Poverty: International Development Aid

Lord Lamont of Lerwick Excerpts

Monday 15th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

The right reverend Prelate is right to raise that question. I will take back the specific issue of an update on the strategy and write to him, but we believe very much in localised solutions. That is why, when we consulted on the White Paper, there were more than 70 countries that we consulted with, and we received about 426 replies from about 46 countries. That ensured that our White Paper demonstrably showed what local needs stood for. On the development of the paper, I will write to the right reverend Prelate.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)]

My noble friend has mentioned many factors: aid, education, tax. The one word he has not mentioned is trade. Does he not agree that trade liberalisation is one of the greatest engines for relieving poverty? That is how the countries of south-east Asia went from undeveloped status to middle-income status. Is not one of the greatest threats to developing countries today the increase in protectionism, much of which exists among the advanced industrial countries, including the United States and Europe?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

I totally agree with my noble friend I am sure that Hansard will correct me otherwise, but I think I did mention trade. I agree that trade is part and parcel of this, which is why we are working with the BII and British investment partnerships to ensure that we raise and leverage more financing to ensure sustainability. It is not just about providing aid; this is about development support, which allows countries to really progress directly themselves, and we need private finance and the private sector to work hand in glove with us on this.

Trade (Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership) Bill [HL]

Lord Lamont of Lerwick Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 21st November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to be the first speaker from this side of the House to congratulate my noble friend, as I must call him now, on his excellent maiden speech and to welcome him to these Benches. Time flies: today I am welcoming him to the House but it does not seem so long ago that I was begging him not to resign as Prime Minister. It is a notable day for the House of Lords when we welcome a former Prime Minister who is also the new Foreign Secretary. Whatever the House of Commons may think, it is indisputably good for the House of Lords to have an additional Cabinet Minister in its ranks. He is the first former Prime Minister to return to Cabinet rank since Alec Douglas-Home almost 50 years ago. Before the war, it was quite the norm, with Baldwin, Ramsay MacDonald and Chamberlain all returning to government. It is a mystery to me why, today, we still have this self-defeating idea that former Prime Ministers should never return to front-line politics. I am glad that my noble friend has broken that rule.

Many people were surprised at the appointment of my noble friend. I was not wholly surprised. I hope I am not breaking any confidence, and my noble friend has probably forgotten, but about a year ago we had a conversation in which I asked him whether he would ever be interested in perhaps a big international job or becoming Foreign Secretary. He was not wholly convincing in his denial that he was not remotely interested. What I do know about the noble Lord is that he strongly believes in public service, and that is the reason why he is sitting where he is today.

The noble Lord and I go back quite some way, to when we both worked in the Treasury. He was always my brilliant spad. He was the master of detail and strategy. I always thought that he would go far and would achieve high office, but what I did not foresee was the rapidity with which he did so, becoming leader of the party in 2005, only four years after entering the Commons, and Prime Minister five years later.

We had some difficult times together. There was one moment when the noble Lord gave me a present; he may have forgotten this. It was a mahogany box about a foot long, and it contained the biggest Cuban cigar you could possibly imagine. There was a yellow notelet attached, which had on it in his handwriting the words, “By the time you smoke this, all your troubles will be over”. Well, my Lords, I never smoked it; I still have it. At times, when watching my noble friend as Prime Minister, I was tempted to send it back to him, but he would never have had need of it, because he has huge resilience.

I need hardly say that my noble friend faces huge challenges as Foreign Secretary. It is a dangerous world. One thing we know is that, when you have an unbelievably large number of difficult problems in politics, there is always another unexpected one coming round the corner. My noble friend, however, has the ability and experience to face these difficulties. This House has great experience in global affairs and there is a degree of common ground between the two sides of the House. The whole House will therefore wish to support him and wish him well. As they say, we look forward to hearing him again.

I welcome the Bill before us today. Before I move on to the detail of the Bill, I want to make one general point about trade that worries me considerably: the whole world, including the UK, is slipping back into protectionism. The retreat from globalisation is in danger of going too far. Yes, we have had the shocks of Covid and of the war in Ukraine. The emphasis has been on terms like “resilience”, “security of supply”, “strategic autonomy” and “self-sufficiency”, but too often these words are just disguised protectionism. Every sector considers itself strategic; we have to be self-sufficient in everything from cheese to steel. That is not the way to go. That is the way to becoming uncompetitive and poorer. Of course we have to pay some regard to the risks to supply that have emerged in recent years, but the answer to uncertainty of supply is to diversify your suppliers, not always to reach towards self-sufficiency. We ought to recognise that a policy of self-sufficiency comes at a price: a price to living standards and to the cost of living.

