Scottish Independence

Lord Robathan Excerpts

Wednesday 7th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)]

As the noble Lord was an active parliamentarian at that time, I am sure he can confirm that the devolution settlement enacted in the Scotland Act 1998 did not envisage a scenario where the Scottish Parliament in Holyrood would act in confrontation, instead of in co-operation, with Westminster. The Scotland Act assumed there would be a very clear demarcation between reserved and devolved matters, respected by both sides. Therefore, there are no penalties, fines or surcharges built into the parliamentary architecture for ultra vires activities of the sort previously described to the House by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, as applying, for example, to local councillors. However, I reassure noble Lords that this matter has now been reviewed at the highest reaches of the UK Civil Service.

Following the Supreme Court judgment, the United Kingdom Cabinet Secretary is in discussion with the Scottish Government’s Permanent Secretary on the role of the Civil Service in Scotland. My own observation from 15 months as a Minister in the Scotland Office is that if only we could get the Scottish Government focused on the day job of administering Scottish affairs in devolved areas and working in co-operation with the UK Government in reserved areas, there is no doubt in my mind that, working together, we could turbocharge Scotland.

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend the Minister will recall that in 1997, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown said that devolution and giving the Scottish Parliament greater powers would kill nationalism stone dead. Does he think that the recent idea—floated, I think, on Monday—to give the Scottish Parliament more powers would kill the idea of an independent Scotland stone dead again?

[Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)]

The noble Lord should be well aware that Gordon Brown has been on this journey for quite a while; he proposes a federal United Kingdom. But when one of the four nations has 85% of the population and 90% of the wealth and it does not want devolution, you have a problem. So I agree with the noble Lord that devolution did not kill independence stone dead, but I am very clear that the Scottish National Party commands the support of only one-third of the Scottish electorate and therefore it should get on with the job in hand, which is to manage Scotland within the devolution settlement.

Proposed Media Mergers

Lord Robathan Excerpts

Tuesday 5th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Keen of Elie]

I am obliged to my noble friend. Clearly, the department is committed to taking its consideration of these matters forward. At this stage, I am not in a position to give him a timescale, but we seek to bring the matter forward as soon as we can. If there is what is perceived by this House to be undue delay, no doubt questions will be raised.

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

Could my noble and learned friend illuminate for me, if not for others, the implications for the future of Sky News? I do not quite understand.

[Lord Keen of Elie]

It appears that Sky News will be the subject of divestment and it appears that the intended party to acquire Sky News will be Disney. Of course, some have referred to that as the Mickey Mouse solution.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Robathan Excerpts

Report: 5th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 2nd May 2018 Lords Chamber

When the House looks at this amendment, they should think on it very carefully. This is not the time to divide the House on an issue that is causing huge difficulties for the people of Northern Ireland as a whole. I say that very respectfully. As somebody who held the position of Speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly for some years, I know the politics in Northern Ireland and I know the issues, some of which can be very difficult. I also believe that if the Assembly were up and running, some of these issues would be easier to resolve and easier for this Government as well because there would be input from an elected Northern Ireland Assembly. I say to this House very clearly that rejecting this amendment is the best way forward. Let us all work together to find a solution to the problems of Northern Ireland and to the border.

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, the vexed history—

[Noble Lords]

Front Bench!

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach (Con)]

Order. A large number of Peers still wish to speak and we should hear them.

[Lord Robathan]

Thank you. The vexed history of Northern Ireland and the island of Ireland is known very well by most of the noble Lords in this House. We have heard some very good speeches from the former Lord Chief Justice, the former Primate of All Ireland and former Secretaries of State. The whole history of Northern Ireland is scarred by bad faith, a lack of good will, which we heard about from the noble Lord, Lord Carswell, and by intransigence. No side in any debate in Ireland—and no Government indeed—has a monopoly on that intransigence.

We heard from the distinguished historian, the noble Lord, Lord Bew, a short time ago. I was going to mention him anyway. I am not sure if one is allowed to put in a plug for a book, but I will. I read his book Churchill and Ireland only last month. I commend it to everybody in this House. First, it is very readable. Secondly, it shows that, over a period of 50 years, intransigence and a lack of good will led to division, death and conflict. Today, again, we have intransigence in Northern Ireland, where there is no Assembly and where the two sides cannot come to an agreement. I have to say that I blame that on Sinn Féin.

