Business and Planning Bill

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 6th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend the Minister on his excellent opening speech, especially the announcement on wheelchairs and pavement access. He will make a worthwhile contribution to this House.

The Bill generally is welcome although I have a few concerns about some issues. First, as chair of the Delegated Powers Committee, I can say that it will consider the Bill on Wednesday morning and aims to report later that day, allowing a very tight window for Peers to table amendments on Wednesday on any of its recommendations if they so wish. It is a pleasure to see for a change a Bill with Henry VIII clauses all limited to changing merely the dates and which are all affirmative. However, the committee will be interested in the amount of guidance that may be given without parliamentary oversight and the apparently new concept of conditions which will have the force of law but no parliamentary approval.

I appreciate that the Government need to move quickly—there is no point in legislating for an open-air cafe society when the one week of English summer is over— but, on a personal note, I was concerned that the non-obstruction provisions in Clause 3(6) did not mention keeping sufficient space on pavements for wheelchairs and children’s pushchairs to pass; nor is it specifically mentioned under the condition in Clause 5. My noble friend the Minister, the Deputy Leader, may say that this is common sense and that local authorities are bound to make that a condition. Not so—not because they are hostile to wheelchair users but because we are never thought about. Every time I have been in Paris in past years I often cannot get through on the pavement because of the tables and chairs, not to mention the thousands of electric scooters cluttering the pavements, which we will soon have too. The carnage in Paris will be repeated in London. People are apologetic, jump up and move the tables but it never crosses their mind that there would be an obstruction problem for certain pavement users when the tables were set out. The same would have happened here— not out of malice or disrespect but because of sheer thoughtlessness.

I was going to move an amendment in Committee to put this in the Bill, but I congratulate my noble friend and the Government on introducing this national condition. I hope that my note to his department last week threatening to move the amendment had a role to play.

I am also concerned about the possibility of 24/7 construction. For six years I suffered the noise of massive construction works carried out near Marsham Street. The last two years were not so bad as they fitted out the inside, but the first two years were pure hell as massive power hammers demolished the old buildings, with 100 decibels of noise from 8 am until 6 pm. Of course, we must get construction working flat out to catch up but there must be limits to protect local residents. It would be odd if Heathrow has to close for almost seven hours at night and has noise limits but construction sites could carry on regardless.

I am further concerned that 24/7 construction work near special wildlife sites such as SSSIs could be damaging to the species affected. I declare my interests as in the register. Local authorities must check what conditions on construction near these sites were imposed to protect the wildlife there when the application was granted, and not diminish those protections now.

In conclusion, I suggest that where there are no residents for 300 metres, construction can go on 24/7. However, where there are residents living closer than 300 metres, noisy outdoor construction should be limited to a maximum of 7 am in the morning until 10 pm at night. That is an extra five hours a day work time in residential areas. All internal and quiet work could continue 24/7. With these provisos, I support the Bill.

Business of the House

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Thursday 4th April 2019 Lords Chamber

Tabled by

[Lord Blencathra]

At the end to insert “but the House shall not resolve itself into a Committee on the bill until at least 24 hours after a report from the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee on the bill has been laid before the House.”

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, first I assure the House that I have been present for every minute of the debate, although not in this place, in my wheelchair at the Bar of the House. Secondly, I inform your Lordships that the last time I spoke in this House on Brexit or Brexit-related matters was 26 February 2018. That was 14 months ago, and I have not said a cheep since. So I am not one of those who has been participating in what has seemed like weekly debates on Brexit in this House, and I will not speak on Brexit now, nor later this evening. If the House will bear with me and in light of the new information I have just received, I hope not to force my amendment to a vote.

However, I shall speak about the bypassing of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, which I have the privilege of chairing. I am speaking in a personal capacity, because I have not had the time to consult my committee on this speech.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

Does my noble friend agree that the failure to consult his committee provides further evidence, if any were needed, that those who most protest their allegiance to parliamentary democracy are actually doing the most to undermine it by ramming this Bill through your Lordships’ House in one day?

