Exiting the EU

Lord Lamont of Lerwick Excerpts

Monday 9th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for repeating the Statement and welcome certain aspects of it, particularly the commitment on free movement of labour. Perhaps I may press her on the common rulebook and how she would distinguish a common rulebook from an EU rulebook. While many manufacturing businesses want, as she said, to observe European standards, it is one thing to observe European standards when exporting to a third country, but it is another to be compelled by law to observe them both domestically and internationally. I appreciate that there would be parliamentary procedures for alterations in the future, but that is already the case with many European regulations. How would the noble Baroness distinguish this from being in the single market, which was one of our red lines?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

We will maintain the common rulebook and make an up-front, sovereign choice to do so. As my noble friend said, the rules are relatively stable and are supported by a large share of our manufacturing business. Of course, we would continue to have a strong role in helping to shape the international standards that underpin them, but, importantly, if Parliament did not wish to maintain this level of harmonisation, it would be able to say, “No, we don’t wish to do this”. We will understand the consequences of doing it, but Parliament will have the right to say no and to decide to take a different course.

European Council

Lord Lamont of Lerwick Excerpts

Monday 26th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome the progress on Brexit made at these negotiations. Yet again, when people said that no progress was possible, some significant progress has been made. On the basis, as has been said, that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed, if there is no trade agreement in the autumn, does that mean that no money will be paid to fill the gap in the EU budget, or at least no money will be paid until there is an agreement?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

As my noble friend said, we have been very clear that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed, but we are confident on the basis of developments so far that we will reach a positive relationship with the EU. On the withdrawal and implementation Bill, we will look at publishing the future framework for our relationship with the EU. Our offer in relation to the financial settlement was made in the spirit of our future partnership and depends on a broader agreement being reached, which we are confident it will.

European Council

Lord Lamont of Lerwick Excerpts

Monday 18th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

My Lords—

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

My Lords, I am sorry, but I did give the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, the next go and the Lib Dems after that. We will then hear from the Conservative Benches.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

My Lords—

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

My Lords—

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

My Lords, I made it clear that the Conservative Benches were going to come first and then the Cross Benches.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

Has my noble friend noticed the statement of the Italian Prime Minister, who believes that the outcome of the talks ought to be not a CETA-type agreement, not an off-shelf agreement, but one specifically designed for and tailored to Britain’s needs? Is that not extremely encouraging? Are not some of the comments we have heard from the Opposition completely inappropriate when we know that the shadow Chancellor wants to be outside the customs union, the shadow Home Secretary wants to be inside the internal market and the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, says that the whole point of their tactics is to reverse Brexit completely?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

On my noble friend’s first point, which picks up on the point that my noble friend made earlier, we are indeed looking to negotiate a bespoke trade agreement. All these agreements are in fact bespoke to the countries involved in them. I also agree with the comments he made at the end of his remarks.

European Council

Lord Lamont of Lerwick Excerpts

Monday 23rd October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)]

My Lords, I commend the progress made, which was confirmed by several Heads of Government who were represented at the talks. I will ask the Leader two questions. First, will she make it clear that one cannot have an implementation period until one has agreed what is to be implemented; and that a transitional period or an implementation period has to come after the main issues have been agreed, rather than the other way round? That needs to be made clear, both to the Opposition and to the CBI, which has been pressing on this point. Secondly, will my noble friend confirm that while the Government and the Prime Minister in particular have said in the past that no deal is better than a bad deal, the Government’s objective is not no deal—the Government’s objective is to get a deal, and a good deal?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I thank my noble friend and I can certainly assure the whole House that he is absolutely right: we are working hard to get a good deal. We believe we can get a good deal. We believe there is will on both sides to get a good deal and that is absolutely our focus. He is also absolutely right, as I said in reply to the noble Baroness and the noble Lord, that we have been clear and believe that the issues around our withdrawal and future relationships are inextricably linked. We are very pleased that the EU has now decided to start its own preparatory work on the future relationship and we are sure that once we begin adding that into the mix of discussions, these negotiations will continue to make the progress that we have seen over the past few days.

