Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Cormack Excerpts

3rd reading
Tuesday 25th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I want to throw my considerable Green weight behind the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer. The Members opposite must realise in their hearts that this is unfair. I came into politics to make things fairer and this is not fair. It is unjust, as we have heard. Please let us debate it properly. I would vote for it—anyone can move it to a vote—and I hope it would pass.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I support my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern. He put this with beautiful simplicity and total clarity. He underlined the fact that, at the end of the day, we are answerable for what we decide. I deplore bringing in important things at the late stage of a Bill, which is why I withheld my vote when we were voting and not debating last week, because it made a mockery of Parliament. This is not making a mockery of Parliament; it is underlining the humanity of Parliament. I believe we should follow the sage advice of my noble and learned friend.

[Lord Clarke of Nottingham (Con)]

My Lords, I apologise and feel rather guilty about the fact that I have neglected this Bill during its passage through the House because I was simply unable to attend and I decided not to participate. I came to listen to this debate to find out what was being put on the statute book, having followed it a little from a distance. This issue therefore took me completely by surprise. I have listened to the exchanges, but I thought I should add the voice of a third former Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice to the very eloquent case that has been made on both sides by the two others who share that position.

Personally, I do not approve very much of mandatory sentences, which have spread on to the statute book far too frequently in recent years in response to dramatic and publicised cases. I do accept the mandatory life sentence for murder; that is a very long-standing practice. We should deal with considerable care when we add new mandatory sentences in response to understandably emotional and dramatic cases that appear in the media but, unfortunately, responding to the media has become a feature of criminal justice Bills rather too frequently.

I rose simply to do what my noble friend Lord Cormack did: to add my voice, in so far as it helps at all, to those that have been put forward. This House would be letting itself down if it just let this go through by overstrict adherence to the normal procedures, which of course we should normally follow.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 12th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, Amendment 103 seeks to ensure that the regular action plans on restorative justice provided by the Ministry of Justice until 2008 be restored and also that they should be published and a report produced on progress on the previous action plan as well. It is a more modest amendment than the one I moved in Committee. At that point, we wanted the Government to produce action plans every three years; we are now talking about every five years, which at least reduces the pressure on the department. The amendment would be an enormous improvement on the complete absence of national leadership on this issue since 2018.

But, first, what is restorative justice? It is an interpersonal approach that enables people who have been a victim of criminal or other harmful behaviour to meet the perpetrator, generally face to face, and others closely involved in the case to ask questions of that perpetrator and express how the incident affected them personally. It also enables perpetrators to express what was going on for them when they committed their crime or whatever they did and also to listen and understand the personal impact of that action, so that something that was a very impersonal action turns into something very personal. That is in fact a very important point.

Restorative justice is very much a voluntary process. No one is forced into it—both the victim and the perpetrator have to want to go through it. It can also go alongside other criminal justice activities or procedures. It is highly cost effective; for every pound spent on it, £8 are saved for the criminal justice system. That seems a very good reason for the Minister to take this amendment very seriously, as I hope he will, albeit I will not press it to a vote.

Why do we need the amendment included in this legislation? Every PCC area in England and Wales has a local restorative justice provider which takes referrals for restorative justice. Youth offending teams have a member of staff who leads on it. The victims’ code of practice from 2020 entitles every victim of crime to be informed about restorative justice and have access to it. However, this is simply not happening. The Office for National Statistics data showed, I think in 2020, that only 5% of victims are aware of being told anything about restorative justice at all. I hope the Minister will agree that that really is not satisfactory when these victims have a right to that information.

This problem seems to be driven by a lack of strategic direction from the centre. That is the whole point of this amendment. Also, the Ministry of Justice ceased to provide any funding to PCCs to support these important services. Before introducing the PCSC Bill, the Government published a White Paper highlighting the importance of restorative justice:

“We believe restorative justice is an important part of the justice system and has significant benefits both for the victim and for the rehabilitation of offenders.”


That is absolutely right. We know that reoffending drops by 14% if people have been involved in restorative justice. That is where the £8 saving for every £1 spent comes from. The White Paper went on to refer to opportunities to increase the use of restorative justice by using deferred sentencing and setting restorative conditions as part of out-of-court disposals.

