Scotland
Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts(1 month, 2 weeks ago)
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Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
My Lords, we have thought about this a lot and, going forward, it is key to how we work across government. It goes back to the idea that we are stronger together. Unless both Governments work together, in the interests of the people of Scotland, we will not get the best outcomes for them. I think it also means, as my noble friend will be aware, that devolution does not mean that the British Government should abdicate their responsibilities to Scotland. We have a very strong role, and we remain committed to strengthening the union.
Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)
My Lords, does the Minister accept that for many people in Scotland, especially young people and businesses, the benefits of being part of the United Kingdom would be considerably strengthened if the Government’s reset with the European Union included accepting the youth mobility scheme, rejoining Erasmus, securing flexible visa arrangements for our creative industries and working to rejoin the single market?
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
My Lords, that question goes a little wider than anticipated, but I admire the noble Lord’s ingenuity. The important thing for young people and older people across the UK is to know that they have a Government who work with the devolved Governments in their best interests. That is what has been lacking for some time.
Horn of Africa
Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts(1 month, 2 weeks ago)
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Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)
My Lords, I too welcome the fact that the Government have initiated this debate and I thank the Minister for his introduction. I look forward to the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Harman. Having had a flat in her former constituency for quite a few years, I am certain that she will be very welcome in this House, and we are looking forward to hearing what she has to say.
While I think what the noble Lord had to say about Somaliland is worthy of consideration and thought, it is a difficult and delicate issue—but it has validity. A few points need to be drawn out. As quite a few noble Lords will know, Jan Egeland of the Norwegian Refugee Council was in this House last week and gave a pretty depressing comment on the state of the world. The very starkest statistic was that in the last few years, the number of refugees and internally displaced people in the world has risen from 42 million to 120 million and, while that has happened, most of the developed countries have dramatically reduced their aid and support to exactly those people. So, as the problem has got worse, support from the international community has been reduced—and we wonder why conflicts escalate and resolutions do not appear.
I have some knowledge of Ethiopia, as I have visited several times, and I have also visited Sudan and South Sudan. I have not visited Somalia, Eritrea or Djibouti, but clearly the impact is very much felt whenever you visit the region in any case. I am grateful for the fact that Anneliese Dodds, the Development Minister, visited Ethiopia in August, and that the Minister was there just a week or two ago. I think that demonstrates that the Government are engaged. I have to point out, however—and he can correct me if my figures are wrong—that from a peak of £300 million a year of the UK’s aid budget to Ethiopia, we are currently down to about £83 million, and in the case of Somalia, from a peak of £250 million it is down to £92.7 million in the current year. That reinforces the point. I know that the Government are not in a position to reverse that, but they must not cut it any further, and I think we want to see that they are beginning to build it back, and this is an area of focus where it is urgently needed.
As the Minister said, it is a very complex region and the interconnections are very difficult, but he quite rightly made some positive comments about what those countries are trying to do. Somalia is definitely in a better place than it was a few years ago, but it is not out of the woods. Somaliland is a shining example in one sense, but there is an unresolved problem. Eritrea is still a worry. The point that I wish to make is that there are 120 million people or more living in Ethiopia and, in spite of some reverses in the last few years because of the internal conflicts, Ethiopia has achieved a huge amount since it got rid of the communist Government, in a whole variety of ways. The poverty indicators have dropped very sharply and health and education have improved, but it has slid, because of the conflict, in the last few years.
While the Prime Minister’s rhetoric may not be helpful, it is quite understandable that a country of 120 million people that is trying to build a successful economy and has no access to the sea, other than by agreement with Djibouti—which has its own problems—is looking for secure access. It used to have it when it possessed Eritrea. That is not a viable option, so it is understandable that it would look to Somaliland, with very close access to the sea and a stable environment.
It is equally understandable that Somalia is more than uncomfortable about that—it is very angry. My appeal to the Minister is from the point of view of the UK and the international community: this could surely be resolved by negotiation and agreement, but the starting point has to be that Ethiopia’s need for safe and secure access to the sea is a legitimate aspiration that it would be helpful if its neighbours could take a constructive attitude towards resolving. I can put it no more firmly than that. I cannot say what the answer should be, but it is an understandable wish and refusing to address it does not help us.
