Covid-19: Economy Update

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Tuesday 27th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton (Con)]

I am not aware of the specific figures. It is clearly very worrying that we could lose the creative capacity of our economy and our society. We are in the most unprecedented situation, certainly in my lifetime and probably going back to the end of the Second World War. Whenever this crisis ends, there will have to be a period of rebuilding and regeneration. I absolutely affirm the Government’s support for this very important part of our society.

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a member of Cumbria County Council, and it is a Cumbria point I want to make. One of the welcome features of the Chancellor’s Statement was the introduction of a grant scheme for businesses impacted by tier 2 restrictions, even though they are not legally closed. Cumbria is in tier 1 but most of its businesses, such as hotels, boarding houses and restaurants, serve people who come from tier 3 areas in the north-west. There has been a dramatic fall in bookings, with lots of cancellations in the last week or so. These businesses are going to go bust unless they receive the help that tier 2 is getting. Can the Minister offer them some hope that, despite being in tier 1, they might receive some help?

EU Exit: Negotiations and the Joint Committee

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Wednesday 21st October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I apologise to the House if I have infringed. I say then to the noble Lord that, whatever the outcome of the negotiations, the UK is leaving the single market and the customs territory, and everybody will have to make arrangements to act in those circumstances.

[Lord Liddle (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, what a mess we are in. Do the Government accept that they won a large parliamentary majority last December on the basis of an “oven-ready deal” that had two elements? A withdrawal agreement that ditched the Northern Ireland backstop and substituted a customs border in the Irish Sea was the proposal of the British Prime Minister, not the European Union. The second element was a political declaration that set out the terms of the future EU relationship, including clear commitments to a level playing field on state aid, workers’ rights and environmental standards. These inevitably represent constraints on independence. Is it not the case that if we end up with no deal, it is because the Government have gone back on those commitments made in December and put a price on sovereignty that will result in grave economic damage and increased political insecurity for the British people?

[Lord True (Con)]

No, my Lords, I do not accept the one-sided strictures being heard once again in this House. The Government have proposed arrangements with the European Union that have precedents in agreements that that Union has reached with other countries of the world. The Government have asked for nothing unreasonable.

EU: Future Relationship

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd September 2020 Grand Committee

[Lord Liddle (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I agree with so much of what colleagues have said today that I do not want to repeat it. I shall just emphasise that I accept the reality of Brexit and want to see the best possible deal negotiated with our European friends. However, overarching this, we have to ask ourselves a much bigger question, and this is what I would like the noble Lord, Lord True, to address in his conclusions. What do we envisage as the relationship between the EU and the UK in 10 years’ time? Where are we going?

At the moment it seems to me that the Prime Minister has to resolve in his mind where he is. He seems torn between a Churchillian sense of Britain’s role in the world and a desire to make populist, semi-Trumpian appeals to his electoral base. He has got to resolve that in his mind. I was very interested that it was said that Mr Johnson took as some of his holiday reading Brendan Simms’ book on Europe. As I understand Professor Simms’ argument, it is that Britain has for centuries been inextricably bound up with the future of Europe. He is supportive of Europe’s efforts to unite to heal its century-long divisions but he argues that it is legitimate for Britain not to want to be part of that because of the unique circumstances of our history.

I do not believe that argument, but there are two propositions there that I would like to hear the Government accept fully. The first is that our future is inextricably bound up with the European continent, both in economics and security, and in our attitudes to the rest of the world, our values and our interests. The second is that we actually want the European Union to be a success. The Government should say that. They should reject the view that Michael Gove put forward in the referendum campaign, that Brexit would somehow be the prelude to the breakup of the European Union. The Government should also support further steps towards European integration. The success of Europe—[Inaudible]—to accept that point of view.

It seems to me that on many of the big questions we take a much more European than American view of the world. Take, for example, climate change, Iran, our attitude to Israeli annexation of the Occupied Territories, sanctions against autocrats, and even a reset of the Chinese relationship that does not result in the creation of a new cold war. Many of us, of course, hope that Mr Trump will be defeated in November. But my forecast is that if we have a President Biden, his first instinct in relation to Europe will be to repair relations with Germany. Instead of feeling left out of our special relationship, the UK should welcome that, because it is what Europe needs.

