European Union (Future Relationship) Bill

Lord Marlesford Excerpts

3rd reading & 2nd reading & Committee negatived & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & 3rd reading (Hansard) & 3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & Committee negatived (Hansard) & Committee negatived (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 30th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Marlesford (Con) [V]]

My Lords, in supporting this Bill, I start by adding to the shower of congratulations that the Prime Minister has received on his brilliance as a negotiator. I couple his name with that of Ursula von der Leyen; I hope she may one day be Chancellor of Germany, but, of course, it is crucial that she continues in her present post for several more years.

I was a reluctant, although convinced, Brexiteer. I always believed in de Gaulle’s concept of Europe des Nations. That was proving a losing battle—but a battle not yet lost, which is why we had to get out while there was still time. The internal contradictions of a single currency with multiple economic policies was sustained only by the courage and skill of the ECB, fulfilling many of the functions of a federal finance ministry.

It was when the EU Commission overreached its legitimate mandate of getting things done, in particular with the single market, by intruding to an ever-greater extent on the sovereignty of the EU member states that the limit of political integration was exposed most egregiously in September 2015, when it proposed mandatory quotas of how many illegal migrants each state should accept. Since then, the whole EU political structure has become increasingly fragile.

Brexit may be done, but we still have a crucial role in protecting Europe, not only with our military. Europe is under threat from external forces greater than any of those that have, from time to time over the last 1,300 years, torn it asunder from within. This is not the moment to spell them out, but their menace becomes clearer with every month that passes. In his foreword to HMG’s summary of the agreement, the Prime Minister wrote:

“The UK is, of course, culturally, spiritually and emotionally part of Europe.”


When our European values are at stake, Britain will always step forward to be part of a united Europe.

Ministerial Code: Breaches

Lord Marlesford Excerpts

Monday 2nd March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord True]

My Lords, I used the term “Home Secretary” because the person engaged is Home Secretary, but where allegations of breach of the Ministerial Code has been made against a Minister, those allegations, from wherever, will be investigated.

[Lord Marlesford (Con)]

My Lords, the undignified whinge in front of television cameras by the former Permanent Secretary at the Home Office certainly shows that he is no Sir Humphrey Appleby. What matters is that the Home Office is arguably the most constipated department in Whitehall, but one of the most important. There is much still to be done to follow up what the noble Lord, Lord Reid, said in May 2006 about the department being “not fit for purpose”. What really matters is that we get on with the reforms and we must welcome the fact that my right honourable friend Priti Patel is a vigorous Home Secretary who is determined, among other things, to root out the deep corruption, demonstrated in Parliamentary Questions I have asked and had answered, in the immigration department of the Home Office.

[Lord True]

My Lords, I will not follow my noble friend on all his comments. All I will say is that the Home Office has been charged with a vital job, from creating a points-based immigration system to strengthening the police and so on. I have no reason to believe that the Home Office, led by an outstanding ministerial team, will not perform to the highest levels expected of Her Majesty’s Civil Service.

Elections and Referendums: Foreign Interference

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Thursday 9th May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

Were there to be another referendum, there would need to be primary legislation, which would give an opportunity to the noble Lord and others to see whether the current legislation is adequate. Anybody taking part in any future referendum would have to register as a political party. There are maximum spending limits on such activity and there is the necessary transparency associated with it, but I take on board the warning from the noble Lord.

[Lord Marlesford (Con)]

Does my noble friend agree that, in practice, the European elections will be a referendum on Brexit?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The various parties will put out their manifestos, which will explain where they stand and what they want people to support. Depending on how people vote, the necessary conclusions will be drawn. I see where my noble friend is coming from, in that there will be a clear temptation to add up the totality of votes for the “remain parties” and for the “leave parties” and see what the result is. Whether people are then motivated or influenced by the level of turnout is something that we will have to determine on the day.

National Security Council Leak

Lord Marlesford Excerpts

Thursday 2nd May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord Marlesford (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach (Con)]

My Lords, as both noble Lords cannot ask a question at the same time, I will ask my noble friend Lord Cormack to speak first.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The noble Lord uses phrases such as “guilty as charged”. The Secretary of State for Defence was dismissed because he was in breach of the Ministerial Code, which says:

“Ministers only remain in office for so long as they retain the confidence of the Prime Minister. She is the ultimate judge of the standards of behaviour expected of a Minister and the appropriate consequences of a breach of those standards”.


That is why the Secretary of State for Defence lost his job.

