting officers in each of the regions of England. It will be possible to add together all the published information to produce the result for England as a whole. So we get there in the end.

Amendment 61C, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, seeks to impose a so-called double majority lock. Under this amendment, the chief counting officer could declare that a majority had voted in favour of the UK leaving the EU only if there is a majority for that result in each of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. I have made it clear that I agree entirely with my noble friends Lord Forsyth and Lord Tebbit and the noble Lord, Lord Collins, that that is not at all appropriate. It is a decision for the whole country. The people of Great Britain, Northern Ireland and Gibraltar will have a vote, and each vote will and should count equally. That is the only fair way to take a decision of this magnitude. We are one United Kingdom. The referendum will be on the United Kingdom’s membership of the EU and it is right, therefore, that there will be one referendum and one result. I invite the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, to withdraw Amendment 61.

European Union Referendum Bill

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Wednesday 4th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

I am most grateful for that intervention. I know that the noble Lord has a very long history of public life in local government before he came here and takes a great interest in these matters. He is absolutely right. Exactly what I have in mind is something that is an intelligent summary of the case which sets out the essential facts. There is far too much spin in the political world in which we live. We know that there is far too much dishonesty, suppression of material fact for the convenience of Governments and far too many back-stairs, deniable, non-attributable briefings and so on.

We want a situation in which any household in this country can have access if they wish to intelligent arguments both ways and can make up their own minds on that basis. Not only do I think that this would be an important element in the campaign and a great contribution to democratic transparency and democratic involvement, it would be a very good thing to go back to some of those first principles which we had in 1975 and make sure that this campaign involves serious consideration by as many people as possible of the real issues—albeit that we know that some people will be influenced by prejudices and emotive language, and some by the tabloids. But we hope that the number of those people is small in relation to our total democracy and that we have intelligent discussion, debate and consideration before we take a dramatic decision about our nation’s future.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I have listened to my noble friends Lord Forsyth and Lord Lamont. I say to my noble friends that if my preamble takes more than 11 minutes, please move a Motion that I no longer be heard ever again. This is a relatively simple matter. In any United Kingdom election involving the four countries of the union, there will be about a dozen major political parties and thousands of fringe candidates. Between them, the major parties will offer hundreds of different policies, and it is right that they have spending limits and are able to advance their arguments for all those hundreds of policies. That is why the political parties need to spend money arguing totally different cases.

However, in the case of this referendum, there are only two campaigns: one to remain and one to leave. In those circumstances, I cannot understand why the political parties will also get money to spend on campaigns. There is nothing to stop the Labour Party or the Conservative Party or any other party campaigning: let them join the “remain” campaign or the “leave” campaign. Let them put all their effort into helping those two options: leave or remain. In those circumstances, it is grossly unfair and illogical that the political parties are getting money to spend, based on their last election results, to campaign on a simple question: do we remain in the European Union or do we leave the European Union? Let the political parties weigh in behind either campaign, and keep it simple and fair.

European Union Referendum Bill

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Tuesday 13th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Hannay. I tried to get out of the starting blocks too quickly and almost interrupted the end of his speech.

As a 22 year-old in the Highlands of Scotland I and my brother campaigned hard for a yes vote in the 1975 referendum. We said that joining the Common Market would be good for farmers, good for businesses and we even told fishermen in the little village of Avoch in the Black Isle that it would be good for our fishermen too. What a lie that turned out to be, as our fishing grounds were stripped bare and there are no fishing boats operating from Avoch anymore.

What were the arguments we were told to make then—arguments in which we then believed? We said that, to the east, there was the massive Warsaw Pact trading bloc with 300 million customers and, to the west, the USA and Canada with 300 million customers. Unless we belonged to a big trading bloc, then we would be frozen out of world markets. That was a credible argument at the time. Then along came GATT and the World Trade Organization, which gave even tiny little countries access to world markets, so that Norway, Taiwan, Singapore and others have flourished without being part of a big trading bloc.

Then the European integrationists changed the argument and said that, although we did not need to be part of a big trade bloc to survive, it would be better if we were part of a large single market whereby we all had unrestricted access to others’ goods and services. Even Margaret Thatcher was persuaded, although she later realised that it was another big con. Although it was implemented by the UK, swathes of EU services have not allowed us access. As good Europeans, we permitted European companies to buy up our transport, water and energy companies, but we did not get equal access to theirs. That was probably our fault rather than the EU’s but, even on this substantial change, the British people had no vote.