As the Minister said, we have the problem of the spillover from Sudan and South Sudan, with refugee camps in Ethiopia and probably the worst humanitarian crisis on the planet. The UK is the UN penholder on Sudan, so we have reasonable responsibility to help resolve that situation. Lowering the temperature, addressing the issues and getting the parties together is the only way that we will resolve this.
The consequences of climate change and the current famine are an added burden. We all know that this is the 40th anniversary of the famine, but it is important to remember that it was to some extent directly caused by the appalling Government of the time—part of it deliberately and the rest by neglect. Therefore, it is understandable that the Government who have succeeded them, even though they have changed in the last few years, are very sensitive to Ethiopian famine because they have done an awful lot to try to ensure that they can manage famine and stress from their own resources as well as international aid. Even when it is embarrassing for them, they are prepared to make a public statement that they are facing the prospect of famine and looking for practical support. We should acknowledge that, because it shows that we respect what they are trying to do and that we are there to try to help, rather than giving the terrible image of Africa as a completely failed continent that cannot cope, which is just not true. The scale of climate change and the extremity of some of the drought is beyond human control but not beyond management and resolution.
The UK Government’s engagement in the region has been positive and constructive but regrettably rather downgraded in recent years. That has been noticed. I was advised that the very sharp withdrawal from aid projects in Ethiopia led a Minister in the Ethiopian Government to say that they were not sure they wanted to work with the UK Government in future because they could not trust the continuity. I hope that this Government, whatever they do, do not stop and start— I hope they start and do not stop—because that is the worst way to handle aid and development co-operation on a mutually respectful basis.
There is a tendency for this to become an issue when there is a crisis—when the TV news cameras are in, when there is an appeal or whatever. That creates a rather negative image—not that it is not real—when surely this is about long-term solutions and building resilience and capacity. When I had the honour to chair the International Development Committee, I always used to say to people: “It is not the Foreign Aid Committee; it is the International Development Committee”. Sometimes aid is necessary in an emergency, but it needs to be backed up by sustained development programmes to build resilience and capacity to give countries the ability to tackle their problems in the long term. I appeal to the Government not just to respond to crises but to set in process programmes with long-term continuity. They do not always get the attention but they make the difference, which is really important.
As I have said before in this House, we need to rebuild the cross-party consensus that we had, because we have broken the connection between the British public and the importance and relevance of our overseas development programme, both in compassion and in our internal national interest. We need to rebuild that, because at the moment the attitude tends to be: “We have all these problems at home, so we really shouldn’t be addressing that”. But we will have more problems at home if we do not do so. We live in a shared, over- crowded and overstressed planet. We are part of the overstressing and have to be part of the solution too.
I appreciate the fact that two Ministers have been to Ethiopia in very short order. I hope that our relationship with Ethiopia and the neighbouring territories will continue and that our role as penholder on Sudan might help us push that forward. Can the Minister say to what extent the UK could help with mediation among the countries, in particular between Somaliland and Ethiopia, and give some leadership to the international community? We are not the single most important player, but we have been an important player and can be again. I hope we will recognise that these tensions can be resolved by good will. The rhetoric has been restrained; there has been a bit of tub-thumping, but they have just held back from escalating it to conflict. That could happen, but should not. This is no justification. Conflict will resolve nothing, just make a very bad situation a lot worse.
UN Sustainable Development Goals
Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts(2 months ago)
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Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox; her points about technology are well made. I thank too the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, for giving us the chance to have this debate. My only concern is that when we have these debates, it is the same group of people who are debating. It is unfortunate that the rest of the Chamber does not realise how important and central this is. It is not a peripheral issue, and yet I am afraid that too many of our colleagues regard it as such.
Nobody should underestimate the damage done in the last few years to the UK’s global reputation and the impact and influence we have. Those of us who travel—most of us do—have met people who have told us how they looked on in astonishment at our clumsy, bad-tempered exit from the EU, our threats to tear up international treaties, our disregard of international and domestic law, our slashing of our world-class international development assistance.
Even with Covid, we developed the vaccines, but did we share them with the developing world, as we had indicated we would? No, we did not. Unless we are honest about what we have done to our reputation, it will be difficult to start the process of rebuilding it.