Let us not forget that the globalisation of recent years raised living standards—sure, there were losers in Europe as well as gainers—and the world as a whole gained a huge amount. Freedom of trade is not just an abstract idea; it is a positive instrument for improving the condition of people worldwide. We should also remember that, in the 1930s, the retreat to protectionism was one of the factors that, combined with others, contributed to the Great Depression. Like my noble friend Lord Hannan, who often uses this quote, I very much believe in John Bright’s idea—I think it was him—that “trade is God’s diplomacy”, improving relations between countries and improving the stability of the world. I make this general point because one thing about the CPTPP that I very much approve of is that it incorporates a commitment to furthering the cause of free trade. I think that is extremely important.

My noble friend emphasised all the statistics— I will not repeat them—about the CPTPP area: the growth of population and the extent to which it is supposed to contribute to the growth of the world economy in the next few years. Indeed, I believe, half the world’s middle- class consumers will soon be around the Pacific Rim. When combined with the UK, the area will account for 15% of world GDP, which is roughly the same as that of the EU; but, by 2050, the CPTPP area will account for 25%, whereas the EU will account for only 10%.

The CPTPP is, I need hardly say, very different from the EU. It is not a customs union or a single market. There is no TPP law, no TPP commission and no move towards a single currency. I note with a degree of scepticism that the Government say our commitment to the CPTPP is also furthering free nations, but among our partners there is one communist single-party state and one Islamic absolute monarchy as well. I am not quite sure how those fit in—I am not in any way criticising—but this is a free trade area above anything else. It fits in, of course, with the Government’s political objective of the tilt to the Indo-Pacific region, which was reinforced by the defence White Paper.

A number of commentators, including the noble Lord, Lord Collins, have tried to dismiss the importance of CPTPP a little because of the statistic that it will contribute, as he put it, only less than 1% to growth. This ignores the political context of the region and of joining this organisation, whether or not the 0.08% statistic that is bandied about is right. Perhaps the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Johnson, will comment on this when he comes to wind up, because I noticed in the Sunday Telegraph that the Secretary of State said she did not believe this figure, which has been officially quoted. But whether the contribution to growth of 0.08% is right or not, it ignores the potential. These are, as my noble friend Lord Cameron said, very fast- growing economies and we cannot predict precisely how trade flows will react to those.

Apart from anything else, this is a very deep free trade agreement. I stress that it is a free trade agreement, not a single market or a customs union. But it is a deep agreement and it has these advantages: it covers services, which are important to the UK, because we are the second-largest exporter of services in the world; for goods, there is a single set of rules of origin, which allows all content to be accumulated, provided that it originates in a CPTPP country; there is a good text also on sectors such as digital services, which are of increasing importance; it also gets rid of the need to have a local office before you can sell services into the market of the bloc. These are considerable advantages but, as I said before, one has to look at this very much in its political context and the tilt to the Indo-Pacific region.

The original TPP, the predecessor of the CPTPP, had the United States in it. Had the United States remained in it and President Trump not withdrawn from it, it would be one of the largest trading blocs in the world, amounting to 30% of world GDP. With 30% of world GDP, we would have been in a strong position with our allies there to play a huge part in influencing the rules governing the world economy. Originally, the United States was hoping that by joining the TPP, as it once stated that it was planning to do, it would be able to constrain the role of China in setting the rules of the world economy. We must hope that the United States will think again. I know that President Biden said initially that he might be interested in rejoining and then has lately tried to distance himself from it, but it would be important if America did join because the CPTPP has strong rules—much stronger than the WTO—about state-owned enterprises, which has been one of the main ways in which the Chinese have been criticised for how they compete unfairly with companies in the West.

In response, the United States has also set up the Indo-Pacific economic framework, a bloc that includes Indonesia. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Johnson, would comment when he winds up on how he sees the relationship between the two. To many it appears that the latest one, which America set up, is largely just a high-level discussion forum. It will not really be a rival to the CPTPP, but it would be interesting to know what the US Government have told him about this.

I welcome the Bill and our joining the CPTPP. It points the way to a very exciting future, which we should be very eager to grasp and take our full part in it.

Iran

Lord Lamont of Lerwick Excerpts

Thursday 6th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)]

My Lords, I draw the House’s attention to my register of interests entry, particularly as the trade envoy to Iran. I very strongly support what the Minister and the Government have said. Does the Minister agree that this is an appalling throwback to the way Iran behaved immediately after the Iranian Revolution in 1979, when there were a lot of attacks and assassinations in European countries, particularly France? It is utterly intolerable that a state that calls itself a legitimate Government should seek to attack people within their own country, on British soil.

The Minister referred to the new measures as a toolkit. Can he say precisely in what way this differs in its scope, and not just in the number of entities, from the regime of sanctions that we have had in the past? Can he also say something about the role of the E3? Does the E3, including France and Germany, which played an important part in developing our negotiations, particularly over the nuclear deal, still exist? Or, now that we are outside the EU, has that fallen by the wayside and we have to co-ordinate with the EU more generally?

