Northern Ireland: Supply of Medicines

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Thursday 9th December 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Moylan]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure the uninterrupted supply of all medicines to Northern Ireland from the end of this year.

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Lord Frost) (Con)]

My Lords, the people of Northern Ireland must have access to the full range of medicines available to people elsewhere in the UK. We are currently in intensive discussions with the Commission to see whether we can establish a consensual way of resolving the current difficulties in this area, among many others. Some progress has been made, but agreement has not been reached.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend agree that Her Majesty’s Government have a unique and inescapable obligation to ensure the flow of medicines to all parts of the United Kingdom, including Northern Ireland, without disruption or barriers? Does he agree that the imperatives of health exceed any contractual obligations that we might have with partners and friends? Does he also agree that the Government would not only be justified in taking but are required to take all necessary steps to ensure that medicines continue to flow to Northern Ireland, as now?

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, I very much agree with the question posed by my noble friend. There is obviously an obligation on this Government, as on any other, to provide medicines throughout the United Kingdom. Indeed, we would argue—and I think that it would be accepted—that the provision of medicines is an essential state function, as set out in Article 1 of the protocol. That is why it is important to find a solution that respects that.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) (Abolition of By-Elections) Bill [HL]

Lord Moylan Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 3rd December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, being, I think, the last Back-Bench speaker in this debate presents certain challenges in finding something novel to say. I thought I would begin by giving your Lordships a view of the House from a relatively recent arrival, who still has, if I can put this without being offensive, one foot in the real world, or the outside world—just about—but who has developed a degree of affection for the House over the year that I have been here. I have two contradictory observations from many occasions over the last year when I have listened to your Lordships, but not participated, in what were essentially internal debates about the organisation of the House, its composition and so forth.

The first is that your Lordships are rightly proud of the very good work undertaken in this House: the work to improve legislation, which I have seen myself, and the work done by Select Committees—to mention just two examples of the justified pride that your Lordships take in the work that you do. At the same time, I notice the periodic tendency of noble Lords to beat themselves up about two issues in particular: the number of Peers in the House and its composition, which is principally to do with the hereditary Peers who are sitting here. It is undoubtedly the case that the latter is in some sense the cause of your Lordships’ frustration that the outside world is not giving proper recognition to that very good work, so I have a few words of assurance for you.

Outside this House, nobody cares how many Members the House has. Nobody cares about the composition and the role of hereditary Peers. There has been by-election campaigning over the past few weeks in Old Bexley and Sidcup, and I congratulate the new Member of Parliament; there is another by-election campaign taking place in Shropshire at the moment. I am absolutely certain that if all the politicians—those from this House and others—who have traipsed to those places in recent weeks and will continue doing so, were asked how many people on the doorstep voluntarily raised the composition or the numbers of this House, or even had a view on that if pressed, the answer would be negligible.

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, I understand the point that the public are not terrifically aware of the composition of the House and so on, but the journalists are and they are ruthless about this House. They ignore us and are rude about us; that is the reality.

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

They influence the wider public but they also influence MPs and Parliament. It makes it very difficult for this House to be as effective as we should be, bearing in mind the quality of the people in the House of Lords.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I really do not think that we are to be driven by a small number of journalists who have a particular view on the topic, which the public do not share. If we are accountable to anybody, it is to the public for whom we legislate. We do not legislate for journalists; we contribute to legislating for members of the public, and they do not have a particularly strong view.

One of the reasons for that is that the hereditary principle is embedded in our constitution, and the monarchy is a popular feature of our constitution. Although the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, whom I have always found in our work together on the Built Environment Select Committee to be extremely courteous —and, I would say, mildly conservative in his personal habits and conduct—would no doubt want to make a radical dissociation between his views on the hereditary Peers who sit in this House, not personally but as a concept, and the monarchy, the two are related. People understand that there is an element of traditional authority in the way in which this country is run, which they accept more easily and comfortably than they do new and innovative constitutional concepts.

But, even assuming that we were ridiculous in the minds of a small number of journalists and that this really mattered, I do not understand why we would be less ridiculous if the Bill were to pass. The majority—not all—of the Members of this House who are not hereditary Peers are here because of political appointment or because they have achieved a degree of eminence in the military or in their professions. I give all credit to those; I am not knocking life Peers—of whom I am one, of course—any more than I am hereditary Peers. But what is the rational basis or logic of that as a principle of composition of the House of Lords?