Despite all this, restorative justice has been absent from the Bill. Can the Minister explain why it was promoted in the White Paper but does not feature in the Bill? I hope he will want to put this right. The amendment is relatively minor in its impact on the Ministry of Justice, yet it could have really far-reaching impacts, both for victims and for perpetrators. I hope the Minister will look favourably on Amendment 103.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I made a very brief reference to restorative justice in one of our debates on Monday. I am glad to have an opportunity to comment briefly on the amendment just moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher. I agree with her wholeheartedly. We should always do everything we can to keep people out of prison; to repeat myself from Monday, although sending people to prison is the punishment and the aim is rehabilitation, it does not always work like that. I know that from experience in my former constituency, which had a very large prison—Featherstone—and a young offender institution at Brinsford just a mile or so away. I believe a lot of the young people in Brinsford would have benefited enormously by not going to prison and would have benefited from restorative justice.

I became totally convinced in this view when I had the privilege to be the chairman of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee for the last of my Parliaments in the other place, 2005 to 2010. I saw at first hand the effect of restorative justice in Northern Ireland, and a lot of young people who would perhaps have gone on to a long life of crime were rehabilitated and came to terms with their victims. As the noble Baroness said, there has to be agreement from both sides, as it were, but it was wholly beneficial in a vast number of cases.

Following the White Paper to which the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, referred, it seems very strange indeed that there is no provision or recognition in the fairly massive Bill before us. One of my criticisms of the Bill is that it is too long. It should be three Bills rather than one—but that is another story and we have touched on that in the past. But although the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, said that she will not press this to a Division—I do not dissent from her on that—I hope nevertheless that my noble friend the Minister will be able to make some favourable and encouraging comments about the importance of restorative justice and its place in the criminal justice system.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords, I intervene to express my support for this modest but worthwhile amendment and, like my noble friend Lord Cormack, to urge my noble friend the Minister to give a sympathetic response when he winds up in a moment or two.

I have had an interest in RJ—restorative justice—for a number of years. In particular, I have followed the work of Why Me?, which has briefed us on the debate this afternoon. My noble friend the Minister will be aware of my concern, which I know is shared across the House, about the levels of reoffending, which seem a reproach to us all: a moral reproach, a societal reproach, a financial reproach—you name it. This high rate of reoffending is not a new problem; it has bedevilled our society and our prison system for many years.

It is said that the definition of stupidity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. That seems to be one of the positions we have got to with regard to trying new ideas which may—maybe at the margin—help cut the underlying reoffending rate. I am sure we need to try a new approach, or new approaches. To use the cricketing analogy, if I may, in light of the results of the test match in Australia, we need to change the bowling—

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

I know that some may be shocked. I actually worry a lot about prison reform, authoritarian tendencies and prison being used as an answer to all problems. There are a lot of draconian aspects of the Bill—the threat of jail for protesters, for example, which we are about to discuss—and all these things concern me.

However, I would not want a royal commission to be there to endorse what I or the movers of the amendment want. Therefore, a long list of things that are wrong with long sentences does not seem to be the basis of a royal commission—I would want it to look at sentencing without prejudice and bearing in mind public concerns about safety. It is absolutely the case that, despite my liberal qualms, there are times when people should probably be locked up for longer—but the prisons should then be reformed to make them more humane while you are in them for longer.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

Well, my Lords, I had never really thought of the noble Baroness as a bleeding-heart liberal, but we all come in different guises, depending upon the subject. I find myself very taken by many of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames, and by many others who have long been learned in the law.

I spoke to my noble friend the Minister after what the noble Baroness referred to as the slightly fractious debate on Monday. Funnily enough, I said to him that I thought that a royal commission would be a good way—better than an amendment to a Bill—to look at the issue that we were discussing: women in prison. Of course, this provision in the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames, could be incorporated.

On balance, I would favour a royal commission on the criminal justice system. I do not suppose that the noble Lord would be particularly opposed to that, rather than the specific amendment that he is moving today. But we need to look at these things because—coming back to a point made on Monday and today—we are failing in our criminal justice system because there is far too much recidivism and far too many lives are not amended and rehabilitated but further broken and eroded by spending time in prison. We have not got the balance right.

I have always been opposed to the simplistic view sometimes expressed, not by bleeding-heart liberals like the noble Baroness but by some on my own side: “Lock them up and keep them in.” That is no way to tackle things. So, although I would understand if, in responding to this debate, my noble friend the Minister said that he could not accept this amendment, I nevertheless strongly appeal to him on the Floor of the House, as I have privately, to consider very carefully the merits of a royal commission on the criminal justice system.