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Lamont of Lerwick Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 21st February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

That the Bill be now read a second time.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)]

My Lords, I made my maiden speech in the House of Commons in 1972, during the Third Reading of the European Communities Bill, in favour of our membership of the European Union. I little dreamt that 45 years later I would be standing up to advocate the reverse procedure—namely, that we should withdraw from the organisation that I advocated joining. However, it is not me who has changed but Europe, as was symbolised by its change of name from the European Economic Community to the European Community and finally to the European Union. Increasingly, I became concerned about the incompatibility of the growing integration and our national democracy and accountability. I also became more sceptical about the advantages of the single market.

I voted in the referendum to leave but I fully accept that we have to take account of the 48% who voted to remain. Many of us understand and share the concerns about links for universities and the status of foreign nationals in this country. That is, I think, common ground and those are objectives in the negotiations. Equally, I believe that those who voted to remain have a duty not to undermine the Government’s negotiating position.

I admired very much the speech made yesterday by the noble Baroness. I also admired very much the speech made by Keir Starmer when he led for the Opposition. He did not attempt to conceal the divisions in the ranks of the Labour Party. I assure noble Lords opposite that there is no temptation to gloat, because it was like looking in a mirror at the Conservative Party in the 1990s. Mr Starmer made it very clear that the idea that the referendum was, as he put it, consultative simply did not hold water.

I admired Mr Starmer’s speech but I did not admire the speech of former Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has an extraordinary ability to say two completely contradictory things simultaneously. He said that he did not dispute the result; at the same time, he called on people to rise up. He said that people might change their minds. What he meant was that he might be able to change their minds. All this from a man who promised a referendum on the EU constitution and even published a Bill, but then ensured that the constitution was written in a different order to avoid a referendum.

The former Prime Minister said that people were not given the full facts—that the decision was made on imperfect knowledge. Of course, in a negotiation no one has full knowledge of where we will end up. As for not being given the full facts, people have had more than 40 years in which to make up their minds. He said that Brexit was driven by ideology. I am not sure what ideology he had in mind. If anything, the opposite appears to be the case—European unification as a movement has been almost a religion.

Noble Lords have mentioned endlessly in this debate “membership of the single market” as though that in itself is simply an argument. They have made no attempt to calculate the costs, as my noble friend Lord Lawson referred to yesterday, of the rules of the single market, and they have not bothered to confront the fact that many countries that are not members of the single market have increased their exports to the single market more than members, and certainly more than we, have done. They never bother to comment on the fact that the three largest trading partners of the European Union have no special trading arrangements with the EU, while six of its 10 top trading partners have no special trading relationship or agreement. As my noble friend Lord Lawson said yesterday, there is no reason why there should be a cliff edge.

If noble Lords are sincere in saying that they accept the result of the referendum, it should be possible for them to do all they can to support the Government in their negotiations in the national interest. The amendments being talked about seem more like additions to the Bill, in that they attempt to lay down conditions on the Government’s negotiating position.

On EU nationals, I have great sympathy with what has been said. But the Prime Minister has made it clear that so does she and that this is an objective of the Government. There is, however, no response from other countries in Europe and it would make no sense to make a unilateral gesture that would simply leave the 800,000 British nationals in Europe subject to the leverage of other people in the negotiations.

Equally, when it comes to a parliamentary vote on the deal, the Prime Minister has again said that there will be a vote, so it seems naive to say that Parliament should have the right both to reject whatever deal may be negotiated and simultaneously to decide to stay in the European Union. There are two objections to that argument. First, it would be a denial of the result of the referendum and, secondly, as surely as night follows day, it would make it perfectly inevitable that the EU would offer the worst possible deal in order to have it rejected by Parliament.

I recognise and acknowledge the anxieties of the 48% that should be taken into account. Surely we all want the best possible deal and the best possible access for our exports. But as the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, the former leader of the Liberal Democrats, said on referendum night, I suspect before the result was announced:

“In. Out. When the British people have spoken you do what they command. Either you believe in democracy or you don’t. Any people who retreat into ‘we’re coming back for a second one’—they don’t believe in democracy”.


I believe in democracy and I believe that we should proceed rapidly with the Bill without amendment.