Can the Minister also tell me whether the Charity Commission has been looking at some of the Iranian cultural and religious institutions in this country, to make sure that they comply strictly to their charitable objectives and are not supporting any of these utterly deplorable acts and threats that we have seen in this country?

Lastly, on the JCPOA, the Minister described it as being alive. He will know, as will other Members of the House, that there have been a lot of reports that America is trying to develop an alternative to the JCPOA—a more informal, less detailed agreement, but one that would freeze the present position. I wonder whether he can comment on that, though I have my doubts that he will be able to or want to.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, I will take each of the issues in turn. First, on the governance and the announcement made today, this is a new Iran-specific sanctions regime, which is, in terms of the geography, the first autonomous one. We have had rollovers of what we did with the European Union, but this is specific to Iran. When we have previously sanctioned, we have done so under the so-called Magnitsky-style sanctions for human rights violations. That is why the Foreign Secretary was able to announce a further 13 designations under that governance structure of the human rights sanctions regime.

On the issue of charities, we of course work very closely with the Charity Commission. Without going into further details, there is an ongoing review of all organisations that operate to ensure that they adhere to the rules of the Charity Commission. On the suppression of communities within Iran, it is startling and abhorrent that in 2022 Iran executed at least 576 people. That is a minimum figure and is nearly double the previous year. The latest assessments in 2023 indicate that the rate of executions continues to climb, I think to circa 300 already this year. A lot of these executions have what can only be described as a fragile basis. Our long-standing view on the death penalty is very clear: we oppose it. Equally, it is shocking to see that these are young people, often men, who have committed nothing but protest. Even some who have brought glory to Iran are now subject to this most abhorrent of measures.

I referred to the JCPOA as a live deal in as much as it is the one on the table. E3 co-operation continues. As I said, we continue to engage at official level. There is much speculation about, but I will resist the temptation to comment on it; my noble friend will appreciate that. Its primary objective must be non-proliferation and that Iran does not progress on to acquiring nuclear weapons. The JCPOA provides those provisions. As I said, it still awaits a key signature: that of Iran.

EU: Trade in Goods (European Affairs Committee Report)

Lord Lamont of Lerwick Excerpts

Thursday 2nd February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)]

My Lords, I got a great shock when I arrived at the House today because I had not realised that my noble friend was going to make her valedictory speech. It is a moment of great sadness for me to be standing here, following her wonderful speech. She and I were personal friends for many years before we both joined the House of Commons. Outside this House, we have also worked together in the private sector.

She has had an outstanding and very noteworthy political career, serving in four departments, as she said. She is particularly well known for her work in the Department of Health and Social Security and, perhaps most of all, her work for overseas development. She served with such energy and distinction that some of us at the time were deeply puzzled why Mrs Thatcher did not make her a member of the Cabinet. Although she often attended Cabinet, she was never given a Cabinet post. Most of us thought she richly deserved one because of her work.

No one could possibly doubt my noble friend’s commitment to development and to improving the lot of the poor of the world. She is a very familiar figure in Africa because she has spent so much time there in recent years; she is known, I think, in almost every country of the continent. She will be very much missed there, as she will be in this House. Her speech of enormous warmth, humility and modesty showed the very great qualities which will be deeply missed by us all. I thank her for all her service.

[Noble Lords]

Hear, hear!

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)]

I speak today as a member of the Select Committee, and I pay tribute to our chairman, the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, who, with his calm, precise and diplomatic chairmanship, managed to get us to reach a report which is—more or less, give or take a few commas—unanimous. It was quite difficult because there were different views within the Select Committee. I join him in thanking our staff.

I was one of the few supporters of Brexit on the Select Committee, and I think that in today’s debate I am its only supporter. I supported Brexit on the grounds of sovereignty, independence and identity, rather than on economics—although I would not have supported it if I had thought that the long-term economic effects would be detrimental. This debate coincides with the third anniversary of Brexit. I am not quite sure what the significance is of the third anniversary, but it gives people a chance to pull the plant up by its roots, examine it, and put forward various theories.

Our report, through no fault of anyone other than the system, is massively out of date; as the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, said, it was addressing particular points at that particular time. The report was merely a snapshot of the problems that companies were facing immediately after the end of the transition period, so a lot of those problems—but not all—were teething problems with new systems coming into existence. Our report refers only fleetingly to the infrastructure problems that were forecast to occur at the ports. As noble Lords may remember, we were told at the time that there would be vast queues in Kent, resulting in the whole county being turned into a car park, and that Dover would be impossible to move in. We had Operation Yellowhammer and all those other very alarmist ideas. The most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury initiated a debate on the situation. However, none of it came to pass, and our report possibly rather underplays that.

Many of the recommendations in the report are about clarifying the administrative arrangements at the time, including changes in deadlines that were uncomfortable for business, and the effects on SMEs. One of the interesting points in our report is what it says about the absence of import controls; it is something of a curiosity. We came to the conclusion that the failure of the Government to meet their target date for imposing import controls was causing uncertainty. Perhaps it was, but one of the oddities was that, despite the absence of import controls when there were controls on the other side of the channel on British exports, British exports were doing much better than continental exports from the EU into this country. I think that that underlines the point that not all the problems that occurred were entirely due to Brexit or the Brexit regulations.