Boris Johnson’s destruction of DfID and slashing of the aid budget, after promising to do neither, shocked our partners and opened the door for others to move in to the space we have vacated. The point has already been made that the cut was a lot worse than just going from 0.7% to 0.5%. That was bad enough, but the £4.273 billion paid domestically, which should be going to development abroad, as the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, has said, has reduced the budget in practical terms to some 0.3%, not 0.5%.
I acknowledge that at the end of the last government, Rishi Sunak tried to do some rebuilding by putting the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, and Andrew Mitchell back in place. The rot was stopped at that point. Nevertheless, we must recognise that we have a lot of work to do if we are going to get back to where we were.
I had the privilege to chair the International Development Committee during the period when the UK delivered 0.7%. Not only did we set an example and encourage others to follow, but the quality of what we did was world class. It was untied to British commercial interests and focused on poverty reduction. We led the world in programmes empowering women and girls, delivering on education and health, and rolling out vaccines. What we are doing now is a shadow of what we were. I am glad that spending on Africa and Asia is beginning to recover, but it is from a much lower base.
I was recently told that the UK’s offer in many countries, once ranked as the best in the world and on a par with the Americans and the World Bank, is roughly equivalent to Sweden’s. No disrespect to the Swedes, who have always been generous with aid, but our population is more than five times Sweden’s, and yet we are delivering only at that level.
The nub of what I have to say is a political point. As the UK has diminished its reputation and influence, China and Russia have stepped in aggressively. They have moved in offering billions of conspicuously spent dollars of assistance with few questions asked, and certainly not focusing on poverty reduction. Until the demise of its founder, the Wagner Group operated as semi-licensed mercenaries of the Kremlin across Africa. It has now morphed into a state agency called Africa Corps. It is offering billions to acquire mineral rights and securing political support for Russia in the United Nations.
This is accompanied by a massive incursion into acquiring or developing media outlets pouring out propaganda against the democratic world. The BBC World Service, which is being forced to cut back because of budget constraints, estimates that Russia and China are between them spending between $4 billion and $8 billion a year acquiring or developing media assets across the global South. When the BBC, as part of its cuts, gave up its presence in Lebanon, Russia immediately picked up the frequency it vacated. These outlets are not promoting freedom, human rights and pluralism but denouncing ex-colonial powers such as Britain as unreliable exploiters, despite the irony of their own mercantilist expansion. Unfortunately, that propaganda has traction when countries look at the way we have behaved in the last few years.
Where are those who looked, and look, to us for leadership to turn in the light of this decline? How can we ensure, for example, that the Commonwealth still upholds the rule of law? I suggest to the Minister—I do not think I am speaking to closed ears—that these are immediate and urgent challenges for the Government if we are to start rebuilding the profile. We had it; we need to have it again.
I appreciate that a global impact review is taking place, but we need to take urgent action now and rebuild the cross-party consensus that sustained what was delivered and ensured that people were able to see that the politicians and the people were as one. It is too easy to use cheap comments such as “cash machines in the sky”—an ignorant and deeply offensive comment by Boris Johnson.
To the detractors of aid, I say that reducing poverty, malnutrition and hunger and providing clean water and sanitation are not only the right things to do but make a safer world and improve the chances of getting people in countries to share values. Narrow selfish nationalism always diminishes us. When they have been given the opportunity, the majority of British people have always shown strong support for compassion at home and abroad. The problem with the argument that charity begins at home is, as we all know, that it stays at home.
I have just visited Zambia, and I saw some concern that our presence was visibly reduced. Everywhere I went people said, “Where are you? What has happened to you? Where have you gone? Are you coming back?” I think I could find that in many countries across Africa. But I did see one or two quite encouraging things. I declare an interest as an adviser to a company called DAI. I was looking at some of the projects it is delivering on behalf of USAID. I also saw a couple of other organisations that I have a personal connection with. I chair a charity called Water Unite, which provides money to companies in-country to build sustainable provision of water and sanitation, and I went to a company called Jibu, a franchise operation which is providing clean water to businesses and individuals at an affordable and therefore sustainable level. Its ambition is to have a franchise operating in every part of Zambia. It is operating across east Africa. I saw a different Zambia- registered company, inspired by British interest, delivering investment in renewable energy by linking it to markets and ensuring therefore that although there is room for some aid in development, actual markets and the private sector can unlock real practicalities.