Outcome of the European Union Referendum

Lord Lamont of Lerwick Excerpts

Tuesday 5th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong, on one point: we should not turn our back on Europe. I hope we will have co-operation with Europe, but that is not the same thing as leaving the European Union. While I do not share the gloom of the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong, I confess to a degree of shock on the day after the referendum: shock that the side I had supported had won when I was not entirely confident that it would, and a much greater shock that so many people refused to accept the verdict of the people. There was far too much talk about reversing the result. I was stunned by the intervention of the former Prime Minister Tony Blair, complaining that the result of the referendum had been voted for by only 51.7% of the electorate. This compares with the 43.9% who voted for him, about which he never complained at any time. If we do not accept the result of this referendum, there will be a real awakening of bitterness next time.

I campaigned and voted for the leave side, partly because I have long been sceptical about the allegedly unique benefits we are supposed to get from Europe. More importantly, I am totally opposed to political union, progress towards which seems to me to be going down a blind alley with a dead end. If Europe wants political co-operation, that is one thing, and it should be on an evolutionary basis. It should not be engineered and manipulated by an elite with its own agenda. Europe is an entity without a demos and, thus, it is without the potential for real democracy. Various speakers have referred to their own sense of European identity. Europe has a weak common identity compared with the nation state, which has a strong sense of identity, plenty of life in it and plenty of legitimacy left in it as well.

I agree with the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury and the noble Baroness, Lady Smith; I do not believe the status of EU nationals residing in this country and working in this country ought to be a bargaining chip in the negotiations at all. That ought to have been cleared up already. I also agree with the most reverend Primate, the noble Baroness and others, who have very forthrightly condemned the attacks on Polish and other immigrant communities. This is totally unacceptable and must be roundly condemned. At the same time, it is totally wrong to label people who have legitimate concerns about immigration as racist. That seems to me an extremely dangerous thing to do. If we do not listen to concerns about the pressures of population, the pressures on the housing market and the effects on the lower-paid, we are making a great and serious mistake. It is clear from the referendum results in individual areas that there was a very firm rejection of complete free movement of labour. This issue will not go away and will have to be addressed.

We are where we are. The question is, where do we go from here and what do we do about it? I welcome the unit that has been set up under the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. I hope he and his work will cut through some of the myths that have been accepted uncritically for far too long as conventional wisdom. Myth number one is that the single market has been of unique benefit to the UK. The noble Lord, Lord Birt, repeated that in his speech. But one ought to look at the trade performance of countries that are not members of the EU, such as the United States and Australia, which have managed to increase their exports into the single market faster than we have. You do not have to be a member of the single market to benefit from it.

Another myth is that the UK has free access to the single market. As we pay a budget contribution equivalent to a 7% tariff on all the goods we sell, it is free only in the sense that someone who belongs to a golf club and does not have to pay for every round of golf has free golf: it just is not true. Then we are told that it is impossible to have access to the single market without accepting complete free movement of labour. I was concerned that the Foreign Secretary seemed to accept this. Look at the arrangement that Turkey has. Since 1996, Turkey has enjoyed tariff-free goods access to EU markets with no free movement of people. Turkey accepts the present EU external tariff—about 3%—and there is no restriction on Turkey-EU trade. The important point about the Turkish arrangement is that it avoids the rules of origin. If we set our own tariffs with the rest of the world outside the EU, we would have to accept clearance under the rules-of-origin arrangements, of which there are 9,000 different classifications. This is what Switzerland has to do and there are limits of 30% to 35% placed on the non-Swiss, non-EU content of Swiss goods going into the European Union. The beauty of what Turkey does is that it bypasses all the difficulties of rules of origin. I am not suggesting this should be the final solution or the final arrangement, but it could be an interim one.

Undoubtedly, we face economic challenges. There will be short-term difficulties but, in the medium term, I believe there will be new opportunities. I also believe that what will happen will not be nearly as dire as predicted. Brexit is part of a wider reaction against centralisation in Europe. The Global Attitudes survey released the other day showed that ever-closer union is now rejected by 73% of voters in Holland, 85% in Sweden, 86% in Greece, and 68%, 65% and 60% in Germany, Italy and France respectively. We are not alone. Things that have happened in this country are also beginning to stir in other European countries. Indeed, the impact of Brexit may well be greater on Europe than it is on Britain. We are not alone. The other day, the editor of the Italian newspaper Libero wrote: “The only true functioning democracy is the English one. The United Kingdom proved for the umpteenth time that it believes in the will of the people and that it knows how to respect it with elegance”. We should respect with elegance each other’s views and we should also respect, with elegance, the views of the people.

