Kindertransport Commemoration

Lord Dykes Excerpts

Monday 26th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dykes (CB)]

My Lords, all noble Lords have begun their speech with a justified tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, for the work that he has done. He is our moral leader in these matters and our provider of detailed information on the plight of refugees. We thank him for his unstinting work in doing this and for never giving up. The hesitations of government are one of the features that apply in every country, but the noble Lord carries on with this work and he has done so well. We thank him again for that and for initiating this debate.

I was Member of Parliament for Harrow East for 27 years, and every day I felt very proud of being the MP for that delightful area of north-west London. Because I am following the noble Lord, Lord Popat, I remember with great pride the moment when Ted Heath’s Government decided to designate Harrow and Leicester as the two main red-star centres to receive East African refugees escaping from Idi Amin. I have to say that we did have trouble from certain hard-faced people in the constituency—I will not say who—who did not like the idea at all. We insisted that they were coming and that we would accept 1,000 people to start with. The noble Lord, Lord Popat, was one of those who came, as we have discussed in debates before. I thank him for the contribution he has made in the House to these matters as well as to many others.

When those Asians came to Harrow, it became a much more dynamic place even than it already was. It was certainly dynamic without them, but with them coming, there was an extra élan in social and economic activity. We were forever grateful that they came, with their learning, experience, knowledge and business acumen—all of which were so important.

The noble Lord, Lord Popat, is sitting next to the noble Lord, Lord Polak. I remember with great pride that we worked together in the House of Commons, where he did unstinting and wonderful work for the Jewish community in Britain. We worked for Soviet Jewry, with Greville Janner and others, and to promote the good cause of the Jewish community.

There is a quarterly English-language newspaper in Germany, the Jewish Voice from Germany, which I read avidly. I have contributed some pieces, and, in one article, the question from the editor was: what has been the contribution of the Jewish community in Britain? I answered that it had been just magnificent. That has been the case over the centuries, because they were here many years ago, too, but also more recently it has been a wonderful thing.

As a European enthusiast, it gives me great pride to remind this House that, in Germany now, the Jewish community has become reinstated and is sizable and growing, not only in Berlin, Dusseldorf and other big cities but all over the country. It was great to see that, when Angela Merkel addressed the Knesset, she got a standing ovation. It is hard to believe, but in recent polls in Israel, Germany came out as the most popular foreign country.

All that is very positive, and it is because of the efforts of individual Members of this House, of politicians elsewhere and of government officials. I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, is replying today, because he is a thoughtful and constructive Minister. We look forward to his reply and, I hope, to his responses to the points made by the noble Lords, Lord Alton and Lord Dubs, about Britain helping more in the global matter of refugees.

The second major point of pride for me as MP for Harrow is that, in 1987, we had the 50th anniversary of the Kindertransport in Harrow, with Tim Renton, the then Minister of State at the Home Office, representing the Government. It was a very moving occasion to see the gathering of the survivors of that Kindertransport. By then, some were very successful people—some were foolishly living in Palm Beach rather than in a respectable part of Florida—and they came from all over Britain, and from everywhere else, too. It was a great occasion, when we celebrated the survival of those who came because the Government and citizens demanded humanity in response to people facing such a dreadful plight.

I think also of the brave people in the occupied territories held by the Nazis, and indeed in Germany itself, who helped and sheltered Jews. In Germany and other places, it was a capital offence to do that. You had to be very brave to do so, and a lot of people were. That shows that humanity does come together when there are real exigencies, as the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, mentioned in the very moving cases he described. It shows that we need to open our hearts more about refugees and not have this rather hard attitude, which worries me, as it does the noble Lord, Lord Roberts, who talked about people not having a humanitarian response to those whose plight is grotesque, particularly those in the Middle East, from north Africa and elsewhere. That is not just important but primordial—the way that a civilised and wealthy country with our resources can respond appropriately in the future.

Northern Ireland

Lord Dykes Excerpts

Thursday 29th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson]

My Lords, the Government greatly regret the fact that that law has not been introduced in Northern Ireland, and urge those in the Assembly to work on this so that it can be.

[Lord Dykes (LD)]

Does my noble friend agree that one disturbing fact about Northern Ireland is that it is the single most heavily subsidised small area in the whole of the European Union, even including some of the new member states from 2004? What do the Government intend to do about this, to redress the balance and make Northern Ireland more competitive?