[Lord Marlesford]

My Lords, does my noble friend agree that a serious side-effect of such incidents is the constant, increasing rotation of Ministers at every level, which militates strongly against effective government?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

That raises a broader issue, but I hope that my noble friend is not suggesting that Ministers who have broken the code should remain in office simply to avoid the rotation to which he referred. If confidence has been lost, the Minister should go.

Race Disparity Audit

Lord Marlesford Excerpts

Tuesday 10th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I agree with much of what the noble Baroness has just said. If one looks at excluded children, which I did this morning, one sees that those most likely to be excluded are Traveller children and those in the Roma community. Publishing the figures highlights the fact that those children are more likely to be excluded. The noble Baroness is right that there are substantial discrepancies and differences between particular ethnic groups when it comes to exclusion. Now those who run our schools will have to explain or change—that is the whole purpose of the exercise.

On a coherent race equality strategy, again, I hear what the noble Baroness says. As I mentioned a moment ago, there will be an interministerial group to take this forward. I anticipate that there will be interest in both this House and another place now that we have published the report and the Government have explained how they are making progress in eliminating some of the discrimination that has appeared.

[Lord Marlesford (Con)]

My Lords, in debating these matters, will my noble friend bear in mind the advice of the late Lord Bauer—the distinguished economist Professor Peter Bauer, at whose feet I was lucky enough to sit many years ago as an undergraduate—that sometimes the word “difference” is more enlightening than “inequality”?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

Yes—and, again, if my noble friend has time to look at this, he will see that often there are very good reasons why there are differences. But he has given me some good advice and I will stop there.

Class 4 National Insurance Contributions

Lord Marlesford Excerpts

Wednesday 15th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I understand the noble Lord’s concern but, as I said when I repeated the Statement, in his Autumn Budget the Chancellor will outline the measures that he will take to make good the revenue lost by this decision. Therefore, the noble Lord will have to wait until the Autumn Statement for the answer to his question, but I know that the Chancellor will take on board his concern for the lower paid and the less well off as he addresses those issues.

[Lord Marlesford (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the Chancellor on his rapid reverse but might it be worth reminding the Labour Party what a long time it took for it to drop the absurd selective employment tax, invented by Professor Kaldor? It hung round Labour’s neck for a very long while. As for filling the gap, did my noble friend notice the suggestion that I made yesterday that one of the easiest things to do is to reverse the freeze on road fuel duty, which would do less than make up for inflation? An increase of 10p a litre would produce £4.6 billion of revenue this year, next year and every year.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I am grateful to my noble friend for reminding us about the selective employment tax, which I had totally forgotten about until he reminded me a few moments ago. I am also grateful to him for making a suggestion as to how the gap might be filled —something that we have not had from many other contributors. I know that as the Chancellor approaches his Autumn Budget he will take on board my noble friend’s suggestion, but I give no guarantee at all that he will implement it.

Ministerial Visits: Travel Costs

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Wednesday 18th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the noble Baroness will be well aware that, in the run-up to an election, officials are prepared to give advice, including to members of opposition parties and the Opposition Front Bench, on preparation. This is not, in any sense, out of the ordinary.

[Lord Marlesford (Con)]

Since the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, has raised the subject, will my noble friend take the opportunity to deal with something much more important than a particular incident: ending the absurd restrictions that mean Ministers travelling by rail on official visits are expected not to travel first-class? First-class is intended for busy executives with a shortage of time to be able to work. I suggest that these rules do not add one iota to the public’s respect for politicians—probably the reverse.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I have a great deal of sympathy with the noble Lord’s question. I recall a ministerial meeting in the Foreign Office when we all discussed which was the cheapest cheap airline that we had travelled on. As I recall, David Lidington, who had travelled on Wizz Air, was the winner.

Hong Kong

Lord Marlesford Excerpts

Thursday 16th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Marlesford (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as in the register. When my noble friend Lord Patten of Barnes was Governor of Hong Kong, he achieved two things. First, he focused the eyes of the world on Hong Kong so that, if it were ill treated or the “one country, two systems” agreement were interfered with, it would be headline world news. Secondly, he taught the people of Hong Kong the basics of politics, how to express and advocate what they wanted and to stand up for themselves. Recent events have shown that both lessons have been learnt.