European Council

Lord Lamont of Lerwick Excerpts

Monday 22nd February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Framlingham (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

We have not heard from the Cross Benches for some time.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

Or you might say, “Better the devil you know”. Basically, I agree with the noble Lord: you do not have to be a raging Euro-enthusiast and to have been so for donkey’s years to support staying in the European Union. As I said to the noble Lord, Lord Kinnock, this is patriotic. We believe very much in the power and sovereignty of the United Kingdom, and we believe that by being in Europe we can have, as the Prime Minister described it, the best of both worlds. As to the point of the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, about making more of the way in which we are a gateway to the rest of Europe, I agree with him, and the Prime Minister is already making that case. We have four months to go and he will keep making that case. I hope that the noble Lord and others will help us in that task.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

Does the Minister recall an interview given some time ago by Jacques Delors in the German newspaper Handelsblatt in which he said this:

“If the British cannot support the trend towards more integration in Europe, we can nevertheless remain friends, but on a different basis. I could imagine a form such as a European economic area or a free-trade agreement”?

Does not that show, without prejudging it, that there is an alternative available, or was Delors just completely wrong?

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

My noble friend is right to say that there is an alternative—of course there is an alternative. That is why there are two choices for the British people: to leave or to remain. The alternative—and it may be something like the Norway model—is not inconceivable, but it would not be without cost and is not something that we should walk blindly into without recognising that it brings with it its own disadvantages. We have to be clear what the alternative is. That is what the next few weeks and months will have to be about in this debate: if there is an alternative, what is it?

House of Lords Reform

Lord Lamont of Lerwick Excerpts

Tuesday 15th September 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)]

My Lords, Anthony Trollope, the Victorian novelist, once observed that the cure for admiring the House of Lords was to go and actually have a look at it. If he went and had a look at it today he might admire the valuable work that the noble Baroness the Leader of the House referred to; or he might see an assembly bursting at the seams, overflowing into what used to be space reserved for visitors, and a somewhat untidy Question Time. If he ventured into the Library on a crowded night, he might see something resembling a Belgian battlefield. There is a problem of size.

The emphasis in my noble friend’s admirable speech was on incremental reform. Of course the reform can only be incremental; we are not discussing the ultimate solution—the ultimate reform of this House. What we are discussing can only be provisional, though we should be encouraged by the fact that nothing tends to last as long as the provisional. There needs to be action to reduce the size of the House. It is not just bursting at the seams; I very much agree with what the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, said—that the problem of numbers is actually making it more difficult for the House to do its job. As she said, there are debates in which expert speakers are restricted to two or three minutes. It is the same when these people try to get in at Question Time. The problem of numbers is related to the purpose of this House, which is to revise and to hold the Executive to account.

I have great sympathy with the Motion that has been put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Steel. I think he demonstrated with the arithmetic—I had some other figures which were not as up to date as his—that what he proposes would make a very significant difference to the size of this House. He has put in an escape clause for there to be certain exceptions, and I am sure that we can all call to mind certain people who might reach the age of 80 but who make a very valuable contribution to this House. When people go and consider all the alternatives that will be offered, they will probably find that the proposal put by the noble Lord, Lord Steel, is pretty unavoidable.

One alternative would be to consider ending by-elections for the 92 hereditaries. That would also have an effect on numbers but would very much affect the party balance on this side of the House; it would affect the representation of the Conservative Party. Again, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, said, proposals that disadvantage one party at the expense of another will not be agreed, so that would have to be considered alongside the question of the overall balance in this House.

I, like other noble Lords who have spoken, believe that we ought to have a cap. However, that cap ought to be introduced now on the present numbers, and it should be a reducing cap. The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, both today and on a previous occasion, proposed a cap and a one-for-one solution; that is to say, one new Peer appointed for every one that goes out. I suggest that it ought to be something like one for three—three out, one in—and that the cap be slowly reduced over time. We want a whole series of measures that will reduce gradually. It cannot be done overnight, as the Leader of the House very rightly emphasised.

