European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Debate between Lord Hamilton of Epsom and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard continued) & Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard continued): House of Lords
Wednesday 15th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, my name is also on Amendments 27 and 28, and I wish to add my support for them. The Constitution Committee’s report, published two days ago, says in paragraph 3:

“This Bill is of the highest constitutional significance.”


One of the many aspects of that constitutional significance is as it affects the relationship between Parliament and government. As I understand it, the role of Parliament and the role of the second Chamber of Parliament—the House of Lords—in legislation is that we should present reasoned arguments and criticisms of what the Government have put forward. In response, the Government’s duty is to listen to those arguments. Where they are persuaded that those arguments are reasoned, or where they are unable to provide reasonable answers to them, they should adjust the legislation to meet those arguments.

The other dimension is that, as policy proceeds, the Government should be held to account by Parliament; there should be ongoing accountability as policy proceeds. Amendment 27 does not say that we want to know the details of everything; it talks about objectives. The Government are asked to tell us regularly what their objectives are. That seems entirely reasonable, particularly as the Government’s objectives remain so unclear and, in some ways, contradictory. On regulatory divergence, for example, I have listened to the noble Lord several times explaining the rationale for the regulatory divergence the Government are committed to and each time he explains it I become less and less convinced that the Government know what they want. I think that is partly because different elements of the Government and of the Conservative Party want entirely contradictory outcomes.

The question of the future security relationship also contains a number of unresolved internal differences. On future trade relations, we heard on the radio this morning someone with very close links to the Trump Administration saying that if we want good trade concessions in our future relations with the United States, we had better give something in return on Iran and our policy on the Middle East. There are many questions there that it is reasonable for Parliament to hold the Government to account over, and to ask Ministers to continue to justify.

The noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, in what I thought was rather an odd speech, said that we should not bother Ministers when they are in the middle of negotiations, because they will be tired and busy and we would get in the way. That seems to me, if I may say so in her absence, absurd. Parliaments are there to hold Governments to account and if the Government think they can get away without being held to account, except every five years in elections, we have moved away from constitutional and parliamentary democracy.

We heard a number of empty threats on Monday about the future of the Lords if we were to pass any amendments. There were suggestions that we were standing in the way of the people’s will and that various Members of this House perhaps represent the people against Parliament—although some of the Members of this House who put themselves forward as representing the people seem rather less popular in their backgrounds than one might otherwise expect. All I say to that is that if one faces up to the question of Lords reform—I say this as a former Minister responsible for trying to take through Lords reform—it is very difficult.

Some of us were at a meeting this morning where it was said that Lords reform and electoral reform were the two most difficult constitutional changes that anyone would wish to take through. It was implied that neither would happen in our lifetimes. That may be a bit of an exaggeration, but there is an idea that somehow, with the Express and the Mail behind the Government, threats can be made that the Lords will be abolished—and with Rebecca Long Bailey behind the Express and the Mail in threatening it. The idea that that will happen and we will all then turn quiet is out of the question. We have to do our job. We are here as a revising Chamber and it is our duty to ask the Government to revise when we are not convinced.

There is a question that all Conservatives here should ask themselves carefully as they consider how the House considers the Bill: if a non-Conservative Government were attempting to push through a Bill of this sort, which diminishes the role of Parliament in holding the Government to account, what would the Conservative response be? I think I know. I therefore strongly support this amendment and I hope the Government will recognise that, in rejecting it, they are trying to push the relationship between Parliament and Government towards the Executive and away from proper constitutional democracy.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, to respond to the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, on Lords reform, I remind him that your Lordships’ House was not saved by anybody in this House. It was actually saved by Jesse Norman—who paid a serious price from David Cameron, who subsequently refused to put him into his Government—and a number of right-wingers in the Tory party. We do not have that support in the Commons any longer, so I would not be quite so laid back and complacent about the future of your Lordships’ House. It has been seriously threatened and bruises have been left.

