European Council

Debate between Lord Lea of Crondall and Lord Newby

Monday 25th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby (LD)]

My Lords, the same applies to me.

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Lab)]

My Lords, the European Council says in its conclusions—I have a copy in front of me—that it,

“expects the United Kingdom to indicate a way forward”,

before 12 April 2019. This cannot simply mean that there is a contradiction with the sentence that follows, which says:

“The European Council reiterates that there can be no re-opening of the Withdrawal Agreement that was agreed … in November 2018”.


Therefore, can the Minister confirm that the European Council would be ready to look at an alternative set of proposals that could be put forward by this Parliament?

Brexit: Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration

Debate between Lord Lea of Crondall and Lord Newby

Wednesday 9th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby (LD)]

My Lords, it is somewhat odd to be debating an identical government Motion with a month’s gap, during which time, in the Brexit negotiations themselves and despite the announcements the Government have made today, there have been no significant developments whatsoever—a reality reflected in the Commons simply continuing its adjourned debate on the topic rather than having a new Motion or amendments.

There was therefore a temptation to simply repeat the speech I made on 5 December. I was attracted to this option by the true example of a vicar friend of my wife’s who, having preached a sermon on a Sunday morning, found that his colleague who was due to preach at evensong was taken ill during the day. Stepping into the breach and having no time to prepare a second sermon, he simply repeated the one he had given in the morning. He was therefore rather disturbed to see in the congregation one of the churchwardens, who normally only attended in the morning but who had had visitors for lunch who wanted to see the church. At the end of the service, the vicar greeted the churchwarden with some trepidation. The churchwarden approached the vicar, beaming. “Another corker, vicar”, he said. It was clear that he had not listened to at least one, and possibly both, of the sermons. But I suspect that your Lordships’ House is somewhat more attentive than the average churchwarden, so I shall repeat neither the speech nor the exact arguments I made a month ago.

The challenge in fashioning another speech, however, is that, as far as the withdrawal agreement and political declaration are concerned, nothing of substance has changed. I am unaware of a single MP who threatened to rebel last time but has pledged to support the Government this time around.

Although nothing has changed in the agreement itself or the views of MPs, this does not mean that nothing has changed beyond Parliament. The first thing that has changed is that the Government have stepped up spending for a no-deal Brexit. Given that the Commons will never vote for a no-deal outcome, as evidenced by yesterday’s vote, the spending of billions of pounds on an outcome that is simply not going to happen was always going to be a colossal waste of public money. But the way in which the Government have chosen to do this has turned mere profligacy into farce.

It was bad enough having a Health Secretary boasting—and I use the word advisedly—that he had spent tens of millions of pounds on refrigeration units. But when the Department for Transport prepares to give £14 million to a shipping start-up that seems to have difficulty differentiating between a roll-on roll-off ferry and a takeaway pizza, things have reached a new low. Having 89 lorries at Manston practise at being a traffic jam is merely the icing on the cake of a litany of episodes which make “Dad’s Army” look like a model of discipline and efficiency. No wonder the rest of the world looks at us today as it does with a mixture of pity and amazement.

Secondly, in the real world, businesses and individuals are making their plans and putting them into effect. Financial services companies have now moved some £800 billion-worth of staff operations and customer funds to continental Europe. The number of staff who have already moved is 2,000 and rising rapidly. Polling of business leaders now shows some three-quarters of them pessimistic about the year ahead, with Brexit by far their biggest headache. This, of course, means lower investment and will eventually lead to fewer jobs. The fact that manufacturing in some sectors is holding up because companies are building up their stocks against the possibility of a no-deal Brexit is at best a temporary relief.

In the public sector, and in the NHS in particular, there is growing evidence that EU workers are leaving or not choosing to come to the UK because of the potential consequences of Brexit. The organiser of a Facebook group of 15,000 Italian nurses working in the UK, for example, estimates that some 10% have already left, with another 10% planning to do so. Given that over one-fifth of London’s nurses are EU citizens, this leeching away of EU staff is already causing problems which the delay in getting to a Brexit decision is only making worse.

