European Union Bill

Debate between Lord Lea of Crondall and Lord Howe of Aberavon

Monday 13th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lea of Crondall]

I wonder if there is a special case in this. Some of us approach this question from the hypothetical case that in a few years we might join the euro when it has parity with the pound. It might be relevant to the referendum that people might think, “If you can’t beat them, join them. It’s been around a long time—you might as well join”. Frankly, that is the way referendum decisions are probably made—in the pub. We are talking about making something quite technical into a demotic sort of fact.

Might the discussion in the press get a debate going? Something like the new clause proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, might be relevant, maybe with some adjustment, to the idea that we need to have the proposition about parity with the euro as part of the question. Could somebody enlighten me as to how that scenario—it is probable rather than possible; it has some common sense about it—would fit with this Bill and with the amendment?

[Lord Howe of Aberavon]

Since my name stands on the Marshalled List below that of the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, it is right that I should intervene at this point. There is a certain diffidence about my approach, because I am in the presence of two propositions with which I have been closely familiar for a very long time indeed. I refer personally to the noble Lord. As he has already hinted, our relationship with each other is antique. I first came across him as a bright young man in my early days as Chancellor of the Exchequer; he did not necessarily appear to know a great deal about the Treasury or economics at that stage. I learnt that he was on secondment from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. He was already serving me very well in the more sophisticated Treasury environment and therefore in due course became my principal private secretary in that department. He continued in that job to serve my noble friend Lord Lawson. I do not think that he lasted in that humble job for long enough to be with my noble friend Lord Lamont. Certainly, we came to establish a respect for each other and a familiarity.

The noble Lord is a young creature in my memory, who has already made a lucid and compact presentation to this debate, which is frankly not a hugely politically controversial one. It is a debate directed to the ostensible, practical way of approaching this particular proposition —our accession to what used to be called the European monetary system. That also is a symbol of my antiquity. My two noble friends Lord Lamont and Lord Lawson, who are alongside me, will not need much prompting to remember that our manifesto for the European 1979 election, preceding our own manifesto for the general election later on, had this quotation:

“We regret the Labour Government’s decision—alone amongst the Nine—not to become a full member of the new European Monetary System. We support the objectives of the new system, which are currency stability in Europe and closer co-ordination of national economic policies, and we shall look for ways in which Britain can take her rightful place within it”.

I am still looking, with an enthusiasm that has fluctuated over the years, as the stability of the currency has fluctuated as well.

In this context, I support the amendment. Although my relationship with the ERM, as it was then called, has been insecure, it was the cause of the less than friendly relationships between my noble friend Lord Lawson and myself and our noble friend Lady Thatcher before the Madrid summit, where our paths certainly divided. Remarkably, not many months after I had been subsequently moved on from the Foreign Office to become Leader of the House of Commons, a decision was taken for us to enter the European monetary system—