It has been reported in the press that the Prime Minister believes that reform has to come from this House. Well and good. However, it also has to come from restraint on the part of the Prime Minister in the number of peerages that he appoints. I would suggest that that discretion ought to be exercised within a reducing cap. We made a mistake some years ago when we bought into the idea that Governments who win elections are then entitled to make more Peers to reflect the result of the election, whether it be in seats or in the percentage of the vote. That is just a recipe—particularly if there is an alternation of Governments—for an ever-increasing size of the House, which is just not practical. No Government, Conservative or Labour, will have a majority in this House—there are too many Cross-Benchers for that—but we have to accept that a Government of whatever complexion will always be in a minority. As has been said by my noble friend Lord Strathclyde, Labour Governments operated for a long period when there was a very large Conservative majority against them. That is the reality which Governments in the future will have to operate against.

The question was asked, I think by the noble Lord, Lord Stevens: “Why should we bring in other people when we have been appointed for life?”. But, of course, we have to recognise that experience grows old and the Government need to bring in fresh talent. Experience is a wonderful thing but it can get out of date. The Lords is also a convenient way of appointing Ministers who may have special expertise or have come from a commercial background with no particular political involvement. Often, when they have been a Minister, they lose interest in this House and return to the City or their businesses. Why cannot the same statutory mechanism for retirement be used for those who, having been Ministers, wish to go back to their businesses? Perhaps they could be appointed Ministers of this House on the understanding that they will use the statutory mechanism once they cease to hold office.

Lastly, in passing, perhaps I may just say, although I do not want to make too much of this, that I do not think that people should be appointed to this House who, for various reasons such as Civil Service practice, are not allowed to speak. The Leader has previously commented on this, but I think it is quite wrong to appoint people to this House who are not able to make a contribution actually by speaking, particularly when so many other people might be candidates for this House. I was very surprised that this passed the Appointments Commission—perhaps someone will comment on that later. I agree with my noble friend the Leader of the House that we want simplicity; this cannot be done in one leap; and we need to work with other parties to achieve a consensus. However, we need action on the size of the House, and quickly.

European Union (Referendum) Bill

Lord Lamont of Lerwick Excerpts

Friday 31st January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

My Lords, I strongly support Amendment 50A from the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull. It is most unusual for the Foreign Office to be in agreement with the Cabinet Office and the Treasury, but in this case it is. The Diplomatic Service is a separate service and takes no instructions from the Civil Service, so these arguments are my own.

I do not support the menu of amendments offered by my fellow countryman, the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes of Cumnock—there is a big difference between them and the amendment offered by the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull, supported by the noble Lords, Lord Grenfell, Lord Shipley and Lord Anderson. The assessments called for by the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, are descriptive. They are describing potential scenarios. The assessment called for by the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull, would be normative because it would be authoritative and be describing the situation we would be in if we went out through the door. If we left the tent, like Captain Oates, we might be out for some considerable time. We might find it cold out there. I think the country would wish to be told. I accept that the process of establishing an authoritative statement of what life would be like outside might take time—Article 50 of the treaty of Lisbon talks about seceding from the European Union being a two-year process—but this would be before that. This would be before the referendum. This would be the assessment that the country would need so it could weigh up the case for and against staying in or going out.

I believe it would be important not just to set out what the Government hoped, felt and wanted but what they believed was negotiable. There would have to be some process of discussion with other countries and principally with our partners in the European Union, which we would be considering leaving. That process would take time. This point is very relevant to the amendment on questions of timing which—encouraged by the noble Lord, Lord Cormack—I withdrew last week. We will be coming back to that on Report.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)]

My Lords, I totally agree with the noble Lord that if there were to be a referendum the British public would be entitled to information about the consequences and the mechanism. However, that is completely different; the mechanism is a subsequent step to the referendum. All this Bill does is to establish that there will be a referendum. The point the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull, made when he drew the analogy with the Scottish debate yesterday seems to me not to be correct. We had a Bill about the referendum. The criticism about the lack of information came afterwards. The mechanism was quite separate. Although all the points the noble Lord is making might be correct, they are not for this stage. This stage is just about the referendum.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard]

Precisely the same argument could be applied to the second of the amendments we made last week. The House did not buy the argument last week and the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, was good enough to say today that, in his view, both the amendments laid last week were improvements to the Bill and did not impair it. If we are passing a Bill on this referendum it is very important that we do not pass a defective Bill that omits important elements. Nobody in this House has proposed an amendment to Clause 1(1), which says that there shall be a referendum. In my view, this House is trying to do its job and get right the conditions and rules for that referendum, which is a point that we will need to come back to and which has been raised by several noble Lords this morning. We will have to come back to how the referendum will be conducted and—the point I am concerned about, for reasons well explained in the first leader in this morning’s Financial Times—the timing of the referendum.