[Lord Blencathra]

My noble friend makes a fair point; I will leave him to make his own point in his own way later in today’s proceedings.

I do not wish to read the whole report, although it is very short and I will cut out the introductory paragraphs. The House might be interested if I cut to the chase. If I can do that, then I propose to not press my amendment to a vote.

We say in our report:

“In the Government’s original European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, which became the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 … exit day was wholly a matter for regulations without any named date on the face of the Bill. The regulations were subject to no parliamentary procedure at all, whether of the negative or affirmative type. The Bill allowed Ministers to decide on exit day and set it out in law without recourse to Parliament. We objected to this, arguing for the affirmative procedure, meaning that both Houses were required to debate the regulations before they could be made. The principal reasons were the political and legal significance of the date that the UK left the EU, and the allied public interest in the matter. The Government accepted our recommendation.


The principal justification for clause 2 of this Bill is that it might be necessary to legislate at speed next week to change exit day. The affirmative procedure might cause delays, with the risk that exit day in domestic law might not be aligned with exit day agreed under EU law.


There is some force in this argument, but we are not convinced by it on grounds either of principle or pragmatism. The date of the UK’s exit from the EU remains a matter of the greatest political and legal significance. It is right that the matter be debated in Parliament before the current date of 12 April is changed in our domestic law. The Government have previously changed exit day from 29 March to 12 April, and they did so by a statutory instrument subject to the affirmative procedure. The Government have the time to do the same again, having afforded Parliament the scrutiny required by the 2018 Act. Negative resolution scrutiny is necessarily scrutiny after the event (that is, after exit day has already been changed in law). Scrutiny after the event is best avoided in a matter as significant as this, not least because the consequences of a successful prayer against the instrument would lead to the new exit day being legally invalidated (albeit with prospective effect only) perhaps some weeks after it has taken effect.


Clause 1 of the Bill would, in certain circumstances, give the House of Commons a vote on a proposed exit day at EU level, making it perhaps less pressing for them to have one on the consequential change to UK domestic law made by the relevant statutory instrument. But clause 1 does not apply to the House of Lords, meaning that the House of Lords would be prevented from participating in the process of approving a new exit day at EU level. It is correspondingly more important, therefore, that the House of Lords can scrutinise the relevant statutory instrument before it is made, rather than after the event, again arguing for the affirmative procedure (which is the current position). For the reasons set out above, we recommend that clause 2 should be removed from the Bill, thereby restoring the affirmative procedure to statutory instruments amending exit day”.


There you have it. I therefore urge the House to have Second Reading today, let us all—those in favour of it and those who disagree—study my committee’s report and come back to Committee, or a later stage, no later than Monday. That will give us a chance to table amendments implementing, if the House wishes, what my committee recommends. There is nothing in the Bill that justifies us casting aside the procedures we have followed for 27 years and ignoring the Delegated Powers Committee, which every Member of this House says does an excellent job.

I inherited a committee with an outstanding reputation and, not through any skill of mine, it still has an outstanding reputation. We are on a slippery slope if we decide to cast aside our procedures when we do not have to. Whenever we use the excuse of national emergency or crisis, we inevitably get bad legislation. The Bill may be perfectly okay or it could have unexpected consequences. It gives considerable power to the Prime Minister—in view of her work and behaviour over the last few weeks and months, is the House willing to give her that unfettered power? That is a decision only the House can make. Again, it is not what the Prime Minister says she will do but what the law would permit her to do that worries me and my committee.

Last night in another place, the Secretary of State for Exiting the EU said of the Bill:

“There are problems with the speed of its passage, the constitutional principle of it and the way it will interact with any decision reached by the Council that differs from the earlier decision taken by the House. I hope that the constitutional experts in the other place will address some of the Bill’s flaws”.—[Official Report, Commons, 3/4/19; col. 1146.]