As to the amendment, I think we have all very much welcomed the election of Sir Lindsay Hoyle as Speaker of the House of Commons. I think he will be an umpire rather than a protagonist in the Brexit debate; he certainly has not indicated which way he voted in the referendum. However, the suggestion that he will not allow any Statements or Urgent Questions on the Brexit negotiations in the year that extends before us is for the birds. The idea that the Government will have no accountability to the House of Commons—or to your Lordships’ House—on how the negotiations are progressing is just ridiculous. For that reason, it is completely unnecessary to have this stuff in the Bill; I think there will be a lot of accountability, which will be ensured by the new Speaker. There is no point whatever in putting it in the Bill.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I assure the noble Lord that I am strongly in favour of reforming the House of Lords. I hoped when I was appointed to this House that I would in due course become an elected member for the Yorkshire region. I have now been in this House for 23 years and that has not happened. I am very conscious of the difficulties of reform.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

Yes, and the noble Lord should be very pleased with himself that he has done much to make the idea of reforming our House a significant factor, now that there is a Conservative Government with a serious majority.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Lord Hamilton of Epsom and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Monday 18th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I thank the Leader of the House for the generous remarks she made about the role of this House. It is particularly important that she sees it as an important part of her role to defend the role of this House and of Parliament as a whole. We have noticed in recent months, and even more in recent weeks, some pretty anti-parliamentary language in the press. I note that at the end of Quentin Letts’s one and a half page rubbishing of Dominic Grieve, he said:

“The sight of the elite grabbing power from the Queen’s government will rupture trust in the ballot box and could imperil centuries of British support for parliamentary democracy”.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

I am very interested in the noble Lord’s remarks. Were they not his remarks rubbishing the Foreign Secretary when he was standing at the Bar?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I am not sure that these are in any sense the same. I was merely criticising the Foreign Secretary for not being Foreign Secretary. He does a lot of other things, but certainly does not fulfil the role of Foreign Secretary.

I am now talking about some fundamental constitutional issues, which are the relationship between Parliament and Executive Government. They are at stake in this and very much matter when it comes to how much of a role we play in looking at the detail.

We have seen some rather violent language in the media in the past few weeks. I spoke to a Cross-Bench Peer this morning who said, “It is intimidating and, frankly, I feel intimidated”. I know that many MPs, particularly women MPs, feel actively intimidated by the violence which they get on social media. I think the Government ought now to be saying to the right-wing media that violent language encourages violence. We are in a dangerous situation in which parliamentary democracy—that is to say, reasoned debate within a clear structure of rules—is something which we have to defend.

I note that the Sun on Sunday editorial accused MPs of having contempt for democracy and said:

“Such is the contempt these MPs have for democracy when it delivers a vote they don’t like … they seem neither to know or to care what they will unleash”.


I am worried about what the current atmosphere might unleash. It therefore seems to me that the way in which both sides conduct this debate is very important.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Lord Hamilton of Epsom and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Monday 26th February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I apologise for being perhaps a little stronger than I should have been in this respect. On the engine room—I wanted to return to the noble Earl, Lord Howe, on this—much of the business of multilateral organisations, be it NATO or the EU, is done in working groups and committees. The common foreign and security policy structure has some 40 working groups and committees, including a military committee that has been chaired by a British officer. If we are not in any of those working groups, we will miss out on formulating policy.

There are other details that matter a great deal. I remember the noble Earl, Lord Howe, saying on one occasion, when some of us were following the noble Lord, Lord West, and asking, “Where are you going to find the frigates to make up the carrier groups that we need?” The noble Earl said, if I remember correctly, “They do not necessarily have to be British frigates”. I took him as meaning that they might be Dutch, French, Belgian or whatever. Well, that also needs a certain structure, with certain training mechanisms and certain multilateral commands.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

Would the structure not be NATO?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

The noble Lord may not know, but, as I have quoted, we have been involved in some 15 EU operations, some of which have been naval. Had he visited Operation Atalanta at Northwood, he would have known that that is an entirely naval operation, commanded by the British with ships from a number of different nations. Operation Sophia in the Mediterranean has also involved British frigates working with others on the whole question of migration. So some operations are NATO, some are the EU.

