Housing Estates

Lord Deben Excerpts

Tuesday 9th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend agree that one of the ways to make homes affordable is to ensure that they are energy efficient, so that people do not have to pay too much for their heating? Will she assure the House that these homes will not be built so energy inefficiently that they have to be dealt with again within 20 years? Can she assure the House that energy efficiency will be high on her list of priorities?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, I will not be sitting on the panel, but I shall certainly bring that point to my noble friend Lord Heseltine. Of course, my noble friend is absolutely right that, the more energy efficient a house is, the cheaper it is to live in and the cheaper the bills are for the tenants or the owners of it. I will certainly bring that point to my noble friend’s attention.

Syria: Foreign Affairs Committee Report

Lord Deben Excerpts

Thursday 26th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

We have certainly offered RAF Akrotiri to the French Government. I am afraid that I do not have any information beyond that, but I will see if I can provide anything further to the noble Lord in writing.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

As one of the 16 Members of Parliament who voted against the Iraq war and defied a three-line Whip, I point out to my noble friend that this situation is wholly different from that very foolish occurrence. In this situation we ought to support our allies, and to accept that we are involved and that our people are in fact threatened. The Prime Minister’s Statement should gain the support of all of us.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I am very grateful to my noble friend for his comments, particularly because of the remarks he prefaced them with about his views on the war in Iraq.

Chagos Islands

Lord Deben Excerpts

Tuesday 10th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Deben (Con)]

Will my noble friend make quite sure that whatever arrangements are made, they protect and support the remarkable new ocean reserve which is around the Chagos Islands? This is a proud part of Britain’s dealings in this area.

[The Earl of Courtown]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Deben, refers to the marine protected area. He is quite right that this is one of the most important areas of biodiversity in that sort of environment on the planet.

Syria: Refugees and Counterterrorism

Lord Deben Excerpts

Monday 7th September 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Boateng (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

It is the turn of the Liberal Democrats.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Boateng]

My Lords—

[Lord Deben]

My Lords—

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

My Lords, we have very little time. It is the turn of the Conservatives.

[Lord Deben]

Does my noble friend accept that the words of the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury, remarking upon the fact that many Christians cannot stay in the camps because of intimidation, mean that the policy of the Government, which may be logical in every way, ought to be reconsidered in such a way that we can take those refugees who have had to leave the camps and find themselves on the continent of Europe? To refuse to do that would not represent or respect what the British people want.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

My noble friend heard what I said in response to the most reverend Primate and I do not really have anything to add to that. I have tried in my responses today to demonstrate that the Government are providing refuge to people in desperate need. We are building on a programme of support that has been extensive and very much at the forefront of what else is being provided by other members of the European Union. We will continue to do all that we can. I am sure we will continue to discuss this on other occasions, and I very much look forward to that.

European Council

Lord Deben Excerpts

Monday 23rd March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Stamford (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

We remain absolutely clear that Russia’s annexation of Crimea was illegal and illegitimate, and we will certainly not change our view on that.

[Lord Deben]

My Lords, while my noble friend is taking messages back, will she take the message back that it is very often easier to get people to join with you if you occasionally say how good it is to be party to and a member of the European Union? Would it not be much more helpful, in the perfectly proper desire to have reform in the European Union, if we just remarked on the huge importance to Britain of being in the European Union and to the European Union that Britain is in it? If we were a bit more positive, we would have more chance of winning.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I am grateful for the message from my noble friend as well. I agree with him at the same time as I agree with my other noble friend, because this is precisely the point. We believe that there are really important, positive advantages to Britain being a member of the European Union. However, we do not believe that the status quo is where we should remain. We believe that some changes are necessary in Europe—that is what the Prime Minister is committed to renegotiating; then he is committed to putting that clear choice to the British people. But there are very important and positive reasons for us to remain a member of the European Union.

EU Council

Lord Deben Excerpts

Monday 28th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

I am not sure that I can enlighten the House on a huge amount of detail but there are two strands to what the Prime Minister and those who agree with him in the EU are seeking to achieve. One is that the Commission has its own process under the REFIT programme that my noble friend will know about, which is coming up with a series of regulations, measures and so on that it thinks could be repealed, not introduced or otherwise revised. That is a Commission-led process. Alongside that, the Prime Minister has been working with British business, and the British Business Task Force has been working with European businesses, to come up with suggestions from a business perspective regarding further changes that could be made. A twin-track process is going on. One track is led by the Commission and, in the other, Britain with its allies is trying to take forward this issue of how one can have the right amount of regulation that will not hold back economic growth, which is our priority, and get that balance right.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