I leave it to others to address the Bill’s flaws, whatever they may or may not be. My concern today is that we follow our normal procedures and give due consideration to my committee’s report and meet tomorrow if necessary, as the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, says. Give us time to study the report; let us table amendments, if that is what we wish to do, to correct the serious flaws in the Bill. I urge the House: let us do our job; let us report in ample time so that the Bill can get Royal Assent next week in ample time for the Prime Minister to go to Brussels on Wednesday.

Lord Blencathra’s amendment to the Motion not moved.

Palace of Westminster: Restoration and Renewal

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Tuesday 6th February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, particularly his enthusiasm for selling this magnificent project. It was also a pleasure to listen to the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton. I could add a whole chapter of horrors and, indeed, humiliations about the difficulties of getting around this place in a wheelchair. One of the reasons I stagger in here on my stick is, first, to make sure I do a bit of walking and, secondly, I hate sitting in the middle of the Floor to make a speech, but that is a personal matter.

I am delighted to support this Motion because it brings to an end the first stage of an initiative I am proud to boast that I started in 2007. I served on the House of Commons Commission from 2005 to 2010 under the excellent Speaker Martin—the noble Lord, Lord Martin of Springburn. Early in 2007, the Serjeant at Arms briefed us on the essential works which the Palace would require over the next 25 years: replacement of the electromechanical system and the cast-iron roof slates, asbestos removal, et cetera. He ended by saying that in any normal organisation we would decant out to do the repairs but that was not possible in Parliament. Immediately, Jack Straw and I pounced on that remark, and it was suggested that I go off and write a paper on it.

I left the commission meeting and consulted the Serjeant at Arms, the security co-ordinator Peter Mason and the Metropolitan Police superintendent in charge of Westminster—I did not have the authority to consult Black Rod. I asked those three officers to give me their input on what had to be done, what would be good to do and radical, blue-sky thinking—innovations which we could do if the Palace were closed and we had made substantial cost savings in the process. They came up with excellent ideas. I have all the papers from 2007. I presented a paper at the April 2007 commission meeting, but colleagues thought that it was a bit too radical, which I confess it probably was. However the commission agreed that the Serjeant would consider the potential cost savings of my plan and report back.

The Serjeant reported in July 2009, and I shall quote from my report to the commission criticising his paper. I said:

“This paper is disappointing because it misses the opportunity to undertake a complete refit of the Palace and bring in essential modernisation.


Aggressive maintenance (the first time this mysterious expression has arisen) may fix the roofs, the asbestos and the electrical and mechanical systems but does nothing for the other essential changes we need.


We know that we must:-


Remove the so called temporary Terrace Marquees and replace them with a legal permanent structure.


Install about a dozen new lifts with proper disabled access serving all parts of both houses”—


I could walk when I said that.

“Re-organise the internal flow of vehicles - possibly linking in with some sort of Parliament Square pedestrianisation.


Install a complete wireless system throughput the Palace.


Modernise the Commons Committee Rooms (like the Moses Room in the Lords)”.


I went on:

“These things are not maintenance. Does anyone seriously doubt but that they will have to be done in the next ten - 20 years?


Then there are all the opportunity works which we could do when we save enormous space in the basement by removing the large boilers and moving out the telephone exchange from above the Chamber.


Each year we see the Commons facilities dying and being deserted as MPs all congregate in the atrium of Portcullis House. We have to reenergise our facilities in the old palace.


We have to create glass-roofed atria in some of our squares — like Speakers Court and the court between the Lords Dining Room and their Content Lobby.— and make the old building an exciting, more open place to eat, meet and welcome the public.


Portcullis House is now the centre of the Parliamentary universe—it is bright and airy. Too many of the old Palace dining rooms are in the bowels of the building and dingy.


We should amalgamate”—


this was rather radical for the commission at the time, too—

“the Common’s Library with the Lords and keep the three reference rooms only. The other six Library rooms should become our best and magnificent meeting or committee rooms. We no longer need the nine Library rooms taking up so much prime space and with the new hours we no longer need them for sleeping in either.

