Afghanistan

Lord Lamont of Lerwick Excerpts

Wednesday 18th August 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)]

My Lords, the images of Kabul airport will remain in people’s minds for a very long time. This has been a deeply humiliating episode, deeply damaging to the credibility of the West. Like every other speaker in the debate, I pay tribute to our soldiers who have served in Afghanistan. They can hold their heads up high; their sacrifice has not been in vain, and we appreciate it.

After 20 years, it is hardly surprising that in America the appetite for the war was waning. However, if withdrawal was inevitable, the manner in which it was done was catastrophic. Did it have to be so abrupt and absolute? The US negotiated in Doha the equivalent of a surrender to the Taliban. All that was left was for the Taliban to follow through.

However, President Biden had a point when he said that America could hardly continue to fight when the Afghans themselves would not fight. After 20 years of training and expensive weapons, the Afghan army evaporated in the face of a smaller Taliban force. Perhaps that was to be expected when so many soldiers had not been paid for months and officials in Kabul diverted salaries into bank accounts. Corruption was the one institution that worked in Afghanistan. What has happened is tragic, but part of the tragedy was also the idea of Afghanistan as an incipient law-based democracy. It was always a challenging concept. Perhaps it worked in the better parts of Kabul or Herat, but not in Kandahar or in the rural areas, or in a country as tribal and as fragmented geographically as Afghanistan.

None the less, remarkable progress was made in developing civil society, education and women’s rights, and I pay tribute to the courageous women in Afghanistan. However, even after 20 years, that progress was fragile, depending as it did on a continuing protecting western military presence. That presence could not go on forever; the West would always have to leave at some point. And so this tragedy demonstrates why intervention is often so difficult. So often our interventions in the region, such as in Iraq and Libya, have not worked out as planned, and so often they have had unintended consequences. It is going a long way back, but remember that the Taliban came into existence out of US-Saudi support for the mujaheddin. All the original leaders of the Taliban were members of the mujaheddin who were welcomed in the White House in 1983 by Ronald Reagan. The US created a monster it could neither control nor defeat.

Some dignity needs to be salvaged out of this fiasco. We need to rescue as many as possible of the brave Afghans who supported our Armed Forces and women’s NGOs. As the Prime Minister said, countries should wait before recognising any new Government in Kabul. The US and NATO need to make clear to the Taliban that any hosting of al-Qaeda or ISIS will not be tolerated and will meet an immediate reply. But above all, we need to reassess our own policies and capabilities. We need a hard-headed, realistic view of our place in the world. Perhaps we should be a little bit careful about parading our aircraft carriers around the world, sabre-rattling to American cheers.

House of Lords: Remote Participation and Hybrid Sittings

Lord Lamont of Lerwick Excerpts

Thursday 20th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con) [V]]

My Lords, nothing that has been said or will be said today detracts from brilliant work of all those who have helped to make hybrid and virtual proceedings work in this House and have enabled us to continue working through the emergency. We are immensely grateful. However, in considering whether we continue with what were temporary measures, it is about one question and one question alone: “Is Parliament sufficiently holding the Government to account?” I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Newby, that we must move as the world moves—but I also agree with the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, that we are not just a business and it cannot be simply a question of efficiency.

There are some aspects of the new procedures that we may wish to continue: submitting questions by email rather than queueing in a draughty corridor seems long overdue. Improvement may also come from more time for Questions. Many will also favour keeping lists for Questions, rather than the bear garden that we dignify with the term “self-regulation”. However, the main questions cannot be divorced from social distancing, and until that has resolved it will be difficult to return to full normality. A House of Lords with social distancing cannot operate as a House of Lords.

Paradoxically, I am speaking remotely but I wish to argue against both remote participation and remote voting. I am speaking remotely because I cannot be present physically in the Chamber for the Leader’s wind-up tonight, and so the convention is that I should not participate in the House. I am sure that remote participation is not a satisfactory mode and it will be illustrated, I am sure, by my speech. Our Writ of Summons commands us to attend at Westminster. A Parliament where people are not physically present is not a Parliament at all. A lot of talking heads on screens suspended from the ceiling may make a good TV programme, but it is no substitute for a lively debate where people argue face to face with each other. What sort of debate is it where people cannot interrupt the wind-up of a Minister who has failed to answer the questions raised in the debate?