Three years on, our economy is undoubtedly facing very considerable problems. Sometimes I feel that almost everything is being blamed on Brexit. The day before yesterday, Mr Verhofstadt said that Ukraine would not have been invaded had it not been for Brexit—that seemed to be a rather extreme statement. Then there was the statement by a distinguished former Governor of the Bank of England, who claimed that in 2016 the UK’s GDP was

“90 per cent the size of Germany’s. Now it is less than 70 per cent.”

That is, as a leading economist in one of the remainer think tanks said, something of a “zombie” statistic. In fact, since 2016, the GDPs of Germany and the UK have grown by almost exactly the same amount. The report emphasises, as the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, did, that it is almost impossible to separate the effects of Covid and Brexit—and it was published before the invasion of Ukraine, which has added another complicating factor, making it very difficult to separate that as well.

For example, to take the shortages of labour, which are common to a number of countries, including the United States, but a very severe problem here, if during Covid a restaurant is closed and an Italian waiter decides to return to his own country, Italy, is that because of Covid or because the restaurant was teetering under the hammer from Brexit? Was it Covid or Brexit? It is very difficult to say.

Some people are determined to torture the statistics until they confess up the right answer. One example of that is the so-called doppelganger analysis used by certain think tanks. This is the system that takes a number of countries, which in the past were growing at the same rate in a particular period, and extrapolates that forward to today. It then comes up with the conclusion that, if we had grown at the same rate as these countries, our economy would be 5% greater. This has been recycled repeatedly in a lot of the media. But of course it depends, first, on the period that you choose and, secondly, on the countries that you are comparing yourself with. In the analyses that have been used, the countries that Britain has been compared with in some of the think tanks’ findings have been countries such as Australia, New Zealand and Norway—hardly a very persuasive comparison.

Rather than looking in the crystal ball, one should read it in the book. As the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, pointed out, the ONS figures now published give a more encouraging picture for exports. As he said, exports in 2022 in currency terms are at a record level and, adjusted for inflation, at a level not seen since 2019. If you look at the graph, it looks as though exports are broadly back on trend. Of course, we have had recently a much-publicised and gloomy report from the IMF forecasting that the UK economy will shrink this year; it does not actually mention Brexit. Today the Bank of England has said that it expects the economy to shrink this year, but by less than it had previously thought. Sometimes these reports in the recent past have been over-pessimistic for the British economy. But as I said earlier, since 2016 the British economy has grown at much the same rate as that of Germany.

One subject on which there was a lot of debate in our committee was divergence—to what extent regulation should be allowed to diverge from the previous model in the European Union. Some members of the committee were particularly apprehensive about that, clinging to the idea that we should remain aligned in regulation. My view is that we certainly should not make a fetish of divergence—we should not diverge for the sake of divergence—but it is important to have the parliamentary power and freedom to diverge. But those decisions should be driven by industry and commerce. Divergence is very important for new technology. As the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, said, we had the arguments around SPS and agricultural products, and our report urges that there should be an agreement with the EU on SPS. Yes, there should be an agreement—but that should not necessarily mean alignment.

The report refers to the review of the TCA due in 2024-25, and rightly urges that the UK Government use the 32 specialised committees, the partnership council and the joint committee to build on the trade arrangement that we have and build on the TCA to get arrangements that are more flexible and comprehensive, to develop a relationship that is mutually beneficial. I remain a supporter of Brexit but that is the past. It is important now to improve our relationship. We can be a third country to Europe, but a good friend, a strong ally and a partner. We should put the past behind us and, as the noble Lord, Lord Hague, said to our committee, we should adjust to the future, rather than attempt to adjust Brexit. I commend the report to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, as one of the flurry of former members of the committee who has contributed to this debate today, I also add my thanks and appreciation to the clerking staff and for the policy support that the committee has received. I also commend the canny diplomacy—as I think the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, put it—of our chair, the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull: it is quite a task to bring across unanimity on issues such as trade and Brexit. I also commend him for the parent committee on the Northern Ireland protocol and unanimous reports on that. So I think that I might take him with me on my next visit to the Middle East—and leave the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, at home, if that is all right.

The debate ended with three contributions showing the human element to this. I am not foreign to using statistics—in fact, I will be relaying some later on in my contribution—but reminding us of the human impact within goods and on non-financial services is very important. The debate also had a very human element at the start with the valedictory speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker. One of the signs, I think, of good politicians that I have admired is that people who they do not recall having met have a very fond opinion of them. When I was David Steel’s bag carrier when he was an MP and a shadow of the former Minister, she was always very pleasant to me, a humble researcher. Then when I worked briefly in this place as a member of staff for my then noble friend Lord Steel of Aikwood, she was also very generous and kind towards me. I hope she forgives me for saying so, but she was elected a month after I was born—so I cannot compete with those who met her earlier on in her career.