I believe that the crucial thing about the assessment called for by the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull—who is completely right—is that it would have to be authoritative. It would be wholly irresponsible to produce for the country a prospectus based on conjecture. If the country chose to leave the tent and found outside a landscape different from the one that it had expected and a climate much colder, the Government who did that would never be forgiven.

I hope all shades of opinion in the House will understand that the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull, is precisely in the category that the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, was talking about—amendments that genuinely improve the Bill. In my view—on the Cross Bench one speaks only for oneself—this would be a genuine improvement and I urge the House to support it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

My Lords, I support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull, and many of the arguments which have already been deployed in support of it. However, in connection with the intervention by the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, of course it would have been possible to put forward an amendment which would require the Government now to say what they would do in the context of a no vote in the referendum—but that is not what the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull, is suggesting. He is suggesting merely that the Government of the day should be required to provide this information to the electorate ahead of the referendum, which seems to me a totally reasonable thing to do.

It does not involve holding up the Bill or preventing a Bill that provides the basis for an eventual “in or out” referendum going on to the statute book. However, it does say that, before such a referendum can be held, the electorate must be aware of what the choice they are making implies, because a referendum vote is a very stark choice between one option and another. The other option, which would be to leave the European Union, would have very serious consequences. Is it not totally reasonable to require that those consequences are brought to the attention of the electorate before they are asked to vote? If that logic is correct, I very much hope that the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, will—

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

I entirely agree with the noble Lord, and with the point that has been made widely, that all the information on both sides should be put forward in a referendum, but I do not see why that should be in this Bill, which is about the mechanism of a referendum. I remind the noble Lord that the Prime Minister said that he himself favours continued membership of the EU. If the Prime Minister recommends continued membership of the EU, is it conceivable that he will not spell out the advantages of being a member of the EU before a referendum is held? He is bound to do that.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

I am sure the noble Lord is right, but the extent to which the Prime Minister carries his party with him seems to be in a little more doubt today than it was a few days ago. As I say, I am sure that the noble Lord is correct, but the amendment would require the Government of the day—that Government may well not be the present Prime Minister’s Government—to provide, at the time a referendum is held, and in advance of it, certain kinds of information that are not called for in the Bill as it stands. I happen to think that this falls fairly and squarely in what I would call in the argot the “Cormack category”—that is, a provision that will improve the Bill. I hope very much that the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, will accept the amendment. I do not think that there is any ambiguity in it at all. Therefore, I hope very much that it will be endorsed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, I will not detain the House for long. I think that there is pretty strong support all around the House for this amendment. It certainly has the support of the Opposition, who will vote for the proposition in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull, if he chooses to test the opinion of the House. What is needed in any “in or out” choice is an authoritative assessment of Britain’s intended relationship with the European Union should the people decide to withdraw from it. That does not have to be just a wish list of hoping that we can have our cake and eat it outside the Union. It has to be a hard, realistic assessment.

I am a great lover of history. I like reading books about Britain’s post-war relationship with the European Union. The Macmillan Diaries is one of the books I have read. Harold Macmillan tried to establish a free trade relationship with the Common Market when the treaty of Rome was signed. He explored that and failed because, even in 1958, he was not able to achieve what was necessary for the national interest, and he decided we had no alternative but to join the Common Market. So we have to be realistic and this assessment has to be realistic.