The Liberal Democrats have stated that we would commit to 0.7% immediately and would also re-establish DfID. I know that the Government are not going to do that, but I echo what everyone else has said, which is that the Government have made a commitment that they are going to do it. We have a Budget coming up. We have to see that progress is started in this Budget. I hope that the rumours suggesting not only that that will not happen but that the aid budget might be further cut will prove to be unfounded. It would be a terrible mistake if the Government went down that route.
Afghanistan
Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts(3 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)
My Lords, from rereading the reports of the International Development Committee in 2007 and 2012, it is clear that we were in no doubt about the challenges facing not only the international community but the leaders and ordinary people of Afghanistan. Travelling across the country, we learned that corruption is rife, social values are deeply conservative, poverty is everywhere and the country is riddled with crime, violence and factionalism. Given that the Taliban regime harboured Osama bin Laden to execute major terrorist attacks, the case for going in was overwhelming. However, the minute the Bush regime prioritised the invasion of Iraq, it was clear that the resources Afghanistan needed would not be sustained.
Despite Afghanistan being a NATO-wide commitment, the US, as the biggest player, set the terms of engagement. This meant that donor co-ordination was less effective. The committee found that UK aid spending was several times more cost effective than that of the United States. We recognised that the commitment would be long term. We said that it would be a generation or more. It was not about building western style liberal democracy but helping to create a viable state with space for development and poverty reduction.
For President Biden to say that the collapse of the Government and the defence capability was the Afghans’ fault is truly sickening. With limited allied troops and strategic air cover, the country was functioning, if imperfectly. The rapid withdrawal demoralised the domestic forces, who were often deployed far from home with no protection or support for their families against the Taliban, so it is hardly surprising that they chose not to fight. Now the cost of failure could outweigh by many times the cost of maintaining a minimal presence. In the diplomatic fallout, what did the Prime Minister say to Imran Khan following his comments that the Taliban have
“broken the shackles of slavery”?
Pakistan was supposed to be an ally.
The committee challenged President Karzai over the rights of women, 80% of whom said they experienced violence from their husbands or other male relatives, yet by contrast the principal of the university in Bamyan told us that the enrolment of women had increased dramatically after the defeat of the Taliban.
Our priority now is to offer protection and support for those who relied on promises from the international community and now experience the bitter taste of betrayal. The numbers and timings for refugees announced fall short of our obligations—will they be urgently reviewed? The international world order looks pretty dysfunctional today. The savage cut to the aid budget was appallingly misjudged—will it now be reversed? Afghanistan is poor; it needs aid and development focused on poverty reduction, especially for women and girls.
Yesterday, Taliban leaders, masters of public relations, sought to give assurances that women will be allowed education and other rights. If the Taliban is serious, which many doubt, it should accept the presence of outside agencies and delegations. Will the Government test their good faith? Will they engage and, as the noble Lord, Lord Jay, suggested, consider an aid and even a diplomatic presence? Otherwise, how will we reach the millions left behind?
Official Development Assistance
Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD) [V]
My Lords, I draw attention to my entry in the register as a corporate adviser to DAI and a consultant with the Westminster Foundation for Democracy.
Last year, official development assistance from all donors reached a record $161 billion. Most of the largest donors increased their aid budget as we were cutting the UK’s. Germany achieved 0.7% as we moved away, and Australia has reversed last year’s cuts. The UK is exceptional, but in a shameful way. The decision to cut aid is ideological and deeply damaging to the UK’s reputation and the needs of the world’s poorest. It undermines any credibility for the ridiculous and meaningless slogan “global Britain”.
What concerns me is the damage to the UK’s reputation and the long-term weakening of the UK’s development capacity. I have two examples. A long-standing flagship programme to transfer title to 14 million parcels of land to farmers in Ethiopia has been halted. Disgruntled with the UK’s betrayal of trust and determined to meet the needs of small farmers, the Ethiopian Government are looking to other donors. In Bangladesh, a strategic partnership with BRAC, established by DfID 10 years ago, has been cut. It is being continued by Australia and Canada but, without the UK, it will be cut by 30%. The UK’s aid programmes have been delivered flexibly and cost effectively by a wide range of large and small development partners, all of which fulfil a role. Faced with cuts at this scale and speed, some may fail. Others will let experts go or redeploy them to programmes with other donors.
