Business of the House

Lord Kinnock Excerpts

Thursday 4th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

I think it was in about 1975 that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and I first met, which just shows how long we have both been around.

[Lord Kinnock (Lab)]

And you haven’t changed a bit.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

It’s the way he tells them.

Two interesting and different things have just been said by the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, who very honestly confessed that he hoped the Bill would never reach the statute book—let us be clear; that is what all this is about—as opposed to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, who says, “I want it done properly”. To some extent, the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, may achieve his aim without having to put his amendment to the vote. His amendment says only that we should not go into Committee,

“until at least 24 hours after”,

the Select Committee on the Constitution has published its report. That was done at 11 am today. Given the way we are going, I think we are going to meet his target: it will be 11 am tomorrow before we go into Committee, so he may have achieved that without having to put it to the vote.

What we know is that no matter how much we want, ideally, to have time to do this legislation properly—in the “as normal” sense—we are not in normal times. It is simply no good putting this off so that by the time we get through it, and have had very clever people getting it right, it is too late. I hear what the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, says about there being things in the Bill that we may want to alter but spending time now on whether we consider the Bill, and how we deal with it and the need for corrections, makes it less likely that the Bill will end up in a proper state. Without having to do so officially, I hope that we can move to vote now on the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton. I think we can reject it because it actually will be 11 am before we get into Committee.

European Council: December 2016

Lord Kinnock Excerpts

Monday 19th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I thank my noble friend for his questions. As the Prime Minister made clear, her objective remains that we indeed give early reassurance in negotiations to EU citizens who live in the UK, and to UK citizens living in EU countries. She has made it very clear that we would like that to be discussed very early on. Our intention is clear, but we will need other European leaders to match our commitment. In terms of the negotiation itself, what we want is a strong Britain working with a strong EU. We want a deal that works both for Britain and for the EU.

[Lord Kinnock (Lab)]

My Lords, I concur, probably for the first time in my life, with the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, and say to the Minister that it would be bad politics and even worse ethics to try to treat citizens of the EU resident in the United Kingdom as bargaining chips in the forthcoming negotiations, and that it would be wise to take what he called the moral high ground by making an early announcement on our intentions as far as they are concerned. In response to her updating of the Council on recent developments in the United Kingdom on Article 50, did the Prime Minister receive any information from the President of France, the Chancellor of Germany and the Prime Minister of the Netherlands about their forthcoming general elections in 2017? Did they advise her that their attention is likely to be focused on domestic issues rather than Brexit and that, consequently, it might be ill advised to notify our intention under Article 50 early in 2017, rather than some months into a year in which other countries of great significance in our negotiations will not be paying much attention?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

As I said, the Prime Minister made very clear our wish in relation to EU citizens living in the UK and UK citizens living in the EU, and she raised that specifically during discussions. Obviously, we want to have a mature and co-operative relationship with the EU, and one would assume that that will reflect that. As I mentioned, she also made it clear that we will be triggering Article 50 before the end of March; all EU leaders are well aware of that.

Brexit: Horizon 2020 and Erasmus

Lord Kinnock Excerpts

Thursday 7th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch (UKIP)]

My Lords—

[Lord Kinnock (Lab)]

My Lords—

[The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Stowell of Beeston) (Con)]

My Lords, it is the turn of either the Cross Benches or the Conservative Benches. We will go to the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, and I hope we can get in a Conservative next.

Jo Cox MP

Lord Kinnock Excerpts

Monday 20th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kinnock (Lab)]

My Lords, I express my gratitude and that of my colleagues for the tributes that have come from all sides of the House to Jo Cox, and say also to those who have not voiced their sympathy this afternoon that we do understand that it is none the less deeply and sincerely felt.

For 20 years I knew and cherished Jo Cox as a friend and as a young woman of great personal and political vivaciousness. In life she was brilliant in all respects and her death was appalling in its ugly brutality and dreadful injustice. As I reeled from horrified shock at hearing what had happened to Jo, I confess that I felt misery mixed with hatred: hatred for whoever had terrified and killed her; hatred for the times and the conditions which had made someone feel that they were justified in being brutally extreme. Then I realised that my outrage was useless. Not for the first time I recognised that hate cannot be beaten with hatred. Jo Cox would have said, “Do not hate in my name”. She might even have quoted Gandhi: “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind”. Then she would have offered a brave, rational response to the malicious incoherence of an environment in which a minority of people think they can write, speak and do violence to anyone if they have the excuse of enthusiasm, offence, partisanship, or even a warped form of patriotism.