It can do no harm. We all remember Harold Wilson on royal commissions—they sit for years and take minutes—but that is not necessarily what royal commissions do. They can be given a timeframe or asked to report back within a certain period. If, by chance, my noble friend is not able to give the positive response I hope he might, we have many in your Lordships’ House who are indeed learned in the law, and this might be an ideal subject for one of the special committees that we set up each year in your Lordships’ House. It would have perhaps the most distinguished membership of any such committee ever established and I am sure it could make a powerful report, but I would still favour the royal commission approach. I hope that when my noble friend comes to respond, he will be able to give us some encouragement.

[Lord Faulks (Non-Afl)]

Before we hear from the Minister and the noble Lord for the Opposition, I shall simply add that of course the aims identified in this amendment are probably shared by everybody in your Lordships’ House but, ultimately, is it not for the Government of the day to decide on these things? I think we can probably predict what most royal commissions would recommend following the terms of reference reflecting this amendment. Ultimately, a Government have to decide whether in certain circumstances, as was the case in the Bill, there need to be mandatory sentences or the prison estate needs more money spent on it. These are matters for government. I will be interested to hear what the noble Lord for the Opposition says about this; during the course of the Bill, I do not think the Labour Party has opposed the increased mandatory sentences in various areas. That is a position it is entitled to take. A royal commission can recommend; a Government have to decide.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Committee stage
Monday 15th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, it has to be said that when I talk to members of the general public and tell them that it is MoJ policy to allow prisoners of a male sex to be housed according to their self-declared gender identity in a women’s prison, irrespective of whether they have taken any legal or medical steps to acquire their gender, that they do not need to have gone through any physical transformation and still retain male genitalia, which we have heard lots about already in this debate, and that they do not even need to have obtained a gender recognition certificate—they need just to declare that they are women and demand that they are moved to the women’s estate, and it is seriously considered—they are aghast. It falls under the category of, “Has the world gone mad?”

That common-sense response might not feel appropriate when discussing legislation, but in this instance it may help us to look at this issue in practical, real-life terms, not just in abstractions. That is why I welcome the amendment very strongly. Although it does not resolve all my concerns, I welcome its modest, narrow aim of removing the most egregious aspect of this situation: allowing male prisoners who identify as trans but have convictions of violence or sexual offences against women to live with women prisoners. There really is no point in the Government issuing strategies and grand words about violence against girls and women if the same Government have no qualms about letting rapists share the same confined living quarters as vulnerable women in prison who, let us be frank, cannot leave or escape because they are locked up by the state. This amendment’s focus is on convicted sex offenders and it is urgent that the Government take notice.

It is important to note that when gender-critical commentators and academics raise qualms about the general policy of housing transgender prisoners in the women’s estate, they are often dubbed transphobic and accused of holding a prejudiced view of all trans women as sexual predators, but this is a malign caricature. At this point I give a shout-out of solidarity to Professor Jo Phoenix, an esteemed and conscientious criminologist who has been harassed and traduced for raising such legitimate concerns.

Wherever one stands on the general issue, this amendment is specific and cannot be accused of implying that all natal men, however they identify, are a sexual threat to women, because that would not be true. We are talking only about convicted sex offenders and those guilty of violence. I still hope this probing amendment might encourage the Government to look more closely at a range of issues in this area. I particularly want the Government to consider whether the Ministry of Justice’s involvement over a period of time with the controversial lobbying group Stonewall, which has already been referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Meyer, as with so many public bodies, may—just may—have led to the skewing of policies in a particular direction.

For example, I know how keen this Government are on data and statistics, but as Kate Coleman, the founder of Keep Prisons Single Sex, has noted—this just seems incredible to me—the MoJ admits that it does not know how many prisoners identify as trans because, with a gender recognition certificate, they are counted by their new legal gender. I am not sure how the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, can be so sure of the statistics she quotes, because the tools designed to assess any threat posed by male prisoners who identify as trans women cannot be picked up accurately. If someone with a GRC attacks a female prisoner, it will be recorded as an assault by a woman on another woman.

I also want to query who is listened to in this discussion on what is obviously a clash of rights. In the course of the recent High Court ruling we have heard about, Lord Justice Holroyde outlined the need to balance

“the subjective concerns of women prisoners”

with

“the rights of transgender women in the prison system.”