We must have a constructive attitude towards Europe, and we must demonstrate it in everything we do. That is true of the security relationship. The Government will not tell us where the negotiations are going on that. I do not think that that bodes well for them. But if, after a couple of years, we discover that where we are on security represents a significant detriment compared with where we are today, will the Government commit to have a rethink, and think about a new security treaty with the European Union in which we are prepared to recognise the need for some common judicial order, if we are to have deep security co-operation?

Similarly, on the economy, one of the great puzzles about the present rows is that, yes, we are having this enormous row about state aid—but for what purpose? Is it seriously suggested that having freedom on state aid is a bigger benefit to Brexit Britain than the avoidance of tariffs and quotas at our borders? That is a ludicrous proposition. What is even more ludicrous is that the Government cannot even tell the EU what they want that state aid freedom for. We talk about divergence but there is no analysis to underpin where we want to diverge, so the EU is bound to be suspicious of our motives.

In the present situation we must put effort into avoiding a catastrophic breakdown and try to rebuild a positive relationship with our partners step by step. We should welcome the future track of deeper European integration, and recognise that what happens in Europe is as decisive for the UK’s future when we are outside the EU as it was when we were inside.

Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 8th September 2020 Grand Committee

[Lord McNicol of West Kilbride (Lab)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Grocott explained perfectly how well my noble friend Lady Hayter introduced this set of amendments. She took us through the main issues and the main points within them. I wish to emphasise just a couple of issues that my noble friend Lord Foulkes touched on at the end of his speech.

British politics is cyclical. Removing proper parliamentary scrutiny is not just wrong but could prove to be a very short-sighted action by this Government. Empowering the Executive over Parliament raises issues and concerns. If this was the only change brought forward in the Bill, we would be questioning it and raising issues with it, but what makes it more concerning is that it is coupled with other changes that make it harder to have that democratic oversight: the timetabling of any future changes—we will be discussing later the 5% that has been mentioned—and the nominating process for the Boundary Commission.

Boundary Commission recommendations deserve a democratic parliamentary backstop. These are judgment issues: major constitutional issues and changes that could be implemented around the parliamentary landscape. Although MPs, political parties and communities can feed into the earlier stages of the Boundary Commission review, the full oversight of all the packages across the different nations really takes place only when they enter Parliament itself.

We have heard that the Commons would now have 600 MPs if we had the system proposed in the Bill. What happens if the Prime Minister of the day decides that 600 is not right, and that 200, 300 or 1,000 MPs are needed? Not having full parliamentary oversight and decision-making power on would just not be right. Like my noble friends who have spoken, therefore, I am more than happy to support these amendments and look forward to the Minister’s comments and response.

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, the speeches by my colleagues before I was called have left me very little to say that is fresh, but I will try to make some new points, if that is possible.

My first point is that I am instinctively opposed to what the Government are trying to do here—to take this issue out of Parliament’s hands—mainly because I see it as part of the general trend of what the Johnson premiership is doing to Britain. It sees Brexit, and the constitutional changes resulting from Brexit, as an opportunity to strengthen the power of the Executive, and not to bring power back to Parliament, which was what the leave people argued for in the referendum. Across the board we see—for example in the Trade Bill and the Immigration Bill—a concentration of power in the Executive, with Parliament having less say than before. This is a deplorable trend, and it is not giving power back to the people.

My second point is that what the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, has said about the need for impartial consideration of constituency boundaries, and what the Constitution Committee says about this proposal being appropriate, would be all very well if one felt that one could trust this Executive to behave impartially. The way in which the Government have behaved since the December general election gives one no confidence that they will behave in a decent and impartial way, so why should we give them this power that they currently do not have?

I also believe that there has been inadequate consideration of the Bill, in the Commons and in our own House as a result of the way we are now dealing with the Bill, of the very big issues that it raises. If you apply a strict population basis to representation in this country, you will gradually see a shift in political power to London and the south-east, where most voters are. The Government decided to opt for 650 Members rather than 600 because they were deeply aware of the fact that the redistribution is likely to see a shift of representation from the north of England to the south, and that with the new “red wall” MPs who have been elected, a further reduction in the number of MPs would lead to very considerable party problems for the Conservative Party in the north of England, where it has just won representation.

We ought to be taking a bigger look at these issues. Representation is not just a feature of the arithmetical equality of the size of constituencies; it is also about whether, within a union such as the United Kingdom, all parts are fairly represented. I deeply regret that the numbers of Scottish and Welsh MPs are being reduced—when the debate about the union’s future is becoming critical, this is a grave mistake.