Jo’s response would not have lacked passion. She was pragmatic in order to get things done, but never cold nor clinical. This spirited woman would have centred on realism and been driven by rationality. She would have pursued the cause of the rage and then put bold ideas into action to counter it. We know that, because that is what she always did when confronted by inhumanity, bigotry, injustice or simply by the needs of her constituents. Now we who are part of the reasonable majority must employ truth against divisive fiction and distortion; reality against prejudice; hard-headed common sense against delusion. We have to combat hatred in its lethal public forms, in the bilious preaching of demagogues, in the sly dog-whistles of populists, and when it oozes as a cowardly, anonymous social media secretion.

Impressionable, maladjusted individuals may claim that their responsibility is diminished; politicians and newspapers with voices that shape views may not. We have to fight hatred that is incited and nourished by those whose purposes are served by fostering fear—fear of change, fear of insecurity and fear of foreigners. That is our duty, not simply to ourselves but to our democracy and the British people’s sense of decency. We cannot allow venom to displace mutual respect. We cannot permit intolerance to intimidate tolerance. We cannot accept that a convention of hating can ever be allowed to prevail over the greatest, strongest, most civilised British quality of live and let live.

History teaches in too many lessons that if temperate rationality concedes ground, the space is invaded by intemperate irrationality, always with horrific results. That is why we and all who recoil from the politics of hate must never make that concession. We must never stop confronting those who seek political profit from encouraging the neuroses of threat and resentment. Young Jo Cox did not concede. That is why her short life was so productive, so radiant. It deserves to be unforgotten because it was unforgettable.

House adjourned at 3.34 pm.

EU Referendum: Voter Registration

Lord Kinnock Excerpts

Thursday 12th May 2016 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Kinnock]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to emphasise the importance to citizens, particularly young people, of registering to vote to enable them to participate in the referendum on the United Kingdom’s membership of the European Union on 23 June.

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen (Con)]

My Lords, the referendum on membership of the European Union is a decision of fundamental importance for the future of the country. The Government are committed to helping ensure that everyone who is eligible to vote, particularly the young, is able to do so. That is why we have allocated up to £7.5 million for a range of voting registration activities. With the introduction of online registration, it is easier than ever to register to vote, and since 2014, 4.1 million people aged 16 to 24 have applied to register.

[Lord Kinnock (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful for that Answer. The outcome of the referendum will obviously be of the greatest and longest significance to the lives of the young generations. Will the Government therefore make major efforts, in addition to the commitments they have so far undertaken, particularly through the online communication that the Minister mentioned and through social media, to ensure that young people know that the final date for voter registration and for getting a postal vote is 7 June—less than four weeks from now? Does the Minister agree with me that this kind of information is especially vital when polling day coincides with the Glastonbury festival, the broadcasting of which could rather preoccupy the attention of millions of young people, whose votes are vital not only to their future but to the future of the country. It would be an awful pity if instead of voting, they were rocking.

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

My Lords, I think the answer is in the question—Glastonbury. The noble Lord should get a group of your Lordships together, appear on stage and sing, “No Satisfaction Unless There’s Registration”—I am sorry, that is an end of term joke. Ministers have written to universities and sixth-form colleges to encourage them to promote voter registration ahead of the deadline. In addition, the Government are working with organisations such as Universities UK, the Association of Colleges, Bite The Ballot, UpRising and other youth organisations to help ensure young people are registered in time for the EU referendum.

European Council

Lord Kinnock Excerpts

Monday 22nd February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

My Lords, I do not think the House will be surprised to hear me say that I very much agree with my noble friend. He is absolutely right: anybody campaigning for Britain to leave the European Union will have to spell out what that means and what they are suggesting the people of this country would be voting for. They need to be specific about the model that is being proposed. If it is a model like Norway, they need to explain to the people of this country that there is no cost-free alternative; that is important for people to understand. There is not another way in which there is no disadvantage. It is quite possible for the United Kingdom to survive and prosper outside of the European Union, but we believe that Britain would remain stronger in the EU, and it is for others to make their case as to what “leave” means.