As has been said many times in this debate, and I apologise for repeating it, it is necessary to judge the mood of the House to decide whether to force a Division, as my noble friend Lord Cormack is going to have to decide later. But where there is no coughing with boredom, no muttering and no quiet laughter, there is no mood of the House to judge. The House of Lords is very polite House, possibly too polite, but with remote proceedings the politeness has become the stillness of the graveyard. We may not yet have bored ourselves rigid, but we are beginning to bore the public. The number of viewers of House of Lords proceedings on Parliamentlive.tv declined in 2020 compared with the previous year.

How we vote should not be a matter of convenience; it is a question of commitment. Remote voting requires hardly any interruption to whatever a person is doing. Mind you, I suppose in theory that remote voting could be the answer to the numbers problem in the House of Lords. We could have a House of 2,000, with no pressure on the facilities of the Chamber. Of course, that would be ridiculous, but remote voting and being paid for it is going to seem a lot more than ridiculous to the general public. The public will be outraged if life returns to normal and we continue to be paid to vote from the comfort of our own homes.

The noble Lord, Lord Hain, thought that the increase in voting was a sign of democracy that should be welcomed. I fear it may have other causes. Our temporary procedures have distorted behaviour. Speaking lists have become longer, requiring speeches to be ludicrously short. Sometimes the most distinguished people with the most to contribute have not been able to contribute very much. To squeeze more people in for Questions, Ministers are asked to be very brief with replies. Some of the replies would be recognised by Lloyd George, who used to tell the story of how once he got lost in his car when driving in Snowdonia. He stopped and asked a passer-by where he was. The passer-by replied, “You are in Wales”. Lloyd George always said that this was the perfect parliamentary answer: it was brief, it was true, and it told no one anything of any use. That is true of too many of the ministerial replies that we have had under our new procedures.

We agreed our procedures as temporary to cope with an emergency. As the country returns to normality, without doubt we must return to the procedures that were before. Parliament is not holding the Government to account and that is what the public expect us to do.

His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh

Lord Lamont of Lerwick Excerpts

Monday 12th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)]

My Lords, I join others in the House in sending condolences to Her Majesty and the Royal Family on their very sad loss. When, last Friday, I first heard the news of the death of His Royal Highness, my immediate instinct was to go down to Buckingham Palace to pay my respects outside, but then I discovered that that was officially discouraged. So, for that reason, it is a real privilege to have this opportunity to pay my tribute to His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh and to give thanks for his remarkable lifetime of service and unstinting support for Her Majesty.

In the part of London where I live, there is a large electric screen on the side of a building that every few minutes flips between advertisements for one bright product and another. Last Friday, within minutes of the news coming out about the death of the Duke, it was frozen; all it showed was a single black silhouette of a head against a white background. No words were necessary; the features on the head were unmistakable, and the message was clear: this country has suffered a great loss.

His Royal Highness lived a life of great intensity and saw many upheavals. He was a dashing figure from a previous generation of heroes: a brave man with a distinguished war record, and a man of action, reflection and dedication. The international reaction to his death was revealing. One expected warm words from Australia, Canada and New Zealand, and probably also from Zambia and Kenya, but there was also President Obrador, the left-wing President of Mexico, who thanked the Duke for his service to young people. All of us were aware of the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award scheme, but what has come out more fully in the few days since his death is its extraordinary scale and the numbers of people, including from this House, who have benefited from the scheme, and how young lives were altered all over the globe.

I had the privilege of meeting the Duke on quite a few occasions, and I always enjoyed it, but the only government business I ever had with His Royal Highness was to do with the coinage, because he was a member of the advisory committee. He took a huge interest in the heraldic aspects of the coinage and in which birds, animals and flora were to be represented. He was also concerned with practical issues, such as whether the £1 coin would be identifiable by the blind.

In his diaries, Gyles Brandreth wrote that the Duke told him I was the obstacle to renewing the life of the royal yacht “Britannia”. I was horrified. That was not correct, and I took the liberty of writing to His Royal Highness to say so. I received a typically short and to the point vintage two-sentence letter, which I treasure: “Dear Lamont, I have no recollection of saying any such thing to Brandreth. How would I know what you thought?”