Thirdly, because of these real-world developments, people are increasingly saying that they do not trust their politicians to take the final decision on Brexit and that they do not wish to leave the EU. Over recent months, the polls have told a consistent story that a majority of the population now want a referendum and, in such a referendum, a majority would vote to remain. In the latest poll by YouGov, for example, taken over the Christmas break, some 54% said that in a further referendum they would vote to remain and 46% said that they would vote to leave. With every passing day, the demographics are bringing on to the electoral register a group of young people of whom 85% wish to have a future as European citizens. Even groups which have been traditionally hostile to a referendum are changing their minds—the latest being the influential business body London First, which on Monday said that, in the absence of a Commons majority for a Brexit deal, the issue should be put back to the people.

On the basis that the Government’s Brexit deal would make the country poorer, less secure and less influential—arguments that I made last time and I hope I have not repeated today—and in the light of these recent developments, I strongly urge Members of your Lordships’ House to support the Motion in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Smith.

While it is clearly for the Commons to decide on the next steps, we should be clear what the options are. The Government’s deal is an option, but it is set to be defeated. No other negotiable deal is available, despite the probability that the Prime Minister will respond to a defeat next week with yet another futile trip to Brussels in search of unicorns.

Crashing out is a theoretical option, albeit one of a kamikaze nature, which the Commons has already, in effect, rejected. As the ECJ ruling on 10 December proved, this is not an inevitability if the Government’s deal is rejected. We have the sovereign right as a country to unilaterally revoke our Article 50 notification. Talk of crashing out by accident is nonsense. It could only happen if the Government chose to do so and the Commons agreed.

A general election is an option, but this would itself solve nothing and serve only to split Labour and the Conservatives further.

Going back to the people with a chance to remain in the EU is an option. As the House knows, the view on these Benches is that this is the best—

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Lab)]

Is it an oversight or deliberate that the noble Lord has left out the perfectly feasible alternative option of remaining in the EEA by changing from pillar 1 to pillar 2?

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, I do not believe that that is a feasible option.

As I was saying, going back to the people with the chance to remain in the EU is an option, and, as the House knows, the view on these Benches is that this is the best option. Every single development over the past month, and since our last debate, has only reinforced us in that view.

Economy: Public Finances

Debate between Lord Lea of Crondall and Lord Newby

Tuesday 24th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Vinson, mentioned exports as if they were doing rather well. I do not think that they were mentioned in the Budget but does the Minister agree that our trade balance is a disaster, as is our productivity, which has not grown at all since 2010? Would not the Government be better served by looking at these fundamental factors in the real economy?

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, last month’s trade figures were the best for 15 years. No doubt the noble Lord would say that that is not good enough. However, we have spent more money more effectively through UKTI in building up our trade with less traditional countries such as China. Further support was given to that in the Budget.

Small Businesses: Finance

Debate between Lord Lea of Crondall and Lord Newby

Wednesday 25th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, I think that the track record of government departments on paying bills is significantly better than that of the private sector, but we are always keen to improve performance.

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Lab)]

What steps have the Government taken since the Insurance Bill Special Public Bill Committee to make sure that the insurance industry signs up to its own scheme to deal with the late payment of bills? This is a cause of great concern to many of the people who otherwise would use the British insurance industry.

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, as the noble Lord knows, the insurance industry has a payment code and we are encouraging all firms in the industry to abide by it.

Economy

Debate between Lord Lea of Crondall and Lord Newby

Tuesday 28th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, the Government are very appreciative of the work that the British Chambers of Commerce has done. Of course, the Heseltine review, No Stone Unturned in Pursuit of Growth, made the point that a strengthened British Chambers of Commerce was much to be welcomed. However, the tradition in Germany of chambers of commerce, of which membership is virtually compulsory for organisations, is very different from here. While the Government are encouraging the chambers of commerce to strengthen, it would be misleading to think that one could have a simple write-across from the German example in the foreseeable future.

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Lab)]

My Lords, we all welcome increases in output, but we notice that people are not conscious of a growth in their living standards. Can the Minister remind us how far output as a percentage is still below the peak?

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, the important thing about output is that it is rapidly approaching the previous peak. With every passing set of statistics, we find that output is growing more quickly than we thought. It is interesting to note that the figure today of 1.9% growth in output for the past year is significantly higher than the figure that the ONS thought even in December, when it suggested 1.4%. The message from today's figures is that growth is accelerating quicker than most forecasters thought, and all forward indicators suggest that that trend will continue.