[Lord Kinnock (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Leader of the House agree that it is neither pessimistic nor defeatist for us to argue for the United Kingdom to remain in the European Union? It is total commitment to advancing and upholding the stability, security and well-being of our beloved country. It is practical patriotism instead of the risk-riddled leap into the unknown of leaving. Will she therefore dismiss the glib and duplicitous suggestion that voting to leave will somehow compel the European Union to amenably accommodate the economic preferences of the United Kingdom outside the EU? Being pro having cake and pro eating it is an infantile desire, not an adult reality. I hope she will agree that the choice is in or out, not “in, out, shake it all about” and then rashly hope that something helpful will turn up for a country that has abandoned all rights, influence and power by leaving the EU.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I certainly agree with the noble Lord that voting to remain in the European Union is very much a patriotic decision. If we cast our vote in that way, we are recognising the power and influence we wield as our country in that European Union, and that we will have both the benefit of being in that Union and—because of what has been renegotiated—greater control of our destiny than we have been able to have up to now. The noble Lord is absolutely right about voting to leave. To vote to leave means to leave, and that will be it: it is about being either in or out.

EU Council June 2014

Lord Kinnock Excerpts

Monday 30th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

I will have a go, although I suspect I may need to write further to be more accurate. My noble friend took the Bill through and enacted it, and I am sure he knows it far better than I do.

My understanding is that the Act applies to changes in the rules that transfer power from Westminster to Brussels. Under the EU treaties, the European Council, acting by qualified majority, shall propose to the European Parliament a candidate for president of the European Commission. In this instance, we believe that the existing rules were pushed to shift power from the European Council to the European Parliament rather than any fresh transfer of power from Westminster to Brussels. That is the distinction. It did not represent a further transfer of power from Westminster. If I have got that wrong, I will make that clear to my noble friend in a letter that I will circulate to the House and place in the Library.

[Lord Kinnock (Lab)]

The Leader of the House has spoken of policy and by the use of that word has inferred a strategy in the mind and conduct of the Prime Minister. Was it policy that produced the withdrawal of the Conservatives from the EPP in 2005—thus relinquishing, as they were warned, any degree of influence over the largest group in the European Parliament? Was it policy that made the Prime Minister proclaim his opposition to an individual candidate very early on in this procedure, thus removing any room for Chancellor Merkel or others to negotiate about the final resolution of the position? When the European Commission, the European Council and the European Parliament to varying degrees all favour reform, does the Leader of the House think that that mission is propelled forward by allowing one of his Cabinet colleagues to describe a heroine—a genuine heroine since her earliest years—Angela Merkel as a coward? If these are all policies, what hope is there for the Prime Minister to be the man to negotiate the change that is necessary and welcome in the European Union?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

The point I was trying to make was that on policy grounds it was the view of the Prime Minister and others within the European Council that the decision about the next President of the Commission should be taken by the Council rather than by the European Parliament. That was the principled point that he was seeking to pursue. More broadly, in answer to the noble Lord’s question about the policy, if one looks back, the Prime Minister as a matter of policy has sought to influence and move the agenda of the European Union towards growth, jobs and trade deals with the United States, Canada and other countries. One can see, in progress on deregulation and all the rest of it, a shift over a number of years which reflects the policy that he has been seeking to pursue.

European Union (Referendum) Bill

Lord Kinnock Excerpts

Friday 31st January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dobbs]

Of course I could but quite clearly I am not going to. It would deprive us of hearing the noble Lord, Lord Kinnock.

[Lord Kinnock (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord. Although I endorse entirely the appeal made by my noble friend Lord Giddens and indeed others, I suggest to the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, that he could accept this amendment, and he could do it with the approval of the Prime Minister. My authority for claiming that comes from no less a source than the Bloomberg speech, which I am now quoting so frequently that I am beginning to think of it as the Bloomberg bible.

In that speech, the Prime Minister was very clear—indeed, commendably clear—that:

“If we left the European Union, it would be a one-way ticket, not a return”.

That is a very sobering thought and a very grave proposition. To his further credit, the Prime Minister was balanced in his treatment of the issues in much of that speech. He said, quite correctly, that:

“Britain could make her own way in the world, outside the EU”.

He then, in a very balanced way, went on to say:

“But the question we will have to ask ourselves is this: is that the very best future for our country?”.

He said that of course we,

“would be free to take our own decisions … But we don’t leave NATO because it is in our national interest to stay and benefit from its collective defence guarantee”.

The only question that I would pose to the Prime Minister and to the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, on this aspect is: how free would we be to take our own decisions?