[Baroness Randerson]

My Lords, the Government share my noble friend’s concern about the level of subsidy that has been necessary. The public sector, for example, constitutes around 30% of the economy in Northern Ireland, whereas it constitutes around 20% elsewhere. Therefore we have made strenuous efforts to encourage inward investment in Northern Ireland, and we hope that the corporation tax legislation will be a key issue in making Northern Ireland more competitive.

EU Committee: Court of Justice of the European Union

Lord Dykes Excerpts

Monday 17th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dykes]

My Lords, I am sure the whole House will be particularly grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Boyd, for asking for certain clarifications, bearing in mind his authority and activity as a representational corporate and commercial lawyer helping clients dealing with these matters, as well as for his general views in the sub-committee of which I am also a member. As he said, we are deeply grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bowness, for being chairman of the committee and for having launched and taken the initiative on this report. We had an enormous amount of expert advice and guidance from our officials and special advisers, and I warmly thank them for it. That set the tone for us to do what I thought was a very thorough and profound report, which was not too long, as some of these reports are on these occasions.

I hope that when he replies the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, will reassure us on some of the points of confusion about the imminent crisis that may be looming for the ECJ. However, there is a difference of views on that. As we indicated, there is more likely to be agreement in this short debate about crisis in the General Court as a result of its excessive workload and the need for that to be taken care of. Unlike the more supreme, higher level, intellectual work of the Court of Justice, dealing with treaty matters and the support or otherwise of legislation in the European framework, the General Court is the coalface of these judicial proceedings in the European Union.

We know what kind of reception Europe gets in the British press. I hope that the situation will be a little easier now after the hacking scandal. There may be no connection at all, but you never know. There might be a bit of luck in that and most, though not all, of the British press might be more serious about reporting and carrying stories about European institutions. The wicked Commission is attacked far more often than the European Court of Justice because the European Court of Justice is harder to explain to the ordinary reader. I am not criticising the ordinary reader; it is just one of those things with highfaluting, high-level courts. However, it is essential that there should be more explanation because it is embarrassing when people get the Council of Europe mixed up with the European Union.

Despite the workload problems and the excessive time taken to deal with cases, the European Court of Justice does a very good job on behalf of the citizens of this country, who under the Maastricht treaty are also citizens of the whole of the European Union. I wish that British newspapers would sometimes remind us of that important reality. A British citizen is not just a patriotic citizen of our own country; he or she is also able to work, operate, retire and travel in the European Union as well as to use the facilities of the European judicial system mainly under the General Court of the ECJ—not so much the staff court, the European Union Civil Service Tribunal, which is a separate matter—in order to deal with things in a way which is much more just than many people in this country think because of the poison in the press. It is tragic that they should believe that.

I suppose that that happens to a lesser extent in other countries, and perhaps also on a case-by-case basis, but here there is general agreement in the printed press that Europe is a bad thing and that the European institutions, the Commission and the European Parliament are menaces. The Council of Ministers is all right because that is member Governments, but even that comes in for attack if it does not agree with what the British Government are suggesting. This nonsense really ought to stop.

The recommendations in the report are very important. The suggestion of increasing the number of judges by one-third is important. I hope that my noble and learned friend Lord Wallace of Tankerness will respond on that. I think it is very important to bear in mind that although there are no severe problems like this in the European Union Civil Service Tribunal, the sentiments about it expressed in paragraph 54 need to be looked at quite carefully. Coming back to the ECJ itself, and the need to get the workload down, and to increase the number of judges in the General Court, this needs to be done with some urgency.

As for the budget matters that we are considering, being one-quarter of 1 per cent of the total EU budget—and nowadays I think I am right in saying that most years the budget outlays are less than the original appropriations; there is always a gap between them when you take the total EU budget—there is money at the margin available for these matters; they can be easily dealt with within those parameters, and I do not think there should be an excuse. At the hearing, the Attorney-General kept harping on about financial problems and problems of government spending and that we had to be very careful—of course that is a general position that a lot of people accept—but really these are small amounts of money. The idea that a court’s functioning would be impaired and would suffer not just at the margin but quite significantly in its general activities because of a lack of funds is totally unacceptable, particularly in the international context. This is a treaty-based institution, where we have to work with our fellow member states, and I think sometimes they psychologically and in an ineffable way seem to give much more support to these institutions than we do in Britain.

I do not think that applies to the House of Lords. Tonight we have the two Lord Wallaces on the Front Bench: the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, of course dealing with other matters tonight, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness. I hope I do not misrepresent them when I say that they are both enthusiastic supporters of our membership of the European Union—I am glad to see the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, confirming that—and so we can go onwards and upwards with this excellent report and get some good responses from the Government tonight.