I note that the Bill provokes a great deal of excitement. I even heard the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, advocating that, as a House, we should contrive to find a way to break the law—not simply to go back on an agreement but to break the existing law—by finding devices by which we could subvert our legal obligation to hold these by-elections, to force a change in the law. That is a degree of radicalism that clearly shows how strongly people feel about this. But the fact is that this is a damaging and dangerous measure. Other, more modest, measures could well be followed. Amending the succession rules of peerages to include female and male heirs or widening the electorate for replacements of hereditary Peers to include the whole House would be genuinely incremental changes, but this is a radical change.

I entirely support the Government in thinking that radical change of that character should not be undertaken piecemeal but should await a comprehensive proposal, which may indeed include an elected House; I would be perfectly happy with that. It should not be undertaken on the basis that, I fear, the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, knows is much more radical than he presents it in his modest way.

Ireland/Northern Ireland: Solid Fuels

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Thursday 18th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, far from adding to tensions, is this not actually a rather hopeful sign? As the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, said, it is envisaged that local authority officers will check for goods coming into the Republic of Ireland from Northern Ireland that should not be coming in. Is this not a pattern that could be applied, to great benefit and great effect, as a substitute for the ridiculous and unworkable attempts to operate the protocol as it currently works? It might even be called mutual enforcement. It is very hopeful.

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend makes a very good point, as always. It is a concrete case that demonstrates that it is possible to manage these matters in other ways. This is one of the reasons why what we put forward in the Command Paper is a compromise. It is not my noble friend’s proposal. It is that we would for most purposes police goods going into Ireland and the single market in the Irish Sea, but would wish to see goods flowing freely into Northern Ireland. That is a workable and sensible compromise proposal, and in the negotiations we have not yet heard why it could not work.

Ministerial Code

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Tuesday 9th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I have partly answered that, in saying that the Government are obviously considering all the very important and thoughtful reports that have been presented on these matters in recent weeks and months. We take matters of ethics extraordinarily seriously, as I believe every Member of your Lordships’ House does, on all sides. I give an assurance to the House that we will come back with a Statement on these issues in due course.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend agree that the vast majority of Ministers, of all parties, have been honourable, decent, hard-working people, committed to the public weal, and that the current Ministers have been facing a challenging pandemic and emergency of unprecedented character, and that the sound of the wolf pack in your Lordships’ House is particularly disedifying?

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I would never characterise Her Majesty’s Opposition as wolves, but my noble friend makes a point of great importance. We should all reflect that the overwhelming character of British government and public life is not corrupt but driven by a sense of public duty that goes right to the top of this Government.

Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland: Impact on Trade

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Thursday 21st October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, I did indeed say that, because it is my job to get the best outcome for this country in the negotiations that I am charged with conducting. That is what we did over the previous 18 months and that is what I intend to do now. I do not think it would be particularly good tactics to reveal to the other side exactly what we are going to do or how we are going to go about it.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, in addition to disrupting and diverting trade, the Northern Ireland protocol contains a systemic democratic deficit, in that laws are made with direct effect for Northern Ireland by the European Union with no opportunity for democratic say by those affected. This is unique in Europe. Does my noble friend agree that the removal of the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice in Northern Ireland is a necessary but not sufficient step for correcting this anomaly and restoring this basic human right?

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, I very much agree with the thrust of the question asked by my noble friend. We made very clear in the Command Paper that we published in July that the European Court of Justice and the system of law of which it is at the apex are a big part of the political difficulty that has arisen in Northern Ireland, and we need to find more balanced ways of resolving disputes in future.

Critical Benchmarks (References and Administrators’ Liability) Bill [HL]

Lord Moylan Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 13th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, in following my noble friend Lord Altrincham and his maiden speech, I start by saying that I think it is the first time since I came into your Lordships’ House a year ago that a maiden speech has been delivered with members of the family present in person to hear it. I take that as a very encouraging sign for our return to normality and a sign of great confidence. I thought it worth mentioning.

There is another first going on at the moment. This is, as my noble friend explained, the first time since 1963 that an Altrincham has sat in your Lordships’ House. That was something of a vintage year for departures from your Lordships’ House: I note that another peerage is returning that has been absent since 1963, though on the opposite Benches. Who knows what fruit might yet be harvested from that vintage year?