Let us look briefly at the current situation with the border. We heard a little from the noble Lord, Lord Carswell, about bicycling down to Dublin. I spent the best part of a year of my life in Northern Ireland, often in uniform but subsequently working in the Northern Ireland Office for the previous Government. Just over three years ago, I went down to south Armagh with some people. Noble Lords may think that everything is normal in south Armagh, but I was in one car with armed police, I recall that there were four other cars around to check that there were no ambushes and there was a helicopter overhead. This is still bandit country.

I mention that because the big issue at the time was the smuggling of diesel and then the washing of the red dye out of diesel, which by the way causes the most appalling environmental damage. People smuggle diesel because red diesel is very cheap, especially in the Republic, and it is brought up to the north, washed and sold at a cheap rate in Armagh. Smuggling of fuel continues to go on—the diesel has slightly changed—and there is smuggling of cattle. I read that 10,000 cattle in the last three years were stolen in the Republic, smuggled across the border and sold in the north. Members of this House may know Slab Murphy, who was notorious in Northern Ireland. He was closely involved with the IRA. He was basically a racketeer who made a great deal of money. I am glad to say that he finally went to jail a couple of years ago.

To cross the border, there are already different currencies. There are variable duties in the south and north. There are customs officers who actually work on the border. They do not sit in posts, but they work checking things. There are random checks. I was on one or two with the police. There are no fixed posts and, as the noble Lord, Lord Hay, has just said, nobody wants fixed posts. We do not need them. But there are already, as mentioned in subsection (2)(b) of the amendment, security checks and random checks.

The head of Irish Customs, Niall Cody, said on 25 May last year that it is “practically 100% certain” that there will be no new customs facilities along the border. He added:

“We are not planning customs posts”.


He said that in the Dáil.

I am indebted to the son of my predecessor in the House of Commons—my noble friend Lord Lawson—who wrote an article recently and drew my attention to the following in an address by Michael Ambühl, who was Switzerland’s chief negotiator in its trade agreement with the EU. He said:

“We have a smoothly operating frictionless border with the EU, though we are not a member of the customs union. That is even though 2.2m people and 23,000 lorries cross the borders between us and the EU every day”.


So what is the problem? Perhaps some of the chickens pay a little bit of duty, I do not know. The problem is the lack of good faith and, yet again, intransigence. I am told, as we have already heard, that Monsieur Barnier is encouraging the Taoiseach in this enterprise. I worked with the Government of Enda Kenny, which was very much on the side of and emollient towards the UK. They wanted to work with the UK. I would say that Mr Varadkar is cutting off his nose to spite his face.

Nobody wants a hard border, yet the Government and the Labour Party have a manifesto pledge to leave the customs union. Why do we not get on with it, to the mutual benefit of everybody? Others may attribute motives, but Barnier has said in the past that he wants to educate the British people, which means teach us a lesson. I see bad faith in Barnier and I see intransigence. Surely it is not beyond the wit of man, with good faith and good will—unless you do not want a settlement, which I fear is the case with the noble Lords who proposed the amendment—to come up with a decent frictionless border.

Noble Lords who are tempted to support the amendment should consider, as has been alluded to, that we should not use Ireland and its history as a stick with which to beat Brexit or as a pawn. Let us instead give Ireland, north and south, and its good people—nationalist, unionist, whatever they may be—what they really want: co-operation, friendship, prosperity and the ability to trade and cross the border happily.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I will not detain the House for long. I want to make one or two points. First, my noble friend who has just spoken talked about intransigence and he exhibited it. I would remind him, very gently, that whatever happens after 29 March next year, the Republic of Ireland will remain within the European Union and we are therefore dealing with a very sensitive issue. I would also remind him gently that the majority of people in Northern Ireland voted to remain in the European Union.