This made it sound as though the women, the biological women, were all being overly subjective, and the transgender women had rights. Describing one side as subjective and the other with rights misses a crucial point, because that transgender woman has an identity that is not an objective fact but a subjective desire and then a declaration. Why are women prisoners’ subjective but rational concerns afforded less weight here?

When the High Court acknowledged that women prisoners may well be worried and “scared” about sharing prison accommodation with male-bodied prisoners, the court said that that fear was not enough to outweigh the desire of some male prisoners to be housed with women. I wonder: when did the prison estate, or indeed the law, allow its policies to be dictated by prisoners’ desires? I have worked with prisoners over a number of years, particularly with Debating Matters Beyond Bars. Many of the prisoners I have worked with have declared that they desire decent prison education. They desire retraining and better conditions. The prison authorities certainly did not accommodate their desires, so why are these desires accommodated when it comes to the trans issue?

Finally, I am keen that the Government look carefully, and use this probing amendment to do so, at how staff in prisons understand the issue of sex and gender in the context of training. The MoJ policy entitled The Care and Management of Individuals who are Transgender advises staff to complete an “eLearning module” on transgender identity. One of the training courses is named intersecting identities. I have looked at these, and it all rather terrifies me. It is one-sided, jargon-ridden and ideological. I hope this amendment might point the Government to raise and review the whole issue. For now, at least, a very modest amendment should be taken seriously if they really mean they care about protecting women from violent men.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I just want to intervene briefly. I support this amendment. To me, it is morally wrong for a physical man to be in a woman’s prison. It is as simple as that. If he has identified himself as a woman, and deserves to be in prison, there should be special facilities that do not bring people of that sort into close proximity with women or—if they are in danger—with men.

Assisted Dying Bill [HL]

Lord Cormack Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 22nd October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, it is a very great privilege to follow one of the most senior bishops in the Church of England and to be followed by a former archbishop. This illustrates the dilemma that faces us all. No one could begin to question the Christian credentials of either, and yet one has made his position very plain—as did the most reverend Primate at the beginning of the debate—and I rather suspect that the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Carey, may give us another insight.

We have all heard some powerful speeches today on both sides of the argument. I have to confess to a degree of ambivalence, because this is not an easy issue, and it is entirely possible to have a strong Christian faith and to support the Bill. But I am afraid that I do not fall into that category. Like the noble Lord, Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick, I oppose the Bill with a heavy heart, because I understand the sufferings that so many have suffered and I understand the desire of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher—who made a very fine opening speech—to see this on the statute book. But, to me, the dangers outweigh the benefits. I find myself very sympathetic to the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham, the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew, and those others who have versed their very real misgivings.

I think two things—perhaps three—tilt the balance for me more than anything. In spite of what was said about the neutrality of certain medical bodies, a majority of doctors still appear to find this a very uneasy Bill, and I am not aware of a single organisation representing the disabled which finds this a Bill it can support. We heard a very powerful speech from the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell, who put it succinctly and movingly. There is a Christian dimension for me as well, because the Bill does not really acknowledge the fact that many of us believe in the afterlife, just as we believe—as the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, put very powerfully—in the right to life. I cannot support the Bill.

Marriage and Religious Weddings

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Monday 28th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, I think the theological point put to me will take an answer that is probably longer than the allotted time, but I am happy to consider it further. However, I reject the proposition that we are not concerned about the rights of Muslim women and girls. The history of the work in this area, whether on forced marriage or indeed the matters we are discussing this afternoon, would indicate the opposite.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I do not think anybody could dispute my noble friend’s personal commitment, but this is taking a very long time. Can he tell the House what line the Government will take on the Private Member’s Bill from the other place which suggests that the minimum age for marriage should be 18?

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, I think my noble friend will have seen my letter to various groups on that point. Marriage at 16 and 17 has the significant risk of people being forced into marriages and their life chances reducing. Therefore, my noble friend can take it from me that we will be looking very carefully at the Bill introduced by the Member for Bromsgrove, who now appears to be otherwise occupied.

Prisons (Substance Testing) Bill

Lord Cormack Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 16th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, it is a joy to follow one of the most civilised Members of your Lordships’ House, a man who presents my very favourite radio programme every Sunday at 12 noon. There is a plug for him.

