EU Referendum: Lessons Learned

Lord Tebbit Excerpts

Monday 20th May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord Tebbit (Con)]

My Lords—

[Viscount Hailsham]

My noble friend has referred to deadlock. Does he agree that the answer to that is to hold a further referendum?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I think I heard the question of my noble friend Lord Hailsham more clearly than the one behind me. I think my noble friend said that we should have another referendum. If he wants another referendum, and if there is enough support for it in the other place—which at the moment looks doubtful—everyone in the other place who wants another referendum should vote for the deal. They can then seek to amend the legislation to facilitate a referendum, but without a deal and without a Bill, you cannot have a referendum.

[Lord Tebbit]

Does my noble friend not agree that the most important thing to decide is that we should never again allow a Government to spend vast amounts of taxpayers’ money on the subject of the referendum immediately before they then declare the campaign open? We had Project Fear last time: a whole load of tax-financed rubbish designed to influence the outcome. That should be prohibited.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I am not sure whether my noble friend is against referendums.

[Lord Tebbit]

No, I said government spending on one side.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

Ah. The legislation in the PPERA guaranteed that were there to be a referendum, there would be a certain amount of public support for both sides. I think my noble friend is referring to the leaflet issued by the Government. Again, that is in accordance with the legislation, which is exactly what happened in the 1975 referendum: leaflets were issued on the Government’s behalf setting out their view.

Railways: Transport for the North

Lord Tebbit Excerpts

Thursday 19th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The noble Lord makes a very good point. We have a national network and it is crucial that we preserve its coherence and integrity. That is one reason why one cannot devolve entirely responsibility for infrastructure to Transport for the North—the very reason given by the noble Lord. On what TfN wants to do, it has been there for only three and a half months. Looking at its business plan, it is now in the process of starting work this financial year on the business case for further devolution. As I said in my initial reply, if it wants more powers, the Government are very happy to look at that, but having given it responsibility under the statutory instrument, it is now up to TfN to come up with a statutory plan, advise the Secretary of State and, if it wants to, bid for more powers.

[Lord Tebbit (Con)]

My Lords, will my noble friend not now accept, in the midst of all this muddle of competing authorities between one person and another and one board and another, that what is desperately needed is to put the ownership of the track and of the trains in the same body, whether it is in the public or the private sector?

Short-Term Letting

Lord Tebbit Excerpts

Thursday 26th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

Responsibility for enforcement rests, as the noble Lord recognises, with local authorities. They have quite wide powers of enforcement, and potentially there is a £20,000 fine for breach of the 90-day rule if people do not comply with the enforcement notice. Information would be made available to local authorities if, for example, neighbours or people in a block of flats felt that that 90-day limit was being extended. In addition, some of the platforms with which you register to rent out your property now have a 90-day cap on the number of days you can let out your property using that platform.

[Lord Tebbit (Con)]

My Lords, can my noble friend tell me whether the Government will do anything to prevent persons who are fortunate enough to have tenancy of social housing in attractive areas, particularly in London, from sub-letting that tenancy to people who are not authorised to have such a tenancy?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

It is a breach of a tenancy agreement with a registered social landlord to sublet, and if anyone had any information that was happening, the local authorities would take tough enforcement action to make sure that people on the housing waiting list had access to that accommodation.

Meetings with Ministers

Lord Tebbit Excerpts

Wednesday 14th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The noble Lord will know that for the past decade there have been genuine attempts to reach all-party consensus on the key issue of party funding. No such consensus was reached, which is why there has been no agreement to take it forward, and the coalition Government did not think it right to take unilateral action on party funding. We remain open to discussions if there is a real possibility of a consensus. In the meantime, there is a Private Member’s Bill before the House, and I hope we might be able to make progress on a number of more minor issues—incremental measures of reform—where there is that consensus.

[Lord Tebbit (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend think that we could talk a little about whether the Labour Party should have accepted money from a fascist source recently? They were quite large sums of money, hundreds of thousands of pounds, from Mr Mosley to assist the office of the deputy leader of the Labour Party. We could have a chat about that some time.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I am more than happy to answer questions on behalf of the Government or indeed my party. It is a matter for the Labour Party whether it decides to return the money received from Max Mosley.

House of Lords: Membership

Lord Tebbit Excerpts

Wednesday 10th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

As I said, the Government are considering the report and will make their views known shortly. But to pick up the point that the noble Baroness just made, in her speech—she made a good speech, if I may say so, as did my noble friend and the Leader of the Lib Dems—she said:

“It is not about giving up patronage or appointments but about showing some restraint, as it used to be”.—[Official Report, 19/12/17; col. 2105.]