Estates of Deceased Persons (Forfeiture Rule and Law of Succession) Bill

Lord Dykes Excerpts

Wednesday 15th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Empey]

I thank the noble Lord for his comments. While it was not an issue of huge significance at the last general election, if you put this into the statute book, at the beginning of every Parliament, this issue would be one of the first items on the agenda. It would have to be, otherwise, as the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, said, nobody in Europe would know where the United Kingdom stood. If you put it into law that this must happen at the very start of every Parliament, I assure the noble Lord that it will become an issue. If that is so, why should we take the risk, even if he is right and I am wrong, because the next Parliament can do what it likes anyway?

[Lord Dykes]

It is unusual, and I find it surprising, but the noble Lord, Lord Empey, appears to have misunderstood completely the purpose of this amendment. I hope that Members of this House who are listening to this debate or who are outside but will come in later on will reflect carefully on the reality of this amendment. This new clause does not in any way damage any other part of the Bill. Whatever one’s views about the Bill—and I do not much like it—there is no damage to be done intrinsically and internally to the text of the Bill. The only differences are the three government defeats so far and what may happen with this amendment when the vote is called. That is all. The rest of the Bill goes through intact. That is part of the Government’s programme, and no one can gainsay that. The noble Lord is raising fears that should not exist in anybody’s mind. I hope he will reconsider because it is very important that the review process that my noble friend Lady Williams referred to, in such a step in the dark with this legislation, is essential at the end of this coalition period to start with and later on too.

[Viscount Trenchard]

My Lords, I tend to agree with the noble Lord, Lord Empey, that this is really a kill-the-Bill amendment. I listened with great interest to the very erudite and eloquent arguments put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, and others, but if you go out in the street tonight and ask anybody you come across in a pub or a square whether they think that the European Union Bill, which seeks to prevent Parliament passing further powers to the European Union without your consent, is otiose, I think you will find that people’s enthusiasm for this Bill will be further increased.

Amendments to introduce sunset clauses were debated at length in Committee, and I regret that I have heard nothing new today to persuade me that this Bill would gain in any way from the addition of one. It is clear that those who like the Bill do not want a sunset clause and that those who do not like it do. As my noble friends Lord Risby, Lord Lamont and others have explained, there certainly are occasions when the addition of a sunset clause is logical and sensible. Even though another place did not agree, I believe that your Lordships' House was right in trying to amend the Prevention of Terrorism Bill in 2004 and 2005 to include a sunset clause. Similarly, the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001, as enacted, contained a sunset clause. It is surely reasonable to include a sunset clause when a particular set of circumstances, which requires a particular measure to be enacted, prevails, but it is considered that that set of circumstances is likely to change in the foreseeable future. Similarly, it is arguably sensible to include a sunset clause when there is doubt about how an Act will work in practice. In such a case, it would be reassuring to a sceptical public to have a sunset clause that would act as a guarantee that Parliament would have to revisit the question within a specific period of time. However, I do not think such circumstances apply in this case because the purpose of the Bill is to draw a line in the sand and make it clear to the people that the Government will stop doing what they said over a period of years they would not do, but nevertheless continued to do, which is to pass powers and competences to the European institutions without seeking the people’s consent in a referendum. The public do not think that it is likely that this situation will change. Rather, the tendency for this Parliament to surrender powers to Europe is thought by many to be likely to increase and escalate.

Noble Lords should be aware that more than 30 directives covering financial services activities are currently being drafted in Brussels. This morning, I was visited by representatives of a trade association representing a section of the asset-management industry who were extremely concerned about this trend. It is absolutely right that we should work closely and collaboratively with other EU member states on improving the structural framework of the financial services industry, but it is equally important that we work equally closely and collaboratively on those matters with other international partners, especially the United States, Japan, China, Singapore and other countries that have significant financial markets. I believe this is necessary to stop the drift towards a centralised European state. Furthermore, I believe that it will still be necessary to stop that drift in three years, five years or 10 years. There is no reason to include a sunset clause unless you are one of those who honestly and sincerely believe that a federal state is our destiny.

I accept that there are noble Lords who believe that that is the right road for us to follow but I believe that the vast majority of the British people absolutely do not want that. I am delighted that this Government have had the courage to stand up and say that they will not let it happen. Noble Lords who support the amendment have argued that the Bill attacks parliamentary sovereignty. I believe that it does the reverse by preventing the Government permanently surrendering parliamentary sovereignty. If a future Government wish to remove such a safeguard, they will be free to do so—God forbid—but there is no need for this amendment because they will be free to do so by repealing the Act.