I am delighted to congratulate my noble friend on an admirable, succinct and precise introduction of a very important measure. I pay my tribute to the late Dame Cheryl Gillan. I think I am the only one speaking in this debate who actually knew her and valued her as a parliamentary colleague, because we sat together in the House of Commons. I greatly valued her contributions. She was a classic Member of Parliament who always followed the Churchillian dictum of putting country, constituency and party in that order, as was evidenced by her brilliant campaign on HS2, although alas it was not successful.

The campaign that we are talking about this morning is one of very considerable importance. I had two prisons in my former constituency, both of them visited by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, a brilliant chief inspector. Of course, I was always very concerned—and others have mentioned it this morning—about the prime purpose of prison, which should be to rehabilitate. Reading some of the tributes to the late Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, this week, I see that one of his great issues earlier in his life was prison reform. He believed that sentences should be divided into two: a short period in prison and a longer period of rehabilitation. Of course, that is not always possible, but what is not possible ever is rehabilitation while drugs are being trafficked, circulated and taken. It was a bad enough problem 10 years ago, when I ceased to be a Member of Parliament; it is a far worse problem now. Prisons are being totally corrupted by the circulation and trafficking of drugs and the organised crime within prisons.

The classic feature of this Bill is that it will make it possible to deal more speedily with the issue, as drugs proliferate and varieties proliferate. I very much hope that no one will attempt to amend the Bill. It is not perfect—no Bill ever is—but it is a Bill that deserves our wholehearted and united support. I very much hope that it will get it and not be amended, so that it can pass speedily on to the statute book and be a permanent memorial to a very fine Member of Parliament.

Public Health (Coronavirus) (Protection from Eviction) (England) (No. 2) Regulations 2021

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Thursday 18th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Best, and to echo his tributes to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, for a very modest but model maiden speech. He even did it within the extended time limit. He will bring lustre to our Benches, as well as experience and expertise, and he is most welcome.

I also congratulate my noble friend the Minister for the clarity and precision with which he introduced this order. It was admirable and exemplary. I am sure he will understand, however, that I share a certain dissatisfaction with the way in which Parliament has been consistently marginalised when we have had to deal with coronavirus regulations. I fully understand the terrible problems under which the Government have had to operate, but Parliament must not be marginalised, and we have to do something about retrospective legislation. This order, introduced and laid a month ago and debated today, was due to expire in a fortnight—although I was glad to hear of the extension to 31 May.

I have a brief suggestion to make to your Lordships’ House. I know that we cannot vote in Grand Committee. It is important that we have the facility to vote on these orders—even though I would never vote against this one or, indeed, most of the others—but I suggest that it would be a good idea, in the new Session of Parliament at the latest, to have a special Grand Committee for coronavirus regulations which can vote. Therefore, the regulations could be dealt with more expeditiously, and we would not have so much retrospective legislation which, I am sure, cannot commend itself to our new colleague, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton.

Domestic Abuse Bill

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 5th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 5th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 8th February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bull (CB)]

My Lords, I rise to speak briefly in support of Amendment 146A, so ably introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham. Like him, I welcome the extension of automatic priority-need status for housing to survivors of domestic abuse, but I share his regret that there is no current right for anyone who lives with the survivor, or might reasonably be expected to live with them, to apply for this assistance on their behalf. This amendment aims to address this and to ensure that survivors have access to what one has been described as the first and most important priority for anyone escaping domestic abuse—a safe roof over their head.

Domestic abuse is often about control. There is a horrible, perhaps inevitable, consequence when that control is challenged, which is that abusers are likely to become even more violent as they seek to reinstate or retain their dominance over their victim. My noble friend Lady Finlay has already said the risk of domestic homicide is at its highest during separation. Research studies show that the worst incidents of abuse are triggered by the victim having left the abuser, and the abuse is even more extreme if the victim has left for another partner. In such cases, the risk of femicide increases fivefold. Interviews with men who killed their wives in the United States pointed to separation or a threat of separation as the most common trigger for the murder. This means that the difficult decision by a victim of domestic abuse to leave their abuser and seek out support may well result not in the provision of a safe haven but in further victimisation, physical risk and even risk to life.

Front-line services in both the domestic abuse and the homelessness sectors are clear about the potential risks to survivors of abuse in making an application for homelessness assistance themselves. They know that abusers will employ the most varied and creative tactics to track their partner, from using GPS locators in their partner’s phone to calling around women’s shelters or even filing a missing persons report. Front-line workers know that in some cases a call for help may become a death sentence.

