UK-EU Customs Union

Lord Offord of Garvel Excerpts

Thursday 29th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Offord of Garvel (Reform) (Valedictory Speech)]

My Lords, I add my congratulations to the four maiden speakers on their excellent speeches. As they arrive and I depart, I feel in this debate a sense of Groundhog Day as we are replaying Brexit 10 years later. I wonder what the electorate would make of this, especially when in the other place at the time, in 2016, the MPs who were in favour of leaving were only 25% of the House whereas the public were at 52%. I wonder whether there are shades of that here again today.

When I was Exports Minister for 15 months, we worked very hard on the free trade agreements post Brexit because we knew that when we had joined the EU, which was then the Common Market, Europe accounted for a third of global trade, but that when we left in 2019 it was 20% of global trade. The OECD Going for Growth report says that by 2050 it will be 10% of global trade. Ergo, the EU is in decline and what is booming is foreign markets—Asian markets and Indo-Pacific markets—which is why we went for the CPTPP and worked on trade deals with India and America. We have to look globally and not be bogged down in this debate 10 years later.

Moving to my imminent departure, I was listening to Oral Questions today—over the five years that I have been in this House, I have made a point of being at most of those—and one theme that came through a lot while I was sitting here, especially from the other side of the House, was an undying ideological faith in the power of the state to solve all our problems for us. If there is a problem, the state must fix it. Taxpayers’ money must fix it. There must be a quango or state body that can fix it.

I will give noble Lords a warning from my beloved home country of Scotland. We have just had 25 years of devolution, and we have done an experiment of letting the state take control of our lives. When devolution began in 1999, the state spent 43% of GDP in Scotland. Today it spends 55%. What have we got in return? Our political class has created a welfare economy that does not create any wealth. Work does not pay any more than welfare. Some 93% of Scots think the NHS needs significant reform and our once-famous education system has gone from outstanding to average. In the meantime, we have destroyed our world-class energy industry in the north-east through ideological policies on energy pricing, resulting in the biggest transfer of money from poor people to rich people since Robin Hood. I suggest that the noble Lord, Lord Stephen, reflects on that as a former MP for Aberdeen.

That is why I am going home, heading back to Scotland to stand for Reform in the election for Holyrood. I am fed up with this mid-table mediocrity in Holyrood and the cosy consensus, some of which your Lordships heard from the noble Lord, Lord Stephen, on his time there. We need change. We need to make Scotland the most prosperous and successful part of the UK. If we are successful, we will have debates in Holyrood for the first time ever about how to grow the economy and make our people wealthier, not just how to spend other people’s money.

That is my plan. We are going to focus very hard in the last 99 days. Make no mistake: it is now a two-horse race between the SNP and Reform. A poll out just five minutes ago from Ipsos MORI puts Reform now in second place. We are going to take up that fight to get Scotland back to the top of the table, where she deserves to be.

I wish everyone in this House well. I want to give a personal tribute to one fellow Peer in particular who is not in his place today, the noble Lord, Lord Jack of Courance, who, as Secretary of State for Scotland, brought me into politics five years ago. He is a great friend and mentor, and he was a very effective Secretary of State.

Finally, I say to all fellow Peers: keep doing the work but do not rely on the state for everything. Thank you.