Similarly, within England, we need to think about the balancing of power between the regions of the country. My noble friend Lord Foulkes and I would probably agree that we would like to see this done through reform of the upper House—but, while we cannot achieve this, it is a bad political and constitutional mistake for the Government to go down the road of strict arithmetic equality. The different parts of the United Kingdom have to be decently represented.

So I support these amendments, for the fundamental reason that you cannot trust this Executive to behave fairly.

[Lord Morris of Aberavon (Lab)]

My Lords, as someone who tried to be a constitutional lawyer when I was a law officer, I agree entirely with the remarks of my noble friend Lord Grocott and others that a constitutional Bill should not be handled by this Committee. I had a hand in proposing a number of devolution Bills rather a long time ago, and they were all taken on the Floor of the Commons and, in due course, on the Floor of this House.

I wish to support the amendment moved by my noble friend Lady Hayter. I hope that I am not given to extraordinary language. As a lawyer, one should be moderate in the use of words, if one is to have any effect on a tribunal. In my Second Reading speech, I referred to the proposals for Wales, referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, a few minutes ago. I shall not go on about them; I will come back to them in due course. I hope that I am not too extravagant in my language but, as I see it, what is happening plainly in this Bill is gerrymandering on a huge scale. It is the second time that Governments have sought dramatically to reduce the number of Welsh MPs, all with the aim of reducing Labour representation, since we have been the majority party in Wales since 1905. There is no regard in the Bill for continuity, ties with local authorities or particular problems in south Wales, where communication is down the valleys and not across huge mountains.

I strongly believe that decisions so far as possible should be as distanced as one can from political Ministers. This reduces the temptation to gerrymander. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, the former Lord Chief Justice, has a very helpful amendment in which he seeks to replace the Lord Chancellor with the Lord Chief Justice in the Bill. I will support him and will expand on my remarks in due course. The purpose is to reduce and remove political interest, because the Lord Chancellor is very much a political animal. As Secretary of State, I tried to be impartial; whether I succeeded is not for me to judge but for others. But one had a whole range of appointments to make, from chairmen of quangos to submissions of appointment to Lord Lieutenant and managing the honours list. One tried one’s best, and a diverse number of people, including ex-Conservative Ministers and ex-eminent Liberal MPs, were appointed to my quangos. I hope that I succeeded. I may not have done as much as I would have hoped to do, but I did my best.

It is of fundamental importance to the golden thread of fair representation in this House to ensure that there is independence and no political influence, and that the day-to-day management of electoral commissions is done by deputy boundary commissioners. I have appeared professionally before such bodies, and I applaud the experience and fairness of distinguished silks who know what they are about and do their best. I am not aware of any conflict of interest. But we should have all the time in the forefront of our minds when considering the Bill that there should be independence, there should be respect for the decisions, and they should be generally acceptable.

--- Later in debate ---

We know that they are doing that because, had the previous boundary changes gone through on top of the boundary changes already made in Sheffield, you would have seen that people had drawn lines. I do not blame them; they sit in an office in London. I do not expect anybody to research this, but I would be surprised if anybody on or working for the Boundary Commission has ever lived in the north of Sheffield. If you do not know an area and you do not have a clue about its nuances, you are bound to get it wrong. The tighter the task you have been given, the more likely you are to mess it up. So having longer periods of stability, with people genuinely representing their areas and having the ability to adjust to changes and turnover as time goes on, makes sense, but being rigid about 5% and an eight-year timetable does not.

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

We have had some excellent contributions. I want to make a simple point: the ties of community should be given equal weight to arithmetic. To strengthen those ties, there should be a longer period between each distribution.

[Lord Lipsey (Lab)]

My Lords, first, I want to refute the calumny that I am participating in this debate only to go down in parliamentary history as one who was present at the first-ever hybrid Grand Committee of the House of Lords. It is not true. Indeed, it goes contrary to my strongest principles because, as a noble Lord said earlier, this Bill should be on the Floor of the House; it is constitutional, but it goes beyond its constitutionality.

