Queen’s Speech

Viscount Trenchard Excerpts

Monday 21st October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Trenchard (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Green of Deddington. I compliment him on his most interesting and thought-provoking speech.

I had intended to speak in the debate last week, concerned principally with Brexit, trade, foreign affairs and defence, but was committed to be away. Since today’s debate covers constitutional affairs, I should like to make virtually the same remarks as I would have made last week. Brexit, after all, brings about the most momentous change in our constitutional affairs since we joined the EEC in 1973 and, additionally, has ramifications for justice, devolved affairs and much else besides.

I congratulate the Prime Minister and his negotiating team on achieving what was said to be impossible: reopening the withdrawal agreement and making significant changes to the Irish backstop. His deal is sufficiently good to be preferable to no deal, although I do not think that a no-deal departure would be anywhere near as catastrophic or cataclysmic as the architects of Project Fear have suggested. I saw Sir Oliver Letwin on The Andrew Marr Show; he seemed to be saying that he supported the agreement reached by the Prime Minister with the EU. Yet he is one of the architects of the Benn—or “surrender”—Act, Section 1(4) of which, as my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay pointed out on Saturday, required the Prime Minister to seek an extension specifically and only to pass a Bill to implement Mrs May’s withdrawal agreement, not the one that the Prime Minister reached last Thursday. Does the Minister agree that the Benn Act is, therefore, ineffective?

The gracious Speech shows the Government’s intention to protect the integrity of our democracy. I am not a lawyer, but I was surprised that the learned justices of the Supreme Court ruled as they did on the attempted Prorogation of Parliament in July. It seems to me that they have changed the constitution by their decision that the Prime Minister’s use of his prerogative powers in advising the Queen to prorogue Parliament was justiciable, contrary to the opinion of the Lord Chief Justice and the Master of the Rolls. It is also most surprising that the Supreme Court justices decided this unanimously. Their justification seems to be based on their opinion that the effect of Prorogation on the fundamentals of our democracy was extreme. However, Prorogation would have reduced the number of sitting days by only three days from what was anyway scheduled. Furthermore, both your Lordships’ House and another place had clearly passed the decision on Brexit to the people in the referendum, promising to carry out their decision. Many of those who supported the passage of the Benn Act have had a much more extreme effect on our democracy.

David Cameron is said to be sorry that he arranged for the people to decide the question of our EU membership by referendum. He is quite wrong to apologise; history will recognise him as the Prime Minister who finally accepted the inevitable. We have always been more reluctant than any other member state to see powers transferred to Brussels. Opinion polls have consistently shown that a much higher proportion of people in Britain support the return of powers from the Union to the member states than in any other member state. The fact that Mr Cameron failed to persuade the EU to offer us continued membership on a basis which at least partly restored our lost sovereignty is what persuaded me that we could no longer remain uncomfortable passengers on the European train and that we would do better to get off.

It is nonsense to argue that we are too small or weak to exist without the umbrella of the EU. I have spent many years of my business life working for British firms in Japan and for Japanese firms in the UK. I do not think our EU membership has helped or strengthened our standing in the world whatever. It is rather the opposite; our soft power has been restricted by our EU membership. Brexit is not about becoming little Englanders and looking in on ourselves. It is about gaining our freedom from the tentacles of the EU bureaucracy and resuming our role on the world stage as an independent trading nation and a strong advocate of rules-based free trade and competition, underpinned by proportionate regulation which does not stifle innovation. The gracious Speech indicates the Government’s intention to work towards a new partnership with the EU, based on free trade and friendly co-operation. We should be able to negotiate an FTA that offers as near to frictionless trade as possible. I am excited by the UK’s prospects of entering into mutually beneficial FTAs with many of our important trading partners and of accession to the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Finally, I entirely agree with the brilliant speech by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge. I trust—and ask the Minister to confirm—that the reference to the protection of the integrity of democracy and the electoral system, contained in the gracious Speech, can be read as an indication that the Government intend to repeal the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, whose unintended consequences have caused so much damage to our democracy.