My noble friend is a banker. It is very brave nowadays to say you are a banker, and he had the courage to confess that he has spent most of his life as an investment banker. He has advised Governments and major companies, and since then he has gone on to set up his own corporate finance firm. Unlike some bankers—in the context of this Bill, I think everyone will know what I mean—his reputation for integrity in the course of his career has not only emerged intact but, in fact, been enhanced.

However, my noble friend is more than simply a banker. As he said, he has a keen interest in mental health issues, arising from his own family’s experience. His wife Rachel’s books have brought consolation to countless readers suffering from depression and, indeed, quite a lot of joy to those not suffering from depression. They are rather good and useful books in their own right, I have found. My noble friend will use part of his time in your Lordships’ House to promote interest in and support for mental health problems. I am confident that, with his great gifts and broad sympathies, he will make a wonderful contribution to your Lordships’ House.

Turning briefly to the matter of the Bill, we have come today to bury Libor. Not many people know—perhaps there is no reason why they should—but I spent a number of years lecturing on financial services and capital markets, and Libor was the meat and drink of what I did. I rather feel that Libor is something of an old friend. I have listened and learned a great deal from speakers in this debate so far about the very fine technical points that are at issue and dealt with in this Bill, but I would feel bereft if an old friend such as Libor were to be buried without someone like me at least reminiscing, in a mournful and doleful tone, about its departure. My old friend will be greatly missed.

As my noble friend the Minister said in his letter circulated before the debate, this is the only critical benchmark left that is generated in London. The loss of that is a harm to the prestige of London as a financial centre. It also raises a very small question mark about the robust connection with the legal profession and the documentation of financial services transactions. It is one of the boasts of London as a financial centre that the documentation is done under English law. Part of that was that connection with Libor, and that is gone. I do not think we are advancing when we see the City of London—not just the financial side but the associated legal side—lose the only benchmark generated in London.

Who killed my old friend Libor? A certain number of people have suffered criminal convictions and that is part of the answer, but the suggestion was also made at the time that the Bank of England was reasonably aware of what was going on. That suggestion—I know I am straying a bit into the history of the matter—was of course robustly denied by the Bank, but in 2008 or thereabouts the Bank was trying to drive interest rates down for monetary-management reasons while a very uncertain market, faced with a great deal of risk, was trying to put interest rates up, and to some extent Libor was the victim crushed between those two forces. Of course, I have no reason to doubt the Bank of England’s denial of that allegation, but I am sure that in the course of time more will be learned—although I do not know if I will be alive when it is.

Could my old friend Libor none the less have been resuscitated? I think in fact he could have been. If our regulators had had more confidence and less fear, and if they had not had removed from them at the time their earlier obligation to maintain the competitiveness of the City of London as a financial centre, I think that, with imagination, something could have been done to retain a London-based benchmark.

Of course, it is all too late for that. We are here simply to invite in the undertakers, and there is no going back. However, I hope that my noble friend and the Government will learn at least one lesson from this: if we are to have, as I hope we will, a successful and indeed internationally dominant financial services sector in this country—with the benefit that flows from that to other professional services such as law, accountancy, and so forth—then we need to have a clear framework for regulators that directs them to support that competitiveness and encourage the success of the City of London. Regulation is not all about risk minimisation. After all, if one were to minimise risk utterly, there would be no banking—it is a risk business by definition.

Imports from EU to GB: Business Preparation

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Thursday 16th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, it has been very evident over the early autumn that there are challenges with maintaining supply chains, and these are not limited to the UK. There are shortages of HGV drivers across Europe and beyond, and there has been a very significant increase in costs globally in the shipping of goods. These strains have become evident over the summer, and we have taken a pragmatic decision to respond to that and do what we can support British business in these circumstances.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome this delay, and indeed I hope that it becomes permanent. EU goods are safe, and the food is wholesome; we have been using them and eating it for 40 years. Trade rules do not need to be reciprocal, and, if the European Union chooses stupidly to impose upon its consumers the penalties of protectionism, there is no need for us to reciprocate. Does my noble friend agree that it is about time that the British Government were setting a free trade example to the European Union, and indeed showing it that such an approach could be applied with benefit on the UK’s border with Ireland, in place of the undemocratic protocol?