Humour was one of his ways of engaging with people. An Australian politician who campaigned for a republic in the referendum there on the monarchy told me how not long afterwards he met the Duke on a boat showing him around Sydney Harbour. “Are you one of those who campaigned against the monarchy?” the Duke asked. “Your Royal Highness,” he replied, “I have to confess that I am.” “Good”, the Duke replied, “I am always saying to Her Majesty, ‘Why do we have to come all this way to this godforsaken place?’” It was of course not true at all. He loved Australia, and he visited it 20 times. Kevin Rudd, the former prime minister, got it right when he was asked why the Duke was so popular in Australia. He said, “Because he is just like us.”

Sometimes, chinks appeared in the occasionally brusque exterior. Asked in an interview once whether he felt at home in Buckingham Palace, the Duke replied, curiously, “It depends on what you mean by ‘at home.’” It was an interesting reply from a man who, in his childhood, suffered exile, separation from his mother for years, the early death of his father, being virtually stateless and being passed from one relative to another. It seems somewhat improbable that a man with such an unstable, shifting background could have contributed so much to the stability and shaping of the modern monarchy. But he did exactly that, going from royal outsider to pillar of the nation. It was his steadfast partnership with Her Majesty for which we are profoundly grateful. It became a constant in our national life, earned respect for our country throughout the world and set a standard for duty which would inspire us all.

Covid-19 Update

Lord Lamont of Lerwick Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con) [V]]

My Lords, the Government have a very difficult task indeed, and I ask my question simply in a spirit of inquiry. I am puzzled by the latest graphs, to which the noble Lord, Lord Newby, referred: the four winter scenarios shown to the country by Patrick Vallance on Saturday, showing deaths totalling 4,000 a day. Is this really a realistic possible figure, considering that the previous realistic worst possible case forecast was 800 a day? The daily death rate was 1,000 in the first wave, and this figure is well above the daily death rate of a country like Brazil. Why is the second wave forecast to be so much worse than the first? Was lockdown ineffective and just temporary or is it, as the Deputy Chief Medical Officer suggested yesterday, just in the nature of the virus that the second wave would be worse? If so, why was this not predicted in previous forecasts and why did anyone ever talk about defeating the virus?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

I thank my noble friend. I hope that I mentioned, in my response to the noble Lord, Lord Newby—and I should stress this—that I believe the Chief Medical Officer and Chief Scientific Adviser are giving evidence to the Commons Select Committee at the moment to say that the case for the latest measures was not built on the analysis of deaths that the noble Lord mentions. This was not a prediction but just one of the possible worst-case scenarios. As I said, a whole series of other metrics informed the decision as well as the evidence on the ground, which, unfortunately, showed that things were going in the wrong direction. In particular, for instance, the over-60s rate was going up, which correlates with future hospitalisations, and that is still rising. As such, it was a range of measures, and those particular numbers that he mentions were not the reason on which this lockdown, or these proposed measures, have been put forward.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Lamont of Lerwick Excerpts

Thursday 19th December 2019 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty as follows:

“Most Gracious Sovereign—We, Your Majesty’s most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament assembled, beg leave to thank Your Majesty for the most gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament.”

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)]

My Lords, it is my great privilege on behalf of the whole House to thank Her Majesty for delivering the gracious Speech from the Throne this morning. It is the second time that Her Majesty has done this service in a very short time. Her unstinting devotion to duty is an inspiration to all in public life and is admired all over the world. Over the decades she has been a rock of stability in times of great uncertainty, and we are profoundly grateful to our sovereign.

I also thank His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales for his presence. I have had the privilege of being a trustee of one of his charities, closely connected with the Prince’s Trust and the Prince’s Foundation. I have been astonished and deeply impressed by his attention to detail and the work that he puts into those charities. I thank him, too, for his public service.

I also thank all the staff: the doorkeepers, caterers, police, cleaners and everyone who, under Black Rod, has worked so hard for this second State Opening in just a few months. It must have involved a lot of extra work, not just because it is the second but because it has had a slightly different format. Again, we are very grateful.

When the Chief Whip rang to ask me to propose this Motion, he must have been telepathic. I was about to phone him to ask whether, when speaking in the four-day Queen’s Speech debate, he could not allocate me the very last position, as is his usual habit. I little imagined that he would make me the first speaker, which is a very great honour.