We should implement all the other ideas in the note from the security co-ordinator and the Sgt at Arms”.


I will not read out those details here; it would not be appropriate to do so. That is what I said in 2009, but the political climate then made it impossible to do anything. We were deep in recession and, no matter how much we saved or how badly the Palace was deteriorating, the media would have portrayed us as spending £3 billion on luxuries for MPs, and we would have been crucified, even without the expenses scandal. The commission’s decision was to conduct further studies and so, two or perhaps three studies later, here we are and I am still as enthusiastic to do it as I was in 2007 and 2009.

Although I am enthusiastic to do the decant, I have a few major concerns. First, let us be honest: government and Parliament are utterly incompetent at procurement. Architects and builders know that the way to rip us off is to encourage us to ask for design changes just as work is about to begin. That was the racket on Portcullis House, which the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, referred to, and it is what happens to every ship we commission for the Navy as well. It also happens when committees of MPs and/or Peers are in charge whose membership changes annually.

It is vital that, once Parliament approves the design specification, the sponsor board and delivery authority drive it through on time and on budget without a single change. They must not accept any parliamentary representations on design changes because I know what will happen. We have seen it before: half way through, MPs and Peers will say that the contractors must now use this or that wonderful new environmental gismo or will cancel the contract for the carpets since the company has not ticked the box on maternity pay. The sponsor board must not be given the authority to tweak or twiddle with the contract. Like my noble friend Lord Maude, I hope that my noble friend Lord Deighton plays a leading role in this and that he is absolutely ruthless in driving it through. Whatever option we select, let us be honest: the costs are going to go up about 50% whichever option it is, but changing the design specification and adding bells and whistles after a contract has been let adds enormous extra costs with massive delays which builders and architects love to exploit.

The final point is this: much as I hate giving money to our legal friends, on a contract of this size we may have to spend up to £100 million or more on the best contract lawyers in the world. When we had the Cromwell Green new search point contract shambles, we could not sue any company, the architects, the builders or anyone else for their sheer incompetence, for the grossly inflated price or for the delays because our parliamentary contract with them was rubbish and the builders had get-out clauses for all their failings. One of my abiding memories in Parliament is not being present at some great occasion or memorable debate but climbing on to the roof of the Cromwell Green security building with Speaker Martin as he personally inspected and then condemned the appalling welding on the so-called stainless steel which was rusting after two years. We need a contract which will impose massive and enforceable penalties if it is one day late or one penny over budget and with hundreds of millions of pounds held back for a few years until all the snagging work is done and the building is working perfectly.

I ended my report to the House of Commons Commission in 2009 by saying:

“Of course a decant takes a lot of planning and it will be a hassle but we will not get a Parliament which will last another 150 years unless we do it.


This is a time for boldness and imagination, not timidity”.


I said that in 2009. It is even more true today.

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Monday 20th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, just for the record, I have not been on this Bench all day but I heard the first dozen speeches from the side of the Throne, some from the Bar and others from my office.

There are only two speeches one can make in this debate—either we accept the decision of the people and let this Bill pass or we substitute our judgment for that of the electorate and the Commons. I submit that your Lordships’ expert opinions—and my inexpert opinion—on whether the UK should leave or remain in the EU and whether or not it is good or bad for the UK are utterly irrelevant. The decision is not ours as parliamentarians to make or to second-guess. The Bill before us today simply provides for the outcome of the referendum to be respected.

It was made very clear in the debate on the referendum Bill and by the Government during the referendum period that the decision rested with the people and that the Government would implement, without question, whatever the people decided. It was not the case that the Government would implement the decision of the people only if Parliament approved the referendum result. Nor was it the case that we would only leave if we stayed in the single market or customs union. Indeed, when Vote Leave suggested that we could still leave and access the single market, the then Prime Minister and all government and remain spokesmen denounced that. They said it was absolutely clear that leaving the EU meant leaving the single market and customs union—we could not have our cake and eat it. So it is simply disingenuous to suggest that Parliament has a right to determine whether or not we should leave the EU—the questions of the single market and customs union were not on the ballot paper.