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, I think our position on the protocol is well known, and we may come to it later. Of course, my noble friend is absolutely right to say that it makes sense for us to put in place the controls that are right for us. Of course, there are controls—customs controls came in on 1 January—but we do not have to replicate everything that the European Union does. We intend to have a world-class border by 2025, with proportionate checks based on risk. That is the right way to proceed.

Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland (EUC Report)

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Monday 13th September 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

It is a pleasure to rise in the wake of the speech by the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick. I want to make a small preliminary remark, which is that, although I count myself as a unionist in the general terms of supporting the United Kingdom, I am not and never have been connected with the unionist tradition in Northern Ireland. In fact, before I entered your Lordships’ House, I do not think I had met a unionist politician from Northern Ireland, with the exception of one meeting with the former First Minister, Peter Robinson, and even then, he was judiciously balanced by his deputy, Martin McGuinness. That is the extent of my connection with the unionist tradition.

I make that point because the points I want to focus on today in the time allotted are ones that I regard as having constitutional and democratic significance for every part of Northern Ireland and every person there, irrespective of which community they belong to and whether they belong to any community at all. In my doing so, it may be thought that I am making some remarks about the report of the committee which are less than wholly obliging. If that is the case, let me assure noble Lords that it is not meant to detract from the report as a whole, which I found extremely valuable, informative and useful, and I have learnt much both from the report and in sitting in this debate. I can say that without hurt to anyone since I appear to be the last Back-Bench speaker.

Let me come to my three points. First, there is a tone throughout the second, more recent report of a parity of treatment of the two parties to the Northern Ireland protocol, the British Government and the European Union, and that, in so far as the mechanisms are not working, blame can be equably distributed in a sort of Olympian fashion between the two. This is a huge mistake. While it may be perfectly true that, looked at purely from the point of view of the Northern Ireland protocol, the two parties have entered it as sovereign equals, the responsibilities of the British Government in Northern Ireland go way beyond simply the management of trade and a trade border in a way that is simply not true of the European Union. It is the British Government, working with the devolved Administration when appropriate under the devolution settlement, who are responsible for housing people, for their health, for their transport, for their connectivity and, crucially, for their safety and security. Those responsibilities are not shared by the European Union and they place a different burden on the British Government as they approach and interpret the protocol.

His Excellency the EU ambassador is quoted in the report as saying that the EU has

“an economic, diplomatic and even an emotional and financial commitment to Northern Ireland”.

That is all very well, but that is not to share in the responsibility for the government of Northern Ireland and the accountability to the world at large and to the democratic world at large for how the country is conducted. That should be recognised. In my own case, that would lead me to cut the British Government a bit more slack in this Olympian allocation of blame between the two parties. The pressures and demands on them are so very much greater.

Secondly, as referred to in the report and explicitly referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, the fact is that a significant constitutional change in Northern Ireland has been imposed. I know that the Northern Ireland protocol, in paragraph 1, page 1, or something—really early—says that it represents no change from the constitutional position of Northern Ireland. I have always thought, however, that that is a little bit like the burglar leaving a note saying that he has not actually burgled you. It reads well, but it bears no relation to the facts. The fact is that there has been a very significant constitutional change and it is one that clashes with the Good Friday agreement. We have seen, for example, that the vote that is to take place in the Northern Ireland Assembly has required legislation since the protocol was put in place in order to change the Good Friday agreement so that the vote can take place on the basis that the protocol agreed.

That seems to leave us in no doubt that, whereas the pre-eminent constitutional document under which Northern Ireland was governed until recently was the Good Friday agreement, it now seems that, without that being abrogated or abolished, none the less the pre-eminent document that now governs it is the Northern Ireland protocol. Nobody in Northern Ireland has been asked about this. The riposte that people in Northern Ireland voted by a majority of 55% to stay in the European Union just does not cut it, because people were not asked should Northern Ireland stay in the European Union. In fact, that would have been to ask a question that invited a major contravention of European Union law, because the European Union does not admit bits of states to membership, only whole states. The question asked was whether the United Kingdom should leave or stay, and the answer was not necessarily what the people of Northern Ireland wanted, but the outcome was clear by a majority vote. It was a vote for the status quo; I think we can all agree on that. And I think we can all agree that what they have got in return is not the status quo. That is why I think that argument simply fails.

