EU: United States Free Trade Agreement

Lord Peston Excerpts

Wednesday 19th December 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Green of Hurstpierpoint]

My noble friend asks a very important question which embraces the wider issue of the British relationship with the European Union. I think it is appropriate for me to stress that as far as trade and the single market are concerned, Britain’s role in the EU is extremely important, both to it and to the EU. Our chances of a good trade agreement that is of interest to the US are much greater in the context of a European Union negotiation.

[Lord Peston]

My Lords, I speak as an ardent free-trader. I hate to sound cynical, but is the noble Lord aware that, if by free trade you actually mean free trade—namely, free trade in all goods and services, which on the one hand must certainly include agriculture and on the other hand must certainly include financial services—there is not the slightest chance that the Americans will agree to anything resembling free trade as understood by most people, including Adam Smith, who believed in it?

[Lord Green of Hurstpierpoint]

The noble Lord has pointed out a number of the issues which will indeed be points of difficulty in the negotiations. Agriculture will clearly be a significant demand on the part of the United States. On the part of the European Union, and indeed so far as the UK is concerned, freer access to the services market in the US is an important demand. The complexity at that end lies in part in the fact that some of the regulations are at state level not at federal level in the US, and this just points to the general theme that this is going to be a difficult, long and painstaking process. It would be naive of any of us to believe that it will take merely a few months to get a deal done.

Government of France: Meetings

Lord Peston Excerpts

Tuesday 12th June 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

Yes, we all have to join in the efforts to bring about recovery and end recession in our region and globally. These are matters that we discuss closely with the French. We agree with some of the ideas behind the various projects which Monsieur Hollande has put forward—what has been called the “Hollande vision”—but disagree with others. We have a perfectly amicable difference of view on, for instance, a financial transaction tax, which we believe would be damaging and would, according to the European Commission’s own analysis, take €200 billion out of the European economy. However, on other ideas of Monsieur Hollande—project bonds for infrastructure expansion, for instance—we concur. We reject the idea that there are two alternative strategies that are exclusive: austerity or growth. The answer is that sound budgetary discipline and growth all go together in a sensible and balanced programme.

[Lord Peston]

My Lords, do I understand the Minister to be saying that Her Majesty’s Government do not intend to tell off President Hollande for pursuing his foolhardy expansionary policies and not following our contractionary policies with all the enormous benefits of rising unemployment?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

The noble Lord should not understand that, because I find his question rather hard to understand as well. The polarity of argument that he poses simply does not exist. The aim of Governments throughout Europe and throughout the global system is to restore expansion. We welcome the ideas of the French and of Monsieur Hollande where we think they would go in that direction, just as I think France and all responsible countries recognise that there has to be tight budgetary discipline as well, otherwise the efforts to expand if they immediately jack up interest rates would simply cancel out the policy. There is a matter of balance, and the noble Lord is better than most at understanding the need for balance in economics rather than one side or the other.

EU: Disintegration

Lord Peston Excerpts

Thursday 26th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I am not sure that I quite get the ins and outs of all that. Generally, I hope my noble friend agrees with me that Europe is our neighbourhood but the world is our market, that we must have a balanced and sensible approach in developing good relations with a European Union which obviously requires reforming and modernising to meet the 21st century, and that we must also adjust our own nation to meet this new international landscape.

[Lord Peston]

My Lords, is it not a bit thick to blame the euro for our economic troubles when the Government are doing all they can with their own economic policies to destroy our economy?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I hear the view of one very learned economist but, as he knows, I think probably better than many economists, there are many different views, and that is very healthy. All economists tend to disagree with each other on these matters. Indeed, when they agree, they are usually wrong. As an ex-economist—a renegade economist—I am afraid that I have to disagree entirely with the noble Lord. I believe that our policies are the right ones to move us out of the colossal difficulties we face not only over the eurozone but the gigantic debt mountain that we were left by the previous Government.

EU: December Council Meeting

Lord Peston Excerpts

Wednesday 11th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I think that most people looking at the 21st century have found the concept of ever closer union implying more and more centralisation as, frankly, yesterday’s stuff. This is not the way in which the European Union will strengthen its cohesion and flexibility in the face of the new international landscape. While certainly the events of the December Council struck a particular view in regard to the safeguarding of Britain’s interests in the light of the plans which are now going forward and in which we are participating for the new fiscal union and possible fiscal union treaty if one emerges, I do not think that there is anything very revolutionary or new about recognising in the debate on the reform and development of the European Union that ever closer union as a simple integrationist concept is out of date.

[Lord Peston]

My Lords, I ask this question for future reference. Surely it is the case—perhaps the Minister could confirm it—that the central aim of Her Majesty’s Government in Europe is to make sure that we have no friends there whatsoever.

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I am afraid that that is upside-down thinking, because the enlightened view in Europe is that we should move towards the reform of the European Union in all aspects. Everyone agrees that maybe the time has come to revise its great purposes in the 20th century. I was fascinated by a remark made the other day by the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, who I hope will speak in a moment on this issue. He rightly said that the old arguments for Europe will no longer do. We are in a new situation in which many intelligent people throughout the European Union realise that new approaches are needed. I am sorry that the noble Lord is not one of them.

EU and NATO: Peace in Europe

Lord Peston Excerpts

Thursday 28th April 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Peston]

My Lords, does the noble Lord agree that the two most militarist nations in Europe were France and Germany and it is one of the great miracles of the post-war period that they devoted their efforts jointly to setting up what is now the European Union rather than fighting each other? The implication of the approach to the economic union of the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, is that they have denied our children and grandchildren their inalienable right to die on the battlefields of Europe.

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, said, with great moderation, that a beauty contest between these organisations is rather pointless. All one wants to avoid is immoderate statements claiming perfection for one against the other. All these institutions have played their part. Occasionally some enthusiasts get a bit too outspoken on the part that one institution has played and that is the time for moderation.