Autumn Budget Forecast

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Tuesday 29th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sassoon]

My Lords, I take it as a sign of great confidence in the direction of policy of my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer because former Chancellors are never shy of giving their advice. If they are not giving it today, I assume that they are satisfied.

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, I am sure that my noble friend is entirely right in what he has just said. Am I right in believing that the money that has been earmarked for HS2 is still there? If that is the case, could I suggest to him, bearing in mind the stimulating effect on the economy that infrastructure plans have wherever they take place, that it might be better to abandon that scheme and to use that money for reinstating more Beeching lines and other things, so that people all over the country have the benefit of the money that my right honourable friend the Chancellor has said they should have? Could we abandon that scheme in favour of others?

[Lord Sassoon]

My Lords, I am delighted that not only can we continue with the HS2 scheme, although it does not impact in any material way on the current spending review period, but also that a number of other exciting rail projects have been announced or confirmed today; for example, the reopening of the Oxford-Bedford link as part of the overall possible link between Oxford and Cambridge, the electrification of the trans-Pennine line, and lots more that is going in rail infrastructure.

European Union Membership (Economic Implications) Bill [HL]

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Friday 25th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, having listened to every word of the debate, I would just like to refer your Lordships’ House to one point. I want to remind noble Lords of a very remarkable man, a friend of mine who was a distinguished Member of your Lordships’ House until a couple of years ago—the late Lord Dahrendorf. It seemed to me that Lord Dahrendorf had it right. He was a visionary, a man who distributed literature against Hitler on the streets of Berlin, and who served Germany in Parliament and represented Germany in the Commission in Brussels. He then came here and, having taken British nationality—although he was still given the German Order of Merit—he served our country with vision and distinction. He warned this House and Europe in general of the folly of entering too prematurely into a single currency. He thought the whole idea was questionable because without political union, of which he was not in favour, you could not have a proper working single currency.

I do not go with the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, in wanting to pull out of Europe, but the lesson of today’s debate is that we have to rethink our place within it. Those who are still peddling the single currency as a panacea have to realise that it has achieved far less than they thought it would. It has achieved about as much as Lord Dahrendorf thought it would when he warned that that way could lie disaster.