I took the opportunity, having noticed, as others had, that she was going to be making her valedictory contribution today, of reading her maiden speech in the House of Commons on 15 March 1974. She was highly regarded and very well noted for development, with, as the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, indicated, nearly nine years in that post, whereas her successors as Ministers for Africa have lasted an average of nine months. That shows the contribution that she made. I will never forget the emotional plea that she made in 2015 on the 0.7% Bill, when she appealed to her successors as Ministers to have predictability in overseas development assistance. Alas, her successors have not heeded that, at the cost to the poorest in the world and our standing in the world.

In her maiden speech, she called for something which so many of us now take for granted—I look at my noble friend Lady Brinton, who perhaps still has to struggle on this issue. But I will quote just one line from what she said in her maiden speech, if the House will forgive me. She said:

“I suggest that the Secretary of State for Industry should instruct his planners and those carrying out the work to ensure that, when they dig up roads, kerbstones and cornerstones, they replace them with sloping stones to enable wheelchairs and, indeed, mothers with prams, to get along more easily. Far too often we go back to doing the old thing the old way, because we have not thought about it anew. If the right hon. Gentleman could plan in that way, it would be better than creating a castle in the sky in the shape of a national enterprise board.”—[Official Report, Commons, 15/3/1974; cols. 571-72.]


Well, the contributions that she has made and what she called for then, which we take for granted now, have made a real difference to people’s lives, and that is also a testimony to her career.

Now to castles in the sky—except that this one has Brexit-shaped ramparts. I admire the defence of the lone noble Lord, Lord Lamont, on those ramparts in this debate, but nevertheless we are one year on, as the committee said. We are one year on from the committee report, and three from Brexit. The Financial Times editorial board yesterday put it like this:

“In the 1970s, the UK was known as the ‘sick man of Europe’. Today it seems to be the sick man of the developed world.”


Citing the forecast by the IMF, which has been raised in this debate, but also the actual ONS outturn data on GDP, we have heard that, uniquely among developed economies, we have not regained pre-pandemic GDP levels.

Our businesses are suffering the whiplash of three Conservative Prime Ministers since the 2019 election, each saying they are a new Government, each condemning the economic policies of their predecessors, while all the time keeping new burdens and barriers on business, leading to, as the FT put it,

“incoherence in economic policy and exacerbated business reluctance to invest.”

That is not just within pure trading barriers, as we have heard so well in this debate.

I respectfully disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Lamont. We did not just analyse the teething problems of Brexit; as we have heard, many of these issues that we thought were teething are now permanent, and they are hardwired into the relationship we now have, whether it is SPS or cabotage, to name just two of many. These barriers to trading have a cost, and the cost is enormous.

This is not often debated, but the Government have a current framework called the business impact target. That is the target for the economic impact of their regulatory activity on business. It is called the BIT. The Regulatory Policy Committee, independent but nevertheless official, is the independent verification body. In its report, it said:

“For the 2017-2019 Parliament, the relevant government set a BIT target of a £9 billion reduction in direct costs over the length of the Parliament, however the final position was an increase in costs of £7.8 billion. Similarly, the government has set a holding target of £0 for the current Parliament”—


that is the one we are in—

“but in the first year of the Parliament, there was an increase of £5.7 billion (excluding the very significant impacts of temporary COVID-related measures).”

So, I want to ask the Minister what the current position is. What is the Government’s own current estimate of the actual cost on business of the additional burdens they have put in place? The numbers on the side of the Brexit bus need to be updated, of course, because, while the savings were always fanciful—I think many of us knew that—the costs are already outweighing them multifold, and the barriers erected by this Government on trading with our biggest market are a weight on our many SMEs and exporters.

Of course, as the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, indicated, with the REUL Bill we will be debating, there is going to be uncertainty added on to these costs. But all of us know that uncertainty becomes costs, and that is going to be an added burden. It is well worth noting that the same Regulatory Policy Committee for the impact assessment of that Bill has rated it “red”—not fit for purpose. The Government simply are not learning lessons. No Government in the history of this nation—only perhaps the Conservative-led National Government who introduced protective tariffs, which led to the Liberals leaving—have set on businesses a heavier weight of bureaucracy and burden. It simply must be reduced or removed.

The Government think that giving preferential market access to modest trading friends on the other side of the world without anything in return will offset the massive barriers they are putting up on trading with the huge market on the other side of the channel. Trade agreements seemingly negotiated by Prince Potemkin are not offering the growth to fill this void. The trade in the Far East or Asia that, it was argued, would offset this is simply not coming to pass. We know we have already missed the manifesto target for 80% of all our trade through FTAs by 2022, so I want to ask the Minister: will we be meeting it in this Parliament? I do not see a trajectory that suggests that that is going to be the case. Now that we are seeing trade barriers erected with our biggest market, we have seen decline.