Many Members on our side of the House have pointed out that the proposed referendum is not a popularity poll, it is a fundamental choice. It is not a choice you take once every five or 10 years. You cannot say that it would be a choice made for ever but you can certainly say that it would be made for generations. It is important that this choice is taken not on the basis of wish lists or hypothetical speculations—as I think the noble Lord, Lord Davies, said—but on the basis of what is a realistic alternative. The truth is that those who want to take us out of the European Union rarely state what they think the alternative is for Britain, which is why this amendment is crucial. There is a huge range of possibilities. At one end of the spectrum, there is membership of the European Economic Area, probably as a consequence of rejoining EFTA; but at the other end, we would have to rely on our WTO status in terms of our trading relationship with the European Union.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

Does the noble Lord recall that when he worked in Downing Street and the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, was a Minister at the Foreign Office, the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, endlessly put down Questions asking for an assessment of the pros and cons—the benefits and the costs, because there are costs—of our membership? The noble Lord and the Government endlessly rejected that, year after year. Even a Bill was put down, but it was talked out. Does he think that he owes the noble Lord some sort of apology?

[Lord Liddle]

I am afraid that I do not, no. What I do know about the Labour Government is that when they were considering whether to join the euro, they carried out a thorough assessment. In the case of this proposed referendum, we need to have a thorough assessment of what the alternatives would be.

Many people assume that we can continue to enjoy the benefits of free trade with our European partners by being in the EEA. That, of course, is the economic option with the least pain. But as my noble friend Lord Kinnock said when he talked about sovereignty, although being in the EEA might involve a minimum of economic pain, it would certainly involve a huge loss of British sovereignty. Whereas now we have a say on every EU regulation that applies to us, in future, as members of the EEA, we would simply have to accept every regulation decided in Brussels, and we would have to make a budgetary contribution as well. Being in the EEA would mean a massive loss of sovereignty for Britain. We may no longer be in the European Union but, in my view, we would also no longer be Great Britain, a sovereign nation able to exercise some say over its future.

As for the alternative at the other end of the spectrum, relying on our WTO membership and trying to negotiate free trade agreements, noble Lords have already pointed out some of the problems. We would immediately be withdrawing ourselves from free trade agreements that the EU has with other countries, and the whole future of agriculture would be put into grave uncertainty. The car industry is perhaps the best example of what noble Lords on the other side have to address. The car industry is probably the most outstanding example of the manufacturing renaissance that we have seen in Britain.

Death of a Member: Baroness Thatcher

Lord Lamont of Lerwick Excerpts

Wednesday 10th April 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

My Lords, I will follow directly on from what the noble Lord, Lord Bhattacharyya, has just said about manufacturing. However, before I do so, what a wonderful treasure trove this session had been. It is going to be of great value to historians and people who write about Margaret Thatcher, because so much material has been produced in the period that we have been here.

I will not go over the economic points. I agree with the things that have been said about how she saved our country and how her name is synonymous with courage. I, as a huge admirer of her, of course accept that there was bound to be argument after her death. However, I have been somewhat shocked and saddened by some of the comments made outside the House. I was so pleased that the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, was so direct in her condemnation of those today.

I do, however, understand some of the anger that was felt in some communities that were impacted by our industrial policy. I want to comment on that because I was in the Department of Trade and Industry under the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit. I was in charge of all the state-owned, loss-making industries. When Mrs Thatcher appointed me, she said, “Your job is to work yourself out of a job”—that is, I was to try, with Norman Tebbit, to make them profitable and then privatise them. There was, as the noble Lord said, a real problem of competitiveness and the cost to the taxpayer of sustaining those industries at a time when we were desperately trying to reduce borrowing. There was the fact that the jobs in so many of those state-owned, loss-making industries were not real jobs—they were supported only by the taxpayer.

I always remember discussions with Ian MacGregor, the chairman of the British Steel Corporation. In one instance, he told us that it was necessary to make tens of thousands of people redundant in order that other people could keep their jobs later on. He said that all the jobs would go if we did not grasp the nettle and take the firm, painful decisions that were necessary. It was indeed, as the noble Lord, Lord Bhattacharyya, said, because of inadequate management that people such as Ian MacGregor, Graham Day and Michael Edwardes were asked to take charge of industries to try to improve their productivity and move them towards profitability.

The problem of the one-industry or one-firm town was always in Margaret Thatcher’s mind. Special measures were devised but, of course, when an industry goes, it goes quickly; it takes much longer to get new investment in. Sometimes it happens, as with Corby, but it is a difficult process. Some people said that Mrs Thatcher and Sir Keith Joseph were going too fast and that we should go slower, but to her and to her Ministers it appeared that those who said, “Go slower”, did not really want to make the changes at all.