We should consider the scale of the change in the Bill, the degree of disruption that it will cause if it is put into effect in full, the ruined lives down the other end of the Corridor—going from 600 to 650 helps, but it does not help as much as not having a 5% variant—the disruption it will cause and the loss of confidence among the population because they will not know who their Member will be next time round. This is really large-scale stuff—and that is without getting into the issue, which I do not intend to cover this afternoon, of whether this is in fact a gerrymander. No doubt we will have a chance to discuss that later in Committee and on Report. So I am not participating just to be in a hybrid Committee. I wish we were not in a hybrid Committee but on the Floor.

The second calumny is that I am intervening on this amendment only because the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, and I are such comrades, if I may use that word in the House of Lords. We are great veterans of the 2011 attempt to persuade the Government of the points, or most of the points, that I have just made. That attempt narrowly failed, due to a piece of stubbornness on David Cameron’s point of view. It is a great pity that those measures went through—they had to be ditched anyway—but it gives us a chance to have a second, more sensible, go. Unfortunately, I do not think that the Government have succeeded in doing that.

As I say, my noble friend Lord Foulkes is a comrade. He knows that we disagree on electoral reform. The idea that electoral reform would necessarily destroy the relationship between MPs and their constituents is nonsense. It was shown to be nonsense by something that nobody round this table other than me will remember: the Jenkins report on the electoral system. I remember it quite well because I was on the commission. Those noble Lords who remember that will remember that it had most constituencies represented by a single Member, as now. There were some additional Members to deal with discrepancies in the amount of support that each party needed to elect somebody, but they were on a county basis; they were not asked to represent the whole country at large or any of the things that go with other proportional systems, so there is no necessary link between electoral reform and whether you go ahead with this sort of system. It should be debated on its own complicated merits. I suppose I had better come to the amendment about now.

At the moment we have the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, which implies that elections take place every five years. It makes sense to me that you should have a fixed gap between a boundary review and an election—they should come in that order. If you had 10 years under the present system, that is what would happen. It would come at the same distance before an election each time. Eight years tells you nothing. It means that sometimes you will have a boundary review immediately after a general election, so you will fight the next election on completely outdated boundaries. The time after that will be just before an election, so no would-be Member of Parliament will have time to get to know his electorate. It is a complete absurdity. It is so absurd that I can think of only one argument that the Minister could use to defend it, which would be to say, “We committed in our manifesto to get rid of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act”—and I recognise that that is the case.

However, do not be surprised if the Prime Minister and his party do not in the end show the enthusiasm that they have shown so far for the proposition that they go back to the old system where the Prime Minister calls the election every time. I should say, first of all, that the record of Prime Ministers calling elections when they have that discretion is bloody awful. I go back to Jim Callaghan, who I was then privileged to be an adviser to, funking autumn 1978 and going for 1979 and therefore making Mrs Thatcher possible. I understand why he made the decision, but I think he was wrong—and I think he thought he was wrong. More recently, Theresa May, befuddled by the opinion polls and having adopted a policy for social care that was bound to lead to at least a 10-point drop in the Tories’ reckoning, went for an election that was the end of her.

Even more recently, not the Prime Minister but the leader of the Labour Party, in the face of irrefutable evidence that his party would be massacred if it went to the country under his leadership, nevertheless decided that his party should vote for an early election, thus handing Boris Johnson the easiest victory in electoral history. My experience of politicians is that they do not much like choosing election dates anyway. The Fixed-term Parliaments Act, for all its defects, seems to be basically right, so if we keep that, we will keep five-year Parliaments and one review for each 10-year stretch.

That would also avoid unnecessary disruption. Every time constituencies change, as ex-Members of the Commons have told us so eloquently this afternoon, there is considerable disruption. There is a tremendous problem that may do for these plans in the end. It is perfectly true, and if Ministers were honest they would admit it, that on the whole this change is probably slightly biased in favour of the Conservative Party. But that is one thing. It is another thing when the Back-Benchers are going to see the Chief Whip every week and saying, “We can’t have an election, look at what’s been done to my constituency. We only held it last time because I had so many supporters in Borrowstown and now they’ve been moved off to that fat, useless Tory Member for Bugglestown.” That is why they did not do this last time. It was not a matter of principle or because they saw that they were wrong, or even because of what the Lib Dems might have done about it. It was because it was rightly causing bedlam on the Conservative Back Benches.