Taxation: Fuel Duty

Debate between Lord Lea of Crondall and Lord Newby

Wednesday 15th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, it is true that the effect of the VAT increase ate into the benefit but the price is still 10p less than it would have been, even taking the VAT increase into account. I am not sure whether the noble Lord supports that policy but that is a very considerable net increase. As far as domestic energy prices are concerned, the noble Lord knows that his party’s proposed policy is nothing more than a gimmick.

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Lab)]

Arising from the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, about what economists call consumer surplus, is the Minister in agreement with the official data of the ONS that hydrocarbon taxes are the most regressive taxes in the country? In other words, they show that the lowest-paid pay—I think—four times more on petrol, as a percentage of their income, than the top decile. There is therefore a distinct impact on poverty, as was implicit in the original Question.

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, the noble Lord has made a powerful argument for the Government’s policy.

Banking: Lending

Debate between Lord Lea of Crondall and Lord Newby

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, that was clearly a major contributory factor. However, I refer noble Lords to the review undertaken by Sir Andrew Large for RBS, which found that the bank had failed to meet its own lending standards, had risk-averse staff and took longer to process applications than other banks, and that its treatment of customers in financial distress had led to major negative perceptions of the bank. The bank is now, at long last, moving to tackle many of those issues, but the failures in the way that RBS ran its business were a major contributory factor to its failure in recent years to lend to SMEs the amounts it set itself in its target.

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister not accept that his characterisation is grossly inaccurate, and that in the past few years the huge fall in output in the western capitalist economies—I use that term advisedly—was due to the way in which Lehman Brothers and others at that time were able to cause that financial bubble and cause output to fall 10% below trend right across the western world? Simply to say that it was the fault of the Labour Government is ludicrous.

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, I may be mistaken but I do not think that I said it was the fault of the Labour Government.

Sterling: Exchange Rate

Debate between Lord Lea of Crondall and Lord Newby

Tuesday 25th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, it is a tool of limited use but that does not mean it is of no use at all. Obviously, you cannot have over a prolonged period all countries devaluing or competitive devaluation becomes a race to the bottom. The Governor of the Bank of England and the MPC would argue and have argued that without that devaluation our trade position would have been worse than it has been.

[Lord Lea of Crondall]

My Lords, is not the truth that the price devaluation of sterling can hardly be zero and that saying that price does not matter in export markets would make a nonsense of the whole argument about competitiveness? Would it not be more true to say—here I echo my noble friend Lord Peston—that when it comes to our manufacturing in particular exports, where the ratio of visible trade is 2:5 against us, we must have a policy on both sides? We must be competitive in price, which might require the pound to go down further, on that argument, but we must also give a massive shift of economic priority towards manufacturing as against the financial services industry.

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, the Government have been clear from the start that we want a shift away from financial services towards manufacturing. To a certain extent, that is happening. For example, we had an export surplus in cars last year for the first time in nearly 40 years.

EU: Eurozone Financial Transaction Tax

Debate between Lord Lea of Crondall and Lord Newby

Tuesday 5th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, the noble Baroness will recall that in 2011 the French Government proposed such a tax at a global level in G20 and there was widespread opposition to it from, among others, the US, China, Australia and Canada. Sadly, there is nowhere near a global consensus on whether such a tax is a good idea, and, equally, there is no consensus, even within the EU, about where the money should go. The French were, and are, keen that at least part of the proceeds should go to development aid, but the Germans, for example, propose that any receipts from the FTT should simply go into the central tax pot.

[Lord Lea of Crondall]

Given the behavioural crisis in many of the financial institutions in recent years, would the Government not be well advised to discuss the merits of such taxation around Europe, rather than reacting like Pavlov’s dog to anything just because it comes from Brussels?

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, we are engaged in discussions on this tax as it could have significant impacts not just on the City but across the EU. While the Government are not opposed in principle to a global FTT, with the lack of consensus on such a thing and faced with a proposal which we think could be damaging not just to the UK but to Europe as a whole, we are rather sceptical about it.