It will be for historians to judge, but I think that when they look back, they will be struck by the fact that so many other European countries saw a similar decline in manufacturing to us during that period and that things that were blamed on her were really an inevitable progression of European economies.

One thing that Margaret always did when there were factory closures in a constituency was to agree to see the local MP. I know that she had innumerable meetings with Labour MPs representing some constituencies because there were frequent closures. Some very improbable and unlikely friendships were struck up between Margaret and people who opposed her and her policies on the Floor of the House.

Much has been said, and I support it, about how she was really a person of compassion and concern. The stationer Smythson once told me that Margaret Thatcher was the biggest purchaser it ever had of little notelets, because she was always writing personal notes to people when they had hard luck or bereavement or illness in the family. I have a little collection of notelets that I received. She was extremely loyal to people. I always remember when one of her PPSs, Fergus Montgomery, was accused of shoplifting. It was all over the Evening Standard that the Prime Minister’s aide was accused of shoplifting. What was the first thing she did? She took him into the tea room and went around the House of Commons with him, showing that she thoroughly supported him. Of course, the charges were all subsequently dropped.

I remember hearing of a meeting at which Ferdy Mount in the policy unit was present, an important Cabinet sub-committee. He had a terrible cold and kept coughing. Margaret said to him, “You’ve got to do something about that cough. What you need is this”. She named a particular medicine. He said, “No, no, no, no”. She said, “Just a minute”, and disappeared out of that important meeting, went upstairs for about 10 minutes and came back with a whole packet of capsules which she then insisted that he took there and then. Of course, colleagues were thoroughly annoyed that that very important meeting had been disrupted, but she was so informal in that way.

I remember once helping her to host a party in Downing Street. I do not remember quite what it was for but after it was all over she invited the waiters who had been pouring the wine to sit down with her on the sofas and chairs. She poured them all a glass of wine and carried on chatting to them, discussing the party.

It was sometimes said that she was compassionate and concerned about drivers, secretaries and doorkeepers but not at all about Ministers. That is not true, although on one occasion I protested to Keith Joseph about how she had handled a particular colleague during a meeting. He looked at me in utter astonishment and said, “Oh really? You know her method. She deals in destructive dialogue”. Then he said, “She gives me the lash. They send a stretcher for me”.

She could sometimes be very unpredictable in meetings. I remember one occasion when she had been on a plane coming back from the United States. She sat next to the head of MGM—“More Gutsy Movies”—a man called Lew Wasserman, who was the chief executive. Somehow on that journey he persuaded her that her crowning glory as Prime Minister would be the state financing of film studios in Rainham Marshes in Essex. I was Chief Secretary to the Treasury at the time and this was revealed to me. I expressed some bewilderment and astonishment at this proposal and said to her, “But I thought we believed in controlling expenditure”. I received a glare. I said, “I thought we believed in low taxes. I thought we didn’t believe in subsidies to inefficient industries”. I got more and more desperate and said, “Prime Minister, there’s no unemployment in Essex. We would have to build the roads in order to get to Rainham Marshes”. I remember her glowering at me very fiercely and in desperation I said, “You do know, Prime Minister, that we’ll have all the environmentalists against us because there’s a very rare bird”—I knew about these things—“called the Brent goose that breeds there”. She looked at me and said, “You are utterly hopeless. All you ever say is ‘No, no, no’. You do not have a constructive idea in your head. If you had been in my Government since 1979, I would have achieved nothing”. I said, “Well, Prime Minister, you’re always right about everything but there’s one thing you’re wrong about. I’ve been in your Government”—[Laughter.] I went back to the department and said, “The Prime Minister’s made a very strange decision but we must get on with it”. A few hours later, a call came through saying that she did not wish to pursue the matter. I saw her the next day, beaming. She congratulated me on something but there was no reference whatever to that matter.

Dealing with Margaret Thatcher was always unpredictable. She used to say, “Thatcher’s law is that the unexpected always happens”, and she made sure that that was the case. She was a wonderful person —someone whose name will, as I said, always be synonymous with courage. She was a person who always did things for the right reasons. It was a huge privilege to have known her and an even greater privilege to have been in her Government. I send my condolences to all her family.