The Government boast of a record economic bounceback, which will mean that we may miss even 0.5%. Will cuts be restored if that happens? Will we stay behind France and Germany in our delivery? They have taken over the UK leadership position. The problem is that, if the UK looks to get back its lead, capacity will not be available and previous ODA recipient countries might have found more trustworthy development partners.
Financial Services Bill
Lord Bruce of Bennachie ExcerptsWednesday 24th February 2021
(3 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD) [V]
My Lords, that was a powerful speech by the noble Lord, Lord Sikka, and clearly, a lot must be addressed. I served on the EU Financial Affairs Sub-Committee and the Treasury Select Committee, and currently serve on the EU Services Sub-Committee. Therefore, I am well aware of the contribution the sector makes across the UK.
The UK helped to shape the regulations and rules for the EU, but we have now left. The sector has consistently argued that a reputation for high standards and effective regulation is important to the confidence the world expresses in the UK’s financial institutions—notwithstanding the failures that have occurred. The combination of the European Parliament and the UK Parliament ensured that regulators have been accountable. I do not claim to be a technical expert on what is a complicated sector, but I recognise the dangers of regulation becoming an unaccountable closed book.
I support the case for a properly resourced specialist joint committee to ensure that regulators are held accountable, not so much on technical detail but in terms of a prudential framework and overall direction. That would be in the interests of the regulators and government Ministers as well as those who depend on a well-regulated and reliable sector. I share the concern that what the Government are trying to do will ultimately bite back if there has been no proper parliamentary oversight in a future scandal. The Government and the regulators will have nowhere to hide, but that will be very little comfort to people who may suffer from regulation failures.
Financial services are distributed throughout the economy. People often refer to the City of London, but we know that jobs and activities are distributed throughout the UK and have been growing in all the devolved Administrations. Edinburgh is the UK’s most important financial centre and one of the most important in Europe. According to TheCityUK, financial services contribute £13 billion, or 9.4% of GVA, to the Scottish economy. More than 160,000 people are employed in financial and related professional services, which is nearly 6% of Scotland’s national employment. The sector includes banking, fund management, insurance, life assurance and pensions, asset servicing and professional services.
Interestingly, Scotland accounts for 24% of all UK employment in life assurance and 13% of all banking employment. Given that Scotland has 8.5% of the population of the UK, this is clearly disproportionately important. According to Scottish Development International, there are more than 2,000 financial services businesses, supported by 3,650 professional services firms. Scotland’s financial and professional services exports account for 40% of all Scottish services exports.
Having said that about Scotland, tens of thousands are employed in the sector in Wales and thousands in Northern Ireland, and the number is growing in all the devolved areas. My Amendment 137 takes this into account and seeks to ensure that the devolved Administrations are consulted about any proposed changes in financial services regulations. It is clearly in the interest of the sector to have clear and common regulations across the United Kingdom, which is why this amendment looks for consultation only. It merely seeks to ensure that any factors of particular importance to a devolved Administration are, as far as possible, accommodated. I can see no conceivable advantage to financial services companies to diverge from UK regulation. After all, as the figures I cited show, a significant part of the financial services sector in Scotland is serving the whole UK market. The last thing it needs is a distracting push separating it from its customers, either by erecting barriers at the border or by promoting an alternative Scottish currency, which would undermine the raison d’être of serving the UK from Scotland, or a “sterlingisation” agenda that would put huge pressure on the public finances in Scotland.
My amendment seeks to avoid any unintended negative consequences. It is not intended to cause delay or to encourage special pleading. Given the particular importance of Scotland’s role in delivering life assurance and banking, it is surely right that any changes being considered to regulations affecting these sectors are not proceeded with until appropriate consultation has taken place.
That said, it is also important to recognise the role of professional support services, given Scotland’s distinctive legal system and, for example, accounting qualifications. The expertise that exists in Scotland should in any case surely be drawn on to inform regulations if and when changes are being considered. I share concerns that the Government are proceeding to build an architecture that lacks an adequate parliamentary dimension. It is perfectly reasonable to ask the legislatures of the devolved Administrations to be involved in contributing to the shaping of regulations, at least in their broad prudential thrust.