This deserves more prominence. If we were talking about a change in Government and a change in constitutional status for another country, there would be many people in your Lordships’ House who, quite understandably, would say that such a change would require the consent of the people involved. That has not been achieved. After all, we offer referendums for much lesser matters than this. The people of London were offered a referendum, in which they voted yes, in order for the introduction of the Greater London Authority. That is merely, if I may say so—even though I had some involvement with the Greater London Authority—a modest constitutional change compared with what has happened in Northern Ireland, yet the people of London were consulted and asked. This is the sort of thing that should be high on the committee’s agenda and something that the Government, if I may say to my noble friend the Minister, should be much more voluble about. However implicated they may be in it, it simply is not right.

My third point, which is also mentioned in the report—I trespass on dangerous ground for me because I am not a lawyer—is the reference to Article 3 of the first protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights, which of course guarantees as a human right, without any qualification on the face of the convention that I can see, the right to a regular, secret vote for a legislature. That is presumably the legislature that is making your laws, as opposed to a different legislature. That is implicit, and I think we can all agree on that.

A judge in Northern Ireland has decided that the current situation does not breach that convention right. I understand this is subject to appeal, but I will not go further into the legalities of that. My reading of the judgment was that he did not actually dispute the facts, but felt that there were circumstances justifying departure from the application of the right, but I am not a lawyer and will be careful what I read into that.

I will make a slightly different point. Even if it turned out that the current situation—in which amendments to the existing legal framework can be made without any say by the people of Northern Ireland in laws that they are obliged to live under—was compliant with the convention, is that what we would want in Britain? Would the rest of the world welcome that? My noble friend Lord Hannan of Kingsclere disappointed me slightly when he said that these are difficult issues. They are not difficult: the response to a lack of democracy in a democratic state is democracy. We should start to address that.

I would like to see these issues brought more to the fore in the discussion. They affect the entire community and we would expect other countries to address them and put them at the forefront, if we were talking about them. We owe it to the people of Northern Ireland and ourselves to do the same when discussing their affairs.

Brexit Opportunities Unit

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Monday 19th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his job application. Of course, it is open to him to apply if he wishes, although it will not be for me to judge whether he meets all the criteria for the job. It will not surprise him to know that I disagree with his assessment of where we stand as a country. Brexit will be hugely in the interests of everybody in this country as we take forward the exciting opportunities to reform our rules, take back control of our legislation and run our country as we wish.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, quite in contrast to the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, I see one of the great opportunities of Brexit as the opportunity to diversify our trade away from its artificial and risky dependence on the European Union. In that light, can my noble friend the Minister say what plans the Government have to sponsor and support new and existing industry-led export promotion agencies, which can help in hunting down sales around the world?

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend is absolutely right to set out the trade opportunities now available to this country after leaving the EU. I and many of my Cabinet colleagues work closely with industry organisations of all kinds to help them in their export plans, understand any difficulties that they face and resolve those difficulties. We continue to do that expeditiously.

Post-Brexit Financial Settlement

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Thursday 15th July 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Moylan]

To ask the Minister of State at the Cabinet Office (Lord Frost) what assessment Her Majesty’s Government have made of the European Union’s consolidated budget report for 2020, which states that the United Kingdom has liabilities of €47.5 billion as part of the post-Brexit financial settlement.

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Lord Frost) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government’s regular update to Parliament on EU finances has been published today by my right honourable friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. The Treasury estimates that the current cost of the net financial settlement is £37.3 billion. This remains within the previously published central range. The €47.5-billion figure is an estimate produced on a different basis by the EU for its internal accounts processes.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, these are large sums—larger even than those we were discussing yesterday when we discussed the cuts to overseas aid. It appears that the EU is the final arbiter of what we should pay. I understand that there are circumstances when you might want to give a trusted friend details of your credit card, including the three numbers of the back, but if that trusted friend is abusing the card, is it not the right policy to cancel it?

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, it is of course a legal obligation to make the payments to the EU that were agreed in the withdrawal agreement. They were heavily negotiated in some detail at the time, and of course we stand by them. It was a general difficulty, with a very large sums that we were paying to the European Union, that underlaid the referendum vote in June 2016.