This amendment addresses this risk and provides an important safeguarding mechanism by allowing an ally to fill in the application, thus allowing victims of abuse to make plans without running the risk of those plans, or the location of their future home, being discovered by their abuser. It has the backing of Women’s Aid and of the APPG for Ending Homelessness. I urge the Government to listen carefully to their arguments and to the arguments in your Lordships’ House and to adopt this amendment so that survivors of domestic abuse have a clear legal route to that most basic of needs—a safe roof over their heads.

[Lord Cormack (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Bull. I agree with all she said and give my unreserved support to both these amendments.

In a long Committee stage, some amendments are, very properly, probing amendments. Others stand out as improving amendments. I really hope that this amendment, so eloquently moved by my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham, and the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge, will be incorporated into the Bill. Perhaps there will have to be the odd change of word, but I have referred to the Bill on a number of occasions as a landmark Bill, and a landmark Bill, in this area, has to be able to deliver as near perfect, total security as it can.

In common with many constituency Members of Parliament, I saw young women—they were mostly young women—who had been harassed, bullied, tormented and beaten, who needed somewhere to go. They needed a safe and secure refuge. In the immediate future that was often a home of refuge, where others were similarly placed. But what they needed most of all, as they came out of the trauma they had suffered, was a secure permanent home. Very often, for the reasons given by my noble friend Lord Randall of Uxbridge, that had to be some distance from where they had suffered.

EU Referendum and EU Reform (EUC Report)

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Wednesday 15th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Madingley. I wish that we heard him more often because he brings with him a wealth of business experience whenever he speaks in your Lordships’ House. Having heard every single word of this debate, it is quite clear that one thread is running through it and that is a degree of real disappointment in the tone, quality and content of the debate. Although I believe that more criticism can correctly be levelled at the Brexiteers, I do not believe that the Government’s case has been made as effectively as it should have been. The report which the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, introduced extremely moderately and persuasively, is itself a moderate and persuasive document that does great credit to the European Union Committee of your Lordships’ House. I want to quote just one paragraph towards the very end, paragraph 258:

“Finally, the EU has always been driven by values as well as pragmatism. We urge the Government, in putting forward its vision for the UK’s place in a reformed EU, also to affirm the shared identity and heritage of the peoples of Europe”.

Would that more attention had been paid to that particular paragraph. It is a great pity that so little vision has infused the speeches made on all sides of the debate. We do have a shared heritage and we need only to look around Westminster to remind ourselves of that. Go across to Westminster Abbey to the glorious chapel of Henry VII, to the monument for the King and Queen, made by an Italian, Pietro Torrigiano, to Westminster Hall, where we owe that wonderful hammerbeam roof, one of the glories of European civilisation, to the master carpenter Henry Yevele.

I would also like to endorse most strongly the words of my noble friend Lord Howell of Guildford, who made a very fine speech. We are, whether we like it or not, part of the European continent. One of the most ill-advised speeches of the campaign was made by Mr Johnson—Boris, not the other one—when he talked about the domination of Europe. He cited everyone from Julius Caesar to Adolf Hitler and he suggested that there was now a great conspiracy within the EU for another dominant dictator. I have never heard a more grotesque misreading of history. All your Lordships need do is step a few yards from this Chamber and look at the marvellously recreated Armada tapestries in the Prince’s Chamber, or go into the Royal Gallery and see the great Maclise paintings of Trafalgar and Waterloo, currently being restored, and you discover the real nature of Britain’s European involvement in preventing any one power having hegemony in Europe and bringing balance by its own participation.

Is now the moment for our great country to turn its back on its history and its destiny? The lesson of life—we all know this—is that no man is an island and no family or community can function sufficiently of itself; every country needs allies and partners. That is the lesson of history. On 23 June, the British people have a dramatic choice to make. Do they remain with their European allies and partners and seek to strengthen an imperfect but very remarkable Union of 28 nations, or do they come out and seek new and different partnerships and arrangements, knowing that every agreement this country enters into always involves the pooling, sharing and indeed sacrificing of a degree of sovereignty? Do we forsake what we have, rather than seek to improve it, not knowing what we will get? The noble Lord, Lord Jay, touched on that issue in his admirable speech and we would be well advised to read, mark, learn and digest his words and those of my noble friend Lord Howell of Guildford, because we do not know how successful we would be.

