European Union (Future Relationship) Bill

Lord Howard of Lympne Excerpts

3rd reading & 2nd reading & Committee negatived & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & 3rd reading (Hansard) & 3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & Committee negatived (Hansard) & Committee negatived (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 30th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howard of Lympne (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I begin by paying tribute to my noble friend Lord Cavendish of Furness, not only for his excellent valedictory speech, but for his decades of service to your Lordships’ House. He will be sorely missed. I also welcome the noble Lord, Lord Austin, and congratulate him on his maiden speech and his fight against anti-Semitism in the Labour Party.

I welcome this historic agreement and the Bill before your Lordships’ House. The agreement is a considerable achievement, for which the Prime Minister and my noble friend Lord Frost deserve great credit.

In particular, I welcome the provisions in the agreement for the resolution of disputes through arbitration. This is how disputes between civilised nations should be resolved. The noble Lord, Lord Kerr, in his diatribe earlier, and the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, who has just spoken, implied that the European Union has a unilateral right to impose tariffs on exports from the United Kingdom, in the event of regulatory divergence. That is what the European Union wanted, but not what it got. Its right is qualified, reciprocal and subject to arbitration, which is an eminently sensible way to resolve disputes of this kind.

There are those—alas, many noble Lords who have spoken in this debate—who seem determined to construct a narrative of failure. But we will fail only if we succumb to that melancholy litany. We succeed if we instead focus on the undoubted and considerable potential for success that lies before us. I offer your Lordships one fact and one forecast. The fact comes from CB Insights, which recently reported that there are more unicorns—that is private companies valued at more than £1 billion—in the UK than in France, Germany, Italy and Spain put together. The forecast comes from the Centre for Economics and Business Research, which has an enviable record of accuracy. It forecasts that the UK economy will not only be one of the better performers in Europe over the next few years, but, by 2035, be 23% larger than that of France.

The key to the agreement and Bill is that, as an independent sovereign state, we are now free to set our own course to make the most of these great opportunities. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, that we can look forward to the future in a spirit of optimistic anticipation. I look forward to supporting the Government in the vote later.