Our Chief Whip is a very courteous man and certainly a true gentleman. He gives the lie to Sir Robert Peel’s view that the job of Chief Whip is one which requires all the qualities of a gentleman, but no gentleman would ever accept the post.

I understand that this speech is meant to be uncontroversial, but I hope people will understand that it is rather difficult to avoid all mention of a certain event a week ago today—the election—which indeed gave rise to the gracious Speech. I shall endeavour to be like the returning officer in an Irish election who declared that he was perfectly fair: he was half way between partiality and impartiality.

I will say only this about what the Prime Minister called his “stonking victory”: he picked his moment, he risked it all and he won. He reminded me in his boldness of the lines of the 17th century Covenanter, the Duke of Montrose, who wrote a poem about risk in politics and war. He wrote:

“He either fears his fate too much

Or his deserts are small

That puts it not unto the touch

To win or lose it all.”

Well, the Prime Minister put it to the test and he won.

Of course, everyone now says that they foresaw the result. I was certainly not so sure, but I have always been extremely bad at predicting elections. The only time I ever won a political bet was in 1997 when I bet Bob Worcester, the chairman of MORI polling, who did not believe his polls, that his polls were correct and the Conservative Party would be annihilated. I won £100. It was not a lot of consolation as I was also annihilated in the election, by the former Member for Harrogate, now the noble Lord, Lord Willis, with whom I must say I am on perfectly good terms today.

Of course, losing an election is a painful business. Many good, hard-working MPs lost their seats and will be missed. Being an MP is not an easy job these days and they should all be thanked for their public service.

[Noble Lords]

Hear, hear!

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

There were many remarkable results in the election. I spent my teenage years—as did my noble friend Lord Cormack—living in Grimsby, a town with dreadful social problems. I often fantasised, and still do today, that Grimsby Town Football Club, the Mariners, would one day win the FA Cup—but I never fantasised that Grimsby would ever have a Conservative MP. Of course, if you support a football team, you do so whether it is playing well or badly. Alas, that is no longer true of political parties.

My contribution to the election was extremely meagre: a little broadcasting and some canvassing, including some telephone canvassing. Most of my calls were replied to by a disembodied voice saying, “This number is no longer in use”. It was difficult to get any sense of public opinion; one moment one was calling Scunthorpe, the next moment Exeter, the next Hull and the next Tonbridge. Early on, when not very conscious of where I was phoning, a voice said, “You don’t sound very local. What’s the name of the local candidate?” Bowled middle stump, I am afraid.

We were told to give our names when phoning. I decided to discard that advice and remain anonymous. I still remember an incident that was many years ago but lives on in my memory. I got into a taxi at Westminster. The driver said, “It’s Norman Lamont, isn’t it?” I said, “No, no, nothing to do with me. I do look a little bit like him. We’re often confused.” “Go on,” he said, “I know it’s you.” “Okay,” I said, “it’s me.” He said, “I saved your life once.” “How is that?” I asked. He said, “I was driving up St James’s Street with a passenger in the back of the cab. You were crossing the road outside the Carlton Club and he said, ‘A thousand pounds if you run the bastard over’.”

That was a long time ago, but voters can always be challenging. Gyles Brandreth has told some of my colleagues about how he was canvassing for his daughter in Kingston, and a voter asked him about the candidate’s qualities. Gyles replied by saying, “She’s very bright, hard-working, honest and committed to the public good. She will be a very good MP. And, may I add, she’s also my daughter.” Back came the reply: “Are you sure she’s your daughter?”

The important measure in the gracious Speech arises from the election: namely, the withdrawal Bill to give effect to our exit from the EU on 31 January. I made my maiden speech in the House of Commons in 1972 supporting our joining the EEC, as it then was. I never imagined that 45 years later I should find myself standing in this House supporting measures to reverse that decision.

The noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, once suggested that my own Euroscepticism came from the fact that I lived my early years in the Shetland Islands, which have close connections to Norway. Jo Grimond, the MP for Orkney and Shetland, once filled in a form that asked where his nearest railway station was, and wrote “Bergen”. Shetland was the only place that voted against membership of the European Economic Community in the 1975 referendum, but this had less to do with links to the Vikings and more to do with the fact that the Government distributed to every house a leaflet detailing the claimed advantages of the Common Market. The government leaflet had a map of the UK on the front but left Shetland off the map completely—not even in the usual insulting little box in the top right-hand corner. But, of course, Shetland was ahead of its time.