I do not wish people to interpret from that that I am party to anything that the Daily Mail would refer to as wrecking the Bill. That is my final point, as touched on—gently but elegantly—a little while ago by my noble friend Lord Bridges. Your Lordships’ House is merely fulfilling its constitutional role in examining and scrutinising the Bill. We have every right to pass amendments. As those of us who seek not to wreck but to improve have said time and again, the ultimate decision will rest with the House of Commons. It is right and proper that the responsibility ultimately lies there, but that does not deprive us of our responsibility to scrutinise carefully. It does not recognise the reality of the British constitution to talk about playing with fire or to call for an elected second Chamber; think what impasse there would then be between the two Houses. It does not serve the constitutional debate to make threats of that sort, which have come up during the debate in both articles in the press and speeches in this House. We have a duty and we seek to perform it, as we should, but at the end of the day, the responsibility lies at the other end of the Corridor.

If your Lordships’ House did not vote against government measures from time to time, it would have no point or purpose. I say to some noble Lords on my side of the House, who have been cross with myself and others, that if we were dealing with a complicated Bill, brought in by a Government led by Mr Jeremy Corbyn, would we say, “Oh, we don’t want to vote against that”? I rest my case. I am sorry to have detained the House, but those points needed making.

Media: Press Sustainability

Lord Robathan Excerpts

Thursday 22nd March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Keen of Elie]

I am not in a position to anticipate how Dame Frances is going to proceed with the review.

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, have Her Majesty’s Government made any assessment of the funding of Impress by Mr Max Mosley?

[Lord Keen of Elie]

We recognise that Impress is now recognised by the PRP and that some but not many newspapers at a national level have engaged with it. We also recognise the importance of IPSO and, indeed, of those newspapers, such as the Guardian and the Financial Times, which have instigated their own independent review positions.

Northern Ireland

Lord Robathan Excerpts

Thursday 2nd November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

To what extent does my noble friend believe that Sinn Fein wants to come to an agreement and form a new power-sharing Executive? If it does, can he list to the House what concessions it has made in the discussions?

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

I thank my noble friend for his comments. He will appreciate that the discussions have been challenging. They represent two sides trying to reach an accommodation over remarkably challenging elements. The principal areas for discussion where there has been a failure to find common purpose have been around the wider cultural area and the language question. That remains, as yet, unresolved.

It would be inappropriate to interject at this point and iterate exactly what has not been secured during those discussions, particularly because the discussions are ongoing. I emphasise that. Although it looks at the moment that we are now at an end point. I cannot emphasise strongly enough that these talks are ongoing. I certainly hope—as I am sure everyone in this House hopes—that the talks are able to deliver an outcome and that in due course a budget will be developed by the appropriate authorities inside Northern Ireland.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

I am very happy to say that yes, it is excluded.

[Lord Robathan]

Since we are allowed a second go, with the leave of the House, I reiterate my agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Murphy. To knock heads together—if I can put it rather less delicately than the noble Lord did—you need serious leadership from the Prime Minister and the Taoiseach, or whomsoever. At the moment, however, heads are obviously not being sufficiently knocked together.

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

I thank my noble friend for his comments. I am not quite clear on how many heads have been knocked together at this point.

[Lord Robathan]

Not enough.

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

They may well be not enough, but I can assure you that the Prime Minister is intimately involved in the process and the negotiations are not over yet. That is why we can say they are ongoing. I would rather they were ongoing toward a resolution that I could bring back here and explain to you at some length, but I cannot do that yet, as much as I would like to. It may be that the knocking together of heads will be part of the ongoing process, but I suspect that that is not necessarily the best way of moving forward.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Robathan Excerpts

Wednesday 28th June 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, like everyone else who wishes to speak in this debate, I have a great deal to say, but perforce I am constrained by time limits, so I shall be brief, noble Lords will be pleased to hear. I will say a few words on exiting the EU and then a few on the current position regarding defence.

I am not a fan of referendums. I was surprised when David Cameron called one and not entirely happy. But we had one. This Parliament abrogated responsibility to the people and the people have spoken, much to the distress of many others, I know. But to those who want to stop Brexit—and I have heard one or two speeches that seemed to say they would like to—I say that we must listen to the democratic decision of the people. I was particularly struck by what the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, said. He made a very good speech, but he was ignoring the fact that we had had a referendum and its result.

