European Union Referendum (Date of Referendum etc.) Regulations 2016

Earl of Caithness Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, I recall sitting in this House listening to the debates on the referendum in 1975 and being influenced by their very high quality. We have had some very high-quality speeches today, but I have not been influenced to the same extent yet as I was in 1975. In 1975, there was the danger of isolation of the UK. That was one of the features that came through in the debate.

We are reassured today by the out campaign: “Don’t worry, we are the fifth-largest economy in the world. It doesn’t matter if we get out”. In 1975, we were the sixth-largest economy by GDP so I see no difference. I have also been a Minister in Brussels and been prevented from doing what we wanted to do because of the Treaty of Rome and all the frustrations that came with that. I guess that I am a Eurosceptic by nature. I believe that the architecture of the EU is far from perfect.

However, I have concerns on what the Government have proposed. The biggest concern is between the euro and the non-euro countries. There will be a big clash between the pound and the euro in due course. I cannot make up my mind whether we are better off in Europe trying to help to solve that or better off outside. With regard to businesses, I thought that the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, was the best we have heard today. I was very influenced by that speech. But business has changed—we export services; we export digital equipment and knowledge. That is a very different type of export from what we had in 1975. If we are not within Europe, I fear that those great exports will be the ones that suffer. Let us not forget that the EU will require third-party equivalence for any trade deals that they do with this, as it currently does with any other country. It will take far longer than the out campaign has indicated to get any sort of deal with the countries in the EU.

On financial reforms, I disagree very much with what my noble friend Lord Trenchard said. For four years I have been on the European Sub-Committee on Finance, scrutinising the European laws. All the evidence shows that what has been put forward by the EU would have been put forward by our Treasury in any case. It was not an EU matter but a global matter. Just to help my noble friend Lord Trenchard, I can say: do not believe too much in our civil servants. If he reads the report on Defra’s performance with agricultural payments and he remembers all the gold-plating that our civil servants have done to make us more uncompetitive, then perhaps being in Europe is not quite so bad.

The noble Lord, Lord Soley, mentioned research. That was one of the subjects that I wanted to talk about, too, but there is no need to now that he has mentioned it. I am concerned that we will lose a lot in the research world if we are not part of Europe and we will not have that freedom and the benefit that we get from linking up with European universities and business. After 40 years of being in the membership of a club there are bound to be hidden benefits that will not come to light until a decision is made to leave. I mention the European health insurance scheme as one of the many benefits that people in this country will lose should we come out.

I turn to the other speech that really impressed me, which was that of the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup. The West is not a fashionable concept at the moment. The world is a much more dangerous place than it was 10 years ago. To my mind, an effective EU is a vital component of a secure EU and a strong West. We have not banged the drum for some of the achievements of the EU in the past 10 years—on the environment, Burma, Somalian pirates and in Iran. Perhaps that is something that we are not good at—beating the drum. If we vote to come out, the biggest party will not be in the houses of those who lead the out campaign; they will be in Moscow and Beijing. Those are countries that believe they would like to be big because if they are big they can bully their neighbours and make their neighbours’ lives much more uncomfortable. We are lucky; we do not have a border with the great bear with its sharp claws, but Europe does. I was hugely influenced on that finance Sub-Committee when we asked the Lithuanian Minister the benefit of joining the euro. His reply was: defence.

Some of the out campaign speeches have done nothing but supported what Scotland tried to achieve last year, which was independence. They said: “Give us our power back. We want to be independent, away from being controlled by overseas”. That is what some of the Scots wanted. The noble Lord, Lord Lee of Trafford, suggested letting the under-30 year-olds have two votes. If the Scottish under-30s had had two votes there would be a separate Scotland now.

I shall end with a quotation that I used in my maiden speech by that great bard Burns:

“O, wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us to see oursels as others see us”.

How would European partners see us? We have preferential terms now; we will have even more preferential terms if what the Government propose is agreed.

If the out campaign succeeds, I am not at all certain that there will be an EU. I would go further than my noble friend Lord Cormack—he said that there would not be a UK. I do not think there will be an EU as we know it now. In that context let me close by reminding your Lordships that the French voted twice against us joining the EU before we did.