In a further balancing item, the Prime Minister responded to such a rhetorical question by saying:

“If we leave the EU, we cannot of course leave Europe. It will remain for many years our biggest market, and forever our geographical neighbourhood. We are tied by a complex web of legal commitments”.

He continued:

“Even if we pulled out completely”—

and I do not see that there is any other option other than a complete pull-out, given what the Prime Minister said about it being a one-way ticket—

“decisions made in the EU would continue to have a profound effect on our country. But we would have lost all our remaining vetoes and our voice in those decisions”.

If the Prime Minister was willing to say that a year ago in the Bloomberg speech and to spell out the implications of our departure, what conceivable resistance could there be to accepting an amendment that would make it mandatory to provide an assessment of the United Kingdom’s intended relationship with the European Union in the event of withdrawal? In fact, on this occasion I am being as uncharacteristically helpful as I possibly can be to Mr Cameron. Maybe one day he will reciprocate that.

Of course, the question remains: how free would we be to make our own decisions? This House will know that if the search is for sovereignty, then the definition of sovereignty as the power to make effective decisions must be predominant in our minds. Outside the European Union in the world of the 21st century and beyond, we have to wonder how a medium-sized economy with a population of around 60 million, abutting the world’s biggest single market, would fare if we had to conduct our own relationships individually—dare I say unilaterally?—with emerging and emerged global powers. How would we fare in terms of resolving the crisis of the environment or in terms of combating international crime, were it not for the fact that inside the European Union we can exert substantial influence on the direction of affairs and on the nature of international relationships in an increasingly complex and interdependent world?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bowness (Con)]

My Lords, I put my name to this amendment; I do not want to add very much to what has already been said, but I support it because I want this referendum which—I must say to my noble friends for the avoidance of doubt—I accept is a commitment of my party and is going to happen. I want this referendum to be fair, and to include European Union citizens living here would add to the fairness. They will be affected by whatever the outcome is of a referendum. They have taken residence in this country and made their lives under the provisions of the treaties into which we, as a nation, freely entered and to which have agreed to be a party. The same can be said of the rights and interests of British citizens living in other European Union countries, to which we may come later.

However, in the interest of fairness, one might make the comparison between those citizens living in other European Union countries—and European Union citizens living in this country—with the position of Commonwealth citizens, who are not British citizens but who will have the right to vote, even if their countries have been suspended or expelled from membership of the Commonwealth. According to a reply which I received to a Written Question, we have no idea how many Commonwealth citizens who are not British citizens are on the electoral roll. However, there have been estimates—I have no idea how reliable they are; I believe that they may have been based on the 2011 census—that the number of people, whether or not on the electoral roll, which is not known, could amount to 900,000 in the country as a whole. That is not insignificant.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, prepared a report for the previous Government on citizenship in which he made the observation, not pursued by the previous Government—or, indeed, this Government—that the right to vote and citizenship are closely linked. I do not think that it is good enough to embark on this referendum asking a question of this importance without having given some thought to the composition of the franchise. I hope that my noble friend Lord Dobbs can tell me that some thought was given to it. I suspect that the easiest, quickest option, which did not involve too much thought, was employed to put the provision in the Bill. This and other amendments need to be carefully considered in the interest of fairness before the Bill passes into law and we have a referendum.

[Lord Kinnock]

This is another amendment which, I am certain, is moved with a helpful motivation, and one that I hope, on reflection, the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, will feel able to accept. The acceptance of an amendment of this kind would not in any sense compromise the Bill, because substantial changes have been made. This is a change of lesser dimension, but, for the reasons that we have just heard from the noble Lord, Lord Bowness, it has particular focus.

The referendum that the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, wants is distinct from the referendum that I want—I want a referendum if there is a significant treaty change under the terms of the 2011 Act. If that is what we were facing, I would be making exactly the same proposal, if the electorate were confined in the way that they are in the Bill. The argument relating to the electorate applies in any case to any referendum, particularly any referendum relating to the European Union and our future or lack of future in it—or the nature of our future in it.