I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say. I hope he will recognise the force of the arguments put by noble Lords about the need for a significant and effective parliamentary dimension and a recognition that the devolved Administrations, especially Scotland, should be able to contribute constructively and positively to that outcome.
Lord McNicol of West Kilbride (Lab) [V]
My Lords, one of the joys of being at the end of such a large group of amendments and a long speakers’ list is that very much of what needs to be said has already been said, so I will be brief.
The contributions from across your Lordships’ Committee, from the noble Baronesses, Lady Noakes and Lady Bowles, and my noble friend Lord Davies, outlined the importance of parliamentary and democratic oversight and the different levels and ways of delivering it. The contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, on the right levels of oversight also helped move the debate on.
The balance between regulatory authorities’ powers and those of Parliament is critical. My noble friend Lord Sikka clearly outlined in detail many of the failures of the regulators and of the FCA, so getting the levels right is critical. I add my support for those amendments that I am pushing forward. I look forward to the Minister’s response and to how we move this forward to Report and Third Reading.
Covid-19 Update
Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts(4 years, 1 month ago)
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Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
I entirely agree with the noble Baroness. We are working very closely with local authorities, and they do indeed have significant resources and powers to do local contact tracing. In fact, there are more than 128 local authority contact tracing teams in place around the country, with more to come. I am sure she will be aware of the Liverpool pilot scheme, which we are hoping will be successful and roll out. Everyone living and working in Liverpool will now be offered a Covid test, whether they have symptoms or not. Whole-city testing aims to protect those at highest risk and find asymptomatic cases in order to prevent and reduce transmission in the community, exactly as the noble Baroness said. If this approach works—and we are looking to roll it out—we are hopeful that it will play a significant role in doing exactly what the noble Baroness says in helping to make sure that local authorities and local areas can bear down quickly and effectively on outbreaks within their area.
Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD) [V]
My Lords, yesterday the Prime Minister, in his characteristic style, said that the same terms would be available to Scotland if it went into lockdown later than England, yet this seems to be have been qualified by Robert Jenrick today, who said that it was a matter for the Chancellor. Scotland is watching to see whether the current restriction levels will bring about a sustained fall in the infection rate or whether more stringent measures will be needed. I am happy to acknowledge the £7.2 billion of additional support provided by the Treasury to Scotland, but we do not want a lockdown just to qualify for furlough, so clarity is needed. Will the same support now being given to England be available to Scotland if it has to follow the same route on a later timescale beyond 2 December?
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
I am grateful to the noble Lord for acknowledging the £7.2 billion of funding for Scotland. This intervention has saved nearly 1 million jobs in Scotland, which I am sure is very welcome. As we have said, the furlough scheme is a UK-wide scheme, and it will always be there for all parts of the UK.
Business of the House
Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts(5 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, I also support my noble friend Lord Empey, who I have known for a long time and who was a very distinguished Minister in Northern Ireland. He knows a lot about Northern Ireland legislation. It is not just that the Northern Ireland Assembly is not sitting at the moment—which is a very strong argument. It is also about the business of this House. I know that my noble friend Lord Adonis will agree that for the past few weeks, and in the coming few weeks, our Order Paper has been full of hundreds of statutory instruments, most of which we hope will not be needed. We heard earlier from the Home Office Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, in reply to one Question, that no deal was an unlikely outcome.
It is outrageous that Northern Ireland legislation, which is important and which we should be looking at in detail, is not looked at properly, whereas we are being flooded with all these statutory instruments, hundreds of which we hope will be totally unnecessary and void. I strongly support the noble Lord, Lord Empey, and I hope we can say that support in this House is coming from all sides, just as it did in the House of Commons.
Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)
My Lords, I add my support to that argument. The people of Northern Ireland are being doubly short-changed: they do not have an Assembly, and what is being done in Parliament, in both Houses, is a wholly inadequate form of scrutiny. Would you not think that, when there is no functioning Assembly in Northern Ireland, this House and the other place would take more responsibility for effective scrutiny, not less? In those circumstances, the argument being put is extremely powerful.
European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill
Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts(7 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)
My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes. I am pleased to say that, although I do not always agree with him, I agreed with every word that he said.
