EU: United Kingdom

Debate between Lord Liddle and Lord Strathclyde

Monday 26th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

My Lords—

[The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Strathclyde)]

My Lords, we have time. Perhaps we should hear the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, and then the noble Lord, Lord Pearson?

[Lord Liddle]

My Lords, all sides of this House want to see a very strong relationship with Germany and regard it as one of our leading partners in a European Union in which we want to play a leading role. However, does the Minister seriously believe that our ability to be taken seriously by Germany is enhanced by all the talk of renegotiation, looser relationships and referenda—maybe now two referenda, one before and one after the general election? When will the Government put a stop to this nonsense on their own Back Benches?

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Liddle and Lord Strathclyde

Tuesday 25th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathclyde]

I am happy to be interrupted on that. I understand my noble friend’s point plainly. The point that he and others have made is that an MP cannot represent well a constituency that crosses county boundaries, but my right honourable friend the Minister of State at the Scotland Office represents a seat in the south of Scotland that crosses, I think, three local authority boundaries, and he does it rather well. The fact that the seat crosses several such boundaries makes no difference to his ability to represent it, so I do not accept the argument that my noble friend makes. I do not take away from him and other noble Lords the passion with which they make their argument. I just think, and this is the Government’s point, that it is a better and safer principle to stick to an equality of numbers of electors in constituencies across the country than to try to make these arguments.

[Lord Liddle]

I think that the noble Lord is slightly misrepresenting the point that we are trying to make. There is no attachment here to lines on maps that mark county boundaries that cannot be crossed. We are talking about the fact that these lines on maps represent real communities, which in some cases are very geographically isolated communities, and it is impossible to draw constituency boundaries that would maintain that essential sense of community. We are asking for the flexibility to take that sense of community into account, not local government boundaries.

[Lord Strathclyde]

That is exactly what noble Lords opposite are saying. The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, said that crossing county boundaries destroys local identity built up in Cumbria. He said a couple of times that it would export voters into other constituencies. I just do not understand what that means or why it should be important.

European Council

Debate between Lord Liddle and Lord Strathclyde

Monday 20th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Liddle]

My Lords, has the Leader of the House had an opportunity to study last week’s financial stability report from the Bank of England, which demonstrated the interconnectedness of the obligations of British banks and those of banks on the continent and suggested to the reader that, should there be any kind of sovereign debt default in a member state in the eurozone, Britain and British banks would be heavily involved in any debt restructuring that was necessary? In this case, is it not time that, instead of trying to pretend to their anti-European and Eurosceptic Back-Benchers that Britain can stand aside from the problems of the eurozone, the Government recognised that we are in these problems up to our neck, that if we want a credible growth strategy for Britain we must also have a credible growth strategy for the eurozone, and that we should be ready as the United Kingdom in our national interest to play a full part in that?

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, I have not had time to study the stability report from the Bank of England to which the noble Lord referred, but I understand exactly what he was saying. With the greatest respect to him, I think that his question was misconceived. There is no fear from us that we are trying to appease anti-European or sceptical Back-Benchers. These are bogeymen that obviously exist in the noble Lord’s nightmares. We have no such nightmares and no such concerns. If any such concerns exist, they are partly dealt with by explaining that there will be a process in the British Parliament for agreeing the changes that we have made. Of course, as I laid out in the Statement and in reply to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, we have a clear strategy for growth in the United Kingdom and believe that there should be a clear strategy for growth in the rest of Europe.