I was very struck by the point the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, raised with regards to comparing GDP growth with Germany over the last couple of years. Before the debate, I wanted to make sure I was very accurate with the OECD data—not forecast data but real data on what has happened. The noble Lord was right about the last couple of years.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)]

My figures were from 2016.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

I will retract what I was going to say. The noble Lord is wrong about 2016, but he would be right if he was talking about the last couple of years. He did not highlight the most relevant factor, which I found when I accessed the OECD database this morning and looked at 2016 to the current position: in 2020, the UK’s economy collapsed far deeper than that of any other OECD country. Regaining average levels over the period since Covid has not offset the massive fall that happened in 2020.

Taking the average over 2016 to 2022, we are behind Germany. In quarter 2 of 2020, UK GDP fell 22.6% and Germany’s fell 10%. The following quarter, we fell 10.3% and Germany fell 2.5%. In the quarter after that, we fell 9.2% and Germany fell 2.1%. The 2020 collapse of the British economy because of Covid was far deeper, so any regrowth is coming from a deeper hole, and therefore the average over this period shows that we are considerably behind Germany. I do not think that simply stating that we show comparable growth figures over the last couple of years tells that full story.

We are also not going to have a level playing field, which was one of the highlighted freedoms of having the ability to innovate. The power to innovate is all very well if we assume that no one else is innovating—but of course they are. We may have said, “Stop the EU, we want to get off”, but the EU did not stop moving, and therefore we have to look at this on a comparable basis. That is why I will close by looking at the really important border issues.

The Government have stated that, in just over 18 months’ time, in 2025, we will have the best border in the world—that is the target. However, as the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, indicated, we are still operating on temporary measures; we still do not have the facilities in place. The National Audit Office stated that the border operating model uses “temporary” or interim measures,

“delaying the introduction of full import controls.”

That is simply not sustainable. It is compounded by the recent decision to pull money away from the levelling-up fund to give £45 million to Dover to fix problems created by this Government. They are even taking money away from the very communities that were promised benefits from Brexit.

We have a Potemkin trade policy, and, like many charades, it gradually wears thin, the paint flakes and we all see it for what it really is. The FT editorial yesterday finished with an appeal to the Chancellor for his March Budget. It said:

“If he cannot go beyond mere buzzwords, the latest bout of ‘British disease’ will become ever more chronic.”


We want to see practical policies from this Government that will realistically help our trade and economy.

Ireland/Northern Ireland Protocol: Scrutiny of EU Legislative Proposals (European Affairs Committee Sub-Committee Report)

Lord Lamont of Lerwick Excerpts

Friday 20th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)]

My Lords, I speak as a member of the main EU Select Committee. I warmly welcome the sub-committee’s report and I thank my fellow member the noble Lord, Lord Jay, and his colleagues for their hard work and the detailed and constructive recommendations in the report.

The Northern Ireland protocol has produced an unprecedented awkward situation whereby the laws of a foreign jurisdiction are to apply in certain respects to part of the United Kingdom—that is, Northern Ireland. That will include 300 laws, new laws and dynamic alignment whereby existing laws, when they are changed, will cause Northern Ireland to change its laws too. It is therefore extremely important, if we are to have EU law in part of the UK, that there be proper parliamentary scrutiny by the House of Commons, by the Northern Ireland Assembly and of course by this House. We cannot alter EU law but the scrutiny, as the noble Lord has said, enables us to understand the implications and bring what influence we can to bear. It is also important that EU legislators are aware of the specific circumstances of Northern Ireland and take them into account.

The committee has produced a plethora of practical and constructive recommendations to improve scrutiny at all stages, including pre-legislative consultation. I warmly welcome them but, call it what you like—accountability, transparency, glasnost—it can take one only so far. There remains the fundamental problem, as the Government’s reply says, of the democratic deficit. It used that phrase, as did the noble Lord, Lord Jay. This situation cannot be resolved simply by scrutiny.

The Government make an important point in paragraph 30 of their reply to the committee when they say that

“the imposition of EU law … was not a necessary consequence of”

Brexit, any more than Brexit

“required dynamic alignment, or the ‘backstop’. The imposition of EU law was a consequence of the EU’s unwillingness to accept other solutions … We need to see much more ambition from the EU to engage on the changes necessary to give Northern Ireland institutions … a meaningful role in shaping the rules applicable in Northern Ireland.”

That is of course the problem at which the Government’s stalled protocol Bill was partly aimed. These are very important points in the Government’s reply to the committee because they are frank, and they are saying that it is not just the sometimes-alleged intransigence of unionist politicians but also the inflexibility of the EU that has been holding things up.