My own doubts about the EU arose when, as Chancellor, I was negotiating our opt-out from the single currency. I saw that the EU was morphing from being an economic association into an increasingly centralised political entity, and I did not believe that this would ever be acceptable to the British public when they finally understood what was happening. In 1994 I ruined the Tory party conference by saying that I personally doubted the claimed economic advantages of the European Union but one day we might have to consider leaving it because of the political direction in which it was going. However, I must say I never really expected to see that happen.

In my opinion, remainers in both the election and the referendum made a mistake in assuming that the argument could be won on economic grounds. Many people were never going to be convinced by arguments about the possibility of GDP being a few points lower after 10 years. For many more, this was an argument about accountability, democracy and, above all, identity. This election was the second people’s vote. My noble friend Lord Heseltine has said, very surprisingly, that the verdict should be accepted. Even Guy Verhofstadt, who once told an enraptured Liberal Democrat conference that the EU was an empire, said last week:

“Brexit will … happen. The British … have confirmed their referendum decision.”


Quite so. Indeed, the war is over. Grass should now be allowed to grow over the battlefield. It is time for the process of healing and reconciliation to begin. Of course, we all understand that there will be continuing arguments about the nature of our relationship with the EU, for example, the precise foreign policy relationship. Many noble Lords in this House who supported remain have much to contribute to that debate.

Apart from the legislation on Brexit, there is much in the gracious Speech that will be widely welcomed, most importantly the statement of the intention to ensure that every part of the UK can prosper and the emphasis on infrastructure—not just the money but giving more say over how it is spent back to communities. The intention to reach a consensus on care of the elderly is welcome as far as it goes, but I personally hope the Government will come up with a solution, because this is one of the most serious, pressing problems this country has—I am sure I carry all parts of the House on this. New sentencing laws to make sure that violent offenders spend longer in prison will be welcomed, as will the commitment to increase education spending per pupil. There will certainly be strong support on this side of the House for the repeal of the disastrous Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, which caused such unintended, unforeseen chaos.

Commentators have wondered how the Government will satisfy two different constituencies: the blue collar one in the north and a very different one in the south. This Speech shows exactly how, combining a strong social programme, a programme of renewal, a commitment to the unity of the UK and the restoration of UK sovereignty. This is the agenda of a truly one-nation Government. I beg to move.

Brexit: Negotiations

Lord Lamont of Lerwick Excerpts

Thursday 3rd October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I fear I cannot agree with the noble Lord’s assessment. We want a deal. We believe that a deal is in our best interests and also, frankly, those of Ireland and Northern Ireland. That is why we are working hard towards it. We made very clear—the Statement made clear, I hope—that our proposal is centred on our commitment to find solutions compatible with the Belfast agreement. We believe it is. We will work very hard and do everything we can to minimise disruption. We have made compromises. We now want to work with the EU to discuss further how to ensure that we come forward with a proposal which can get through the other place and means that we can move on and work together for a strong future relationship. I fear that I do not accept the noble Lord’s view of the proposals. They have been well thought through. We think that they address some of the key issues that have been a problem so far and we will be working very hard to advance them.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome this carefully crafted compromise and hope that it will receive serious consideration, because we need to secure a deal. Are not the noble Lord, Lord Hain, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, mistaken in saying that there is no border? There is a border between the north and south of Ireland. There are checks, for example, on VAT on both sides of that border. They are done not at the border but away from it. Is it not also wrong to conflate a customs declaration with physical examinations? They are completely different. Can my noble friend confirm what the Prime Minister said in the House of Commons: no physical infrastructure will be required by these changes?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I thank my noble friend for his comments. He is absolutely right. We have been very clear that there will be no further infrastructure—there will be no hard border within Ireland. Any changes to process that happen, will, we believe, be very minor. We will do everything we can to ensure that. That is why we will be working hard with Northern Irish and Irish businesses further to explain our proposals to ensure that they understand that we intend absolutely to minimise any disruption. We all want to achieve a deal that will work in the best interests of the island of Ireland.

