Queen’s Speech

Lord Lamont of Lerwick Excerpts

Wednesday 28th June 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)]

My Lords, I follow my noble friend Lord Hunt in appealing, perhaps in vain, for rather more cross-party consensus on this issue.

I also want to follow, from a different perspective, what the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, said, deploring the nature of our debate, the empty phrases there have been and the tilting at windmills that has gone on. We have heard a tremendous amount about objections to a “hard Brexit”, but the people who say that so seldom define what they actually mean by it. I can think of three or four meanings of the term. Another phrase that has aroused ire has been the Prime Minister’s statement that no deal could be better than a bad deal. By saying that, the Prime Minister never meant her goal was that she was aiming at no deal. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, said, it is obvious common sense that it would be ludicrous to say any deal was better than no deal; that would not put British negotiators in a strong position and it is an illogical statement.

We all know that in politics a good cry works wonders. We see the phrase “the single market” waved around as though that was an argument in itself. The question is not the single market but membership of it. Why should membership of the single market have any advantage over a free trade deal with it? That is the real question. Most puzzling of all—I was amazed by what the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, said—we also get the phrase “the customs union” waved around as though it was an argument in itself. I thought we had come a long way; I thought we believed in free trade. Many of those who advocate remaining in the customs union, behind the tariff wall, are those who used to deplore the stalling of the free trade talks and the Doha round. One would have thought they would have been well beyond the idea of a customs union, an idea that I think is completely outdated. Then we are told, “Well, we must have a Brexit for jobs and for the economy”. We can all say amen to that; it is precisely the object of the negotiations.

I listened with great admiration to the speech of the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury when he talked about the need to remove or lessen the toxicity of this debate. He appealed for more mutual understanding. He put forward the idea of a joint commission. I do not agree with that, but I understand and agree with the spirit behind his idea. We should not be against co-operation, we should not be against consultation with other parties, if it is done seriously and sincerely. In fact, the manifesto positions of the two main parties have an awful lot in common. I say the two main parties because I obviously exclude the Liberals, who seem to have adopted the position of Bertolt Brecht in 1953 after the East German uprising, when he sarcastically stated that the Government should dissolve the people and elect another. It ought to be possible to transform the public mandate for Brexit into a political consensus between the main parties.

It is hardly surprising that the position of the two main parties has been converging because, although it is not popular to say in this House, the public recognise the need to control our borders, not least at a time when the population increased last year by 580,000 people. Of course, with control we will still be able to have come as immigrants into this country people with the necessary skills, or the necessary unskilled people to fill certain jobs, but the public have made it very clear that they wanted tighter control of our borders. Once one has accepted that, once one has also accepted free trade, the logic is inescapable that one must leave the single market.

There is so much that we agree on, so much that was agreed in the two manifestos, such as the position of EU nationals, in principle. We possibly need some transitional phase—only in the sense of implementation —in order to have no cliff edge. The noble Lord, Lord Hill, the former Commissioner who has so much experience of the EU, advised this House—I think he was advising the Brexiteers particularly—that we should watch our rhetoric because, he said, Brussels follows what is said and what is written in the British newspapers; it follows our debates. I agree, but that advice applies to both sides; it applies to the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, and the Liberals as well. They should be careful of their language. Whatever our views, it is in the interests of everyone and in the interests of the country to get the best deal. There will be ups and downs in the negotiations. Pouncing with glee on any remark made by Monsieur Barnier or any moment when some request by the British side has been rejected is not helpful or in the national interest. The wrong rhetoric here can give the wrong impression in Brussels.

Brexit has not been altered by the election result: 580 MPs ran on manifestos that promise to honour the referendum result and explicitly to leave the single market and end free movement, and this House by consensus should support that.