The House will know that my right honourable friend Sir Oliver Letwin MP was one of the Government’s foremost remain campaigners and was the Prime Minister’s chief guru, thinker and adviser on these matters. He said in the other place on 31 January at the Bill’s Second Reading:

“I made it perfectly clear … that … an inevitable consequence of leaving the EU would be leaving the single market ... and we would have to leave the customs union … It seems to me … that the people voting to leave were voting with their eyes wide open, knowing that the consequences might be our falling back on the WTO”.—[Official Report, Commons, 31/1/17; col. 871]


We are leaving the EU and it does not depend on whether or not we in this House or anyone else likes or agrees with the final terms. Of course we want a good deal, but the decision of the electorate was to leave whether we get a good deal, however defined, or no deal at all. We will have nothing to be afraid of when we are a free, independent nation once again. The Bank of England almost every other week upgrades our growth forecast for this year. Last May it forecast that Brexit would cause a recession, but in August that growth would be up to 0.8%, then in November that growth would be up to 1.4%. Two weeks ago, it forecast growth at 2%. We have the same old project fear tunes from the IMF as well. Many remainers say—I have heard it today—that the majority to leave the EU was very small. I say that many millions more would have voted to leave if the Bank of England, Her Majesty’s Treasury, 600 dodgy economists and the IMF had not blitzed the referendum campaign with a co-ordinated series of financial scares, dodgy forecasts and the old project fear. We would have had a massive majority if they had told us what they are telling us now, not what they were telling us then.

There are many experts in this House who know about the EU and trade. I do not pretend to have any of that expertise, but I know a little about the British electorate and the firestorm we will unleash if we seek to thwart them. I faced the British electorate seven times in the past and have been elected six times—I should say that I lost the first one. I have been in general elections where my party got a thumping majority and where we were thrown out by an even bigger majority. Like it or not, I believe the public got it about right on those occasions. They also got it right on 23 June last year.

I say to your Lordships—particularly those who have not been Members of Parliament—that you have no idea of the destruction we would create if we went against the decision of the electorate now. We cannot use the excuse that we are fulfilling our usual role of tidying up messy Commons legislation or simply scrutinising it. There is nothing in this tiny little Bill to scrutinise. It came to us from the Commons with a huge majority. If it were to be amended it should have been done in the other place, but the Commons did not amend it. If we seek to do so it will be perceived by those outside as deliberate sabotage of the will of the people, no matter how much we try to dress it up as improvement or scrutiny. The amendments are nothing to do with scrutiny. They are an attempt to build in conditions and tie the Prime Minister’s hands.

The Government have agreed to give Parliament a say on the withdrawal deal and our future relationship with the EU before the European Parliament votes on it. It is absolutely right that parliamentarians should not be able to use this vote to demand further negotiations with Brussels in an effort to keep us in the EU by the back door. If the EU knows that there may be further negotiation after the initial agreement is made, that will incentivise it to give us a bad deal in the first place.

Finally, I have no intention of criticising the Lib Dems tonight. Indeed, I intend to praise one of them to the heavens. I end by quoting a former Member of Parliament and former leader of the Lib Dems, the spokesman for them early in the morning of Friday 24 June on ITV. The noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, said, with all the passion he can bring to a speech:

“I will forgive no-one who does not respect the sovereign voice of the British people once it has spoken, whether it is a majority of 1% or 20% … It is our duty as those who serve the public to make sure the country does the best it can with the decision they have taken”.


He went on:

“In. Out. When the British people have spoken you do what they command … Either you believe in democracy or you don’t. When democracy speaks we obey. All of us do”.


What has changed?