This may seem to those who advise the Prime Minister like a bumper wheeze for getting a few extra Conservative seats. I promise that, before the next election, they will be eating their words and the Prime Minister will be saying, “Who the hell got me into this? Haven’t we got anything better to do than deal with Back-Benchers who feel that they’re going to lose their seats and it’s our fault?” There is no worse accusation to be made against a Government than that they are knifing their own party in the back.

Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Lord Liddle Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 27th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Liddle (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I will make three points. First, I agree strongly with the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, that Parliament should retain the right to approve or block recommendations of the Boundary Commission. Not to do this would put far too much power in the hands of the Executive and would be a further step in strengthening the Executive at the expense of Parliament—all against what the Brexiteers said Brexit was all about.

Secondly, I agree with my noble friends Lady Gale and Lord Foulkes, and other Scottish and Welsh colleagues, that it is a mistake, particularly at this moment, to reduce the representation of Scotland and Wales when the future of the union is almost hanging in the balance. If anything, the representation of the smaller nations should be increased. In the medium term, I favour a second Chamber with a balanced representation of the nations and regions of England, to offset the excessive power of London and the south-east.

As I am a Cumbria county councillor, my third point is a Cumbrian one: the case for greater flexibility in constituency size. At present we have six seats, with an average electorate of 66,500—some 7,000, or about 10%, below the quota. However, if we had only five seats in Cumbria, they would each have 79,000 voters, which is 10% above the quota. Therefore, on the criteria of the Bill, equal size means crossing the boundaries of the top-tier Cumbria County Council boundary. What is the position on this? Do the Government believe that that is the sensible thing to do? Also, think about Cumbria. If we go north, it is another country—Scotland. If we go east, we have the barrier of the Pennines, and to the south we have north Lancashire, where the Government, because of their thinking on local government reorganisation, reject the idea of Cumbria expanding south.

There is no logic in the argument that mathematically equal constituencies produce votes of equal value. Community is as important as this and should be valued, and it is particularly important in a county such as Cumbria, where the central bit is all mountains. If we want votes of equal value, we have to take seriously a move to proportional representation, which personally I favour. However, that is a separate issue for another day. To sacrifice community for the sake of some pursuit of mathematically equal constituencies is in my view wrong.

Covid-19: Public Wealth Investment Fund

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Tuesday 9th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton [V]]

I certainly commit to chasing up a reply to the letter that the noble Lord mentioned. Businesses run by the BAME community are of course vital to our economy.

[Lord Liddle (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I want to press the Minister on the key point of principle in my noble friend Lord Haskel’s excellent Question. Do the Government accept the need to set up a mechanism whereby the state can take equity stakes in overindebted companies? Do they accept that this is vital to what the Minister describes as safeguarding our productive capacity and to a strong and sustainable recovery? Does the Minister accept that the debate is not about whether this should happen but about how it should happen? The sooner we start talking about this, the better.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton [V]]

There are two parts to that question. First, on 20 May, we announced the future fund of an initial £250 million for co-investment with businesses. There has been enormous interest in that; some 460 applications have been made up to the end of May. On the noble Lord’s reference to overindebted companies, we have to deal with the issue that the shareholders and management of those companies have contributed to that problem. They need to resolve the substantial concessions that they will have to make to their own equity, and to the lenders who have lent—and possibly overlent—to these businesses. There are two separate strands to this, but both will be active in future.

Northern Ireland Protocol

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Thursday 21st May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord True]

I thank my noble friend and of course I pay tribute to her, as indeed I should have to the noble Lord, Lord Hain, for their contributions over the years to these matters. Yes, I can give my noble friend both those assurances. We hope for, expect and are proposing light administrative procedures of exactly the type she describes.

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

This is a step forward but a very modest one. Does the Minister agree that this is a proposal that has to be agreed with the European Union and the European Commission in the joint committee and the specialised committee?

On the question of the union’s presence in supervising these arrangements, I have the protocol in front of me, and Article 12.2 makes clear that

“Union representatives shall have the right to be present during any activities of the authorities of the United Kingdom related to the implementation and application of provisions of … this Protocol”.

It goes on to say:

“Where the Union representative requests the authorities of the United Kingdom to carry out control measures … the authorities of the United Kingdom shall carry out those control measures”,


and that if we do not then this is subject to the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice. Will the Minister be honest about what the provisions of the protocol are?