I put it to the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, that in a referendum he will want the maximum number of entitled electors to be able to vote. It is crucial to the whole country; I will not tire the House by repeating what I said previously. The Prime Minister precisely and accurately said that this was an issue of massive dimension and that no return ticket was available. I put it to the noble Lord that the only way to ensure the maximum size of an electorate above the age of 18 is to ensure that all persons entitled to vote in a local authority election could vote in the referendum. The number of persons who have that entitlement is larger than that of those who have the parliamentary entitlement, for the obvious reason that people who are citizens of other European Union countries—and, indeed, other countries—are, rightly, entitled to vote in their local authority elections but, equally rightly, are not entitled to vote for their Member of Parliament.

Nelson Mandela

Lord Kinnock Excerpts

Monday 9th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kinnock (Lab)]

My Lords, for 50 years since I first campaigned against apartheid in the wake of the Sharpeville massacre, Nelson Mandela has been a supreme inspiration to me. He showed unsurpassed bravery and endurance in his fight against oppression and unequalled humanity in his guidance to South Africa and the world. He had the strength to be merciful, the wisdom to be gentle and generous. I salute those qualities of truly great leadership. It was a marvellous privilege to meet Mandela the hero, a delight to know Nelson the man. I cherish memories of times together, of his mischievous humour and of his dazzling smile. To be called “comrade” by such a man was an irreducible honour. I join with countless others, here and across the world, in offering my affection and deepest sympathy to Graça, his widow, and to their family.

Nelson Mandela never forgot the past of hatred and bigotry, of searing injustice and violence, but from the outset his political life was resolutely committed to plotting, planning and building for a different future with his people. It was that which drove him to take up arms. It was that which gave him the resilience to withstand captivity and its dreadful indignities and tragedies. It was his fixation with the future that could be created which, in the late 1980s, made him withstand the proffered comforts of compromise and instead gain the courageous agreement of FW de Klerk to release him unconditionally and to prepare for non-racial democracy. It was Mandela’s dedication to the future which, above all, made him exert his full authority as a warrior, a convict and a leader to compel reconciliation when vengeful reprisal could have brought remorseless racial civil war and desolated South Africa.

As we pay tribute to Mandela’s determined and valorous idealism, we must do him the justice of recognising his daring realism. In this House, evolved through centuries of conquest and preferment, I would not lecture the leadership of a 19 year-old democracy about its conscience or its duty. I do not need to. In the most explicit terms, Mandela himself charted the course that must be followed. At the Rivonia trial, at which my noble friend Lord Joffe played a brave and distinguished part, when Nelson and his comrades were faced with the lethal probability of execution, he said in plain, provocative words which have resonated through the decades, as we have already heard from my noble friend:

“I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons will live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and see realised. But, my Lord, if it need be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die”.

He did live for that ideal, but did not see it realised. But he dedicated his life to securing the conditions in which it could be fulfilled by free people, governed by mortals who apply a measure of the integrity, dignity, bravery and sagacity that were central to Nelson Mandela’s being.

That was his true legacy. Honouring it must now surely propel the current leadership of the ANC into embracing reform and transparency, strengthening accountability and combating the self-indulgence and corruption which so retard Mandela’s beloved country and its people. If that course is not taken, Nelson Mandela will be their brilliant, brave, but unrequited dead hero. If it is taken, as he would have wanted, he will have a fitting, enduring, living memorial of full freedom in South Africa. He deserves that and South Africa sorely needs it.

HSBC: Lord Green of Hurstpierpoint

Lord Kinnock Excerpts

Monday 23rd July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, with all his experience and knowledge—not just as head of the Civil Service and Cabinet Secretary but having had a more commercial career since he left—the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, has brought a lot of wisdom and good sense to this debate, on which we should all reflect.

[Lord Kinnock]

My Lords, since the Leader of the House has told us that the work of the noble Lord, Lord Green, is of benefit to the United Kingdom’s profile—the words he just used—does he think that the accountability of an individual in a very senior position in government or business ceases when that individual changes post? Does he not think that it would benefit the UK’s profile to ensure that a Minister rigorously adheres to the wording of the Ministerial Code, as just spelt out by my noble friend? Further, does he not think that the ethics of business require that a Minister who has the opportunity and the right to come to this House to explain themselves should do so?

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, I do not disagree at all with what the noble Lord says about the ethics of the industry in which my noble friend was involved. In fact, only last week, this House set up a special Joint Select Committee to look at ethics and many other practices in the banking industry. Surely that is the point. If a Select Committee of this House or another place wishes to ask my noble friend questions, it should do so. My purpose is to reflect on my noble friend’s role in government and to answer on behalf of Her Majesty’s Government.