The Prime Minister has demonstrated restraint. Putting on one side David Cameron’s resignation honours, in the past 18 months the Prime Minister has appointed eight new Peers: five Cross-Benchers and three Ministers. I think that is demonstrating the restraint that the noble Baroness has just asked for.

[Lord Tebbit (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords—

[Noble Lords]

Tebbit!

[Lord Tebbit]

My Lords, is there not another way that this little dilemma might be resolved? It is quite clear that when we look at the electorate as a whole and the votes that have been cast in recent elections, the Lib Dem Peers are grossly overrepresented here. Suppose 50 of them did the decent thing and resigned, this would all be resolved.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

If I may say so, my noble friend’s question is addressed not to me but to the Benches opposite. It is indeed the case that on almost any objective basis the Liberal Democrats are overrepresented. In credit to them, they actually recognised this during the debate. The noble Lord, Lord Newby, when he spoke on behalf of the Lib Dems, recognised that their numbers would have to come down under the proposals of the Burns report. However, for the Lib Dems to unilaterally cut their numbers without anybody else doing anything at all would be to exhibit a generosity for which the Liberal Democrats are not well known.

Grenfell Tower

Lord Tebbit Excerpts

Thursday 14th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tebbit (Con)]

My Lords, were any of those who are now claiming social housing tenants of Grenfell Tower who had moved out and unlawfully let their accommodation to more than one family? I do not think we need have too much sympathy for people who behave like that.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I am not sure that I fully understood my noble friend’s question. The assistance that the Government and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea are seeking to extend is to those who were living in Grenfell Tower or Grenfell Walk at the time who are now homeless, or who were homeless shortly after the fire. Therefore, anybody who was living there at the time is now being assisted by the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. My noble friend has lived through tragic circumstances where people have lost their lives. He will know better than anyone else in this House the trauma that those people have been through. We ought to allow them the time and space to find suitable accommodation to move into.

Elections and Referendums: Spending Rules

Lord Tebbit Excerpts

Wednesday 29th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The noble Lord is quite right to refer to the recent report on the referendum by the Electoral Commission, which recommended that some of the provisions made for the recent referendum should be incorporated into PPERA—the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act—and would cover all referendums. The report came out only yesterday. He will understand that consideration is at an early stage. But it is perfectly possible to take those recommendations forward on a separate track.

[Lord Tebbit (Con)]

Will it be possible at some time in one or other of all these inquiries to look at the scale of the spending of public money by the BBC and the gross bias which has been evident to anybody who has listened to its programmes?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I take this opportunity to wish my noble friend many happy returns of the day. The issue he raised falls outwith my remit. I think we are debating the BBC later today and it may be that with this advance notice, my noble friend Lord Ashton may be able to provide more details on the specific question that has been raised.

EU Referendum: Voter Registration

Lord Tebbit Excerpts

Wednesday 8th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

We have continued to ensure that those who live overseas are fully aware of their rights regarding the referendum and registering to vote.

[Lord Tebbit (Con)]

My Lords, is it not clear, even to the Liberal Benches, that it is perfectly rational for any individual to leave his registration until something closely approaching the deadline? Of course, it is equally rational for the system to assume that most people will not be that silly, so what has been done now is correct. It is a proper response to a problem which could not reasonably have been foreseen. I am grateful to my noble friend for the action that he and his colleagues have taken.

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

I thank my noble friend for that. There was extensive testing of the website, but I remind your Lordships of the unprecedented demand which, as my noble friend said, we now need to remedy.

House of Commons: Ministers

Lord Tebbit Excerpts

Monday 30th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

Of course I understand the interest that the noble Baroness has in this issue, and she is quite entitled to ask this question. Taxpayer-funded Short money has risen year on year from £6 million in 2010-11 to £9 million in 2015-16. That is a 48% rise. Subject to confirmation by Parliament, the Government propose to reduce Short money allocations by 19%. This will save in the region of £10 million. Under these proposals, state funding to opposition parties will be greater than the special adviser pay bill.

[Lord Tebbit (Con)]

Will my noble friend say whether he has heard whether there is any suggestion to increase the number of hours sat by the House of Commons to make it a full-time affair instead of a part-time one?

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

As always, my noble friend makes a very interesting point. I am sure that the other place will listen to his words with interest.

Syria and the Use of Chemical Weapons

Lord Tebbit Excerpts

Thursday 29th August 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tebbit]

My Lords, I think we can be confident that we would all agree that the Government have got one thing absolutely right today: they put down a Motion on which there could not be a vote in this House. I think that was a very wise move. We are all familiar with the expression “mission creep”, but we should also be aware of language creep. I notice that, in ministerial language, what was the Assad Government has now become the Assad regime. When the dog is given a bad name, it knows what to expect next. When I read the JIC assessment, I noticed that it said,

“it is highly likely that the regime was responsible for the CW attacks”,

but when I heard the Prime Minister speaking in the other place today, that had morphed in his words into the “certainty” that it had done so. I think this is almost certainly an unconscious act of creep, but it displays a lack of intellectual rigour which unhappily is characterised in so much of the development of policy on more than this one matter.