I am not going to pretend that this is easy, but leaving means that there is no jurisdiction for the ECJ. I have always believed that our courts—there are several distinguished jurists here; I see one at least—should be admired and are not the enemies of the people. But why do others seem to trust judges from other countries that do not have a history of admiring the rule of law or a history of incorruptibility over our own judges? I do not.

Leaving means not being in the single market, as indeed David Cameron downwards said during the referendum campaign. Most of the rest of the world is not in the single market. I will name two places, one big and one small: the United States and Hong Kong. They seem to do pretty well without the single market.

It is the same with the customs union, and here I agree with my noble friend Lady Anelay on the Front Bench. Although I have disagreed with her on one or two other issues in this regard, I agree that if we remain in the union we will give up our sovereign control. The people voted to take back control. I also believe in democratic accountability, as do most people in this House. So I ask: to whom is Jean-Paul Juncker democratically accountable? Indeed, it seems that his position is the antithesis of democratic accountability.

What surprises and to a certain extent distresses me is the lack of confidence among many people in the United Kingdom. It is not easy, but why do some run down the United Kingdom and consider that people on the continent do better? I point out in particular the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, with whom I have always got on pretty well—on one level. I do not think that the Europeans necessarily have the answer to everything and that we should run ourselves down. Why, at the beginning of this tortuous and difficult process, do we think that EU negotiators will be brilliant, while our own negotiators will be hopeless? There is after all only one UK Parliament—in a bit of disarray at the moment, one might say—but there are 27 other countries with Parliaments, there is the European Parliament and there is Wallonia, whatever that may have to say, to which the negotiators in the EU will be answerable.

Furthermore, some people seem to put the interests of EU nationals living here over the interests of our own citizens living in the EU. I personally wish no ill to EU nationals living here, who I am sure are mostly marvellous and excellent people, but I see my first duty as a Member of this House as to stand up for UK citizens.

Finally, what is the future of the EU? Has the eurozone crisis gone away? Will Macron and Merkel, known I think as the Mercron coalition, solve all the problems of migration, among other things? We shall see. I certainly do not foretell the future, but I will make one little prediction: that in 10 years’ time, very few people in this country will say, “I wish we had stayed in the EU”.

In the limited time available, I should like to turn briefly to defence matters. Our forces have been critical to the defence of Europe for well over a century. I spent a year of my life defending western Europe against the Soviet Union in the Cold War. I should like to say to my noble friends on the Front Bench, who I hope will take this message home, that the situation in defence at the moment is dire and has certainly not been helped by the depreciation in sterling over the past year. A headline in today’s Times states, “‘Your Army is too small’, Americans warn Britain”. At a conference yesterday, the Chief of Staff of the US Army, General Milley, pointed out that you need boots on the ground. You need manpower, or indeed people power, not just for war but to assist a civil power after a disaster, such as happened after the terrorist incident in Manchester recently. We have too few people and we need to increase defence spending. Also at the conference was Professor Cohen, who said that,

“your military is too small. There is no question about that”.

The National Audit Office published a report on the equipment plan from which I shall quote:

“The affordability of the Equipment Plan is at greater risk than at any time since its inception. It is worrying to see that the costs of the new commitments arising from the Review”—


the SDSR—

“considerably exceed the net increase in funding for the Plan”.

Today, the British Social Attitudes survey was published. It reveals that 39% of people now think that there is insufficient spending on defence, up from 17% 20 years ago. That says something about the way they are noticing how things are deteriorating.

In conclusion, if we are found wanting and not capable of defending our country, and indeed Europe, our interests and our values, because we have put other spending priorities first, the British people will want to know why those who are trusted with our defence did not pay sufficient attention to the problem.

Northern Ireland: Legacy Agreement

Lord Robathan Excerpts

Tuesday 24th January 2017 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Robathan]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the remarks by Lord Dunlop on 18 January (HL Deb, col 218) that the “current situation is unsatisfactory”, what action they are taking to implement the legacy package of the Stormont House Agreement.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Northern Ireland Office and Scotland Office (Lord Dunlop) (Con)]

My Lords, the current situation is unsatisfactory, focusing disproportionately on the 10% of deaths caused by the police and Armed Forces rather than on the 90% caused by terrorists. This Government are committed to implementing the legacy bodies proposed in the Stormont House agreement to ensure a balanced, proportionate and fair approach to addressing Northern Ireland’s past. The Secretary of State has regularly met political parties, victims and their representatives on these issues, and will continue to do so ahead of taking the proposals to a public phase.

