Brexit: UK-EU Relationship

Earl of Caithness Excerpts

Thursday 1st December 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, I was fortunate, when a Minister in the Home Office, to benefit from the clear thought and wise words of the noble Lord, Lord Ricketts, who was my right-hand man for much of my work. Today, your Lordships have benefited from those same clear thoughts and wise words. I was delighted to hear from the noble Lord—he is not my noble friend, but he is my friend—and we welcome him here.

Much has been said about the involvement of Parliament in the whole of this process. This is the 15th debate on the EU since we had the referendum result. It rather reminds me of the Maastricht treaty debates. This country spent three times as long debating Maastricht as any other country in the EU. I hope that we will allow our Ministers to get on with their jobs at their desks and get us the best deal, rather than constantly bringing them to Parliament.

The four freedoms of Europe have been mentioned. Of course it is right that our friends in Europe have been promoting the idea of freedom of movement as being absolutely sacrosanct, but I hope my noble friend will remind them that they did not think that the free movement of capital and services were equally sacrosanct, as my noble friend Lord Howell said. They dragged their feet and prevaricated, however much we tried to push them. It has been a long and painful process to bring the EU forward on that front.

I am an inherent free trader. Some have said that when we leave the EU, we will be the beacon of free trade for the world. I am not so sure about that. Bilateral trade does not equal free trade. I would like it to, but it does not. Let us look at what is happening in the USA. President Obama is a protectionist. He raised tariffs with China. Mr Trump is going to take that further. Some in the press today say that that will be good because we can do a bilateral deal with the USA more quickly. The USA is protectionist and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, said, we will never get a better deal with the EU than the one we have at the moment. That is a sadness for those of us who believe in free trade. We will all be the poorer for future President Trump ripping up the TPP. It affects us as well: without free trade we will be poorer throughout the world.

I echo what the noble Baroness, Lady Valentine, said about the importance of London. It is incumbent on us all to stress to our European friends that London is the financial centre of Europe—not just the EU, but the whole of Europe. Indeed, in some respects—look at the London Metal Exchange—it is the financial centre of the world. It is hugely important that that continues for the trade of metals throughout the world.

I ask my noble friend the same question that I have asked before. Is she confident that we have the right quality of negotiators? We have not negotiated a free trade deal for more than 40 years. What is she doing to bring in expertise from the private sector and, indeed, perhaps to use the experience of the noble Lord, Lord Ricketts? It would be helpful to know.

I would like to question just one point made by the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, in his Motion. He refers to the EU; I am not certain that we can look at the EU as a single entity anymore. I can see quite massive changes in the EU. Let us just take the example of Ireland—we are going to have a different relationship with Ireland than with the rest of the EU.

So my closing words to my noble friend are: let us be innovative and let us be flexible. I hope that the Government will take that approach, because that is what will get us the best deal with all the other countries.