Does my noble friend agree that the opposition Front Bench was a little curmudgeonly in the second part of its response on youth unemployment, given that this Government have done remarkably well on unemployment during a very difficult time? Was it not also true that his Statement showed just how important it is for Britain to be a full member of the European Union? None of these things would have happened in the way they have and to the degree they have had not the Prime Minister taken an active part. Is it not time that people stopped complaining about the European Union and in fact spent their time improving it in the way in which the Prime Minister is clearly doing?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, I would never—although perhaps I might occasionally—accuse the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, of being curmudgeonly. My noble friend is quite right about what has been achieved in terms of generating jobs generally and the improving trend of economic figures that we are beginning to see. There is much more to do but there has definitely been progress. He is also right about what has been done to tackle youth unemployment. On his broader point, the Prime Minister has demonstrated that it is possible both to argue strongly for Britain’s national interests and to build alliances with other similar-minded countries in Europe to bring about change for the common good. The issue is sometimes presented as a false dichotomy, whereby if you argue for Britain’s national interests you jeopardise your influence within Europe and you either have to go with the consensus or become an outist. The Prime Minister has set out that one can argue very strongly from within the EU for what is in the interests of the whole of Europe as well as Britain.

Climate Change

Lord Deben Excerpts

Thursday 25th April 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, the noble Lord of course knows that renewables will play a vital role in both the UK and the EU’s low-carbon energy mix. We will continue to ensure that that is the case after 2020. Our own electricity market reform proposals will provide strong support for renewable electricity generation, and at EU level we need to consider, within the proposed broader 2030 climate and energy framework, how best to support renewables and other low-carbon forms of energy.

[Lord Deben]

My Lords, did my noble friend notice that our noble friend who has just asked a question was not present at the launch of the Committee on Climate Change’s report on competitiveness, which showed clearly that electricity market reform and working towards a carbonless energy system do not diminish Britain’s competitiveness but indeed increase it? Would it not be helpful if my noble friend listened to the science and to what the Committee on Climate Change put forward?

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, I could not have put it more eloquently.

Death of a Member: Baroness Thatcher

Lord Deben Excerpts

Wednesday 10th April 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Deben]

My Lords, I was chairman of the Conservative Party on that terrible night in Brighton and I was with the noble Lord, Lord Butler, and Margaret Thatcher at that very time. It was very late. We were writing the speech. Those occasions went on for ever. I thought I had the final bit. I knew I had not, of course, because there used sometimes to be speeches where I would be in the cellar writing on the autocue as it was moving and as she was speaking a bit that she decided she did not like. However, on this occasion, the noble Lord, Lord Butler, was finishing some work with her and I had just walked across the corridor to get the final speech photographed when there was a terrible bang. Automatically, the girls working in the office running off the speech and I all got to the floor. There was a second bang because the roof lifted off and then dropped again. It sounded like another explosion. The dust began to fall.

On my knees, I moved towards the door, opened it and put my head around it. On the other side of the corridor, the door to Mrs Thatcher’s room opened and she was on her knees looking around the door. Tragic comedy are the only words that I can say to describe what was happening. It was a mixture of, “What has happened? What should we do? Don’t we both look silly?” She got up, brushed herself down and said, “Right, we had better get on with something”. But what should we get on with, because we had no idea? She knew that things had to go on. She never said, “The party conference will continue”. Everyone assumed that it would because we knew—that was the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit—exactly how she would react and precisely what we would be expected to do. So we went off and organised the continuance of the conference. No one asked the question, except for the local chief of police. We soon told him that he had better not ask her that or he might be in even worse trouble than he clearly was going to be. The conference continued, although it was a harrowing and difficult time.

I was lucky enough to help write a lot of Mrs Thatcher’s speeches. She kidnapped me after a speech I had made at a wedding. I was not in Parliament at the time. She said, “Would you come and help me write speeches?”. I was surprised because I did not come from the same part of the party and I would not automatically have been thought of as a natural writer. But once she knew that you were loyal and that you cared about her, the relationship was absolutely one of trust, confidence and support. Occasionally, she would say, “Don’t listen to this John, I am going to say something nasty about Europe.”. She would say it and then she would say, “You can listen again now”, and we would move on.

I could not understand why I was seated next to her on the day we went with the Queen to open the Channel Tunnel. I was the Secretary of State for the Environment. We were both sitting there and I could not understand why. Then I realised that I was the foil. As we moved out of the station, she said, “This has got nothing to do with the Germans, you know. It is entirely the French. But I do not see why we import all that food from France. Why should we buy French cheese? We have perfectly good cheese of our own.”. I realised that she wanted an argument; so an argument we had. The argument went terribly well and we were half way through before either of us recognised that we had gone into the tunnel. It was absolutely a typical part of what she loved, which was to discover where she wanted to be by saying something to which she demanded a response. Her only demand was that you were rigorous in your argument. I have watched her destroy people, although never her unequals. She never set people down if they were in a humble position. However, she destroyed people who pretended that they knew the facts but came ill prepared. You never went ill prepared to a meeting with Margaret Thatcher.