Democracy can be most soundly built if it has good foundations and is then constructed brick by brick. On the whole, attempts to offer countries our pattern as a ready-made kit instantly applicable have been a disaster, often leading to anarchy or dictatorship. The foundation for democracy in Hong Kong was the joint declaration enshrined in the Basic Law. It is important to remember that a majority of local citizens identify themselves as Hongkongers rather than Chinese. That proportion is growing: Hong Kong University does a poll on this twice a year and has shown that since 1997 the proportion has grown from 60% to 67%.

This of course reflects the most important of all the facts about Hong Kong: it is a true international financial capital, the third most important after London and New York. China is lucky enough to have that international capital. I emphasise that, although Shanghai is the undisputed commercial capital of China, that is very different from being a financial capital. Shanghai is decades away from being so. There are many reasons for that, but the paramount one is the rule of law and the supremacy of an independent and incorrupt judiciary, which China does not have but Hong Kong does.

The Future of the Civil Service

Lord Marlesford Excerpts

Thursday 16th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Marlesford (Con)]

My Lords, for 50 years I have been observing, commenting on and, at one point, participating in the Civil Service; as a party functionaire, as a special adviser in Whitehall when those were rare beasts, and as a journalist. For some months, at the Economist, I shared a room with the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy—we had a lot of fun—and his arrival has been a great asset to this House.

I have observed, with dismay, a real deterioration during recent decades in the performance and capability of the Civil Service and, indeed, in the quality of some of those who occupy key posts in it. To take just one symptom, the quality and preparation of legislation has been getting worse and worse. We have observed this in our own role here. This is sometimes compounded by the determination of civil servants to stick to what they have produced, casting around for ingenious and often spurious arguments to sustain it. This can be compounded by Ministers if they are prepared to act as parrots for the Whitehall view. I would support the idea of a fundamental look at the Civil Service, but on the one condition that it does not delay the changes that can be made and are so urgently needed now.

The whole idea of Northcote-Trevelyan and the subsequent reforms was to move away from patronage to ensure tough, competitive entry so that the Civil Service recruited the brightest and the best and became a meritocratic elite. Its performance must be held to account with rigour by Parliament; this is where I welcome the growing effectiveness of Select Committees. The problem is the attempt to move away from the simple criterion of excellence in recruitment and promotion towards diversity, the aim of which is to make the Civil Service reflect more closely the profile of Britain. The flaw in this is that the role of the Civil Service is too important to be used in some form of politically correct modern patronage dressed up as social engineering.

Better is needed at the bottom and the top of the ladder. At the bottom, private offices—traditionally a crucial staging post on the route to the top—are there to help serving Ministers get things done. In 2011 I asked, in a PQ, what steps HMG were taking to ensure that the staffing of private offices reflected the full diversity of the UK. In reply, I got a whole column of Hansard, proudly announcing such absurdities as roadshows. Private offices are now falling down on the job. Permanent Secretaries have always been key at the top. As the noble Lord, Lord Butler, said, there is now far too much rotation. For example, the deputy secretary at the Home Office responsible for immigration policy, so rightly denounced as not fit for purpose, was promoted to PUS in the Ministry of Defence. His performance was a disaster and his successor lasted only a few months. Where are the giants of the past? Where are the Sir Frank Coopers and the Sir Michael Quinlans?

Britain needs and deserves the best in the Civil Service. I am in favour of an independent elite. Let us recruit it.

Syria and the Use of Chemical Weapons

Lord Marlesford Excerpts

Thursday 29th August 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Marlesford]

My Lords, the earlier policies of Her Majesty’s Government on Syria, where we have intervened politically against Assad from the start, thus fuelling the conflict, and today’s proposals for unspecified British military intervention in a civil war between deeply antagonistic Muslim sects in the heartlands of Islam are so ill considered, confused and risky that I believe that in due course it may be necessary to set up an inquiry to discover why our policy-making process on Syria has failed so badly.

In the mean time, I ask the basic question: what is the essence of a foreign policy? First, it is to know and understand what has happened and what is happening. Secondly, it is to make a well informed judgment of what may happen. Only then can one construct a policy that puts British national interests first; as far as possible, takes into account the concerns of other nations, particularly those of our allies; and has full regard for the security, prosperity and peace of the world. On these simple tests, I believe that the British foreign policy on Syria has been and is dangerously flawed, and that is why so many on all political sides have little confidence in what the Government are suggesting.

Last night, I received an e-mail from someone whom I much respect in New York, an American who has been a long-term observer of the political process in the United States. He wrote: “It seems that the British Government’s finger is closer to the trigger, at least for the moment”. I find that very disturbing.