I have said quite enough. Of course I am going to withdraw, but we, along with many others, do not know enough about this area to be able to give the confidence to the Government that we want—that is the whole problem with this “mechanical Bill”. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Immigration Bill

Debate between Lord Hamilton of Epsom and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Tuesday 22nd December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, when we debate Bills in Committee and on Report, we are liable to be accused of making Second Reading speeches. Now that this is Second Reading, perhaps I will be forgiven for making one. I will look at the wider issues of immigration that are of course referred to in this Bill, which addresses some of the problems.

I support my noble friend the Minister’s view that we have benefited enormously from immigration into this country in the past and that we welcome immigrants to this country. However, it is a question of numbers. We cannot get away from numbers. The noble Baroness, Lady Afshar, just said that we have already made a modest 1% contribution to the refugee crisis taking place. To put that in context, that small number of Syrian refugees we are taking in is in addition to the 330,000 immigrants who came legally into this country in the last year. That contrasts rather forcibly with the undertakings that my right honourable friend the Prime Minister made that immigration should be limited to 100,000 a year—or to tens of thousands. Despite the number of times that that commitment has been made, we seem never to have met the 100,000 target. That is a problem.

We now face an immigration crisis across Europe of proportions never seen before. These are very large numbers of people indeed. The noble Lord, Lord Dubs, referred to Germany as being the conscience of Europe. Angela Merkel may well have been moved with compassion when she said that Germany would take 900,000 Syrian refugees, but I suspect she has regretted that remark ever since. She created enormous problems within her own party. Indeed, I would have thought that that remark was extremely ill-advised if she did not want to see the renaissance of extreme right-wing parties in Germany in future.

My noble friend Lord Horam referred to my right honourable friend the Home Secretary’s remarks at the Tory Party conference. The problem is that, if immigration is in too large numbers, it creates very serious stresses in the home nation. This is something we cannot overlook. At the moment we suffer from a major crisis in housing—in particular, in affordable housing. We are not building enough. This is a problem we have with our existing population. If we take in very large numbers of immigrants, they are almost invariably in greater need of affordable housing than the resident population in this country. That creates enormous resentment. This may well be one reason why UKIP has had a certain amount of electoral success in areas traditionally regarded as bastions of the Labour Party. We cannot overlook this, as my noble friend Lord Horam said. Immigration is a very high priority in the views of the people of this country. We cannot take unlimited numbers of people. I come back to what I said originally: it is a question of numbers.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I apologise for interrupting the noble Lord in a Second Reading speech. I entirely agree with him that we have a housing shortage. Might he possibly address the question of how we will overcome that shortage when we have such a remarkable lack of skilled labour to build houses within this country? Is there not a real problem that a major housebuilding programme now would draw in a very large number of people from abroad to build those houses?

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

The noble Lord, Lord Wallace, knows very well that it is a question not only of the shortage of skilled bricklayers and people who can build houses, but also of the enormous shortage of land on which you can build. This is all to do with our planning laws and is a much more complicated issue than just a question of the shortage of people.

If we control immigration and have a system of allowing in the people with the skills we need, I do not have any problem with that. The problem is if we allow very large numbers of people in who do not have those skills. That is a totally different issue. It is what puts enormous pressure on all our services at the moment. It is not only housing, which is the most obvious issue. The National Health Service seems to be creaking under the demands pressed on it at the moment. Our infrastructure and education are also under great pressure. With all these things, if you have enormous numbers of immigrants coming in, the pressure on public services inevitably grows and that creates resentment and difficulty.