I support the comments that have been made about her amazing kindness. You grew to have a very deep affection for her, even though you often disagreed. That was a very unusual ability on her part, and it was, as the noble Lord, Lord Young, said, down to her kindness to us all. If you had not had anything to eat, there were late-night meals in her flat. The first thing she would ask if you were late was, “Have you had something to eat?”. I have eaten more coronation chicken produced by Margaret Thatcher than I have at any other place or at any other time. I think that she did know how to cook other things but that was the staple diet. She also always knew about your family. She always asked about them and was interested in them. She knew their names and never forgot any of those things. When you think of the number of people she had to deal with, that was remarkable.

Of course, she could make terrible mistakes. She came to my constituency during the campaign for the 1979 election, which she won. She did so as a favour, because I was fighting a seat which the Conservatives had always won, but she made time to come. We decided that it would be very good if she went to a farm. She arrived and there was a rather ill calf, which she was not supposed to touch. We had a nice fluffy lamb for touching. However, she walked up to the calf, put her arms round it and picked it up. It was very heavy. For the photographers, it was fantastic—wonderful. Holding up the calf, she said, “I’m going to call it Victory”. However, the calf was ill and we got every vet in Suffolk to attend to it. We hid the calf from public eye and kept it alive until after the election. We were terrified that this blooming calf would die on us.

I want to say two very serious things. First, I echo the comments of the noble Baroness, and my very much loved friend, Lady Trumpington. Margaret Thatcher was a very beautiful woman. She had beautiful hands and lovely ankles, and she knew precisely how to use both. Any woman who is stupid enough to think that there is something unsuitable about using the gifts that God has given her should be ashamed of herself. She knew perfectly well that she used them not because she was not as good as men but because she was better than men, and she also wanted to have a bit of an advantage. It was a pleasure to see how she turned herself out and how she never forgot that she was a woman.

Secondly, I think that history will remember a rather special thing about her. She was a very cautious woman. She did not take on things lightly and she took them on one at a time. She recognised that you could not have a whole plethora of interventions, initiatives, new ideas and headline-grabbing ideas. She knew that you won things only by taking them one and one, fighting them through and succeeding with them one at a time. Caution is something that does not normally go with a charismatic leader, but one reason that she stayed for so long and was so successful was that she did not go ahead with the abolition of the dock labour scheme until she had dealt with the problems of the mining industry. She did not move to privatise water until she had made sure that people recognised that it was the only way to pay the bills. She had a quality of caution, which is something that very few people of her strength have ever evinced.

It was a privilege, a pleasure and enormous fun to work for her. Things were always unexpected and changed utterly all the time. You never knew what she was going to say or how she was going to receive a carefully crafted few paragraphs, but you did know that you were in the company of greatness. She was a star, and stars rarely come. When they do, we should recognise them without rancour and certainly not say, “It is not quite as bright as we would like it to be”, or that it fell in a different way than we might have liked. We should just say, “Thank goodness that our lives have been enlivened by that star”.

EU Council

Lord Deben Excerpts

Monday 2nd July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine]

My Lords—

[Lord Deben]

Does my noble friend accept that we will be more likely to get the rest of Europe to help us, and do the things that we want in terms of growth, if occasionally we emphasise the advantages of our membership instead of constantly suggesting that all sorts of things have to be changed? Will he please ask for a bit more positivity in our discussions about Europe?

[Lord Strathclyde]

There are many of us on all sides of the House who no doubt would like to be positive about the EU, but there a number of aspects to change over the course of the past 15 years that we do not believe should be dealt with at a European level; we would like to repatriate some of these things back to the United Kingdom. I know that my noble friend Lord Deben may not be entirely in agreement with all of that, but dare I say that when we have seen this audit of competences, there may be more agreement around the House as to what should be done at a national rather than a European level than seems to be the case at the moment?

House of Lords Reform Bill

Lord Deben Excerpts

Wednesday 27th June 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, the underlying assumptions and cost projections are in the public domain today. I fully expect that they will be given robust scrutiny by the IFS, the TaxPayers’ Alliance, the Labour Party and anyone else who wishes to examine them. Of course, the Government will reply to any questions raised on costs, which I believe have been reached in a robust manner.

[Lord Deben]

My Lords, does the Minister accept that the decision to have a list system will mean that this House would be in effect appointed by the political parties in many cases? The people they would appoint would be those who would not in other circumstances be chosen for this House. Many of those who work in this House would not wish to fight an election in those circumstances. This proposal makes for the worst conceivable kind of appointment to this House. That is why, above all, we should look at this Bill extremely carefully and, I hope, recognise that that which is, although illogical, is better than that which would just be fatal.

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, apart from powers, one of the key areas will be the electoral system, which is different from the one originally proposed in the draft Bill. It is different from what was suggested by the Joint Committee, although the committee suggested some improvements to the original system on which this is based. Under this system, it is difficult for independents to be elected, which is why we have reserved 20% of the House to independents who will be put here through the statutory Appointments Commission. It is beyond doubt that it is a proportional system. Therefore, there will be no natural majority for any Government, which will preserve one of the strengths of this House.