Then we had the Maastricht treaty. It was rejected by Denmark in a referendum and, of course, Denmark was made to vote again until its people obeyed the European diktat. On the night of the Maastricht no vote, the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and I were in Rio. We were negotiating on the first Earth Summit in 1992. We saved the world then. On that night, I was at a function in the Portuguese embassy. Portugal held the presidency but, as soon as Rio was over, Britain had the presidency and it was our job to speak at the United Nations on behalf of the EU. The EU was desperate to sign the convention itself but it could not; only nation states could. I chaired a meeting in Brussels and knew in advance that this would be coming up. So I called on the Commission lawyers, who said that we could not sign as the EU; it was illegal and against UN rules. I called on our presidency lawyers, who said that we could not do it; it was against EU laws. I called on the German Minister, who said that we could not do it; it was against the law. By this time, the buttons were being pushed, the red light was flashing and a southern European Minister said, “What is all this talk about the law? Let us just do it. Who is to find out?”. That coloured my view—perhaps unfairly—of many of the things we did in the EU.

After Maastricht, once again the British people had no say, even though our sovereignty was fundamentally reduced and our relationship with the EU changed. Then we had the Lisbon treaty, this time rejected by the Irish, who were made to vote again until they came up with a yes vote. Again the British people were given no say.

The next argument used by the European integrationists was that the British economy was so inefficient in comparison to France and Germany that we needed to be in association with those countries in order to benefit from their industrial practices. Well, that would certainly have been true in the 1960s and 1970s, but not now. We have the fastest-growing economy in Europe, if not the G7. We have record employment and the majority of our trade is with the rest of the world, not the EU.

The EU is in decline; it is paying itself too much, is not working hard enough and its “social Europe” pay and benefits systems are dragging us down. Europe is uncompetitive in comparison with the USA and the Asian economies. We are trapped in a declining post-war concept which 33 million Britons aged under 59 do not necessarily understand or have had any say in. I once asked my distinguished predecessor, Willie Whitelaw, why he was so keen on Europe. His answer was, “David, if you had been through the war, then you would support any organisation which kept the peace in Europe”. I said, “But, Willie, NATO did that”, but he responded that political union was a price worth paying for all of us if it kept Germany, France and Italy at peace. I deeply respect that view from a brave Military Cross holder, but the world has moved on since then, but the vision of the old men of the post-war era has not, whether it is Adenauer, Willie, Ted Heath, Wilson, Monnet, Schuman, Brandt, Schmidt, Kohl or d’Estaing. A united political Europe may have made sense to deal with the problems of Europe in the 1950s and 1960s, but it may be irrelevant to our global economy 60 years later. Nor, it seems, have the views changed of those who told us that the UK would die unless we joined the euro. So many of those saying at the BSE launch yesterday that we must stay in or perish were the same ones who got it 100% wrong on the euro. The British people may want to take that into account when weighing the arguments on both sides.

We now need to get the views of the 33 million people—that is an estimate by the Library—who have had no say in the development of this political union since 1975. Our whole electoral roll is about 46 million, I believe, and therefore 75% have never had a say in the creation of the European superstate. I cannot see how anyone can object to consulting the British people on the terms proposed in the Bill before us, which I completely support. Let us have a vote for the first time in 40 years, and I ask the Government to set out the facts clearly. We must have a White Paper setting out what changes the Prime Minister has obtained and the consequences of leaving the EU and of staying in. We know the risks of leaving, but staying in could be a bigger leap in the dark as the EU pushes for “more Europe”. We heard the vision of President Hollande last week, we have the five presidents’ report, and a White Paper to set out just what the Prime Minister has achieved is important, but also we need information on the likely direction of the EU over the next few years. We need to deal with the claim that 3 million jobs will be lost. That is just not credible; 3 million jobs may be tied to EU trade, but there is no suggestion that that trade will suddenly stop.

I say to my noble friend the Minister that we need to see the draft regulations which the Government are proposing on purdah. I accept the Government’s word that they will not seek to claw back the concessions on this made in the other place, but I understand that they have said that some clarificatory regulations will need to be made. Well, if the Government have concluded that there are areas which need clarification, they clearly know what those areas are and we want to see the drafts of the regulations before the Bill goes back to the Commons.

The EU has changed beyond all recognition since I voted for a Common Market in 1975. We never expected to be sucked into a complete political union with our rights to negotiate at the international institutions of the world removed and our voice replaced by the EU, especially at the World Trade Organization. We Britons have always had a world view. We are not little Europeans. I want a Common Market with the world, not a common EU Government. That is the debate I believe we need to have and I think it is the debate we will have over the next 12 months. I believe it is high time that the British electorate had a say. I support the Bill.