If this House tries to sabotage the Bill by building in amendments on the single market, the customs union or the end deal, then forget about the press criticism of the judges. The criticism will be of us and we will be called the real enemy of the people. We will unleash demons which will not be controlled. This House will be destroyed and we will have turmoil on the streets. All the latest opinion polls show that the mood among the public, even those who voted remain, is to get on with it and get on with it now. That is good advice and I suggest we follow it.

Outcome of the European Union Referendum

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Tuesday 5th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the right reverend Prelate, with whom I agree entirely. I include in that his wise words of denunciation of that vile minority of racists who have participated in disgraceful attacks; they should be prosecuted, and prosecuted vigorously.

I am glad that I did not follow the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, or I would have side-tracked myself with a 20-minute attack on almost every sentence that he uttered. On 23 June, 17 million voters voted democratically to end our membership of the EU and to restore this country to the free, independent member state that it was before 1973. That long-overdue and momentous decision will in my opinion be good for the United Kingdom and good for democracy in Europe. It may well be that Britain will have fulfilled its traditional role, as it did over the centuries—in 1850, 1918 and 1945—of saving Europe from rule by undemocratic and unaccountable government over the whole of Europe. Fifty two per cent of our people voted to leave and 48% to remain—the greatest vote for anything in the history of this country. The losing remainers must stop their bitter recriminations and accept the decision of the people. Some are calling for a second referendum or for politicians to ignore the result. They say that the country is divided because 52% voted to leave; some are pretending that we would not be divided if 52% voted to remain.

On 23 June we saw the greatest rebellion against the ruling elite—including us in this House, I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria—that this country has ever seen. The leave victory is narrow in the sense that there is only a four-point difference, but it is absolutely massive when you consider that the leave campaign started from way behind and was up against the full weight of the Government and the establishment. But people ignored the dodgy Treasury forecasts warning of doom and gloom, as well as forecasts from the CBI, the IMF, the OECD and all the other organisations—the best-known organisations. The more the Government called in their friends in the Davos elite, including President Obama, the more ordinary people suspected that they were being sold a pup. I would go so far as to pay tribute to every person in the leave campaign, including in this regard only Nigel Farage—because, without him, we would not have had this referendum in the first place.

Now we must deliver on Brexit. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary has said that the job now is to unite the party, unite the country and negotiate the best possible deal for Britain. To borrow a phrase from Lady Thatcher, I would say, “No, no, no”. The job now is to deliver what 17 million voted for—nothing more and nothing less. I say this as a former Conservative Party Opposition Chief Whip: you will not unite the Conservative Party around a fudge that is half-in and half-out of the single market, with a bit of freedom of movement here and a bit less there, and tweaking our budget contribution. We have tried that fudge over the past 20 years, and it has not worked very well for us. Some 17 million voted to take back full control over our democracy, which was the key runner, as all our leave studies showed—not immigration, but control over democracy and the ability to sack the politicians who are supposed to be in charge of us, as well as control over our law-making, borders and economy.

Of course we must have reconciliation and reaching out to those who voted remain, as well as consultation with Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland as we negotiate exit, but reconciliation will tear this country apart if it is merely crafty double-speak for compromise on the Brexit policy and selling out the electorate. Already we hear demands from some remainers that it is essential that we stay in the so-called single market, even if it means having to accept freedom of movement and some sort of payments to Brussels. What bit of “leave and take back control” do not they understand? First, it is not a single market. That fiction was sold to Margaret Thatcher by Delors in return for qualified majority voting. It is a single European regulatory zone and not a proper single market—look at the lack of a market in services. We do not have to be a member of the so-called single market to access it. The two are quite different.

I see some Commission officials are saying that we cannot cherry pick nor have EU à la carte. I agree entirely. I do not think we need to do either. First, we are a sovereign country and our Government are not going to negotiate with some Commission officials no matter what the Commission or the Parliament think. We will talk to other Heads of Government, but the Council’s appointed leader, Mr Didier Seeuws, a Belgian diplomat who was chief of staff to Herman van Rompuy, should not be top of the list. They say that he is an able man, and I have no doubt about that, but what planet are they on if they think that the fifth-largest economy in the world, the second-biggest member of NATO, a nuclear power and a member of the UN Security Council will prioritise talking to a minor Belgian diplomat rather than to Germany, France and Italy?