I want to focus on two things, involving two people: the Prime Minster and the First Minister of Scotland. Before the referendum, Theresa May was billed as a reluctant remainer—but a remainer. Since the referendum she has become an enthusiastic Brexiteer leading a Government barely distinguishable from UKIP. The referendum was conducted on both sides in a climate of misinformation. A Government elected with under 37% of the vote on a 66% turnout, under a Prime Minister who was not the leader of the party or an obvious prime ministerial candidate at the last election, have decided that their interpretation of the result should be sovereign—even trying to exclude Parliament from the process.
How dare they lecture us about democracy? As Ken Clarke said, had the result gone narrowly the other way—or even substantially the other way—the Brexiteers would not have stayed quiet but now would be in full cry for a rerun, as are the nationalists in Scotland, who also pledged that this was a once-in-a-generation vote. For the Prime Minister to say, definitively, that the people have voted to leave the single market, all or part of the customs union and the European Court of Justice, as well as—and probably more importantly—other institutions of the EU, is a denial of democracy and an abrogation of leadership.
Let me turn to Scotland. Before the independence referendum, the SNP declared that it was a once-in-a-generation vote. Unfortunately for Mr Alex Salmond, he said that on television and it is being broadcast every day on Facebook. Yet now the SNP is threatening another referendum, despite the fact that the Scottish Parliament does not have the power to run one. The circumstances have changed as a result of the EU referendum. They sure have—but not in a way that makes Scottish independence a better option. The SNP traded on the slogan “Independence in Europe” for decades. However, that was based on the assumption that the UK would remain a member of the EU. For Scotland now to leave the UK, for an uncertain future, is anything but appealing. That probably explains why the prospect of a second referendum is unpopular in Scotland and why the likely outcome looks no different from the result before.
Let us face reality. The idea that Scotland can remain in the EU as a residual part of the UK as the rest of the UK leaves is pure fantasy and cannot happen legally or politically—whatever Elmar Brok, in his mischievous way, may wish to think. The independence campaign failed most especially on its inability to give any credible steer on the currency that an independent Scotland would use and the ensuing friction and uncertainty in terms of engaging with the rest of the UK. That problem would be repeated in spades, should Scotland choose to leave the UK without an agreement on using the pound, which would anyway belie the concept of independence. Even allowing for the fact that Scotland, as part of the UK, has already adopted the acquis, it does not meet any of the essential fiscal criteria. It has no currency, no central bank and no track record. It stands to inherit an uncertain and unsustainable share of the UK national debt and, outside the UK, would be running a current account deficit that would not meet EU criteria under any circumstances. Even with a benign EU membership, therefore, it would take years in limbo before Scotland could aspire to full membership of the EU. That is even before consideration of the veto rights of the other member states.
As the UK obsesses with Brexit, which it will, Scotland obsesses with independence. Both those obsessions mean that day-to-day life is sacrificed and standards fall in education, health, skills and investment while we engage in this distraction. It is a form of self-destructive, collective insanity. Of course, we will campaign to minimise the damage and prevent the disintegration of our shared values, but it requires voters to turn away from an SNP that puts independence above the real interests of the people of Scotland and to stand up to a UKIP-leaning Conservative Party, which is leading us over a cliff. Every day it becomes more apparent than ever that more of our daily activities are threatened—culture, science, research, environment protection and workers’ rights are all now in the mix.
Now Brexiteers want to decorate their own Christmas tree. At the weekend we were told that we should use our aid budget to sweeten the trade deal by spending it in Europe and not Africa. How hard-faced to take money away from the poorest in Africa and south Asia to try to win votes from eastern European member states. How despicable. No doubt this will also mean as we proceed in this that we will not speak out on human rights abuses in all the countries that have problems and with which we are trying to negotiate trade and investment deals. I hear it in Iran; I hear it in Burma: “Soft pedal. Don’t upset them. We may want a trade deal. Don’t stand up for British citizens. Don’t stand up for human rights”. In other words, our long-held and proud liberal values risk being traded away for Brexit. Not if I can help it.
Outcome of the European Union Referendum
Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts(8 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)
My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Baroness, and concur with her that we are living in very dangerously uncertain times. People talk about uncertainty, but there is real danger, not only here but across Europe. I want to address two specific issues in this debate, and just draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Interests.