The reply does not mention the issue of cross-community consent, which would obviously be outside the terms of reference of the committee, but that consent has been an important part of democracy in Northern Ireland ever since the Good Friday agreement. Its absence might well be regarded by unionists as a most important part of the democratic deficit. It would be good to know from the Minister today what more the Government think can be done to fix—if fix is the right word, or if it is possible—the democratic deficit. Is this just some minor constitutional outrage that eventually we have to learn to live with? Do the Government see the dual regulatory regime, as has been hinted, as helping to solve this problem? How would it do that, when for some people that would be opting out of the direct imposition of EU law? Is that practical and would it really be acceptable to the EU?

Mr Varadkar said recently that perhaps the EU’s interpretation of the protocol had been too strict. That sounded as though the EU might be prepared to be more flexible but, almost immediately, his words were qualified by the Commission. We read about the progress that has been made with proposals for red and green channels, potentially minimising checks on goods going from GB to Northern Ireland. This is very welcome and might help to stop the artificial diversion of trade, which weakens the economic link between GB and Northern Ireland and undoubtedly alarms unionists, but it would still leave the political problem.

We are all anxious to see power-sharing back—to have the Assembly and Executive back. It would be good, if possible, to welcome President Biden to the Good Friday anniversary. I recognise that the Government have a difficult job but, as things stand, it is very difficult to see where the landing zone is going to be.

Execution of Alireza Akbari

Lord Lamont of Lerwick Excerpts

Wednesday 18th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)]

My Lords, I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the register of interests. Is my noble friend aware that it is almost impossible to find words strong enough to condemn this outrage—this judicial killing? Is he also aware that the Iranian regime has suggested that Sir Richard Dalton, our former ambassador in Tehran, was the British key point of contact with Mr Akbari? When I spoke to Sir Richard 48 hours ago, he told me that to the very best of his knowledge, he has never met Mr Akbari in his life, either here in London or in Tehran. Is this not just yet another lie by the Iranian regime, designed to impress on the Iranian people the myth that somehow, their problems are caused by foreigners rather than by their own brutal incompetence?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, I totally agree with my noble friend and I could not express my abhorrence of this in clearer terms than those he has outlined. What is becoming increasingly clear is that these abhorrent executions take place on trumped-up charges, often relating to people who are perhaps seeking through their own good will to provide hope for Iran and to bring some semblance of normality to the future of Iranian communities and the Iranian people. Shockingly, this goes from bad to worse.

If I may, I missed a point that I wanted to raise with the noble Lord, Lord Collins, about activities here in the UK. I know of a particular centre in Maida Vale into which the Charity Commission is working on an inquiry. We are working closely with the Home Office and across government on all these issues to ensure that, as I said, all the levers that we have in our hands are exercised effectively.

Iran: Women’s Rights

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Wednesday 12th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord about the important role the BBC plays both in Iran and elsewhere in the world. Although it is operationally and editorially independent from the Government, we recognise that the BBC World Service plays a very important role. The FCDO is providing the BBC World Service with over £94 million annually for the next three years, supporting services in 12 languages. Of course, I hear very carefully what the noble Lord has said. BBC Persia itself and the journalists have suffered great suppression. We have spoken out very clearly and loudly against that suppression as well.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)]

My Lords, I support what the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, has said about rights for women and declare my interests as in the register. When the Minister next meets a counterpart from Iran, will he point out to them that even Saudi Arabia is liberalising dress restrictions and has confined the religious police to barracks, and that Iran is in danger of becoming more restrictive even than Saudi Arabia? Will he not agree that, if the president of Iran wants it to be believed that wearing the hijab is a personal choice, he should not insist that western journalists interviewing him in New York wear the hijab?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

I agree with my noble friend but I would go further. It is not the president of Iran; Islam states that it is a woman’s choice. It is the religion that gives women the choice. We cannot have coercive practices. It is a woman’s choice as to whether she wears the hijab, the niqab, or no hijab or niqab at all. That is what should prevail in Iran and elsewhere.

Russia and Ukraine: Settlement

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Thursday 26th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, there is a simple answer to that. Any partner to a negotiation needs to uphold the rule of law. Russia has repeatedly failed, including in 2008 through its aggression in Georgia and in 2014 through its annexation of Crimea. Those were illegal acts of aggression, as is the current war in Ukraine.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)]

My Lords, has my noble friend read the speech of Henry Kissinger in Davos, where he advised attendees at the conference not to get swept up in the mood of the moment and suggested that negotiations to end the war had to begin in the next two months

“before it creates upheavals and tensions that will not be easily”

contained? He suggested that the starting point for negotiations should be the pre-invasion de facto borders. Does my noble friend agree that Dr Kissinger is no woolly idealist but a hard-headed diplomat with a very distinguished record? However inconvenient it may be, should not his advice be carefully studied?

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe: Forced Confession

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Tuesday 24th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, on the noble Baroness’s second question, I believe the Prime Minister met Nazanin and Richard directly, as I said in my earlier answer, and he has previously expressed regret if his statement in any way impacted on Nazanin’s continued detention.