The negotiations are not complex; there is only one difficulty. We need a Prime Minister who will look Angela Merkel and Hollande in the eye and remind them, in the nicest possible way, that they have a trade surplus with us in goods of £70 billion. The City of London has a financial services surplus of £20 billion, so our Prime Minister simply has to say that we are willing to accept the status quo and that we will take no action on their goods if they permit passporting for the City of London. If they try to freeze out passporting, they will get hit with tariffs. It is a simple as that. It is not that complicated, but it requires guts and credibility to do it.

Our trade negotiations would be complex only if we had a massive trade surplus with the EU, not the other way round, and we were begging to be let into the market. On 24 June, the president of the German Association of the Automotive Industry—I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, is not in his place because I think he referred to this fellow—said:

“Following British departure from the EU, it will be in nobody’s interest to make the international flow of goods more expensive by erecting customs barriers between Britain and the European continent”.

Exactly, Herr Wissmann, and I suspect that will also be the view of French car, cheese and wine producers. The leaders of the big countries in the EU, which export far more to us than we do to them, know that it is in their fundamental political and economic interest to have no changes to our and their access to the so-called single market. It is quite clear that some of those who want interminable and complex trade negotiations have an agenda of staying in the EU and want, at most, Brexit-light.

The people have given this country a golden opportunity to prosper once again now that we will be throwing off the shackles of the corrupt, undemocratic, regulatory, job-destroying regime that is the post-Maastricht EU, an EU which has caused the rise of extremist parties in Europe because it denied people democracy and ignored their concerns. The Government have a relatively short time to deliver proper Brexit and meet the expectations of those millions of voters in Labour heartlands and in Tory middle England who voted out. We had a revolution through the ballot box on 23 June. A few thousand remainers marching through London wanting the result overturned will be as nothing if we betray those 17 million voters. The quiet people of England have now spoken, and God help us if we ignore them.

Outcome of the EU Referendum

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Monday 27th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch (UKIP)]

My Lords—

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

My Lords, I think I will ask my noble friend Lord Blencathra, who has been trying to get on his feet for the whole period of the Q&A.

[Lord Blencathra]

My Lords, I have been trying to get on my feet for a few years. As we conclude on the Statement today, as my noble friend the Leader noted, every major elected politician in the other place has said that, while they may not like the result, it must be respected and it must be implemented. Will she therefore caution some of my noble friends and all noble Lords that if we wish to unite the nation after this, this unelected House must not seek to thwart the will of the people by going into endless negotiations on or amendments to the minutiae of any legislation, which would be seen as a direct attempt to sabotage the will of the people?

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

As my noble friend knows, he and I were on different sides of the argument during the campaign, but I absolutely agree that the decision has been made, it must be respected and it should be implemented.

European Council

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Monday 22nd February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

The noble Lord certainly puts a clear case for the European Union and for our remaining in it. Much as I agree with what he has said, there is something that cannot be repeated often enough, particularly for those who are undecided—and we must always remember that a lot of people are unsure of which way to vote. So although the noble Lord is right, we also need to emphasise that the European Union does not work quite as we want it to in all areas. That is why we have been renegotiating the terms, and we are now confident enough to advocate staying in.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a supporter of Vote Leave. Does my noble friend agree with me—she probably does not—that the real threat we face, and the huge frightening leap in the dark, would be if we now remained in Europe? Europe has seen that Britain is a bit of a paper tiger. A few years ago we were saying that we wanted fundamental and far-reaching reform. Then we asked for very little, and I am afraid we settled for a lot less. When Europe comes to implement the next treaty change and the Five Presidents’ Report, and as it heads for being an ever-tighter federalist superstate, will we not be ignored, mocked, sidelined and completely stitched up?