Business of the House

Lord Lamont of Lerwick Excerpts

Thursday 4th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

My noble friend is absolutely right, and I thought I might deal with some of these arguments on the next amendment. I am trying to make a case here and am getting lots of interventions. The noble Baroness said we were trying to delay the passage of the Bill, but I am being delayed by interventions from her colleagues; I am anxious to make rapid progress.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)]

On the interventions from the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, while it is true that there have been expedited proceedings in times of emergency or for security measures or measures relating to Northern Ireland, those expedited proceedings have normally taken place when both sides of the House have agreed that it was necessary. This measure is being introduced despite being opposed by the Government.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

I absolutely agree, and it is questionable whether it is necessary. My understanding is that the Prime Minister has already indicated that she plans to ask for an extension of our Article 50 period, so we do not need this Bill. I am told that when this point was put to our putative Prime Minister, Sir Oliver Letwin, he said he needed it as an insurance policy. I am sorry, but subverting our constitution for an insurance policy seems a pretty high premium to me.

Leaving the European Union

Lord Lamont of Lerwick Excerpts

Tuesday 12th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I am sorry about the churlish tone that the noble Baroness has decided to take. We are committed to workers’ rights and environmental standards. We have made that clear regularly. Governments of all hues have done a lot of work in this area, and, as I have said, we have plans to repeal the Swedish derogation, which allows employers to pay their agency workers less. We are committed to enforcing holiday pay for the most vulnerable workers. We will continue to ensure that this Parliament champions workers’ rights, and that is something we are all proud of.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome what the Statement says about the Good Friday agreement. Of course, this is not the first time that the Government have emphasised this point—they have done so many times. But is it not all the more regrettable that Mr Juncker and the Taoiseach saw fit to parade a poster in public saying that Britain did not care about peace in Northern Ireland? Will she join with me in hoping that in future the negotiations will be conducted in a much more constructive spirit?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I am happy to reiterate our commitment to the Belfast agreement and indeed the commitment of the Irish Government and the EU. What we need now is to work constructively together. We are at a critical time of the negotiations and have some difficult discussions ahead. I think that we all want to move forward in a constructive manner and make sure that we can get a withdrawal agreement and the changes we are seeking that mean that the House of Commons will approve this deal and we can all move forward to talk about our bright relationship.

Leaving the European Union

Lord Lamont of Lerwick Excerpts

Monday 14th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

The EU and, indeed, the Attorney-General have said that these letters do have legal force.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)]

My Lords, on that point, is it not clear that the Attorney-General’s letter is a political letter? It is about the political risk—it says that the balance of political risk is in this way. But, on the legality of the backstop, the Leader did not refer to the fact that the Attorney-General wrote in his letter that,

“they do not alter the fundamental meanings of its provisions as I advised them to be on 13 November 2018”.

In other words, what has been obtained has no legal effect.

October European Council

Lord Lamont of Lerwick Excerpts

Monday 22nd October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

The protocols in relation to Gibraltar and the sovereign base areas will be part of the international treaty which we will sign with the withdrawal agreement and the implementation period. The long-term future relationship will supersede that once we have that partnership, so we will obviously continue those discussions, but it is excellent that we have progressed to this point.

On the noble Lord’s first point, I am afraid that I cannot give any further information about the negotiations that are going on. We have been very clear that we are working with the EU to come up with a solution to the Northern Ireland issue and the Prime Minister is clearly in this Statement setting out two options that we are pursuing.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome the progress that has been made in the talks. I will ask my noble friend about the two options relating to Northern Ireland, referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay. On the question of the temporary UK-EU customs union, how could this be made temporary? Do the Government have in mind an end date which, I understand, was ruled out by Monsieur Barnier? Without an end date, how on earth could this be made temporary? Secondly, on the other option of extending the implementation period, will she say something about the cost? How much would that mean we would have to pay to the EU budget for each year that it was extended? If we are in for a few months only—as I know the Prime Minister hopes we will be—will we pay a full year’s subscription or just a proportion?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

On my noble friend’s second point, the length and cost of any extension will be subject to the negotiations that are going on now on the drawing up of this option. On his first question about the temporary nature of the backstop, the Prime Minister has been absolutely clear: this cannot be a permanent situation. Obviously, a date is one option, but there are other ways in which this may be triggered in order to ensure it is temporary. Again, as we are getting down to the fine detail of these two options, those are the kind of issues that will be discussed and negotiated between ourselves and our EU partners.