First of all, in talking to 27 nations who would have every reason to feel aggrieved, we do not know whether we would be able to forge trade agreements and other alliances. As for this talk of emulating Canada or Norway—or, if you please, tiny Iceland—where do these people get their facts and logic from? It is absurd to suggest that this country can become another Norway, as wonderful as that country is; Norway itself has obligations to the European Union, without any of the reciprocal advantages that we enjoy.

I hope the message from this debate and from the more coherent and visionary exponents of the values of the European Union will begin to resonate with the British people over the next seven days, and that they will remember the one achievement of the former mayor, noticeable to all of us who live in London: gridlock. Rhetoric is no substitute for vision, and neither Mr Johnson nor indeed many of his colleagues have really articulated a vision of a Europe that we should be a proud part of. I believe we would be doing our nation a disservice and blemishing its history if on 23 June we voted to sever our ties. The noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, said that he hoped the moral of his speech would be that it is our function to lead and not to leave. I wholly endorse that. As I sit down, I look up at these windows above me, which I see every day, and there are three heraldic mottos there: mindful; Agincourt; que sera, sera. Let us draw some inspiration from each of them.

European Union Referendum (Date of Referendum etc.) Regulations 2016

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, it is a privilege to follow that refreshing speech of the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, because at these times in debates one is reminded of the Peer who said, “Everything has been said but not everyone has yet said it”. We are at that stage.

Like the noble Lord, Lord Russell, I want to bring a personal perspective to the debate. I remember the 1975 referendum when I was a relatively new Member of Parliament. What I enjoyed about that most of all was campaigning in my own constituency alongside Labour colleagues. We had the good fortune to have Sir Geoffrey de Freitas and Professor David Marquand to come and stay with us and we went out and campaigned with a degree of enthusiasm and vigour. What has happened since then?

My noble friend Lord Howard made a notable and compelling speech and referred to the EU as flawed and failing. When I go to my weekly meetings of the Sub-Committee on Home Affairs of our European Union Select Committee and I sometimes see the piles of papers, read the jargon and the confusing abbreviations, I have some sympathy with my noble friend. Yet when I do that I think of Dr Johnson, one of the greatest of Englishmen, who, observing a dog dancing on its hind legs said, “The wonder is not that it is doing it badly but that it is doing it at all”.

Over the past 40 years or more since we have been a member of the European Union, remarkable things have happened and I want to share with your Lordships two brief memories. In 1972, as chairman of the Campaign for Soviet Jewry, I went to help receive a group of people who had been given their exit visas from Moscow at a reception centre in an old castle just outside Vienna. There I met a particularly beautiful girl who spoke the most faultless English. When I said to her, “You must have passed out with the best marks possible”, she laughed and said, “Yes—until the day after my parents got their exit visas. Then I was called in by the rector of the university and told I had failed everything”.

Fast forward 30 years. In 2004 I had the good fortune to take a party from the All-Party Arts and Heritage Group to the Baltic States to that very university in Tartu in Estonia where the girl had virtually been expelled. There we were greeted by the rector, who said how proud he was that Estonia and the other Baltic states were now members of NATO and the European Union. Things like that resonate with me.

When at my home in the lovely city of Lincoln I open my shutters in the morning and look at one of the most glorious buildings in Europe, I am reminded of once replying, when I was asked who I was, “My identity is English”—even though my family come from Scotland—“my nationality is British and my civilisation is European”. Now is not the time, for all its manifest imperfections, for us to turn our backs. As we enter a difficult period in world affairs which will increasingly be dominated by the great power blocs, is this really the time to cut ourselves off from the continent of which we are historically and geographically a part?

I have one reason above all others why I will vote to remain in. The reason is north of the border. The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, talked about the referendum in Scotland. We kept the United Kingdom. Mistakes were made and there was a lurch from complacency to panic. Speeches were made which perhaps should not have been made. We saw some of the consequences when we debated the Scotland Bill in this Chamber two nights ago. However, we are still a United Kingdom. If the vote went to come out there is a real chance—I put it no higher—that within five years not only would we be outside the European Union but the United Kingdom could come to an end.

That has not been mentioned in this debate up to now—so not everything has been said—but every right-thinking citizen of the United Kingdom should contemplate it very carefully before voting no on 23 June. In voting no, not only would we be turning our backs on the European Union in its hour of greatest need when we have a real contribution to make, but we would also, quite possibly, be turning our backs on the greatest and most successful union of nations that has ever occurred.