The first is the impact on the quality and delivery of UK development assistance, which I do not think has been mentioned in this debate. The UK is the second-biggest bilateral provider of official development assistance in the world, with our contribution totalling around £11.5 billion. We are the first G20 country to deliver 0.7% of gross national income in official development assistance, and we have legislation to focus on poverty reduction and gender issues. Thanks to my friend and colleague Michael Moore, we have legislation to maintain our commitment to that 0.7%.
There is a correlation between those who campaigned to leave the EU and those who want to cut the UK aid budget. However, nothing would give a more negative signal, or more positive proof that the UK was turning its back on international engagement, than for us to cut the amount of our national income we deliver in development assistance.
The UK has an imperial legacy which over the centuries has seen us intervene, not always nobly, in the affairs of most countries in the world. Like it or not, countries such as Pakistan and Nigeria were created by Britain: indeed, we shaped the map for most of our aid partners. Delivering aid in many of these countries may be challenging, but history has passed us a strong moral obligation to help poor people out of poverty in these areas.
David Cameron was the representative of the industrialised nations in the high-level panel to deliver the post-2015 agenda, which determined an aim of ending absolute poverty by 2030 and leaving no one behind. It would be a travesty and a tragedy if Britain turned its back on this commitment. A significant proportion of ODA is delivered through the EU, which the multilateral aid review identified as an effective means of delivering UK pro-poor aid objectives. We should therefore give priority in negotiations to continuing teamwork in partnership with the EU in delivering our development aims. It would put less pressure on DfID to find alternative outlets, which could never have the same reach as the EU, and it would maintain an area of co-operation with the EU that would engender a positive relationship and good will. I urge the Government to resist the siren voices that inevitably will be raised to cut the aid budget and transfer it to domestic priorities. By the way, those who claim that leaving the EU would free the UK to grow faster outside its constraints could hardly justify cutting the budget now.
The second issue I wish to raise is the future of the UK and Scotland’s position. It is true that voters in Scotland made clear their desire to remain in the EU, but it should not be forgotten that while 1.66 million Scottish voters chose remain, over 2 million in the previous referendum voted to stay in the UK. It was reported last week that the First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, was minded to stage another referendum on independence before the negotiation for the UK’s leaving of the EU is completed, with the suggested question: “Do you want Scotland to remain in the EU or leave with the rest of the UK?”. If this is true, it is an absurd and wholly irresponsible proposition. It may be perfectly reasonable for Nicola Sturgeon to hold talks with sympathetic elements within the EU, but she knows perfectly well that there is little or no prospect of Scotland carrying on within the EU, let alone with the UK’s current opt-outs. When the Prime Minister of Spain made it clear that Scotland was part of the UK and there would be no separate talks—this was echoed by France—the First Minister said that this was no surprise. Of course not, but Spain, France and every other country holds a veto over Scotland.
I have no doubt that many within the EU will hold out warmth and sympathy towards Scotland in the light of the vote, but that is not enough to launch us into uncharted waters on the back of the prodigious uncertainty we all face right across the UK. Depending on the terms of the new UK relationship with the EU, Scotland should not put itself at risk—which it would be doing—of total isolation. Scotland cannot apply for membership of the EU before it becomes independent. It would then face the same obligations as every applicant state. Even the fast track would take years. We would have to establish a central bank, a currency and a fiscal and exchange-rate track record. This would be challenge enough, but if the UK is establishing itself outside the EU, and possibly outside the single market, free movement and all those other issues, then barriers would be going up between Scotland and the rest of the UK before they even begin to come down with the EU. Given all this, I contend the priority for those of us who care about Scotland, its relationship within the UK and between all parts of the UK and the EU, is to secure the best possible outcome that maintains as much as possible of the co-operation and partnership that we value so dearly currently as a member of the EU. Anything else would be to show that independence is an ideological obsession that transcends the economic, social, cultural and political interests of the people of Scotland. The SNP should not let its patriotism lead to a betrayal of the real interests of the people of Scotland. As a passionate home ruler and Europhile, I firmly believe we need to tread carefully and sensitively towards an outcome that maintains the best of the UK and the best of our relationship with the EU.