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

As my noble friend predicted, I do not agree with him. One area that I would point to in order to illustrate my disagreement is what the Prime Minister secured around economic governance. Again, I do not think that it has been properly understood yet how significant the protections that he has secured are—not just for our currency, but for the City of London and our financial services. I assure my noble friend that the other member states, and particularly the French President, were in no way shy about fighting hard to prevent us getting what we wanted, but we secured a good deal for Britain in the end.

Syria: Refugees and Counterterrorism

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Monday 7th September 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I will have to come back to the noble Lord on his last question about the letter to the UN. I am not clear about the specific terms in which a sovereign nation has to inform the United Nations and the detail it is necessary to set out. However, I am confident that we will have complied with the necessary requirements in informing the United Nations. As the noble Lord acknowledges, it is not possible for me to go into the detail of the evidence as that would compromise our security procedures. On his questions about our existing arrangements for refugees, as I am not familiar with the detail of how refugees are supported when they come to the United Kingdom in terms of their status, residency and so on, and as this question has been raised a couple of times, I will place a letter in the Library outlining the situation. However, I reassure the House that the existing arrangements will continue to apply. I am happy to outline that in a letter.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, has my noble friend seen the reports that ISIL boasts that it will infiltrate thousands of jihadists into the tens of thousands of refugees leaving Syria? Will she therefore give a cast-iron guarantee that we will concentrate our priorities on women, children and the vulnerable, and that they will all be thoroughly screened before coming to this country? Will she therefore treat with extreme caution demands that we take some of the fit and well-fed young men we saw fighting Hungarian police, because it seems to me that, if they are willing to do that, they might not be the best fighters for British values?

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

My noble friend makes an important point. One of the reasons why we believe that the policy we have adopted of giving refuge to people via a resettlement programme that includes a very thorough screening process by the UNHCR is the right one is that it offers us a much better assurance that we do not risk people coming to this country to attack us. We cannot have the same assurances in respect of those fleeing Syria who have been accepted through routes adopted by others in the European Union.

Tunisia and European Council

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Monday 29th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I wish the noble Lord all the very best with his approach to ever closer integration in Europe if the Labour Party gets the chance to govern on that agenda. As for his question about Mediterranean migration, at the moment we are ensuring that when people are rescued they are taken to the first available place in order to establish whether they are economic migrants or asylum seekers. At the moment it is not possible to return people to Libya in the way that the noble Lord described, but I will reflect further on what he said.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, did my noble friend see the article in yesterday’s Sunday Times about Foreign Office expenditure on some weird and wonderful overseas aid projects? Will she now urge the Foreign Office to divert that rather wasteful expenditure to Tunisia, which is in the front line fighting extremism? The Islamic extremists know that they have to destroy Tunisia because Tunisia has opted for democracy and for keeping Islamic fundamentalism firmly in its box and out of government. Tunisia needs all the help it can get because, if it is destroyed, no other country is safe.

Broadband

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Wednesday 25th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

What I was referring to mainly with essential services was the basic broadband service. Superfast broadband, which is what I think the noble Lord is referring to for business, is necessary. At the moment, 78% of premises in this country have superfast broadband. By the end of 2016, it will be 90% and in 2017 it will be 95%. The remaining 5% will be dealt with later.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, will my noble friend the Minister please put a rocket under Ofcom with regard to broadband speeds? The service providers boast of speeds of up to 15, 20 or 30 megabits per second, and I suppose you might just get that on a wet Sunday morning at 3 am, if you are the only person online. The vast majority of people do not get those speeds. Will he please tell Ofcom that we, the consumers, are fed up being misled about speeds and being ripped off, and that we want action on guaranteed minimum speeds?

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

My Lords, every local authority area will have at least 90% at superfast levels by the end of 2017. The rest will be 95%, but there will be an absolute minimum of 90% superfast coverage by the end of 2017.