European Union (Referendum) Bill

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Friday 10th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall not detain the House very long but, having listened to virtually all the speeches in this debate, I am, first, surprised at the lack of supportive speeches from the Tories for the Bill and, secondly, I am still not persuaded why we need the Bill at all.

The noble Lord, Lord Selsdon, mentioned the war. I hope that we are not going to go onto the war again—I shall not—but I go back to when I lived in Romania in the 1970s in the communist period and was struck by the complete lack of liberty of all the people who lived there. The European Union has given eastern Europe liberty and peace and we must never forget that. We need only look at what is going on in Ukraine at the moment to reflect on whether they will or will not come.

My interest now is, and has been for many years, in the single market and in particular in the rail sector. Some 40% or 50% of our trade is with the European Union now. Of course, we can gain a great deal of benefit from the rail industry exporting and from train operators—particularly passenger ones but also some freight ones—operating on the continent.

When you get into negotiations with the Commission and other member states you find many of the other member states—the big ones, France and Germany, come to mind—blocking everyone else coming in. They are obstructing the single market and the Commission, bless its heart, is doing a great job in infraction proceedings. However, the point I am making is that with all this trade potential we could do an awful lot more.

The smaller member states, in particular, look to us as an example and for support and leadership, as the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, has just said. This will all stop if we leave. If we want trade, we will have to conform to their standards, which of course they set to protect their own domestic industry, not European industry. As I have said, the French and the Germans are particularly good at this. We will probably lose an awful lot of our trade and exports.

When the Government have decided what it is they want to renegotiate—which, as I said, is not clear to me—I hope that they will negotiate from the inside. They should do it not in an arrogant way—it is not as if we are still a global empire, addressing one of our small colonies—but as one member among equals. We will go a long way that way, but let us do it from the inside and forget about this Bill completely.