With the EU referendum coming up, I refer to the question of European immigration. As we know, EU citizens are allowed into this country. We apparently do some survey to find out how many there are of them. The figures for last year were 330,000. That is net immigration, netted off against those going out. It is reckoned that about half that number are EU citizens—some 150,000. At the same time, some reports came out recently about 2 million EU citizens applying for national insurance numbers over a period of four years. That is an average of half a million per year. I know we are not comparing like with like here, but it seems that you must do something to reconcile these two numbers. You have half a million EU citizens applying for national insurance while, in theory because of the surveys we do, we had only 150,000 come into this country last year. I believe the number may be even bigger this year. When my noble friend comes to sum up, I would be grateful if he could confirm that 2 million EU citizens applied for national insurance numbers over the past four years. How does he reconcile that with the number of EU migrants that are supposed to have come to live here? We need statistics.

I also support the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, in saying that we need to know what the Government estimate to be the number of illegal immigrants in this country. If we do not have that number, it is extremely difficult to assess whether this Bill has been a success or failure in reducing that number.

European Union Referendum Bill

Debate between Lord Hamilton of Epsom and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Wednesday 18th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

My Lords, I hope that we are now moving into slightly calmer waters. I tabled this amendment in anticipation that the House might vote to enfranchise 16 and 17 year-olds. I do not think there can really be too much opposition in the House to my amendment because we have to ensure that the new franchise actually happens. The amendment enfranchising 16 and 17 year-olds passed by a very big majority in your Lordships’ House and it may well be that it never comes back from the Commons, either. There are a number of different reasons why the other place might actually accept the amendment, so there may well be no future opportunity to amend it.

The whole point of my amendment is to ensure that we do not enfranchise 16 and 17 year-olds with one hand and disenfranchise them with the other. We have heard different stories from the Electoral Commission. The noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, said that she had been assured by people at the Electoral Commission that it would be possible to get all this through by September. But we are in uncharted waters and we really do not know how long it is going to take to get the new register drawn up; it is completely new territory. All these people have to be individually registered, which may take a quite serious amount of time.

All my amendment does, which I am sure must be acceptable to the House, is to say that the Electoral Commission must be able to tick the box for the Government and say, “Yes, we have got a decent number of 16 and 17 year-olds on the electoral roll”—I am not saying it should come back and say that it has got 100% of them—and that should be acceptable to everybody. We do not want to end up with a whole lot of 16 and 17 year-olds going round saying, “I was told that I had a vote but I never got on the electoral roll”— because the process was only half completed, or whatever. So is it really too much to leave it to the Electoral Commission to tell the Government or whoever is deciding on the date of the referendum when the new register has been drawn up and everything is in place?

I do not pretend to know how long the process is going to take. At one stage the Electoral Commission was telling us that it would take up to 12 months. It is now reining back from that and saying that perhaps it will be quicker. But that is not really where I come from. It does not matter how long it takes. If it takes three months, fine. If the Electoral Commission can come back in three months and say that the job is done, that is absolutely fine and the referendum can be held after that. But it is very important to ensure that we do not, as I say, give enfranchisement to 16 and 17 year-olds with one hand and then, by having a very early referendum, ignore all those who are not on the electoral roll and take it away with the other. That is the point of my amendment. I beg to move.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, if I had heard the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton of Epsom, arguing against this I would think it a blatant attempt to bias the level playing field of which he is so fond by delaying the referendum. This amendment is simply unnecessary because the Electoral Commission will of course vouch for when the process has reached an appropriate stage. We therefore do not need to write this into the Bill. While I am on my feet, in his last speech during Committee the noble Lord referred to our friends and enemies within the European Union but did not specify which Governments he thought were our enemies within it. If he is going to reply, it would perhaps be helpful if he said whether they are the German Government, the French Government or others, because that would help us in understanding where he is coming from in the various amendments he has tabled.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

That is a particularly silly point from the Liberal Benches. I was merely making the point that we have people who are on our side in certain negotiations, and people who are against us. That was the rather loose way in which I used the term “enemies”. To go back to the noble Lord’s earlier point, the fact is that the Electoral Commission’s job is to advise the Government, who do not have to take its advice. The Government could say, “There is a wonderful opportunity now to win this referendum” and hold it after three months, when only a handful of 16 or 17 year-olds would be on the register.