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted with the response from my noble friend the Minister. Successive Governments, over several decades, sent soldiers, including myself, to Northern Ireland to protect the population from terrorism and violence, be they Catholic or Protestant. Now, some 40 years and more later, old soldiers are being dragged before courts, although there is no new evidence against them. Given the lack of devolved government at the moment, could not Her Majesty’s Government impose the legacy package of the Stormont House agreement—after all, it has been agreed—leading to more proportionate legacy investigations? Secondly, in the particular case of Dennis Hutchins, which my noble friend may not wish to mention, he has been investigated on several occasions—the last time in 2013. He has been told that there is no case to answer, including by a previous Director of Public Prosecutions. Can the Minister perhaps explain how it can be that he is now being dragged before courts at the age of 75, when all his defence witnesses—former soldiers—have died?

[Lord Dunlop]

First, I recognise my noble friend’s great experience of these matters, having himself served, as he said, in the Armed Forces in Northern Ireland and as a Minister in the Northern Ireland Office. We remain unstinting in our admiration and support for the police and the Armed Forces. We clearly want to build consensus on the way forward on how to deal with the past. I do not think that it would be right to impose. We want to build that consensus, and that is what we will focus on in the weeks ahead.

Northern Ireland: Devolved Powers

Lord Robathan Excerpts

Wednesday 18th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dunlop]

I do think that it is important to keep open the lines of communication with the parties throughout the election period for precisely the reason that the noble Lord gives. We need to have an open dialogue so that we are in the best possible position to re-establish a strong and stable devolved Government after the poll in a few weeks’ time.

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, will this hiatus allow the Government to take forward in any way the legacy package of the Stormont House agreement? Former police officers went out to serve in Northern Ireland to protect both sides of the community and are being prosecuted disproportionately compared to the terrorists whom they were protecting the community from.

[Lord Dunlop]

I very much agree with my noble friend. The current situation is unsatisfactory and it remains a priority for the Government to build a consensus on this issue and to find a way forward. The Stormont House agreement provides a framework for reform and the new institutions and will, we believe, provide a fairer, more balanced and proportionate way forward.

Smith Commission

Lord Robathan Excerpts

Thursday 27th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Carmichael]

I like the hon. Lady’s formulation, “the vow plus”. My party leader in Scotland, Willie Rennie, said this morning that this was “the vow max”. I agree with him on that. The hon. Lady is right to highlight that the state pension will remain part of the United Kingdom welfare system. That is one of the most significant parts of the social union that the people of Scotland chose to remain part of on 18 September.

As for the detail, as Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, the hon. Lady will doubtless have an important role to play in working it out.

[Mr Andrew Robathan (South Leicestershire) (Con)]

When a healthy majority of our fellow countrymen in Scotland voted to remain in our country, the United Kingdom, it seemed to me that they voted against the petty-minded, mean-spirited and spiteful nationalism that we see from the SNP, yet these proposals seem to be delivering deeper and greater separation between the component parts of the United Kingdom. When Tony Blair introduced his proposal for devolution, which I considered pretty half-baked, he said that it would end the rise of nationalism and cement the United Kingdom. Will my right hon. Friend explain what it is about today’s proposals that will cement the United Kingdom and not lead to yet greater demands for separation of the structure of our country?

[Mr Carmichael]

In the course of the referendum campaign all three parties made a vow. It is absolutely essential that we deliver on that vow in the way we are doing today. The UK constitution is a dynamic model—it always has been and it always will be. It is one of the advantages of having an unwritten constitution, as we do. So yes, as I said earlier today, I remain sensitive to the wish of people in England in particular to see a reformed constitution working better for them. It is up to them to decide exactly what that means. We have done it for ourselves in Scotland. They now need to follow suit.