I can confirm to the noble Baroness that we have indeed received Redress’s most recent correspondence. While we do not recognise all the claims made in the letter, we will respond in due course.

On the issue the noble Baroness raises of British nationals and detainees around the world, I am sure she is aware that the Foreign Affairs Committee has announced an inquiry in this respect, and we will of course co-operate fully with it.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)]

My Lords, I draw the attention of the House to my entry in the Register of Lords’ Interests. I express my dismay—indeed, anger—at this extraordinarily cruel treatment of Nazanin after agreement had been reached between the two Governments for her release. Was this not a clear breach of the understanding that had been reached between the two Governments? Is this not the second time in this negotiation for the release of dual nationals after the payment of the tank money had been made that the Iranian Government broke their word, as they had promised to release Morad Tahbaz from Evin prison and then he was rearrested after 24 hours? How on earth can the Iranian Government expect people to accept their word in any negotiation over a nuclear agreement that may or may not be reached? Have we not reached the point of disillusionment?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, I agree with my noble friend. The IMS debt, a subject which several noble Lords have repeatedly raised, was owed by the United Kingdom Government and it was right that it was paid. While the details of the terms remain confidential, it is clear that the proceeds of those funds are primarily assigned specifically and only for humanitarian causes. Equally, I agree with my noble friend that Iran needs to do some really hard thinking because, when agreements are reached, particularly on sensitive issues such as those around the JCPOA—the deal is now ready and on the table— every country comes to a negotiation in good faith and once agreements are reached it is incumbent on every country to uphold them.

Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action

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Thursday 7th April 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)]

My Lords, I draw attention to my entry in the register of interests as chairman of the British Iranian Chamber of Commerce and the Government’s trade envoy to Iran.

From the start, I acknowledge absolutely some of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Polak, about the concern that people have about Iran’s role in the region, its human rights record and the threat to Israel. I acknowledge those concerns; none the less, I wish to argue in favour of the JCPOA.

One of the criticisms is that it covered only the nuclear issue and did not cover Iran’s role in the region or its support for organisations such as Hezbollah. Despite the powerful case made by my noble friend Lord Polak, I think it would be a big mistake to reject a new JCPOA on those grounds alone. An effective nuclear agreement is well worth having on its own. It was extremely complicated and difficult to negotiate as it was, without getting wound up in other issues. Nuclear proliferation is not a trivial matter. We have seen with Russia how the West’s ability to respond is constrained by the fact that Russia is a nuclear power. Imagine how difficult it would be to deal with Iran and the Middle East if Iran was a nuclear power. Iran feels that it was cheated over the JCPOA. It kept to the agreement but President Trump, for no good reason, decided to tear it up. Iran seeks the restoration of what was agreed before, but not implemented, and it will not accept the sudden imposition of extra conditions.

My noble friend Lord Polak asked how sanctions can be lifted when we are maintaining sanctions against Russia. The sanctions that are being lifted—if I am wrong about this the Minister will correct me—precisely apply to the nuclear programme. They were applied to deter Iran from its nuclear programme. If Iran comes into compliance with the JCPOA, we surely want to build on a relationship with it and discuss other issues. It seems only reasonable that we should lift the sanctions that specifically applied in relation to the nuclear programme. There are lots of other sanctions that will remain. The proscription of the IRGC as a terrorist organisation is a bit of a side-track because there are so many sanctions on it already.

If the JCPOA were implemented, what would it mean? It would mean that advanced centrifuges would be demolished, stockpiles of uranium would be diminished and shipped out of the country and there would be even more inspections than there are now. Imagine the situation in which the JCPOA is not concluded. Iran will continue enriching, perhaps to weapons grade. It may chuck out the inspectors. It might withdraw from the non-proliferation treaty; we forget that Iran is a signatory to that. This would leave America with an appalling dilemma of whether to ignore what Iran was doing or to take military action against it.

My noble friend Lord Polak is right that there is a need to address the regional issues in the Gulf, but that needs to be done on a multilateral basis. He referred to missiles. We cannot call for the ending of Iran’s missiles without looking at those of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Israel—which has the Jericho missile, which has a much longer range than any other country’s missiles. If we are to move on to discussing these issues, that needs to be built on the confidence that will have come from implementing the JCPOA. Iran has its own security concerns. They need to be recognised and taken into account in any multilateral negotiations. Above all, Iran’s biggest fear is invasion. It suffered an invasion from Iraq, its neighbouring Arab country, and lost more lives than we lost in the Second World War.

Henry Kissinger said that Iran has to decide whether it is a cause or a country. That is right, but he went on to say that, in principle, the US should be open and prepared to reach a geopolitical understanding and develop a compatible system of regional order with Iran. It has to take into account Iran’s concerns, but I agree that eventually there should be talks and negotiations on these wider issues.