European Union Referendum Bill

Debate between Lord Hamilton of Epsom and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Wednesday 4th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am well aware that the political definition of a level playing field is a field in which, when the ball is placed in the centre, it rolls naturally towards your opponent’s goal. That is one of the problems with trying to define a level playing field.

I am fascinated to hear so many Conservative Peers speaking in favour of an expenditure cap to ensure that one side in a campaign does not spend more than another. I look forward to the speeches that will come from those Benches the next time we discuss political party funding. Perhaps they will support a similar principle then. The Conservative Party spent a great deal more than any other party in the recent election. I do not recall any complaints from Conservatives on that—whatever position they take on the European Union—either then or since.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

Is the noble Lord saying that the general election principle is unfair because one party can raise more money than another, and that this unfairness should continue in the referendum?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I am simply remarking that principles should apply across the field. I am strongly in favour of greater control over political parties’ spending, which the Conservative Party has resisted extremely strongly. I just remarked that we need to be a little more consistent than we were being.

I will make one other point relating to this group of amendments and to the next.

European Union Referendum Bill

Debate between Lord Hamilton of Epsom and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Monday 2nd November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, perhaps as two of the amendments mention the EU balance of competences review, I might be allowed to comment on the extent to which the 32 reports that that review produced over two years in four tranches have provided a solid basis of evidence for a rather more dispassionate result. I am well aware that at the time of the 2010 coalition agreement, some in the Conservative Party thought that inviting evidence from stakeholders in law, business, the economy, aviation, and so on, would provide the basis to ask for repatriation of powers, which those various stakeholders felt were already excessively transferred to Brussels.

The outcome of the 32 reports, which I warmly recommend to the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton of Epsom, as evening reading over the next six months, was an overwhelming conclusion from most of the 2,500 pieces of evidence that came in that the current balance of competences suits us fairly well. That is part of the reason why people in No. 10’s press office and others wanted to ensure that the reports were published the day after Parliament rose for the summer or for Christmas so that they would receive as little publicity as possible, but they are there.

I particularly recommend to the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, the report on criminal justice co-operation and the evidence from the Association of Chief Police Officers and various other bodies on why the current arrangements are so strongly to Britain’s advantage. I also recommend the report on co-operation in civil justice, which contains evidence from the Faculty of Advocates in Scotland and the Law Society.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

I am very grateful to the noble Lord for telling me what my reading should be, but can he explain why the existing arrangements cannot continue just because we vote to pull out of the EU?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I think the noble Lord wants to negotiate that we should have a special status and be able to pick those things that we want and say no to those that we do not. However, all international multilateral negotiations are trade-offs and it is not always easy to get exactly the arrangements that you want. There are those who would argue—as I think the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, would—that much of what is currently imposed on us is a conspiracy cooked up by people in Brussels. I am merely saying that we need to get hold of the evidence of where we are and what are the costs and benefits of a whole set of very complicated international regulations in a highly internationalised economy and a world where the number of British citizens who cross the channel each year has increased by a factor of 10 over the past 30 years. That has certain implications for policing, crime and all sorts of other things.

European Union Referendum Bill

Debate between Lord Hamilton of Epsom and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Monday 2nd November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I, too, agree with this amendment. I anticipate that when the negotiations are complete, the Prime Minister will publish a paper and I think it highly likely that the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, will disagree fundamentally with what the Prime Minister says.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

My Lords, I went to the Public Bill Office and said that I wanted to put down an amendment very similar to this. It would have called for a White Paper, which this amendment does not. When it was pointed out to me that my noble friend Lord Forsyth’s amendment was already tabled, I added my name to it. This smacks very much of Amendment 1, which I put my name to and which was supported very early on by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr. The Liberal Democrats supported it, too, and I suspect that the Front Bench of the Labour Party is going to support it. This amendment ties in with everything that the Government have said already. The only worry I have is that my noble friend the Minister may say that the Government have given an undertaking to this and that it does not need to be in the Bill. I have to say that we will all be very reassured if it is.