The noble Lord, Lord Kerr, rightly questioned the exaltation of chemical weapons above even nuclear and biological weapons. Others have also questioned that. Indeed, as many terrorist victims in this jurisdiction, let alone in Syria, might say, being battered to death with a hammer or a gun butt is not a pleasant way to go, but we have no moral objection to the people who did that, procured it or ordered it to be done taking their place even in government in this country.

I find myself in the somewhat unnatural position—it is certainly an unusual position—of agreeing completely with the noble Lord, Lord Wright of Richmond. It does not often happen; we should celebrate this matter. Indeed, there were so many others whom I agreed with that I cannot list them all in my allocated time, but notably my noble friend Lord Hurd and the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, expressed many of the concerns that worry me. Like them and many others, I am not satisfied that Ministers have adequately thought through the likely, let alone the possible, consequences of the course of action to which they seem unnaturally attracted. We in this country may think that the use of force against the Assad Government will be seen in the way that we would like it to be seen, but in the Middle East, and perhaps in Moscow too, it will be seen, as the noble Lord, Lord Judd, suggested, as an intervention against President Assad and in favour of the rebel forces. I ask myself whether that is what the Government intend. Do they really intend to intervene on behalf of the rebel forces or for it to be seen in that way across the Middle East? I am far from convinced that if Assad were to be brought down it would any more bring peace to Syria than the fall of Mubarak has brought it to Egypt. I think we are now all becoming convinced that the Arab spring did not last very long and that a deep and long winter has now set in instead. I wish that my friends in government will really think before they drift into places where they never intended to go, but I doubt that they are in any mood to do so.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, there are of course unavoidable links between any military intervention and the much broader issue: how can we help to provide a secure and more stable future for Syria? However, moving on to the second diplomatic track, we have been engaged for the past year in attempting to promote a broader political transition in Syria. That was the purpose of the Geneva I conference and part of the purpose whereby we have been working with the Syrian National Council, now the Syrian national coalition, which would recognise—

[Lord Tebbit]

My Lords, first, can the Minister tell me, in the event of this strike in some form being made, and there is a repetition of the use of chemical weapons, what do we do then? Clearly the Government must have thought this through. Secondly, can he tell me when the Government in Damascus became the regime? Thirdly, can he explain a little more of what he has just said about the efforts that the Government have been making to achieve regime change? I had not understood that we were in the business of bringing down the regime and replacing it.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, there is a civil war in Syria. So far, 100,000 people have been killed and 2 million people are refugees outside Syria. The society and economy of Syria are in the process of being destroyed, which requires the international community to try to resolve the situation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I note the noble Baroness’s request. Perhaps I may say that, as I understand it, both the amendment and the Motion were defeated in the Commons, so we are now perhaps in a state of consensual confusion on this across the parties.

We have before us a range of very serious issues. First, international law and international convention have clearly been broken. Secondly, we have active consultation with a range of Governments around the world about how we contain the increasingly bitter Syrian conflict. I know that my colleagues the Ministers have been discussing with a range of other Governments, including the Russians and the members of the Arab League, how we might now convene the Geneva II conference. It is certainly my hope that we will manage to reconvene the Geneva II conference as soon as possible.

That takes us to the broader issue of the future of the Middle East as a whole and our relations with the Muslim world, a subject that one or two noble Lords have touched on. That is a very broad subject, which we have discussed in this House on one or two occasions this year. We all need to pay very considerable—

[Lord Tebbit]

Before my noble friend sits down, let me say that I think that it is rather unfair to ask him about what the Government are going to do in consequence of the votes in the other place this evening. However, I think that it was also rather unfair of him not to tell me whether there was a plan for what to do if we did take military action and there was another incident of the use of chemical weapons. Is there a plan for that? Is he privy to it, even if he cannot tell us what it is?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am not privy to the full military plans of the Government, but if I were I would not be able to tell him on the Floor of the House. What I can tell him is that inaction also has consequences. We are talking in particular to the Russian Government, who appear to be concerned as the scale of this chemical weapons attack becomes clearer. We hope that the diplomatic track may become easier as the seriousness of what happened in Damascus on 21 August becomes clearer to a range of other Governments. In all of these the use of force itself is—and I end on this—a last resort. Our preference is always for the diplomatic track. However, we have to bear in mind that international law and international conventions are to be observed and supported.