[Lord True]

My Lords, I always try to be honest: I have human frailty, as does everyone else, but I seek to tell the truth. The noble Lord has confirmed what I just said about the content of the protocol. It does not require cement, but it requires the United Kingdom Government—who will themselves, as I underlined, administer these arrangements—to be ready to facilitate methods of assurance by the other party. Those methods of assurance do not need a heavy touch. I do not think that is envisaged by the European Union; certainly it is not by the United Kingdom Government. The United Kingdom Government’s desire is to build on this agreement and persuade all parties, including the European Union, that this kind of approach satisfies the interests of all parties and does so in a way that puts the interests of the people of Northern Ireland, and the peace agreement, first. I hope we can all unite on that.

Beyond Brexit (European Union Committee Report)

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Tuesday 12th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, I agree with everything the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, said, and in particular I underline his tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Boswell. I was a member of the European Union Select Committee for much of the time the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, was chairman. His was a very wise chairmanship; I learned a lot from him, and I am very grateful to him.

I want to make one simple point in these brief remarks. If we are to have influence in the world, it is very important—this is a key point, which the report stresses—that we build strong co-operation with other nations through institutions. Institutions matter to outcomes in foreign affairs. They create frameworks for regular meetings, they bring officials together, they facilitate instinctive mutual understanding of where other countries stand, and they make common positions easier to forge. I find it very depressing that the Government, in their drastic hardening of Brexit policy, have turned their back on institutional co-operation. They have rejected the possibility of a mechanism for co-operation in foreign affairs, refusing to talk about it. They have rejected an overarching framework for our relationship with the EU through an association agreement.

Gone completely is Mrs May’s notion of a deep and special partnership with the EU. It has been consigned to the dustbin of history. I am sorry to be harsh, and I hope that the Minister will tell me that I am wrong, but I do not think so.

Budget: Economic and Fiscal Outlook

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Tuesday 5th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, I want to follow on from where the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, ended in talking about the future importance of a Britain outside the European Union co-operating with our European friends and allies. I have been much saddened by this debate. Frankly, some of the speeches have demonstrated hatred—I would put it like that—of the European Union and no recognition of interdependence; that is, that we must live with our closest neighbours on the continent. I want an assurance from the noble Lord, Lord True. He said that the Government believe in European co-operation, but what are their practical plans for that to get us out of the present crisis?

Look at the number of different possibilities. First, we need macroeconomic co-operation. We need a repeat of what Gordon Brown did in 2008-09: working with our European partners on a co-ordinated fiscal stimulus. If you do not have that degree of co-ordination, fiscal stimulus is ineffective.

Secondly, we need to work closely with European countries on our research programmes, which have never been more important than during this health crisis. We need to strengthen research co-operation, not reduce it. This is vital for many British universities.

Thirdly, we need sectoral co-operation in key areas of our industry. For example, let us go back to the financial crisis again. The car industry was in a terrible mess then. It is in a terrible mess today. We had adopted, by agreement with several of our European friends, a system of car scrapping incentives. This could be done again with green new deal objectives in mind. We should work towards that to save the European car industry. Similarly, Airbus is absolutely fundamental to our manufacturing position in this country. What are we doing with France and Germany to guarantee the future of Airbus and its manufacturing in Great Britain?

One could go on with many other examples. We need practical European co-operation. Will we get it from the Government of the noble Lord, Lord True?

European Union: Future Relationship

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Tuesday 28th April 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord True]

No, my Lords, the Government are negotiating in good faith. We are in the first stages of this negotiation and that is the course we will continue to pursue. I have rather more confidence in the good faith of both sides than is implied in the question put by the noble Baroness.

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My question concerns the border and customs controls that are due to be put into place on 1 January next year between Great Britain and the EU and Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Given the Government’s rejection of regulatory alignment in goods and their refusal to accept the principle of the level playing field on which Brussels insists, when these controls come in, they are likely to be onerous. What steps are the Government taking to prepare business for these extensive border and customs controls at the end of this year and how do they expect businesses to cope with these new requirements, given the devastating consequences of the Covid crisis? Is that not in itself an argument for seeking an extension?

[Lord True]

No, my Lords. That is again a lengthy question with various premises in it. The Government are confident that we will have appropriate arrangements in place for the end of the year, but I remind the noble Lord that our objective is a free trade agreement with the European Union. I hope very much that that will be the outcome of the negotiations.