Hansard Society: Audit of Political Engagement

Debate between Lord Hamilton of Epsom and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Thursday 16th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

The noble Lord, as so often, demonstrates his wonderfully conservative approach to all matters of constitutional reform. I do not agree with him. I think part of the lesson of the Scottish referendum was that a remarkably long campaign produced enthusiasm and a real focus, my Scottish friends tell me, on some of the underlying issues, which is perhaps something we need to do in a national campaign.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

Does my noble friend accept that although the turnout for the AV vote was lower than that for the Scottish referendum, the will of the people was clearly expressed and should be accepted by everybody in this country?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I am not entirely sure that I accept that. However, I accept that it was a lower turnout.

Referendums

Debate between Lord Hamilton of Epsom and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Tuesday 5th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord on the catholicity of his tastes in reading. I had indeed read that article because the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, was kind enough to give it to me.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

My Lords, as it was a Liberal Democrat commitment to have a referendum on Europe, surely there should not be too much difficulty for the coalition partners in agreeing that this is the way forward?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we will wait to see what is in the manifestos of all the parties for the coming election. The proposal by the Prime Minister in his capacity as Conservative Party leader is to hold a referendum, after some considerable further renegotiation, in the mid-point of the next Parliament.

Lobbyists: Register

Debate between Lord Hamilton of Epsom and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Wednesday 12th December 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I have to admit that I do not know the answer to that question and will have to write to the noble Lord.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

Does my noble friend agree that if we restricted the activities of lobbyists and it resulted in fewer all-party groups, that would be a very good idea?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

There might be no more cakes and wine, I am afraid. Let us be clear: lobbying is an entirely legitimate part of the political process, which would be poorer if we did not have lobbying. The problem is that we have lobbying from professional companies, advocacy groups—many of which are also charities—the CBI, trade unions and others. It is a very complicated area to try to pin down to a single statutory register.

Scotland: Director General for External Affairs

Debate between Lord Hamilton of Epsom and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Tuesday 25th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, again, the Scottish First Minister is highly skilled at stretching issues to the absolute outer limits of what is acceptable. This is clearly being played in Scottish politics in that way. We discussed the question of the senior civil servant in the Scottish Executive last time. I simply stress that at the end of the day the Scottish Executive are responsible to the Scottish Parliament, and through it to Scottish voters. Scottish voters want to be concerned about what is happening in the management of health, education and the Scottish economy when they look at the Scottish Government, and may not take kindly to a Scottish Government who spend too much of their time on extraneous issues.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

My Lords, did not all the machinations by the SNP make those undertakings that we were given by the Labour Government pretty hollow, when they introduced Scottish devolution, which they said would strengthen the union?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, no political system remains entirely stable for ever. There is a dynamic and a dynamism in which I have to say my own sense was that we were a very overcentralised union, both in England and as far as the other nations were concerned. We are better off with effective devolved Administrations, but it is quite clear that the current SNP Administration want to stir the pot very vigorously.

European Union Bill

Debate between Lord Hamilton of Epsom and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Monday 13th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

Is not the other side of my noble friend Lord Lawson’s argument that if we take the decision in principle, we are put in a much weaker position in all subsequent negotiations because, in practice, the country has already voted in principle to go into the single currency and therefore we have to give way on many of the negotiations that follow?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

That, of course, is partly why, in all three British applications to join the European Economic Community there were informal conversations before Britain made a formal application—we needed to know what potential terms were available before we formally declared our hand. For the reasons I have outlined, we conclude that Clause 6(5)(c) is not legally deficient and that there is no risk of the Bill requiring more than one referendum on the issue, the second referendum being on the rate at which the UK would join the single currency. I therefore urge the noble Lords to withdraw their amendment.

Police: Expenditure Cuts

Debate between Lord Hamilton of Epsom and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Tuesday 15th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

Does my noble friend accept that the Benches opposite may accept that the deficit needs to be reduced as a general argument, but that they will not agree to any measure in particular?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we all face a structural problem that the media and many of the public want higher quality public services and lower taxes. The call from the Labour Party for cuts in VAT, rather than to talk about how we pay for what we need in maintaining public services, is a good example of that.